Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Navigating blizzards with the aid of an Independent Educational Consultant

For those of you who don’t follow CNN 24/7, or if you happen to live in a cave, you may not know that those of us in the Northeast got slammed with a pretty significant snowstorm last week. I know I heard reports of 30 inches way south (you know, like New Jersey) but up here in Maine we had a rather pedestrian 12 inches.

For about 24 hours during the height of the storm, I spent a lot of time getting updates from weather.com and CNN on both my computer and television, I kept reading and watching stories filled with doom and gloom; airports being shut down, people being stuck in their cars on the highways etc. In my fervor of following the storm that day, I switched from CNN to my local NBC affiliate. Honestly I had grown weary of the national news and wanted to see how the storm how the storm was going to affect us here in Mid-Coast Maine.

I have to admit, it had been a long time since I had watched the local news. I found it refreshing to watch a station which took the time to tell me not only what is going on in the country, but also in my town. The most heartening stories I watched that night were the ones which looked at the good side of the storm, they did a segment on the kids sledding, and a wonderful piece on a young man who chose to take the afternoon to help elderly neighbors get their walkways and driveway cleared of snow. Yes, they did the obligatory pieces on the serious aspects of the storm, but I was glad to see that they also made sure they did the more personal stories as well.


I like to think that at Loeta we deliver our services like the local news. We pride ourselves on our personal touch, and we make sure that every family we work with feels that they are important to us. We make sure that we are available to them at every point of the process, and we understand that they know we are there for them throughout. Like the local news we make sure the important pieces and logistics are taken care of, but we pride ourselves on our personal touch and our local flavor.

Just as we like to think of ourselves as the local news, many of our families feel that of their situations are analogous to a blizzard. They feel blinded by their teen’s decisions, that they as parents may lose power, that no matter how much they prepare something will go wrong and that the “snow” piles up pretty fast and deep. Often times the storm just keeps coming and coming and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.

But, as we know, blizzards always end. There is always that bright, sunny day afterwards when, if we prepared well, we can make it through the blizzard unscathed. We go sledding, we ski, we go for a brisk walk we learn to accept the snow, and make the best of it, and, despite our grumbling about the cold, we actually learn to enjoy it. So if our child is a blizzard, we need to prepare and get supplies. We also need to hold out, knowing that there will be that sunny day soon. And, well, we need to watch our local news!
 
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