We are moving our furniture in tomorrow, finally! It's been in storage almost exactly a year! (We moved up on July 21st last summer...)
I'm sure I'll have a lot to say once we are completely in, but right now, everything looks great! We've painted, had the new carpet installed, cleaned out the gutters, gutted a small bedroom and transformed it into a closet, and gutted the dark sunporch painting everything white. We've worked 8-12 hour days since last Tuesday getting things ready, and the house has been transformed! We've still got a few things to do, though. The electrical wires coming in to the house need a little work. The drains in the yard are full of muck and need to be cleaned out, and we're having a little water issue with the windows on the sunporch, which we hopefully resolved today. (We'll test tomorrow and make sure that what we did will work!) We've also got one other bedroom to paint, and something will eventually have to be done about the Master Bathroom and Kitchen...the colors might have been great in the 70's, but are a little too funky for us modern folks.
We'll post much more later, with pictures, once we have everything set up!
On a different note, I submitted a letter to the Buffalo News this week, and they called today to say that they were going to publish it. It was in response to the condescending comments made by the new superintendent of the Buffalo School District. He seems to think that leadership means being a dictator, and that all of his employees should bow before him. He left a school district in Ohio under shady conditions, and preaches about how he will definitely improve test scores for Buffalo, even though he did not do it where he came from in Ohio. This is my letter:
Very few professions are as scrutinized as education, yet, as teachers, we continue to do what we do in the best interest of children. Dr. James Williams underscores the negative public perception with which teachers are viewed: as “convenient” professionals. We are professionals when we do great things, and unprofessional when we ask to be compensated fairly. We’re not missionaries, teaching is our career, and our livelihoods and our families depend on us to bring home the bacon. If we’re truly professionals, should teachers agree to less compensation for more output? Dr. Williams’ public comments suggest that he is a lone martyr in a sea of dissention. He says that everyone in the community needs to step up to the plate. That’s great if you’re making a $200,000 superintendent’s salary, but quite different when you’re the “professional” making 1/5 of that. Dr. Williams, your “lead by example” agenda may end up costing you more than you bargained for, when your best and brightest educators find a better place to go. It may be a cliché, but you really do get what you pay for. If quality and improvements are what you’re after, you may want to rethink your strategy.
I wrote this five minutes after I saw the guy on TV, seemingly in shock that teachers didn't want to "do what it takes" to make education work in Buffalo by giving up their sick days, and contributing 20% more to their health care. This guy's already in a small boat, and he's stirring up a hurricane of turbulent waters. Supposedly, the Buffalo Teacher's Federation spent today in negotiations, but nothing came of it yet. I hope this guy loosens up in the near future, or he may be teaching all of the kids himself!
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