When should we fix up our homes?

It's difficult to concentrate as I write this. Workers are installing new siding on my house and the hammering is incessant - and hard enough to knock pictures from my walls. The yard is a mess, and the neighbors are not happy with the noise, junkiness, or length of time it is taking to finish. But by the end of the week, the misery will be but a distant memory and I will have a nicer home to look at each time I drive up. 

Not having the ability to travel internationally and thus not needing the funds to finance such travel, I've been doing some needed upgrades to my modest home.

While I had new flooring installed and all the walls painted when I moved in a few years ago, the interior woodwork (doors, baseboards, kitchen cabinets, window frames, etc), were all a sorry-looking dark brown with lots of scratches. On the outside, woodpeckers had found a source of some kind of insect under the wooden siding of the house and  and were pecking ever larger holes in it. Plus most of my neighbors in the attached units of my townhouse had already installed vinyl siding that looked very nice.

After long debate and discovering that my house in this crazy market has appreciated some $60,000 in value since I bought it, I put out bids and had the interior trim and kitchen cupboards painted and siding installed. Despite the inconvenience, I am glad I am having it done now.

I really don't know how long I will live in this small house which I only half jokingly refer to as my "expensive storage locker." There is no mortgage and monthly expenses which include home owners' association fees, insurance, taxes, and utilities average less than $600 a month. I can turn down the heat, turn off the water, ask the neighbor to keep her eyes open for problems, and hop on an airplane, knowing my stuff will be there when I get back.

Yes, like many Minnesotans, my heart is really set on a house on a lake or river (I do have a pond in my back yard.) The pandemic has made cabin costs rise steeply and I recognize that should I purchase a cabin, my costs would be higher and recreational opportunities like participating in group hikes/bike rides and attending theater events will be out of reach. And my discretionary income would go to higher living costs instead of international bike rides or winters in warm climates hostels.

So I will hang on to this place for a while, gritting my teeth while I wait for  travel to really start again. I will be enjoying my newly painted cupboards and hole-free siding for the rest of my residence here.

I have always found it somewhat ironic that people do a lot of improvements to their homes in preparation for selling them - kitchen remodeling, new furnaces, new flooring, etc. Why, I wonder, do we not make these improvements while still living in the home so we can enjoy them as well? Ironically, the next house we buy needs similar upgrades.

Work on your house now and enjoy the improvements...

BFTP: Another spring, another round of library cuts

Forget robins and crocuses. Here's how you tell it is spring.

Last month was National School Library Day. And the day before that, School Library Journal published an article "Fighting Cuts: How to Keep Librarians in Schools." 

In the article, Elissa Malespina, president of International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Librarians Network, outlined some strategies she learned when undertaking a successful effort to restore three librarian positions and library budgets in her New Jersey district. Her advice is excellent. Read it even if you think your library position is safe this year.

Sadly, library cuts seem to have been a part of spring for my entire 40+ year career in the field. In 2004, I wrote an article similar to the SLJ piece for our state school library association's journal, Minnesota Media, called "When Your Job is on the Line." It contained frighteningly similar advice to that given by Malespina 14 years later. Not sure what this says about the learning capacity of our profession!

What the article did include is a conclusion about the prevention of job and program cuts. It read:

Prevention

Of course, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. Ongoing efforts can make your library media program less likely to be the target of budget reductions. Make sure you are already doing the things below.

1. Building and maintaining a library media program that teaches critical information and technology literacy skills, builds student literacy rates, and supports all classrooms and curricular areas.
2. Serving the needs of your teaching and administrative staff through instructional collaboration, technology training and support, and their own professional materials request fulfillment.
3. Establishing or continuing a school library media program advisory committee comprised of a wide range of stakeholders (especially parents) that meets on a regular basis to discuss goals, policies, and budgets.
4. Creating long-term goals and annual objectives that are supported by the principal and teachers and are directly tied to your building’s goals. Enacting long-range plans and multi-year strategies or projects makes it difficult to change horses in midstream.
5. Building a relationship with your principal that is mutually supportive.
6. Tracking and reporting to your administrator the use of your library media program, especially in terms of units of teaching, collaboration, and specific skills you yourself teach.
7. Communicating regularly and formally with administrators, teachers, students, parents and the community about what is happening in your library program, through newsletters and e-mail; and communicating informally through e-mails and notes to individuals on “I thought you’d like to know about this…” topics.
8. Having an ongoing involvement with your parent-teacher organizations.
9. Serving on leadership, curriculum, technology and staff development teams in your building and district.
10. Being active in your teacher professional organization and reminding officers that as a dues-paying member, you deserve as much support as the classroom teacher.
11. Being involved in the extra-curricular life of the school, attending school plays, sporting events, award ceremonies etc. Be visible! (I think it helps to be an active member of the community belonging to a church or other religious organization, community service group, and/or volunteer groups. It’s harder to fire a friend and neighbor than a stranger.)
12. Being active in MEMO by attending conferences and regional events, reading the MEMOrandom and Minnesota Media publications, volunteering for positions in the organization, and attending MEMO/MLA legislative functions.

You as a school library media specialist are too important to too many children to let budget reductions that impact your program just “happen.” Get active, ask for support, and heed the words of Dylan Thomas – “Do not go gentle into that good night.”

I hope people listen more carefully to Malespina than they did to me. I want my great-grandchildren to have school libraries and especially school librarians.

Original post 4/5/18

Library savings

So far this year, I have read 20 books and listened to 3 audio books. Of these titles, I checked out 10 books and all the audiobooks from my public library via Overdrive’s Libby. I saved about $200 by doing so and am on track to save about $500 over the course of the year. That’s about 40% of what I pay in property taxes on my house. This savings I accrue by using the library doesn’t include not having to purchase Newsweek, The Economist, Kiplingers, Backpacker, and other periodicals I read on a regular basis available on Libby. 

Ironically, the latest book I am reading (checked out via Libby), is A Libertarian Walks into a Bear by Hongoitz-Hetling. This very enjoyable, humorous non-fiction work describes the efforts of anti-tax, anti-government, pro-gun, survivalist, and non-affliated religious individuals trying to create a community and life in a small New Hampshire town. To put it mildly, they struggle without the “interference” of government.

I visit tax-funded parks at least a couple times each week. My children and I attended public schools, both K-12 and college. I like driving on safe, well-maintained roads. I am happy the milk I drink and the meat I consume has passed a government standard. And yes, despite their well-publicized shortcomings, I sleep better knowing law-enforcement patrols our streets. 

It’s rare to find, I suppose, a person who does not think that “government” either does too much or does too little or has its priorities in just the right order. But for those of us who like our parks and libraries and snow plowing, being libertarian is just not all that appealing.