rustypants speaks

the silence on the boards hasn’t been due to lack of events, more due to lack of time.

what’s going on, you wonder?

• we’ve gotten official notice from the Florida Board of Education certifying us to teach down there – Lise is now certified in Art (K-12) – Scott is now certified in Elementary Education (K-6) and ESE (Special Education K-12). what’s the next step with this certification? read on…
• Escambia County Schools still have not listed the available jobs for the 2007-2008 school year. a handful of them are up (including a Deaf/Hard of Hearing position – shame i don’t like deaf education…) but we’re still waiting for the jobs to be listed so we can begin interviewing for them.
• the house in cincinnati is almost ready to list. we’ve spent the last couple months slowly working on stuff, then with my finishing at Xavier a couple weeks ago, we’ve moved into high-gear. hopefully everything will be done by the end of may so we can get this house on the market and sold. the picture at right is the beginning of the end for our canary-yellow kitchen. big bird, we hardly knew ye…
• tentative pre-approval from the mortgage company in florida indicates that we can look at getting a home loan for up to $150,000. we’re DEFINITELY not looking for a home in that range, but it does open our options up quite a bit. when we were in pensacola last month, our house search was very disappointing. now that we’re looking up to about $125,000, the search has given me some hope – there are some nice places down there in the 115,000-125,000 range.
• school’s almost out here (nine more actual days of school) so this is cause for celebration (and has given us a mental energy boost in working on the house) and will help us focus more energy on florida.
• tentative move date is july 25, or thereabouts. we actually have to report to the school system on august 9, so we’re going to need time to get settled, etc. – again, this is tentative – we’ve still got plenty of things that have to be worked out. the wild thing is: this is only eight weeks from today – shouldn’t i be all freaked and spazzed out? hmmmm…

the bottom line? we’re psyched about this move! things have been going well in regards to having everything come together, getting support from friends and family, having the money available to do the work we need, the housing market slowly picking up, our mental health as we prepare, etc. – it’s been a very rewarding process so far. lise and i have come together in an awesome way while we work on the house and prepare to move – all the things we’ve been hoping to accomplish with this (more time together, getting closer, having a common and exciting goal together and working hard towards it) have been seen and we’re excited about what the future brings!

time’s a-wastin! come over and see us soon!