Thursday, thoughts or not

Full of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and happiness.  :) 

Nicole, eat!

Cathy, I'm glad to hear your weather will be nice this weekend.  That's sad about the family losing their home.  I'm always grateful that we aren't house poor even though our house is sort of poor.  Homes in our area never got super inflated in value like some areas.  When people from CA move here, they're usually amazed at what they can buy. 

 Never really wanted to share this because I was praying things would turn around, but both my kids are in the same boat...my son will probably be first.  The company he worked for went bankrupt, and you can't pay a mortgage without a job!  I was hoping it wouldn't happen before the holidays, but now you have me wondering.  And TWO weeks notice???  Maybe I'll have a houseful??? 

My daughter has one of those underwater mortgages in FL.  Her job as a teacher is safe, but he lost his in construction and they depended on both incomes to stay afloat.  At least I know they can rent something else when the time comes.

You read a lot about this in the news, but unless it hits close, it is hard to comprehend how devastating this housing and job situation can be.

I'm sorry Marty. I know there are some people who just quit paying because the house isn't worth what they paid for it and that makes me mad. Sometimes life can deal you a bum hand though and it sounds like that's what's happened with your children. They're lucky that they've got someone like you to lean on.

The really disturbing news was that there were several other homes in our development that are in the same situation. I was shocked and wished I didn't know.

Marty, (((HUGS))) to your kids.  I have a few friends that have lost their homes because of unemployment and it is so hard.  In fact my best friend did.  They are renting now and she feels like the weight of the world is now off their shoulders.  They will be hurting credit wise for a while but she says the stress of everything was tearing their family apart.

rwbeagles

kpwlee

Asking what they are protesting shows me that you don't have an inkling of what he has meant to that campus for 5 decades. I don't mean that as a slam - as I said I cannot describe the relationship that entire place has with him. 

No I don't...I live in the real world. Not an insulated campus where apparently actual laws and rules do not apply and people are put into pedastals for winning football games. JoePa...the Pope. The similarities are legion...and the excuses plentiful from "The Faithful" but in the end? Wrong is wrong.

I So agree with you!!!! I live in Camp Hill and for one I am tired of the JoePa...the Pope thing have been for a long long time. His firing was as it should have been and there should be more heads to roll too.  No one seems to be thinking of those poor boys.

cakana

. I know there are some people who just quit paying because the house isn't worth what they paid for it and that makes me mad.

Housing prices will probably never drop so low that mine won't be worth what I paid for it - $73K  but I think even if the value bottoms out, you're better off keeping it if you can than walking away from it.  The market is bound to come back up eventually. They were showing some foreclosed homes in the Sacramento area on TV and they've just been left to deteriorate.  Some have been taken over by drug addicts and some by squatters and it's becoming a real problem for a lot of neighborhoods. It surprises me that the banks would  rather see this happen than to help the owners with some sort of re-fi.

Our weather is gorgeous but weird.  I had to turn on the car heater this morning, but needed the AC this afternoon and now I can feel it getting chilly again.

Joyce

You know, I had a friend in MI who was ONE payment behind on her house.  She tried to make a payment but the bank wanted TWO payments, and since she didn't have two payments, she kept getting further and further behind until they finally booted her out.  She owed $106,000.  They sold her tiny little two bedroom,  eat in kitchen if you were skinny, rust colored water that you could NOT drink, even with a water treatment jobber, no basement, no crawl even, on a teeny lot with a SHARED driveway, and no garage, for $23,000.  Yeah, the bank made out real well on that one, and then WE bailed them out?????

Oye.  I busted butt today, but the grass is all mown, the leaves mulched to tiny little bits, and 95% of the wood is cut, split, stacked and covered.  I took a nice hot bubble bath and am enjoying a lovely glass of wine.

Life is good!

The whole Penn State disaster will hopefully create some changes in "mandatory reporting" procedures in P-12 schools and higher ed. When I taught in public schools, I was mandated to report suspected abuse and neglect following the procedures established by the school distict. Never did the procedure include me making the calls directly to DSS/police. (In fact, I don't think we were allowed to call if we were acting in our official teacher role.) An administrator had responsibility for making an official report after I followed the steps to report a concern to him/her.  And we (the teachers) were never officially allowed to know if the call was investigated and/or the outcomes of the investigation. That was considered confidential information that could not be shared with the teacher. The only thing we could do was report again if we saw/heard/susptected something again in the future. It's all a one way street which can be very frustrating for teachers because we don't know if anything is being done to help the child. The process was similar when I worked with adults with significant cognitive disabilities, except I was a direct reporter then.

I think the Penn. Child Protective Services Dept. has a lot of explaining to do, based on what was reported on the news tonight. Apparently, they had a admission of some sort from the guy and they closed the case instead of charging him. That investigation was based on a parent complaint before the other cases that have been reported in the news. It all breaks my heart. 

Curse you full moon! *shakes fist*

 I believe, under the PA law, JoePa technically did what he needed to. I'm a PA certified teacher, and I've worked in a PA private school, and other child service agencies. I think the deal is technically, within all of these scenarios, you report it to your higher ups. Unless you get called to testify, you would technically have no idea what happened after you made the report. I had a student make an abuse allegation against me (she was severely intellectually disabled, but she did understand that if you said someone abused you, that person was going to be away from you for several hours at the very least). This entire thing was investigated internally, by my immediate supervisor (I worked in a residential facility which almost a small town within a town, with what were essentially 3 separate schools, this never went as far as the director of all the schools even). Anyway, I was cleared completely in house, by my supervisor interviewing my classroom aides, determining that I had never been alone with this kid, and they never witnessed anything. Following this and another incident, this kid got branded " never be alone with."

I have no idea if in PA what happens if you go around your supervisor, but I will do it now anyway. A friend once reported something to me,and I told her to report it to our supervisor. The supervisor did a crap job handling it, and since then, I decided I would just go to the state myself. At least I know in that case, my company might get pissed, and I probably won't work there anymore, but I will still be able to get another job. But then again, I work with a kid who needs help in the bathroom, and he also likes to lock the bathroom doors. I know he doesn't like it, but  I insist that the door stays open, and it is always possible that someone could come in and see that I am not doing anything I shouldn't do.