interesting......I live in the (blue collar) town that I grew up in on Long Island. (My wife is from New Jersey). If you had told me when I was a kid that i would live here as an adult with a wife and 3 kids, I would have laughed. But as my bride says, you bloom where you are planted. Our town has undergone somewhat of a renaissance in recent years but still has some grit to it. We have debated moving to a more affluent area (bigger house etc) but always come back to this; we love our neighbors and we feel that the unspoken life lessons this town is teaching our children is important. That the world is diverse, that there are poor (even homeless people) and that you treat everyone you meet with the dignity they deserve as children of God. Circle back in 10 years or so and I'll tell you if it worked!
Hey Steve, my husband and I are from Long Island and said the same thing. If someone had told us years ago that we'd plant our roots in NJ, we would have laughed. NJ was always the brunt of our jokes. Now we're here 25 years. Life is strange.
We’re DINKS (double income no kids). We moved an hour away from our hometown of Hearst to Kapuskasing, Ontario in December 2019. My husband was travelling to Kap about 3 days a week for work. In winter, the roads here are quite dangerous with heavy transport traffic and road conditions creating nail-biting driving conditions. Winters are very long here too. I work from home so my requirements are reliable internet and dedicated office space. Guess what? We bought our house in Kap for a steal. Weird because we never intended to buy a home. We were happy renters. There were about 50 homes on the market here when we bought the house though not that many that I would consider starter or empty nester homes, which was what we were looking for. It's an old house but it has some great things about it (hardwood floors, main floor office space). Things sure changed fast. There are practically no homes on the market now. Houses that hit the market are snapped up quickly. My husband saves a lot of travel time and he really loves the house and has room for his copier service technician inventory. I love a lot of the local businesses and enjoy promoting them. We’re doing pretty well in Kapuskasing after a pretty rough start with the pandemic restrictions starting shortly before our move. We’ll be okay here, at least for the time being😉.
Hi Bill. For me, the new text and style was much easier to read. Yes, I am older and wear glasses, but I found this to be a positive improvement.
Re location... my hard working, immigrant parents raised us in a neighborhood where the wealthy lived and also paid a modest tuition for my brother and I to attend a private school attended by ALL the wealthy children. Among the results; higher self esteem, great education, and 100% of graduates attending college.
Hello. I don't have a problem with either style. I am loving your newsletters.
Regarding location, I moved from England to Spain in 2008 to enjoy better weather and a lower cost of living. However home is where the heart is. If it was easy to relocate from Europe to the USA, I'd be living in Texas now:)
Unlike other people here, I'm not having any difficulty reading the font. I haven't been receiving the newsletter for long so I am unaware if you've intentionally changed your prose style. But I have to say in comparison to the previous posts I have read the writing here is a bit clunky. Too many "buts" and "ands" and too many commas in unnecessary places.
Content is still entertaining, engaging and interesting though. I am not a parent - but even just for myself I did indeed choose a smaller house in a better location.
You're never safe from the unexpected though - we are high up on a ridge and during some high winds a while ago my neighbour's gable end came down off his house and went straight through the roof of his Ferrari.
Just subscribed and I enjoy your daily newsletter but I hate the font you used today. Looks like it was typed on an IBM Selectric by a government agency. :-) Yes on neighborhoods. We looked at the neighborhood before we bought our home in NH and a second home in Florida.
I did choose my house initially based on whether or not it was a good place for a family - and I didn't even have kids yet. But, I knew I would eventually, and I knew buying a house was a big commitment. So, I wanted to be prepared. I actually did buy a smaller house to be in a nicer neighborhood - my house is the smallest on my street! But, now I've lived here almost 19 years and my son is in high school. Before he got to middle school, our school zone changed twice - so planning ahead didn't help much. Ultimately we were zoned for the schools everyone in our area considers the "bad" schools. Not sure how to describe what "bad" means...but, kids we went to church and scouts with made snide comments to my son about his school. I was upset at first, but then I decided it's not the school - it's the family. I really believe education begins at home, and it matters what you instill in your child about getting an education. I started reading to my son when he was only a month old and couldn't even sit up yet. Good Night, Moon. :) So, we've stayed put. Some of those kids who teased my son go to the "good" school in our area and aren't doing so hot. My son is an honor student and has done very well. He's now working on his Eagle project, and he's had an academically rigorous schedule at his "bad" school. He scores high on standardized tests. (Not that standardized tests are really a great way of evaluating someone's academic progress..but, still.) I'm happy with the education he's receiving, and I know he's had teachers who care. So, I think you should just live where you will be happy. As far as advice...I don't know what I would tell young home buyers. Because when I was young I wanted to be in the suburbs...in a neighborhood. I grew up on a farm. Now that I'm older, I wish I had bought land out in the country. We grow, and we change. You just have to do the best you can with the facts you have today. Life is unpredictable. I don't regret buying my little house. We've made some great memories over these last 19 years, and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon.
I have to agree - you do the best you can with what you have. The factor bigger than where you live in your child’s education is how much YOU put into it. Like life with good and bad bosses, there will always be good and bad teachers, good and bad kids, etc. I believe it is the time you spend with them that teaches children how to deal with those situations that will make a bigger impact on them - they will do well in school when they have you helping them; they will do better in life when they know you have their back.
The question reminds me of how my mother regarded our family's move to Darien CT in the mid 1960s. It was an affluent town, great schools, etc. We lived on the "poor" side of town in a modest ranch ultimately benefiting by the larger "neighborhood."
Yes, the weak pink links are better than the faded blue. I believe the faded gray (and pink links) fonts project an aura of wimpy, weak, and untruthfulness in your writings.
I suggest a Garamond font for easy readability. The sans-serif font used today is harder to read. Colors for text should be in blue or black for easy readability. Desktop publishing guidelines include using serif fonts and the colors blue and black for text for ease of reading. I studied desktop publishing and design many years ago, and I believe those guidelines still apply.
We chose our neighborhood based on the school system and the neighborhood factors relating to safety and reasonable access to my place of employment. A shorter commute enables more time at home. The school system is in an area where the Knolls Atomic Laboratory is located and my children attended public schools where the vast majority of the parents had advanced degrees and valued education.
I could simply copy the reasons from Paul D below. These were all the same reasons we chose our neighborhood as well. Our neighborhood is about 40 years old. When we moved in (25 years ago) we were one of the "newbies". most of the people directly around us built their houses. Now we are a generation farther down the path and we are seeing the original families retire and move, but younger families moving in. When you ask them "why here?", the answers are very much he same as 25 years ago. Our schools are still tops and we are centrally located.
interesting......I live in the (blue collar) town that I grew up in on Long Island. (My wife is from New Jersey). If you had told me when I was a kid that i would live here as an adult with a wife and 3 kids, I would have laughed. But as my bride says, you bloom where you are planted. Our town has undergone somewhat of a renaissance in recent years but still has some grit to it. We have debated moving to a more affluent area (bigger house etc) but always come back to this; we love our neighbors and we feel that the unspoken life lessons this town is teaching our children is important. That the world is diverse, that there are poor (even homeless people) and that you treat everyone you meet with the dignity they deserve as children of God. Circle back in 10 years or so and I'll tell you if it worked!
Hey Steve, my husband and I are from Long Island and said the same thing. If someone had told us years ago that we'd plant our roots in NJ, we would have laughed. NJ was always the brunt of our jokes. Now we're here 25 years. Life is strange.
Don’t like your new format (text and style), liked the older version better.
I don’t like the new font. Difficult to read.
Yes children best neighborhood.
Old type much easier to read. Please return.
We’re DINKS (double income no kids). We moved an hour away from our hometown of Hearst to Kapuskasing, Ontario in December 2019. My husband was travelling to Kap about 3 days a week for work. In winter, the roads here are quite dangerous with heavy transport traffic and road conditions creating nail-biting driving conditions. Winters are very long here too. I work from home so my requirements are reliable internet and dedicated office space. Guess what? We bought our house in Kap for a steal. Weird because we never intended to buy a home. We were happy renters. There were about 50 homes on the market here when we bought the house though not that many that I would consider starter or empty nester homes, which was what we were looking for. It's an old house but it has some great things about it (hardwood floors, main floor office space). Things sure changed fast. There are practically no homes on the market now. Houses that hit the market are snapped up quickly. My husband saves a lot of travel time and he really loves the house and has room for his copier service technician inventory. I love a lot of the local businesses and enjoy promoting them. We’re doing pretty well in Kapuskasing after a pretty rough start with the pandemic restrictions starting shortly before our move. We’ll be okay here, at least for the time being😉.
Hi Bill. For me, the new text and style was much easier to read. Yes, I am older and wear glasses, but I found this to be a positive improvement.
Re location... my hard working, immigrant parents raised us in a neighborhood where the wealthy lived and also paid a modest tuition for my brother and I to attend a private school attended by ALL the wealthy children. Among the results; higher self esteem, great education, and 100% of graduates attending college.
Keep up the good work,
Paul Scott
Hello. I don't have a problem with either style. I am loving your newsletters.
Regarding location, I moved from England to Spain in 2008 to enjoy better weather and a lower cost of living. However home is where the heart is. If it was easy to relocate from Europe to the USA, I'd be living in Texas now:)
Unlike other people here, I'm not having any difficulty reading the font. I haven't been receiving the newsletter for long so I am unaware if you've intentionally changed your prose style. But I have to say in comparison to the previous posts I have read the writing here is a bit clunky. Too many "buts" and "ands" and too many commas in unnecessary places.
Content is still entertaining, engaging and interesting though. I am not a parent - but even just for myself I did indeed choose a smaller house in a better location.
You're never safe from the unexpected though - we are high up on a ridge and during some high winds a while ago my neighbour's gable end came down off his house and went straight through the roof of his Ferrari.
I LOVE the newsletter! But I SERIOUSLY dislike the new fonting and layout. It looks antiquated and empty. I MUCH prefer the other style.
This is where I am too. I get it... it was a good try but I like having the rich text options and it is harder to read for me anyhow.
I agree, the font is distracting.
Just subscribed and I enjoy your daily newsletter but I hate the font you used today. Looks like it was typed on an IBM Selectric by a government agency. :-) Yes on neighborhoods. We looked at the neighborhood before we bought our home in NH and a second home in Florida.
haha...I thought the same thing about the font.
I did choose my house initially based on whether or not it was a good place for a family - and I didn't even have kids yet. But, I knew I would eventually, and I knew buying a house was a big commitment. So, I wanted to be prepared. I actually did buy a smaller house to be in a nicer neighborhood - my house is the smallest on my street! But, now I've lived here almost 19 years and my son is in high school. Before he got to middle school, our school zone changed twice - so planning ahead didn't help much. Ultimately we were zoned for the schools everyone in our area considers the "bad" schools. Not sure how to describe what "bad" means...but, kids we went to church and scouts with made snide comments to my son about his school. I was upset at first, but then I decided it's not the school - it's the family. I really believe education begins at home, and it matters what you instill in your child about getting an education. I started reading to my son when he was only a month old and couldn't even sit up yet. Good Night, Moon. :) So, we've stayed put. Some of those kids who teased my son go to the "good" school in our area and aren't doing so hot. My son is an honor student and has done very well. He's now working on his Eagle project, and he's had an academically rigorous schedule at his "bad" school. He scores high on standardized tests. (Not that standardized tests are really a great way of evaluating someone's academic progress..but, still.) I'm happy with the education he's receiving, and I know he's had teachers who care. So, I think you should just live where you will be happy. As far as advice...I don't know what I would tell young home buyers. Because when I was young I wanted to be in the suburbs...in a neighborhood. I grew up on a farm. Now that I'm older, I wish I had bought land out in the country. We grow, and we change. You just have to do the best you can with the facts you have today. Life is unpredictable. I don't regret buying my little house. We've made some great memories over these last 19 years, and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon.
PS - I liked the old font and color better.
I have to agree - you do the best you can with what you have. The factor bigger than where you live in your child’s education is how much YOU put into it. Like life with good and bad bosses, there will always be good and bad teachers, good and bad kids, etc. I believe it is the time you spend with them that teaches children how to deal with those situations that will make a bigger impact on them - they will do well in school when they have you helping them; they will do better in life when they know you have their back.
The question reminds me of how my mother regarded our family's move to Darien CT in the mid 1960s. It was an affluent town, great schools, etc. We lived on the "poor" side of town in a modest ranch ultimately benefiting by the larger "neighborhood."
Yes, the weak pink links are better than the faded blue. I believe the faded gray (and pink links) fonts project an aura of wimpy, weak, and untruthfulness in your writings.
I suggest a Garamond font for easy readability. The sans-serif font used today is harder to read. Colors for text should be in blue or black for easy readability. Desktop publishing guidelines include using serif fonts and the colors blue and black for text for ease of reading. I studied desktop publishing and design many years ago, and I believe those guidelines still apply.
We chose our neighborhood based on the school system and the neighborhood factors relating to safety and reasonable access to my place of employment. A shorter commute enables more time at home. The school system is in an area where the Knolls Atomic Laboratory is located and my children attended public schools where the vast majority of the parents had advanced degrees and valued education.
I could simply copy the reasons from Paul D below. These were all the same reasons we chose our neighborhood as well. Our neighborhood is about 40 years old. When we moved in (25 years ago) we were one of the "newbies". most of the people directly around us built their houses. Now we are a generation farther down the path and we are seeing the original families retire and move, but younger families moving in. When you ask them "why here?", the answers are very much he same as 25 years ago. Our schools are still tops and we are centrally located.