this week is going well. it's been a relatively light teaching week, as several students have taken the week off before school begins next week. i've been doing a lot of calling to tree specialists. we have a monstrous oak tree right near our house in the back yard, which is about 4 feet in diameter. it drops tons of tree/leaf garbage on the lawn and the roof, and obviously needs to be pruned. i did a lot of calling two weeks ago, and only got one bid out of someone - the others never showed up. i met with another company doing work in the neighborhood, who thought the tree was dead and should come down. that would cost around $3700! they said they'd also prune all the other trees on our properties- 2 rhodies, 1 lilac, 2 japanese maples, and dig up an apricot & an apple tree so that we can plant fruit trees of our liking and give these away to someone, but still... that sounds like a lot of money. j doesn't want to part with the tree, so i have to call a bunch of other people today. i never know who to go with... it's difficult. the lowest bidder may do really awful work, but so may the highest bidder. i've been getting the names of companies from angie's list, so they come with reports, but there are so many options, and most companies have some bad reports. it's hard to make a decision. however, with this as my most difficult "homework" for today, i can't really complain! :) life is good.