Sorry for all the disappointment I caused yesterday.   Really that comment was just for Kim anyway since she keeps bringing it up, and she didn’t even see it!  Oh well…

This week is an easy one for me, thankfully.  My students are working on revising and pulling together their midterm portfolios, so I can grade those over break.  See…I actually do work over break!  But it’s easier to grade those when I have time to spare, and now that Eric will be on a short business trip (Monday-Wednesday) during my spring break, I won’t have anything to do except grade!

Anyway, since they are working on revision, etc., I give them lots of class time and just make myself available to help them (which they don’t much take advantage of really…their loss!).  But that also means that my time is less stressed this week.  So that’s always nice.

Today, I’m fussing with our mortgage payments.  We refinanced in the fall and our new company sold our mortgages. Unfortunately, the new people haven’t sent us statements or the payment info we need (and our payments are due tomorrow!).  So I’m calling people and searching online to get it all taken care of…such a pain!  When I’m done, though, I have some errands to run, my kitchen to clean, some papers to read for students, and…you guessed it: Laundry! (I never washed the dress clothes the last time I did laundry, so those loads are still waiting for me. )  And I also have some prep work to do for ministry tomorrow.  So I’m just having a marvelous day, as you can tell! 

I’m on my way to chapel, but I thought I’d share the happy news. 
(No Kim, I’m not pregnant!)  My space heater was not broken after
all.  It turns out that the plug it was in is no longer active
(apparently the pop I heard was the outlet, not the space
heater).  Someone has been in to check it, but it’s still not
fixed.  But that’s not a problem because I can still use my space
heater!!!!

Let us all “rejoice with those who rejoice”!

OHHH NOOOO!  My space heater just broke!  It just went “pop”
and stopped.  Now my office will be cold all the time and I won’t
be able to fight it!  AHHHH!

It’s Friday!  It’s been a long week, and I’m pretty tired. 
But thankfully, I don’t have a lot of stuff to do this weekend while
we’re out at the farm.  I might be able to relax for a
while.  And my cold is almost gone, so I’ll even feel good while
we’re there!  And to top it all off, we will get to sleep in the
double bed for the weekend, too.  I mean, does it get any better
than all of that!

Of course, I still have the rest of today to get through…peer group
workshops in comp and regular class in Basic English.  We also
have a department meeting at 10:00, but that shouldn’t be too
bad.  I have most of my grading caught up, too, so during my
between-class hours, I won’t have to rush.

Thankfully, we don’t have to leave immediately this evening,
though.  Eric forgot to tell me that we weren’t trying to make it
to the farm for dinner, so I was rushing around trying to get laundry
and travel prep done unnecessarily.  Oh well…at least he did
eventually share (and I did get most of the laundry done), so it
shouldn’t take too long to get ready and leave tonight.  Learning
to communicate is such fun…

Sorry this is so late, but this is really the first time I’ve been in front of a computer all day.  I babysat Kelly & Holly for Debbie while she went to MOPS this morning, so I had to leave at my normal time for Cedarville.  My mom actually relieved me for an hour so I could go to a dept. meeting at ten, then I went back and stayed until Deb got home.  Then I lunch with my mom and came back to Columbus.  I decided to run errands before going home, so I went and picked up my contacts (they came in last week), got my car washed (it was getting gross!), and picked up my dry cleaning (ready on Monday).  Now I’m home!

Tonight I have to clean my house and do laundry – all of it!  We are leaving for the farm (my in-law’s dairy farm) as soon as possible tomorrow night and staying until Sunday afternoon.  But we are hosting small group on Sunday night, so the house has to be cleaned before we leave.  And I need to do laundry or we’ll run out of clothes before the next day I’ll have time to do it!  So…my evening will be full.

Thankfully, I am feeling better.  I seem to have these “speed colds” anymore.  They last about a week and I get a sore throat, head cold, cough, and chest congestion one right after the other.  Then they’re all gone and I don’t get sick again for a long while.  So, there’s still a bit of a cough/chest thing left, but mostly I’m MUCH better.  Also, my grandpa seems to have come through surgery well.  He has his first PT appointment tomorrow morning, so my dad (whose still up there) is waiting to take him to that before he comes home.  So hopefully, the news from that will be good.

Just a short one today…sorry!  Mostly, I don’t have that much
exciting to say.  I graded all evening (interrupted by nose
blowing, coughing and sneezing).  Eric has started calling me
“Sniffy” since that’s pretty much all I’ve done since the
weekend!  Today, the congestion seems to be a little better in my
head, a little worse in my chest.  And my students were telling me
that the campus is really being hit hard: strep, mono, hacking coughs,
etc.  Hopefully, I can keep from getting any of that!

Anyway, enough of my whining.  I did get all my papers read, so
that was nice.  I need to do some prep for my Basic English class
before noon, and I have a meeting at 11:00 with a student for the paper
we’re working on now.  Unfortunately, my voice was starting to
give out in my 9:00 workshops, so hopefully, I can ease it through my
afternoon stuff!

Tonight we have drama as usual.  I’d consider cancelling it, but
we’re supposed to be having some new people come to see what we
do.  At least I think we are.  Anyway, we are only playing
theatre games tonight, so that is easier to plan for, and we’re already
set to end early tonight as well.  That’s good because I’ve been
wearing down fast in the evenings.  Should be interesting, anyway!

I’ve gotten some grading done.  I haven’t done any laundry.  My grandpa came through surgery well (he had a partial knee replacement) and will probably go home tomorrow. He thinks that he’ll be pretty much ready to go back to normal life tomorrow just because this is a newer surgery that’s better than a full replacement.  I think he’ll be a bit surprised!

Dang this cold!  It’s just getting worse, but it’s a head cold.  So I don’t feel bad, but I can’t breathe and I keep sneezing and coughing.  I’m glad it’s a Tuesday, though, since I don’t have to teach today.  I was thinking of heading to CU for a dean interview at 10:00 today, but now I’m not sure if I’ll go.  I am also scheduled to meet with my pastor this afternoon, but I think I’ll cancel because I see no need to pass this around (especially to the pastor!).

So that sort of changes the plan for the day.  I must read some papers for Wednesday’s classes, so that will be a priority.  And I should probably focus on getting that done before evening when I sort of fuzz out from the cold!  Other than that…maybe some cleaning and maybe I’ll wash the clothes I got for my birthday so that I can wear them soon!

Other than that…not such an exciting life really.  I met a former student for coffee (I had a vanilla steamer since I think coffee is GROSS!) yesterday afternoon, so I didn’t get home until 5:00, but Eric didn’t get home until 6:00.  My dad left yesterday to go to my grandparents’ house. My grandpa is having surgery today, and my grandma can’t be left alone.  Of course, my grandpa doesn’t really think it’s necessary for anyone to come, but he’s also not good about facing reality.  He really thinks that he won’t be that restricted from the knee surgery he’s having today.  I’m sure he’ll be surprised how restricted he’ss be for a while…though I doubt he’ll take it easy!

It’s Sunday afternoon, and I don’t have any grading to do.  I hardly know what to do with myself.  Eric and I had lunch and looked at cell phone plans.  He’s with Sprint and I’m with Verizon, so we were thinking to combine into a family plan.  But after looking, it seems that it will be much cheaper to just stay with our individual plans, but reduce our number of minutes. We haven’t done it yet, but I think that will be the next step.

I seem to be getting sick.  My throat has hurt for two days now, and I think it’s because of drainage.  It’s not bad enough to hold me back, but I’m not exactly right either.  I hope it’s not winding up for a big illness in a couple of days!  Thankfully, I don’t have much lecturing to do this week, anyway…

Yesterday, we had my birthday party at Mom’s house.  Kelly is still pretty puny (and has one nasty cough), but it was a good time.  Everyone was a bit subdued, so it was actually more relaxing than family gatherings have a tendency to be.  I got some lovely clothes which was great because I’ve stopped liking most of the stuff in my closet.  Overall, I thought it was a good time.

The best part of the evening was watching Holly.  She’s a lot different than Kelly was in some ways. She’s almost mobile (and it’s killing her that she can’t figure out how to actually crawl!).  She also LOVES to be thrown into the air and danced around…a few seconds after you stop, she starts bouncing in your arms or swinging her body to make you do it again.  And just before they left, all the girls were in the kitchen watching the VeggieTales Silly Song Countdown.  Debbie said Kelly could watch two more and then they had to go home.  So after the second one, she turned it off.  Mom was holding Holly, who’d been absolutely enthralled by the whole thing.  As soon as the screen went blank, she swung around to look at Mom like “Hey…I was watching that…where’d it go?”  It was really quite cute.  I think we’re all going to be in trouble when that one learns to talk!

So it was a really good birthday in some ways…not so good in others.

Eric came home early from work, so I got to spend the day with
him.  He even ran errands with me, which he never does.  I
got my new sweater cleaned yesterday, so I am wearing it today (it’s
really cute!).  I got lots of cards, emails from friends…it’s so
nice to be remembered on your birthday!  I did have to spend a lot
of the day reading papers, but I did get most of them done, so that was
also good.

Unfortunately, I also found out that I was denied admission to OSU’s
English program and that Kelly is too sick to have my birthday party
tonight.  It’s been postponed until Saturday, but it all depends
on how she’s recovering by then (she had a BAD cough and 102 degree
fever, poor little kid!).  So those two bigger issues sort of cast
a pall over the day for me, but I guess that’s just how it goes
sometimes. 

Anyway, my parents are in Columbus today for a meeting, so I don’t know
what I’ll do for lunch.  But I think I have my classes mostly
ready to go.  So it shouldn’t be an overwhelming day.  But
since I graded all evening last night, and it wasn’t a thrilling
birthday (and there won’t be a party tonight), maybe I should just make
tonight fun somehow.  Any suggestions or ideas?