Happy morning to you all!  I was very tired last night, but I stayed up as long as I could watching Futureweapons with Eric.  It’s this show on Discovery on which the host drives, flies in, or shoots new weapons that the US military has.  Last night was a new episode, but honestly, watching this guy blow stuff up with shoulder-held rocket launchers and such just doesn’t excite me the way it does Eric.  So I went to bed about 9:30.

We also went out to eat last night on a date of sorts.  Battelle was affected adversely by all the rain.  They discovered that the room where the electrical box for the clean room had flooded, so they had to shut it down, thus shutting down the clean room.  So Eric came home for a few hours in the middle of the day since everything he had to do required the clean room equipment.  Then when I got home, we drove over to Battelle and he restarted his machines (he can run them on our computer at home) and we ate at Bob Evans. 

After dinner, we drove over to the Shops on Lane Avenue.  I was hoping to exchange some shirts I’d bought at New York & Co.  I got them and washed them and THEN realized that I needed a different size.  I wasn’t sure they’d let me exchange them, but the manager graciously allowed it this time.  I was SO relieved!

Today’s agenda is still up in the air.  A bit of grading, lots of laundry, 3 yucky bathrooms, and a car in need of an oil change are all possibilities to fill my time.  Wonder which ones I’ll get done?!?

EDIT: So far, I’ve dropped off the recyclables, gotten an oil change, shopped at WalMart while they worked on my car (there was NO ONE else in line when I dropped my car off…it took them 20 minutes, but I shopped for almost an hour!), then to Target to buy a new game for my Nintendo DS with the gift card from Karen’s gift at Christmas.  I love free money!: END EDIT

Happy Monday to you all!  I’m sitting in my office at CU and
decided I could afford a couple of minutes to update before getting
some stuff done.  I actually have a number of things I could be
doing right now…see how important you all are!

We spent the weekend in Massillon, Ohio, at my grandparents’
house.  Most of the Campbell family was in for a celebration of my
grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary.  The were actually married
on December 24, but we couldn’t get everyone together until now. 
It was a very busy weekend, but the family get-together seemed to go
very well!  I have some VERY funny cousins and we laughed a
ton.  Kelly and Holly did very well, too.  I’ve never seen
Holly be that sociable to strangers! 

My family stayed at a hotel since the house was pretty much full. 
That was a good choice!  It was nice to go to someplace quiet and
get away from the noise (20+ people, including 3 small children, can be
very loud!), and for us, it was great to sleep in until 8:30 on Sunday
morning.  We usually have to be at church no later than 8:00.  
My grandparents’ church is very small and mostly filled with older
people, so we doubled their numbers yesterday morning.  I always
appreciate my church more when I go to that church!

We drove home after dinner on Sunday afternoon.  My Grandpa was
adamant that he was going to plan the whole thing, and he insisted we
go to this not-great restaurant with not-great service for a family
style meal in the middle of their dining area (someone else had already
booked their banquet room, so he just agreed to have us seated in the
regular room ). 
But we survived and drove home and got home about 5:45, so it could’ve
been much worse.  Then after Mom & Dad and Chris’ clan stopped
for potty breaks at our house, they headed on home, and we relaxed for
the rest of the evening.  Whew…what a weekend!

Not much time to write since my 11:00 class will be starting momentarily…but since none of my students are here yet, I have a second to do so!

Last night we ordered our furniture: end tables and an entertainment console!  I think they will look really nice, though they aren’t supposed to arrive for 2-4 months…oh well!

So far today, I’ve made it to CU, worked in my office for a bit, had a faculty meeting, and now…on to class!

I survived all my classes yesterday, though my feet were really unhappy with me for doing so much walking and standing all day!  I think the personalities of the classes will be a good thing this term, so that is a huge relief…it’s always amazing to me how much different each group of students is.

Of course, it would start to be cold just about the time I had to be walking outside again, too.  I guess this weekend is supposed to be in the 40’s again, but then winter will be here for good.  So it’ll be warm all weekend and then get cold again just in time for me to walk to classes again…I’m seeing a pattern here!

Last night, I got home about 4:45…really beat!  Eric didn’t get home until 8:00, though, so I did a lot of relaxing. I watched TV (I even watched part of Mary Poppins…my MIL got it for me for Christmas!) and knitted and played games on my little Nintendo.  It was a very quiet evening.

Today I have a few plans.  I’m going to hang out with my friend, Vicki, for a bit this afternoon.  I need to clean the bathrooms.  And I need to work on my kitchen a bit…mostly finish processing the dried peppers from our garden. I’m chopping them up into flakes (like Pizza Hut)…which is slightly strange because I don’t like those hot peppers at all!  But it’ll be good to have them done now!  And tonight, Eric and I are probably going to go order some new furniture, so that will be fun, too!

Today I’m heading back to CU for the official start of my classes.  Classes started yesterday, but I didn’t go down.  I was very productive from home, though I have a number of things I need to do before my 11:00 class today!  Anyway, all that to say, I may (or may not) be unable to Xanga today…

Yesterday, I ran to Sam’s Club, cleaned my house (except the bathrooms), worked on school stuff and watched TV in the evening with Eric.  We were going to watch Dirty Jobs, but Eric got hooked on a Modern Marvels about the F-14 Tomcat Navy bomber.  I played games while he watched TV.  My new Nintendo DS has a Tetris game with all sorts of neat variations which are actually more fun than regular Tetris!  So I did that. 

We also went to a furniture store in Plain City to look for some things (tv stand, end tables, etc).  I think we found what we’re looking for, but we didn’t order it yet.  We’ll go back tonight or tomorrow.

Okay…gotta start my morning so I can be to CU on time!  Later!

I spent the day yesterday in Cedarville.  It was a busy day, but I probably could’ve been a tad more productive!

• I got to my office around 10.  It was 60 degrees inside it.
• I got a Christmas gift from the Deptartment (the chairman gives everybody one): a $15 g.c. for Amazon.com! Any votes for what I should buy?!?
• I chatted with colleagues for a while (I mean it’s been a month since I’ve seen anyone…you can’t go straight to work or you’ll look rude!).
• Got some work done (mostly organization and catch-up from a month of emails that I just had to keep until I went back to my office).
• Had lunch with my mom and Cindy (her Assistant).  Went back to my office and got some more work done.
• Went back to my mom’s office and helped register a couple of students, both undeclared.  It took a good long time to accomplish that…they were both a lot of fun, but it takes a while to look everything up and get the changes made.  And one student wasn’t registered for anything at all yet, so we had to build him a schedule from scratch!
• I ended up staying in my mom’s office until after 5:30!   There was lots of information to chat about, catch up on, find out and generally gossip about.  So I didn’t get home until 6:30!
• Then a quick dinner on the couch and watching the OSU game.    Then bed.

Today I have a number of things on my to-do list: finishing some class prep, run to Sam’s Club, maybe go to a bookstore and look for books to spend my gift card on, tidy my house, clean the kitchen.  You know…the normal stuff…except laundry!  I have no laundry to do right now!

Back to Reality…

I guess it had to happen eventually, but today is the day.  I’m heading back to CU today for the first time in a month. Classes start tomorrow (and mine start on Wednesday), but I have some prep work I must get done…so today is the day.  Truth be told, I’m not exactly looking forward to it.  Last year, Spring Semester was one of the worst teaching experiences I’ve ever had.  I was actuallly ready to just quit in the middle of the semester, just call in and tell them I was never coming back.  Of course, I didn’t do that, and God was more than faithful to get me through.  And it is highly unlikely that this term will be anywhere near as bad as last year since there were other factors at work last year on top of a difficult group of students, but still the memories are quite vivid.

Enough whining, however, because there is no turning back now.  And besides, I can’t hold this group of students responsible for last year’s problem-children.  Truth is, I’m discovering that fear has become, over the years, one of my primary motivations for decisions and life.  And it’s not a very good or effective motivation.  God has been teaching me to recognize such moments and deal with them appropriately, since “perfect love casts out fear.”  It’s not an easy lesson, but it’s been amazingly freeing.  So I suspect that this term will be a lesson in watching God’s grace and love work themselves out in my life.  And, of course, I could use your prayers, if you think of it…

The weekend wasn’t too overwhelming.  We watched a few episodes of MacGyver (which Eric got for Christmas) and Toy Story.  I finished HP Book 5…it’s much better than I remembered it being, really.  I didn’t like it the first time, but it made much more sense in the re-reading!  Eric and I ran around on Saturday.  Our goal was to buy something, but we were not specific about what.  We went to all the stores to which we had gift cards from Christmas (Lowe’s, Target, Borders and B & N) as well as Cord Camera and a whole string of furniture stores.  After 5 hours…we had bought one book.  Well, at least we met our goal!  And it was fun to just hang out together and shop. 

Other than that, I did laundry, ironed, made meals, and generally tidied up the house.  Nothing too exciting, but a relaxing weekend, which is always nice!

Christmas is officially over now.  How sad.  My living room is cleaned up and (mostly) put back together and all the boxes of Christmas stuff have been re-stored in the basement.  It was a good feeling to organize and arrange and generally tidy up my house, though.

Eric and I did not go out last night.  He had a headache when he got home, so we just hung out here.  We relaxed in front of the tv for dinner so we could watch an episode of It Takes a Thief that we had never seen (that’s unusual) and then he worked on computer stuff for a bit and I read a book (HP #5).  Other than that, I ran a couple of errands in the morning and worked on finishing up the laundry.  I’ll need to iron today I guess. 

I plan to run to the mall today, too.  Eric needs some new jeans and I just feel like wandering around.  It’s supposed to be rainy all day, so shopping is always a good activity for gray days!

How sad that I have nothing terribly interesting to say this morning…

I have not yet started Harry Potter Book 5 (Order of the Phoenix).  But I did work on my knitting while Eric was at orchestra rehearsal yesterday evening.  Yes, I taught myself to knit this summer.  I’m still really bad at it, but I’m learning a few things.  My fingers were really hurting, though, when I finally put it down for the night!

I also went grocery shopping yesterday and boxed up most of my Christmas decorations.  The tree is not yet down, but the long, boring work of re-wrapping the lights correctly is done.  So today, hopefully, I’ll get the motivation to finish everything up and get our house back to normal.  I also need to finish the laundry (ie, put things away and wash/iron the permanent press clothes) and work on arranging my classes which start next week.  We’ll see what happens, though!

Tonight, I think I’m going to take my husband on a date.  I’m not sure what to do.  Anyone got ideas for a fun (and fairly inexpensive) date night?

So I have high cholesterol, it seems.  The doctor called me back yesterday morning to say that he was mostly concerned about my bad cholesterol (which is about 165 and he would prefer it below 100).  He said that if I “were 300 pounds, I’d just tell you to lose weight and exercise” but since I’m a lot less than that and exercise very regularly, it was a little more difficult!  He thought about 90% of my cholesterol is made by my own body and isn’t dietary, so he wanted to put me on medication, but since pregnancy is, hopefully, a likely reality in the near future, I can’t really be on medication.  So he told me to be aware of it and call him back when I was done with the “pregnancy thing.”  Interesting… 

Yesterday, I was totally unmotivated to do ANYTHING.  So I started the laundry and started taking down Christmas decorations and went shopping with Karen some in the afternoon.  Then I read most of the evening and finished Book 4 of Harry Potter before I went to bed last night!

Today, I’m going grocery shopping.  And then I’ll finish the decorations.  Or maybe I’ll start Book 5.