Yesterday was one of those days.  There were a lot of little things that usually I can dismiss without letting them annoy me, but yesterday I was already a bit down/grumpy so they only made me worse.  The fact that some of my students are so lax about attendance and work really bugged me yesterday.  The bad drivers (ie, unnecessarily slow) and the students who just meander across the parking lots, ignoring the fact that you’re (in your car) waiting for them to get out of the way, were also frustrating.

Unfortunately, I’m not very good at hiding my annoyances, I guess, because two different people asked me if I was okay.  And when I said I was just having ‘one of those days,’ they both said that they could tell by looking at me.   I guess my facial expressions are too obvious.

Anyway, I decided that everyone is allowed to have grumpy days sometimes, including me (as long as I didn’t let it affect how I treated people), so I was allowed to wallow for a while.  So I didn’t do very much last night.  Eric and I watched some television, and we went to bed about 10:00.  I’m in a better mood this morning, anyway.

Nothing too exciting to report about the weekend. 

It took me an entire hour to get home on Friday night (trains in both S. Charleston & London, lights, other drivers, etc.), and when I arrived at 4:20, my in-laws van was sitting in the driveway.  Their appointment had been cancelled, but they missed the phone call, so they arrived about an hour before we were expecting them.  I showed them the new tv and chatted until Eric got home (at five).  Then we went out to dinner and tried to find a new computer desk for my MIL.  I was pretty fried by the time we got home and said good-bye…I’m actually something of an introvert and I hadn’t had a single moment of downtime (read non-social) all that day.  But it was good to see them and we did get to eat at P.F. Changs!

Saturday was pretty quiet.  I worked in my office.  Eric worked in the loft.  Later I did laundry and ironed and made banana bread.  We had a “find your own” night for dinner, and to end the day I watched Finding Nemo on our huge television…very nice!

Sunday was a long day for Eric.  It seems the radiator in his Jeep is having issues, so he ended up driving out to the farm in the afternoon to drop it off there to be worked on by their Adamsville repair guy and came back to Columbus with his brother who has an extra car we borrowed.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to get the Jeep back soon!  I hung out at home after church (and a not-stellar dinner…I hate when meals don’t come together well), knitted, read the paper, and then went to small group.  It was fun and everyone was talkative.  Then home and to bed.

Now off to CU for the day…should be fun!  I’m going to talk about grammar/punctuation in Comp.  If you were in my class, what would you think I should talk about…or what mistakes have you heard that I could address? 

Okay…my vent of the day.  Stupid radio dj on 104.9 was talking
about Grey’s.  She told what happened.  She said something
like: “But then it just wasn’t believable to me at the line where [one
of the characters (don’t know who)] said, ‘Thanks for not dying.’ I’d
think that what people would really say is, ‘Thank God you didn’t
die.'”

I just about hit the ceiling.  Does she HONESTLY think that
non-religious people on a non-religious television show REALLY would
say the second comment, not the first?  Does she have NO
connections to the world in which we live?  Seriously!  Of
course, that woman drives me nuts anyway…too sugary-sweet and
shallow. But still…I don’t even WATCH Grey’s and she set me
off. 

Other than that, I’ve been in meetings and classes with more of the
same in the afternoon.  My in-laws are coming out this evening, so
we’ll be going out to dinner.  Then, who knows what the rest of
the evening and weekend will hold!

Nothing terribly exciting to report today, I guess. 

Yesterday was uneventful, though that’s a good thing!  Classes went fine, and I actually did my prep for Friday before I left my office!   When I got home, Eric told me that his brother was stopping by to see the new tv and chat.  Ryan got here about 5:30 or so and we hung out for a while.  They went out for dinner (I excused myself…I actually didn’t want to go out. I know, I’m weird ), and I spent the rest of the evening watching Mary Poppins and knitting!  I made a soft drink cozy (the next project in the book) and, surprise, surprise, it actually works!

Today I think I’m going to run errands this morning.  I MUST get gas before I need to drive to CU tomorrow.  And I think I’m going to shop for some new shoes (I wear down the tread on my sneakers ridiculously fast. )  I also need to clean my house because there’s a VERY good chance my in-laws will be coming out this weekend for a bit.  I have a lot of work to do!

So there’s freezing fog out there today.  I didn’t know there was such a thing as freezing fog.  Apparently, there is!

I decided to wait to drive to CU for just a bit this morning.  I have a bit of work to finish in my office, but not a lot of pressing stuff.  So I’m going to give a bit more time for the fog to lift and the salt to be put down before I risk my neck getting to work.

Yesterday wasn’t terribly exciting, but I was productive.  I graded all the papers that I had to read, so I can return them to my students (they’ve been asking about them…multiple times…I  hate when they do that!).  Anyway, that will save me the time and hassle of answering more of those questions.  So my schedule was basically, read some papers, take a break, read some papers, eat lunch, read some papers, break, read, break, Eric came home, finish reading, stop. 

I goofed off for a while, doing other small projects (like the small group website), then went and actually put grades on the papers I’d read.  This morning, I’ll need to go over my grades again to make sure I was fair (being unable to justify my grades is one of my greatest fears).  Anyway…then we had dinner and just sort of hung out for the evening.  It was a nice break since my brain had been so taxed all day!

So here’s something fun for a Tuesday: Which celebrities do you look like?

Go to this website and upload a picture…they’ll tell you which celebrities (male AND female) you look most like). Here are the ones I tried.

Picture #1

Males: Chow Yun-Fat (68%), Val Kilmer (63%), Adrien Brody (62%), Thomas Edison (56%), Apolo Ohno (55%), Boris Karlof (53%)
Females: NONE

Picture #2

Males: Tobey Maguire (70%), John Travolta (66%), Paul Allen (61%), Ralf Schumacher (56%), Jared Leto (55%), Barry Manilow (55%)
Female: Hannah Arendt (55%)

Picture #3

Males: Jason Priestley (68%)
Females: Clara Bow (72%), Julianne Moore (63%), Cynthia Nixon (63%), Nancy Sinatra (62%), Alexis Bledel (61%), Bebe Neuwirth (59%), Sarah Michelle Gellar (58%), Liz Taylor (young pic 56%)

Apparently…I would make a very good looking male…I hope that doesn’t mean that I’m an unattractive woman!

The weekend was busy, but good.  We left on Friday night for Cincinnati after we both got home and I packed.  We stopped for dinner on the way and then got downtown and checked into our hotel.  We relaxed on Friday night, went to the Newport Aquarium on Saturday morning, then spent the rest of Saturday just bumming around or exploring the sites of Cincinnati.  We checked out on Sunday morning and drove to Cedarville for a family birthday party.  We got to Mom’s house about 10:30 and almost went up to church, but didn’t.  Turned out to be a good idea, though, because my parents walked back in about 10:50…there was a water main break in the middle of town and the church was on the one block it affected…so they cancelled the rest of church for the day!

Karen & Erik and Chris & Deb and the girls joined us and we had a good time over dinner and dessert and presents.  It was fun to just stand around and laugh.  We headed back to Columbus about 4:30 and then went to small group at 6:00.  That ran late, so we got home about 8:45.  And then I went to bed! 

It was a great weekend, though.  We splurged on everything (valet parking, room service on Saturday night, buying what we wanted, etc.) and just enjoyed being together.  It was nice way to celebrate turning 30, I think!  Now, however, it’s back to teaching…but only about 2 weeks until Spring Break! Yay!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!

Sorry this is so late, but I was playing with my birthday present from
Eric before I left for work. He gave me a blue Ipod Nano.  It’s
very neat…but I’ve got to figure out how it works before I get much
good out of it!

Anyway, I have a faculty meeting at 10:00, then classes.  But my
two Comp classes will be group work time so I don’t actually have to
teach today.  How nice is that!

It’s freezing cold outside, and I have to walk outside a lot
today.  I’m not looking forward to that, but at least I get to
wear my cute grey hat!

That’s how long I’ve been cooped up in my house.  I went to the mall on Monday night (got home about 8:30) and haven’t been out since then.  I am VERY excited to run some errands today.  I just can’t stay inside any more!

Eric was home with me all day yesterday.  He spent most of the day shoveling the driveway.  It really took most of the day because he kept needing to take breaks.  The layer of solid ice on top of the inches of snow meant he had to work VERY hard.  But he got it all done, and his back hurts some today, but it was all worth it because now I can get out of my house!

Today I have some options of things to do (other than the planned errands, of course).  I didn’t iron yesterday, so I should do that today.  We’re going away for the weekend, so I need to tidy things up so I don’t have to come back to a dirty house.  And I really should read papers.  But we’ll see what I actually do!

It’s very strange to have snow days as an adult, I must say.  Eric came home at lunchtime yesterday, and I’ll be surprised if he goes in at all today.  I cancelled my classes for today (CU is currently on a 2-hour delay) because Franklin and Greene counties are both at a Level 2 snow emergency and I’m certain that Madison and Clark are at least that bad (Madison) or worse (Clark).  I guess I’m just not committed enough to my job to take my life into my hands by driving there today. 

Other thoughts for a Wednesday morning:

• It’s Valentine’s Day.  It looks as if I get to spend the whole day with Eric.  That’s a nice present, I think!
• The man who sat behind us at church on Sunday seemed very amused by me (I was in a very ornery mood on Sunday).  He was totally surprised by my firm handshake.  He laughed outright when I reached over and untied the shoelaces of the guy sitting next to me (Wally & Elaine are drama friends, so they laughed too). When we stood up to leave after the service ended, he tapped Eric on the shoulder and said (pointing at my head), “She is a live wire.”  We all laughed…I guess it’s true!
• Yesterday I did laundry.  Today I will iron.  Not sure what else I will do.  My bathrooms do not need cleaned.
• I rearranged my guest bedroom yesterday because we moved the old television up there.  Now I can watch it while exercising if I want to. 
• The faucet on my kitchen sink broke yesterday.  I decided to wash the dishes that didn’t fit in the dishwasher by hand (I almost just left them there…apparently I’m easily guilted by my chores ).  As I turned on the faucet one last time to rinse down the suds, water suddenly started spurting from the base of the faucet, spraying me and the counters, the stove, the microwave, and the clean dishes.  I turned it off and looked underneath the sink (the water was dripping inside very slowly), so I put a dish under the drip and waited.  When Eric got home, he looked at it, took it apart, then put it back together, tightening everything as he went, and VOILA!  He fixed it!  It’s actually been breaking for a while, I think.  But now…it’s great!
• We watched You, Me & Dupree last night.  Very funny in parts.  Not terribly funny in others. Lots of sexual content (Owen Wilson…who’s really suprised by that). 

Okay…enough rambling for this morning…