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…

So here are the promised pictures of our new television:

It still looks just crazy large in our living room…I think it’s going to take some getting used to.  Eric called about having it delivering yesterday morning and found out they couldn’t deliver it until today (Tuesday).  So after pondering about it all day, Eric called them back and asked if he could come and pick it up.  So that’s what he did.  Good thing, too, since there’s A LOT of snow on the ground here.  I don’t think they would’ve made it if we had waited to have them deliver it!

After classes yesterday, I came home, and Eric was already there working on unpacking the television.  He also had brought me my Valentine’s Day roses so that I could enjoy them for longer.  Here’s a pic of those, too:

I made pizza for dinner and then headed to the mall to finish my Valentine’s shopping and such.  Good thing, too, since I doubt I would’ve made it to the mall today!  So now I can wrap gifts and stuff today.  I also need to clean up the packing from the television and a few other “normal” activities/chores.  We’ll see what I decide to do!

On Friday, I decided to take nothing home with me and to do nothing for
classes today.  As a result, it was a lovely, relaxing
weekend.  Unfortunately, it meant that I needed to get a bunch of
stuff done this morning before heading to my classes.  But it’s
finished, and now I can do a quick blog update before moving on to
teaching for the day!

The weekend, as I said, was quite nice.  We went out to eat on
Friday (tried a new Chinese place…great service, food was a bit
bland) then went home and watched Superman Returns.  Someone told me that they didn’t like it much, but for a Superman movie, I thought it was okay. 

Saturday, Eric went to work from 9-2:30 or so.  So I was on my
own.  I did lots of little projects on the computer and around the
house.  Then I started reading a book.  I read the whole book
on Saturday.  And I even cleaned the bathrooms, made dinner, and
started the laundry on top of it!  I’m an overachiever, I know!

Sunday was church, then home for the afternoon, then the return of
small groups.  We had Italian for lunch, then we both relaxed for
a bit before running out to buy a mover’s dolley for Eric. Our new tv
is supposed to arrive today (I’ll try to post pictures tomorrow) and he
wanted to have something to help him get it into the house. 

And apparently, relaxing is good for me.  I was quite the
entertaining, social person on Sunday…I should try that whole
“relaxing” thing more often!

I’m really late, I know, but it’s been a crazy morning.  I had a
dept. meeting, so I had to actually work when I got to my office. 
I’ve spent most of the morning organizing myself to address the student
whose paper was “not well done” yesterday.  My parents are at a
meeting together today, however, so I just ate lunch in my
office…which bought me some time to work as well.  So in about a
half-hour, I’ll start two hours of workshops.  And then I’ll be
done. Praise Jesus!

Last night we (and by that, I mean Eric )
ordered a new TV for us: a 50 inch flat screen HD rear-projection
monster.  I left out most of the abbreviations that are actually
part of its name, mostly because I can’t explain them well and you
probably don’t know what they mean.  But early next week, a brand
new television will be arriving at my doorstep.  Eric is VERY
excited.   I’m excited for him.  But I will definitely enjoy the great picture quality when I’m watching my Travel Channel shows!

We also went to a hockey game last night with Ryan (my BIL).  The
Blue Jackets won.  The people sitting around us were annoying and
stupid.  The walk to and from the area was FREEZING BUTT
COLD.   My
toes didn’t thaw all the way out until we got home.  But it was a
nice evening out.  And now it’s Friday.  Praise Jesus!