Just a normal day yesterday.  Classes, lunch with Mom, home.  We had white chicken chili for dinner last night…yummy!  Then off to church for orchestra and drama rehearsal.  I had to meet with three of my people to work on a skit for Sunday night.  Then we got home and watched Mythbusters before getting to bed.  See…nothing exciting!

Oh wait…there was one thing that was sort of exciting.  When I walked into my office on Wednesday morning, it was actually a balmy 70 degrees.  It was great!  Of course, it happened because I forgot to turn off my space heater when I left on Monday (oops!) which I try very hard not to forget.  I did turn it off when I left last night, so it’ll probably be back below 50 tomorrow…oh well!

Today I have to go back to Cedarville for my follow-up chiropractor appointment.  That’s at 11:30, so I’ll need to leave about 10:30, I think.  I might try to run some errands before I head down though.  After my appointment, I’m planning to have lunch Deb & the girls.  I have NO intention of going to my office!  I have no idea what I’ll do this evening…maybe I’ll leave my errands until then!

Random Facts of the day:

• Eric got up for work early this morning, so I’m running about 15 minutes ahead of schedule.  Not a bad thing, really, but I was a bit surprised to see the time when he rolled out of bed!
• Last night, I woke up at 2:30 for no apparent reason.  I stayed awake for most of an hour.  I have no idea what finally enabled me to go back to sleep.  Weird.
• Yesterday was a reading day for me.  I read most of, and finished, HP book 6.  The biggest problem I have with the series right now is the lack of closure.  It doesn’t end, and there are too many things left open for discussion. But I don’t want to discuss them.  I want to read the ending.  I hope she doesn’t make us wait until July for Book 7.
• Other than reading, I ran errands to WalMart, Meijer and a party store.  I found hubcaps.  I did not find black Lone Ranger masks.  Not anywhere.  You’d think that those would be staples of party stores…
• I also cleaned my kitchen (twice), finished the laundry, and ironed.  I have not yet put away the ironing board. 
• Today it’s back to classes…such fun, such fun!

My back has apparently been out of place for a while.  I last went to the chiropractor last October and everything’s been fine.  Unfortunately, for some totally unknown reason, my back started yelling at me last week. 

Now…if my back would actually start yelling when it needed adjustment, I’d be in great shape.  But it doesn’t.  It is, frankly, much less obvious.  And so, by the time I figure out that my back is really the problem, I’m in serious need of an adjustment and the chiropractor makes comments about how I really should come more often…

So I’ve been having trouble since the end of last week with my stomach hurting…but it wasn’t connected to food or eating.  It just felt yucky.  When I had ruled out a number of other potential causes, I remembered that years ago, when I first ended up at the chiropractor, my back had initiated that unpleasant phase with a week or so of stomach issues.  So I began to pay more attention to my back.  I took a bath to relax it.  I tried to keep it relaxed (it didn’t work…I could now feel how tight it really was).  And then, on Saturday, my hips started hurting, too.  All of these are bad signs in my world. 

For some reason, when my back gets out of place, it doesn’t hurt.  But it makes the rest of my body unhappy!

So yesterday morning, I drove to Cedarville and made an appointment with Dr. Vogelsong.  (On a side note, I saw Beki, Lily and Gail’s Susannah there…how fun is that! )  I told him the saga and he started the adjustment.  First side: one pop.  Second side: about 15 successive pops from my hips to halfway up my back (boy did that feel good! )  Then my neck: lots of popping.  Then my upper back: the remaining vertebrae from my shoulderblades to my neck popped. 

As he walked back to my chart on his little stand, Dr. Vogelsong said simply, “You were pretty messed up.” Yeah, no kidding.

Anyway, my back has been working its way back to less stressed again.  I have to go back on Thursday. He never really scolds, but he communicates effectively that scolding would be appropriate.  But at least I’m finally feeling better!

A busy and productive weekend…

• Friday night…I can barely
  remember that long ago…oh wait!  We went and got new tires on my
  car.  I needed them about 3 months ago, but it just never
  happened.  So when Eric suggested that Friday night might be a
  good time to do it, I was all for it!  We dropped the car off (the
  tires were VERY bald…the guy mentioned that a couple of times )
  and then went to Panera for dinner while we waited.  On the way to
  the tire place, Eric noticed that one of my headlights was out (which
  was news to me!), so when we got my car, we drove to an auto parts
  store and got a new one, plus oil change stuff for him.  I still
  need new hubcaps for my car, but maybe I’ll stop today and get those
  somewhere.  And since it was aligned…I’m very hopeful that my
  car won’t shake anymore when I drive about 60 mph!!
• Saturday
  involved relaxing for a bit in the morning before getting to
  work.  I wrapped a gift for the baby shower, then exercised and
  got ready.  Then came lunch, then the baby shower, then home to
  make dinner and clean my house before everyone came over.
• Karen
  & Erik, Kimberly & Kevin, and Trisha, Kyle & Kayla came
  over on Saturday night around 6:00 for dinner and some fun.  It
  was a very fun time…but I think that’s because I have such a fun
  family!  They stayed until about 10:45, at which time Eric and I
  crashed into bed!
• Sunday was the snow shocker!  I got the
  newspaper at 7:20…no snow.  We left the house just before
  8:00…the roads were covered!  WHAT?!?! By the time we left
  church at 11:30…there were 3 inch drifts on either side of my
  car!  Crazy!  Thankfully, the roads should be okay today,
  though…although the idiots will probably be out in full force… 
• Oh, and I think I saw Chad Fires at our church on Sunday…weird!
• The
  rest of Sunday (after dinner) was spent cleaning up my kitchen from
  Saturday night, reading the newspaper, reading Comp. papers and hanging
  out with Eric.   We went upstairs about 9:00…and the lights
  were out at 9:45.  Gotta love that!

EDIT 9:30 AM: My office was only 50 degrees when I got in this morning!  YUCK!  END EDIT

IMPORTANT EDIT:  A couple at our church just had their third son about 10 days ago.  He was diagnosed with spina bifida.  His first few days were going well, overall, but he is now back in the hospital and in serious straights (low temperature, high blood pressure, lethargic) and if things don’t change, they’ll have to put him in ICU.  Will you please pray for Toby (the baby) and his parents (Bruce & Carrie)?  Here’s a website with all the info: www.caringbridge.org/visit/tobyholt: END EDIT

Thoughts for today:

• My classes went really well, I think, yesterday.  I like days like that!
• I needed to stay in my office until 4:00 yesterday, so I actually got a bit ahead of my workload.  You’d think that I would do more of that sort of thing (staying until I was ahead of myself), but sometimes it’s just such a nice thought to go home that I can’t make myself stay!
• Last night, I watched the MythBusters “Pirate Special” which was very good.  Although, I must say that they should announce when their episodes are two-hour ones; I didn’t realize that, so it was a suprise for me at 10:00 when I figured out that I would be up until 11:00.
• I have a lot of stuff to do today…among them:
• Finish the laundry (I’ve been dawdling on that!)
• Errands to the grocery, WalMart (they have the cheapest toilet paper!), and Babies R Us for a shower gift.
• A meeting this afternoon with the new Music minister about drama stuff.

So I got the laundry started…not even close to done, though! 
And I did clean the bathrooms, including sweeping the floor.  And
I cleaned up the kitchen, too.  I also found a new game on Yahoo
yesterday that is very good for the 
organizational/obsessive-compulsive types.  It’s called Ocean
Express or something, but I played it for a long time yesterday!

Other than my errands in the morning and my chores/gaming in the
afternoon and evening, I don’t have much else to say, I guess.  I
really need to get to class stuff, so I’ll let you know if anything
else important comes up!

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!