Yesterday was pretty much about meetings, workshops, and classes.  And I did some research to catch up my files about past classes for tracking purposes.  And I made tortellini for dinner.  And then I worked on the computer for the rest of the night.  And we finished by watching MythBusters. 

The other morning, Eric told me that I’d been talking in my sleep and grinding my teeth.  I think the only word he could remember me saying was “worthless” or something like that.  I had dreamed pretty hard that night, but I don’t remember what the dreams were about.  Apparently, something was bothering me…

Eric left for work early this morning because he got up early.  When I asked him about it, he said he’d “stopped sleeping, so he got up.”  How profound he is…

I wish I had interesting things to talk about on Xanga today, but I really don’t.  There are two and a half weeks of school left.  The students are tired and not able to accomplish all the stuff they have to do, so they inevitably relegate my stuff to the “don’t finish” pile.  But that’s how it goes this close to the end of school.  I’m running out of motivation, too, to be honest, but I will slog through until it’s finished.  And we are very close to finished…hallelujah!

Happy Thursday!

It was absolutely gorgeous yesterday.  I opened windows and went outside as often as I could.  I even ran some errands with Karen just so I could go out in the warmth and sunshine.  And it doesn’t even bother me that it’s supposed to be cloudy/rainy for the rest of the week…days like yesterday are like a guarantee of more to come.  So I can wait a day or two, since I know it’ll get nice again soon.

I got most of my papers graded (all but two, but I have time to get those done during today).  I also cleaned my kitchen, swept the floor, finished the laundry (one last load), tidied up my house, collected our recyclables, made dinner (crockpot pot roast), and read some.  Eric, when he got home, cleaned the garage, worked a bit more on the bathroom, cleaned out his car, and fertilized the lawn.  Aren’t we just beaver-like!

Today is back to CU.  My comp classes are meeting as workshops for the next four days (one group per day), so they’re pretty low key.  I have a quick meeting with my dept. chair this morning (nothing too exciting), and I think that’s about it. 

It would be interesting to go to chapel, but I don’t think I’ll make it.  At the end of the year, they stop bringing in pastors to speak and start having more fun/interesting speakers because the students are just tired and stressed out.  So, there are a lot of musical guests (Josh Bales was here last week) and special events.  Today’s speakers are Clay Crosse and his wife.  I guess they’re sharing their story/testimony of how God saved him and their marriage from pornography.  Probably a good message for college-aged guys (and girls) to hear.

And a fun Wednesday link for you.  The Worst Baby Names according to Ancestry.com.  Click on the links down the side to see the actual names.  Happy Wednesday!

I got home from Xangafest last night and my husband waved to me from the master bathroom as I drove into the driveway.  I went upstairs to see his ‘surprise’ and found that he’d spent the evening installing a second electrical outlet in our bathroom.  It’s a job we’ve needed done since we bought the house (the bathroom only had one outlet, right beside the sink, which meant I couldn’t dry my hair while Eric shaved or brushed his teeth…very annoying!). He got the wall patched up last night, but now it needs sanded and painted.  So we are using our hall bathroom for a day or two, but by tomorrow or Thursday, we’ll be able to be in the bathroom at the same time if we need to!

Xangafest was, of course, great fun.  It turns out that I actually know a lot of more my Xanga friends in real life, than I realized.  Of course, most of them I met 10 years ago when I worked at summer camp, so it’s been a while.  But still, it was great fun to make connections between people!   Thanks for all the hard work, Marla!!!

A funny story from the ball game on Saturday: they picked some guy to play a game, and if he won, he and his entire row would win a chili cheese dog or something.  So they had him on camera on the big screen.  The funny part is that, when people realized he was wearing a Michigan shirt, they started booing him from around the stadium.   So he  showed off his shirt as much as he could, won the game for his row, and then the Reds people played “Hang on Sloopy” when the game was over.  It was very fun!

Today, I feel like I have a ridiculously long to-do list, but it’s mostly just little jobs, so it’s not really that bad.  The clutter in my house is starting to really bug me, so I will need to clean up a bit today.  I will wait to clean bathrooms until the master bath is in working order again.  And I MUST grade at about 8-10 papers today (workshops tomorrow). 

And maybe, since it’s so nice, I’ll just chuck it all (except the grading, of course) and go hang out with Karen or just be outside!   Happy 70-degree Tuesday (at least in Ohio)!

Just a quick update of the weekend for you all (I have a number of things I have to do before class today!).

Friday night: Nothing exciting.  Meatloaf for dinner.  Watched some television and played on the computer.  I might have read a book in there, too.

Saturday: We went to the Reds game (it was an afternoon game).  They won 3-2 (the winning run scored in the bottom of the 9th), and we had seats in a catered suite.  There were chips/dip, tortilla chips/salsas, wings, potato skins, hot dogs/brats, pizza, veggies, peanuts, popcorn, and deep-fried cookie dough for dessert.  It was definitely the way to watch a ball game…I’m not sure I would be able to go back to the “cheap” seats, now!  As I expected, the peanuts were fantastic!  No one believed me that I suck the salt out of the shells before eating the peanut (I don’t eat the shell), so they made me demonstrate!  Saturday night, after getting home from the game, I finished my book while Eric played on the computer.

Sunday: Church in the morning, then dinner (tilapia), then we spent most of the afternoon working outside in the beautiful weather.  We cleaned up the flowerbeds some and Eric rebuilt my porch swing’s stand.  Then small group in the evening and some relaxing after that. 

So that’s all I’ve got for now…off to accomplish my actual work now!  Happy Monday!

It’s raining this morning, but it’s already almost 60 degrees outside.  I think I’ll wear a skirt despite the rain. 

I did not get all my grading done yesterday.  I did some of it.  I did a good bit of writing.  I did a couple of other small work-related projects.  But I’m not done grading yet.  Oh well…

I also didn’t get the garbage out.  Our garbage people come on Thursdays, but usually sometime in the afternoon (anywhere between 1 and 5).  But sometimes they don’t come until the evening.  And some weeks, such as this one, they show up at 9:30 in the morning. Since it usually takes a couple of hours for me to remember to put the garbage out, when they show up that early, our garbage is not usually there.  Thankfully, we only make about a bag of garbage a week these days.  So it can wait another week.  But still, I’d love for them to actually have a schedule!

In the afternoon, I did some running around.  I need a couple of new clothes items (jeans, grey dress pants, some cute spring shirts), so I went to the mall.  I tried on lots of things.  Nothing.  I left the mall empty-handed.  I guess I’ll have to go back with Karen along for input.  That’s what sisters are for, you know!

After a quick stop at WalMart, I headed home, wrote some more, made dinner, cleaned dinner up, read a book, did a load of laundry (jeans), and went to bed.  Not terribly exciting.

Today is Friday!!!  I have classes, a department meeting, an advising meeting at 3:00, and then I can come home.  It should be a fun weekend.  Relaxing tonight and Sunday, but tomorrow, Eric and I are going to a Reds game.  Eric is graciously coming, too, because I really wanted to go.  We were invited to sit in a box with catering.  Eric doesn’t really like sports, so he gets bored.  And the trip will take all Saturday (afternoon game), but out of love for me, he’s going.   I really appreciate his sacrifice!  And I haven’t been to a ball game in years, so I’m excited to go again.  I’m going to buy peanuts in the shell!

Anyway, off to shower and get ready for the day…happy Friday to you all! 

So it turns out I lied yesterday.

Apparently, I’m not exactly awake in the early morning hours, so this morning, I realized my mistake.  Just to clarify, Eric’s alarm goes off at 6:00 am, and his light comes on at 6:15 or so.  I think I had it backwards yesterday. 

Also, Eric was gracious enough to define for me the difference between geeks and nerds.  According to him, a nerd is just smart.  But a geek is smart and useful.  And a dork (for the other side) just lacks social skills that help him or her fit in well.  According to him, “you don’t want to be a dork.” 

Yesterday was not a bad day, but it had a lot of little annoying things in it.  Like I broke a nail well below the skin line trying to open my car door (my hand slipped).  And It took me all day (and lots of advice from my students) to get my ipod to play in my car.  You know, nothing major.  Just mildly annoying.

Classes went pretty well, I guess.  I got home about 4:15, which is always nice.  I made dinner and even graded some last night before sitting on the couch and watching television for a while in the evening.  I did end up knitting some, too, just so I didn’t feel like my evening was totally worthless!

Today’s plans are not terribly exciting.  I need to remember to put the garbage out. I should catch up my grading completely – it really won’t take long if I just do it.  I might run some errands.  I might start laundry.  But we shall see…  Happy Thursday!

I went to the grocery store (Kroger) yesterday morning.  Inspired by you supermoms out there, I actually picked a few meals that we would have in the next two weeks and made my grocery list based on what I needed for those meals.  Then I added other things I needed, and off I went.  It took much less time (although I actually like wandering in the grocery), and I was much more organized with my coupons and such.  I may have to do this method more often!

I spent the afternoon grading.  I did not finish, though I did get a lot done.  The annotated bibliographies are not  hard to grade.  Actually, they’re one of the easier projects.  But I am struggling to care about them.  I will need to finish them this morning when I get to work, though.  And I’ll need to get some other things done.

With that in mind, then, I guess it was a good thing that our computer-controlled lights somehow turned on an hour earlier than normal.  Eric finally just got up, about 15-20 minutes before he usually does.  Same for me.  So now I’m about 15 minutes ahead of schedule.  Hopefully, I won’t squander my head-start!

Today is pretty normal, I think.  Classes, but no meetings.  I’m down to 3 lectures in Comp (today, Friday, Monday), and then we’ll spend 4 days on workshops and 3 days on in-class work days, and they will turn in their portfolios on the last Monday in April.  Praise Jesus…the end is in sight!

Happy Wednesday!

I think…

That I’m going to give up my computer games for a while.  I’m going back and forth between 1 full week or the entire month of April.  I think I’m using them as crutches to avoid doing my actual work or truly productive things.  I feel like I’ve been wasting A LOT of time recently, so the games are the first thing that will go.  I may have to give up other things, too, but we shall see…

That rainy, warm weather is MUCH better than sunny, cold weather.

That Marla actually is a fantastic hostess and organizer, even if she doesn’t think so.

That working a regular job is easier in some ways than my split schedule.  Having multiple routines in a week can be as exhausting as just doing the same one over and over.  But don’t tell Eric I said this.  He gets pretty annoyed when teachers whine about their schedules…

That I enjoyed our church services on Sunday more than I have for a while.  Our senior pastor and music pastor were out of town, so it was much more laid back, much less pretentious than normal.  Also, the sermon was fantastic – very Word-based.  Love Pastor Mark’s preaching!

That nothing happened yesterday that’s really worth telling you. 

That I should just finish this post up.   Happy Tuesday!

The usual…

That’s pretty much how the weekend went, really.  Nothing terribly exciting, but a good, restful couple of days.

On Friday night, Eric and I ran to Home Depot briefly, then went home to watch our Netflix movie.  Do NOT ever bother with Superbad.  We managed about 20 minutes before we both we so affronted by the overt sexual references and the f-bomb dropped every 3 words that we just turned it off.  The funny thing is that I put it on our Netflix queue; I knew it was a “boy” movie and that it would probably be a bit on the crass side (like Old School, for example).  But it was WAY worse than I’d even imagined was possible.  So, we turned it off, goofed off instead and then went to bed.

Saturday was a distinctly unproductive day.  Both of us played on the computer and did a lot of nothing.  Lovely!

On Saturday evening, we headed to Cedarville for a birthday party for my mom.  We got there a bit early because Eric helped my dad run a network cable to my mom’s computer so she’d have uninterrupted internet access.  Then we had a party.  The nieces were funny.  The baby did well.  The ice cream cake (from Handel’s!) was a big hit.  Good times had by all!

Sunday was church, dinner (Eric made the beef stroganoff), then a bit of resting.  I cleaned up the kitchen and then made pies (apple and chocolate meringue) while Eric played in the basement.  Then we headed to small group and watched some television when we got home before heading to bed. 

I think that’s about all the excitement we had, really.  I have a full schedule again today.  And my husband is ready to leave for work, so I need to go send him off.  Happy Monday!

Apparently, I’ve been off work too long.  One full day, and I was really beat last night! 

But it was a good day, and I enjoyed seeing my colleagues and chatting with my students.  Chapel was very good.  I guess Alistair Begg’s was supposed to come January 2007, but had to postpone, and yesterday was the “make-up day” for him.  He spoke on three familiar passages (Ro 8:28-29, 2 Cor. 3: 15+, 1 John 3:1ff) to point out that God’s eternal purpose, present process, and future promise is that we are going to be like Jesus.  All our sufferings, all the joys, all the events and circumstances of life are designed by God because he has promised us that we will look like Jesus.  And he’s doing whatever it takes to ensure that we do.  Great reminder.  Nothing “new,” but oh so valuable!

Classes went well, for the most part.  Nothing too exciting to share there.  I did spend some time in my office before going home, writing some things up about Basic English and the changes I made (implementing a computer program). Kevin (chairman of the department) is going to nominate me for the Faculty Innovator of the year award.  I doubt I’ll win, but it’s nice that he thinks it worth nominating!

Today’s agenda is pretty open right now.  I must clean my kitchen floor.  I keep stepping in sticky spots, and I just can’t take it anymore!  I do have some annotated bibliographies to grade, as well.  But I’m not sure how motivated I’ll be to do that today.   Other than that…we shall see!  Happy Thursday!