I decided I’d better write some today so that I don’t have to remember 5 full days of stuff tomorrow.  Sheesh, I’ve been crazy busy this weekend.  Anyway, here’s the brief rundown:

Thursday: Eric stayed home.  I had lunch with a friend.  I got some stuff done, but not as much as I wanted. 

Friday: Work, School meeting, classes, lunch, classes, met a student briefly, drove home, Eric bought a 24″ widescreen monitor, I went to a girls night, was home and in bed by 10.

Saturday: had to turn down a trip to Polaris with my sister, worked on grad work, watched the OSU game while grading Comp, graded Comp until 5:30, went to the mall with Eric, bought a new coat and 2 pairs of shoes, got home, graded more, went to bed.

Sunday: church, lunch, grad work, drama meeting for Christmas (Eric cleaned the kitchen while I was gone, God bless that man!), a short rest, then to Small Group, then home and to bed.

So that’s been my life in a nutshell.  I’m ready for Fall Break – Thursday/Friday of this week.  I’ll be going to Colorado to visit a friend.  Maybe I’ll be able to relax then!

It looks as if my husband might be staying home today…or at least going to work late.  He didn’t feel great when he got home yesterday; I think his back is out of place and causing other issues.  So I might have company today.  He got up and checked his email a bit ago, but I’m pretty sure he’s gone back to bed.  We’ll see!

So apparently, Fall started yesterday morning sometime.  It was chilly outside, and today’s not much better.  It’s always amusing to see my students’ reactions to the weather change.  Some of them, who are usually from the Midwest or even cooler climates, relish the change, and others are in total shock.  One student, who is originally from Israel, was freezing yesterday!  Apparently, yesterday’s temps are equivalent to mid-winter in Israel.  Poor kid…it’s only going to get worse!

Today is another busy day.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to get some things done even with Eric at home.  His presence tends to disrupt my routine.  But, then again, how often do I get the chance to hang out with him all day?  So I’ll try not to mind too much…

Your Man…

1.
Who is your man?  Eric Leon

2.
How long have you been together? Friends since early 2000s, a couple since 2003

3.
How long did you date? First Date – Nov. 2002, Dated Jan-Aug. 2003, Engaged Aug. 2003-May 2004
4. How old is your man? 29 (almost 30)

5.
Who eats more? Him, no question.
6. Who said “I love you” first? Me, I think.  We’d been dating for 3-4 months and he was driving me home one night and we just got talking about marriage (more when, instead of if) and we sat in the driveway for a while and then it got said by both of us.  But I think I said it first.  I remember the song on the radio, though (Steven Curtis Chapman’s “When Love Takes You In”)

7.
Who is taller? Him (6″).  Me (5″)
8. Who sings better? Probably me, but he is more all-around musical.

9.
Who is smarter? We’re pretty even there (He’s a scientist; I’m a scholar), but I might have to say him.   

10.
Whose temper is worse? Not sure.  My fuse is TONS shorter, but I think if pushed hard enough, his eruption would be pretty bad!
11. Who does the laundry? Me.
12. Who takes out the garbage? Me.  I’m home on garbage day, so I put it out.  He brings the empty bins in when he gets home. 
13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you’re standing at the food looking at the bed, I do.

14.
Who pays the bills? He does.  Praise the Lord, he does. Budgeting stresses me out.
15. Who is better with the computer?  Him.  Absolutely. 
16. Who mows the lawn? He does. I did it once to help him out. 

17.
Who cooks dinner? Usually me. But he can cook pretty well.  And he fends for himself sometimes, too.

18.
Who drives when you are together? Absolutely him.  I am a very intense driver (I yell at people), so he drives so that I can relax!
19. Who pays when you go out? Usually him.

20.
Who is most stubborn? Tough one.  Another one where we’re probably pretty equal.  

21.
Who is the first to admit when they are wrong?  Me…I’m probably over-sensitive to things between us. I just keep thinking…”It’s not a big deal today, but 20 years of this behavior will destroy our marriage.” 
22. Whose parents do you see the most? We see mine more often for shorter stays, his less often for longer. 

23.
Who kissed who first? He asked me.  I agreed.  We kissed.  It shook my world.  I was trembling when he stopped.  Still love that kiss!  (BTW…he’s a brass player, so he has strong lips!)
24. Who asked who out? He asked me out for a double date near his birthday (I was set up).  For our first official date, he asked me to a movie that I’d told him I wanted to see again.  So I opened the door, he got the hint.
25. Who proposed?   Most definitely him.  Karen & I had just gotten home from Estonia (in Europe) on Monday.  We’d been gone for two weeks.  I knew the proposal was coming, but didn’t know when.  But I did figure no man would waste two weeks when his girlfriend was gone to talk to parents, buy a ring, etc.   Anyway, Karen & I hosted a bridal shower on Thursday night, and on Friday (Aug.1), Eric & I went for a hike with a picnic dinner at a Metro Park.  I was telling him how all the girls were whining that their boyfriends were NEVER going to ask them to marry them and how silly they all were.  He said, “So is all this marriage talking making you not want to get married?”  I said, “Of course not!”  So, he pulled the ring out of his pocket and said, “Then you might want to put this on.”  We were on a cute little bridge, where he asked more “officially”, though he didn’t get down on one knee.  But I didn’t care!  Of course, I happily agreed and we spent some time sitting on a bench watching the ring sparkle in the sun and enjoying the moment.  Then we finished our walk and took our picnic lunch home to eat because the mosquitos were so bad that night!

26.
Who is more sensitive? Me.  Definitely me.
27. Who has more friends? I’m not sure.  We both have a similar style of friendship, so we tend to have an average number of friends, but only a small number of really good ones. 

28.
Who has more siblings? We both have 2 (he has brothers, I have a brother and a sister).

29.
Who wears the pants in the family? Perhaps surprisingly…I’d say he does (metaphorically speaking, of course).  But he’s an incredibly self-confident man, so having a type-A, overachieving wife, whose version of submission would probably mortify some good Christian women, doesn’t bother him at all.  And I respect him so much that it’s not usually hard to let him lead. 

Blessings in my life:

• My husband is wonderful.  He cleaned up the kitchen while I was at grad school last night.  He lets me snuggle with him while we watch TV or fall alseep.  He listens to my crap without judgement.  Love that guy!
• Grad school was slightly less boring than usual last night.  A guest lecturer was there. 
• We had 5 people who had to give presentations because we ran out of time last week.  In the middle of the fifth one, I realized I had totally forgotten to make copies of my homework to workshop in class.  But…we ran out of time and couldn’t workshop! Shwew!
• I am starting to be able to ‘chat’ with some of the people from grad school.  Yay for new friends!
• I had great reception on KLOV all the way from Dayton to London yesterday on my way home last night, and I heard some of my favorite songs. 
• I don’t have to go anywhere today (except maybe to put gas in my car), so I have time to do laundry and get some work/grading done. 
• It’s another lovely Tuesday!  I love sunshine!

PRAISE for today:  J has decided to get help for her issues.  She has been reading Romans and has decided to choose what God has for her, instead of what the devil wants for her.  She still needs LOTS of prayer, as do I as I continue to meet with her, but this is a huge step in the right direction!  Thank you for praying for both of us.  Please continue…

It was, overall, a very good weekend.

The church’s choir/orchestra retreat was Friday night and Saturday, so I was pretty much on my own.  My grandparents were in Cedarville on their way to my cousin’s wedding, so I stopped in to say hi and went out to eat with all of them.  We went to Young’s Jersey Inn.  After we got to my parents’ house, I drove on home, arriving about 9:30.  Eric got there about 10:15 (or a little after), and we went to bed shortly after that!

Saturday, he was gone from about 8:30-2:00.  I watched some television, worked on some grad school stuff, watered the lawn, vacuumed the floors, cleaned the kitchen floor and cleaned off the counters.  And I generally tidied the rest of the house.  My parents came up about 4:30, and we took them out to dinner (Cladagh’s Irish Pub).  It was a lot of fun!  We had great service, and the food is always good there.  We stopped over at Karen’s on our way back to our house, so everybody got to share in the fun.  I was really glad they could come up just for a good time!

After they left (about 8:15), we watched the first half of the Buckeye game.  I actually watched a bit of the third quarter, but as they started to look a little sad then (though not sad enough to lose), I went to bed!

Sunday was church.  Eric had to stay all the way through both services, so we drove separately.  I made dinner and worked more on grad school.  I also got some Christmas stuff done.  I had a meeting at 3 for Christmas, then home to hang out some, then off to small group.  We were home about 8:30, and I read in bed for a while before we turned out the lights.  Lovely!

I’m still really tired today, but I guess that’s just going to be life as I know it for a few weeks here.   On the other hand, Fall Break is only a week and a half away.  Yippee!!  And there are so many ordinary graces everyday that are worth getting out of bed for…I want to remember to be aware of and thankful for the little ways that God fills every day with Himself.  Anyway…Happy Monday!

Please pray for J this weekend.  We had a long chat…she needs much prayer on her behalf.   Pray that the Holy Spirit would move in her in an awesome way.  Pray that she will get the help she needs.  Pray that I will be able to be there for her without internalizing her needs.  Thanks to you all!!

Yesterday I spent the morning shopping.  I did find some new athletic shoes (yay!!).  Then I went to Sam’s Club.  I got a lot of stuff there, including:

• paper towels
• bottled water (I keep it in my office)
• Halloween candy
• chocolate chips
• tomato soup
• chicken breasts, ground beef, pork chops
• toothpaste
• razor blades for me
• shampoo for each of us

It was expensive, but I won’t have to buy any of these things again for a long time.  Gotta love Sam’s!

In the afternoon, I went to the church.  I was there from 1-4.  I had a meeting for about 2 hours about tech stuff for the Christmas program.  Then I had about a 45 minute meeting with just the music minister (Allen) about casting and other show details.  Then I talked to one of the secretaries for a good long time! 

When I got home, I started dinner (mac n cheese) and graded my Basic submissions.  We had dinner and then went to Lowe’s where we ordered the cabinets to redesign the loft.  They’ll be delivered in about a month, so that can be Eric’s project for November!  It’ll be really nice when it’s done, I think.  And we’ll have two nice workstations and a lot of storage space there.  I’m excited!

Anyway, back to my daily grind…happy Friday!!

Nothing tremendously important to share about today, sadly!

Yesterday was pretty normal.  Other than classes, I did meet with an advisee (who, I was happy to hear, is probably not going to be a nurse!), and I had lunch at Beans & Cream with a friend who adjuncts at CU and who is also in my grad class at UD.  We have pretty much the same perspective on things at UD, so that was nice. 

I was pretty brain-dead for some reason last night, though.  I had a bit of a headache and was really tired.  So I did not go to Sam’s Club.  I stayed home and worked on the Christmas script for a while and then watched television. I watched last week’s episode of Life which we recorded, but hadn’t watched.  It is actually pretty good!  I won’t be staying up to watch it at 10:00 on Wednesdays, but the ability to record television is a lovely thing.  Eric got home from orchestra, and we watched Bionic Woman.  Also pretty good, so far.  And then…to bed!

Today’s agenda includes a trip to Sam’s Club and a couple of other stores (I need a new pair of athletic shoes).  I might, hopefully, have a meeting with the new music minister, but I haven’t heard anything from him yet, so I am not sure what’s going on.  I suppose I could call him, but we’ll see.  And of course, I always have student work to read and grad school to work on.  Such fun!

Only time for a quick post this morning…

• I was totally productive yesterday.  I graded, I ran errands, I cleaned, I did laundry, I even relaxed some. Wow – I’m amazing!
• I spent almost $200 at the grocery store yesterday…and that was with the $50 I saved with coupons/cards. Yikes!
• Eric and I are planning to redo our loft, so we spent some time last night designing the new workstations on CAD.  Okay, so he did the CAD work, and I just advised.  But it was fun to do together.
• Last night was the season finale of Eureka.  I hope they make more soon.  Such a good show!
• Please pray about the Christmas program for church.  I’m especially struggling with casting right now, and I found out this morning that the guy I was hoping to have play the main role can’t be involved.  I really need God to drop somebody to replace him in my lap!
• Tonight, I might run to Sam’s Club.  Or I might sit at home and veg out.  We’ll see how I feel about 7:00 tonight!

For some reason that I can’t explain, the link to Eric’s web gallery won’t work on Xanga.  So, here are some of the pictures that you would have seen yesterday, had the link worked correctly.

Here is Kelly modeling the new boa that I found for the girls at WalMart.  There’s a purple one, too, since they don’t share well at this point!

Here’s Holly and my brother.  And later in the evening, Holly and I were reading together.  She loves to read!

For all you moms out there, here’s a great way to get shoes on the children — just hold them upside down!

And finally, a close up of the remains of Holly’s chin injury from last week.  A Dora bandaid does wonders!

I have a quick favor to ask of you as well.  It’s for a student whom I’ll call J.  J is a student who has some difficult issues in her life and who, for some reason, has asked to interact with me outside of class.  I have little experience or training to deal with her issues, so I need a lot of wisdom and I need to let God love her through me.  Please pray for J (and for me).

As for the rest of yesterday, there isn’t much exciting to share.  There were classes.  There was grad school (so far “boredom” is the best word I have to describe that class).  There was a little rain and a lot of driving.  I got home just about 10:00 and went to bed shortly thereafter.  It’s too bad I don’t lead a more exciting life!