I definitely have a cold.  Eric’s been calling me “Sniffy” or “Stuffy” (depending on the moment) for the last two days. My mom actually laughed at my strange-sounding voice yesterday on the phone.  It’s so great to be loved!

The day wasn’t terribly overwhelming.  It’s crazy how much a decrease in your oxygen flow will slow you down!  But I did get a few things accomplished.  I cleaned up my kitchen, emptied my fridge and took the garbage out.  Today is usually our garbage day, but it might not get picked up until tomorrow with the holiday on Monday. I’m still going to put it out today, though!

I did read for a while in the afternoon, updated the small group website, and ran to WalMart quickly.  I would’ve stayed longer, but apparently only a very small percentage of the population went back to work yesterday.  And the rest of them were at WalMart!  So I picked up a few things I needed and came back home. 

Last night, we met Karen & Erik and my parents at O’Charley’s for dinner, then went over to Karen’s house for a while to celebrate her birthday.  Her “party” is on Saturday, but since we were available ON her birthday, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hang out!  We watched Cars which my parents hadn’t seen.  My favorite part is the “tractor tipping” scene!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAREN!!!

Well…I’ve finally been done in.  I caught a cold over the weekend.  I survived the evil sicknesses that my students had all term and every cold/bug that my neices have had, but something got me.  I started with a sore throat on my way home on Sunday night, which continued all day on Christmas and is now a full-fledged head cold.  Yuck!  I hate being sick!

If you want to see some of our pictures from Christmas Eve, btw, you should check out my husband’s website.  He uploaded the pics last night.

So yeah…the holidays are over.  It was a VERY tiring weekend.  The short version goes something like this:

• Friday: drove to Adamsville, then to New Concord for a party at 7:00.  We had lots of fun, left about midnight and headed back to the farm.  We stayed until after lunch on Saturday and then came home. 
• Saturday: came home from the farm, finished all the gift wrapping and such for the weekend and relaxed.
• Sunday: slept in, got up and went to Cedarville, went to church with the family at Grace, had a roast beef dinner at home, opened gifts with the family, cleaned up and goofed around for a couple of hours, had a light supper, the Edlunds (and Richards) came over, we opened gifts, I got a B & N gift card (YAH!!), we left about 9:30.
• Monday: got up, opened gifts with Eric (I got perfume and a Nintendo DS), got ready for the day, drove to the farm, opened gifts with the family, cleaned up, finished making dinner, the rest of the Hogue clan arrived at 1:00, had dinner, opened more gifts, cleaned up and goofed off until after the milking, drove to Grandma Powell’s house, ate a light supper, opened gifts with them, left about 9:30 for the farm.  Went to bed.
• Tuesday: woke up, lounged around, ate lunch, loaded up the Jeep, and came home.  I organized our gifts under the tree and then goofed around for the rest of the night.  I’m partway through Book 4 of the Harry Potter series now!

I doubt it will be a busy day on Xanga, but I thought I’d post a little something for those who do check!

Yesterday was pretty busy…errands, lunch with friends, errands, Eric’s arrival, errands, picked up dinner (Donatos’ subs), watched Elf while we ate, worked on gifts, went to bed.

Yep…a full day for the most part!  I’m almost entirely done with shopping and such (isn’t there always ONE more thing!?!), so I will venture out a little today.  I also have to iron (I still haven’t done that!), finish wrapping gifts and get organized for the weekend.

We leave tonight to go to a party for some of Eric’s college friends, and we’ll be staying at the farm tonight.  Then home tomorrow sometime.  Then Mom’s on Sunday.  Then out to the farm again on Monday.  Then home on Tuesday.  Then a couple of celebrations for Karen’s birthday.  Then New Years.  And that takes care of next week!

Wow…I’m tired already!  Anyway…to some of you…See you in a couple of days!  To the rest…have a very Merry Christmas!

I don’t have too much to say today…it wasn’t a very exciting day yesterday, I guess.

• I ran errands in the morning, and I’m almost finished with Christmas presents!  I found a couple of shirts for my MIL which were on sale for $9.99 and $14.99, respectively.  Yet…when they rang me up, I paid a total of $15.00!   I saved almost $50!!!  I sales!
• I spent the afternoon wrapping Christmas presents.  I still have a couple to do, but the bulk of them is done now.
• I watched the movie Eight Below while I wrapped presents. 
• Eric got home late because of a late meeting.  He’d had a Christmas luncheon so our supper schedule was totally off.  So he exercised while I had supper (white chicken chili!), and then I made him a light supper later (egg sandwich).
• I got a headache last night.  I hate headaches.   I finally had to take an Advil for it, and I never take meds!
• We went to bed around 9:30 last night.  I slept hard.  Although I did wake up when some lady named Dorothy Booker called our house at 1:00 AM!   We, BTW,  know NO ONE by that name!
• I woke up this morning without a headache.  YEAH!!!

I felt like doing something more adventurous on Xanga today since I don’t have much to say really!

Yesterday, I didn’t end up going anywhere.  I stayed home and got some other things done.  I cleaned all my bathrooms and did the laundry (except the ironing clothes).  I even put them away!!!   I also made cookies: molasses cut-out cookies and a caramel nut bar that my mom makes sometimes.  Eric needed these cookies for his christmas luncheon at work today, so I wanted to send something a little “special” for his co-workers to be utterly impressed by!

After supper, Eric watched TV and played on the computer.  I listened to the show while I iced cookies.  Then I sat down and watched Dirty Jobs with him.  But we’d seen the last segment of that episode, so I went upstairs about 8:50, brushed my teeth, hopped into bed and read for a few minutes.  Eric joined me shortly and then…lights out for us! 

On the schedule for today: finish Christmas shopping, wrap gifts, finish laundry and iron, do some vacuuming, and whatever else comes to mind.  I might sit down and read for a while, too, but we’ll see!

EDIT: This is some sad news.  Do you remember Dr. Sarah Smith who teaches accounting at CU?  Her son, Wade, was severly disabled and in a wheelchair.  They just sent an email that he passed away last night.  How sad…right before Christmas.  I’m sure they could use our prayers.  END EDIT

It’s probably a good thing Eric needed me to be excited last night over various technological toys (mostly gifts for other people) that came yesterday because I would’ve stayed up too late finishing the second Harry Potter book otherwise!  I still have about 1/3 of the book to go, so maybe I’ll finish it today sometime! 

I was much productive yesterday.  I finished all my Christmas cards and Christmas thank-yous to people who helped with the Christmas program.  Then I went to the Post Office to mail them (and buy stamps) and then to WalMart for a few necessary items.  After lunch, I went out again, this time to the mall.  I wandered to a number of different stores and finally found most of what I was looking for!  My only remaining gift is something for my MIL.  The brothers went together to get her gift, but we also drew her name for the Hogue family gift exchange, so I’m in charge of that gift.  But even so…I am almost totally done!!!

I got home, put a bunch of stuff in boxes to be wrapped (I got most of Eric’s gifts, too) and then made dinner while we watched It Takes a Thief which we actually hadn’t seen.  After dinner, I cleaned up and then sat down to read my book, which I did for the rest of the night (except when Eric wanted me to “ooh” over something he’d figured out on the various pieces of technology)!

The Downs:

• It was an emotionally frustrating weekend for a variety of reasons.
• I wasted a lot of the weekend worrying about things I can’t control.
• I ended up with an ugly ornament at the ornament exchange on Sunday night.
• I didn’t get much closer to finishing my Christmas shopping when I went out on Saturday.

The Ups:

• It was actually harder to find specific items for the “Down” list above than I thought it would be.
• I finished all my grading on Friday (I stayed late to do it!), so I’m officially DONE with the semester!
• Eric and I vegged on the couch. We had white chicken chili (YUMMY!) and watched Christmas shows (like the Grinch) on Friday night.
• I did get some errands run on Saturday.
• The lines could’ve been MUCH worse in the stores on Saturday.  And I don’t intend to need to go out next weekend, so I won’t have to stand in long lines!
• I can finally start my fun reading that I’ve been promising to myself since October.
• First item on that list: all 6 Harry Potter books, in order!
• I relaxed all afternoon on Sunday.
• My husband is a phenomenally generous.  He decided to forgo buying himself a new recliner for Christmas so that we can send the money to some friends who work for Campus Crusade.
• Eric is also an incredibly gracious man.  He put up with my “issues” all weekend and never complains.
• I have all day, all week to run errands, go shopping, read, and otherwise have a good time!

The Number Game:

17:  the number of papers I read yesterday (no grades assigned)
19:  the number of papers I still have to put grades on
8: the number of items on my to-do list yesterday
4: the number of items on yesterday’s to-do list that I crossed off
2: the number of items I added to the to-do list just so that I could cross them off!
1: the number of times I left home yesterday (I walked outside to exercise)
5: the approximate number of times I woke up last night (didn’t sleep well at all!)
7: the number of students who have yet to take their exam today.
2: number of compliments I’ve received so far on my White Trash Christmas recipe that I made last night to give 
     myself a break from grading and then brought to share today
2: the books I need to return to the library sometime today

Okay, that’s all I can really think of right now.  That was
fun!  And that list pretty much covers everything I did
yesterday.  Thankfully, I am planning to finish my grading today
before I go home, so then I’ll be done with school for the
semester!  YEAHHHH!!!!!  Then maybe I can finish my Christmas
shopping, finally!

And finally, explanation for Gail about TV watching in my house:

• We are not big TV people.  We have one television in the great
  room which covers the kitchen, living room, dining room, and loft
  whenever it is on.  So one show at a time and only when it doesn’t
  distract the other person.
• We tend to watch “educational” television: Discovery, Travel
  Channel, TLC, HGTV, The Food Network, etc. Thus, our two primary shows
  are It Takes a Thief (which we are watching less because we’ve seen most of them now) and MythBusters
  (only on Wednesday nights).  Unfortunately, we usually have church
  obligations on Wednesday nights and, thus, miss MythBusters.  So
  we usually haven’t seen the reruns, and we sometimes tape the new
  episodes so we can watch them later.
• My “obsession” is really just that their recently-investigated
  myths keep relating to our conversations…not because I really just
  LOVE the show that much!

The Caption Game:  What is Kayla thinking?

As for the rest of my life, yesterday wasn’t too eventful.  The computer in my Basic English classroom wasn’t working, so I was forced to actually do work while my students tested away.  I got all my little papers caught up, and started reading my Comp class’s final papers.  Then I went home for lunch. 

While we were at home, Deb brought the girls over.  Boy are they cute!  Holly likes picking up Mom’s cookie decoration containers and shaking them.  Then she wanted to watch a video.  Mom turned on a Baby Einstein video for her…she LOVES those things.  She rocks back and forth in time to the metronome.  She makes the same noises as the toy on the screen.  Every time a train whistle blows on the video, she looks at you and says, “Oo Oo” which is as close as she can get right now!  So funny!

I cleaned up in my office and went home.  I was pretty worn out, too, when I got home, so I just vegged for a while.  Pizza for supper and then I went to a friend’s house to write Christmas cards from our small group to send to missionaries and other people in the church.  It didn’t take too long, and Autumn and I had a nice chat.  I was home by 8:30, and Eric and I watched MythBusters before heading to bed. 

Yesterday, I ran errands in the morning.  Got a car wash, got a haircut (trim), got groceries, got coffee grounds (Eric prefers Tim Horton’s coffee)…all before lunch!  After lunch, I did a lot less, though.  I did finish the laundry (but not the ironing) and graded some paragraphs for Basic English.  After dinner, we went out “looking” (which, I was told, is different than “shopping” which involves buying) for gifts for his family, which we (“he”) ended up ordering online when we got home.  Then off to bed!

I’m off to CU for the day.  I have to give a final from 10:30-12:30, and I expect it will take most of that time (for them, not me!). I hope to get some more grading done…boy wouldn’t it be great if I actually finished ALL my grading before exams were over…I think it would!