Freedom!

Today was finally the end....the of the semester. Yee Haw and a great big, "THANK GOODNESS!" Hallelujah! What a great day! Seriously. I mean it. It was a great day, and in my opinion, an exciting day!

You see, the truth is that there isn't a whole lot that I get excited over these days. At the ripe old age of 34, I've seen a lot. It's the little things in life that make me most happy: a clean house, NCIS and popcorn with Ken, a shower before bed along with fresh sheets, finding The Goonies on TV...You see, I'm a pretty content person and so the last few times I was ever seriously excited about something include the following (I may be missing some, but these are what come to mind automatically): Christmas eve as an 7-8 year old and receiving my doctoral gown in the mail. That second one sad? Maybe. But if you knew what it took to get that thing, you'd probably have cried too. I know I should add things like getting married and Ken coming home from war and all, and yes, those were important moments in life. But what I'm thinking about here is the youthful excitement that comes from deep within, something that stirs you at the core and makes it impossible for you to sit still.

Yes, my friends, that is how I felt today. Today was the best day - the last day of fall semester! A break... we all get a break...from work, from each other, from meetings, from going to bed super early and getting up super early, to responding to emails, to thinking about what to wear, oh how the list does go on. Today, I was so excited that I was actually skipping in the hallway outside my office. Yes, it was just that kind of day. Thankfully, I was not the only one to admit feeling this way. Many of my colleagues admitted to feeling excited and simply boisterous because of what the calendar was telling us. Freeeeeeeeedom!!!!

Stuck, stuck, stuck.

So, I'm stuck. That whole "lose weight pretty fast" thing has stopped for me. I'm trying to stay positive and remind myself that staying the same or losing just a little is ok. But really, how excited can a person get about losing 0.2 lbs when only a few weeks ago, they were coming off in 2, 3, and sometimes even 4 lbs at a time?!?! I'm getting nervous about making my 25 by Christmas goal. It may not happen at the rate things are going these days. Stay positive, stay positive!

Thanksgiving was good. I didn't deny myself anything good (hmm...and I wonder why the scale is stuck). But it was back on track for me on Sunday in hopes of a speedy recovery before weigh in. I also walked Sunday-Tuesday so hopefully that wil make 100 pounds fall off really fast.

Weigh in tonight: keep your fingers crossed for me!

And a Happy Thanksgiving to All!

Just a quick note to say Happy Thanksgiving! One more day of work for me (it should be a pretty easy day!) and then we're off to enjoy the holidays with Ken's fam. This includes the annual Pfiffner women's shopping trip. Who knows what wonderful... or at least interesting ... deals await us. Though I must say I'm not looking forward to the throngs of people. Ugh.

I also wanted to send out a wonderful bit of news...congratulations to friends Nikki and Brian on the arrival of their much-anticipated daughter Hope! We are so happy she arrived safely and is now officially celebrating the holidays with you all!

We're wishing all our friends and family a blessed day on Thursday. Enjoy your time with others and stay safe out there.

A Lot of Hard Work

Today is the first day in a while when both Ken and I have been home and able to get some much-needed work done around the house. I got up bright early around 4:30 a.m. -- but stayed in bed until around 5:30 a.m. -- and decided to get my "mandatory" Saturday exercise in and done for the day. I got on the treadmill downstairs and managed to get in about 50 minutes while watching almost two full episodes of "Sell This House." The good thing about walking and that show is that I desperately need to see the completed versions of the houses and so it makes me keep walking until the end of the show.

While downstairs, I managed to do two loads of laundry and clean the cats' litter box area (sweeping and scooping). Sadly, I discovered much to my dismay that one of the cats had peed in the Kitty Pop Tent and so had to also do a cleaning of the floor and another trip to the garbage to dispose of the now-ruined pop tent. So much for buying them toys! Side note: I must say that my Swiffer Wet Jet is my new favorite cleaning tool for the basement. It's perfect for cleaning and sprucing up a concrete floor after 3 cats.

After that, it was on to the outside where Ken (I made him get out of bed by this point) and I set to work on the yard. It was my goal today to get all the lawn decorations in and get some of the nasty plant stuff put into the yard waste bin. Thankfully, because yesterday was Veterans Day, there was no garbage or yard waste pick up until today, so we managed to get the yard stuff out with about 20 minutes to spare before the truck came around. Victory! Ken went around with the leaf blower/sucker thing and picked up a lot of the loose leaves blowing around. It looks pretty good out there. I should get a fall house picture up to share. Will work on that. Now we just have to get the furniture in the side porch pushed to the middle of the room and covered, and we should be pretty much good to go for winter. Considering we had our first round of snow on Tuesday, we are now aware that this could happen for real anytime.

Tonight we're off to a UNI game with some of Ken's family. His sister Linda is making chicken tortilla soup before the event. Can't wait! Not only do I not have to cook, but I get to have an excuse for not doing any school work for the rest of the day (not like I've started any of course).

On a side note, I thought I'd mention that I've been doing Weight Watchers again for the past 9 weeks or so. My friend Kelly and I decided to do it together. It's so much easier when there's someone who's going through it at the same time. We've been moving steadily along. Kelly hit her 10 pound lost mark on Wednesday, and I hit my 20 pound mark the week before that. My first goal is 25 by Christmas. I'm not looking too far past that at this point. Small goals, right?

A Trip to the Apple Orchards

Yay! I have 2 readers!! Thanks to Susie and Nikki for still checking in on me/us! That does my heart good.

This weekend has so far found us taking off from the Waterloo area and experiencing the fall colors. Sounds corny, I know, but everything looks so good outside and smells like fall all over the place. We took off Friday afternoon after I got done teaching. Ken even left work a little early -- that rarely happens! We headed out to his Dad's to check in and say hi and then were off on the road. We decided to go to this place in Wisconsin called Gays Mills (yes, that's really its name) where it's apple orchard upon apple orchard. Passing through the Mississippi valley area, we saw so many trees changing colors and as we made it toward the orchard areas. I took some pictures but haven't had a chance to get them ready for uploading yet. We ended up getting 2 bags of apples -- honeycrisp and creston (or something that sounds like that). We also bought some fresh squash and apple butter, which I adore!

It was so nice to get away from home and away from thinking about home/school/work. In addition to the students I mentioned in the last blog post, i.e., the zombies, I seem to have some who were especially starved for attention as children. Some follow me around in the room and to my office while others talk over others that I am speaking to just so they can be heard. Then I have some that act like children, okay maybe just one in particular who is so immature. On Friday in class, I had to actually tell him to stop jumping in class. He obviously has ADD/ADHD or something. For example, he almost always comes in late, and then when he does, he tries to bend down as he walks in between me and the class (whom I'm already speaking to as I've begun class). His bending down as he walks in, not out of embarrassment for being late but rather more for attention because he is trying to make it look like he is sneaking past me. Like I can't see this big dude with his baggy clothes and bright green sports jerseys crouching down in front of me. He wears on me and it's a struggle sometimes to go to class knowing he'll be there. In all seriousness, I really thought he was not likely to be here this long into the semester. I know that sounds bad, but early on her gave me the "Just here for the Financial Aid check" vibe. Alas, here we are at midterm and he is still coming in late and doing his jumping jacks in class.

Well, I'm home now and am beat. Tomorrow's a long day of grading and doing all the things I didn't do today. Thanks, friends, for reading. Before I log off, I'm heading over to your blogs to see what you're up to.

Doing Fine!

So, for my faithful reader (so far I know at least Susie is still checking in on me), an update. Ken and I are doing fine. We're just doing our thing: work, home, play, etc. Yesterday, we took a break from each of our work projects (writing soldier evaluations for Ken and planning/grading for me) and went out to Hickory Hills park south of town. It was a great day out, so we wandered around looking at the animals in the wildlife area. Then we went down to the lake and went for a hike. Afterwards, we had dinner at Perkins. I've been trying to eat better, so I stuck with the chicken breast on wild rice with broccoli. It was pretty good, I must confess. Ken stuck to his "tremendous twelve" breakfast platter.

Work is good -- I can't complain. The only thing that's getting me down a bit are the students who just sit there and don't do anything -- don't talk, don't participate, don't pay attention. It seems particularly bad this semester for some reason. Maybe it's just because I had the whole summer off so it seems like a big deal now. I just hate it when they look and act like zombies. It's really just a few here and there; overall, students are all pretty nice.

So, there's really not a whole lot new to report other than to say that life is good and we are blessed. We hope the same is true for all of our friends and family.

Should I change the focus of this blog?

So my new dilemma: is it time to change the focus of this blog? "Cohabitational Life" was meant to be about our new adventures of a couple living together (which those of you who've known us for a while, know was a HUGE accomplishment for us). That said, now we're married and living together (thanks to the military which has almost released him from his 20-year-long duty...just a few months to go!). But now, we've been doing this married/living together thing a while and things seem to have settled into a comfortable routine: work, home, going out, etc. Yeah, Ken and I are not ranking too high on the ole "wild and crazy" scale, but we're perfectly okay with that. Life is good and there is not much we can complain about these days.

That being said, what should be the focus now? In other words, obviously I haven't had a lot to write about lately, so I think I need a new focus to motivate me. Any ideas?

Praise the Lord! I saw the steps!

I was definitely not prepared for the whole dealing with house construction projects part of home ownership. We have successfully completed 3 major home projects this summer with others on the horizon for future years. This year's accomplishment: 1 painted upstairs closet, 1 new Water softener and a set of new front steps. It's awesome having soft water again. I thought I could handle not having it, but now that it's back, I know I'm spoiled and I'm never giving it up again!

The steps. Ugh. The steps. The best I can say right now is they are done and we don't have a gaping hole covered by a blue tarp in the front of our house. Now if the dudes would only come back and get their portable concrete mixer out of my driveway!!! If they aren't back in a week, I'm hiding it behind our house and Ken and I will have fun doing our own home renovation concrete projects. We still want to get the steps sealed and painted brown to match the trim, but I can wait for that as long as we're able to walk up to our front door again. I am a terribly impatient person, and I have decided that any house project that takes over 2 weeks (let alone a month) is 1 week too long.

As for the painted closet -- to anyone who thinks painting a closet is easy...you're wrong! Dang nab it! That was a lot of work. Pull everything out, sand down the rough walls where hanger-type things used to be (70 year old house has seen a lot a changes in terms of closet hanging fixtures), clean sanded closet, cover wood floors, paint walls coats 1 & 2, paint trim coats 1 & 2, touch up areas where painter got sloppy, clean up, rehang wall things, and put stuff away. I managed to accomplish this task for the upstairs hall closet (aka Marcy's sewing/cardmaking supplies closet) in about a week's time. When I began the project, I was all gung ho because there are at least 2, and maybe even 3 or 4, more closets that need painting something fierce. After finishing that one closet, forget it. Maybe Christmas break or next summer.

Still on the horizon: a new roof, new driveway, and new concrete around the pond in the back yard (hey...wouldn't a portable concrete mixer come in handy for that???). We are thinking roof next year and then we'll see about the others. Heck, we've got time, right? We've got time, and I'm tired of house projects (and tired of spending money on house projects).

Always Tired...why?

Why am I always tired? I get plenty of sleep each night, and I sleep soundly too! But every day, at least for the past week or so, I am exhausted by 2 p.m. and seriously just crash on the couch. We're not talking "taking a little nap." No, we're talking lay down, eyes heavy, headachy, and down for the count. Two or three hours later, I open my eyes but feel like I've been drugged. I can hardly get up from the couch. I continue to feel druggy the rest of the evening, so I go to bed, and start the whole process again the next day. I'm baffled.

The bad thing is that I'm supposed to start the AP Reading this week. That means 8 hours a day sitting in hard chair at a big folding table scoring student essays. How am I supposed to stay awake for that?!?!?!

First Day of Summer Class 2011

Twelve students are registered for my summer Writing 1 class. Today was the first day of class, and 7 showed up. Sigh. At least I can say that those 7 were awesome and we had one of the best discussions I've ever had in a writing 1 class (especially considering it was the very first day)! I'm hopeful that this group of students becomes a solid core group and we don't lose anyone. So far, so good!

After a quick trip to Lowes for some paint samples (I need to paint the upstairs hall closet before rehanging shelves from the "great clothing fall" last week) and a few more plants, I made it to my appointment with my financial advisor so as to get all set up for my Roth 403 b account. I know it's all good to set money aside for retirement, but ouch! My paycheck is going to start looking pretty weak pretty fast.

I came home to find the concrete guys working on the front steps. Big Yay!! (finally!). Still not done, but the whole area is starting to look better. The guys got the steps framed but not the concrete poured. One additional hiccup in the process (what is that now? 3?): we had to tear up the walkway leading up to the steps. The reason for this is that there are 2 small steps leading to two short landings on the way to the steps. Apparently, when the builders constructed these in 1940, there was no code for step height, but now there is. Our steps there were significantly shorter, one only measuring only 3 inches! So, after considering the risks of what would happen if someone fell and sued us, etc. etc., we decided to go ahead and replace those too. The cost of replacing them will be significantly less than any other cost possibly incurred. While our old steps would be technically "grandfathered" into meeting code, the fact that we replaced part of the walkway and the steps would make one question why we didn't just correct the other hazards at that time. Now we will only have 1 step up to a landing before the main steps to the door. And so, more breaking up of concrete, more dirt everywhere, more time, and of course, more money.

A Lovely Memorial Day Weekend Underway

The Memorial Day weekend has officially begun! We started the weekend off by celebrating Ken's niece, Elizabeth's, graduation from CF High School at her open house on Saturday. The food was amazing and the decor just right! Kudos to the family for all their hard work. It looked great!

Then just as things at the open house were getting into full swing, Ken and I jetted off to get ready for friends Josh and Emily's wedding. What a beautiful event! The sun came out just in time to add to the lovely day of celebrating. It was wonderful to see the Simon family again and enjoy good food and dancing. Cheers to Josh and Emily for a wonderful new beginning together!

Once we petered out of dancing at the wedding (we are getting old after all), we headed home to rest and enjoy the marathon of Memorial Day military movies on TV. We watched (and nearly finished) Apocalypse Now. That was my first time watching that, and "yikes" is about all I can say. This morning, I caught the end of From Here to Eternity and Ken picked up a bit of MacArthur. We're both taking a break from the TV now so as to get work done. For me, this means catching up on some laundry and working on my summer course materials. For him, it means hiding in the den working away at emails and "paper shuffling."

Tomorrow will be a birthday party for a friend's daughter and then maybe a trip to a few cemeteries. Of course at this time of the year we cannot help but also think about the tornado that came through Parkersburg just three years ago this weekend. Watching the devastation of other areas of the country, including Joplin, have caused us to relive some of those feelings again. We pray for the people who are going through such a difficult time now.

We wish everyone a safe and relaxing Memorial Day weekend. Most importantly, please remember those who are gone, those who have served, and those who are currently serving. God bless.

Weeds, weeds, and more weeds.

Concrete dude came back today which made me really happy! There was no rain in sight for today, so I was very hopeful that I'd see something resembling steps appearing in the front of my house. No such luck. Shortly after arriving and pounding around out there, he came to tell me that it was still too wet out there to do anything. Crap! He also said that he's so backed up on other jobs he has due to the weather, that he's going to have the other two guys that were there the other day come next week to finish the job. This is fine with me. I don't care who finishes it as long as I don't have to live with a hole in front of my house for much longer.

Because the weather was so nice out today, I spent most of the day outside working on landscaping issues, namely weeds. My neighbor Keith, who is a Master Gardener, shared some ideas with me. Basically, I wanted him to walk around the house with me and tell me what are weeds and what aren't. He came through and so today I went around with a wheel barrow, hedge trimmers, and some gardening gloves. I chopped down a big ole weed bush structure in front of the house, so that looks better. Then I worked my way around the side to where the screen porch is and began hacking into a similar weed bush. What a pain in the you-know-what! Oh man! I really shouldn't have let that thing go so outrageous. That sucker has roots all over the place, some that I could pull up easily and others that are, I swear, weighed down with anchors. I even tried digging them up which didn't make so much as a dent.

Finally, I got sick of doing that. I actually got light-headed and so gave it up for the day and went in for a rest. I ended up falling asleep on the couch for a couple of hours. Vile weeds! You won that round, but I'll be back... I just hope they don't grow back over night.

House Projects Galore!

...and so let the house projects begin! Last week, we got the water softener purchased and installed. Culligan really came through for us and I'm already enjoying softer water. Sadly, I'm not into the taste and so there may be an adjustment made for the cold drinking water. I hate to make the guy come back and do that, but then again, I don't want to keep buying water at the store either.

Then the very next day, the guy we chose to replace our front steps started in on that lovely project. He managed to get the steps out, but not before we had a minor moment of panic wondering if the bricks on the archway were part of a support beam/foundation for the house. The bad part of that is that some of those bricks are crumbling and he was worried about what could happen if we get too far into the project. After two more people arrived to check it out, we got the go-ahead to keep tearing things apart. The job ended up being somewhat bigger than expected (go figure!) as we had to also tear our part of the sidewalk in front of the steps in order to get them out easier. That'll raise the cost a bit, and we may even need to take out more of the sidewalk later to meet code. Sigh.

That was an exhausting day! Dealing with the possibility of losing the front part of my house was more than I was prepared to deal with. We've now had a nice bout of rain since the steps went bye-bye, so the dude hasn't come back to work on the project. Instead of steps, we have a blue tarp covering a large hole. Oh, and that same day, I also had to run to Menards to get a mailbox to attach to the railing outside the steps so that we can continue to have our mail delivered while we await the return of construction dude and the re-pouring of our steps. I am not exactly one to figure out how to attach a thing, so my fix may not be the most beautiful, but it is functional. Wondering what I did? Two words: Bungee Cord!

Next project on the horizon: a new roof. Ugh. The thought of getting into that one isn't even something I want to think about right now. We've had some good recommendations from others though so that's a positive. I'm not sure if we'll actually do the roof this summer, but I have a feeling it will need to be done sooner rather than later given the look of it and the ice dams we had last winter.

Ah, the wonders of home ownership! Perhaps I should revise that to say "the wonders of 70-year old home ownership." It seems that as we dig into projects like these, confusion ensues thanks to the previous owners of this 70-year old gem we call home. We love the house, but whoa! So far, we've learned about some crazy wiring in the basement and some funky strange pipes leading to God knows where in our basement ceiling. We still have some mystery cords plugged in places in the basement that appear to be coming from a distant part of the house, or dare I say it, maybe even outside.

I'm just hopeful that during one of these house projects I will discover a million dollars or some crazy good treasure hidden somewhere in the fireplace, in the wall, the basement ceiling, the garage loft, or the sewing room attic cubbie! I'm ready to call Geraldo to come broadcast the experience.

End of my 3rd year

Well, I've made it to the end of my probationary period at work! Woo Hoo! I don't know that such a feat will actually change anything, but it feels good to know I've made it that far.

Things here are fine. Ken and I are dealing with house issues, namely the fact that we need to replace our front steps. What an ordeal! Quotes, quotes, and more quotes! Naturally, I would have gone with the first one and just gotten it over with, but being the savvy consumer he is, Ken checked around until he found a real deal. I just hope that it isn't too much of a "deal" (you get what you pay for is playing in my head as I write this).

Add to that the fact that we're also working on getting a new water softener and need to think about some gutter repairs and a new roof. I don't think all of this needs to happen at once, but it does seem a bit overwhelming when one puts it all together. Welcome to home ownership I guess.

Resolutions for 2011

The first day of classes is done. Overall, I have to say it went pretty well. I'm excited to say that I should be getting a new HP tablet laptop which will make grading in a paperless fashion much easier! That should arrive in a couple of weeks...or whenever the school orders it. One of my goals for the semester is to try to reduce the paper used in my classes. The laptop will help with this because it has a stylus feature that will allow me to actually "write" on the paper and save it for students. I've done this by placing all reading quizzes online. Now I just need to get the students to remember to get on there and do them.

Here are my other goals for 2011 -- some are work-related and some aren't.

1. Be more ahead in my course planning and in my grading.

2. Walk 3 times a week-- MWF mornings -- for at least 30 minutes on the treadmill.

3. Take a multivitamin every day.

So far, I am pleased to say that I am doing good on all of them. I tried to set my resolutions to be very manageable this year and not to say "I want to lose 70 pounds" or something like that which will discourage me early on. I started the walking at the end of December so it wasn't like I had to get going on Jan. 1. Even though it was the first day of classes, I managed to get up at 5 and walk.

Not much else new here. Another day of first classes for the Writing II students tomorrow. I have several in my Writing II class who were in my Writing I last semester. I hope that is a good thing. Sometimes it can go either way. More on that later.