Neverending Semester

I thought my fall break would revitalize me and it did for that week and a few days and now it has all come piling back up again. Last weekend I took home papers to grade that were a total of 3 inches thick. I managed to spend a lot of my weekend grading papers to then on Monday give three more tests and continue my pile.

I don't know which is the worst part...the fact that I bring my work home at night and on the weekends or just the fact of grading papers.

Work is just getting the best of me this semester and I am once again looking forward to the end in just 6 more weeks....ahhhhhhhh. Then I can get some good sleep.

Did I mention that this morning I tripped over my computer laptop cord in my office which pulled my laptop crashing down to the floor... :) I have a huge crack in it now and broke a piece off...a couple buttons now are broken. One of my colleges has volunteered to bring it home with him to try and repair everything. Hopefully come Monday, it will be healed.

On the positive side of things, it is Friday and EZ and I are taking a mini vacation down to Myrtle Beach over Thanksgiving. Just us, to get away and relax at the beach, should be a fun time!

Michigan Vaca

I had a nice fall break last week. Nice to get away and have a mini vacation. It started with my great friend Matt coming to visit. We went to a not so great US laser show at UNC followed by a lot of drinking, a great Arkansas vs Florida game, an extrmemely fun corn maze in the dark and then a drive up to Michigan through the beautiful fall changing colors. Then we spent a couple days fishing, a trip to Hell and then into Ann Arbor to try the fragels (deep fried bagels).

After that EZ flew up and we had some family time and then a trip to the Big House to watch UM lose to Penn State. We had great seats and it was fun to go tailgate and to see a game in the stadium but too bad that they lost, it was a bummer.

I had lots of fun and now it is back to work. Here are a few pics from the week:


EZ and I about to enter the corn maze



Matt and I inside the maze



What the maze actually looked like (we looked at it later)


Matt caught a fish!


Fishing away in the sunshine



A stop in Hell!


Yummy Fragels!



Before the game.

What HPU is up to

In case you wondered about where I work...here is what they were up to yesterday afternoon.

NYSE-Closing Bell

Me Time

When life just gets so busy, doesn't everyone need "me time". I have felt like my world is on fast forward and I can't keep up. For the past two weeks or so I have been going and going and going nonstop, not really having any time for myself. I have gotten behind in grading in lesson planning on running, on everything.

Most days I don't even know what day it is. For example, yesterday (Monday right) I told my class I would see them Friday, to which they responded "we don't have class Wed?" This is my world right now is what I keep telling myself. I was planning on going to a conference at NCSU this weekend but I think I might forgo that to some much needed downtime. Any suggestions on what I should do if I find some time for myself?

Tired and Sore

Every inch of me hurts and is tired. I spent literally all weekend shoveling dirt and planting plants. I seriously mean almost 9 hours on Saturday with a break for lunch and another 6 hours yesterday.

EZ rented a sod cutter Sat morning and dug up strips of sod on the one side of our house, I helped him roll it up and then he wheelbarrowed it over to the back part where he had jackhammered out the rock. So now we have grass back there. While he was doing that I dug up all the sod he couldn't get out with the sod cutter, the part right up against the house and all around our air conditioning units. He also cut up some strips in the back where the patio is going to be. After lunch I started planting...so far, 2 rhododendron, 3 azaleas, 1 camellia and 4 hostas on the one side from the air conditioners to the front corner that was a lot of digging holes and filling in with dirt!

Yesterday I dug up spots back around the edge of the deck and transplanted back the daylillies and all the gladiolas around the deck and started my garden. I planted 2 thornless blackberry bushes and 2 raspberry plants, I had 1 eggplant, 1 tomato and 5 yellow squash plants so I put all those in too. Another long day of shoveling A LOT of clay dirt out, since I used all garden soil and a good top 3 inches of soil as well.

Tonight will be planting one more rhododendron, 3 more hostas and 2 emerald green thuja trees (like a cypress on the one side of the house) and one more skinny pencil holly at the corner of the deck by the stairs and then the planting is practically done!!! Did I then mention that all the mulch gets delivered tomorrow so tomorrow night will be more shoveling?? :)

I'll post some pictures after it is finished in a few days.

Recent Readings

I have been on a books on CD kick lately driving back and forth to work and then have read quite a few books recently. Not sure the last time I posted what books I have read but I don't know if I mentioned the Time Traveler's Wife which was our last months book club pick. I really liked the book a lot but about half of the group didn't like it at all saying it was to unrealistic. Hmmmm....seems like most books (as well as movies) are pretty unrealistic. It is about imagination right!!

Then someone passed along a couple girly books: Girls in Trucks which was a highly amusing story about a debutant in Charleston and being brought up as a girl in a high society kind of family but does a little rebellion of her own. Then I read the Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing which was another story about a girl and growing up and her struggles with life and learning about different aspect of life. Both were entertaining and I enjoyed them, not in any way "deep".

On the CD front in my quest to "read" more classics I listened to The Great Gatsby, The Five People you Meet in Heaven, and Hamlet. I don't think I ever read the Great Gatsby but I actually enjoyed it and the interesting characteristics of Gatsby himself and was glad that I listened to it. The 5 people you meet in heaven I really enjoyed and found Mitch Album's writing style soothing. I enjoyed the interwoven stories throughout the book and how the 5 people he met were not necessarily people he knew. Last up I listened to Hamlet. First of all, I don't think listening to a play is a good idea, let alone a Shakespeare play. The wording alone is someone confusing and not being able to see the words made it difficult as well as knowing who was talking. The reader did a decent job explaining who was saying what but not always. I have never read Hamlet but I thought it was a great story plot and think I would have enjoyed it more if I had read it.

Currently I am reading Hunting Eichmann, a true story about the search/capture of Adolf Eichmann, one of the top ranking German SS Officers from WW2 who eluded capture for 15 years. It is a little slow but I am really enjoying learning about what was going on and just the details of his life and how he and others thought. I am also listening to Something Borrowed Something Blue...another fluffy book, which I felt I needed after Gatsby and Hamlet.

Happy Readings!

Deck Progress

The deck is coming along. Still not quite finished but extremely close. EZ is finishing the railing right now but the trim on the outside of the deck still needs to go up and he has to cut the posts down and put the caps on. After that the deck is done and then he will have to worry about fixing up the house where our old deck was. We ordered more siding and trim for the house from where we ripped out the old deck and EZ also has to build some fake fireplace framing on the outside since our deck sits about 6 inches lower then the framing for our current fireplace. But we will definitely be able to enjoy the deck next weekend (if the weather holds). Now I just need to go patio furniture shopping! Enjoy the updated pictures!

The Deck with the base boards down:



View from the door on the house: (you can kind of see the angled corners of the deck)


EZ's detailed stairs out of the house to the deck:


Part of the railing: (We have little detailed baskets every few balusters):


Stairs leading off the deck to the side of the house: