Much to the chagrin of family and friends who are living where it is still snowing, we went to the beach yesterday. It was still a bit brisk (I took a hoodie), but it was otherwise quite pleasant. After church today, we sat out by the bay, which was even nicer. While there was no sand, it was warmer because the breeze doesn't come off the bay as strongly as it does the gulf.
I'm writing this as I wait for the dryer to buzz. The house has hit its mid-semester mess, and frankly, we have a lot of work to do in our living room to make it liveable again. Dear Husband is doing all the heavy lifting (both literally and figuratively), and frankly, I feel a bit useless. I get a little dizzy if I stand for too long--my classes are beginning to get used to me teaching sitting down most of the time--so he's certainly doing things like washing dishes, and he mopped all the downstairs this week too. He's a good husband.
Last night, UK played Notre Dame in a real nail biter. He watched about two minutes and went upstairs, and I watched until the end of the first half, at which point, I couldn't deal with it any longer, and figuring that no pregnant woman needed to be that stressed about a basketball game, turned it off. DH actually went to Walmart not long before the end of the game so he wouldn't be obsessively checking the score.
I had conferences with all my 1302 students this week, and while I've said this on my Facebook this week, if you have even thirty seconds, pray for one of my students who is having a very, very rough time right now. Conferences with 1301 students takes place this week, and I have some midterms to return to my British Lit class (they turned in papers last week too, and they were also very nice. I was pleased).
But we're getting closer and closer to the end of the semester. My 1302 students turn in their annotated bibliographies on Monday, and I, personally, am crossing my fingers that none of them forget a major component to it, as they don't get to revise and turn things back in after they've been graded anymore, so failing the assignment would be a big blow to a grade if they forget something. I've been trying to stress reading the instructions, but I don't know how much of that is actually going in. I told them that if they needed me to look at an entry, I would, but I've not had a single email, which isn't particularly encouraging. On the other hand, maybe they've all figured this out perfectly and aren't having the least bit of trouble with it! (I just checked, and only one has been turned in thus far. Nope, not encouraging at all.)
In other news, I had two committee meetings on Friday--the program review committee, which meets every week now until the end of the semester, and the department development committee. The program review is going very well, I think--what we're learning is that, yeah, we're just as awesome as we thought. :) In all seriousness, while the department is doing a good job, I think we're going to have some recommendations that will mean that we do an even better job moving forward, and the department development committee came up with a lot of great ideas for colloquia and things that we can discuss together as a faculty to also better serve our students. I find this awesome, too, because it's nice for us to know that we have a plan to continue improving, and that's really helpful.
I had a check up for Mogo this week, and all is looking good. Her little heart is just beating away, and I am starting to feel her move a little bit. This morning, we made it to church for the first time in a while (and isn't it a lot easier to have Palm Sunday in a place where there are actually palm trees, rather than snow!), and one of the first things the priest said was that "Now we'll have a Baby Jesus for the Christmas pageant!" I also felt Mogo kick the hardest I've felt--there was no denying that it was, in fact, a kick--when the organ started up this morning. I laughed. I couldn't help it, because right after that first note, wham! Apparently, she likes church.
The last bit of news is that it's time for Camp NaNoWriMo. To keep people writing throughout the year, National Novel Writing Month (November), gets a boost during April and July (I think it's July), where people can set their own word counts and go from there. I've signed up with a daily word count of 500 words, and we'll see if I can make it.
I've just heard the dryer buzz, so it must be time to end this post. We're hitting the busy point of the semester, and this may be the last day I have without grading piled up on my desk, so I'm going to enjoy it.
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