This is not a recent picture obviously, but I love it nonetheless!
And since "all" of my readers have been "clamoring" for an update, here it is!

We have a nephew now, Colton Eli. He is very cute, and almost four weeks old! We are excited to see him and his parents again in early Feb.

My parents are moving here in March!

I am buried under mountains of schoolwork but am confident that I will emerge unscathed in late April. phew. Looking forward to that day for sure.

Last round of papers for the semester

Once again, a student has enlightened me and I must share with you so that you can be enlightened, too:

"In the today's world the male society between the ages of 18 and 25 years old are some of the most observant and intriguing people when it comes to the viewing of women body, and love nothing more than just to sit back and enjoy the great creation that god put on the earth with us."

Aside from the oddly placed words and grammatical errors, there are so so many things that I want to say to this. Unfortunately my poor husband has passed his ability to be observant and intriguing. But then I am stunned by a later sentence:

"The ad makes the male wanted to do nothing but sit around all day and just look at the Hanes magazine and think about how much Hanes stuff he is going to wear next time he goes out at night."

So this is what college has devolved to since I graduated...
And finally,

"Another way that the image catches the attention of the male society is that she is showing a little skin and guys like when girls show a little skin."

I wrote "consider your audience" and "a little problematic in an academic essay." Pretty generous, I think, when I could have written something much more heated (I'll leave you to imagine this).

St. Maarten

Here is a picture from where we have been for the last 10 days or so. We traveled to St. Maarten with my parents and sister and had an absolute blast playing in the sun and on the water, playing cards, and eating lots of delicious food. It was fun to have family time that was (relatively) relaxed and leisurely since we didn't have events to plan for or things to do. Kudos and many thanks to Mom and Dad for a fun trip!

I plan to put up a lot more pictures in the next few weeks, though unfortunately my Cute New Haircut turned into CRAZYHAIR for the whole week and as such, most pictures will be of Thomas or various creatures.

I will also be posting about Christmas and the fun we are having decorating our house for the first time. And I have my last round of papers to grade coming up shortly, so I am sure to have some gems to share.

A Quick Story

Last night I am lying in bed reading and winding down at the end of the day. Thomas was in our "den"/hangout room (we don't really have a good name for it yet) finishing up some work stuff. I'm turning pages, feeling nice and relaxed, when all of a sudden two things dawn on me: 1. I can no longer hear Thomas in the other room and 2. The floor between our room and the hallway is creaking ominously. Taking both of these things into account, I offer up a "Thomas?" in a voice loud enough to be heard in the other room since I am assuming he is still in there. In response I get a meek and mild response of "Yes?" I peer up and over the edge of the bed and lo and behold, there is Thomas, on all fours in the doorway to our room, peering up at me with a grin circa little boyhood. It was an absolutely priceless look and I cracked up immediately. The whole idea of "Look it's me! I'm so cute and lovable!" He then explains that his plan was to crawl to the bed and then leap onto it in order to get the "maximum scare effect." Since I "ruined his plan" by somehow presciently catching on to what was going on, his next house "project" is to rip up the carpet and keep the floorboards from squeaking. While I doubt this will happen, you can be sure that he will figure out a way to be stealthier next time. I am practicing steeling my nerves already.
So, kids--who needs 'em? Not me!

bits from the classroom

Okay faithful reader(s),
It is that time in the semester again. Ah yes, another round of student papers. I am only on my second of 23 (one student has elected to offer a list of cobbled together excuses as to why he has not turned one in instead of actually writing one), but I am reasonably certain that nothing will top paper #2. nothing, nothing, nothing.

Gem #1: " I believe the painting shows an individual taking a hit on the crack pipe." In my comments, my goal is to gently guide the student to an understanding of why you cannot just drop sentences like this into the middle of a paragraph with zero warning and zero analysis. Wish me luck.

Gem #2 (Really, this one is a treasure trove): "The painting definitely suggests that crack is wack."
As I was grading, I instinctively put brackets around the sentence, but I honestly have no clue what to do with this sentence. I'm hoping that inspiration will strike later.

On an up note, I am really starting to enjoy the students in the class and class has been going well. Yesterday there was almost a fist fight* because one student said that all middle easterners filled him with hate and terror, and another student "mildly objected" to this statement, but hey, that's what the classroom is for.

*verbal, not literal. Thank goodness.

an observation

You know you married someone from Clemson when....









you could do an entire load of laundry for orange items.

fall merriment

Here is a picture of Thomas from Halloween two years ago. Notice the wide grin and FIRE. We are hosting a Halloween party this year (my how things change in a short amount of time!), and Thomas' first contribution to party planning was "Well it's a good thing that we have a nice wide street in front of the house. And lots of lighters. That way, we can easily light everyone's pumpkin on fire in the street!"
This is how I understand it: pumpkins=fun.
anything+ fire= lots and lots of fun

I'll be happy to let him handle that part...I will just enjoy playing with the goopy pumpkin stuff and probably do mature things like pretending it's alive, eating my hands, etc.




On a completely unrelated note, I just finished chewing 7 pieces of gum. In one hour. And each piece was divided in half. (you do the math).
Yikes. I think this is why I usually don't buy gum. My jaw would probably go on strike if I did (can't you just see all the muscles and tendons holding tiny picket signs?)