After spending a few days in an I can't believe I'm done stupor, I've been working hard around the house. I devoted a ton of time on Monday to my flower bed out front. All the work Mom and I did was undone by pesky weeds that needed yanking. I wound up gently retilling everything - only this time I had to do it around existing plants! What a pain! I got all the weeds out and put down some mulch to keep them from coming back as bad. I hope it works.

Here are some images of the front bed. My gerber daisies are healthy, but they only shoot up one flower at a time right now. Grrr.... I also have a ton of bulbs that should be coming up soon. That's why there's so much empty space in there - in a month I bet it'll be really pretty. It had better be!

And there was much rejoicing. aaaaa......... As I expected, yesterday's milestone was much more dramatic. I just finished entering my grades, which makes me feel good, but I'm still surrounded by work. I have bajillions of graded papers scattered on the floor in various rooms that need recycling. I have a list of students who wanted to be notified of their grades via email, which will take a while. All the materials I pulled out of file folders to help me grade need re-filing. The list goes on... I am mostly just exhausted. Things got a little hairy in that last hour, but I got everything in after checking and rechecking.

I don't mean to whine - I'm happy to be finished. I'm just not yet at thrilled. It'll take a while to hit me. Maybe tomorrow after I have a chance to tidy up I'll feel more like celebrating. I hope everyone has a happy weekend!

Hooray! I'm (kind of) done! I gave my last final this morning, so all I have to do is finish grading. Since I won't teach there again until the spring semester, I went ahead and packed up all my office stuff to bring home and turned in my keys. It was like clearing out a classroom at the end of the year - fun yet just a little sad. I drove away knowing I won't be back for a long time. We can submit our grades online, which saves me the 45 minute commute. I've been doing really well on my grading this week and I don't think I'll have any problems getting everything done by 5pm tomorrow. Ask me at 4:30, though.....

I'm glad to be done. With the exception of my crazy guy, I've really enjoyed my students this semester. However, it only takes a few.... I had more emails this week and last from panicky students to the effect of "I know I haven't been to class or done any of the work or passed any of the tests, but I really need a C in this course. Can you pass me?" I'm used to this, but not in this volume. Unreal! And yes, I told them all to go jump in a lake (well, much more diplomatically than that, but you get the point). Tomorrow it's all over. Yay!!!!

We had a remarkably quiet weekend here. Lots of working in the yard and running errands, but no place we had to be. It was lovely. I'm finally starting to see some progress in my garden and flower bed, although it's slow. I made dinner for Tracie and Sean (and, of course, Brad) on Saturday night and was so excited to go out and cut off some fresh herbs from the garden to rub on the pork roast. Yum!

Below is the fruit (and vegetable) of my labors. I was so excited to have my first green pepper sprout, but Tracie said I had to pull it off. Something about making the future peppers stronger. She knows a lot more about this than I do, so I yanked it. I did the same for our first strawberry. They're both so small, but they're honest-to-goodness edible things I grew. I think I'm going to like this gardening thing! I have some tidying up to do next weekend, and then I'll take some pictures and post them.

Argh! I just found out that final grades are due much earlier than I thought! Last semester, we had until the Monday after exams to get grades in, but this time they're due on Friday! I give two finals on Tuesday and collect a major paper and give one final on Thursday. Did I mention I don't believe in multiple choice, so all three tests are essay?!!!! The bad news is - next week is going to suck. The good news is, by 5pm on Friday, I'm done with my semester. So I guess it'll be okay. Like pulling a band-aid off quickly - painful, but then it's over. I had planned to spend the weekend grading at a leisurely pace, but I'll be able to spend the weekend playing instead. Can you tell I'm reaching for the silver lining? :)

So, do you remember my crazy finger-pointing rude student I wrote about a couple of weeks ago? We've been getting along fine since then - staying out of each other's way. He comes to class almost defiantly and reads the textbook instead of listening to the lecture or he sleeps ( he's slept through many classes this semester). I don't make a fuss about either thing. My tests are based on lectures and so I figure if someone sleeps through it, they're shooting themselves in the foot - it's their problem - they're adults. And, I have so few students who sleep, I don't take it personally.

Well, this morning he was really tired b/c he came in and fell asleep before class even started and did the head-bobbing thing pretty bad. He sits in the very last row and about halfway through class, got in one really good bob and cracked his head against the back wall. I have to admit to being unprofessional - I chuckled. So did the rest of the class. Serves the bugger right.

Another fabulous activity-filled weekend! Friday, I broke down and went to an honest-to-goodness maternity clothes store and cleaned them out. I've been trying to get by on a couple of things here and there and very little fits anymore. I found really comfortable clothes and I wore them yesterday for the first time and felt genuinely put-together and not frumpy.

Saturday, more yard work. I put some finishing touches on my front plant bed and finally planted my veggie/herb garden on the side of the house. It will probably be July before I'll get any real veggies out of it, but I hope it works! Brad found out about a garage sale on the next street, so we wandered over and came home very happy. For $25, I got a perfect condition Sealy crib mattress and a Laura Ashley bedding set (in the color I wanted anyway). Man, I love these military families! I can totally understand why they don't want to keep this stuff and haul it across the country all the time.

We were glad we got in the yard work when we did b/c it's been raining/storming since Saturday night! At one point, when I was singing in church Sunday morning (as in, standing at the ambo by myself singing a song) a clap of thunder/lightning knocked out the power temporarily, plunging the church into darkness. It was really funny! You could tell the altar servers thought it was the coolest thing that had ever happened in church in their lifetimes. The power came back on right away, we all had a good laugh about God's sense of humor, and went back to what we were doing. I hope that wasn't God's editorial commentary on my singing.... I'm trying not to take it personally. :)

We had friends over for dinner last night - I made a yummy oven brisket to get us in the summer mood. Today, it's back to work. Just two classes left and then finals are next week. Hooray!!!!

Yikes! I've been gone awhile. Lots has happened so I'm going to have sqeeze as much as I can. Saturday was uber-fun. Brad and I hit a mega yard sale on the army post and came home with a bassinet! It's what I was really hoping to find. They can get pretty pricey and the baby only sleeps in it for the first few weeks, so I was hoping to find a nice used one. This was only $15!!! It needs to be cleaned up a bit, but it's sturdy and mostly clean and will be perfect for the 6-ish weeks the wee one will actually use it. It frees up my money to spend elsewhere. Here's a picture of it. Shadow couldn't resist checking it out. :)

Brad and our friend, Sean, worked on our deck later that day. It was in really bad shape, so they sanded and restained the whole thing! It looks so much nicer now. While the guys did that, Sean's wife Tracie and I went shopping at a local nursery for plants. I'm trying so hard to have a garden this year. When mom was in town, she helped me clear out my front landscaping bed (it was in BAD shape) to be redone. I could kick myself for not taking a before picture. After I bought a bunch of stuff with her and with Tracie on Saturday, I spent Sunday planting bulbs and already-started flowers. The herb/veggie lasagna garden is my project for this weekend. I'll get pictures up when there's something to see.

Whew! That's the weekend update (on Wednesday, but whatever....). Enjoy the pics. I cut off the tops of each b/c I was in such a hurry. Neither the cat nor the boys would stay still long enough for me to get a good shot!