Merry Christmas!

Well, believe it or not, we are all still alive. Following my birthday and Thanksgiving, I jumped into finishing the semester and thought I was not going to survive. Not only am I teaching more classes this semester, but the smallest class has 30 or so students and several have 49 students. Of course, I assign writing projects (not that I like to grade them, but the students must learn to write). All projects, papers, exams, make-up work, etc. all came crashing down on me and I found myself working day and night to get my grades in. There were even two night where I worked all night, getting home in time for Keri to leave for work at 5:45 am. I am happy to say that I survived and got all my grades in by the deadline. I read every word of every paper, made appropriate comments, referred many to the Harding writing lab, counseled several students to seek other majors, advised many new majors (since it appears I have become the CSD advisor for this semester). This semester has not been the best example of my skill, but it demonstrates determination in that I made it in every day without a nervous breakdown. We truly have some great students in the pipeline.

The Russian Santa in the photo was painted by Ms. O. It was one of three (Australian and Norwegian are the other two) that she painted and left for all the families at Just Desserts, Keri's annual Christmas dessert party. We were able to pull it off, even though we had not started decorating at 10:00 on Friday morning. By Saturday night, we had everything in place and were ready to go. Of course, invitations were by word of mouth since that was one more thing we didn't get done. (Tammie, we realized that we hadn't called, but it is always the Saturday of graduation.) Ian had done an amazing job helping out and I am so proud of him. It was so hot, we had turned our air conditioner on in hopes of being able to build a fire (a Christmas tradition) but we had to turn on all the fans just to keep people cool. Certainly not Christmas weather. Unfortunately, the Weavers and Ms. O. were unable to be there since they were suffering through Christmas at the Villa in Scandicci. Ms. O's ornaments were the hit of the evening and we were sad she wasn't here. However, we are happy she is enjoying Italy.

I am frantically trying to get Christmas shopping done. We are planning a nice Christmas no matter what and intend to enjoy ourselves. We wish for all of you a most blessed Christmas. God has blessed us all so greatly and this is a good time to look around and acknowledge him for his mercy and love!