School has started

This is the first time since I can remember that college has started before public schools. I know it's not the case everywhere, but here at Baylor we started on Monday. I didn't even realize we were starting this early until a few weeks ago and so I have been frantically scrambling to put together syllabi, assignments, and readings. It's been a crazy few weeks in terms of school, that's for sure!

I'm teaching on Tues/Thur this semester, which I absolutely LOVE--not because of the two day a week schedule (although that's nice, too), but because the hour and a half classes fit writing courses much better than the 50 minute ones. I'm teaching two courses, which I taught last year, and so this go-around hasn't been as difficult since I've already taught them at least once. So, we're off to a good start.

Elizabeth is as sweet as ever. She has started talking to herself in third person, and it is really cute. The other day she was sitting in the chair at my desk coloring and was bending over to get a crayon and almost fell out of the chair. At the same time, she says, "Whoa, Whee-Biz." (Note that "Elizabeth" is a very hard word for young toddlers to say and so she has commenced to calling herself "Whee-Biz." When we call her "Whee-Biz," she replies, "No, I'm Whee-Biz." :)

Lately, Elizabeth has wanted to "cook dinner" (no matter what time of day or what meal we're about to eat!). She loves to help out and be useful. She will pull one of the kitchen chairs over to the counter and do whatever needs to be done. She also loves to help bring in the groceries and put them where they go. She even wants to help with the laundry. She hasn't quite gotten the picking up thing down, but I don't think that's too far off (we have to do better at it first!!).

Things with the church plant are coming along nicely. We are still in Gatesville until December and then we move to Waco. So, that means that this is my last semester of commuting to Baylor. Yippee!! It really hasn't been too bad. I have a lot of time to get ready for the transition from home to work or work to home, whichever the case may be. I listen to books on tape or to the radio, which is nice. And I really like driving. Growing up, many of you know that we lived about 30 minutes from our school and our church--30 minutes without traffic, that is! Most of the time it took between 45 minutes to one hour, except on Sundays when the traffic was pretty light. So, the driving part hasn't been as bad as I thought (and for the fact that I only come in 3 days a week!).

Well, we had a nice, enjoyable summer. I enjoyed being home (even though I had a sabbatical and had to research/write a lot). We got to spend a lot of time together and do some fun things. I'm actually very tan right now, mainly from our trip to Italy, but I haven't seen my arms this brown in years (I look like so many of the college students around here who are so very dark!). Except I was actually in the sun. Ha! So, now I'm ready for a new school year and all that this year will bring. Hope you're having a fantastic day!