Where have I been?

Hello blogger friends. Do you remember me? It's been awhile. I don't know where the month of January went. Here's some of what's been taking up my time.

WORK: Early in January, classes started again for me, and all of the chaos at the beginning of the semester came with it. I'm teaching 3 classes again, but 1 of them is a new class for me, so it has been a lot of extra prep work. My students come from a variety of countries again: Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, China, Poland, Qatar, Honduras, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Thailand, and Libya. Finally, after 4 weeks of classes, I think things have calmed down. I still have a lot of prep work with the new class, but at least most of the student issues have calmed down.

TRAVEL: Two weeks ago I was able to escape to Dallas for the 3rd year of my wives retreat. This is a part of the 4 years of leadership training Scott has embarked upon, but this time it was only the wives that gathered for a short weekend. It was so nice to trade in the winter weather for 65 degree temperatures. The weather was beautiful, but more importantly, the time with the other women was great. I traveled out with one other woman from Utah and then met up with my small group for most of the weekend. Our theme was Back...to the Future. We reflected on how we have seen God at work in our past, present, and looked ahead to the future (goal setting, etc.). I was amazed at how much God spoke to me through His Word (the Bible) in just a mere 3 days.

AWARDS: MacKenzie over at the BRC gave me my first blog award. It was a few weeks ago now, and if she would have known how delinquent I would have been this month, she may have thought twice about giving me an award. Nevertheless, she said my part of the blog is lovely with all the pictures of the mountains.

MEETINGS: Yes, I have had meetings galore. With budget cuts looming from the state legislature, we have been meeting and planning and meeting and proposing where we could take cuts in our department. Things look pretty grim (330-660 people losing their jobs), and only time will tell where cuts are made and if our department is even left standing. I'm not so worried about losing my job if our dept. remains, but if they decide we are not a necessary part of our institution, then I am gone. In a time of so much uncertainty, I am trying to remain hopeful and optimistic. I know God will continue to provide for us as He did in such an amazing way with my current job.

There you have it, folks. That's some of what I've been doing in January. I hope I don't remain this busy because I have so many ideas to post. I hope I have the time to do so.