Allie's visit and an early Easter egg hunt?
Study abroad prep?
Scholarship applications?
My basement?
Easter?
Life as a BYU professor and mom is still very, very busy. It's also very, very good!
Allie has a new job as a flight attendant. As a result, she has flight benefits and can fly for free. I have flight benefits, but I don't fly for free. I pay a small fee to fly. Allie came home in mid-March, so we decided to gather for dinner and surprise her with an early Easter egg hunt. I didn't get any pictures because I was just enjoying being with all the kids. According to my count, they found all but 10 of the eggs, but I haven't found any, so I have no idea if they found them all or not. Oh well. When I mentioned our Easter egg hunt, someone asked me "remind me...how many grandkids do you have?" My answer, "I don't have grandkids. The Easter egg hunt is for my adult kids." We love it.
We are pretty much planned for study abroad and the prep class is going great. The students are receptive and their designer presentations have been fantastic so far. We found out that we have some extra money. We'll use it for some group meals and emergencies. The School of Family Life was very generous to help offset the cost for our students by $1500. Melia has applied for 5 scholarships. She's heard from 4 so far and has received over $9000 in financial aid for study abroad. All along she said she wasn't going to pay for any of it...she was right. I'm really excited about what we have planned for the students. Natalie and I prayerfully worked on room assignments today and everything is working out great. It's been a ton of work. I'll be honest,..I'll be kinda glad when it's over and we have a year off. We literally started planning just a couple of months after getting home. It's time for a rest.
Part of my responsibilities as an advisor for SFLSA is to help read scholarship applications. I have been assigned to read 24 applications and to give them a score based on their answers. Then the directors of each program uses my score to help determine how funds are allocated. It takes me 10-15 minutes/application because I don't want to miss any details. I'll be glad when I'm done with those. SFLSA has their senior banquet and I've been invited as a faculty member to attend. I feel very honored. I realize it's probably not an FCS major that requested me, but someone on the board. I really enjoy my association with these students. They are great and they work so hard to plan activities for their peers. One of them gave me the most beautiful floral arrangement that she had made in her floral design class. I wish more students would get involved. One of my goals is to get more FCS majors involved in SLFSA this year. I hope I can do it.
The basement finish project is coming along. I think that Lee Hjorth figured out how to make sure I don't see any more mice. He came over and we took down a bunch of insulation and blocked EVERY tiny hole from my basement to the exterior of my home with steel wool and foam. I haven't seen a sign of a rodent since. YAY. The framing is done, ductwork is done, electrical is done. Now I just wait for Garret Hjorth to have time to do the plumbing. Starlyn and Lee went with me to pick out all the items I need for my bathroom (shower, tub, vanity, mirror, and toilet). It's getting there. I actually kinda laugh about this project. I'm collecting bedrooms that I don't need. Oh well.
This has been a very long winter. I tried to not complain. Many people are complaining every time it snows. There really isn't anything we can do about it, so I try to just patiently do my thing. I've been taking up walking in our building with Natalie since I can't walk outside. We just walk around and around our floor while we discuss work stuff. I've also been doing more weights, which makes me feel good. I know that strength training is important for me at my age.
Last weekend was General Conference and there was a huge push to really prepare for Easter. I enjoyed that reminder. Many talks mentioned Palm Sunday and Holy Week. I made a point to read scriptures and connect with the story of the last week of Jesus' life each day. We make such a big deal of preparing for Christmas, but make little effort when it comes to Easter. Without the resurrection, there would be NO Christmas. I'm grateful for the reminders. The kids (Kamiko, Bekki, and Mel) came over for church then dinner. We played games. I hemmed some pants for Bekki and we watched TV. Allie went to church in Indianapolis in a cute new Easter outfit she had made. She said a nice older woman invited her to sit with her, which she did. She also met the Relief Society president, with whom she's texted a bit. Allie is a sweetie and I miss having her nearby, but we FaceTime everyday, so it's not too bad.
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| Allie made up the pattern for this cute top. You can't see, but she added a great bias-cut ruffle on the bottom of the skirt |
BYU is getting a new president on May 1st. It's Academic Vice President Shane Reese. When his appointment was announced, my TA Thomas said we needed to take him a cake. So, we froze the extra cake from 215 and I reached out to the Office of the President. He made time to meet with my class. It was great. We got to sit at a conference table. AVP Reese went around and shook everyones' hand and met them. He told them that he remembers interviewing me and that I mentioned how much I love my students. I don't even remember that. It was so fun for the students.
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| Maile Fisher took this selfie while we were waiting for President - elect Reese to join us |
Starlyn and Lee treated the employees of the foods lab and the upholstery shop to lunch at the Cannon Center cafeteria last week. It was so nice of them. We had yummy food and I brought our new dice game obsession, Biscuits. A lot of us played it and we had a lot of fun.
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| Front row: me, Morgan Johnson, Allissa Kelley Back row: Emily Burdette (also works at upholstery shop), Malia Collier, Starlyn, Thomas Lundquist, Michaela Christensen |
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