updating

Sorry. I should be better at updating my blog. I wanted to include pictures, and FINALLY, I have had opportunities to snap a shot or two.

We are in NH/MA. I love New England, and more specifically the areas in which the Coopriders/Schillemats live. Rural, relaxing, and definitely beautiful. We have participated in a snow storm, and several family traditions. The pictures do a better job at describing.

Jimmy enjoying the snow!

Peder's Eagle Court of Honor

Ada and Alice pulling their uncles Jimmy and Joe

Do you recognize this cake? It was once in much better shape. We loved it on our wedding day. 1 year and 4 months later, not so yummy.

Grinder night at the Schillemats

Good to be home, good to be with family!

New perspective on finals week

Yes, it is finals week. I am the instructor so I view things a little bit differently.

Finals week is almost my favorite week of the semester.

Reason 1: Because I teach developmental algebra classes, the only students that take the final are the ones that actually passed all the tests. They are the good students. I like them.

Reason 2: I don't have to prep for my classes, besides printing off my finals.

Reason 3: I go into this week not stressing, but kind of getting excited for Christmas. It is a much smoother transition.

However, I do have a very stressed husband this time around. He is smart, believe you me, but he has never really had to study all the much to do well in his classes. Law school is a little different. It has forced him to learn how to study, and he has been doing just that all week. He made it through his first final quite well, and now he is taking his second. My job is to make good dinners and to remind him off how he will be done in a few short days.

Ohhhh finals!

Christmas time

This year Jimmy and I are really on the ball. We actually had our Christmas tree up on the 28th of November.

We are in Virginia for 3 weeks and then we are off to the great northern parts of the country for the holiday. All we must do is take/give finals. Just that one 'little' thing....

Happy Holidays!

Lifetime bestest buddies

I have this wonderful friend Andrea (Luber) Escobar. She is great! She and I lived together all four years at Clarkson. With exception of my family, I have lived with her the longest (that includes Jimmy). She is a great person to be with, has awesome spirituality, has great cooking skills, is a wonderful friend, and has all of those good things you look for in a person.

It was such a treat when she and her husband Adam came down for a visit. She is in Baltimore right now, and that is the closest she has been since we both graduated in 2006. We played games, explored one of the Appalachian trails, and had a delicious dinner. I am so glad she is my friend. Lifetime buddies are great :)

Atop Bluff Mountain

I am sure glad I have this bestest buddy forever!

Blah, blah, blah.....

Today is a blah day. I think I am going to blame it on the flu shot I got yesterday. I feel kind of weak and generally yucky. I guess other people would probably say it could be the fact that I am pregnant, but I had been feeling better the last couple days. And I did just hit 12 weeks, isn't that when I am supposed to feel a little better?

Anyways..... I have a new result from one of my developmental classes. 3 out of 18 passed the last exam! I feel pretty disappointed with them, and maybe a little of me. Is there something else I should be doing? I really wish I could stress enough the importance of them putting in the work and studying harder. Most of them haven't even put in an hour of studying before taking the exam. Time is ticking and the semester is dwindling.....

I think I also blame the blah feeling on Tuesdays. It is always such a long day.....

Jimmy's countdown

His is a little more intimidating...

4 crim law classes
4 civ pro classes
6 torts classes
6 contracts classes
1 burks final
1 memo rewrite

Countdown

Jimmy and I are very ready for Thanksgiving break. Now that it is November I deem it appropriate to countdown.

Today is the 5th, so 14 days(2 weeks) until official Thanksgiving break.
One weekend with my parents
One weekend with my bestest bud Andrea
8 MTH 03A classes
2 MTH 163 classes
4 Research classes
3 tests to give


Okay, so this is really just a countdown for me.

A visual description of our lives

3 times a week Jimmy is an assistant coach of the W &L wrestling team. This past Saturday they had a decathlon. One of the events was a tire push. look at how strong Jimmy is....

Then Sunday we celebrated Amber's birthday. Doesn't Amber have the best birthday blowing-out-candles look?

Here is the cake up close. It was a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I added some white chocolate pieces, and some raspberries (which were not in season, by the way...)

And yesterday Jimmy and I carved a pumpkin. Does he look like anyone you know?

Oh, I am so glad it is the autumn season!

Ramble, ramble, ramble

I feel like these days I do more rambling than updating. I mean, did you really need to know about my cucumber sandwich? At that moment I thought so.

Today is Tuesday. I seem to use Tuesday as my venting day. Hopefully I don't come across as angry or bitter. Most of the time I think I am pretty happy, but long days at work seem to bring out the frustration in me.

So here goes. This is the last week that students can retake the first two exams. And by the way, they are taking for the first time, their third. It is almost humorous to see students come in at the last minute and say, "whoops, I probably should have retaken chapter 1 months ago, and whoops, I still need to retake chapter 2. Do you have time for me this week?" I am not a confrontational person so I shake my head in dismay and say "come during my office hours, and we will see what we can do..." Do you think I should be more harsh? Should I holler and yell, and tell them how irresponsible it is of them to wait until the very last minute? I just don't know what would be more effective. I am not a very big person, 5 feet 3 inches, and I probably look like I am 18 years old. Do you think they would believe me? Anyways...I am not really angry about the whole situation, just puzzled at how I should handle it.

My second ramble goes out to insurance companies, and this is more of an angry ramble. Jimmy and I signed up for health insurance in August. We paid a handsome fee, although i am not an expert on good or bad prices when it come to health insurance. And we have been calling them for the last month,( yes, 1-2 months after I saw the money taken out of our account), about getting some sort of confirmation, a policy number, documentation, etc... It has been pretty frustrating. Needless to say, I am not super impressed. Supposedly our cards went out last week. I will check the mail when I get home...I hope it is there. Don't you think once they took our money that they would be forced to give us some sort of confirmation, even through the phone? You would think....thankfully day by day Jimmy is becoming more and more knowledgeable about the law and how we can make sure that we are not being scammed.

As I become more and more familiar with so-called "real-life" I become more and more confused. But thankfully, and this will be my last ramble, I have a husband, who is seemingly good at calming me down after I have exploded about another stressful thing in life. I used to get kind of annoyed when he would say "it will all work out." In fact, because I am so easily stressed, I would think to myself "how can he say that it will work out, when he has no clue about the future?" Little did I know that stepping back, breathing deeply, and letting myself realize that life will work out really does help in the process of, well, life working out. Stress does not usually help things work out. In my case it never does, because I become so emotionally absorbed in the problem that I can't see the solution.

Ramble, ramble, ramble.....

Cucumber and swiss sandwich

Did you know that if you take 2 slices of bread, put a little butter on one side, cut up some cucumber slices and Swiss cheese that it makes a delightful sandwich?

Well, if you don't know that, maybe you should try it. My mom seemed to have invented it, although maybe it was something that all Haehnels ate. I just know that today I was craving a swiss, cucumber sandwich and when I ate it, it was still delicious, just like I remembered from my childhood.

It might be an acquired taste.

Hibachi and fall weather

We had the opportunity to use a wedding gift, our Hibachi. It was a nice fall day, and we wanted to enjoy it. I even got to put my feet in the nearby river. Oh, the joys of nature. Yes, we have matching ponchos....

A teacher's frustration

I am imagine that all teachers have a day like this. I wake up and check my campus e-mail. I am flooded with my research students' next assignment. A research plan. I begin going through them, and none of them, I mean none of them, are complete. The students aren't following the instructions I gave them, they just seemed to turn something in so that they would get credit. So I start thinking "it must have been my explanation...maybe I didn't describe the process well enough." So I go through the day wondering how I could have improved. It is in my self-pitying moments that I open one last student's e-mail and see that that one student has followed the directions correctly. It is a well prepared assignment completely and wholely written. Maybe that one student was listening, or actually took time to read the instructions on the paper I gave all the students. Maybe I are not a failure after all. Ahh...the joys and frustrations of teaching.

But I am not done. I teach a developmental class where everyone has to get a 75% on all the tests. If they don't pass a test, they can retake it until they pass. My mon/wed/fri class has enough flexibility that I can include a few re-take days into my schedule, meaning I can take a class period and make it into a retake test day. Doing this on the first test was close to disatrous. Out of the 10 people who had to re-take the test, maybe 2 passed. None of them had studied before the retake. Seriously people, if you didn't pass it the first time, why don't you study to pass it the second time around? I don't get it. Why do people think that information will magically appear in their brains?

I thought maybe if I instill this principle into their brains, maybe some of them will be prepared by the time I give them the retake for the second test. And some of them did...some tried really hard to be ready. I can tell when they are studying. And even though they didn't necessarily pass even on the second time, at least they were improving and making a valid effort. However some of the other people just didn't even work at it, and those people really drive me nuts. They came into the test, sat down, realized that the information still wasn't there, and turned in almost blank tests.

Maybe it is because I was the kind of person who was not woefully smart. I had to study several hours, and do lots of problems just to do decently on a test. That had to be one of the funniest differences between Jimmy and I. When he told me that he studied the night before he took an exam, I thought "seriously, you haven't been studying for it all week?" He is good at taking tests, and he I am pretty sure he retains things after one run through. I however, required lots of scrap paper, and probably hundreds of problems before I really felt confident about material. That was how my undergraduate career went. I spent most of my college life studying. I admit now, that I may have been a excessive studier. But I won't take back the fact that it did almost always ensure good grades. I say almost because some of my physics tests would have been hard even with the solution set right in front of me. Although it may have cost me a significant social life, I went to a school were drinking was THE activity, and I wasn't interested in that.

Maybe people just don't know how to study. Maybe I am being too critical. Okay, I feel a little bit less angry and little more sympathetic for these people. I guess I just needed to write it down.

Note: I realize for all you exceptional writers out there, that my writing method may be sloppy and not entirely grammatically correct. I try to read through all my posts, but I am not characterized as a good writer. I even go back and read my posts and think "why--this girl can't put together a single correct sentence!" I will try my best to accomodate to your talents.

What to do....

Tuesday is a very long day for me and Jimmy. I teach a class at 8am and then another class at 6pm. I am in Clifton Forge for over 12 hours because I really don't think it makes sense to drive back and forth twice in one day. Sure I can run some errands, there are some stores down the road. And sure I can work on preparing for my classes, but one can only do so much. It ends up being a very long day, and I get home excited and ready for bed.

Because of this dilemna I have decided that I need to invent a few items that would facilitate to a day like this. First, teleportation. Star Trek is not a dead show. I want a teleportation device that would "beam" me home and "beam" back at needed times. I could even "beam" myself straight into my bed. Now wouldn't that be wonderful?! Jimmy said that because I studied physics and even more astronomy that I should invent this device. But then he realized if I invented it, we would probably make enough money that we wouldn't even need to leave our house hence not use our teleportation device. So I am leaving that design up to the smart people that don't have anything else better to do, and need the money.

Secondly, I would like to invent a bed in a bag. Sometimes, all I really want to do is take a nap. I have an entire afternoon, and a power nap would really help me re-focus and continue. Said bed would be small enough to fit in a small bag (you are thinking sleeping bad aren't you?), and would have a built in mattress system. It would be waterproof for outdoor lounging, and invisible. Once I placed my tired body upon its comfortable area I would disappear. I could put this bed anywhere and not be distrubed by onlookers, confused by my desire to sleep in the middle of the lawn or under a neighboring tree. It would also be sound proof. Nobody wants to hear a person snore. And let's face it, it would be more like a tent with a built in bed.

The pieces are still coming together. I don't think I am ready for a patent.

As you can see, I am a little bored.

Driving....

There are several things I notice as I drive back and forth from Lexington to Clifton Forge. I notice large mountains, almost full moons (Waxing Gibbous -- in case you were wondering), an airport that has a grass runway, trucks, trucks and more trucks, valleys, leaves changing colors, and my own inability to take it all in. I have become quite fond of these excursions every day. I am not however, excited about the looming cold/winter weather that may taint the peacefulness of driving on an almost deserted interstate.

In other news, Jimmy is in his 3rd week of school. He turned in his first graded paper on Monday and has contributed in several class discussions. We met the married and family oriented people in the Law School when we went to a BBQ last Saturday. It was nice to know that other people had spouses and let's be honest, a life outside of law school.

My classes are going well. Most of my students are doing well, and those who are not are coming to me for help. I feel all sorts of responsible. Things are jolly, joyful, and exciting even though we can't go on many outdoor adventures. And let me announce it plain and clear--we finally have a couch.!Okay, so it is still at the store. But we bought it, and we have made space for it to rest and enrich our lives.

Okay, onward. I teach in a half and hour.

the AT

The Appalachian Trail was our latest Virginian adventure. We only spent 30 minutes hiking due to Jimmy's work schedule and my silly little cold. It was however, a beautiful day to get outside and hike along the one of the longest trails in the US of A.

A little bit of ivy...

Trees oh how I love thee!

Things I like

I like Jimmy

I like sweaters and the weather that goes along with it

I like dark chocolate

I like tests days, when you are the teacher

I like compliments like "we are sure glad you are here..."

I like binge shopping trips where you get a lot more than you expected, including chocolate

I like disney movies, especially when you buy them on binge shopping trips ($13/movie is a steal!)

I like surprizing my husband (I hope he doesn't read this until later...)

I love to see the Temple

Yesterday Jimmy and I made any exodus about 3 hours north to Washington DC. I had not been the DC Temple in probably 10ish years. What a beautiful place to go. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment and entertainment.






After going to the Temple in the morning we went around DC to see where Jimmy worked and lived the fall he was in DC. The weather was nice and because we were not driving in DC, I didn't get too stressed. To be noted, Jimmy and I don't do well in any city when we are in a car. I have realized, though Provo may have been one of the worst places to drive, that any city with traffic makes us both a little grumpy.

A peak....

I have talked a little bit about our apartment, maybe only in passing, but I thought it would be appropriate to add a few pictures to the blog about our current apartment design.

Below is a picture of our bedroom. We have windows, a closet, and just recently we add some clothes space. It is nice, albeit kind of plain. We can work on that.

Then there is our kitchen, by far the nicest part of our apartment. The appliances are new (frig, microwave, oven, etc...) The counter space is lacking, but I will explain our solution in the next picture. Kitchen aid and spice rack in place, I am in heaven!

The lack-o-cabinet fix. We had these squarish storage in our old apartment. It seemed fitting for our kitchen. Next to it is our rolling dish drainer. I was a little baffled when I saw that next to the sink was the oven. Where does one put the drying dishes? So we bought this rolling cart and put the dish drainer on top. When we are doing dishes we roll it over, put the wet dishes in the drainer and off they go. In the drawers we put some of our plasticware. It is a good solution for now. Very crafty of us, if I do say so myself.

Our living room is currently bookcase and camper chair infested. I like the space because it is probably the biggest room we have. All we need now is a couch. We plan to get a futon again. It is easy to put together, relatively inexpensive, AND conducive to visitors. By the way the ottoman is great for our games.

And this beauty, is the newest addition to our apartment. Our rentor upstairs said that she had a rocking chair when we first moved in. We told her we would think about it, we were still organizing. Well today we dropped off the extra microwave and took the rocking chair. It is perfect. I am now mandating that all our apartments must be furnished with a rocking chair. I like them that much.

3 hour classes

I would like to rant about my dislike of 3 hour classes. I teach two of them. One of Tuesday night and the other on Wednesday night.

Beside the obvious fact that sitting in class for 3 hours is no fun, it has become very real to me that students do not learn effectively when they have to learn large chunks of information in one night. And I do not like teaching large chunks all in one night. I don't have time to go over old homework, or even do a considerate amount of example problems to make the information sink in more thoroughly. And although I am more than willing to meet with them outside of class, a lot of these students have families, work, and go to school. They just don't have that kind of time, and I feel for them.

But as for now, I will deal with my frustration and hope that all these students are realizing the significance of their decision when they signed up for my section. Oh well! Life goes on.

In other news, Jimmy's parents are in town. They are having so much fun seeing all of the historical sites. Lucky! I can't wait until we have a free weekend to do the same.

Plus! And this is a big plus--they brought all of our wedding presents. Dishware, baking pans, towels, etc... It is like our wedding all over again.

The excursion

I guess I should document some of the experiences Jimmy and I have endured (a little dramatic I suppose).

I GRADUATED! Thanks to my mom, Grandma Marie and Jimmy for being there!

I forget how short I am sometimes.

Jimmy and I spent a lot of time packing....

And I even got to take apart somethings, like our box-spring. Yes, I took a hammer to it.

We went to California, this is the Newport Beach Temple...correct me if I am wrong. It is pink!

And we spent time with these cute people. Jimmy is a lover of Disney world, and what better, but two princess loving nieces to share the Disney magic.

Jimmy and I battled. Look at my focus!

The Dumbo ride was one of Alice's favorites. Family resemblance. I think so!

You think they are siblings?!

We went to the beach. Jimmy and Joe did some pretty spectacular wave surfing. Annie and I got in later, but needless to say I was a little more of a whimp.

Then we headed back to Utah to start doing this.....driving...

And driving....

And then we stopped in Dallas. Another non-white temple....

And we saw this fabulous cute family!

We drove some more, until we arrived in a more green, luscious area such as this.....

More pictures of our Virginia experience to come. We don't have pictures of that yet.