For the last month or so, I've been going gung ho on a paper that I'm presenting on Friday. It's done. The relief is palpable. I still need to prepare my presentation, but that's what tomorrow is for. sigh...It's early spring here - Spring Break is upon us and the students are all off to various exotic locales. We used to refer to the week following Spring Break as "Baked Potato Week," as one can count the leather-like tans that are so jarringly out of place in the middle of a Michigan March. I've always loved Spring Break on campus, as it's so quiet - you can almost hear the sap stirring in the trees. I also love the fact that I can park on the Circle near the botanical gardens as there's no one around. As I was walking in past my favorite, towering white pines this morning, I realized that this is my fifteenth Spring Break here at Michigan State. I remember the first one as vividly as if it were yesterday - I can never forget the moment when the Lord first spoke to me. In the solitude of my first early spring here is when I surrendered my life to Him, and I watched as the winter clouds cleared away.
It is also nearly Ellie's first birthday. Tomorrow she will be eleven months old. We're going to Oklahoma the week before the big day so that she can meet her great-grandmothers and all of the uncles, aunts, and cousins for the first time. It will also be her first plane ride. We'll see how that goes! She's so squirmy right now that I don't know how she will manage to stay on our laps for the duration of the flight, unless she falls asleep.
