Busy Busy

Whew! Things have been nuts the last few days so between that and not having good cell phone service to send blog entries, I've been quiet lately.

This is our update:
We drove from Aunt Linda's to Missouri early early Sunday morning so I could come to my conference that gives me two free grad school classes (hooray for free grad school classes!). Joe was amazing and sweet and very helpful. He took a late bus that night back to his aunt's where he'll stay while I'm here (they don't provide accommodation for spouses so originally Joe was going to camp nearby but his aunt offered to have him stay with her instead which I think ends up being a better, less lonely deal for Joe). The good news is all this means I have a computer. The bad news is, I'm a smidge lonely without my Joe.

That and my ear is broken. :-( I did something to screw up my right ear our last night in Louisiana. Between lots of ear drops and other ear cleaning out things (which I'm sure most people would prefer I note describe in detail on the blog) I've been able to relieve the pressure quite a bit but I can still only hear out of it about 75% and having my ear plugged up like this makes sounds in my head (like talking, eating, etc) VERY echoy so now I am talking much quieter than usual and can't sing at all and eating crunchy food is almost unbearable. We're concerned about it getting infected not only because that would be inconvenient, but additionally since we are so far from home and don't have health insurance right now. :-( For those who pray, prayer for this would be genuinely appreciated.

And while I'm here.....

Remember my post about crazy Amish town names? Well apparently the southerners are in on the game, too. On Sunday while driving to the school here we passed a town called Belcher in Louisiana and a national park called Toad Suck Park in Arkansas. Who comes up with these?