Hi Scott, and welcome!
Your panel issue appears to be a known bug, and
appears to have been fixed in the upstream code, but I am still evaluating the new release of Xfce before deciding whether to release it in to UberStudent.
For now, the following should be a quick workaround for your non-displaying panels after coming out of sleep:
1. Download this script to your desktop:
Attachment:
panel-r.sh [27 Bytes]
Downloaded 662 times
2. Right-click on it and go to Properties > Permissions and tick "Allow this file to run as a program"
3. Whenever your panels refuse to show, just left-click it to run it. It simply restarts the Xfce panel. Takes less than a second.
BTW, I work at NTC in Wausau.