Pandora vs Grooveshark

Now that I'm teaching high school I listen to a lot of music during the day. At first I only knew of Pandora for online music. The problem with Pandora is you only get 40 hours worth of listening time and then they kick you off for the month. Even with careful planning I was maxing out with a week go each month.

There is an account tab that will tell you how many hours you have left to listen. This month I'm doing really well and have 17 hours left! That is because I discovered the joys of grooveshark.

Grooveshark has many wonders. At first I thought you could only search the music and make a playlist. Which is pretty cool, but annoying if you just want to listen to music all day. My first hour advanced drawing does enjoy this feature because then they can all request songs and they just line them up in the playlist. When I thought this was all grooveshark could do I didn't use it very much. But then I discovered the stations.

Of course there are not as many options as Pandora where you can choose an artist and it finds like artists, but I really do enjoy it. My favorite station is the Indie station. It has great music that is mellow and the students can draw to it. We did listen to electronica once but it really just made everyone want to dance.

And the final feature that I have found is that you can search other people's playlists. You just search and instead of looking under the songs tab you search playlists. Kind of fun to see what other people are listening to. So go check out grooveshark. It is my new favorite!

My Custom Mug!

You may recall that I love mugs and that I broke a mug I bought from Rachel Akin earlier this year. I saw Rachel at the Plaza Art Fair. Although she had changed up her style a little bit she offered to remake the mug I broke. It arrived a couple weeks ago and I have happily added it back into the morning mug rotation. It is not exactly the same as the one I purchased at the Brookside Art Fair, but it is a wonderful substitution. Now I just need to be careful with this one! Don't want another freak accident in the kitchen.

Good Trade

I stopped by Tom and Tara's this weekend because Tom told me he had gourds that he grew and I should make the students draw. But I got even more than homegrown gourds. Tom took me into the garage, which apparently Tara doesn't ever go and saw the fruit of Tom's hunting. He has several different deer skulls. I was really excited. Skulls are pretty fun to include in a drawing. I have drawn several drawings of bones from college. Then Tom got excited and ran out to the yard to pull another rotting skull from a leaf pile. (Which is where you let them rot according to Tom) That one is not quite ready for the classroom but I'm hoping it will come my way eventually.

After visiting Tom and Tara I walked away with one deer skull, four gourds, and a few magazines for a collage project. All I had to give in return was one vitamin water to Tom. Thanks Tara and Tom! I love me new still life items!

Halloween!

I love Halloween! This year I threw a party at the wonderfully dated condo clubhouse. Costumes were required and everyone came out in full force. Although I wasn't very good at taking pictures, I did get a couple good ones.

Here are the girls. Tara won one of the prizes. Anne didn't want to dress up and then showed up as a homemade pumpkin. Kate was a homemaker and her husband Adam was the milkman. Erica is sporting the bee costume I made a couple of years ago, but added letters to make herself a spelling bee. She also won a prize. and Lisa is of course Twister...which she made. Very impressive ladies!

And here is baby Olivia. She was the hit of the party even when she cried because she didn't recognize her mom as the devil in disguise.

I was a peacock. Although I couldn't find yellow tights I did sport some yellow shoes, that you can't see, with blue tights. My mask spent most of the night on my forehead but you can get the full effect below. I think I left glitter everywhere I went.

Thanks to all those who came to my party! Next year I'll have to plan some themed games. I've already starting thinking about what I want to be next year.

Happy Halloween!