Naughty and Nice Party

Carrie and Mark hosted a Naughty and Nice Party. At first I was a little confused at what this type of party would look like. I did know I had the perfect shirt!

Here is Drew in his Christmas sweater while I sport my 'Naughty but Nice' shirt.

Although some people didn't dress up at all Carrie took the cake with her Mrs. Claus outfit! Way to go all out Carrie! And thanks for a fun time. Next time I will know what sort of gifts to bring to a Naughty and Nice party and will be prepared to participate in the gift exchange.

The Word is Out!

Word has gotten out how great of a teacher I am and how awesome drawing is. I just found out yesterday that they are going to have to add another drawing 1 class to my schedule because the wait list for drawing is so long! They are going to combine my currently three advanced drawings into two classes and make my seventh hour another drawing 1. To which I said, "I love having freshmen seventh hour!" A little joke always throws my principal off, but I think I'm pretty funny.

So my classes will be full, but I think I'm off to a good start to my goal of building up the art department!

Now my room is a mess from my first semester. Debating on cleaning now or coming in later.

Tacky Sweater Day

This past week it was Tacky Sweater Day at school. Although I was lacking in the sweater department Carol Ann came through and provided one for me to wear. As a department we looked great! This is one of Tim's many tacky creations of the season. And if you ask he will be sure to tell you about how he lost out on prizes at two different Tacky Christmas parties he went to over the weekend.

Here's the art gang. (me, Tim, Carol Ann, and Trish.)

Colorado Springs

I know this Thanksgiving post is a little late, but here is goes anyway. I drove to Colorado Springs over the break with my boyfriend to visit my best friend, Kathryn, from high school. Although I don't have any good pictures from the actual Thanksgiving. Kathryn has some good ones here. These pictures are from our visit to the Garden of the Gods. We lucked out and had a beautiful day to walk around and check out the sites.

Kathryn and me!

Me and the boy!

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!