Okay, so Obama really has nothing to do with today's post but bobble Obama oversees everything that goes on at my desk so I thought I'd throw him up here. Speaking of politics, sometimes I don't want to watch t.v. this time of year because of all the annoying political ads. Here in North Dakota the big t.v. ad war is between the senatorial candidates Rick Berg and Heidi Heitkamp. Now I even see the ads when I watch t.v. online on Hulu. Annoying!
Anyway, back to houscapades (yes I just made up a word, it is my blog so I can do that:). Really there isn't much to say about it. Partly because of the school year starting up and getting back into the swing of things and partly because of our awesome trip to Graz, Austria and Rome, Italy in September.
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| The famous clock tower on top of the mountain fortress in Graz, Austria |
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| Colosseum |
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| Colosseum |
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| Spanish Steps |
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| Trevi Fountain |
The trip was amazing and I am looking forward to making some wrapped canvas like wall art for the living room and dining room with some of the photos that I took. By the way, the camera purse from the previous post worked awesomely on the trip. It kept my camera nice and safe.
The other thing that has been eating up all my time is my final project/paper for my masters degree in elementary music education. I will be so glad when I am done with my masters. The culminating piece of this particular degree is called a practicum and from what I have surmised it is basically a thesis but with a practical element that is usable in your classroom immediately. If you don't care about the specifics of my practicum just skip to the next paragraph;). My topic is to create a curriculum for beginning band based on the Kodaly Method. The Kodaly Method is a method for teaching elementary music that is used in many schools throughout the world. Part of my masters course work included the completion of a program that led to my certification as a Kodaly instructor. This has been a lot of work because I have been writing and simultaneously implementing the curriculum with my current 5th grade band students. I am really enjoying the project but the paper will take quite some time to write. That is why I am taking two semesters to complete it. I also have to start studying for my oral and written comprehensive exams which I have to take this spring, joy. I will be a very proud person when I walk across the stage in my half hood this May!
Now there has been a little house work going on in the meantime. I just ordered some fabric so that I can make curtains for the living room. I also selected a paint color (Behr Sparrow) for the upstairs guest bedroom and plan to paint that room either over Thanksgiving or Christmas break. I have also finally selected a paint color for the master bedroom. At first I had no idea what I wanted. Then I found an inspiration photo on Pinterest that I loved and after a few months of trying to find a similar color I discovered that a local home and hardware store carried the brand and shade from the picture so I am quite excited about that. It was good I found it, because I was pretty frustrated after the last color I thought would be the one ended up looking like a kidney on the wall.
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| Here is what our bedroom has looked like for quite a few months now. The swatches on the left were added recently. |
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| Ding, ding, ding Ralph Lauren Washboard is the winner! |
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I am hoping that I can get this bedroom painted over Christmas break, but we'll see what happens.
