Use the Muse contest!

Well, I've taken the plunge and entered the Use the Muse beader's contest...and I was pleasantly surprised when I received my kit in the mail. It's lovely, with wooden pieces, crystal, seed beads (yeck! lol) and a couple of unmentionables, including the "Muse" which is a secret piece. I can't say too much, but I'll post pictures soon. Let's just say the possibilities for my style of work are great, and it's pushing me to create in a new style that's been on my mind, but I just haven't sat down to do it yet. So all in all, it should be a fun contest that get's my creative juices flowing!

Figs and Sunsets....

This weekend, I took more steps in my Creative Every Day journey towards making my house a home. I bought a Fig tree, a blueberry, and tomatoes, red & Jalepeno pepper plants. And the gardener through in a young rosemary as a gift! The fig is awesome, it's a small bush and already has at least 20 figs growing on it. While bringing it up on the elevator, I met a man from Turkey who told me all about how to care for it and tell when the fruit is ripe enough to eat- lucky for me, because I bought it on instinct and impulse, hoping to figure it out later! So now all these lovely little plants live on my southern-exposed balcony.

I left the fig on the west side, hoping to give it more sun, and put the smaller herbs and blueberry on the east side so they would wake up with warm sun and then be protected from the harsh afternoon heat. I'm watching them to see how they do with this arrangement! I had a very green thumb when I lived in Portland, but here I'm nervous. The climate is more harsh to plants.

It's been a rare thing to see a sunset of such beauty as there was tonight..Here's a pic for inspiration.

Out of the mouths...and hearts...of highschool students

When I left my room for lunch today, I saw this writing on my white board. I have to share it, because the fact that it is there made my day and explains exactly why I teach high school and love it. My students say I work them hard- that's because I refuse to give them much homework. Many of them take AP classes and push themselves with academics, ROTC, sports and music- and I know if I push them during the 100 minutes I have them, they will learn a lot. Plus I use Adobe Creative Suite 3, which most of them don't have access to after leaving my room. I am constantly amazed that I have managed to teach 42 students at a time (times 6!!!) as much as I have in only 5 months! And here is why.....