color confidential

Yes, I stole the title of this post from a show featured on HGTV!
So, I think I have finally decided on paint colors.

Living Room, hall, guest bath - Chamomile
guest bath cabinet - Moody Blue
Kitchen - Tansy Green

I also decided to paint the entire family room instead of just an accent wall. I think it will really warm up the room. It will also compliment the hall and bathroom. I chose Moody Blue for the cabinets in the guest bath because the shower curtain in there has a paisley design made up of a cream background and pinks, greens and a hint of blue. Finally, tansy green will be used throughout the entire kitchen. It's a warm green and will add a bit of color in a dark brown and sand kitchen.

Soup House Projects

Okay, so I've decided to start on some Soup House projects. Now that the first six weeks have ended at work, I'm hoping things will settle down some (yeah, right!). This week was really stressful for me, but I made it through. Okay so here are my house projects
-finish organizing the office and master bedroom....we still have boxes packed in both rooms
-clean out the garage
-paint an accent wall in the family room---I'm going to do a mustard yellow in there. Right now we have a mix of dark browns, black, green, red and yellow. I also want to buy some lamps to go in there as well. I figure I better paint now before we pull up the carpet. I decided against painting the faux wood paneling. I think it adds character and will go nicely with the golden colors.
-paint an accent wall in the kitchen. Our kitchen has dark cabinets, so I want to keep the white walls throughout. We have wainscoting on one wall, so I'll paint the top half of that muddy greenish color (we have a hint of the muddy green color in our faux granite counter tops) I'm so excited to PAINT! I will post pictures soon!
Today I put out some fall decorations. Nothing much, but I hung the fall pine cone garland on the fire place, hung the fall wreath, and placed some pumpkins on the front porch. I plan to get some fall flowers to put on the kitchen table and family room coffee table. I'm so glad fall is finally here! It will make cleaning out the garage bearable! Plus, next weekend Mr. Soup and I will head to the State Fair of Texas to partake in some yummy fried foods! We actually love the fair for more than just the foods. October happens to be Hispanic Heritage Month. We visit the booths and spend lots of time at the Dominican Republic booth. Mr. Soup's grandmother was from Santo Domingo, so we try to learn a little bit more about our heritage with each visit.

i am proud

Today was a good day of college teaching for me. There were some occasional not-so-great moments, but overall it was pretty good. Today we analyzed song lyrics. We looked the stories they tell. I gave my students song lyrics without punctuation. Their task was to place the correct punctuation in the songs. One girl remarked as we were going over them, "it needs a dot." I looked at her puzzled. I thought maybe she meant ellipses (...) because not many people know the term ellipses. No, she meant period. "No, it needs the dot that goes at the end of a sentence. What's that called?" I did my best to add the period and move right along. I didn't want to call attention to it. She is an incredibly bright student and I recognize that command of the English language and grammar does not make one intelligent. There are plenty of people who are skilled writers, but are dumb as all get out. However, my English teacher self cringed on the inside....just a little bit!
I also held my first set of writing conferences. I conducted my conferences like this:
-identified strengths and weaknesses in their writing
- reviewed the final writing test expectations
-asked what I can do to help them better prepare for the test
Most of my students said they are glad they are taking the course (they have the option to just take the test). Many of them have taken the test and failed by one or two points. They said the work we do in here is giving them the skills and confidence they need to do well on the test. They all said the vocabulary quizzes stress them out, but they really like that they're building their vocabulary. They just don't want to be quizzed on it each week. I'm thinking of maybe doing away with the quizzes and using the vocabulary as an activity in class or incorporate it into their writing assignments. We'll see. I told them my goal is not to make the course difficult, but to give them the skills to do well in the next level of Developmental Writing or in Freshman Comp I.
Many of them said they enjoy the class as well. That is a plus, because we meet only once a week on a Saturday morning. I guess I feel good because I know I am a good junior high English teacher, but this solidified that I'm not so bad at teaching college students. While students liking me is not my goal, I am glad they feel the class is worthwhile.