Homepages for Homerooms!

Hey everyone!!!  Many of you may already know that I have several projects on the DonorChoose.org website for my classroom.  They just announced a program that they are doing called Homepages for Homerooms.  Follow the directions below to help me out. This promotion starts today and ends the 23rd of December.  Each week, projects that drive the most homepage sets will receive a donation of up to $600.  Here's what to do:

1. Visit www.yahoo.homepagesforhomerooms.com and click "Find a project to support."
2. Click on Project ID and type in one of these numbers (both are projects of mine) 421208 (Creative Writing Journals for my class) or 469666 (Reading and Math board games)
3. Follow the instructions to change your homepage to Yahoo.com. Each person can take this action (called a "homepage set") once during this five week campaign.
4. Spread the word! Ask parents, colleagues, friends and family to take action.   

It's a simple thing to do to help out a great cause!   

THANKS!  

Funny Thing

Here's a funny and interesting (very true I might add) thing.  When you blog, people read it! Huh!?  Check this!

This is a screen shot of my google analytics account.  It is dated back to August 11th to, when I installed Google Analytics to my website. Notice all the spikes. Guess what, I was blogging on those days.  See the non-spike areas.  Yep, you guessed it, those are the days that I didn't blog!  That huge spike on the right is from this past weekend, when I logged in and actually wrote something.  Pretty amazing thing!

Also interesting my rating as gone up as well.  Of course it has to do with me blogging again and people visiting my site, but an increase of 264% is pretty awesome.  See! It's in BIG GREEN NUMBERS!

Also, notice I'm using Safari.  Not sure how I'm feeling about this quite yet.  Firefox is being weird and not playing videos.  It will give me sound, but no picture.  I noticed it this morning when I was trying to get something to play for my students.  I'm switching to Safari for right now, until I can figure out what is causing it.

In cuteness news, incase you missed Dade singing Heavy Metal, here it is for your viewing pleasure

Today at some point while Clint and Dade were picking up the toys, they started singing the clean up song. You know the one:

Clean Up
Clean Up
Everybody Everywhere
Clean Up
Clean Up
Everybody do their share

Oh, yeah! That one.  Well Dade sang it heavy metal style.  We were pretty excited about that!

Back to Normal

Things are starting to get back to normal.  Mom and Dad brought Dade back home this afternoon.  He was rather excited to see Clint and I.  We were waiting for him at the window.  When he saw us he yelled, "I'm so happy to see you!"  Made my heart melt to pieces!  He was extremely hyper even through lunch.  All he wanted to do was play football with Clint.

I convinced Clint to put lights up on the house for Christmas, so we took off to Lowes to get the lights after lunch.  I ended up only needing 1 box of lights, and they are the LED less energy lights.  Dad is going to bring up some clips, extension cord, and timer when they come back next weekend so we can hang them. 

Dade wanted to watch some football, so we got our jammies on, grabbed a pillow, and blanket and laid down in the couch.  He was out within 2 minutes.  I tried to wake him up for dinner, but he said he just wanted to sleep.  Poor guy was exhausted from spending all that fun time with his nana and papa that he just wanted sleep.

It's now 6:15, and again I'm in for a quiet night because Clint's at work and Dade's already in bed asleep.  I might try to get the last few papers I need to grade finished, or I might just crash on the couch.  Haven't decided yet.  I do know that I cannot wait to get all my Christmas stuff out and up for the holidays! 

Oh, and for snow!

I Need EVERYONE's Help!

As I mentioned in my previous post today, I'm working on my final course for my Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Baker University.  This final course is The History of Rock and Roll.  Over the past few weeks, I'm been knee deep in music from the good ol' days and we are working our way to the present day. 

We are required to write a research paper.  I proposed to write a paper on musical tastes.  I have created a survey for people to take.  In order for me to write this paper, I have to have plenty of data to do so, I need everyone's help. 

When you have a chance, click the link below to take the survey.  It has several open-ended questions about music, you are asked to rate different genres, and finally take a look at the music you listen to in different types of moods. 

Please pass the information on to your friends.  The more information I can gather the better.

If you have any questions, please ask me via a comment on the page.  Someone else might have the same one.

Music Survey

Thanks!!!

Really?!

The last few months have been a whirl wind for the Krause household.  Just shortly after my birthday, we found our new place to live.  It's located on Sleepy Hollow Rd in KC.  It's pretty sweet! Everything is on one level, except for the garage, and it's awesome!  Dade loves "his new house."  We moved last month during my fall break, and  we are so glad that we made the move.

We actually hired movers this time around, because we didn't want to ask our friends for the hundredth time to help move us.  It was money well spent in our opinion.  The only negative thing that happened was that the movers couldn't get the box spring mattress out of the house.  Clint had to go back a few days later with a saw and a hammer to bust it up.  We basically made it like a folded piece of bread and slid it down the stairs.

Somewhere between signing the lease for the new house and moving day, Clint got extremely ill and ended up with pneumonia.  He was pretty much knocked off his feet for several weeks.

We had a great Halloween!  Our friend's Scott and Sarah came up to visit us.  Scott is now at basic training, so it was his last bit of freedom, and he spent it with us!  Dade was happy to see his Uncle Scott and Aunt Sarah, and wasn't happy when he got home from school to find out that they had left.

Since Halloween, I haven't really being feeling too hot.  Yesterday was by far the worst.  I lost by voice by 10am, and made a call to the doctor.  Turns out I now have walking pneumonia.  Awesome!   My voice is slightly better today, due to not talking for like 12+ hours, but I'm home from work now until Monday.

Dade is spending the next few days with my parents in order to allow me to rest up and get better.  The house is very quiet, except for my consistent goose cough.  My body is tired, however my brain didn't realize that I could sleep in and woke up at 6am this morning.   So I've been lying on the couch watching the news, of all things! I heard the slight mention of snow later next week, and I got slightly excited!

I am in my last course for my Master's in Liberal Arts.  The History of Rock and Roll. It's pretty awesome.  I'm going to be conducting  survey shortly about music preferences.  Look for a link soon.  The more people that take the survey the better.  I need lots of data points!


Sorry for the long delay in posting.  I'm going to get back into this!