During Spring Break, Josh and I took a “break” from our studying and spent an evening in Forth Worth. We visited the Barnes and Noble, and Josh read Poe’s The Black Cat to me. Afterwards we enjoyed a dinner of Mexican food and walking around downtown Fort Worth.  While walking around, we met the most interesting man. His job was to walk around town and scare all the birds away by either shining a red light into their eyes or by startling them with his large clapper. He told us that if we walked further down the road we would find all the noisy birds. We decided to test his word and just as he said, a couple blocks down the road there were hundreds of birds filling the trees.

Today is our 10 month wedding anniversary. It’s hard to believe how quickly our first year is passing. Marriage is wonderful – I am married to the dearest sweetest man in the world.

Last Friday I took the written part of my doctoral comprehensive exam. My questions were:

1. Discuss the role of a Christian teacher in a public school setting. What are some of the issues of concern that a Christian teacher must address in the current public school setting?

2. How can popular music meet the National Standards of Music in a middle school general music curriculum? What pedagogical or curriculum problems can occur from an “overuse” of popular music in this curriculum?

3. How do the learning theories of Vygotsky and Piaget apply to the elementary music classroom? Which theory is more applicable in the elementary music classroom?

I spent over eight hours writing my responses and felt like my brain was fried by the end of the day. Josh made me a delicious spaghetti dinner to celebrate. And I’m currently enjoying not having the pressure of the exam weighing on me.

I took Thursday (the day before the exam) off from school to review for the exam. While I was home studying, the FedEx lady delivered fresh flowers that Dad and Mom Jensen sent to encourage me on my final day of studying.

It will be at least another week before I hear back from my committee concerning my results. After I hear back from them, we will set up a time for the oral half of my exam.

Back on March 15, we had our pastor (John Lutz) and his family (Shawn, Micah) over for dinner. Amy made a wonderful pot roast (maybe she’ll put up some photos?) and some great cookies out of yellow cake mix (the only cookie-making ingredients on hand!). Here’s the cookies:

The Lutzes tried out our Boomwhackers — introduced here — (new church orchestra?). They were pretty good, especially considering that they didn’t get much prep time. (Does “especially considering” turn a compliment into an underhanded aspersion?) Here’s a 20-sec clip:

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Finally, since you can see from the top photo (which we’re all part of) that I obviously have a timer function on my camera, here’s a little something showing … well, you’ll see:

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Today I decided to experiment with making soup using our leftover chicken and chicken broth from Tuesday night’s meal (Tuesday I made a whole chicken in the crockpot). I thought I would document my first soup making experience. Mmmm – mmmmm – good!

This evening, Josh decided to treat us to dinner at Moni’s (a local Italian restaurant) and ice cream at Braums. It was a delightful treat after a long week of school and study. The past two weeks, I’ve been working with the 5th grade reading class, instead of teaching music (my kids tell me they miss music…I do too!). Yesterday and today I taught all 5th grade reading classes  by myself, because the regular teacher was out of town due to a family emergency.  Life is an adventure.

For Saturday night’s salad meal, I tried browning chicken in Italian dressing and was pleased with the results. (Mom, just thought you might like to see how healthy we’re eating!)

We’ve both had a busy week. I have several pictures to post, but they will have to wait until after my comprehensive exam (April 17th).

Happy Birthday to my wonderful wonderful husband!!! I love you so much!