Creative Ideas Friday: Try something totally new that you've always wanted to explore!

Happy Friday everybody, and I hope you are hanging in there just fine this gray January day! Despite the bleakness in the sky, I love January, and always find fresh inspiration and excitement for all of the potential that lies ahead for the year. This week, I thought we would focus on a more general concept for our Creative Ideas Friday: trying out something totally new to you that you have always yearned to explore!

Let's face it: these at-home pandemic times, depressing though they may be, present an ideal opportunity to finally tackle that One Thing you were always so curious about. We have more time with which to tackle them, and the availability of online classes mean that the risk of embarrassing yourself in public is pretty low. :-0 For me, that thing was learning to play the finger cymbals. Dun dun dun!

Many dancers learn to play the finger cymbals when they first learn to dance, but that was not my experience. So now I've been dancing and performing for over a decade, and had to Google how to even strap these things onto my fingers. :-0 My sister gifted me a pair of smaller finger cymbals (the traditional starting size), which is what I'm starting with. These beauties are from Turquoise International, well-regarded makers of cymbals:

Oriental cymbals, size 2 1/4 inches

I'm taking a 30 minute class each lunchtime, Monday through Thursday, and it is absolutely perfect for drilling a new skill like this! I started right after the New Year, and now have 3 weeks under my belt. I can honestly say that I'm a lot less bad than when I first started. 😂 I've learned 5 sounds so far (I hadn't even realized there were more than 1 common one!) and can play them in multiple simple patterns. The dancing at the same time part is still a work in progress, 😇 but one can't expect miracles in 3 weeks! I can at least walk around a bit while playing them, that's the first step, and incorporate in some basic movements in time to the rhythm that we're playing alongside. I'm learning SO MUCH about the different rhythms within Middle Eastern music, and I am absolutely soaking it all up! The ability to mute myself during class is giving me life. 😎 Again, the online format is such a low intimidation factor in terms of taking on something completely new!

As my obsession grows, I naturally started going down some YouTube rabbit holes. I found out how to sew the elastic on my cymbals, rather than relying on small safety pins. I also discovered how different sizes, shapes, and metals can affect the sound of your cymbals. I wanted to be able to compare my smaller cymbals with a larger pair (and thought the larger surface size might also make it easier for me to make some of the sounds I was struggling with, and I was right) so I treated myself to these beauties:

Saroyan large Grecian cymbals in brass

Saroyan is a renowned cymbal company, and there are sound clips on their site of all of their cymbals, and I spent a delightful few days listening to all of them multiple times. I found that the bigger cymbals make a deeper sound than the smaller ones, and that brass presents a mellower tone than the more high pitched silver ones. Dancers usually have many different pairs of cymbals for this very reason, depending on the environment in which they'll be dancing (indoors vs outdoors, how large a space, what type of music will they be dancing to) so that they can pick cymbals that will achieve the sound they want. I absolutely love the mellower sound of the brass cymbals, and these Grecian ones are my new bff, but at some point I'll almost certainly add a silver set to my arsenal. I am having SUCH a delightful time exploring this totally new-to-me skill, and am so glad that I embarked on it! I don't know when I will perform with finger cymbals, if ever (though it would be nice to add them to my possibilities for gigs, when those resume again) but regardless, I'm thoroughly enjoying the process and the healthy challenge that they present to me. I'm also learning so much about Middle Eastern music that I can translate to all of my dancing. I plan to continue with my classes next month!

In other creative news, I just had to share this new hat pattern with you that I am currently also obsessing over. :-0 It is called the Lotus Blossom Beanie, and the effect is absolutely stunning, wouldn't you agree?!

Pattern is Lotus Flower Beanie from BKnitsHandmade

There has been some talk in my crafting community about the price of this pattern ($11), which is more than hat patterns traditional cost. However, this pattern includes detailed photographs of the tricky lotus blossom technique, directions for sizes 6-12 months/infant through adult, as well as instructions for knitting it in either bulky or super bulky yarn. I'm already planning gifts for others with finished hats from this pattern too, so I do really feel like it is worth it! If you use the super bulky she recommends (although you could use any yarn you like), which is Malabrigo Rasta, you will get 2 hats by reversing the colors. Here is my first finished hat in a Valentine's theme:

I'm awaiting my order of gorgeous lush pom poms, and I have to share my new favorite pom pom shop on Etsy, which is North Star Stitches! I'm not normally a pom pom gal, but the featured photos on this hat really sold me on how a well coordinated pom pom really makes the design pop! For my pink/mint hats, I ordered a few poms to try in shades of blush, white and blue/green. I'm sooooooo excited for these to arrive! I'm going to be making a lot of hats this year, I'll share more about that endeavor next week!

What skill or idea have you always wanted to take a class on? I would love to hear about it in the comments!

4th Week of Advent: Baking and dancing towards Christmas...

Hello everyone, and I hope that your Advent is wrapping up beautifully, just as mine is. 😊 I have allllll of my wrapping still to do, but otherwise am in good shape. I made cookies this week, I should have taken pictures for photographic evidence, ha! Because I am not the best baker, but these turned out well. Most of them have already been consumed by children living in my house. ;-) We made Peanut Butter Blossoms and Italian Chocolate Balls (we put chocolate chips in instead of walnuts, though!).

We were also excited to light the final candle in our Advent wreath:

I wasn't feeling well on Sunday morning after a terrible night of sleep, so we watched the 8 am mass that my parish had streamed for the 4th Sunday of Advent. I have us reserved for the 10 am mass on Christmas day, so hopefully that all goes without a hitch!

Prior to the bad night of sleep though, I had my online Christmas themed dance show, and that went great! Picture me dancing in a bright red gown in the middle of our living room, which was cleared of all easily movable furniture, a camera mounted on a ladder, and my family marooned in their bedrooms. 😂 As the organizer wrote to us later, she appreciated our hard work, especially because she knows it isn't easy prepping a piece, setting up your own "stage," and being your own grip and director. There's certainly an unnatural element to performing solely online, with the lack of dedicated performance space and audience/performer energy exchange, but we're all getting a bit more used to it in the dance community, and making the best of it for the time being. I've finally gotten to a place wherein I've accepted that this is the way it is for the time being, and I might as well find the joy and new opportunities that these online shows present until we can go back to in-person shows. I'm lining up some opportunities for the first part of the new year, and really looking forward to working on some new pieces. I will say that performing online means that I have become more choreographed and artistic in my approach to what I present in dance, since there is no crowd energy to feed off of for improvising. It's different for me, and challenging in the best way possible, so I'm seeing that as a positive!

In terms of holiday/wintertime crafting, I've been a busy bee. I promised an update on the Advent gnome, and so here is my in-progress Gnutmeg!

The stitch marker is holding the spot for a belt buckle. The final clue is out today, and I can see that we will be assembling some of the other pieces we knit (nose and beard, various icords for limbs, I'm assuming) onto the gnome, and also adding some final surprises! I'll post a photo after the holidays when I have him all finished. 

I also worked a bit more on Frog:

Creepy, I know, with the disembodied eyeballs. 😂 Terrifyingly, the pattern calls for you to *cut out holes for the eyes* and then stitch them on in a way to create eyelids. I have the spot marked out with stitch markers, but have been too chicken so far to proceed. I'm picturing unraveled green yarn all over my couch, and me in tears guzzling wine off to the side. Someone may have to come hold me afterward. 🤣 I'll post an update after the new year!

Speaking of, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and happy New Year! I'll be posting again the week following New Years Day, and using the time to recharge and think of creative new things we can chat and pray about in 2021! 

*virtual group hug*

New classes are good for our minds and spirits...

 

Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Fun Friday for November! I think we need this now more than ever, yes? It's getting pretty wintry in my part of the world, and things are also getting even more challenging with regards to the pandemic, so it's going to be a tough haul over here for the winter. But we can do our best to keep our spirits up! Last week we talked about holiday crafting with new and upcoming -alongs, and this week I thought we would focus on trying our new classes!

With our current situation, of course, we're pretty much talking online classes for the time being. There might be some in-person opportunities right now, but I know that's much more limited at present. We'll get back there! In the meantime, to try and look at the positives, online classes present a greater variety to choose from, sometimes offering instruction/instructors that you otherwise would not have access to. This winter, I think online classes are an important way to keep our minds engaged, our spirits lifted, and our souls feeling a connection to others. *heart*

For my part, you know how I am with dance. ;-) I love it! Since the summer, I've been taking an online ballet class, which I had not done since I was in my teens. I am finding it challenging in the best way possible! I have even worked my way from Introduction to Ballet to Advanced Beginner ballet, LOL! It's *difficult*, to be sure. I'm using different muscles and movement pathways than I'm used to. But it's absolutely awesome, and a great lift to my week on Tuesday evenings, all from the comfort of my home office. I'm taking the classes via Rosa Noreen's Grace Academy. She's based in Portland, Maine, but via Zoom anyone can access her classes from anywhere in the world! She's an absolutely delightful instructor, and has adorable cats that visit during class, too. :-)

Rosa also teaches belly dance (same link above if you'd like to try an intro class!), which you all know is my very favorite. My local belly dance classes have been back in-person since September, but I've been supplementing with other classes and workshops online as I see them pop up in my social media feeds. Right now, I'm taking a 4 week practice series for November based around slow "gooey" movements with a dancer I admire who lives on the West Coast. Aside from doing time zone math to get the class time right, it's now easy peasy to study with her! It's for 30 minutes a day, Mondays through Thursdays, and I'm loving it. It gets me moving during the week, and focused on technique. It's also inspiring new ideas for me on a slow piece I could work on over the winter.  

If you're at all interested in dance, do some searching online and I bet you'll find an instructor you could study with via Zoom for the winter. It's really kept me going to discover and try out new things this way! Fitness is the same. I take Piyo and Body Sculpt online via Zoom, and my wonderful Zumba instructor offers online classes that I'd love to get back to. I *highly* recommend Zumba dance fitness, and I'm sure you'll be able to find tons of people offering these online right now!

To tie together our themes from the past two weeks. Craftsy offers a slew of online classes for knitting, crocheting, sewing, cake decorating, and more! These are not live classes, but still, an impressive library of possibilities. Is there anything specific you'd like to explore in an online class? Pop your ideas into the comments and we'll see what we can find out online!

Happy bursts of creativity, and summer reading mode...

Happy Friday everyone! Last week, I just...forgot to blog. :-0 That is very unusual for me! But my mind was actually pre-occupied by the creative projects I've been working on, and combined with the daily parts of our lockdown life that we've finally gotten used to (homeschooling, working from home, dance and fitness classes in our guest room, hee!) it just slipped my mind until Friday evening. But I'm happy to say that I have settled into this situation a bit better and my mind is often now in a serene and creative place, and so things slipping my mind lately are a result of that, and no longer related to anxiety and depression, which I see as a very good thing!

I've been crafting up a storm owing to the Knit-along and Crochet-along that I'm participating in, both shawls. They are both arranged in blocks, and as you finish each block, you post a photo in the Ravelry group and are thus eligible to win a prize. It's very fun! The Knit-along shawl is particularly spectacular, and is called The Journey:

Pattern is "The Journey" via Expression Fiber Arts

So far, I've knit the segments called Cabin of Complacency (see the little cabins in the green section?), and Forest of Fear (leaves are my favorite!), and am about halfway through the River of Doubt:

This is a very rewarding project to make your way through. The yarn is an alpaca and silk blend and is quite warm and heavy, so sometimes I have to put the project down depending on the weather. :-0 But I'm loving it!

The crochet shawl moves along very quickly, as crochet is wont to do. I have 4 of 5 blocks done. This one is called the Renata shawl:

"Renata" shawl via Expression Fiber Arts

I'm calling mine the Spring Blooms shawl based on the colors I chose:

I just have the light green final segment left to go, and I'm aiming to complete that this weekend! The details in each section are really delicate and lovely:

I've also been a busy bee with writing, and my Catholic Mom piece this month on summer reading list themes. Yes, themes. :-0 This summer, I'm reading lots of cozy fiction, and there is also an intriguing biography in there about a prominent Catholic author. Check Catholic Mom next week for all the deets! If you have summer reading plans, I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

Dancing publicly, but in my living room, and other quarantine adventures...

Hello friends, and TGIF? Maybe? It's so weird anymore, the week days and weekends don't seem as much different from each other as they used to, but we do what we can. I do prefer weekends still because I don't have to chase after the kids to complete their school work, but at the same time, without the structure of having some schoolwork to do, and really no place for them to go right now, it's difficult to keep them entertained for long. We're doing the best we can. We're going to all be home definitely through May 15th here in NY, and I'm expecting news in the next 1-2 weeks about the rest of the school year.

I had mentioned that last weekend I was invited to dance in an online show, which meant that I put on makeup (the first time in what feels like forever) including false eyelashes, pulled on a dance costume, put on ACTUAL JEWELRY, warmed up, moved some furniture, and then danced in my living room for hundreds of people to see. 🤣 It was a bit surreal, to be honest, but I have to say that I *really* enjoyed it! It felt SO GOOD to perform again, and having that performance to prepare for gave me a happy project and a sense of purpose for a solid week leading up to this. It went really well, and I was on a dance high all day on Sunday as a result. Monday left me with up and down emotions again just like every day since this nightmare began, but any little escape is a good thing right now, to my mind. I have another show May 2nd, and I'm sooooo grateful for this!

The other happy distraction I've been indulging in of late is my yarn crafting, and today I thought I'd share this fun little tidbit with you: this weekend is the traditional Local Yarn Shop Day, with lots of yarn shopping and little celebrations, which of course is not taking place in person like usual due to our current global health crisis. So this year it is being hosted online, with yarn shops around the country all sponsoring the beautiful shawl pattern pictured below from casapinka:

There is a list linked in the pattern page I posted above of participating yarn shops, sorted by location. If you purchase a yarn kit to make this shawl from them, they will email you a code to download the pattern for free this weekend. I ended up ordering a kit from Four Purls, a mint combined with a heathered gray called Raindrops, and I'm SO EXCITED. I'm happily awaiting my pattern download code this morning!

So that's what has been happening with me. How about you? Any happy distraction ideas? :-) I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

"Is there still time for me to get out of this?!" Adventures in dance competition finals...

OK, so I'm BACK and STILL ALIVE! 😂 But I tell you, I asked a lot of myself this past weekend. This took "stretching your comfort zone" to a whole new level!

I woke up Saturday ready to go. Mostly. You know, after coffee. ;-) But the time was nigh, and I was as ready as I would ever be. I kept telling myself that all I was doing was going to perform at an event. I was going to get up on a stage and dance my choreography. I perform all the time, so no big deal!

But of course, this was different. With the event being a competition, I was putting myself out there in a different way than I ever had before, and I was definitley feelin' it. I put my makeup on and packed my bag, and gathered up my army of dance supporters in the form of Mike, my instructor and mentor, Claire, and one of my best friends, Brandy. We set off amidst a sea of nerves.

The drive took us over an hour, so we had plenty of time to chat and try to relax a bit. Our arrival was what was making me most nervous, because then the anticipation wait would begin. And that was tough, but all told it was less than 2 hours, since my category was up first. And once at the venue, I met SO MANY kind and beautiful dancers. The environment could not have been more supportive and pleasant, even amongst people dancing in the same category! I can't say enough about how positive this entire event was.

I danced second to last in my category, and when the dancing started, something became very clear: the level of talent at this event was VERY HIGH. I mean, VERY, VERY HIGH. 😂 I felt pretty in awe that I was included as a finalist among them! Over the course of the afternoon, I learned that dancers came in for this event from several large cities where they study with internationally known teachers, and all had been in competitions before. Their dancing was absolutely spectacular!

So when your Catholic Librarian's turn came up, I made my way to the stage with as much courage and bravado as I could muster. First, I summoned my internal patronus. ;-) Then, I danced my best, and gave it everything that I had in me, but I was not surprised when I did not secure a placing finish, and that's totally OK! What I did receive was some outstanding and incredibly helpful feedback from the judges, and the experience of pushing myself to take place in an event like this has changed my dance forever in the best way possible. It was an extremely positive and transformative experience, and to be a finalist at an event of that level has left me all aglow. I feel so inspired to move forward in my dance career, and to continue to grow based on what I learned. I'm also now friends on social media with a number of these dancers, and it's all so cute and warm and fuzzy. 😍 I absolutely love it!

Honestly, the fact that I didn't chicken out has me feeling pretty good about myself. :-0 Being in a competition is an intimidating situation, albeit a healthy one, and the fact that the shyest gal in school pulled that off is a personal milestone, to be sure! I seem to keep choosing to do things that terrify me more and more, so I'm not sure what this means about what is next. ;-) But it's certainly keeping things interesting and exciting! I definitely feel an increased sense of inspiration for studying my art, and I can't wait to see what comes next!

What's the scariest thing you've ever challenged yourself to do in order to grow in something that you care about? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

"The horse is out of the barn at this point. sweetie." Adventures in an epic amount of nervous energy...

My husband is loving, but very practical. ;-) And he's right. As I write this, it's Thursday. The dance competition finals are Saturday afternoon. I've prepared, I've reheared, I've fine tuned. I've practiced everything from technique to fluid arms and hands to projecting emotion with my face. And honestly, this is the biggest benefit of participating in a competition: it's not the results, it's the preparation. I suppose one enters a competition partially because they would like some recognition that their efforts have paid off and that they are good at what they do; but it's mostly because you care so deeply about your art and know that to continue to grow, you need to challenge yourself and make yourself vulnerable. And indeed, I feel very vulnerable right now. :-0

I will continue to rehearse over the next 2 days, but it's pretty much a done deal at this point. It is what it is, and it showcases the best that I'm capable of at this point of my journey. There's no use mentally comparing myself to the other dancers, because I cannot change any of that. They're all going to be really talented, and I need to just focus on myself. Tough to do, but necessary. I actually expected this week to be much more difficult mentally than it has turned out to be. Because although the thought of the unease I'll face on Saturday is certainly present in my mind, it has not consumed me. My piece is done, I think that's what is soothing me. It's completely done, there are no arms/weird things left that have been bugging me and I want to change. It's finished, and I'm resting easy in that. It is what it is, and I hope that the audience enjoys it!

So anyway, that's pretty much all that's on my mind right now. 😂And I am *definitely* looking forward to my post-competition life in which I think of other things in terms of my creative realm! Even within dancing, I've been fixated on this piece for so long, I can hardly hear the music anymore without inwardly groaning. :-0 It's time to move on to other things! I have some awesome dance plans for later this fall and winter that I cannot wait for! 😍

Coming up, I'll certainly report in on the competition experience next week. After that, as we move into October, I have some Fall into the Season Catholic plans as we gear up for the end of the liturgical year. ;-) Stay tuned!

Adventures in new school routines and last minute restaurant dancing...

Well, it may not be pretty, but I'm makin' it. 😂 The weeks are long right now, but we're getting there. Let's settle in for a drink!

I've lived through another week, which these days, is an enormous accomplishment. I feel like this each day lately when I get up in the morning:

Life is a marathon right now, but I'm trying to sprint through each day. I'm getting there, but each evening when I am trying to keep my eyes open before collapsing into bed I am very aware that I am trying to do too much and that I cannot keep up this pace forever. But in the short term, until the competition finals are over, I'm not really sure what else to do. So I'm hanging on for dear life and doing the best I can.

Henry is loving his new high school. I'm quite shocked at how he's clearly acclimated already and thriving. We're still figuring out how we're getting him to and from school each day, since he starts and finishes at completely different times from Anne, but we'll get there. We live close enough that he always has the option to walk/bike, which is absolutely clutch. 

As for Anne, things are still a struggle. She has not acclimated to her new class, and is not thriving in any way. I'm anxious to talk to her teacher, but unfortunately, her teacher's mom passed away this week, and so there has been a substitute. Therefore (quite understandably) it's going to be awhile before I'll be able to get a sense of how she's doing when she's actually at school. I just know that at home, she's been quite unhappy and down about school. Mike and I are both, consequently, quite anxious about all of this. It's been challenging, for sure.

My car goes in to be repaired on Monday, thankfully. But my litany of other appointments remain, and I'm just balancing them all in the short term as best I can. My classes are finally all scheduled, so that's something.

In my dance world, it's been complete and total chaos. :-0 I've been preparing for the competition, and my troupe is preparing for a hafla that is coming up in just a few weeks, but everything is on hold at the studio right now because one of our instructors is getting married this weekend. And in the midst of all this, I've had several paid gigs. I hadn't had a paid gig since New Year's Eve, and now I've had 2 in the past 3 weeks. 😳 And it's great, don't get me wrong. But it's been so stressful at a time when I've had so much else going on, I can hardly think straight.

Last week, my instructor and main dancing partner in gigging situations messaged me to see if I was available to dance at the grand re-opening of a restaurant we frequently dance at on New Year's Eve. They had had a fire, and had been closed for 5 months. They wanted to hire us to dance, but the re-opening was in 3 days.

😬

Now, here's the thing: we're belly dancers. We improvise for a living. I can put together a set list and dance to it with 5 minutes of notice. But emotionally, paying gigs take a lot out of me. You're in costume and performing to the utmost of your ability for anywhere from 12-20+ minutes, and it's exhausting. Restaurant sets are usually 20 minutes for us, and we each dance 2 or 3. It takes a lot of physical stamina and emotional well being. And the emotional thing has been a bit low of late. :-0

But this is a great restaurant, a great opportunity, and great extra pay. So we agreed to do it.

That Friday found me applying stage makeup as Mike and the kids ripped up carpets in the upstairs hallway, remember that? I'm stepping over staples and disintegrated carpet pad as I frantically race around looking for my 4D mascara and extra facial glitter. Claire and I arrive at 5 pm for a 4 hour stretch of waiting amongst straw wrappers and sugar packets, interspersed with 20 minute sets of dancing. This restaurant is lovely, but their sound system is not the best, and stress abounded with getting the music to play loudly, all while people keep coming up to ask me if I can seat them at a table. :-0 It's always a little wacky at these adventures. I will also say that it adds an element of interest to improvisational dancing when you don't even remember what you put on your set list. :-0

But it went great, and I went home a limp noodle after a very long day. I don't know how much longer I can keep up this pace, but I have to until September 22nd. Then I can start worry about my crazy teaching load (5 classes that next day alone) and the hafla that I don't even know the dance for yet. 😂I don't know, I guess we'll figure it all out! But I have to admit, I don't like things to be *quite* this exciting all at the same time!

What's new with you as September reaches it's mid point?

In dance prep mode... When I have any energy at all, that is ;-)

Welcome to the end of August at Life of a Catholic Librarian, friends, and I cannot believe how quickly this summer flew by! My kids go back to school next week after the holiday, each of them, for the first time in several years, going to a separate school building (Henry's of the high school variety), Henry has a smartphone for the first time in his entire life, and Mike and I have been back to our fall semester schedules since this past Monday. My crazy teaching load won't start up again for a few more weeks, so thank goodness for small favors.

I've been battling some anxiety about all of these changes, and I've also been battling a persistent muscle pull in my left calf. With the dance competition less than a month away, I'm pretty much freaking out. :-0 I finally took the initiative to see an orthopaedist about it, and initial diagnosis is quite good. He doesn't think it's anything more serious than a simple strained muscle, and recommended physical therapy. I start next week, and am feeling very encouraged by it. I've also been working on my own to strengthen that lower leg, since it's now somewhat weaker than the other one.

You could say that I have a lot of trepidation moving into September. I'm doing my best with it, but it's definitely been a significant challenge in my adult life.

As September 1st looms, I'm burying my head in the sand and not looking at the calendar. 😂 My dance competition finals are Saturday, September 21st. I'm telling myself that it'll just be a wonderful learning experience, I've already benefitted greatly from the preparation process, and that I'll likely not place in the top 3. And seriously, that would be fine. I'm thrilled to have been selected as a finalist, and I need to keep my expectations low. It's an international competition, that's a really big deal! If the reality exceeds them, well, that's gravy, but it probably won't.

I've been working on my piece since late January. Time limit is 3 minutes, so I had to select and cut music, and choreograph a dance. Let me tell you, it was HARD. I'm a belly dancer, and I love to improvise. That's an important part of this dance form. I found planning out a piece to be much more difficult than I anticipated! I used to choreograph solo pieces to perform at haflas when I was new to soloing, and so I thought it wouldn't be a big deal to go back to doing it just this once. Yikes! Nope, it's difficult to plan out a choreography, especially when you want to use it to show the entire range of your dancing abilities in 3 minutes.

Finally, in May, I had a version I was pretty happy with. I filmed the video, amusing anecdotes and all, and submitted it. As much as I had enjoyed the process, and working with one of my instructors who mentored me through it all, I was so glad to not have to practice that dance anymore. :-0

My reprieve lasted a month, when I found out that I had been selected as a finalist. This means that you now have to perform live in the finals. You can perform the piece you did in your video, or something else entirely, it's up to you, and it's a whole new panel of judges. With less than 3 months between then and the finals, I did NOT want to come up with entirely new material. So I'm using my video piece; however, it's been heavily modified based upon judges' feedback and my own fussiness about things I decided that I hated. 😂 It's silly, because the piece is done, it's been honed and revamped based on excellent and detailed feedback, I've been practicing it for months in terms of fine tuning my technique and other nuances, yet I still feel so unprepared.

I suppose that's how it will always be with these sorts of things. When you care about what you do, you always feel like it could be better. I also hope that, on the day of the performance, my nerves don't interfere with my ability to do my best. Tha's what everyone always worries about, yes? It's a Catch 22. You're nervous because you want to perform to your fullest potential, but your nerves interfere wtih your ability to perform to your fullest potential. Stinks, but it's part of the human condition.

So, that's that. I rehearse my piece every single day, and indeed, after the finals, I will be relieved to NEVER DANCE THAT CHOREOGRAPHY EVER AGAIN! :-0 I'm dancing at the party after the finals are over, and how I delight in being able to improvise and do whatever I want, ha ha!

I'll keep you posted, but truly, it's OK no matter what. If you don't challenge yourself, you'll never grow. You might be more comfortable (as my poor stomach can attest) but you'll be letting yourself down if you don't at least try. We'll see what happens. But no matter what, on September 22nd, I'm laying on the couch all day, drinking beer, eating pizza, and watching football. :-0

How is your August wrapping up, dear friends?

Dancing around dogs and potholes - festival dancing adventures 2019...

TGIF everyone, and as ever, weeks with summer festival dancing are full of adventure. I have to admit that heat and humidity are not my favorite conditions to dance in, but when you perform a cultural dance form, outdoor festivals are sort of your jam, whether you like it or not. So I've adapted as best I can (gigantic clip to get hair off of neck for in-between dances and changing of costumes is absolutely ESSENTIAL) but it's always an interesting stretch, especially the last full weekend in July, when our studio has traditionally danced 2 full afternoons at one particular art festival.

This year, there was no stage for performers, so we danced out at ground level throughout the festival grounds. This is another less then ideal situation, because it means that we're dancing on a road surface that is inevitably uneven and full of divots and loose gravel. It's just, you know. Not very glamorous. :-0 And a little bit uncomfortable!

Saturday was about 85 degrees, and quite humid, so my very strength of will was girded about what we were about to experience. Which is to say: sweat. So much sweat. And the un-air conditioned dressing space is the gateway to this situation, for sure and for certain. 😂

We were dressed in Saidi gowns, which means that the sweat situation was a bit more intense than usual, as they are full length and have long sleeves. I know, I know, but we are performing a number of folkloric pieces this summer, so the costuming is very specific. Hence, the sweat. But people dance in Egypt in gowns heavier than this, so I figure I cannot complain. ;-)

Saidi gowns!

And everything went very well. It's always difficult to carve out dance space in these situation, but people are super curious, so they tend to give way. I don't like dancing on slightly inclined surfaces, because I lose my balance much more easily when turning, but I did what I could:

Tiffany's Thought Bubble: "Well, maybe if I just step/step/step around it'll be better? Oof. Where did that hole come from?"

As we were lining up for our drum piece, I heard a troupemate whisper:

"Could you guys scoot forward just a bit? We're in a pot hole over here."

Very typical festival conditions, to be sure. 😂

Each day required an immediate shower afterward and complete laundering of costume and accessories, but such is life in summer festival season. We're performing again tonight, and I'm expecting more of the same! It's draining, but fun to dance with my girls. 🤗

What are you all up to this first weekend in August?

Is there such a thing as too much dance excitement? A tale of exciting anxiety :0

Well, I'm here to tell you that there is. 😂 This week, I think we need wine instead of hot cocoa, but whatever your preference, settle in for a chat!

My mind has been all a whirl for quite some time now. There have been so many changes, as I've spoken of recently. And more are to come, as Henry starts high school this fall, Mike will begin a new teaching position, and even my own teaching responsibilities will look somewhat different next semester due to changes in the way our program will be administered. It's just a lot to deal with for someone who is quite averse to change. :-0

And then there's dance changes. Dance has been a constant in my life for just over 10 years now, and it was a staple in my childhood as well. It's something that has given me stability in my active life, and inspiration in my creative life. Those two things have grown over the most recent 3-5 years, for sure. I've kept on tackling new challenges in dance, and it has been the best thing that I have ever done.

I remember when I was in the beginner class thinking that all of the people who performed at haflas were so brave, that I could never do that. Well. 😳

I did that, and it was a downright BIG DEAL, performing with my class for the very first time. That's a HARD thing to do, I think back on it so fondly when I see new students at the studio getting the jitters about this, because I so completely understand. To be sure, I STILL get performance jitters before dancing. As in, major ones. But we'll come back to that.

So, first I took the leap and began performing with my class at haflas. Then I moved up to the troupe, and it was a given that I would perform more with them, since they perform at festivals and other events. At that point, that was a pretty seamless and natural transition. Also, right around that same time, I tried something ELSE I swore I'd never do: I performed a solo. THAT was a really huge milestone, if I'm being honest. That was one of the hardest things I've ever done in dance; to look out and see everybody waiting for you to start, because, you know, it's just YOU out there and they're all. Looking. At. YOU.

😬

It was scary, for a shy person, it must be said. But I did it. That was one of my proudest dance moments. I did a solo at every hafla after that, and I remember each of them. But that first one holds a special place in my heart.

After a few years, I got my first pro restaurant gig, and I have to say, that was a pretty scary leap too. 😂 And my pro experiences built up pretty slowly, so in-between those gigs it was like I was starting from scratch, sick to my stomach before each event and/or New Year's Eve. But I made it, and I got better at it, and I was proud.

And then, well. I did something a little crazy. I entered a dance competition.

😨😨😨

I'm not really sure why I did that. :-0 Well, my mentors encouraged me to, and this particular one is fairly local to us, AND the first stage involved simply filming and entering a video. Pshaw, I said. A video? I can do that. Well.

It's not as easy as it sounds. :-0 And you all know me, I'm an improvisational dancer. I LOVE to improvise, I'm good at it, and I feel comfortable doing it. What I'm NOT good at is creating choreography, and that's what I needed to do for this video. I mean, I *suppose* you could improvise in this situation, but that didn't strike me as a good idea for a competition. You want to assure that you showcase a range of movements and musical expressions, and with improvisation, you never know what the heck is going to happen. You may plan certain parts of it, to fit specific spots in the music, but in the moment, you may or may not remember to do those things. At least if my improv experience is any indication. It makes for beautiful, emotive, dancing, but in this particular case, it didn't seem to be the right fit. So I chose music and started a choreography. 5 months later...

:-0

I finished and filmed the video. 😂 For 3 minutes of choreography, yes, it took me 5 months. Because I kept changing and fine tuning things, and then I wanted to work on my technique and expression within the choreography. That took a lot out of me, I tell you. :-0 This was HARD! Really, really hard. And then the filming itself.

My teacher helped me to film the video. She has better equipment then I have, and offered up the studio as a nice big spot to film. This was fantastic, especially since the alternative was my small living room. We filmed 3 takes, and they went as follows:

Take 1: Went well, but I was nervous and stiffer in my execution.

Take 2: I'm all relaxed and into it. My favorite take by far. Figuring I'll use this one.

Take 3: I'm all sweaty and exhausted, and the adrenaline is starting to wear off. But I film one more just in case. I have a memory lapse towards the end, and forget a movement, but keep going. No matter, because I'm not using that one anyway.

A few days later, I look at the takes:

Take 1: is fine, but I know I can do better.

Take 2: Approximately 25 seconds into the 3 minute video, a thick portion of hair sticks to the sweat on my forehead and lodges there quite noticeably. All glamour, all the time, over here. I figure the hair flips and such I have coming up will fix that, but NOPE. It stays there for the entire.rest.of.the.song. Crap!

Take 3: I'm sweaty. But clearly more relaxed. There's that mistake at the end that doesn't look noticeable to the outside observer, but *I* notice it and it's bugging me. Now what?!

😭

This was all very stressful, I tell you. Sure, I could re-film, but my teacher had warned me about this phenomena: when you care about your art, there comes a point after which, when you have to ability to keep trying, you'll never be happy with it. You care so much that you always feel that it can be better. But at a certain point you have to call it enough. And that's where I was at. Plus, I did not want to inconvenience my teacher to take time out of her busy schedule to film me again. So I did the only sensible thing:

I roped my long suffering husband into moving the carpet and furniture out of our small living room so that I could do another take there. :-0

That was an amusing morning, it must be said. Me in a belly dance costume at 8 am, Mike rolling up an area rug and wedging the coffee table into our hallway. And both of us rigging up my small iPad mini to try and film. The things we'll do for love. Well.

The experience was worthwhile, but I didn't end up using that video. The picture and sound quality were just so much lower, and though we tried to control the natural light, it was still reflecting in at a bad angle and washing me out on one side of the room. I was glad that I had tried, because it made me feel like I had at least exhausted every possibility. And in comparing the videos, it made me appreciate the studio videos anew.

So what did I end up picking? Take 3, of course. I had a few friends watch them, and my teachers, and all picked Take 3 as their favorite. So I submitted that one and tried not to obsess about it. That was the end of May.

In June: Well OK, I obsessed a *little*, but I really think I kept it reigned in pretty well. :-0

Then on Monday, I got word: I was chosen as a finalist in my category. And I now have to perform live in September for the final round of the competition.

And this is the point at which we circle back to the performance jitters issue. WHAT ON EARTH WAS I THINKING?! Now I have to go perform in a competition and I'm scared to death! 😂 Why do I torture myself this way?!

Because if we don't challenge ourselves, we won't grow. And if we don't grow, our art will die. When we grow, we are alive. And that's a good, good feeling, even if it's mixed with nausea. ;-)

The process of working on the choreography, and working to improve my dance within it, was more beneficial than I could have possibly realized. And even if nothing more comes of it than the stage I'm at right now (which is to say, I don't achieve a placing finish in the final competition, and of course, this is a very likely scenario given that all of the dancers at this level are extremely talented!) I'm so glad that I did this. I'm continuing to challenge and trying to improve myself, and that's an excellent thing. Plus, this business of me being a finalist in a competition is staying on my dance Instagram profile for all time and eternity. :-0

So, this summer will be dedicated to working on my choreography again. Your video submission earns you judges' comments, and they are SO HELPFUL, I can't even begin to tell you. So I'll be working on technique and a few small changes. In the end, all I can do is work to showcase my personal best. I'm going into September with no expectations beyond trying to achieve that.

Honestly, though. I cannot believe I went through with this. :-0 Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad for it! But this is nerve wracking. I hope that I feel really, really alive in late September. 😂

How do you continue to challenge yourself in the things you love? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Dance updates and happenings, and has spring abandoned us?

Happy mid-May everybody! Usually, by this time of year, spring has sprung, but not this year. Weather here in WNY (and I think this is somewhat prevalent throughout the east coast and midwest this year) has been on average 15 degrees below normal, and this is the most rain we've had in a number of years. It has been a bit of a downer, if I'm being honest. You all know that I don't mind winter the way many of my compatriots do, but even I'm sick of it at this point. I love having 4 distinct seasons, I just wish they would all stay in their assigned months, kwim?

Fall: September/October/November (granted, a transition month, we can all live with this)
Winter: December/January/February
Spring: March (another transition month)/April/May
Summer: June/July/August

Is that too much to ask? Instead, the past several years, it's 85 degrees until late October, and winter starts in late January and goes through April. White Christmas? Who ever heard of such a notion. White Easter is the new thing. 😬

I enjoy each of the seasons, but it seems like summer and winter have been overstaying their welcome, while fall and spring have become nearly nonexistent. Yes, even summer can last too long. I don't want to be sweating while we're picking pumpkins.

So, at any rate, there's been some seasonal affective sluggishness around here. The diocesan track meet that Henry is participating in has gotten moved due to rain (you know, AGAIN), and my friends with kids playing softball have gotten nary a practice or game in due to either rain or sloppy field conditions. Nobody can wear sandals with bare legs yet, and everybody seems to be walking around in a confused and dazed state. :-0

But we're getting there. The kids' school year is winding down (they go until late June around here), and we're making summer plans. I've resumed dancing, following the calf injury I reported a few weeks ago. It's going well, the leg has continued to improve, but I'm very aware of the fact that it's not 100%, and it won't be, for probably 4-6 more weeks. I struggle with this, to be sure. I'm able to take my dance and Piyo classes (though I've skipped my Zumba dance fitness class for the past 2 weeks because I'm afraid all the twisting and hopping could potentially re-injure it), and I can pretty much do any movement I'd like now, but I have to be very careful. When I'm practicing everything is generally great, but attempting a full out rehearsal for the project I'm working on, with performance level energy, resulted in my leg reminding me that it's not 100% yet, which got me down a bit. I applied some ice last night, and am going to take it easy for a few days. I've been stretching daily, and using my foam roller on it, and I know that this is all I can do aside wait for the full 6 weeks for it to heal. I'm hating it. :(

But it's a reminder that we are not in control of everything, and that sometimes we have to be patient. This patience can even result in new opportunities, but it's so hard to let go. Today, I'm going to work on my upper body from a seated position, and this is an excellent little secret tip for dancers: When you're not thinking about what your legs and feet need to be doing, it's amazing how much you can train your torso, upper chest, hands, arms and face to do that you wouldn't ordinarily focus on. And I rarely take the time to do this, so this is the perfect opportunity to rest my leg and do it. It isn't easy to not be able to do everything that I want to, physically, but I'm doing my best to make the most of it.

So that's how it's going over here. How is spring in your part of the world? Donna, how is that snake bite coming along?! 😬

A spiritual take on performing and making ourselves vulnerable...

It's hard to believe that Lent is over, and we're all settling into the Easter season already. I've been so focused on Lenten reading and other Holy Week related stuff on here, that I haven't talked about lifey things in quite a while, and that's what is inspiring me this week. So settle in for our wine time. :)

I've been dancing a LOT lately. As in, way more than I ever have before. I'm not performing any more than usual, that has remained about the same, but I'm working on my dancing a lot more on my own and through additional training with my 2 fabulous instructors. Dancing is the hobby I'm most passionate about, and life is short, you know? :-) I've actually been working on my own choreography for something, which is *very* rare for me, as I'm an improvisational dancer. But it's for a special project, more details to come as events unfold. ;-) I've been working on that since January, and also working on improving technique, and I have found myself practicing for a short bit every single day. I've also been watching videos while I eat lunch at work of dancers that I admire, and they have been inspiring me to keep working at what I love to do. It all started rather quietly, but I have come to treasure my daily dance fix.

This brings us up to this past weekend, which included our twice annual studio show. I was dancing with my troupe as well as dancing solo, and so in the week leading up, I broke off from practicing the other choreography I had been working on and devoted the time to the group dances and getting to know the music that I would be soloing to, as I would be improvising. My secret is that I film myself a lot when I practice (I have grown in clinical detachment over the months, and this does not make me cringe anymore :0) and thus work to eliminate any funky things I may be unknowingly doing with my arms, hands or face. Awkward transitions and their ilk are removed with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel, I take this all very seriously. ;-)

And so I was all ready on Sunday afternoon for the show. I had 2 group pieces in the first set, those went great. Then I had my solo and a group number in the second set, and one final group dance in the third and final set.

I sailed out for my solo to music that I absolutely LOVE, was dancing my heart out, and everything was going grand. Until about 3/4 of the way through the song when I did something that caused an immediate, and sickeningly familiar, pain in my left leg: I had strained my calf muscle, right then and there, and this is a frustrating injury that I have been struggling with for years now. I did my best to keep my face from showing it, and kept dancing, because you all know me by now, and thus know that I don't give up on things very easily. :0 Luckily, the song was almost over, and while I had been debating doing a fast turn sequence at the end, the decision was made for me that there would be the MUCH MORE SUBDUED TURN SEQUENCE put into play instead. I was pleased with how the piece went, but I was worried about my leg, because I had a group number to perform next with just a single dance during which to change, and then in the third set a Saidi piece, which is an Egyptian folkloric dance with lots of hopping.

Hopping 😭

I changed my costume quick like a bunny and headed out for the next dance, trying not to limp. I made it, but there were lots of painful twinges while I danced, letting me know that all was not well in Left Calf Land.

Then I had to dress and prepare for the Saidi. Remember the hopping?

Hopping 😭

This time I chose the route of mental and emotional denial preparation, as I had much more time before that number was up in the queue:

Me: "All right Leg, the Saidi is up! You're strong and you feel fine. We're doing this!"

Leg: "You're not very bright are you?"

😳

It was the last piece of the show, and I was determined that I would dance it. And I did, hopping and all. Thankfully, the worst of the hopping was on the right leg, but the left still had a cross to bear.

When the show ended and I had made it through despite the injury, I felt relieved and happy. Everything had gone beautifully. I figured that I would rest it up for the remainder of the day, take a nice hot shower, and lay on the couch a lot with it elevated. Based on previous experience, I knew that it would take about 6 weeks to fully heal, but I would likely feel mostly back to normal in 1-2 weeks if I took it easy. Well.

I woke up Monday morning and I COULD NOT WALK.

😭😭😭

I stupidly had not applied any ice to it on Sunday, and after sleeping on it, it tightened up like nobody's business. I could put zero weight on my left leg, and I didn't take it so well. In tears, I consulted Dr. Google, and got my ice pack out. I stayed home from work (because there was no way I could even make it from the parking lot into the library), parked my butt on the couch, and applied ice for 20-30 minutes every hour. By the second application, I could already feel a difference. Although it wasn't pretty, I could use my left leg again. I did that all day long until the evening, when I applied heat to relax it a bit.

Tuesday morning it was still sore, but a lot better. I applied more ice in the morning, and went into work. As of today, Thursday, I'm walking completely normally and only have minimal soreness when I first wake up. I'm well on my way back to my happy dance routine, but this taught me an important lesson, and not just about the importance of ice application to inflamed tissue. :0

Sometimes we take things for granted, and we should not. We should cherish every moment that we get to experience joy, and never forget that it could be gone tomorrow. Depressing in a sense, but also very freeing. Everything that we have God gifted us with. We obviously have to also work hard to hone the gifts that He gives us, but we should not take for granted that they will always be there. They won't. As my dance teacher always says to encourage us before we perform: "What are you saving it for? Give everything you have, right in this moment!" I suppose that's how I injured my calf to begin with right in the middle of a performance :0 and it actually makes me happy to think of it this way: that it happened because I was truly giving everything of myself in that moment, and in that performance. It's a whole new perspective on performing, putting yourself out there, and making yourself vulnerable in front of others, I think.

I knew how meaningful dance is to me, but having it taken away from me this week has given me a new appreciation for how much it forms my happiness and identity. I hope to always be able to do what I love, but it's possible that at some point I may not be able to anymore. In the meantime, I'm going to give it everything that I have, and not take it for granted. I'm also going to adopt a regular calf stretching regime, especially before I perform, eek!

What brings you joy in your life that don't want to ever take for granted? :) Feel free to chat with me, and the community, in the comments!

New Year's Dancing amusements, 2019 edition...

A continued Happy New Year to you all! 🤗I'm really riding this New Year's wave to it's maximum, so just know this going forward. ;-) I miss the lovely visiting time of the holidays, but I'm really treasuring the freshness of January this year.

I promised last week a synopsis of my always entertaining New Year's Eve performance exploits, and I always keep my promises. You have your beverage with you to sip?

Rather than the sub-arctic temperatures of last Near Year's Eve, this year the temperatures were mild, and thus the chosen precipitation of the day was pouring rain. And it being the very beginning of the winter, it was pitch black outside when Claire arrived to fetch me, my big rolling suitcase and my sword at 5:30 pm. We hustled down to the restaurant, managed city parking like champs, and wrangled our wet stuff inside. It was about 6 pm.

The restaurant owner and staff were very gracious and happy to see us. They escorted us to our dressing room, otherwise known as the supply room. ;-) To be sure, we are very grateful to have a place other than the public restroom in which to change, so no complaints here. But it's always a comical game of Twister with 2 of us and our poufy costumes smashed into a small space, also occupied by various and sundry restaurant supplies: stacks of tablecloths, cases of takeout containers, and various candles. We wedged in there, and as we began to change, I quickly lost track of a shoe. I decided not to worry about that until we had to leave, and stashed Sword atop an open box of sugar packets.

Once changed and in our coverups, we scouted the Music Situation. No matter what, the music is always a Situation in these encounters. :0 They had a sound system, but it was up at the front of the restaurant behind the greeting/checkout counter, the opposite end of the building from our home base. We quickly conferred about aux cables and using each other's devices, and hurried back to our safe space. It wasn't yet 6:30, and they had wanted us to wait, but suddenly an employee appeared with the request that people were asking for us, and could we begin RIGHT THEN?

😳

Claire hurried to the front to start my music, and I concentrated on sweating profusely and straining my ears to hear the music switch over to my entrance piece. I heard the first strains of the overture, thankfully, and burst out from the back room with my veil aloft. Well.

My music supports a grand and beautiful veil entrance, and let's just say that a crowded, small space does not support a grand veil entrance. :0 I had never danced at this restaurant before, but I've danced in restaurants with small eating areas. I've always been able to enter with a veil and find a spot at the front where you can do some veil work before discarding it. This restaurant is set up differently, and the 2 more open areas leading into the 2 seating spaces were crowded with servers moving back and forth with food and drinks, and with people waiting to be seated or to gather food from the buffet.

I swirled out and immediately was swallowed up into a sea of humanity. There was no room to do anything with the veil, or even lower it very easily. Every time I turned around, there was a server backing away from me carefully, balancing a tray of water glasses. I got up to where Claire was holding vigil with the music, and unceremoniously discarded Veil in her general direction. Things got a wee bit easier after that, but I have to say that this was the tightest space I've ever dealt with in restaurant dancing. The place was hopping, and the New Year's Eve menu was only buffet. So there were people up and about constantly, not just the servers. Me moving from place to place caused a ripple effect of gentle scattering of other bodies. The section with the buffet in it was almost completely inaccessible, and I had to give up trying to shimmy between tables over there and only dance at the small entrance spots. Even there, I risked accidentally slapping servers left and right.

In a nutshell, Set 1 featured:

• Incredibly tight spaces and range of movement. Near disaster with Veil.
• A baby who loved me and did a back bend in his highchair to watch me.
• Lots of people moving around me, wide eyed and clutching plates, as I made my way around.
• Music glitching in and out a bit in the sound system, but the general noise of the place was so loud I doubt anybody noticed but me.

When my drum solo finished up, I was relieved to have that set behind me and swirled to the dressing room. Claire and I conferred, and she confessed nervousness about the giant fan veils she planned for her set. 😬 The owner asked her to wait to start her set, because he was hoping some of the tables would clear out and turn over to new guests. So we waited. And waited. And eventually he came back to say that nobody was leaving. 😂 We took that as a sign that everybody loved us and wanted to see more dancing. 😇

Eventually, he asked Claire to start, and I hustled over in my coverup to set up her music behind the host counter. Immediately, people began asking me about their reservations and how long the wait was. I suppose hostesses in Indian restaurants often wear hot pink dance coverups? ;-)

I got Claire's music going, and the place was now even MORE crowded than it was for my set. People were up trying to pay their bill as new people were coming in and waiting. Her music was doing the glitchy thing too, and I kept trying to assure that the aux cable was attached as firmly as it could be.

After she finished, we changed for our second, and final, sets. We waited again for the tables to fully turn over at the owner's request. Our dressing room, formerly quite toasty warm with all of our necessary shenanigans to get into full costume, and then coming back sweaty from performing, had grown a tad chilly, and cold sweat was now my constant companion. I had decided not to enter with Veil this time, but Sword is featured in song 2 of the second set. He always brings a measure of anxiety in his wake. ;-)

The request for us to start anew came quickly again, and as Claire moved to the front to start my music, I readied and assured my costume was all smoothed. I heard my entrance overture, and got ready to burst out, only then noticing that I had an empty straw wrapper stuck to my bare foot. Glamour, glamour ALL THE TIME.

I danced out, and this time the restaurant was at a much more normal capacity, rather than bursting at the seams, which was a welcome relief. It was still tight over by the buffet, but not as claustrophobic as before. And the audience, because they were seated and eating for the most part, rather than standing in line, were very engaged and responsive. As well, Sword had his big moment, which is always a crowd pleaser.

Set 2 highlights:

• A little brother and sister excitedly followed me around the restaurant.
• Their mom stopped me several times to take pictures with them.
• Their toddler littlest sister came over and burst into tears, I hope it wasn't me. :0
• Their grandfather stopped me to take a picture right in the middle of my baladi song, that was a first.
• Same baby still loved me.
• Several women conversed with me *while I was dancing 😂* to tell me how much they were enjoying the show.
• Sword behaved and I actually kept him with me for the entire second song. Early discard of Sword means that Tiffany is not having a Good Sword Day. ;-) 

It was great, I really enjoyed that set. Claire was able to start her second set soon after mine ended, and we both breathed a sigh of relief that all went well. The owner was very happy and wants to have us back next year. A win/win.

As I packed Sword up and looked for my shoe, spilling the sugar packets all through the open wire shelving unit, :0 I reflected on how much I enjoy my eclectic set of interests. Egyptian dance is much more to me than a hobby, truth be told - it's my passion, it's my (granted, secondary) profession, it is the creative inspiration for everything else that I do, and it gives me a significant sense of creative purpose and meaning. The dancing life is good, truly it is.

I'm signed up for two Egyptian folkloric dance workshops this winter, as well as a Turkish dance intensive in March. Turkish - I'm branching out. ;-) I am very blessed to be able to do what I love. This New Year is going to be a good one, I just feel it. 🤗 In terms of dancing, I want to work on studying and learning as much as I can, and challenging myself in new ways.

How is your January shaping up? Any New Year's resolutions that you're working on? I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

Musings on the New Year, just a bit early...

Well, it's almost the end of 2018, and I'll skip bemoaning how quickly time goes by when you get old and how humbling that is.

😬

Since we've been focusing on the Advent Book Club for the past several weeks, I thought a little update post would be nice, just about general life stuff. That's one of my favorite things about this blog. :)

So, the kids.

😬😬😬

Henry is in 8th grade this year 😭 and has taken the Catholic High School Entrance Exam. We should get his scores and a financial aid package at the end of January. Please pray for us that it is manageable to send him to the Catholic boys high school he'd like to attend, if you please! We would love to send him there, I think he would thrive, and it's literally blocks from our house. But, you know...$$$$. He has also made the basketball team at his current school and has been doing very well. Henry is a more reserved kid, and it's good to see him socializing and fitting in. Warms my heart.

Anne is in 2nd grade and as sassy as ever. She's suddenly very tall and it's hard to believe that this is my little baby. 😭 She's made great strides with her reading abilities, and has a brand new subscription to Magnifikid magazine to show for it. She joined up with a Brownie troop out of a local parish this year, and so far we're both really enjoying it. A good friend of mine is the troop leader, and it's been a fun and warm experience for all. She went camping with them a few weekends ago, and was away from us overnight (without being with a grandparent) for the very first time. 😢 It's hard, but it's so lovely to see her growing and thriving.

Both of my kids are precious souls with good hearts. They drive me crazy more than 50% of the time, but this means that, you know, they're NORMAL. Anne helped me set up our new Shining Light nativity set back at the beginning of Advent, and she now has the wise men slowly traversing the dining room each day to get to the manger in time for the Epiphany. This means that daily, I accidentally kick them over because they're walking right in the path from the kitchen :0 but it's SO ADORABLE that I don't have the heart to move them. It's moments like that that I remember why life is so good.

My Mike is between semesters of teaching and enjoying the time to refresh and recharge prior to the new semester. He's teaching something in the spring called Phenomenology and Existentialism.

!

If anybody can decipher that for me, I'd be much obliged. :0 Our 14th wedding anniversary is coming up in early January, and we're planning a little weekend trip away!  *heart*

In other news, I'm dancing again on New Year's Eve, and I'm actually looking forward to it rather than being frozen in fear, that's a nice change. ;-) Granted, the morning of December 31st, I'll wake up feeling like I'd rather face a trip to the gallows, but no need worrying about that now! :0 I have lots of dance workshop plans in the new year, and I'm SO EXCITED. In addition to Egyptian belly dance, I've been really into studying folkloric dance lately. I study Egyptian folkloric dance as part of my regular classes, but I'm wanting to really delve more into these as there are quite a few different styles in Egypt, (can one procure an advanced degree in belly dance history? 🤔) as well as into Turkish folkloric dance. I took a workshop a few weeks ago on Turkish Roman dance, and I LOVED IT. I've never studied Turkish style dance at all, and this is just one very specific folkloric style. It's wonderful to learn about a new-to-me culture and their dance, the possibilities are endless! But I'm a dance nerd, I can't help myself. ;-)

So, lots of dance research and fun in the new year, and just generally a Life Is Good mentality. I have a lot to be thankful for, and I never want to take that for granted. There were some hard things this year, but I made it, and most importantly, I learned from them. Not all lessons are pleasant, but they are important and vital to our long term well-being. Maybe we won't make the same mistake again next time, you know?

I suppose this is a New Year's Resolution post just a tad early. In the near year, I want to:

• practice a lot of gratitude
• take advantage of every opportunity to grow in my dance hobby that I am so passionate about
• take time, with intentionality, (is this even a real word?!) to be the best that I can be in my main vocation as wife and mother, and in my career as a librarian

How about you? Any goals for the new year? I'd love to hear them!

The final Advent Book Club will be up tomorrow morning!

I suppose that when you're a nerd, nerdiness extends to all areas of your life...

All!

*waves*

Happy week to you, I hope it's going well. I've been busy, as ever. Still teaching, which is at it's peak for the semester in terms of the grading load. But it's almost done! Our regular teaching wraps up this week. I may still be called upon to teach what we call "one shots" in other courses/seminars, but in terms of my more onerous regular teaching load, that will be done until late January. The break will be lovely!

At home, my kids are now at an age that they're actually developing social lives of their own, and this is resulting in yet more busyness. It is also resulting in yet another new season of our parenting journey, and thus is super stressful. 😬 Henry is trying out for the basketball team, and generally wanting to participate in more events with his friends at the school. He is in 8th grade (😭😭😭) and therefore this is completely normal. In fact, it should probably have happened years ago. But Henry is a reserved kid, just like I was, so I totally get it. He's maturing and coming out of his shell a bit, and I'm so pleased about it. But it's definitely a whole new slew of emotions and worries to manage.

*bites nails*

Anne is her usual sassy and social self, so nothing new there. ;-) We're all just generally in awe that the fall has moved along so quickly, and that somehow Thanksgiving is fast approaching!

As is usually the case this time of year, I get into high dance mode. Dancing, as you all know, is a strong part of my creative identity. And in the fall and winter, I usually have some solo/professional opportunities lined up that I am preparing for and my inspiration level is high. I have those opportunities in the spring and summer too, but with many of them being outside in the heat, it just makes for a completely different experience. I'm not looking to try out my ambitious and experimental new silk veil plans when it's 90 degrees out and all I can think about is not flinging sweat out into the audience.

😱

In the fall and winter, I can really focus and try out new things. I've got some plans for the winter that I'm really excited about (details to come), and it's really bringing out the bookish perpetual student vibe in me. Yes, I am a nerd. Apparently, one can even be a Belly Dance Nerd. This means:

(1) Scoping out books on the history of Middle Eastern dance on Amazon, and obsessively reading articles online.
(2) Curating playlists of both golden era and modern dancers to watch at lunch.
(3) Carefully watching aforementioned videos every day to soak up the movement quality via osmosis.
(4) Doing casual research on the proper elements of a Magency. Doesn't everybody wonder about such things?!

I am indeed a lifelong learner, and I'm hoping that this will keep my mind young. ;-)  I'm preparing a Magency piece for our fall hafla, and my troupe is going to be performing our Cairo-style Saidi piece at a workshop in Syracuse in early December. The workshop is on Turkish Roman dance, which I've never studied before.

*nerding out!*

I'm so excited. I have a 12 yard skirt in my Amazon cart because I'll need one to perform the Turkish choreography in the show after the workshop. No bare midriffs in this form of dance, so I'm coordinating with a sleeved top and hip scarf that I already own.

So much beaming. I'm hoping to adapt the Magency piece for something else next year, that's the thing I'll talk about later. It's all very exciting, rest assured. At least for me! :0

Do you enjoy still learning new things, and "going back to school", if you will, when you find something new that tickles your fancy? I'd love to hear all about it!

"What are *you* looking at? Haven't you ever seen a head piece made out of pom poms before?!" Adventures in workshop gala shows...

Well, I'm back from my little adventure in Toronto, and somehow dragging myself through the week despite getting only about 10 hours of sleep over the course of the entire weekend. :0 It was one of those stretches wherein you know that many years from now, when your grandkids ask you to tell them a fun story about adventurous things you did when you were young (or, ah hem, YOUNGER), this particular event will come to mind, because it is the type of situation wherein you build memories. This is wonderful. The only disadvantage is that when it's 5 am and you're wide awake in panic mode wondering if you remembered to pack all of the pieces of your costume, knowing that you have a 2 hour drive, 4 hours of workshops, and a 2 hour gala show that you're performing in, ahead of you, well...that kind of stinks. 😂

Saturday, in particular, was a very long day, and about a quarter of the way through the second workshop (on Golden Era technique and styling 😍)I was beginning to wonder if I was going to in fact make it all the way through without falling asleep in a corner. The first technique workshop was AMAZING (and this dancer teaching the workshops, Shahrzad, an American dancer who lives in Cairo is *phenomenal*) and I was super jazzed, shimmying my little heart out. Then the second workshop hit, and I faded a bit, thinking: "it's ok, I can do it!" Then I realized that I could do it, but maybe not particularly WELL, I just had to try and stay awake and do what I could.

Later, back at the hotel, as the 4 of us readied for the gala show, the restroom was consumed by our makeup and hair rituals, false eyelashes being applied with much bravery. Brandy, Claire and I were performing as a trio in a Saidi piece. Saidi is a very specific style within Middle Eastern dance (Saidi is often referred to as a folkloric dance, but Shahrzad explained why she does *not* consider female dancers performing Saidi to be traditional folklore, and I learned so much from her!) and it has it's own distinctive movements and costuming. When Westerners hear the words "belly dance" they are expecting a certain thing, and Saidi is not that thing. However, belly dancers perform Saidi as part of their repertoire within Middle Eastern dance. See how much fascinating stuff there is to learn, and why I love it so much?! 😀

So we have this SUPER upbeat and fun Saidi choreography planned, and our costuming was created by Claire to emulate Cairo style Saidi. Here is the enormously talented Vanessa of Cairo (who is renowned for her Saidi dance) in a costume that ours was modeled on:

Saidi is usually performed in a long sleeved gown like Vanessa is wearing. And yes, this particular style within Saidi embellishes the costume with pom poms on the hips and head. :0

We of course wear coverups over our costumes when we are not performing, but let's just say that when the 4 of us walked down through the hotel lobby and then out onto the sidewalk to await our Uber driver...we received a lot of stares.

Without any sort of context of who we were and where we were going, the pom poms just made people think that we may have lost our minds. But I mean, really. This was downtown Toronto. They've never seen anything stranger than a gaggle of women in hot pink mumus and pom pom headbands? I ask you! 😂

We got to our venue, and then waited. And waited. And waited, for the show to start. They were running behind, which we totally get, but exhaustion was definitely more than taking root at that point. We made it, however. Our Saidi went great (although I actually bounced one of my gigantic earrings right out of my ear while I danced :0), and I got a huge thrill out of seeing Shahrzad perform live. It was wonderful. But to say that we booked it back to our hotel so that we could leap into bed and get some much needed sleep was a huge understatement. 😂

Sunday we had 2 more workshops, and then the drive back home. It was all worth it, but home sweet home! How was your weekend, dear reader? What's happening for you this fall? Next week, we're back to a little crafting!