here's my dance again!

All right, here it is again! This is the dance I am choreographing for the March 2011 dancEnsemble show! It's coming together really well. I know that the videography is a far cry from professional -- especially since I, once again, did it on my phone. Also, it is in 5 parts because my phone will only film 60 seconds at a time. So you'll notice overlaps between the sections. But mostly, this is just so me and my dancers can remember what the choreography is. There is only 20 seconds left!!!



For costumes we are using some 40's style blue and green dresses -- and a khaki pant, white shirt and tie that matches for the man. The title is "The Sum of the Parts" and I'd tell you what it is about, but that would take WAAAAY too long. Just let me know -- do you see a difference between the movement in the first song and the second song. If you do, what is the difference that you notice?

Obviously it's not completely done or cleaned yet. That's why my dancers and I have three more rehearsals! Doesn't sound like much, but we've done what we have in five rehearsals, so I think adding about 30 seconds of choreography and cleaning this up a bit should be doable.

As for an update on my life -- I have officially lost it! :-) To quote the girl from Oklahoma "I jist cain't say NO!" (It's a song from the play, probably one of my favorites!) Oh and just so none of you get the wrong idea, it's not men that I "cain't say no" too. It's everything else. Every single opportunity that comes my way, I jump at. Whether or not I have time or the sanity to handle it. I'm presenting at three conferences in the next six weeks! I've been teaching 3 times a week at elementary schools for the past month! I'll continue that for the next 2 weeks. Then I'm down to once a week through April! That will be a relief. But I LOVE LOVE LOVE what I'm doing. This little (okay honestly not little at all, I might say HUGE) thesis project is ruling my life. Good thing it is super interesting and it's what I want to do the rest of my life! (in smaller amounts -- otherwise Clayton would kill me).

I'm really glad we made the decision to stay at BYU an extra year and a half because the opportunities that I've had recently and will continue to have are incredible! I've had some disappointments, but WAY more victories! Can you believe that I am going into schools and teaching dance and most of the teachers and students love it??? I feel like I just weaseled my way in -- doors just opened up to me! Here I am, constantly teaching and creating an incredible resource for Utah teachers. People ask me how I got in to all these schools to teach -- how I got this opportunity, and to be honest, I have no idea! But I'm having the time of my life (when I'm not crying about how I have no time left in my life...).

I've spent a billion hours designing the below poster. Cool though, huh?



There you go. A lengthy blog post full of information, thoughts, jokes, and giggles. Okay, maybe I'm not as funny as I think I am... But the above explanation is why I almost never blog anymore. I'm doing my best people... :-)

And here's the link to my cool website:

https://sites.google.com/site/dancingcurriculum/

Watch out...it's another blog :-)

Okay, don't get excited. It's nothing much, but here is a video of the choreography I'm working on for this semester's dancEnsemble concert. I'm very happy with where it's going, and can you believe these dancers and I have only had about 4 hours of rehearsal?!?!?! They're amazing. I know the ending is a little rough, but we're working on it, and we've got another two months before we are performing. This is the first half of the piece. The second half is to swing low sweet chariot. Any ideas for costumes?


YAY!

upcoming show

Friday and Saturday my dance company, dancEnsemble, has its fall performance and to promote it, Clayton made a commercial to air on the TVs in the Wilk.

This weekend!

Well, here's my last report on my no-homework Sundays project. I've enjoyed it, but it sure makes my Saturdays stressful. I've decided it's worth it, though. To have a day to yourself without the homework nagging. Saturday I went and hiked "Angel's Landing" in Zion's National Park. It's ridiculously tall and you have to hold on to a chain for your dear life for the last half mile unless you want to slip off the shear cliff face to your death (all the signs tell you so). I was so scared I didn't want to finish, but the group I was with pushed and pulled me along.



Yesterday I got up and made cookies for my young women. They were fantastic!!! I'll post the recipe at the end of my post. Then I finished preparing my lesson and went to church, where I was released from my Young Women's calling and called as a choir director. I'm very sad to leave the young women and I'm very scared of going to Relief Society, but I think it will be good for me. I will have to learn how to talk to adults. The scary women in relief society kind of adults! :-) I was invited by my visiting teacher over for dinner, then talked to my grandpa on the phone, because it was his birthday. I video chatted with my family and went home and did some reading of conference talks. Then, I talked to my best friend Hollie that I haven't talked to in FOREVER until 12:30 this morning. Hence, I am tired. But it was a good day. It was ever so lonely without Clayton and I was stressed out because I didn't get laundry done or the house clean on Saturday because I was gone all day and I have homework and finals to prepare for and a project due tonight. And I'm trying to get in as many hours at work as possible. But, I just have faith that Sundays are for churching, and being with friends, and talking to your families. And it's a good day just to chill. And make cookies. Here is the fabulous recipe. (I just tweaked the quaker oat recipe you get on the bottom of the lid for a tub of oats).

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 - 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups Quaker® Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1 cup craisins
8 oz (2/3 a package) of Hershey's dark chocolate chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, beat butter and sugars on medium speed of electric mixer until creamy. Add eggs and beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well. Add oats, chocolate chips, craisins, and vanilla; mix well.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. I like to roll the dough in balls and flatten them. It makes a more compact cookie.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.

YUM!!!

I made these because Clayton doesn't like oats or craisins. So, it was perfect timing. At least his being gone is good for something...

Another Report

Well, last Sunday I just had a major headache and felt sick all day... I had to stop fasting a few hours early... :-( Clayton and I went to church and enjoyed our day together. Nothing really exciting. I did have a Chinese test coming up the next day and it was ever so SUPER tempting to study. I managed to refrain though. And I think I did pretty well on the test after all! I'm glad I don't study on Sundays, but sometimes it makes me nuts! We also ended up asking some friends over for dinner and watched Psych with them! It was fun. We don't get friends often and I had made ribs which were yummy! Otherwise though, I went to bed early to get up early to study for my test. :-( And now Clayton is gone and I miss him. And my break is just about over. So back to work. I love you all and I'll be extra special glad when school is over next wednesday!

Report #2

Well guys, last Sunday was FANTASTIC! We had a good day. Clayton and I got to relax a lot and after church, we decided that we would make cookies. We read an ensign article together about service and felt inspired, so we made cookies for all the people that had helped us with our flooding issues and went and delivered them. We though it would be a quick delivery, but every house we went to invited us in and wanted to talk and chat, and it was fun. We felt loved and with friends and we just got to casually visit with people in our ward that like us! :-) It was a fun evening. They all invited us to stay and play games, but it was already late and Clayton had to be up at 4 in the morning for his hike!

Clayton was gone until early Friday morning. It was boring not having him around, but to be honest, it wasn't bad. Not nearly so bad as last time he left. So I am hoping for a repeat performance when he leaves again next week. I was just so busy that I didn't have time to mope! And I can guarantee I can make that happen again! :-)

All in all, I am still liking the whole spend time with Clayton thing on Sundays, but Saturdays are still LOOOONG.

Marriage and Family

Lol. I am using my blog once again in order to fulfill a school assignment as a way of coercing myself into blogging. I just like blogging. I do. I just have no time lately. Lots of work and lots of school guys. LOTS! Anyways, I found this incredibly awesome way to fulfill a project requirement for one of my classes. I am very excited. It's for my marriage and family class and I got to pick one thing I wanted to work on that would strengthen my marriage. WOOT! I picked spending more time with Clayton by doing all my homework on Saturdays and spending Sundays together doing Sunday-worthy activities. And how many of you can say you did a project by spending extra time with your husband? :-) It makes Saturdays VERY VERY long because I have SOOOO much to do, but I always felt guilty doing homework on Sundays anyway. This will be great.

And now...a report on last Sunday.

Let's just say, last Sunday I was in a crazy mood. One of those one moment you're ridiculously happy and the next moment you just want to curl up in a ball and cry. And I had a lesson to prepare for Young Womens. But since I didn't have school to stress about, I just planned my lesson all morning and it was on family traditions and family history work. And I just LOVE that stuff! It turned out really well. I began by drawing this rough (very rough) map of where all my family lives in Pensacola and I just drew the places that meant something to me, and I asked the girls what it was. They knew it was a map, but of what they did not know. I then talked about how it was my memories of a place. It was a drawing of a family tradition my family had growing up: going to Florida, at least twice a year. :-) I talked about other traditions: Sunday dinners, pie nights, going to little league ball games, etc. The girls then got to share some of them. Then I got to talk about family history work and how AWESOME that is. If only I could remember my password to the church family history site...but that is a battle for another day.

After church, I gave some neighbor girls a ride home since their dad and Clayton had an after church boy scout meeting, and I made something fantastic for dinner I'm sure... Oh yeah, it was honestly fantastic. It was called... well I forget. Food doesn't need a name to be wonderful. It was whole wheat spaghetti noodles with lots of veggies (brocolli, cauliflower, carrots, peas, sugar snap peas) and homemade alfredo sauce. Pasta primevera! (I'm pretty sure that's the name).

Clayton and I got to play games together and read a conference talk together and just hang out. We always need that after a long week. (Especially with my Saturday homework marathons. Those are killer). So... in a nutshell -- I like spending time with Clayton on Sundays and it is interesting. Truly. The more time we spend together, the more we are able to be better people. The more we are inspired to choose the right! Etc.

Oh, and we had this basement flood on Tuesday night that was just spectacular. Good thing this week ended with a 3-day weekend (one of the benefits of living in Utah -- pioneer day is a state holiday!). We NEEDED it. Clayton leaves Monday for a 30-mile backpacking trip. :-( But our a/c gets fixed Monday as well! I can shut the windows and still be comfy enough to sleep at night! YAY! Okay, time to go finish my homework. I'm guessing 3 more hours. Then a nice long run, a shower, and it's game night with our friends!