It's goin'.

Well it has been a while, and a lot has happened!

This is my little 5 yr old

To sum it up...A bunch of snow days happened, and that got in the way of many things.  We drove down to our last competition in awful snow and ice; it was bad enough that they delayed the competition for a day.  We didn't quite come out on top at this last one, but that was ok.  We still have some trophies to show off, and we are now gearing up for the end of the year showcase!  That has involved continued rehearsals for our two competition dances, extra ballet classes, my two regular

We are working on her very first solo!

Lilly asked for an emotional lyrical solo

classes and their routines, 5 or 6 new students, and three solos to choreograph, teach, and clean, costumes to be ordered, sent back, re-ordered, letters sent to parents, an auditorium to book, dress rehearsal to be scheduled, and the program written all before May 3rd!  Now of course, not all of that has fallen on me; Leslie makes amazing things happen for me.  But it has been hectic!  In the midst of all that I have had to cancel the youth group thing.  My rehearsals have been running into youth group time, and I just do not have the mental capacity to make it all happen.

Selfies with the coolest teacher ever!

In my other life, the one where I get up early and actually brush my hair, I had an interview for the Head Start Family Services position.  The lady who currently does that job is retiring, and she asked me to apply for the job when she left.  The interview was two weeks ago, and still no one has heard anything.  At first it looked like I was in a pretty good position to get the job, but now I'm not so sure.  Honestly, as my mother said this morning, it would be a God thing.  It would be so great....I really think I would be good at it, but probably I'm more wanting the office and my own space and my own title and someplace to keep all my pens and post-it notes, and God probably isn't going to bestow such things upon me for such selfish reasons, but you can pray for His will to be done anyway.  I've been trying to do that, amidst the prayers for my own desk....Mrs. Brooks offered to give me a desk in the corner of her room so I could have someplace to put my stuff!  Like I would get anything done there.  I spend too much time in her room, as it is.

Oh hey!  Have I mentioned that I am now "Tia Rianna"?  Yep.  I have adopted a tiny Mexican as a niece.  My friend Sarai had her baby Ariely, and I went over the other day to play dress up while Jesse was working late.  It's not fair that everybody is getting to have babies and be all grownup and domestic.  Well ok, I'm not in a huge rush to have babies, because then I wouldn't have time for my kids, and that would
be sad.  So my childlike/domestic adventures are limited to wearing my owl apron while I spend my entire weekend making lots of food, and then canning it.  Yep, I just canned my first pork and beans.  Hello, camping food!
It's a little intimidating, I'm not gonna lie.  I haven't canned anything in years, and never without my mother.  Really my mother has canned and I have hung out in the kitchen, eating whatever I could scrounge.  So going at this lone has been an experience.  it has made a decent mess, BUT I haven't exploded anything, and so far all (5) of my jars have sealed!  I have another 6 in the pressure cooker right now, so hopefully they will share the fate of their brothers.  Of course, if they don't (assuming they don't explode), I won't have to make dinner tonight, so maybe that's not such a bad thing!  
 Anyway, I ust end this edition of DBA chronicles, because I have something burning in the kitchen....

Ice Breakers.

I had some ice to break this evening, and when I say "some", I mean enough to sink the Titanic.  I led my first youth group dance session. Because that's a totally normal thing that people do.
I estimate there were around 30 kids, and I think I had four who actually participated, and maybe the same amount who looked like they wanted to, but didn't have the guts. But come on, if some crazy chick in bleach stained sweatpants showed up, made you stand in a circle with all your friends, put her phone in the middle of the floor to play the lecrae station on Pandora, and then asked you to dance, what would you do? Yeah, probably laugh into the side of your hand like you're too cool for school and wait for someone else to bust some moves. Unfortunately, lecrae and I do not exactly have the same style, so I wasn't busting many moves, either, but I gave it my best! I jumped around and made a fool of myself, and I was rewarded with one kid doing the worm, and two more doing "the robot thing". Honestly, they weren't half bad, which is maybe why the others were reluctant to do anything.
All around is was just about as awkward as I expected, but surprisingly the ones showing the most interest were actually guys. I believe I can win over the girls, so having the guys already ion board s going to make this much easier. I had two more guys come up to me as everyone was leaving and ask if there is going to be any singing. "Well, are you gonna sing? We can't have singing without someone to sing, so if you wanna sing, then you'll have to come up with something to sing."  They said that they will try to come up with some clean songs that they know and talk to Yuri about it, so she and I can figure out how to make that work. Dude, by the time I get done with this, I may have a full fledged glee club on my hands! Pitch Perfect: Youth Group Edition. I can see it now...
Anyway, it is an interesting adventure I have embarked on, and I have no idea where it will lead me, but I think I need to be doing it. It will be good for me, and hopefully I will be able to build some relationships with these kids, and it will grow and be a good ministry for me as long as we are here.
It's a little strange... I'm still not sure I feel old enough to not be a member of the youth group yet. It's odd being on this side of things. Talking about having a "ministry", while I know there is no age requirement for ministry, it still feels so grown-up, and honestly, I don't feel all that grown-up right now. I don't know if I'm in a position to be leading anyone... but I guess that's why I'm just there to dance; I am not marketing myself as any kind of spiritual guru, just a chick who wants to dance for God. If I can make a real difference in their lives somehow, so much the better, but maybe I'll just be an opportunity for a laugh. Either way, I expect it will be a positive experience, once we melt through all the awkwardness.

Family.

An old guitar and a stand up bass. Turkey noodle soup and apple pie. Sheep in the pasture and kids on the deck. Art on the walls and crayons on the floor. Curling hair and baking bread. Dancing in the living room and reading in bed. Getting out the dictionary (app) in the middle of the night, staying up all night to paint the walls. Walking empty streets and living in full houses. Singing with the tea kettle, to the baby, in the shower...Yes, sometimes all at once. Scrabble and chamomile, and cribbage with coffee. Dr. Seuss and Charles Dickens and Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and Fanny's Dream. Big table, small kitchen, neither ever empty. Hobos on the couch and kids sleeping in the sailboat.
A house smaller on the outside than what it held inside it.

Valentine's Day with my girls

Happy Valentine's Day!  I hope yours was spent with loved ones, doing things appropriate to your own personal level of mushiness.
As for myself, I spent it with four of the most wonderful girls in Breckenridge, and the most wonderful woman I have ever had the pleasure of starting a dance company with.  At 7 am we all met at Party Planet, and loaded up into the Van.  Four girls, two coaches, one mom, 3 pillows and blankets, 8 costumes, 12 pairs of dance shoes, a dozen powdered doughnuts, 6 chocolate covered strawberries, 2 sparkly backpacks, 3 makeup bags, two cans of hairspray, and a partridge in a pear tree!  Wait....wrong holiday, sorry.
We drove all the way down to Killeen, TX, about 3 hours away, just north of Austin, for the Heart of Texas Classic ADT competition.  This was our first time performing lyrical as well as hip hop, and Leslie and I were definitely a little nervous.  I don't know much about the Texas dance scene, and Leslie doesn't know much about dance outside of cheer, and it was our first experience with ADT.  We really didn't quite know what to expect.  After stopping for breakfast in this totally random little cafe, we were running late, so I started braiding hair in the back of the van.  A word to the wise: Don't spray hairspray in the back of a hot van.  It's just not fun. 
We rolled in around 11, and we were set to perform lyrical at 1:12.  Hair and makeup was really a breeze, and with only four girls we had plenty of room in our classroom to practice without having to go out into the hallways.  The girls were enamored of an older girl who was practicing her solo in the hall.  She was dancing to the song Addison sang for the talent show, so that just made it even better.
12:45 rolled around, and it was go time!  The ladies running the practice gym very generously allowed us to sneak in a practice between the big teams (as a small ensemble we didn't get a real practice time), which was more important than I realized it would.  A minute into their practice, the music shut off.  The girls tripped over their feet and stopped and stared at me. 
"If the music stops, you keep going.  You do NOT stop dancing!"
"This stereo is just really old.  Your CD should be fine in the auditorium, don't worry about it!"
Fast forward to standing in the wings.
There is something magical about being backstage.  I love it.  I like to watch from the side, I love seeing the backstage rituals that happen, stretching, planks, last minute whispered questions and assurances, silent applause...it's one of my favorite places to be.
Leslie and I stood backstage with the girls, and watched them go on and start lyrical.  There was a collective "awww!" as they took the stage.  Their performance was set in the middle of a bunch of high school solos, and they were beautiful little girls in their purple dresses and braids.  They won the hearts of the audience from the very beginning.
Then, about a minute in, the music stopped.
I will not repeat on the internet what the only word we exchanged was before I went running down the stairs to the music table.  I whipped out my phone and I know I spoke with the music girl and announcer, but I have no idea what I said.  I just remember looking up and realizing that the girls were still dancing, and were completely together.  Addison told us later that Lilly had started singing and they just kept going.  Thank goodness we were given practice time, so they knew what to do!  Everyone was cheering and clapping, and the announcer said "thank you girls, you can stop now.  We'll start over."
It wasn't perfect, but all things considered, it was amazing.  It was possibly the best I have seen them do, and they recovered so well.  This audience was much smaller than our previous audiences, but they were great.  They cheered and clapped and the girls faces were shining.
On the way back to the room we had to pass by the practice gym again and the nice ladies asked how we did.
"themusicstoppedandwekeptgoingandzoedidatoetouchthingandpeopleCLAPPEDforherandweweresogood!!"
Back in the room to change, scarf down some chicken nuggets, crazy up the hair, touch up the makeup, have some dance battles, and off we go!  We stopped at the practice gym again to give the girls a chance to do some back handsprings and practice the pop ups, and we had our next "oh crap" moment.  Lilly somehow had forgotten how to jump up off the floor.  While Zoe and Kam were showing the high school girls how to do it, Lilly was getting more and more frustrated.  They have to roll back on their backs, and then throw their feet up and forward to push themselves up onto their feet and stand up.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, Lilly was having trouble with it in practice last week, but she was tired and sore, and we were sure that she would be fine the day of.  She was the first one to figure it out, after all, and is very capable.  But suddenly she just couldn't do it, and was very upset by it.  I have never seen Lilly not happy, and I was worried that she was just not going to be able to shake it off.
We walked back into the auditorium and people started clapping.  There was a huge team over on one side that stood up to cheer for them, and we hadn't even gotten on stage yet.  I didn't even want to risk the CD not working, so I hugged them all and ran down to the music table.  As the girls walked on, the audience exploded.  I didn't have to do anything.  Usually I try to get their attention, try to get them to smile and keep their energy up...There was no way they were gonna look at me.  For 2 minutes they were celebrities.  I can't even begin to describe the euphoria that I felt, and I can only imagine how the girls felt!  They fed off that energy and it was amazing.  Again, it wasn't perfect, but as we told them, the crowd loved them, so who cares what the judges thought?
It may have been the best moment in my dancing career.
After a while, the girls went back inside to watch, and to thank their fans, and when we went back inside, we found them sitting right in the middle of the Midway Goaltenders.  They were just chillin, hanging out, talking, taking selfies and exchanging phone numbers.  The high school girls raved about them and adored them.  Their hair, their dancing, their costumes, their choreography (not mine, btw), everything.  You could not ask for better fans.

I had to stalk them a little bit after we left so I could send an FB message to their coach, to tell her how wonderful her dancers are and thank her.  But it wasn't just the dancers.  We had a couple parents from that team come up and talk to us about them.  It was crazy.  I never would have imagined that our little team would be noticed, much less celebrated this way.  Of course, being young made them endearing, having their music cut out made them memorable, continuing to dance made them impressive, and tumbling made them totally gangster swagalicious cool.
Unfortunately, the competition did not end until 11:15 pm, and we had a three hour drive to get home, so we were not able to stay for awards.  But we got our results from the competition director before we left, and were so excited to take them out to dinner and present them with not just a second place trophy, but the first place as well!
I guess I forget that they are 11.  Their scores were 90 and 95, and I  were great athletes, and I am just used to working with older girls.  They really have worked very hard, and I can't wait to see what they will accomplish in the future.
I am one very proud coach, or "director", as they say in Texas.  It sounds so fancy!  As Kam says, Brownings don't come to participate, they come to win.
Nobody beats us but us!  It's a good day to be a Browning.

Post by BYC Dance Company.

Medication and Memory Foam

January has been an interesting month, so far.  For one thing, I am now on blood pressure medication.  I went to the doctor a few weeks ago, just to make sure I was still alive (apparently that's a normal thing?), and my BP was high.  Well, I wasn't terribly surprised, but my doctor told me to keep an eye on it and call her in four weeks.  I went back to work and didn't worry about it too much.  I had the nurse at work check it the next day, and it was 160/94.  The next day it was still 158/94, and she said I should probably start thinking about worrying about it.  Well, I bought a monitor, and I quit eating salt, and I bought lots of fresh fruits and veggies, and I continued to go running and do my yoga, and I really did try to do everything that I could to keep it down.  I started keeping a log of my BP, taking it 3-4 times a day.  Yes, I know, it's a little overkill, but what's the point of monitoring something, if you aren't going to know exactly what it's doing?  I like to know!
After 3 weeks of checking my BP 3 times a day, the diastolic (the bottom number) had only been under 80 3 times, and had only been under 90 11 times, and the wonderful women that I work with were trying to send me home to rest because they thought I was going to keel over and die right on the spot.  Many of them tried to tell me that my hypertension is caused by my job, but I told them it runs in my family; my grandmother has been on medication for it since she was 14.  However, as I was forced to admit, teaching also runs in my family, so maybe they have a point...
After 3 weeks of hypertension I called the doctor back and she had me come in and laughed at my log.  She laughed, but she said she loved it, so take that, organization haters!
Apparently the BP pills can cause dizziness and dry coughs, but 8 hours after I took the first one my BP was down to 108/82, which is the lowest I have ever seen it.  This morning it was 114/74, so as skeptical as my hippy, EMT, pharmacist father is, I have to say it seems to be working.  And I have been sleeping!  I haven't slept through the night in quite a while, and it probably helps to have my BP somewhere in a vaguely resting area while I'm trying to sleep.
The other thing that may be affecting my sleep is that we FINALLY bought a bed!  Or a mattress, anyway.  Our air mattress sprang another, unfixable leak, so we were on the floor again, and it is so nice to have squishy things under my back while I sleep.  Jesse seems to be having trouble adjusting, though.  Last night at 1 in the morning he woke me up.  He rolled all the way on top of me, and laid there for a while.  Then he rolled way over on the other side and pulled me over that way.  Then he rolled me over so I was facing the other way, moved my arms up, down, threw an arm over my face, buried my face in his armpit, pushed me over to the other side again....and this went on until about 2:30.  He was fast asleep the entire time.  At least he was sleeping deeply!  And the times that I was allowed to sleep were fantastic.  Bed=Awesome, and Sleep=not grumpy, sleepy Mrs. Smith, snapping at children and falling asleep while trying to listen to them read.  I cannot even begin to tell you how wonderful the last two days have been, especially compared to how frustrating the last couple weeks have been.  I have been snippy and grumpy and exhausted and just no fun.  So I am incredibly happy with lower blood pressure and beds.
And on that note....it is 9:00 and my bedtime.  I will leave you, and go sleep on my fantastic memory foam mattress with my bamboo memory foam pillow.  Memory foam heaven awaits!!

New in 2015

 

 

The first week of the year is the time to do all kinds of new things, right?  Everyone makes resolutions and revives old goals.  Well, I'm not much of one for "resolutions", but there is always room for improvement, no?
I have been considering going back to school for some time.  I would like to finish my bachelor's degree, so I at least have the option of getting my teaching certificate.  Jesse and I have been talking about it for most of our married life (so long, I know), and we keep going back and forth between whether it is realistic and worthwhile or not.  A while ago I was at work, talking with one of our subs, and she told me about the place that she got her degree.  It's all online and she had nothing but good things to say about it.  Well, one of the biggest  hurdles for me is that everything is far away and no one has a program that would work around my school schedule.  It is hard to go to school while working in a school, but on the bright side, I have all summer with nothing else to do!  Except drive to TN and hang out with my sister, of course.  Anyway, I have decided to fill out a FAFSA, and start talking to the people at APU (the online college my friend told me about), and see what happens!  I am only 30 credits or so away from a BA; you never know what could happen!  I'll keep you updated.

this is my buddy, Om, and me trying to have some more omming in my life

In other news, I went to the doctor the other day just to make sure I'm still alive, and my blood pressure was very high.  She told me to keep an eye on it and call her in a month.  The nurse at work (I love having a resident nurse) has been checking it for me on my lunch breaks, and it was consistently running around 160/94.  I decided to buy a BP monitor, so I can keep track of it at home, and see what it's like at other times of the day and in a less stressful environment.  Don't get me wrong, I love my job, but having to take time out of the day to go see the nurse to check my BP probably doesn't help my stress level.  So I stopped by CVS on Wednesday and bought the cheap one.  I took it four or five times that afternoon (who're you calling paranoid?), and it was drastically different every time.  By 7:30 that night it was up to 175/100-something.  I refused to believe that, because it didn't feel like it was up that high, so I returned it and bought another one.  The nurse said that I probably just wasn't using it correctly, so I have been trying to be good, and make sure the cuff is 1/2" from the inside of my elbow, at the same level as my heart, the cord thing is going down the inside of my arm, I'm sitting up straight, feet flat on the floor, arm at a 90 degree angle...Well in the time since, it still has had some fluctuation, but not as dramatic, and it has dropped down to a normal level.  But it has also been a long weekend full of laying around watching Netflix and buying new computers, so we'll see how it looks on Monday.
New computers?  Oh yeah!  I am currently typing on my fancy dancy Lenovo Yoga 2 laptop.  It's touch screen and has voice and gesture controls (that I can't figure out how to use...), and you can flip

it around so it works like a tablet.  Pretty cooool.  Jesse and I have been talking about buying a tablet for some time, and he decided yesterday that we were just going to go to best buy and get it over with.  Happy Christmas to me!  We wandered around and looked at tablets for a while, but we finally decided that what I really need is just a new laptop.  The one I bought when I started college the first time is still running, but it is 6 years old, and the mouse pad thing is going out, which makes cutting music difficult, which is primarily what I need it for.  Also, I will want something with a real keyboard and Word if I do end up going back to school.  So we bought a laptop!  I was a little tempted to go with one that was a step up, but it just didn't seem more awesome enough to spend the extra $250, so we decided to save that money and buy Jesse a tablet.  We are gonna have technology coming out our ears, man!  We don't yet, though, because they did not have the one he wanted in stock, so we decided to wait a bit, and get that one for his birthday.  Happy birthday to Jesse!
Of course, now that I have a new laptop, and one that is small enough to throw in a purse, I had to buy a new purse, because the one I have been carrying is falling apart; the strap is ripping off, and I
would hate for it to snap while I am carrying around  thing I do not want to drop.
I would like to pause to point out that I just folded my laptop into a tablet and am typing on my screen, because Jesse is laying on top of me, and his head is not a great table top.
Alsooo...what else is new?  Well, I have purple hair, now!  Burgundy, technically, but the kids say it's purple.  I cannot tell you how many times I have heard "Mrs. Smith, what happened to your hair?!". It doesn't ever look quite as purple in pictures as it does in real life, so I guess you will just have to take my word for it.
 I also bought some kale, and have made it a regular part of my diet.  No, Jesse still won't touch it, but h may come around someday, and in the meantime, I will remain healthy, and maybe keep my blood pressure under control.
So here's to a happy, healthy, heart attack-free year!  Have a good 2015, and eat lots of hippy food.  It's good for you.

Apples.

You know the saying "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?"  Yeah, I thought so.  Well, this apple has wandered a ways since falling, but my father was actually in Texas last week, and we got to see him (for about 15 hours)!  It wasn't long, but it was better than nothing.  I was so happy to be reunited with my tree.
We spent those 15 hours talking about pretty much everything, and introducing Jesse to apple goopus.  Can you believe that I had never made apple goopus for my husband?  For those that don't know, apple goopus is just chunks of apples thrown in a cast iron pan with some water, a bit of cornstarch, and a ton of sugar.  It comes out this funky kind of grey color (from the cast iron), and is all glommy and delicious, and you pour it over pancakes.  We ate a lot of goopus growing up.  It was a staple food, in our house, almost like beans and grass.  But I had never made it before!
Anyway, when he left, Jesse said "I didn't realize how much like your dad you are."  Old news, dude, but apparently Jesse hadn't seen the similarity to its full extent, and in the week that has followed, I have continued to see my father in me.  "That's the way it's meant to be...and I find I'm more and more like him each daaaaayy..."  Sorry.  What's a good blog post without a musical break?  Ahem.  Back to the point.  See?  Rabbit trails.  I get those from him.  Along with my hairline.
The reason my father was in Texas is that he was going to this big ol' pastor's conference in Dallas.  I'm not a pastor, but I have always been a fan of those big conference things.  They get me all riled up and emotional and passionate.

As an aside, Jesse told me the other day that I am not allowed to watch Ted Talks before bed, because I get all worked up and want to change the world.  I guess bedtime is not the time for changing the world.  

 One of the stories shared at the conference was about a pastor who realized one day that he was supposed to help the poor.  So, not knowing what else to do, he ran down to Costco, bought a bunch of hamburgers, went downtown, and started "schlepping burgers" to homeless people.  I didn't hear the story directly, so I don't know all the details, but I guess other people started coming to schlepp burgers with him, and eventually the guy ended up leaving his big ol' fancy dancy church, and built a whole new church out of hamburgers.  They spend half of their time doing normal church, and the other half of their time they get out and DO STUFF.
My father sat on my couch and told me this story, and I could hear the passion in his voice.  I grew up hearing my father rant and rave and extol and exhort and urge us to DO THINGS.  I knew it was important, even as a child, because he pushed himself to do the same, and he grew frustrated when he was unable to make a difference.  He taught me that to be discontent is not always a bad thing, because it can push us to DO THINGS.  But he also once told me "I am not entirely happy with my discontent", and I say that to myself all the time.  He taught me to ask "so what?" in everything I do and hear and see and say.  That if you're going to do something, you need to know why you're doing it.  What is the So What?  But I am getting off subject yet again.  My father sat on my couch and told me this story, and shared his desire to be DOING THINGS.  I sat on the couch across from him, and I could feel the same passion welling up, and wanted to go out and schlepp burgers, anything.  I want to DO THINGS.
After church today, I was talking to Jesse about my desire to do things.  More things.  Different things.  I love everything I do.  I love both of my jobs, and I am so thankful for all the kids that are in my life every day.  I love being at the school, and I love working with the kids.  I love listening to seven year olds who can read any word I throw at them.  I love sitting on the floor with other seven year olds, walking them through the alphabet, praying that today they will be able to recognize all their letters, and rejoicing when they even know the sounds that they make!  I love going to my baby ballet class and seeing all my little girls in their little pink leotards and frilly skirts and big hair bows, and sitting on the floor while they take turns dancing around the circle with my scarf and letting their adorable personalities shine.  I love going to rehearsals and working with my older girls, trying to prepare them to go out on stage in 21 days and be able to hold their own doing something they've never done before.  I walk along behind them as they do chaine turns so when they throw their arm too far back it will hit me, because I am trying to train them to have good technique and do everything exactly the same.
I love all of that.  But I want more.  I want to stop being a pew potato, and I want to be involved in our church.  I want to take the talents God has given me and use them for Him.  I know that being there in the school for those kids is good.  I know that giving kids the opportunity to dance is good.  I know that I am there for them, and I hope that my being there is given them something that they need in their lives.  But I want to use my dancing for worship.  I want to be able to share those things with anyone who wants to praise His name with dancing, not just dance to Taylor Swift with the little girls in the pink tutus.  I want to take what I do and make it real.  I keep asking myself, So What?  I teach dance.  So What?   Why can't there be more to it than just cute little girls?  Don't get me wrong, I love my cute little girls.  Dance classes serve a purpose, and I don't want to belittle them, because dance has given me so much, but I want more.
However, dancing in church is awkward.  It just is.  It's a hard thing to incorporate.  I've been to churches where people just get up in the middle of the service and start waving ribbons in the air, and it made me a little uncomfortable.  It might make me less uncomfortable now, but I have a feeling that if I just got up in the middle of our southern baptist church and started dancing, some of the old folks would be pretty surprised, and probably even a little unnerved.
My other problem is that we're trying to buy a house that is 40 miles from our current church, so we don't know how long we will be going to church here, and I don't want to push to get something kind of outlandish started, just to leave and go to a different church.
So I'm at a loss.  If you have any suggestions, that would be cool...and in the meantime I will continue to be discontent, and pray that God will show me why he's made me discontent.  He's pushing me to DO SOMETHING, but I don't know what it is.

One thing I am content with is that I didn't fall very far.  I have to thank my husband for reminding me of that last weekend.  It's another thing to be thankful for.