The Merging of Practice Ballroom Dance and TGWTTT

They were basically the same place anyway.

Somewhere along my entrepreneurship journey, wrapped up in hustle culture, I got it in my head that I needed a separate place for each piece of The Girl with the Tree Tattoo brand – the blog, the shop, the email list – they all needed their own home. Once I moved to Maine, as I continued to bask in the natural beauty of my own home and felt no need or desire to go anywhere else, I started to wonder why did The Girl need to be so spread out?

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Everyone’s Doing the Best They Can

April 16, 2022Leave a comment

*Photo by Roussety Gregory on Pexels.com*

I belong to a fitness accountability group and earlier this week, I posed a question. I wanted to know how the others in the group managed their workouts when Life got really crazy, like it has been for me this month. They seemed to be so much better at doing their workouts consistently and reaching their weekly fitness goals. I was sure I was slacking somewhere and I wanted the secret sauce. What was the magic ingredient that I was missing that made me less consistent and less successful?

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Going with the Flow is Scary

March 6, 2022October 23, 20221 Comment

We plan, God laughs.
Yiddish proverb

It’s March already, and while I’m not surprised that there is still a foot of snow on the ground, I am surprised and disappointed that I’m not back to taking ballroom lessons. I shouldn’t be surprised because I was there at every turn that delayed my return to ballroom. Always a good reason! But silly me still didn’t want to let go of her original plans.

If any four words were to sum up Life, it would be these four: We plan, God laughs.

You can interpret it in different ways, but I see it as a reminder that we cannot control the world around us. The Earth keeps rotating and Life keeps going, whether we like it or not. We try every day to control or at least predict, what the future will bring, but the best we manage is an illusion.

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When Your Swan Song Was More of an Ugly Duckling: Reflecting on My Last Competition

February 12, 2022March 3, 2022Leave a comment

It’s officially been two years since my last ballroom competition, the 2020 California Open. To be honest, it was not the performance I wanted to go out on. But how was I to know that a global pandemic was about to turn Life as we know it upside down?

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Start with Step 1, not Step 20

August 22, 2021October 23, 2022Leave a comment

While I wait for Henri’s leftovers to arrive (the storm, not a weird takeout restaurant), I’m here to make good on my goal/promise from last week and report on the goals I’ve come up with to get me back into dancing form after moving to the opposite corner of the country. Would you believe it’s already been a month since I arrived at my new home?

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Cycles of Dance

May 23, 2021May 25, 2023Leave a comment

Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash

One of my coaches talks about creation working in a cycle of phases. You might be in a phase of exploring something new, excelling at something you’ve been working on for awhile, or transitioning to something greater. We go through similar cycles in dance.

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Resetting My Dance Journey

December 27, 2020May 20, 20212 Comments

We’re down to the final week of 2020! Which means this is the last week to get your discount on the book bundles at Practice Ballroom Dance. Just sayin’.

I’ve got my bottle of bubbly and bayberry candle ready to go for December 31. For those unfamiliar, they say a bayberry candle burned to the socket brings health to the home and wealth to the pocket. My simple New Year’s Eve plans are not due to the pandemic by the way. I just prefer slippers to high heels.

A new challenge to kick off 2021 is also in the works! More details are below.

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Turning the Purpose of Dance into Action

September 13, 2020May 20, 20215 Comments

So what’s next for my dance journey?

That was the question of the week as I returned to the studio for my first lesson since the virtual showcase.

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2020 Intentions – Dance and Otherwise

January 5, 2020May 20, 20211 Comment

A nice perk to having a diary-style blog like this is I don’t have to strain my overworked brain to remember what I was doing at this time last year. I can just look back at my blog posts.

This time last year, I was doing the same thing I’m doing now – setting goals for the new year and reminding myself to stay flexible in how I reach those goals. “Committed but not attached” is how my business coach put it. I’ve gone through this process enough to know exactly how to apply the SMART framework to my goals, but I still haven’t broken the bad habit of jumping ahead and overwhelming myself with everything that needs to be done. I’ve also gone through this process enough to know that I need to just focus on the next step, not the next 20 steps.

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Using Floor Craft in Real Life

December 8, 2019Leave a comment

Quick reminder! The Solo Practice Guide giveaway on Twitter ends December 10! Get your entries in by then! See my pinned tweet on how to enter.

Some weeks, I log onto WordPress and I know exactly what I want to share with you. Other weeks, I stare at a blank blog post begging me to “start writing” and I got nothing.

This week is somewhere in between. Ideas are swirling without settling long enough for me to see them clearly, so I’m just going to trust the flow of my creative process and see where we end up! Care to wander with me?

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