This month, I’m happy to welcome Breast Cancer Ballroom Dancer! As you might guess from the name of her blog, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, but never stopped ballroom dancing. Her determination and perseverance are inspiring! Without further ado…
Tag: inspiration
I Get Knocked Down
But I get up again!
Slowly, sometimes painfully. But I get up and keep going.
The stress meter has been maxing out for the last few weeks, to the point that my body is showing physical signs.
A blog post from last year, For Every High, There is a Low, popped up in my statistics and after rereading it, I was inspired to do a sort of follow-up.
Filling out Entry Forms
There’s that moment on your journey toward a goal when something hits you and you think “oh shit, this is really happening.” I reached an “oh shit” moment this weekend when I printed the entry forms for Ballroom Beach Bash.
When You Start to Doubt Yourself, Remember This
We’ve entered the second month of 2017. It’s usually around this time that people start wavering on their New Year’s resolutions. Bad weather prevented you from making it to the gym last week, and this week you had to work overtime and were just really tired. Multiple people at the office had birthdays, which means cake, and you didn’t want to be rude and not have a piece, or two. Then your friend was having a hard time so you comforted her by having a girls’ night complete with pizza and booze. Or, if you’re like me, your demons got loose and you decided to go to bed at 8pm, foregoing the stretching and dance practice you were going to do.
Interview: Cindy Muller, Owner of My Ballroom Boutique
For 2017, I decided to start monthly interviews/guest posts. I want to share other ballroom dancers’ stories. Some have been inspired by ballroom to start other passion projects. Others found ballroom to be their saving grace. We all have one thing in common: a passion for ballroom dancing. If you have a story you want to share, please let me know!
To start the year off, I’d like you all to meet Cindy Muller, ballroom student and owner of My Ballroom Boutique! Cindy and I met virtually through this blog and Facebook, and we share similar financial struggles in making our competitive dreams come true.
Finding Time Vs. Making Time
It’s a rainy Sunday here in Southern California. Perfect weather to stay in, get some house chores done, and do some writing! While laundry was tumbling and turning in the washer and dryer, I finished reading another ballroom book over breakfast. Next, I was going to sit down and write my review. Thoughts for my own next book started flitting around my head though. I also needed to put together the article for the interview I did with another ballroom dancer. Then I started thinking about my own dancing and how I should review my waltz and do more work on learning the tango routine. I knew the competition I was aiming for would get here faster than expected. Speaking of competing, I wondered how long would it take to find a suitable amateur partner. I just started posting on social media this past week that I was officially in search of one. I needed to do more cross-training and recommit to regular stretching too. I should also do another assessment of my finances and figure out where the remaining comp money was coming from. Then there were the other investments I was thinking about making this year. Tax time was also coming up. I needed to get my business structure solidified.
Aaahh!
Pivots and Head Congestion
Recovery from the flu has been frustratingly slow. My energy is still not at 100%. I go to bed around 8:30pm. I have this lingering congestion in my head and chest that refuses to leave, no matter how much medicine I throw at it. And I have developed painful knots in my neck and shoulder, a combination of coughing for over two weeks and working in my lesson on Tuesday as hard as I was two months ago, without consideration of the fact that I haven’t been working my body that hard for two months.
But my hip connection is feeling solid!
A Thank-You Note to 2016
2016 was a rough year. Just in the last week, the world lost two amazing women, who were also two of my favorite Hollywood actors. Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds were an inspiration to me. Princess Leia showed us that we can be strong and feminine at the same time. The way Kathy Seldon (Debbie Reynolds’ character in Singin’ in the Rain) teases Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) as she’s driving him to Beverly Hills is my go-to when I’m searching for my Foxtrot character. I love the way she playfully puts him in his place and firmly stands up for herself, despite the fact he is a famous (and therefore intimidating) celebrity.
Winter Blues (#DontGiveUp)
Got a few things bringing me down, as sometimes happens. I thought I’d put the blues to good use by sharing them with you and also sharing what I plan to accomplish anyway, in accordance with my #dontgiveup and #keepgoing mantras.
So let’s get this riff started.
Energy and Motivation
In the Facebook group related to the Momentum ’17 challenge I’m doing, someone asked how many people were holding down a job while also trying to build their business, and besides the obvious time challenge, what their biggest challenges were related to that situation. If I haven’t already explained, this challenge is for people working on building their own brand/business, a.k.a. entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is starting to feel like a cliché to me as so many people reject the normal way of making money (i.e., get a job with an already-established company) and strike out on their own. It’s funny to think that being “self-employed” or an “entrepreneur” used to be a euphemism for “can’t get a job.” Now it’s all the rage! I’m not one to jump on trends (I frequently avoid them on principle), but I do want to be able to eventually support myself with my writing and dancing, and there’s no time like the present to start thinking of the business side of things. And when it’s a free challenge, why not!
The Girl with the Tree Tattoo 