YIKES!

Yikes! It's June 10th and I've been lazy at this blogging thing. Like everybody else, sometimes I just feel like I don't have anything interesting to share. So now I'll share all the somewhat uninteresting things that have been going on around here.

Back in May, I was in charge of hosting a Zumba "master class" at the YMCA where I teach. A "master class" is not with someone like me; I'm not a 'master' at anything yet but it was taught by international Zumba superstar and goddess Tanya Beardsley. She is the host of the new Zumba dvd series and she travels all over the world promoting Zumba and training instructors like myself. In the Zumba world, she is #2, second only to Beto Perez himself. Anyway, it was a lot of work to pull it off but it went swimmingly. We originally hoped at least 75 people would attend but we ended up having over 150 people! Many of them were my students and I had the luxury of dancing on-stage with Tanya for some of the program and then having my students later tell me that I was just as good, if not better than her. (Ha, they exaggerate). Here's a picture of me and Tanya after class when we're completely sweaty, gross, and makeup-less. Notice how I'm extending my neck so I don't have a double chin. Hey, she's 10 years younger than me; I gotta do what I gotta do. And on the right is a picture of me and Tanya with my friend Missy. Missy was a student of mine who I encouraged last year to go get certified in Zumba so she could sub for me! She is a pro now and can hardly ever sub for me because she has her own Zumba classes! I'm so proud of her...she has worked really hard. She and I have been scouring the area to find our own place teach Zumba out of. We haven't had much luck, except we have found a small dance studio that I am renting one day a week to teach Zumba. I've only had two classes so far but the second class had double the attendance from the first class (8 people, then 16 people at $10/each) so I think it is going to take off. It can only fit about that many people anyway so if it grows any more the 3rd week I'm gonna have to start looking for a bigger place.

I am also in the middle of renegotiating my salary at one of the local gyms where I work. It has been time consuming and stressful and I'm still waiting to see what's going to happen. It's hard because I'm already the highest paid instructor around these parts but other places are offering more than this place so I have to at least try. If it doesn't work out, it's OK because I know I'm standing up for myself and doing the right thing...even if they tell me to take a hike! Maybe that's the nudge I need anyway to find a bigger dance studio to rent. In the meantime, though, I don't think I slept a wink last night. I tossed and turned all night seeing images of my boss and the gym owner in my mind and with phrases going through my head like, "I'm worth it!" and "My proposal is more than fair!" Tonight I may just take a Tylenol pm.

Some other non-interesting things around here: the bus line that Dave takes to work everyday went on strike for a week and a half. When the strike began, we were completely clueless so poor Dave and a whole bunch of other commuters were standing out at the bus stop one morning wondering where the heck all the buses were! The whole thing was highly annoying and inconvenient because then he had to take the train which is slower, much less convenient, and more expensive overall. That darn strike wreaked havoc on our lives for a week and a half!

Another thing I forgot to mention before is that while Dave was gone in Switzerland, he lost a drawer. What?! I can almost hear you guys being confused. What I mean is that while he was gone for a month, I noticed one of his drawers had like 2 socks left in it. I cleared it out for Steph to use while she was here for a week and then after she left I decided maybe I'd like to have that drawer for myself! It is, after all, the biggest drawer in the whole dresser. Strangely, when Dave got home and I informed him of this, he didn't seem to mind much so I just kept using it as my own. I don't know where he put his other stuff...maybe that's why there's a pile of socks on the chair nearby, but I'm just gonna keep hogging it for as long as I can. Every once in awhile when I open it and peer in, I fear that my stuff will be gone and his socks will have reappeared. But so far, so good!

One more uninteresting thing. It has been HOT here. Yesterday was 100* and today is almost as hot. That is super hot for us at this time of year. The kids still have 2 weeks of school! They were released early both today and yesterday because of the heat. Why? Because many of the classrooms don't have A/C so it is state law that once the temperature hits 90*, they have to be released! I remember one day last year (on a day that was not nearly as hot as today) I visited Caleb's classroom to read a book to his class. All I did was sit and read a book and I was sweating buckets. It was SO hot in his classroom. They had fans going everywhere but all they did was blow the kids' papers all around! I don't know how they got any learning done in there because it was miserable. His already cranky teacher was even crankier and I found myself quite cranky after one book! The heat is supposed to break tonight with severe thunderstorms so hopefully we'll be back on schedule tomorrow, high of 85*!