Scary storms last night! Hope none of you were in harm’s way.

.

Please pray for my parents’ dog Sweetie. She’s an old Aussie and has always lived up to her name. She is the nicest, sweetest dog.

Mom and Dad are out of town for the week and Sweetie has been staying at a kennel. She’d been having some stiffness and trouble getting around for a while, but at the kennel this morning she wouldn’t even rise to her feet. The kennel staff saw that she was having trouble holding her head up too and suspected that she’d had a stroke. :(

She is at the Vet now and he isn’t sure if she’s indeed had a stroke, but she’s disoriented and dizzy. It may be an inner ear infection, or it could be neurological. 

Whatever the case, my poor parents are distraught that they are away from her. Mom was in tears and it made me teary too because I know I would be in utter despair in that situation. 

Please pray that Sweetie can pull through and get back on her feet. Mom and Dad want to be here when the time comes to tell her goodbye. :’(

And it’s all from Zumba!! 7 classes since Sunday, plus practicing my “Let The Groove Get In” routine yesterday. My obliques and hips are screaming.

My class went really well last night, other than some technical difficulties at the very beginning and eventually having to shed the mic all together because it wasn’t working. That was good practice for my non-verbal cueing skills though! ;)

I had 22 people, 3 more than the first week. (And Mom is out of town, or it would have been 23. *hehe*) So many people have told me that this time slot works really well for them. I hope hope hope that this class gets permanently added to the schedule!

angeldrinkstea asked: TAG! State 15 facts about yourself and pass it on to 15 of the nicest tumblr users <3

I’m always terrible at these things. So I’m going to do a “recap of facts” that I’ve probably mentioned here before, but they may be new to many of you!

1. I was home schooled from 2nd grade through graduation.
2. I started college courses at WSU at the age of 16.
3. That’s when I met Jeremy. He was the very first friend I made at college. (He was also my very first boyfriend.)
4. When I was little, I wanted to be a writer. I would spend hours in my room creating characters for my stories. It was my absolute favorite hobby. The love of writing fiction fizzled over the years and then was absolutely beaten out of me in college. But I still love the written word, even if my writing is in a much more casual, “journaling” form nowadays.
5. The other job I thought I wanted was to be a DJ. I even won a contest to be “DJ For A Day” on a local Christian radio show. I froze with fear in front of the microphone, though and just giggled my way through the morning. I also hated the sound of my voice when I listened to the tape my sister had recorded of it.  I decided that I DID NOT want to be a DJ after all.
6. I’ve lived my whole life in Kansas. My parents are Texans. Jeremy’s from Ohio. MoJo is from Missouri. And Wrigley & Cubby are from Oklahoma. *hehe*
7. I’ve had fish, birds, hamsters and dogs. Dogs win - I’ll never have any of the others again. (Too much work for not enough emotional payoff!)
8. I like the idea of being spontaneous…but I struggle with it.
9. I’m the exact opposite of an “impulse buyer.” I will come home from vacation without a single souvenir if I’m not careful, because I’m always waiting to see my other options and I don’t want to “settle.” Jeremy’s also a comparison shopper so it takes us forever to buy anything!
10. I rode my first roller coaster when I was 17 (Jeremy made me) and I’ve loved them ever since. But I no longer love the spinning rides that thrilled me as a kid. I get sooooo nauseous.
11. I broke my right hand in a car accident when I was 15. The first surgery was botched and the wiring came loose, causing me a lot of pain and impaired movement. The second surgery fixed me up completely, except that I’m now “missing” a knuckle on that hand. I like to freak people out with it. ;)
12. I didn’t drive till I was 20. I was stuck in a fear trap (I’m prone to those, you see) and put it off as long as possible. Jeremy asked my Dad for permission to propose to me and Dad basically said “Yes, but she has to learn to drive first.” LOL So I did!
13. I worked for 7 years at a scrapbook store which I loved. I was assistant manager for the last 2 of those years. One night, the owners came in, sat us down and told us they were shutting the store down that night and we needed to come back the next day to pack everything up. It came as quite a shock and I admit that I’ve dealt with bitterness over the way they handled it. I’ve forgiven them, though, because losing that job turned my life in a different, better direction. :)
14. My other jobs were babysitting with my sister, working at The Spirit of Christmas for a season and then at Candyopolis for a couple years.
15. My username for a lot of things is “misspeppy.” Jeremy gave me that nickname shortly after we met.

(It runs in my family, actually. We all. fall. down. )

My AWESOME husband figured out how to trim songs using Garage Band, so he snipped “Let The Groove Get In” down to a perfect 4.5 minutes! (Sorry JT. I know you worked really hard adding those other 3 minutes. I just couldn’t deal with all that.)

I’m so excited! New Zumba warm-up here I come!

(I think I need a Garage Band tutorial. I’m sure we could do great things with it if we really knew how to use it!)

More nervous than I was for any of my certification tests or teaching my first routines or even teaching my first full classes. NOTHING compares to how nervous I was! I was shaking and felt the very real threat of vomiting.

But I did it!!! And I didn’t screw up and I didn’t fall off the stage! (Though that fear was more realistic than even I thought. The stage is smaller than it looks!)

After my song was over, I hopped off the stage and took my place in the crowd once again and MAN! I was so WEAK! It’s like I used every ounce of energy and adrenaline in my body for those 3.5 minutes and had nothing left. It shocked me.

Thanks for all your encouragement guys. So glad to have that behind me. Hopefully I’ll be a little less scared if I have the opportunity to do it again.