Epic Fail

Yesterday I confessed to you how I worked up the nerve to branch out and try Zumba. Giving you just a glimpse of how much coaxing this took for me internally, I can only tell you it was a way bigger deal than you can imagine. About 30 minutes before it was time to go I was nervous! Nervous! Over a dance class...

Sad, I know. Thing is, I am not a "try new things" kind of gal. I should be. We should all be. I told The Hub, as he gazed at me in utter amazement, just as easy as it is for him to go anywhere with boldness and confidence, it is equally easy for others to snuggle in the comforts of shy-hood. So what if he can talk to the grocery store lady about football and the gas station attendant about not having seen him in awhile. As if they are friends. I, on the other hand, prefer to reside in invisible land. And that friends, is where I live. Comfortably.

A life of comfort and security is not necessarily what God always wants for us...so I preached to myself, anyway. I worked up that one tiny nerve to try this new thing and found myself fidgeting with nervousness, flipping through a cookbook of all things. The Hub knew right away I was juggling nervous energy. Incredulously, he wondered how that could be possible. It just is. I dragged myself right on out of the house and went to find this place.

Jeez. New people...dancing...music...did I mention new people? Ugh. Not my favorite thing to do. But I wanted to find an ounce of boldness and go try this new thing. After driving around in the dark, I finally found the location. Doors locked, lights off. Huh? No one was there. Good thing I brought the newspaper ad with me. I re-read to confirm I didn't miss some very important detail. Sure enough, the class should have been there at that exact time. No one was around.

When I returned home and explained to The Hub what happened, he kidded me, "how was that drive to the elementary school?" As if! His implication being I was never going to a dance class in the first place. As if I would fake something like that! Well, I am capable of some eventful moves, but this time I really, legitimately jumped off the deep end into new waters. And wouldn't that be just the outcome: no one was home.

I've emailed the instructor and hopefully can figure out what happened here. I got myself all worked up and convinced to try this, so goodness me, it better pan out. Meantime, my nighttime adventures last night turned out to be an epic fail. Life sure does seem to go that way sometimes. We spend all this energy on being anxious and nervous and often it turns out to be literally nothing. The most important thing is that I'm ready to keep pursuing it and won't be discouraged by driving around in the dark (NOT at an elementary school, thank you very much), and not getting the outcome I hoped for. Perhaps next time there won't be nervous-cookbook-page-flipping behavior in anticipation. Perhaps next time I can be a little more normal. Don't you normal people get your hopes up

Zumba, If I Please

I'm calling it fate that I just so happened to run across this tiny, tiny little ad for a zumba class. It caught my eye because it said the class was located in Chantilly. Great, I thought, near to me. It also held my attention because it wasn't at a gym. Excellent, I thought, no membership fees. Apparently this god-send of a Zumba instructor rents a room from a preschool on Mondays and Wednesday evenings to get her Zumba on. Say what? I'm SO in there.

Now, I do have a long-standing Wednesday evening commitment. Bible study can't be cancelled, skipped or rescheduled. Can you imagine? "Where's the pastor's wife?" Oh. She's at Zumba class. Nah, Wednesdays are out. But I am so looking forward to Monday. That's today!

I did what any brave girl would do. I texted a bunch of my friends and rallied them into coming along. What is it about human nature that makes some of us bold to the ends of the earth and some of us need a crowd of support to take one step forward? That would be me. I have no less than 4 friends who gave me the "sure, I'll do it!" I'm so proud of them. They are so brave!

Tonight we will venture over to this location and check out Miss Zumba-Girl. Some of my friends think they will literally die. Others are excited about the fun opportunity for weight loss. I just like to dance and in my old age have seemed to have misplaced my rhythm. If I had it once I know I can find it again. It's buried beneath layers of...well, something. All the time I conjure up images of little old me in middle school, jamming to some popular tune, at the school talent show and hearing my rhythm-full friends remark at how that "little white girl" danced her butt off. Believe it. True story. Not shaded by memory glaze. But, alas, over the years my mind and my body and especially my feet have settled. Not quite as agile as I used to be and a far scream from a "dancer," I decided this Zumba thing will be a good move.

You know that I will keep you posted. That's if I personally don't die from this one class.

Just A Dreamer, Baby

I know I've heard and learned countless times - DON'T eat right before you go to sleep. There's all sorts of hip-hugging reasons to follow that rule. There is also the idea that you tend to dream more when you stuff your face before you snooze. Or maybe it's that you tend to dream crazy stuff when you dine after nine.

All I can tell you my friends, is for me the food isn't the problem, but the crazy dreams are way up there in la-la land. In the last week I've had two crazy dreams that just for chuckles I thought I would share with you. My close friends and family can tell you I am an eccentric soul. I'm a bit different, and I'm okay with sharing that. In my past I've had recurring dreams about my teeth literally being pulled out of my gums because of - wait for it - chewing gum. For years, I've avoided chewing gum at all. Who wants to dream that they are literally stuffing their teeth back in? Ugh. And a big ole' sigh...

I am happy to say I haven't had that dream in years so I've matured a bit, perhaps. I thought I was weird dream free until last week when I had a very vivid dream about being Mariah Carey's best friend

(I already said I'm odd!) and that her hubby left her with her two precious babies for 100 days. Anything significant about 100? I helped Mariah work through her trauma of being alone suddenly, and having twins to care for, and her disappointment in her boo. I was her BFF, I think? (don't worry, I'm laughing too). The end of the dream was Nick returning to her after exactly 100 days and thinking everything was everything. Poor Mariah was so upset and there I was to console her like it was my job. Such an odd soul, am I.

Moving on to my second dream, I'm in New York City with Alicia Keys.

Yes, friends, you can laugh out loud. Alicia jumps on the subway and goes wherever she is going and I leave my own family standing in the dust as I try to chase her. They were with me but they couldn't keep up. So I left them. Left them. I tried to jump subway trains and get to where she was going and always seemed to be a step behind. Suddenly Alicia jumps on a super fast racing motorcycle and zooms away. Don't ask how I caught up to her. Can she actually drive a motorcycle? Did I? Craziness. When I caught up to her, breathless, and relieved to finally catch her, she chuckles and tells me that was all part of a scene in a movie she's filming. Oh, well thank goodness for that. I wouldn't have wanted to chase her for nothing.

Having given you my disclaimer about my eccentricity, I must say neither of these celebrities are my personal friends. I couldn't even do one of those "All things lead to Kevin Bacon" kind of diagrams (google it) to try to remotely know anyone who knows anyone that's been in the same air space as Alicia or Mariah. That said, I hadn't seen these ladies on TV or thought about them directly and I have these two extremely random dreams. And no, I hadn't eaten before bed.

What's to blame for this wild life I live in my dreams? I highly doubt I am about to become a member of the celebrity scene, so I'm left with thinking that these old brains of ours are strange things indeed. I know I'm a bit funnier than most when it comes to having strange behavior. I mean, I guess that's true. Or not. Don't all 30-somethings break out in outdated dancing at random household moments when there is no music other than the jams going on in the head alone? Yea, I think that's pretty normal.

Colonial Whoas

Oh friends, how in the world has it been since December 22 that I have blogged to you? Forgive me for my temporary absence. Christmas and New Years bring a whirlwind of activities, events, family, relaxing time. You know how that goes... Glad to be back! And boy do we need to catch up. Today I'm pressed to blog to you about Colonial Day. Have you an elementary school child, about 4th grade age who has perhaps survived this? So far in the Copeland house we have survived two Colonial Day experiences. Neither of those compares to my Bball Girl's preparation for her Colonial Day today.

Let me explain: Colonial Day is a 4th grade adventure where all the children get to come to school dressed up in Colonial times clothing and throughout the school day they get to experience activities, games and events that give them the hands-on Colonial times experience. Sounds absolutely thrilling, no?

As I said, Oldest and Soccer Chick both encountered this event and they manned-up, kept a stiff upper lip and basically, to be plain, sucked it up. Not so for my sweet Bball Girl. I must confess that it is 100% completely true that as you go along in parenthood you get more and more lax on things. Now that we are on the 3rd child, I put in about zero effort in preparing an outfit or a lunch satchel (A satchel? Seriously?). So I'll take credit that the poor girl didn't have a mama that prepared her properly.

So this morning we found ourselves searching through the closet. In the way back of my own closet I found a black, long skirt that I held on to for Soccer Chick. An item she swore she would never want. But to earn some mom-points here let me say I kept it because I knew eventually she would have a concert or something where this item was needed. And what do you know...today we put that bad boy to use.

There's my girl in a beautiful floor length skirt, safety-pinned no less than three times on her tiny little waist and a fluffy blouse that her darling big sister had for the occasion. I promise you she was looking seriously Colonial. For the shoes I told her to throw on her Chuck Taylor Converse and call it a day. Her father, much more grounded than I, said no. Put on the church shoes. Off this child went to the kitchen with her very Colonial-looking self. Shortly after breakfast she came to me with the biggest, most round tears I have ever seen. She was miserable! Have you met her? A skirt is a leap for her. Colonial Day clothing was torture. I gave her the speech about how some things in life we really don't want to do but we just have to do them, and do them with the best attitude we can. I added on there that no one likes Colonial Day (I already confessed The Hub was the more grounded one) and that everyone would be miserable in those clothes today. Did I think I was helping? But, the bottom line was this was going to be fine. I even let her pack a change of clothes that she probably won't be able to change into just before school is over. But, hey, the point is those clothes are in there. She knows her rescue plan isn't too far away.

I felt so bad for the girl this morning. It didn't help that her seriously-silly father trotted around the house in his pajamas doing his version of some Colonial dancing. To say this wasn't helping doesn't quite describe how Bball Girl was feeling. While the other two might have pouted a bit on their turn for such fun, this was actually painful for her. Isn't life just like that? There are just some things that we absolutely do not want to do. The thought of it brings us actual pain, might even make our skin crawl. Yet, there are those things that there is no way around, can't be avoided and we must tackle head on. What approach do we have? Do we let those huge tears roll? I don't see anything wrong with that. Sometimes you just gotta cry just a bit. But then, we force ourselves to get through it. And if you're in 4th grade, your mama forces you. Still...super powerful life lesson there.

As I pull up at the school to drop off the kids, the other two bounced out of the car with their normal kindergarten and 6th grade joy. You know I am lying about some 6th grade joy. There is no such thing. But poor Bball Girl looks directly at me and says "mom, can you just shoot me now?" Friends, a little drama never hurt anybody.