The new year

Happy 2014 one and all!

The month of December has been long and stressful. Or at least it has felt that way at times. I'm not saying it didn't have its highlights because it did, but on top of the general busy-ness that just seems to naturally come with the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we've been dealing with a revolving door of family illness. If it hasn't been me or Bryan, it's been one or both of our boys. And if the four of us are going through a healthy patch, then we have other family who are sick. If you read my Black Friday post, you may remember that our Thanksgiving (also my father-in-law's birthday party) had to be moved to Dec. 7 due to our oldest son coming down with something. Well, it was deja vu all over again this Christmas. Bry was sick and I was sick, and we were supposed to host his family for Christmas Eve. So we moved Christmas Eve to the following weekend, but by then we learned that several of our guests were either already fighting some bug or coming down with some bug. So Christmas Eve got moved once again to New Year's Day. But alas, t'was not be. Both our boys went on antibiotics two days before that, so we just cancelled it altogether. At this point, we don't know when we're going to celebrate with family. I guess we're all just going to play it by ear. I had plans for a New Year's Eve blog post, a little like a "year in review" if you will, but just like most of our other December plans, it just didn't happen with everything going on. In fact, through all of December, I only managed to make four blog posts. Sigh.The best laid plans of mice and the Zumbamommy...

So how did I spend my New Year's Eve? Two ways. Late in the evening, Bry and I just spent some quiet time together watching Duke lose their bowl game. No, neither of us went to Duke (or to Texas A&M) we just like watching interesting bowl games. Yes, "we". I've spent the past 12.5 years married to an ESPN-watching-sports-lover so I'm at the point where Capital One Bowl Week, which incidentally lasts 16 days, is a fun time. Poor Duke, they haven't won a bowl game since the 1960's...stick to basketball guys... So, dear readers, anyone out there want to guess how I spent the earlier part of the night on New Year's Eve? If you guessed "Doing Zumba!" you'd be spot on.

Since I went to B1 training in October, I've had a friend coming over every second Tuesday night to do Zumba with. My friend Rae-Mae graciously agreed to be my test subject practice buddy while I work out some of the kinks of instructing a live person. Last night was our last Tuesday practice before my class at my church begins. Having a practice buddy has been invaluable to me. She acts like I'm doing her this great big favor by letting her come over to do Zumba, but in reality it's the reverse. Rae-Mae has all the enthusiasm and energy any instructor could want in a student and she asks great questions too. You see, I've been doing Zumba long enough that at this point, most of the really basic stuff is as normal to me as walking is. Bully for me right? Well, I didn't start out that way by any stretch of the imagination, but it's been long enough that I don't really think about the "how's" of it too much any more. When she asks me how am I doing    X   , I have to stop and figure out an answer. I have to slow myself down and really think about what I'm doing. This is good practice for me as a would-be instructor because chances are, that if she has these questions as a new-ish student, other people will too. I've heard it said that one of the best compliments that a Zumba instructor can receive is "You're easy to follow." so it stands to reason that the opposite (you're too hard to follow) is really bad thing. Hrmm, which column do I want to be in? That's a no-brainer.

***Side note: Jae and Rae, you are both easy to follow!***

My class starts on Jan. 14 and I'm pretty excited about it but a little nervous too. Just this past Sunday, I put up my Zumba poster in the lobby of my church and set my postcards out on the reception desk for people to take. The logical part of me knows that it just makes good sense to start a new class at the start of a new year, but the Zumba-crazy part of me wishes I'd offered to start sooner.

I'm not the only one excited about my class. Rae-Mae is planning to come too and she's been talking about it to people she knows, trying to get them to come with her. It's New Year's Day and what do I see on my Facebook this morning?

My practice buddy posting about my class!

Best advice: A New Year's Eve party for two is often times much more special than one for two hundred.

Question: What's your New Year's resolution? Mine is to learn a bachata song before the summer.