Riot and Frolic

a mostly ballroom dance, but also a bunch of other stuff, blog

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about

I own and rock people’s faces off teaching ballroom dancing at Dancers Studio in St. Paul, MN. My husband and I compete professionally in American style and wrangle eight children in our spare time. I’ve been teaching and competing in ballroom dancing for over 25 years and have lots of opinions on it. I am an expert by any means, but there are quite a few dancers who are better than me and I have a solid knowledge of basic technique, so suck it.

Category: Domesticality

  • List of Last Week’s Labors of Love

    – cinnamon roll with maple-bacon icing at the New Louisiana Cafe.  No joke.  Go get one. My father-in-law (from Illinois) loves this place and really, everyone should.  They have delicious coffee from local Morningstar Coffee, crab cake benedict, and hello, cinnamon rolls with maple-bacon icing.  Go.   – a Guiness milkshake.  At TGIFriday's, of all…

  • Digital 40 Days – Quarterly Report

    In hindsight, I don't think the first of the year was a great time to start this project of "8am RUN YOGA!"  We had a big trip planned (a wedding in North Carolina and skiing in West Virginia), there was a dance competition directly after the trip, and I am freaking tired.   But then again, maybe…

  • List of Last Week’s Labors of Love

    – a new Facebook page for my other job (you know, besides the live-in nanny gig I got).  FB is such a beach sometimes.  I swear, getting a cover photo to look right is A CHORE.  I mean, 851 x 315 pixels?  851?  Not just 850.   Shut up, Facebook. – drove through 10 states.  No…

  • Hangover Cure – Digital 40 Days – Day One

    New Year's Eve smacked me upside the head and reminded me I'm not 25 anymore.  Let's just say there was whiskey, whiskye, and some more whiskey involved.   Yeah, you heard me.  Whiskye. A month ago, I signed up for the Lifetime FitnessCommitment Day 5k with some friends thinking, "P-shaw, I'll probably spend the crack of…

  • Coffee Trash Knit

    Vanilla SPICE lattes at Starbucks? Vanilla AND cardamom in my coffee? It's so close to my dream of coffee/chai/hot cocoa!  Get in mah belly!   hey, pretty   And then a $1 awesome paper-feeling plastic reusable cup from Starbucks that's recycleable and saves me 10¢ on each drink? Why, yes, thank you!  Impulse purchase achieved!  Garbage…

  • New Direction – Digital 40 Days

    No, not this new direction. who are these people? Not them. I'm a big fan of the lululemon blog (besides product highlights, they do great interviews, quick tutorials, motivational photos/videos, recipes, and more) and they recently posted about the Digital 40 Days program.   Common knowledge has it that 40 days of [insert new practice]…

  • List of Last Week’s Labors of Love

    – what better way to celebrate the birth of Jesus than with RAVER BRACELETS?!  My auntie brought them to the Christmas Eve festivities after finding them in the dollar section at Target.  So you know I'll be stalking that area for $1 fun until the end of time.   no drugs were consumed   –…

  • Pressies

    Since I already wrote this post once and my server somehow lost it, I'm very cleverly writing this all over again… except without the cleverness.   Here's our partial Christmas inventory: all cute stuff not overly princessy, respectively fake vintage it's ok for girls, too because, duh What'd you get/do? i didn't get this

  • Dummy

    "If I knew what would make me happy, I think I would probably try to do it." Direct quote from yours truly. If I knew what would make me happy, I THINK I would PROBABLY TRY to do it? What kind of defeatist language is that?   Let's try again, dummy: If I knew what…

  • List of Last Week’s Labors of Love

    – there's a new playground in town and someone knows how to climb up the little stairs and slide down the slide all by herself.  For hours.     non-stop fun. literally   – my extra-great great aunt invited us to meet Santa, who was in town for breakfast.  It was an adorable event aimed at…