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

  • Mandatory

    As anyone who has stumbled upon a blog knows, there is a mandatory post about the site Pinterest. If you have any sort of addictive personality, you might want to stop reading.  It could get ugly. This site is addictive.  Maybe it's too late. Here's my typical morning: – wake to alarm sounding for approximately…

  • Bratt?… Party of 50?…

    There are "four" people who live in my house. I qualify four, because two of the household members eat enough to be considered one person.  So, this many dishes seems acceptable. But how many dishes do we own? That many.   We could have a dinner party for 28 people with full place settings for…

  • List of Last Week’s Labors of Love

    – first trip of the summer to my gramma's pool.  Thanks, Gram!   – several loaves of bread made in the breadmaker my gramma gave me.   – one weird pan of ice cream. – seven invitations to air-conditioned houses.  Thanks, friends! – another awesome trip to the river.  Raspberry Island was the destination this…

  • The Long Mile

    I miss running.  That is one of the most shocking statements I've ever made about myself, according to myself.    [This is a picture of me before my second race.] I started running last August or so in an attempt to lose the last of my baby weight (or pregnancy weight?) and gain some much-needed cardiovascular…

  • Oh snap

    Here is it! Look at the swanky, new design.  Admire it.  Love it.  Wonder at the magnificence of ME writing CSS code.  Yes, yes.  I know.  It's great.  Not only can I do a mean tango, but I can cut and paste nonsense and follow directions. A special thanks to D at thephOtoshOp at Etsy for creating…

  • It’s Getting Hot in Herre

      The wood floors are hot under my feet.  The water in the cold tap comes out lukewarm. I've had food poisoning all day and am just now able to move into the kitchen to get this. Yes, a roaster with rapidly melting ice cubes and chilly water for my feet.  That's AC, people.  And I…

  • List of Last Week’s Labors of Love

    – a party of Bratt-ski-ine proportions for Memorial Day: more people than expected, lots of food (and leftovers), over eight hours of talking, eating, games and ridiculousness.   – an imperfect cake (how do you remove a cake from a pan?) and imperfect ganache that still tasted pretty good. – a slightly red, white, and blue…

  • Snelby

     Last year, I made it a major goal to become part of the Elite Squad at yelp.com.  Yelp is a new-fangled Yellow Pages where you can rate and write reviews of businesses, check their hours, find them on a map, and the like.  To become an "elite" member, you write a bunch of reviews, compliment…

  • List of Last Week’s Labors of Love

    – the discovery that my "no time to do my hair!" look results in super-awesome hair after it's dry and I take out all the bobby pins (there are eight).   – another fun discovery after two hours at work was that my no-time look resembled Pebbles' hair. Not this Pebbles… This one… See? If…

  • Unsolicited Opinions

    I'm not a doctor, nor have I played one on TV.   But there are a couple products that I use almost every day that I think are totally worth the time and money to use.  And by "a couple," I mean three. This is the magical juice of goodness.  It's 10 times more effective…