VIDEO: Remember I'm WHITE and OLD.

It's 10 minutes long... the video is.  But the dances only go to 6 minutes.  Then the rest is of my friend and her family.  So after you get past the first two dances... it's pretty much done.

This video I got from my friend (cause remember how mine was focused in on me, thanks to my GUY, so didn't want you guys to have to endure that).  So I had to learn how to get it off a DVD, put it on my Mac, and then put it on Youtube... editing was kinda out of the question.  Sorry.

She was kind enough to let me have it... Becca is the one they focus on once in a while.  She is the girl I always wish I was... Long beautiful hair, shorter, and she has a groove to her...  I was going to point her out and tell you all that she was ME... but once they went in on her, you'd know I was lying.  SIGH.

Okay.  For the first Dance.  I'm in the Back Row-right hand side, your right.  I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't have black pants for the performance... so found some from where ever... the only problem is... they are WAY big.  And although that sounds SOOOO hip hop (rolls eyes), they WERE about to fall off... and they look like the crotch of the pants is down to my mid-thigh... also SOOOO hip hop (rolls eyes) only everyone else wore cute little tight things.  

Cause they are all, little and tight.  I on the other hand... KNOW I look like an idiot with those pants on... can anyone say "U Can't Touch This?"  All I'm saying is I looked different in my mind.

The second one... you'll see me roll onto the stage in the darkness... and then I run off.  When I come back in... I'm the first one walking in on your left hand side.  *shakes head*

I wouldn't in my RIGHT mind tell you where I was usually, but I don't want the other girls taking any fault for my actions out there...that wouldn't be very nice.

Please feel free to laugh behind my back.

DCar's performance will come...when I get that video figured out.

Okay here it is... remember I've had TWO kids... and I went from a COOL age to an OLD age this year... Just saying...

Please delete this from your memory. Consider it your act of charity for the Month!

Love,

Shelle

I'm still alive... barely

DCar--pictures I have been editing.

Don't ask me what's up with his 

Days of our Lives EYEBROW going on?
Well... I survived.

DCar did as good as his little 7 year old body could do... since he missed the dress rehearsal.  He was up North Friday attending his Aunts wedding... he was needed until Saturday morning and so missed his Dress Rehearsal for his Hip Hop performance.

It HAS been, what, 12 years since I have done a performance of ANY kind.

Wait, I take that back... I was a parent couple in the local Nut Cracker... but that doesn't count, because we didn't really have to dance as much as we had to play act (I roped MountainSport Man into that one).  Which I'm terrible at... BTW.  So it wasn't really that nerve racking.

So anyway... remember I edited photos until the WEE hours of every morning last week... Yea I'm still editing.

But had to take a break to attend the ceremony of my 

SIL wedding.  But then I caught the flight back home that night to continue editing and so I could wake up EARLY to attend my Dress Rehearsal.

Overall I'm okay with what I did, how I performed.

But honestly... I'm not gonna lie.

I was a nervous wreck.

The WHOLE time I envisioned me face planting it in the middle of the crowd and body surfing or something.

Or forgetting and running off the stage in total embarrassment.

Since neither of those TWO things happened... I'm okay with how it turned out. The picture there on your right is Me and Scott (Hip Hop Instructor)... yea... I'm SOOO white, no pun intended... but I have a hard time pulling off the proper Hip Hop "Attitude". sigh.

I'll put up a little of both Dcar's and My video later this week... not the full things because it would be WAY long... but just snips to fulfill my promise to ya'll to put them up! :)

But I'm warning you now.  My husband only video'd ME and the person next to me.  He didn't want to miss me and he didn't want to video, but he had to (because I told him he had to), so he compromised by zooming IN on me!!!  Let me just say... I probably should have asked someone else to video.  I'm just not one for close ups when it comes to that.  :)

Totally off subject but...

I have a question... why would someone try and pick ANYBODY up at an airport or on an airplane???  When are you EVER going to see them again?  What's the point?

It boggles the mind.                                                                  

And since people that come to read my blog are INCREDIBLY smart... maybe you can enlighten me! :)

Love,

Shelle

I'm an EMPTY Shell

I'm honestly a shell of a person right now.

No...HONESTLY.

In the last 4 days I have had a total of 8 hours of sleep...

Like for instance, my Mom was talking to me at Apple Bee's and I had an outer body experience. It was like she was talking and we were conversing and then I just drifted off...

MORE than I usually do.

I saw her mouth moving, her expressions, her body movements...but just drifted into dream world.  I fell asleep sitting up and talking with someone... and she didn't have a clue, well at least not until she realized she was looking at me but my spirit was not there...LIGHTS OUT!

No, for real though, I was conversing with her and then I realized I had NO idea what we had been talking about, so then I had to play catch up before she asked me something I couldn't answer???!!!

Anyway... For the last four days, every evening, I have been taking pictures for the Hip Hop Studio in my town...2 ONE Productionz.  Then editing those photos until the WEE hours in the morning until I collapsed and the computer was doing whacked out things...like TALKING to me.  (Long Story).

So this is all I got... for Friday Foto Finish Fiesta over at Candid Carrie's... it's my favorite one SO FAR... 

Thanks everyone for yesterday's input!  Although, we all seemed torn on what to do...well except for Sage and Canadian Bald Guy...but that is to be expected since they don't run into sobbing women in the bathrooms, maybe crazy stalking women.. but that is another discussion for another day!  

And Kritta...you ROCK...seriously...ROCK.  And I'm going to dedicate a post especially for you...to answer ALL of your questions, since you took the time to write them! :)

So basically... love you guys.  Have a good weekend!

Love,

Shelle

The next Hip Hop Prodigy...

I knew you guys were sitting on pins and needles waiting for another DANCE video from me.  Ya know, cause I rocked the last one with PeePs.

I had another dreaded opportunity-to-clean day, and so what else would I do except clear the SMALL space in front of my computer and spend at least 45 minutes recording video of my kids dancing to nothing but the most UPLIFTING music... instead of actually doing productive house cleaning???

I want to preface this video by saying that DCar DOES take a hip hop class (which his performance is THIS weekend, which means my performance is THIS weekend... so YES this over-the-hill at 30 washed-up-dancer-who-swore-she-would-never-perform-again is going to huff it through 2-two plus minute dances because she doesn't know how to say NO), so back to DCAR... he's basically a prodigy in this kind of movement, America's Best Dance Crew material right here... our next step is actually finding him a crew...

Now this one I put on because I didn't move the vacuum behind him the first time...and so he gets hurt and the way he reacted is priceless... seriously, the best part is when he says, "I'm back"! :)



And I may be bias, but I think he has REAL potential as a professional singer?

What do you mean, 'am I being facetious?' hehe :)

He's such a dorky goof ball...

I couldn't be prouder! :)

Now my question is... should I think about putting him in a hip-hop dance off... cause he's so STREET... if it wasn't blatantly obvious what color he was I'm sure you would have confused him with Shane Sparks! (You can Google him Sage).

Love,

Shelle

Dance and Photography=Shelle in Heaven

So Dance has been a part of my life before I had a life. My Grandma taught my Mom Dance, who then taught it to her daughters! As a young girl it was something I got to dress up for. I got to wear pretty leg warmers and cute tutu's and it was an attention getter for my Mom when she had a camera...(If you haven't figured out I LOVE attention so this was a good thing). When I saw my mom with the video camera I would yell, "Mom, look at me" and she would zoom around to me and I would then begin to tap my feet and sing, "This is how we tap our feet, we tap our feet, we tap our feet", I would smile real big and my mom, never wanting to let me down, would always say, "Oh! That is So good Shelle, get your fingers out of your mouth", yea, I thought I was the bomb!!!

As I became a young adolescent it was just a thing I had to do after school and interfered with soccer practice and friend time. My parents conveniently forgot me at dance class 90% of the time and I would have to dial collect and the operator would say, "Please say your name so I can introduce you to the party to see if they will take your call" (or something similar to that). Then I would say, "Your late come pick me up from ballet" before the operator would cut me off. Then I would patiently wait for the operator to playback my plea to my parents, and then I would hear my Dad, "Hey, we forgot to get Shelle again". Then I would pray that someone would remember to actually come instead of thinking that someone else had already done the "easy to forget" job of picking me up!

As a Teenager dance defined who I was. When I met someone new it went something like this, "Hi, I'm Shelle it's nice to meet you", then I would get a reply back something like this, "Oh hey, you're the dancer right?" I use to hate that I was defined by my ability to dance. Dance did keep me out of trouble, I had little time to do anything else. I was on the dance team at my high school, as well as, taking dance classes, and practicing for solo's (someday I will tell you about those humilating experiences, but for now I just want you to get what a big part of my life dance is!)

Now as an adult, dance is something I get to do as an outlet. It is special because it bonds my sisters and my mom to me...its something we all enjoy together! It also allows me to use my creativity while creating dance numbers to my favorite songs. I get to escape for a few hours and teach my love to those younger than me. If I take a break from teaching, like I am now, I usually get asked to do some side choreography...Like, I just did a piece for a high school dance company in my home town to the song: "Love Today" by Mika! It was so fun to work with them and they were good enough, that I was able to really have fun with it! It's such a natural high for me! Having dance in my life also gives me the right to critically judge "So You Think You Can Dance"! lol! Yea, don't worry, I am obsessed...I can barely stand it having to wait another month for the new season...anybody want to have a weekly SYTYCD party...anybody? I'll make my special caramel popcorn, okay its not MY caramel popcorn recipe, I stole it from my older sis...but the taste is still just as good...lol!

So I am okay now with dance defining me...it is as much a part of me as the color of blue in my eyes...I am lucky and blessed to be a part of the world that surrounds dance. I will never be famous for it, but its definitely something that I will never give up!

Now I have found a new LOVE that gives me the same natural high as dancing has! That is photography...no I'm not very good yet, but I love getting out there and shooting...it makes me happy when I get 1 good shot out of 50...I'm sure the odds will get better in time...I love jumping on PhotoShop and doctoring up my amateur photos, to make them look somewhat better...I love getting on the computer and reading everything about Digital Photography...I know, NOT another reason for Shelle to sit her big tush in front of the computer...but I have SO much fun! So being able to watch dance while practicing some action shots was a dream...it's so great to be able to do both at the same time!

So I hope you enjoyed these shots I got from my new DSLR camera. I found out really soon that the lens I have (18-55mm) is not at all the best for shooting action shots in an auditorium ( I couldn't get enough light and zoom to make the moving limbs focused enough), but I adjusted and got some pretty fun shots!

As not to bombard you daily wiyh my favorite photos that I have shot and edited I have decided to just create a blog where you can link over to them if you would like to see them!

It's http://www.plushmoments.blogspot.com/ - there's more Dance Action shots and other photos I have taken of my kids and things! So hope you can jump over there...and feel free to give me any constructive criticsm to help me along the way...because the more I learn the better stats I get...as I said before, right now I am at 1 good shot to 50 not so good shots...Thank Goodness for Digital!

Let me know what you think and if you like photography to and have someplace I can check you out...I would love to!!! I'm like a sponge soaking it all up!