Please take good care of them...

So I am still having problems with ONE STRAP on both of my Latin dancing shoes. The shoes are breaking in quite nicely otherwise. However, one strap is rubbing my pinky toe the wrong way. I talked to my husband, otherwise known as that hot dance instructor I married, who recommended I ask one of the female instructors where she takes her shoes to be altered. Apparently, she's had to have one strap repositioned on her dancing shoes and he thought she would know where to take them.

She recommended a place that has previously done a good job for her. I dropped them off today like I was leaving my child at daycare..."So you guys have lengthened that strap before? That's something you do often?"

I am hoping they are able to lengthen that strap so that I have no more complications with this pair of shoes. The rest of the shoe is absolutely wonderful! If they are able to fix this strap on both shoes...I am set.

New Pasta Salad Recipe

J and I got invited to a picnic birthday party last week. I decided I wanted to try a different pasta salad. A friend recommended that I try this recipe from Food Network.

The pasta salad was VERY tasty! Before we left for the picnic, J tried a bite of it and LOVED it! We've already made it one more time since the picnic and served it alongside grilled pork chops.

**********

Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Ingredients:
1/2 pound fusilli (spirals) pasta
Kosher salt
Olive oil
1 pound ripe tomatoes, medium-diced
3/4 cup good black olives, such as kalamata, pitted and diced
1 pound fresh mozzarella, medium-diced
6 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped

For the dressing:
5 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
6 tablespoons good olive oil
1 garlic clove, diced
1 teaspoon capers, drained
2 teaspoons kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1 cup packed basil leaves, julienned

Directions
Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water with a splash of oil to keep it from sticking together. Boil for 12 minutes, or according to the directions on the package. Drain well and allow to cool. Place the pasta in a bowl and add the tomatoes, olives, mozzarella, and chopped sun-dried tomatoes.
For the dressing, combine the sun-dried tomatoes, vinegar, olive oil, garlic, capers, salt, and pepper in a food processor until almost smooth.
Pour the dressing over the pasta, sprinkle with the Parmesan and basil, and toss well.

These Shoes Were Made for Dancing...

So, I needed new Latin shoes that would allow my feet to spread out more to not only help me move better, but help my balance.

After searching and consulting with other Latin dancers, I was introduced to the Ray Rose brand of Latin dancing shoes. Here's why:

* The Ray Rose brand has a special system for balancing the heel. They also offer a square toe (instead of a round shape like most shoes have). This square toe shape helps me with the way my toes are shaped. My toes are shaped different than most with my third toe being longer than the second. The square toe shape of the shoe helps my unique feet feel better on the floor.

* Ray Rose is the only brand that offers a special fit called "Medium +." This Medium + fit allows more room in the toe area for those who have a wider forefoot. I have always needed more room for my toes. In the past, I used to buy wider fitting shoes. The only problem was that not only did the wider fitting shoes give me more room in the toe area, it also gave me more room in the HEEL area. When you have too much room in the heel area, your feet slip around when you dance. By buying the Ray Rose shoes in a Medium + fit, I have more room in the toe area with the same width in the heel. Perfect!

BUT the story isn't done yet.....I have to properly break them in which can be a somewhat painful process. I'm getting there though! I'm much more pleased with the process of breaking these in than I have with other brands of Latin dance shoes.

Here they are:

Controlling those Cravings!

Happy Monday!

Recently, I began using this new product to help control my cravings. If you're like me and like, LIKE food (sometimes to the point of excess) this may be a product you may be interested in. I'm not looking specifically to lose a ton of weight. However, this has been a good product to keep me eating healthy amounts of food verses overeating. Take a look at it and let me know what you think. I highly recommend it. After using it for just a few weeks, I can really tell a difference.

http://www.trueessentials.net/index.asp?repid=6559818 - Look for their Crave Control product by clicking on products on the upper left side of the page then click on "Weight Control" in the drop down menu.



America is one of the fattest nations in the world. One of the main reasons for that is our lack of portion control. We eat much larger portions of certain types of food than we need to. I hear people all the time ranking local restaurants in terms of the ones who give them the largest amounts of food.

Understand, I'm not an advocate of scary dieting practices. However, I am an advocate of eating healthy portion sizes of food and making sure one gets their recommended amount of exercise in every week.

Here's a good link for information regarding healthy food portion sizes:

http://www.mealsmatter.org/EatingForHealth/Topics/Healthy-Living-Articles/Portion-Sizes.aspx

Centerpiece Fun

So I threw a lingerie shower for a close friend getting married two weeks ago. Unfortunately, I don't have the best camera so the pictures really don't do the event justice.

However, I went to a wedding this past weekend and saw what appears to be a pretty easy centerpiece. This could be something I may want to replicate for a bridal shower.




They took a vertical vase, 6-8 inches wide and about 14 inches tall and put a vase inside that was turned upside down. The vase inside was around the same shape as the outside vase, but was smaller in both height and width. In between the two vases and on top of the inside vase, they put flower petals. I imagine I would want to also use fabric flower petals so real petals wouldn't get smashed. The fake petals seemed to hold up better.

They also included three smaller arrangements and candles as you see in the picture above.

Guide My Feet

My dance teacher and I have very high goals for my dancing. I am determined to accomplish them. Normally a not so great practice last night (on top of practicing next to someone who also dances for the city ballet) would have completely discouraged me. I am determined to keep going. I have an image in my head of where I want to be and that's all I'm focusing on. I'm determined to keep going until I get there. I'm praying that God will help me to practice smarter.

I'm also praying that he will help my feet relax. My dancing will skyrocket as soon as I can get my feet to relax. My new teacher has been such a blessing. I can't believe it will have been a year since we have started dancing together. Amazing. My only regret is not switching to him sooner. My first instructor taught me excellent things. However, I kept battling the entire last year I was with him on whether I should leave him or not.

New Decor in the Formal Living Room!

Saturday night, we were in our storage room looking at some of our home decorations we had boxed up and put to the side. These were pictures, wall art, photographs, etc. that we wanted to eventually put up...we just hadn't done so yet. While I was making dinner, J decided to look through some of it and see what we could put on the walls in our formal living room. He picked a few selections that we looked at together and decided where to put in the room.

For some time now, J has mentioned he would like to put up curtains in that room as well as a nice rug. After we put those pictures on the wall, we had gotten pretty ramped up about decorating the room. We ended up looking at rugs online to find out what we thought might look good in the room. We didn't find anything that we immediately liked. However, we agreed to continue looking. I mentioned our search to a few of my online friends and they suggested a few stores we could go to.

After church on Sunday, we decided to get J some new running shoes. While we were out, we went by JCPenney's and picked up some beautiful chocolate curtains for the room. We couldn't find a curtain rod we liked for the price, so we agreed to look elsewhere for a better deal. I mentioned to J that some people had mentioned we go check out Lowes for rugs and that he might be able to find a good price on some curtain rods as well.

I had to go to our home office to get some work done so I suggested J go ahead and look for curtains rods and rugs while I was working. J went to Lowes and not only found a fantastic deal on some great curtain rods, but found several great rugs as well! Since I was having to get some work done, he took pictures of the rugs on his cell phone and sent them to me so I could take a look. We found one we both really liked!

Here is a picture of the room before the rug. I took a picture of the room AFTER we put the rug in place. However, I absentmindedly left the blinds closed and the rug looks much darker than it really is. (Please pardon the mess. We had been decorating there and left some of our items temporarily on the couch.)





Here is a closeup of the rug from where J took a picture of it in the store. The rug ties all the major items in the room together from the chocolate sofas to the Light Silver Sage paint color to the tan chair in the corner.