Hi everyone! Welcome back to my Lively Life! Today I’ll be sharing my month of July! Now, I haven’t been nearly as active as I would have hoped. But isn’t that the theme of these posts? A lot of my month was spent on trying to enjoy the summer, working, blogging, going to musicals, and finishing my school application, so I’m going to blame all of that!

Here we go!

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Walking

This month my mom and I have been doing much better at getting out after dinner and taking a walk! We try to go every day but that doesn’t always happen as Tuesday is library day and Thursday is ballet day for me. Still we typically do go about 3 times per week for a walk around the neighborhood. This photo is from the day when I had to turn around on my way to work as it was raining too heavily for me to be able to get to the office in a safe and timely manner due to flooding and stopped traffic. I had worked from home that day after turning around and later that day the sun came out! What a day.

Ballet

I’m going to be so sad to see ballet go! My last class is the first Thursday in August. I had planned to still sign up if it was at a good time for me, but Judgy Teen said it’s normally offered Tuesday mornings, so that won’t work.

Speaking of, Judgy Teen has turned out to be not so bad. She revealed she’s not used to being the youngest so I’m going to go ahead and say she was just trying to act grown up and mature, just didn’t go about it all too well. She wasn’t able to make class yesterday as she was on vacation with her family and may not be able to be at class next week as her car was hit (she wasn’t in it, but says someone must have hit it and run in the parking lot) and it may not be fixed in time.

Her sister, Judgy Jr., has not been at class at all this month as she was cleaning something the first week, sick the next, then didn’t feel like showing up, and then on vacation. Seems odd to pay $80 (or $50 if they’re in-district, I don’t know where they live) to not show up.

I don’t think I gave the mom a nickname so we’re just going to go with Excited Dance Mom (EDM for short). EDM is very, very excited about dance. Her daughter seems like a brat though. Apparently EDM had family over and was telling them about the class and here daughter yelled out that her mom wasn’t doing anything right and proceeded to give a mini recital right then and there. I haven’t seen her daughter dance but I’m sure she’s not a professional if she’s taking classes at a park district so she’s one to talk. But EDM was only at the first class of the month and then haven’t been at class the next two weeks. Class was a lot more subdued without her for sure.

New BFF is improving for sure! She remembers the combos much better than I do although she does get a lot of corrections. I’m kinda jealous because that’s the only way you learn but I always follow along when the instructor is correcting her or explaining something. She’s very determined to get better which is amazing. She’s even written down the combos she has a lot of trouble with so that she can practice at home!

Miss Teacher has proven to be quite good. She moves quite quickly and always introduces something we haven’t done in the class before. We’ve even done a bit of leaps and turns as well! I always forget to spot, New BFF always forgets a step, we balance each other out for sure. Miss Teacher did miss last week due to a family trip as well so now I’m going to introduce Miss Substitute Teacher!

Miss Substitute Teacher was very different from Miss Teacher. First major difference is that Miss Teacher is very good at explaining, and demonstrating while Miss Substitute Teacher would get confused on the combos and mess them up while explaining them, then not really go back and start over so we would get it, preferring instead to show us as we did them. She also would try to explain corrections but would stop everything to do it and then give up and then just adjust our positions manually rather than showing us or explaining how tot do it.

Second major difference is that Miss Teacher is definitely more laid back and Miss Substitute Teacher pushes much more. Miss Teacher doesn’t mind if we don’t do the steps perfectly, and doesn’t stop or correct unless it’s pretty bad. If it looks okay she doesn’t really mind. Miss Substitute Teacher was much more picky. She would insist on correcting much smaller details than Miss Teacher so class felt like it was a slower pace since we weren’t moving on as quickly. But I felt like I was learning how to do it properly this time.

For example, she noticed I wasn’t lifting my legs up high enough so she held her hand out high so that I would lift my leg up to it, and she also noticed my legs weren’t close together enough in another move and my feet were too far apart as a result so she corrected that as well. Then in our floor exercises she physically pushed me so I wouldn’t pause and overthink the steps too much. I was surprised at how fast I went!

While I really like Miss Teacher I did end up liking Miss Substitute Teacher’s methods a lot because of how much I felt I learned. But I also like that Miss Teacher goes over so much and is able to teach so many different things in one class. I don’t particularly have a preference over either one, because they’re so vastly different.

And then I had a class last night as well! Miss Teacher was back and it was just myself and New BFF. It may just be the two of us next week as well. We did our usual barre work and then moved onto floor exercises. Since we were just two, we got a lot of attention and Miss Teacher asked us what we wanted to work on next week which we immediately said we wanted to do more jumps. We also requested more adult dance classes as none are scheduled for the fall. Apparently the adult classes are really only offered in the summer as people don’t sign up for them. Since all the kids are in school Miss Teacher explained they had to offer the classes they knew they could sell. It makes sense but is much too bad for me since I loved the class so much.

Anyway, we talked musical theatre a bit as New BFF has done some in school. I definitely don’t think she realizes just how obsessed I am with musical theatre although I have never done it. I’ve done some dance before and love it as well, but musicals are the ones that catch my interest the most.

And next week is the last ballet class! I’m thinking I will sign up for an adult dance even if it’s not ballet if they do offer one in the fall. I’d love to take jazz or tap or something! Even hip hop I’d take so I can audition for Hamilton! (Jokes, they’re legit professionals, I’d never be able to keep up!) Keep your fingers crossed for me!

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So that’s my Lively Life for July! Even though reading counts as a hobby I’m going to do that post separately since I do prefer to do books on their own.

Let me know what sort of activities and hobbies you’ve been participating in. I’d love to know!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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