Don't Forget Anything

Remember to click on and subscribe to my new blog kariannesali.blogspot.com. I've even have a new post up: "Don't Forget Anything."

"You know those nagging feelings that occasionally make themselves present until you finally follow up on something?

I had been having a set of those regarding my car registration for a couple weeks before I finally remembered when I was by my car to check my expiration date. I know, I know—this is a simple thing to check, but it would only cross my mind when I was far from my car. And when I say "far," I mean not immediately inside or standing outside the car. "

Keep reading on kariannesali.blogspot.com.

The end of an era

It's been a few months since I've posted...

The reason for that lapse is that I've wanted to transition to a new blog and just hadn't had the time to do so.

Until now.

May I introduce my new blog over at kariannesali.blogspot.com

There are several things I'm still working out, but I did write my "About Me" section. It explains the name of the blog. (And I don't mean the url... :P)

Curious?

Go check it out. And please subscribe. Good stuff is coming, I promise.

Thanks everyone! This blog has served me well for the past six years. I'm simply ready for something new and decided this was the way to go, blogwise.

Overcoming

Oops, I just published a blank post draft.

Guess I should actually write something now.

You now how in my last post I mentioned that I was looking forward to not teaching a class over the weekend.

Well I taught two.

Saturday morning I was asked to sub the 10 a.m. Zumba class and then—YES GET THIS—the 30 min Core class that follows it. I say sure to Zumba but then remind her...I've never taught a Core class. She assures me the class is laid back and gives me and example of a few exercises that I "could get away with" just doing that.

I immediately turn to YouTube to put together an assortment of exercises that I enjoy for the Core. Luckily I have a few that I personally turn to, so I just had to write stuff out, create a short playlist, and we were good to go.

I've taught short exercise things like that for friends and family but never in an official setting WITH REAL PEOPLE. People actually paying to come attend a class. Overall...it went OK. Oh, and later that afternoon, I ran a 5K at my consistent but slow pace...dressed in a Santa suit.

That said...I'm still exhausted. I have this problem. It's called the Icantgotobedatadecenttime syndrome. Or the Pleaseletmefallasleep condition. Sure I'm exhausted all day, but when 9 p.m. hits, I suddenly have a ton of energy and even when I crawl into bed at 10, 11, 12, 1, or 2...I can't fall asleep. I go through a cycle where this happens a lot. It's been a few months now, but it started up again last week. And I've been exhausted every since. My body needs sleep.

Tonight I think the trick will be going to bed BEFORE 9 p.m. I've got to trick my body into staying in the tired mode before energy kicks in again.

I HAVE to overcome this tiredness thing. Seriously it drains you when you are basically just laying in bed til 4 a.m. and then have to be up and at things by 8 a.m. and going going going until at least 7 p.m. Any suggestions are welcome.

Zumba burnout

I do a lot of stuff with Zumba. I teach three times a week. I am always on the lookout for new choreography and music. I spend hours watching YouTube clips and DVDs for instructors. I have to learn new routines regularly and then teach them a few times to my classses before they seem to work seamlessly. I attend master classes. I attend choreography jam sessions. I support other instructors by going to their classes. I am constantly networking within the Zumba world for new teaching opportunities.

Sometimes it can be a bit much.

Teaching can be a blessing and a curse. Usually I am thankful that I teach because I have an obligation to fit some kind of workout into my schedule. Sometimes, however, I REALLLLY don't want to teach because I'm tired, ornery, lazy, sick, or just unmotivated.

Yesterday was one of those days. I was feeling tired of all of my routines and tired of the attendance struggle that has cycled its way back. I haven't had time to focus on new choreography. I was sick of my warmup. I was sick of my cooldown. I was sick of everything in between. I didn't want to teach. I especially didn't want to teach a small class of one or two students; I simply didn't have the energy for that. Because, yes, it takes a LOT more energy to teach a small class...mostly because all the energy of the class has to come from you.

And then I taught two classes in two different facilities.

I don't know how I got myself to do it. I was not feeling up to it beforehand. But I taught my regular class and then was asked to sub in Pleasant Grove where I am a new sub. This was my first opportunity to sub, so regardless of my feelings, I had to accept. That's just how I roll.

I was still very, very tired by the end of my day. (I had an hour break in between classes and got home around 9:30 pm.) But it seemed worth it. Often when I feel unmotivated, all I have to do is GO. Even a small workout can be so invigorating. And it was really good for me to teach a whole new group of students. It's easier to teach old routines when everything is new to the students.

But the main thing that makes teaching Zumba worth it? The students. Simple comments are all it takes to make me want to keep going.

After teaching my class in PG, I talked with some of the students and thanked them for sticking it out with me. (Any of you group fitness junkies know that when you get used to your instructor, it is super hard to welcome another.)

One said, "Thank you for class. I wish you weren't a sub and had a regular class here. I was a little worried when I saw XXX wasn't here, but you were great."

Made my day.

ANNNDDD....while I really, really do love teaching Zumba (even if I have to remind myself sometimes), I'm really grateful I don't teach any classes this weekend. Here's to a better Zumba week next week.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

CHRISTMAS!

Ok, so I admit I went a little overboard with last year's 90% off after-Christmas sales on holiday decor. But I'm thoroughly enjoying the results now. Although I do have a tad too many ornaments. I have a big bag that I haven't even dug into, ornaments on four little trees, my full-sized tree, and two bowls of ornaments that I'm using for extra decorations. So yea...it's a lot for my little basement apartment.

The main feature of excitement this year is my tree. This is the first year I've had one. And the reason for that is that I have been promised my sister's tree for a few years now...so I haven't wanted to buy my own and I'm not one to want to deal with the ordeal of a real tree. But I finally got it! Now what I think is particularly funny about this tree is that, well, it is a bit old. And maybe I just haven't had that much experience putting together artificial trees, but this one requires assembly branch by branch. First you sort the branches by size (they have colored tabs to help) and then you attach each branch. Maybe this is completely normal, but I was indeed thoroughly entertained.

I've had the idea for how I wanted to decorate my tree for about a year. Crazy, I know. But I actually started making the ornaments last year and have been thinking about it the past couple months...although of course I didn't actually start on the project involved until last week.

Without further adieu, may I introduce...my grammar tree.

The main inspiration for this tree is the dictionary page ornaments.

Last year when I was cleaning out my office after the holidays, I found myself with a large stack of old cds to throw away. Some people would see trash, but I saw CRAFT PROJECT!! And I knew I wanted to make ornaments...and this turned into the perfect opportunity to finally do something with an old dictionary I purchased at D.I.

Just last week, I added the idea to create Scrabble-like tile ornaments spelling out Christmas words. While I did purchase an actual Scrabble game during my Black Friday adventures, I ended up using wooden tiles from Hobby Lobby and rub on letter stickers I had on hand. (Don't worry, I'll share more pictures and tutorials later.)

(P.S. Is it crazy to any one else that I've been on Pinterest well over a year now? It still seems so NEW. But it isn't... This occurred to me while I pinned image ideas for my work Christmas card...just as I did last year. Crazy.)

Anyways, I'm going to stop talking about my grammar tree now. But I'm excited for all my decorations coming together. It really makes me feel at home...in my little home. And I'm thinking I'm going to have to have some sort of Christmas themed, cookie-sharing, holiday movie watching party.

And yes, an episode of Friends may have been on in the background as I worked on this post tonight. 10 points to whoever can name the episode!

Odd prejudice

I guess you could say this prejudice is strange, but my message here is that I'm actually prejudice against odd numbers...like those that are not even. You know, "2, 4, 6, 8, who do we appreciate!"

I've known this for a while but it dawned on me once again when continuing my listen of the new Taylor Swift album.

You see my favorite track is "All Too Well" but it kills me that it's track 5. Like it seriously irks me every time I have to skip by all the good numbers to find 5. And then I realize my next favorite songs are tracks 1 and 11. I even use 15 as a Zumba cooldown. Ah!

I've also been trying to find some scriptures I'd like to memorize. And I have to think twice about adding references like Jacob 3:1 to my list.

I am happy when I see an even time stamp in the corner of my phone or computer. And I cringe a little every time I see things like 17, 39, 191,  and 3057.

Ok ok, this is odd. But I just like things even.

My "political" rant

I'm a Mormon, so a lot of members of my church were even more invested in the presidential election than usual. While I hope people for and against Romney didn't make decisions solely based on his religion, I think we can all relate to the idea of rallying behind one of our own. You know, maybe some famous person went to your same high school or your friend's mom's uncle has some notable standing—when we have some kind of personal connection to something we feel more involved or invested, oftentimes with no other reason to back it up. That said, members of the LDS Church tend to lean right politically anyways, and Utah is a definite Republican state. So regardless of Romney's religion and other connections to Utah, he still would have had strong support in the area.

To be clear there is a higher percentage of Republican Mormons, but there are many, many Democratic ones as well. And the LDS Church is neutral in matters of party politics. 

I can understand people being disappointed or even upset when their candidate doesn't win in such a situation. But what I have a hard time handling is all the comments people made tying in our church leaders.

For example, one thing that showed up in my feed was a comment that said, "This is why I don't have to worry about the election choice" above a picture of President Thomas S. Monson that says "My president didn't change." (And dozens of my Facebook friends "liked" this.)

Seriously?

I'm not sharing the photo because I don't want it associated with my blog in any way. But that comment really irks me. What kind of message is whoever created that meme trying to send? The LDS Church leaders would never ask us to choose between them and the current leaders of our country. In fact, they encourage members to be active and informed in civic and political matters. And to respect "the fact that members of the Church come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences and may have differences of opinion in partisan political matters." We are supposed to be involved in our communities. Not alienating ourselves from them and cleaving only to the LDS Church.

Not to mention, would this little photo be popular if Romney HAD won? I don't think so. But even if a Mormon were elected as the president of the United States, the president of the LDS Church would still be Thomas Monson. The two are unrelated.

Why are people obsessed with having a Mormon in office? More so than they are concerned with having a Republican in that role? If some other candidate was the Republican nominee and delivered the same results, yes I think people would still be upset, but not nearly as much as the Mormon population around me currently is.

To those outside of the LDS Church, there has been concern that a Mormon in office would give greater political strength to a religious organization that has often been criticized, ridiculed, misunderstood, and even feared. I think that issue is something that has been fought against since the beginning of Romney's campaign. And with the increased publicity of Mormons (or the Mormon Moment, if you will), I would hope people understand that such a concern is unnecessary—just as it is for the religious organization that any other candidate is associated with.

But that same message doesn't seem to be getting into the heads of LDS members who share a meme like the one I mentioned above. If THEY can't get over the idea of a Mormon in office meaning something for the LDS Church and the Mormon population as a whole, how can we expect anybody outside of the Mormonism circles to do so?

Having a Mormon president would not give a priority to LDS Church issues. We would not automatically have a government aligned identically to doctrine and beliefs. Mormons would not be controlling the country. (By the way, these statements are so outlandish, I'm having a hard time even typing them.)

Again I share the LDS Church's official policy on its relationship with government:

"Elected officials who are Latter-day Saints make their own decisions and may not necessarily be in agreement with one another or even with a publicly stated Church position. While the Church may communicate its views to them, as it may to any other elected official, it recognizes that these officials still must make their own choices based on their best judgment and with consideration of the constituencies whom they were elected to represent."

I can't say it better. But it seems that members of the Church itself might need to be the ones to remember this.

P.S. Wow, I did not plan to ramble on. I thought I'd have two paragraphs about how stupid annoying people's Facebook statuses are. Guess not...

Grammar problems

You know you are a grammar nerd when two whole days after noticing an error, the issue is still bothering you.

I'm not usually overly concerned about correctness both here on my blog and on Facebook, etc. I often notice typos, misspellings, or uses of the wrong word entirely. But I shrug and move on...because I just can't obsess about every single thing being 100 percent correct.

For some reason, however, I haven't been able to move on from this one.

Here's my Instagram post Saturday. Did you catch the errors?