At the beginning of the year, I created a 2010 Wishlist, which you can see HERE. It was an anti-resolutions way of listing goals for myself for the coming year, and I challenged you to do the same. Did you make a list? If so, how is your list going? We're a bit over the 6 month mark for 2010, so it's a good time to see what progress we have made.

For my list, my weight is down about 11lbs. I was down as much as 15, but gained some back over the summer with all the stress. I am back on the wagon and working toward the goal of better health once again.

Re-evaluating dance in my life is one I have had no choice but to stare straight in the face. And to be truthful, I don't have any answers there, yet. But I am on a continuing journey right now that is taking steps toward greater understanding of this question.

I am definitely more organized, but have a loooong way to go with regard to that. Case and point: my desk as I type this message. Ugh. But in other areas of my life, home and business, I have been cleaning up and taking stock, which is good.

So how about you?

Web design has been at the forefront of my work this past week. With the dissolution of my troupe, and the lengthy hiatus from my dance over this summer, this fall is an opportunity for a little reinvention. Nothing too drastic mind you, but definitely a re-branding is in order before the Tribal Dreams Festival in November, and Tribal Revolution next year. Taking down the old websites will be hard, but cathartic perhaps.

The tricky part to my dance as a business over the years was compartmentalizing the different dominant aspects of my experience. I was a teacher, but was a director of a troupe which was shared with another person. Technically our troupe was born before I was teaching, so when I began to teach was when the roads diverged strangely. When we taught workshops, sometimes it was as "Shay" and sometimes it was as "inFusion", and more often than not the person hiring didn't understand the difference. When I sold merchandise, some was mine, some was the troupe's, and people would have to write two different checks if they bought items from each. This was very confusing for students and promoters. After all, when you take a workshop with Carolena, you don't wonder if you're getting a workshop from her or from FatChance. It's not either Paulette or Gypsy Caravan. It's understood that these two entities are inexorably entwined. Not so with me and it was a source of tension for many years.

Now I am given the opportunity to re-structure my dance as a business, and it's been hard to get excited about. Because committing to it means finally closing the door, once and for all, on a period of time that was so fulfilling and blessed. The ending was hard, and continues to be, but the years prior were the stuff of dreams. To write The End on that page is...character building, let's say. What I have to keep telling myself is that just because what has come before was incredible beyond my imagination doesn't mean the best is already behind me. There could be more ahead I can't imagine, too!

So designing a new web page is a fun creative venture that can be a tiny step toward these changes. I need to embrace the future, whatever it will be. And frankly, learn to enjoy the process of change as I experience it today.

**Please note: If you are reading this on Facebook, I am on a FB cleanse right now and I am not participating much. If you want to comment on this post, please visit my blog at http://thetribaldancer.blogspot.com/**

It's pretty nonstop here at the Moore household. Last week I got word that my eldest brother, Ken, was in the ICU with severe pancreatitis brought on by a gall stone that had become lodged in his system, blocking his liver function. His digestive system basically shut down, and he was unable to eat anything, subsisting on IV saline alone for about 4 days. My sister was down there helping care for him that week, and the day after she left, I flew down to take over. He was home, but not very mobile, so I was doing laundry, cooking meals, and generally keeping him company. By the time I left 5 days later, he seemed to be doing much better, but was still in a fair amount of pain, distended belly, and various portions of his endocrine system were still swollen and not working at capacity. The day after I got home, he was back at the doctor getting more tests and x-rays, and potentially re-entering the hospital. I have not heard from him since his x-rays yesterday and am keeping my fingers crossed.

More lighthearted bits and bobs after the jump, I promise.
Here at home, I am gearing up for starting classes again next month. Unfortunately, with all that happened this summer, I never could get the foot surgery I had planned to. And sad to say, my brother's home is an apartment with parquet over...CEMENT. So no cushioning at all, and my foot is really messed up in pain from walking on that all day every day. But the show must go on. So I am starting back with only two classes, and praying that I can hold out until the holidays and maybe take another hiatus around Thanksgiving (after the Nebraska workshops) and get the surgery and be done with this pain!

Also I am doing some nesting. Bought some new bed linens, including some lovely huge, colorful euro pillows to dress up the bed when its made, which makes me smile. Today has been about getting my yarn stash as moth free as I can. I have had some yarns in the bottom of a bin in the living room that got eaten up. So I am doing a freeze-thaw-freeze cycle to try and kill the buggers off. I bought some new plastic bins and cedar blocks to store them in once this process is completed, and hoped that will be good enough.

I finished my first colorwork project while hanging out at Ken's. I made Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts for Chris. He was long overdue for some new fingerless mitts--he asked for some last year, and I started a pattern I was making up myself, and I made one of them...and ran into second glove/sock syndrome. I didn't like how those were turning out, honestly. These, I LOVE. I plan to make some for myself. They were SO easy! And I learned how to combine Continental and English knitting! It was my first time doing English style knitting, actually, so doing it in combination on a colorwork project means I am pretty damn proud of what I accomplished!


The pattern is harder to see up close (like a camera held in one hand photographing the mitt on the other hand ;), but looks great with a little distance. Chris was thrilled, which makes me beam.

When I finished that, I started to get some more blocks worked on my Dianna entrelac shawl. This is a photo from before I got another row onto it. This one is going to take some time...but I am loving how the colors are revealing themselves.


The weather is improving as the week goes on, which is nice. Spent some time in the garden today, weeding, deadheading, and watering. I keep meaning to take some new pics to share here, but keep not getting around to it. Some things are really blooming beautifully (like the petunias are TAKING OVER THE WORLD), and others are struggling (like the creeping lady's mantle that squirrels apparently adore to no end and keep digging up), but overall the garden has been thriving. I especially love my heliotrope, in all its purple glory, and the coleus are hanging in there and looking firey and spikey. Pics when I get the chance.

For now, it's back to working on my new website and getting ready to announce the class schedule and get that ball rolling. I hope your summer is going well, my friends.

**Please note: If you are reading this on Facebook, I am on a FB cleanse right now and I am not participating much. If you want to comment on this post, please visit my blog at http://thetribaldancer.blogspot.com/**

Obviously, I have been in hibernation mode lately. I am sorry, dear readers, for being absent. I honeslty had no idea how many readers, and how far flung my readership was, until I got that little widget guy on the left there. Wow! Thanks to all you anonymous readers who have been visiting and hanging in with me while my blog has been latent.

Catching up a little after the cut...
Last Saturday was my MIL's celebratory memorial. It was small, but special. The sun was shining, we ate good food, met old friends, and I got to share a slideshow I made (at Stephanie's behest), which went over really well. I was surprised how many people had never heard Warren Zevon's "Keep Me in Your Heart For a While", which is one of my favorite songs in the world, and only moreso when I got to put it to photos of an incredible woman like Pat. (Look up info on the recording of that song, and you can see why I cry hopelessly most times I hear it).

My friends Amy and Erik welcomed their second child, a sweet little girl they named Vera, into their family that same week. I got to meet her just days after being born, and it's exciting to see their family grow and change in the time I have known them. I am grateful for their friendship, and am blessed being a part of their circle of love during a time when I need friends most.

Gardening continues to be a fantastic success. The squirrels apparently approve, and that is a new frustration, but all-in-all, everything I am planting is flourishing this year. That is a new one on me. I keep having to hack back my petunias relentlessly, and they keep surging back in huge displays of color, while my ground covers, which you would think would be the most aggressive, are pretty low key. There is still so much to do.

And I have been knitting. Just finished my Luna Moth shawl this week. It’s my first lace project, my first major blocking project, and my first “from a chart” project. Blocking lace…what an exciting treat!

Disappointing, though, was that I could only do 5 repeats of the pattern instead of 6 because I was out of yarn, and while others found theirs to be long enough with this number of repeats, it was awfully small for my taste. Other than that, I am really pleased with the results. Here are some picks of the blocking process (for my non-knitting friends, blocking is basically setting the fibers into the desired finished shape by washing or wetting the fibers, and then pinning it and letting it dry, at which time it is set or blocked)


Before blocking, fresh off the needles


On the bed, pinning into shape.


Only took a few hours to dry.


Complete!

That is the briefest of rundowns. Hope you all are enjoying your summer!

**Please note: If you are reading this on Facebook, I am on a FB cleanse right now and I am not participating much. If you want to comment on this post, please visit my blog at http://thetribaldancer.blogspot.com/**

Many thanks to Paulette for sharing this wisdom in her most recent newsletter.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks