Weekly Geek #1

I found this weekly challenge through someone else's blog (ack I forgot who), but it sounded fun. I especially like the name. So here goes my first attempt.
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This week's Weekly Geek is inspired by Dewey's Knit-a-Long, a mini challenge of Dewey's Reading Challenge. Dewey had other passions besides reading and blogging. Knitting was one of them. This made me think, what are the Weekly Geek's other passions?

#1. What are you passionate about besides reading and blogging? For example, are you crafty (knitting, woodworking, scrapbooking, model building)? Do you cook? Into gaming (computer or board)? Sports (player or spectator)? Photography? Maybe you like geocaching, rock climbing? Or love attending events like renaissance fairs, concerts? Music? Dancing? You get the idea.

I love cooking. I get passionate about local food and making fantastic meals. Sometimes they only look good in my head.

I love music and I love to dance. I used to take dance classes when I was younger. I'm not a musical individual. I can't play an instrument but I do love it when other people can. I'm starting to support local musicians more with the help of my friends. And looking forward to going to more local music events.

#2. Get us involved. Link to tutorials, recipes, Youtube videos, websites, fan sites, etc, anything that will help us learn more about your interest or how to do your hobby. Maybe you'd like to link to another hobbyist whose work you admire or tell us about a book or magazine related to your interest.

My passion for local food was started by the 100 mile diet. Then I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and re-realized my passion.

As for music and dancing. My friends go to a local bar to hear local musicians jam weekly. It's amazing how a few folks that maybe don't know each other can play some amazing music. I'd definitely like to go more often. And yes you can dance there too.

Going out and dancing used to be something I did all the time pre-Tai. Now, I just don't. I think the old bars aren't my scene anymore. I'm looking for some new places I can boogie at.

#3. Visit other Weekly Geeks. Link in your post to other Geeks who've peaked your interest in their passion. Or maybe you might find a fellow afincionado among us, link to them.

I'll be adding It's Dark In the Dark's blog to my Google reader. I think I'll get some book recs for Tai out of that. But I love the paper crafting. So detailed.

And Becky who loves Sintra and Dean Martin. Ah, It was great to listen to some of those great songs.

Monniblog makes these beautiful earrings.

Robin at a Fondness for Reading also likes music. One of her favorite albums is Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon, an album Tai just got me to listen to.

I'm glad I found this group. I think I'll be sticking around.

Stress Reliever

It's the holiday season and this year they are more stressful than usual. I'm always trying to do more in less time during the holidays. Then there's the matter of the crappy economy. And last week Tai got laid off. We really needed that. Such a lovely holiday gift!
So I've been doing my stress relieving activity more than normal. And yes I can share this one with you! I turn on my favorite songs and dance around the living room.I dance like no one is watching because no one is watching. Tai's usually at the gym when I do this. I crank my favorites and dance my pants off.
My current favorites are:


I can recommend both of these for stress relieving dancing. It's fun to be silly. It certainly helps me!

Inspiration for That First Dance

While I was searching Youtube for the last post, I found some great first dances. I just had to share!

I love this one. See, here's something so unique. They look like they are having so much fun.

This bridal party kicks ass! It looks like a surprise to the bride and groom. I want to know how those girls could dance in those mermaid dresses!

Here's another unique one. I love that bride is wearing a white suit! She looks incredibly classy.

This one has a theme which is wonderful. Her dress is gorgeous, but girlfriend needed to make sure her dress didn't fail down before the song started! I liked how the included their guests. This dance wasn't for them; It was for their guests. A little bit of entertainment to make their wedding more memorable.
These dances aren't for everyone. I didn't want to do something crazy. I want something calm where we can enjoy being together for almost 4 minutes!

A Couple of Dancing Fools

One of our favorite activities is searching through youtube for interesting videos. I really like fan videos so we look for ones related to movies and tv shows we like. Mr A found one for Far Away using footage from Lord of the Rings, one of our favorite movies. This video always makes me weepy and I’m not a weepy kind of gal. I kind of think of Far Away as our song. I thought that he might want to use something different so I hadn’t really broached it. On our way home from our friend’s house on Saturday, Mr A decided that he wanted Nickleback’s Far Away for our first dance song. I had actually hoped he’d want to use that song but we hadn’t really talked about it. In all the other things that we had to settle on, our song seemed like something we could wait on.

Sunday, Mr A saw his one of the groomsmen, who is a professional dance instructor (J). Mr A asked J to help us create a dance to go along with the song. J says we picked a good song and it should be easy to come up with something. Mr A really wants use the dance from Final Fantasy 8 which J says is too short and he’ll incorporate it in to the total dance. J says we need to start practicing immediately so we’re ready by July. He wants us to look good. J says couples come in a week or so before their weddings which isn’t enough time to learn anything. He does not want us to be one of those couples. Mr A and I have talked about taking dance lessons but never actually followed through. It will nice to learn how to dance (not just bump and grind). And we are so fortunate to have J able to actually teach us.