So one of the things on my little list of things I want to try and be able to say that I've tried, was to eat a gigantic steak and if you eat it all then you get the meal for free. However, I don't think any restaurant in my city offers that kind of thing, so I was on the lookout for other eating-type challenges like that when an advertisement came on the radio while I was driving home one day! The ad went a little something like this:

"Think you've got what it takes to beat the Wing Wednesday Blazin' Challenge? Prove it and you'll win a free commemorative t-shirt and bragging rights! You'll also be entered to win a trip to Buffalo, NY to catch an NFL game and visit the birthplace of the buffalo wing! All you have to do is finish 10 traditional wings tossed in our ultra hot Blazin' sauce in 3 minutes!"


I immediately called up Lisa, exposed1, to suggest that we try this new thing and she was completely on board with it so, yesterday (on 09/09/09, at around 9:09pm!) we took the Blazin' Hot Wing Challenge.... and we failed. Ha! Well, i would say that we did pretty good, considering. I believe Lisa finished 5 of the 10 wings and I finished 4 of the 10 wings. We both had tears in our eyes and I had to go to the bathroom after to make sure I didn't throw up.. HAHA! I also probably had about 10 glasses of water afterwards too. Our guy friends at the table all tried a bite or two of the wing as well and were all wincing and cringing and saying how they couldn't believe how unbelievably hot and also not very tasty, the wings were. Here are some photos of the event, please ignore the ugly:


Anyway it was a fun night. It may have put me off wings for awhile, but I'm glad we tried it and I'm glad that I can now say that I partook in a food challenge of some sort at least once in my life ;) (Though if the gigantic steak challenge opportunity arose, I'd definitely take it!) Lisa & I had a victory shot afterwards, because, well, we still felt fairly victorious just for having tried it!

Since this also counts as something new that Lisa tried, I think she might/should also be making her own post with her point of view of the evening and the experience, so look for that!

And if you hear of a pie-eating or hot dog-eating contest going on in your neighbourhood, you should really try it out for fun! :)

There are a few jobs that I would love.

1.) A stay at home Mom. (check)
2.) A journalist, so I'm now living vicariously through lindorable.
3.) Lawyer, though specifically a Prosecutor.
4.) Cop I do have a vigilante/hero complex.

Since I'm currently living my dream job of being a stay at home Mom that really means that the other three aren't an option. I have however taken a step to sorta live out one. No, I don't have brightly colored tights in my closet nor do I have a zen for telephone booths.

I am starting to post my book reviews on online bookstores.

I had started posting them originally (couple years back) on my LJ with a friend and then I discovered Shelfari. I totally got suckered into that site and have been posting all my reviews there and only recently started back up posting reviews on LJ again. That's the back history, now for the current.

Was talking to lindorable one night about different things I wanted to do and mentioned that I'd like to snag pre-released books to read and review. A friend on my Shelfari got the opportunity to read a pre-released book and write a review for it. She's got her own book blog and while I like that idea I wanted something a bit easier to maintain at the beginning. Chapters allows you to leave reviews for books and so I've started to do that. I figure this is just another step to obtain my goal. Don't know how long it'll take or if ever but I'm going to keep plugging away at it and hope for the best. Perhaps one day one of my favorite authors will want to read and review a pre-leased book and once I fall off my chair and retract my jaw from the floor I'll eagerly agree like a puppy begging for a treat.

Of course now when I go to write a book review I'm more nervous and consciences about what I'm writing, how I'm lacing together sentences and how I'm expressing my opinions. It's fun though and I'm glad that because of this site I'm taking the initiative to act on something I've always wanted to do.

Tidbit, there will not be TMI and I do realize that this sounds frivolous and vain and valley-girl-esque. However, the point of this blog is to document big and small things. Sure, it may not be swimming with sharks or writing a book but it's still doing something I've never done. To me it makes this a winner and goes to show that even the small things have an impact and that tweaking your mindset will get you to do un-normal things.

Lee (my hubby) and I have been together for 11 years and married for 6. You have to keep working to keep the romance and spark alive. To remember the things you'd do when you were just starting to date or still in the honeymoon phase. You'd wear something to attract his attention or not point out mistakes he's made or let the little things go... etc.

With that in mind I also have found that after having a kid I feel like sometimes I have to dress differently. It's a stupid inner battle because I never I ever dressed inappropriately before Ava. Anyway, a couple months back Lee and I went shopping and there was this totally adorable purple (my favorite color) skirt. Longer then a mini but short then a conservative office skirt. Lee knows that at times I get self-consciences and won't wear certain things out in public. I do admit it's a little lack of confidence that at times creeps up. I knew he loved the skirt but I wasn't sure I'd actually wear it in public. After debating I decided to 'try something new' and buy it. I figured even if I only wore it at home it would still be worth it because I knew he'd love it. Points for marriage sparks.

Since I bought it I've worn the skirt a few times but always with a black top to try and mute/tone it down. Today, I decided to bust out of my little shell. I wore it with a hot pink halter. *confetti*

Despite the fact that the hubster loved it I liked how it made me feel. Don't think I'm ready to wear this out grocery shopping or anything but my brother-in-law did come over and I didn't hide. More points for me. I loved how sure I felt of myself. I figured if I ever wore something so candy-esque I'd feel really self-consciences but it actually had the opposite affect. I sorta felt fierce.

Try Something New: Take an advanced dance class when you're only a beginner!

Today I took two advanced/professional level dance classes from two extremely talented and fairly famous-in-the-dance-world dancers: Matt Cady and Megan Lawson from the popular dance crew Fanny Pak! (Check out the following links to see some of their work: Video 1 | Video 2 | Video 3) Now this particular dance intensive grouped dancers by age; therefore anyone under 15 years was put in the intermediate class while anyone older than that are classified as advanced/professional level. So even if you're a dancing newbie, if you're above that age group, you're going to be taking an advanced level class. Now, putting aside the fact that I was completely intimidated by the thought of taking class from these two simply because they are as good as they are, and they are as famous as they are, I AM SAID DANCING NEWBIE!

So... I was terrified basically.

I had heard about the class opportunity literally two days before and I mean, I was totally stoked and excited that these great dancers with incredible talent were going to be making a teaching stop in my city of all places! And I knew that I wanted to try it, but I was absolutely terrified at the thought of making a fool of myself in front of these great dancers!

I literally only started dancing this past year.

And even then, I only took a handful of classes and not very consistently on account of some wonky scheduling. I think that I can pick up choreography fairly well and fairly quickly, though I think I have no groove and fantastic performance quality really (though I think my groove has gotten a lot better in the past year!) Plus I didn't practice anything I learned outside of class, which probably isn't the best thing to do if you want to get better at dancing. So in the very truest way, I was / am and do consider myself a beginner in the dancing world.)

And that is why I'm so proud of the new thing that I tried today. Diving headfirst into two advanced dance classes and managing to get the choreography down and keep up with the rest of the class (I did a lot better in one of the classes than the other, but I didn't fail or give up in either so for that I'm especially proud!) I mean I won't lie, I obviously wasn't a star or anything. For one class there was a loooot of technical jazz movements all done one after another that I got pretty jumbled up on and probably my technique was horrendous and I ended up faking the movements for the most part. For the other class, while I had gotten all of the choreography down during the teaching and no-music run-through, with the music actually on, the pace seemed to double and it made everything a lot harder but as I said. I think I accomplished quite a bit and when it boils down to the fact that I was a beginner trying to keep up in advanced classes, and I did, for the most part, keep up in the advanced classes, then that's something that I'm super proud of myself for doing!

To be completely honest, I have taken one other advanced level class from an also incredibly talented and famous dancer (Mark Kanemura, SYTYCD. Love him. ♥) before today. But I think this still qualifies as trying something new (new dancers, new combinations!), something I was definitely afraid of trying, but something that after doing, I couldn't be more happy with the day and the experience.

The first 23 seconds of the video below is what I learned in one of the classes today. I loved it. I had so much fun!

Oh right, I guess the most important thing that came out of today's new thing that I tried is that:

I had fun! :)


(Side note: Lisa, I'm not sure how long or short these entries are supposed to be?)
- Linda ♥

Life is short and then you die. But before you get to that, you should really live life to the fullest! (Okay, yes, that's a cliche.. but you know, cliche's are cliches for a reason!) Try Something New, is here so that two people (Linda and Lisa) can do and document things they've never done before, and hopefully through this doing and public documentation, inspire others to do as well! It started off in a conversation where the two of us had said we'd always wanted to try (something/anything/you fill in the blank), but we had never done it before. Why? Because we were too scared? Because we never had the opportunity to do it? Because we just didn't have that extra little push of encouragement that we needed? Maybe one of those reasons or maybe all of them. That's where the cliche comes in! Life is too short to hold back and not experience everything that can be experienced. It doesn't have to be huge. We're not going to hop on a plane and climb a mountain anytime soon, no. Let's be realistic about this, haha. Even the littlest, 'new' thing, will make it onto this blog because the small gestures are just as important as the big ones. Maybe we'll take a new route to that same place we go to every Tuesday. Or maybe we'll go out with our hair done in a way we've always wanted to have it done, but never did before. Either way, we'll be trying something new. Taking a little risk in life, and having fun while doing so. We hope that our posts about the new things we try will encourage others to do the same. Let's start a risk-taking, trying-something, revolution! ♥ - Written by Linda