Sieze the Holidailies

Holidailies are here again. This year, expect short & sweet entries tucked in amidst marathon training, appearing in a holiday tap show, work, and the general holiday hub-bub. I appreciate the additional motivation Holidailies provides to get me to post more entries. I'm lucky to have a pretty rich and full life and privileged to have the health and resources to do many of the things I love. This holiday season, I want to celebrate the little things that I appreciate about living in the best city in Texas, as well as things that catch my eye, strike my fancy, or make me smile and feel glad to be alive. Enough meta.

To kick things off, here's my tap shoes, getting some action these days after a year on the shelf due to marathon training and injury recovery, both running and not running related.

I wrote the first part of this while sitting backstage waiting for my cue. Pretty awesome to be performing tap, and some consolation for having to skip tomorrow's run to rest & recover from minor chest congestion. A week and a half ago, I had no idea I'd be in Tapestry's Christmas show, then I heard they were looking for more "snow" (which may or may not be a euphemism for white girls who tap dance). From there, it only took a day of deliberation and some honest reflection from two friends about the excitement on my face when I talked about it for me to join up. Somehow, my biggest concerns about finding the time to fit this in among my other activities and responsibilities have been a non-issue. Similar to making a plan to hike the AT, when I chose to participate in something I love, the path opened up. I am grateful for the moments when that kind of synchronicity and ease is present in my life. I spent too many years watching/letting those kinds of opportunities slide by.
On a completely different note, here's the dawg, looking guilty on the sofa, although she earned a whole day's worth of sofa lounging for putting up with ear cleaning at the vet. Not the best picture, it's hard to capture such awesomeness on film.