1) Buy a dance package and start taking classes regularly!

2) Consign my clothes! I have quite a few nicer things that I don’t use/wear anymore.

3) Make my apartment smell amazing! Amanda’s [...]]]> Back to grind!  I have so much to do! After my little trip this weekend I was inspired to do a couple things:

1) Buy a dance package and start taking classes regularly!

2) Consign my clothes! I have quite a few nicer things that I don’t use/wear anymore.

3) Make my apartment smell amazing! Amanda’s apartment smelled SO good And now I’m on a hunt for some natural ways to make our apartment smell great as well. I actually told you about a great tip for doing just this, but now that it’s summer, having the oven on just makes it too hot!

For lunch yesterday I decided to pick something up from Whole Foods. I was going to get some hot bar but then a very interesting looking pizza offering caught my eye. It was labelled as a Summer pizza, but it was actually more of a cold flatbread. It contained hummus, sprouts, cukes, onions, tomatoes, carrots and tahini on top of a whole grain crust.

Yum! I may have to recreate this as a delicious summer flatbread lunch or dinner!

Besides lunch yesterday, I’ve been feasting on a lot of noodles! For dinner, since we hadn’t gone grocery shopping yet, we ordered dinner from Mooncake Foods. I had heard good things about it, so I decided to finally give it a try.

I ordered the Octopus and Spinach Noodle salad with tamarind dressing
Love the green noodles! And the dressing was super delish!

And I used a lot of the SPIIIIIICY (like, crazy spicy) green sauce

It was pretty good! Not AMAZING (the octopus was just okay) but I would definitely order again!

For lunch today I was craving more noodles, so I threw together my sunomono salad.

LOVE this stuff! So happy I can make it on my own because a lot of sushi restaurants here don’t offer it.

Alright I’ve got to get on with my day, I have so much cleaning to do. Why can’t I just snap my fingers and the apartment will magically organize itself and the laundry will magically be done??

It’s okay my reward is a trip to the consignment store and a dance class later this evening!!! So it’s all worth it

What is your favorite type of noodle or noodle dish?

I love cellophane noodles (the ones I use in my sunomono) but I also love those really long and wide noodles they use in Pad See Ew!

Something to Read: 10 Toxic Foods We Love to Eat

Let’s begin…

Yesterday I headed to Alvin Ailey to take a Haitian dance class.

A little background: I started dancing when I was 3 years old I [...]]]> I had THE BEST start to my day yesterday and THE WORST ending. Okay, it wasn’t the worst, but it wasn’t my favorite night ever.

Let’s begin…

Yesterday I headed to Alvin Ailey to take a Haitian dance class.

A little background: I started dancing when I was 3 years old I loved a lot of different kinds, but found that Ballet was my strength.
At 15 I got accepted into the Intensive Program at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. I was taking classes with the professional teachers and at this point was strongly considering dancing as a career.
But at 17, I had a devastating accident. During class, we were practicing jumps and I landed quite badly on one of mine and fully tore my right ACL. That was pretty much the end of my dancing career. I had to have reconstructive surgery and go through physical therapy for the rest of the year.

After that, I didn’t really dance anymore. I would take a couple ballet classes here and there, but it wasn’t the same. I missed dance a lot but for some reason could never get myself back into it.

Well, yesterday I realized I was going about it ALL WRONG! I I shouldn’t have just been forcing myself into these random ballet classes, I should have expanded my horizons and just had fun with dance.

CUE AMANDA! Amanda, also a former dancer, recently started working at a dance studio and attending classes there. She LOVES it. She told me this weekend that she wondered why it had taken her this long to get back into dance. She said she should have been doing it all along. She would tell me about all the neat classes she was taking like salsa, haitian dance, horton modern… It sounded amazing.

She wanted to try out a Haitian dance class at Alvin Ailey while she was visiting NYC so I agreed to accompany her. 

OH. MY. GAWDDD!!!!!

Now I know exactly what she meant. WHY HAVEN’T I BEEN DOING THIS ALL ALONG???? The class was amazing. It wasn’t at all what I expected. It was very CHALLENGING but so fantastic because it incorporated so many different styles of dance; ballet, jazz; modern, African dance, Latin dance even yoga-type moves (like this one).

It was so freeing and just SO MUCH FUN!

Amanda and I outside the studio after our class:
 

I was obviously thrilled I love dance and I can’t believe I’ve been depriving myself of it for this long! Well, no longer! I am planning to go back and take classes at Alvin Ailey once a week. I am also going to give Steps a try, as it’s supposed to be a fantastic studio.

I am very excited to get back into dance again!

*I HIGHLY RECOMMEND trying out a dance class yourself. It’s so much fun, you hardly realize you’re getting exercise in!*

And to make a long story short, and not ruin my happy dance mood too much. Let’s just say the Super Bowl party last night was kind of a fail.
The taxi driver got lost on the way there , no one ate my 7-Layer dip and BF and I could NOT find a cab home so we had to walk in the FREEEZING cold for WAY too long.
Anyway, here’s my dip before being baked…
 
 
I ended up eating piles of it to try and show people how good it was and to make up for the fact that no one else was trying it!!! BF had some too. But no one else had any. Waaaa! Maybe because there was already so much food and mine arrived late? Who knows!
But they could have at least TRIED it! It was so delicious, I swear! Ha.

Anyway YOU should try it. It really is good. I posted the recipe HERE.  I’m off to do laundry and grocery shop!

Do you like to dance? What is your favorite kind of dance?

So today I opted to forgo studying  in favour of venturing out to Organic Avenue. I had heard a lot of great things about their [...]]]>

Yay for the weekend! Not that I work during the week, but at least during the weekend I have a sliiiiightly  higher chance of spending time with the bf!

So today I opted to forgo studying  in favour of venturing out to Organic Avenue. I had heard a lot of great things about their juices, smoothies and the store in general and was reminded about it via Dori’s blog, so I really wanted to check it out for myself.

It was a quaint little store hidden in the Lower East Side. Everything was raw, vegan and I wanted to try it all! They had raw powders, nut butters, bars, juices, smoothies, skin care products and even things for the home.

Although I wanted to try everything. Their products aren’t cheap.

So I decided on 1 juice, 1 smoothie and 1 bar.

I got the Young Love Juice which contains Cucumber, Celery and Spinach, which I had as part of my lunch. I felt so GREEN after I drank it.

And the Mint Chip Smoothie which contains Coconut mylk, agave, vanilla bean, peppermint extract, hemp seeds, sea salt and cacao nibs.

(I am drinking the mint chip smoothie as I type and it is SO GOOOD!!! Tastes like mint chip ice cream in smoothie form!)

And I also got a Lydia’s Organics Cacao Crunch Bar.

 
Obviously still have yet to do my nails! Soon!

I’m definitely a fan, and will be going back! Maybe not all the time, as their products are expensive, but every so often for a treat!

Dannnciiing Queen

I decided to take a dance class at the gym tonight.

Oh before I go on… So, I actually ended up joining Equinox. I never thought I would as it’s so “fancy” but I actually got a pretty sweet deal so I jumped at it! Also, with the amount of classes I’m going to take there I think it will be it will DEFINITLEY be worth it. 

Anyway,  I’ve taken dance classes at gyms before and they’re more like “dance” classes. Like you learn a few moves, maybe do a combination. It’s fun and you move around a lot but it’s nothing like taking an actual dance class at a studio. So I figured this dance class would be similar.

NOPE! It was a DANCE class. For realz.

Now, technically… well not even technically, I AM a dancer.
I danced for many many years. I mainly did ballet, but I dabbled in all forms: jazz, modern, tap, hip hop. I just haven’t danced for a while.

I am a ballerina at heart though. Me doing hip hop = hilarious. This class, the teacher said, was Jazz. I thought, okay, I can do jazz.

But wow! It was hard! He taught us a real combination! There were pirouettes, chaînés, jumps, kicks! And everyone in the class was sooo goooooood.

I was really surprised! Pleasantly surprised! This is great, I thought, I can take a real dance class… at my gym!

But then my next thought was, Oh. Crap. I haven’t taken a real dance class in forevvver! What have I gotten myself into!?

In the end, I managed to keep up for most of it. I guess you never really lose it.
I was really proud of myself for getting through the whole combination, getting all the steps down and eventually workin it Haha. It was just nice to be dancing again.

Also, I found it hilarious that the teacher, before he started teaching us the combination, told us to do the dance:

“Sexy. Like realllly sexy. Like not pretty sexy… stripper sexy”

Oh man. I love my gym

It will be really nice to keep going to this and hopefully I’ll get my dancing feet back and get better as the weeks go on!

I’m off to meet the bf for dinner!

Have a fabulous Friday night!