Dear Friends,
I have a close childhood friend named Sharon whose birthday is on October 29th. She's come up with some creative birthday ideas over the years including 3 days ago when she hired an artist from Pinot's Palette in San Bruno to do a virtual Zoom paint night from our own homes. Sharon dropped off all the art supplies, as well as some delicious mochi muffins from Third Culture in Berkeley, and it was super fun and interactive.
Then there was her 40th birthday when we all took a 2 hour pole dancing class at Sedusa Studios in Campbell for the first time, and the first challenge was just walking in the 6 inch stilettos they gave each of us... followed by a lot of giggling, unforgettable memories, and sadly, nausea from walking in circles around a pole. Yeah, that happens.
And the year before that? We decided to relive our junior high days and go to Great America's Fright Night, but after only 2 roller coasters (including DropZone) and the clear realization that we have absolutely NO desire to have a scary person jump out at us, we all left the park and hung out at a restaurant instead.
If you ask me whether I want to go to Six Flags and ride "Full Throttle" or go to Disneyland and ride "Peter Pan," I vote for Peter Pan.
This week has been a roller coaster of a week with super high highs and super low lows. Within a single day I will find myself so happy and full of love, and the next minute I will feel like a balloon completely deflated - from personal heartache, to anxiety with the elections, to uncertainty of where to rent space for in-person classes, to Zoom and livestream crashes all week long, to chaos managing work that we're doing to our house, to interactions with simply unkind people... I kind of just want to sit on that smooth sailing pirate galleon and fly high over all the drama, stress, and negativity. Who's with me?
This is what I choose to focus on. The highs. The whys.
We celebrated Lisa, Allyson, and Mary's birthdays this week with an addicting new song that creates automatic smiles, "Get Me Bodied" by Beyonce. On Tuesday, as a cover up for her birthday, Lisa organized a total surprise - a contribution fund for The Power With Grace. She raised $1450 from all of YOU!!! In addition, Sara brought flowers and cookies and Shel brought donuts to our Saturday class, and I received another surprise in the mail from Laura, which is the cover photo of this blog post - a pink and gold DANCE heart tank top! I feel SO incredibly thankful, humbled, and appreciative for the support and belief in Stop Drop And Dance. Thank you everyone!!!
The search for an outdoor space has been a challenging daily quest. My girls and I have been spending hours each day searching for a location that is: paved, outdoors, ideally covered, has an outlet, and has strong upload internet speeds. Let me just tell you, the internet is always the limiting factor! I had hoped the Elks Lodge would be a great solution, especially after the success of last weekend, however, I feel awful because we unknowingly ruined their grass from the danceathon last weekend (who knew that was possible??), and unfortunately the WiFi has just not been strong enough to support Zoom and recordings all week long.
The good news is, we are DEFINITELY going to keep dancing in-person together. In fact, that's what I am using YOUR money for - covering rent and class costs so I can try to continue teaching outdoors (somewhere). Please be patient as I test out locations and make last minute decisions! It is not 100%, but this week I am hoping to confirm Tuesday, November 3rd and Thursday, November 5th 9:30am at Pelo Fitness in their parking lot, and Saturday, November 7th might still be at the Elks Lodge.
For those of you who know you want to come at least 5 times a month to an IN-PERSON class, you can consider getting our newest membership of $108/month for unlimited online and in-person access. All sign ups can be found at www.thepowerwithgrace.com
Our Covid-19 Vaccine Taskforce team of scientists hopes you had a different, but wonderful Halloween! Each day we are one step closer to finding a cure for coronavirus, and we are ONE DAY AWAY from the American cure. Good luck to our dancers, Tiffany McElroy, who is running for the Tamalpais Union High School Board and congratulations to Jennifer Gonzalez, who wrote an article on Prop 17 granting voting rights to paroled citizens, for getting published in the Marin Independent Journal!
Come dance in-person Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 9:30am, or this Friday there will be an in person Pop Up Power Yoga class at 9:30am too! Otherwise, you can take HIIT Cardio Strength on Zoom Live Wednesday 9:30am or check out the new November 2020 on-demand recordings for YogaBurn, Gentle Yoga, and TRX!
Keep believing in good,
Grace
