Couponing: Liquidation Sales

The Latham Hotel and Citronelle in Georgetown are going out of business. It's sad really, because Citronelle was one of THE restaurants in the city for quite some time with executive chef, Michel Richard. I wish I would have gone back in the day when I worked in Georgetown...though that's when I probably wasn't making enough to afford a fancy lunch or dinner like that!

My dad found out that the hotel and restaurant were liquidating all the furnishings so we decided we would check it out. It may have been the last day and there was still tons of stuff left!!!

http://www.hclsales.com/

We got:

- a club chair

- 3 silver plated sugar bowls ( we'll use for nuts)

- 1 luggage rack

Total = $50

Lesson learned: track hotel and restaurant liquidation sites!

Color Guard: How a Being a Mom is like Being in Drum Corps

In the summer's of 1999 and 2000 (my age out), I was a proud member of the Carolina Crown Drum & Bugle Corps Color Guard. There were many details that were less than fun, and yet I never wanted to go home, and I marched two seasons (so clearly I liked it!).

Flash forward 14 years (eeeek!)....and now I am married and have a 7 month old daughter.

I was thinking about my time in drum corps, and realized "man, there are a lot of similarities to my life right now." As I went through a few band camp rehearsals, while simultaneously watching my daughter learn to crawl, I started taking note of specific similarities.

  Sleep:  

• You start to sleep in random places (like the couch, the nursery floor)
• You sleep whenever you can, like today, when I napped during her morning nap

  Eat:  

• You eat whatever's available, sometimes it's whatever's leftover or fast
• You have to stay hydrated (specifically if you're a mom who's nursing your little one)

  Schedule:  

• Your schedule is not your own, even though you planned to go to the grocery store at 10 AM, she may need a nap then unexpectedly
• You have sectionals (you and your little one), and ensemble (you, your little one, and your significant other), and each has their own purpose

  Injuries:  

• You're likely to have aches and pains

  Other Areas:  

• Repetition is the norm - what infant or toddler doesn't like doing the same thing over and over and over and over
• You have to think on your feet to answer questions or find a new way to solve an issue (dirty diaper during a road trip... too hard to stop and find a bathroom with a changing table...so you improvise!)
• You sing random songs (at least when I was in drum corps, we did..."we're here, because we're here, because we're here, because we're here....")
• You never want to mess up, but it's bound to happen

The most interesting similarity for me....I sing "You are My Sunshine" all the time!!!!!! Crown folks will understand!

What other similarities can you think of?

Color Guard: Food for Auditions or Long Rehearsals

Have you ever wondered what you should eat and drink before, during and after long rehearsals or auditions? Well here's the post for you!

  The week before (or the weeks between rehearsals)  

• Do not drastically change what you eat; it won't make much of a difference
• Do not drastically reduce portion size, or skip meals
• Stick to the same amount of food you normally eat

  The night before  

• Steer clear of anything that causes water retention, especially if you're required to wear all black form fitting clothing for an audition!! Minimize sodium intake, particularly by avoiding highly processed foods
• Stick to whole, natural foods like fresh fruits and veggies, legumes, salmon, brown rice
• Drink LOTS of water (see my water post here)
• Eat a hearty dinner since during rehearsals/auditions you'll have less of a chance to eat a larger meal

  The morning of  

• Don't skip breakfast!
• Some options include: Greek yogurt, banana, berries, granola, oatmeal egg and wheat toast
• Make sure you include a protein
• Bananas will help increase the potassium level and decrease cramping
• Drink at LEAST one glass of water before you leave the house
• Avoid refined sugar, since it will give you very short term energy

  Just before  

• Put something in your stomach about 1-2 hours before moving so you can keep up your strength
• Some options include: trail mix (no chocolate in it!), granola, banana with peanut butter
• If you eat a bar of some sort, get one with few ingredients and make sure there are no additives or preservatives; one I love is the Lara Bar
• Avoid anything with sugar alcohols because they tend to cause gas, cramping, and bloating. Ingredients to look for are sorbitol, xylitol, malitol and any other ingredient ending in "-ol" which are all sugar alcohols
• If you like cow's milk or soy milk, both give you protein and the energy you need but aren't hard to digest so they won't sit heavily in your stomach

  During  

• I like to pack a myriad of snacks so I always have something I can quickly grab
• Some of my standby options: fruit, granola bar, Lara Bar, applesauce pouches (no added sugar), fruit leather (no added sugar), raw natural almonds, dried cranberries, and raisins
• Stay hydrated throughout! Aim for about 8 ounces an hour, at a minimum

  Afterwards  

• If you ever talk to someone who works out a lot, the same rule applies: eat protein!
• Some options: edamame, hummus, nuts
• A friend mentioned her trainer told her to drink a glass of 2% chocolate milk! Make sure to get the good stuff though, so look for antibiotic free, hormone free milk
• Keep hydrating after your rehearsal or audition

  Avoid or Reduce  

• The sugar alcohols we already mentioned
• Caffeine: A small amount is okay, but only one cup of coffee will do the day of
• Alcohol (for those guard folks in independent groups and are older): it dehydrates you and will make you feel icky if you drink anything the night before
• Energy Drinks: most of them are full of non-natural ingredients, caffeine, and SUGAR

And to reiterate the point about water, you should drink half your weight in ounces every day, and more when it's hot outside or when you're highly active. For example, your baseline should be if you weigh 150 lbs, you would drink approximately 75 oz of water per day.

Reference:

• http://pointemagazine.com/issues/februarymarch-2012/your-best-body-audition-day-diet?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=justdance&utm_term=auditions&date=080614

Color Guard: Teaching Jazz Runs to Marching Band

This past week I had to teach the band members (winds and percussion) how to jazz run because one of their drill moves requires them to move quickly and cover a large distance. It got me thinking about how I was able, in only 30 minutes, to get them all looking infinitely better than when we started...and I wasn't the first one to try to teach them this season!

Here are the elements of what I taught:

• Start with the left foot back, so that you step with that foot first
• Take one step all together first, and explain that you have to take a very large step and push off the back leg
• Then explain that you have to stay in plie (which we explained meant "fold" because you're folding your legs...and oddly enough they already knew what a plie was!)
• Then we sprinkled the guard members throughout the band so they could watch around them
• I had them add in their arms at their attention position (similar to below, but our band actually touches finger tips together instead of the traditional fist, because it requires even more stability)

• We gave them the rule that when they get across the stage, they must turn around and watch the people behind them (i.e., the rule isn't that they don't talk, but no talking is a result of them watching)
• Then we repeated multiple times with each line leading off every 8 counts, so they get the hang of it; each time I gave them ONE thing to think about and told them to make ONE thing better (See my post about Rule #7: Make One Thing Better)
• Then, because there were just THAT many corrections I needed to give, I had one line go at a time, all the way across; I gave them corrections and then had the next line go
• We then showed the band director a few times and he was impressed by their improvement!

Have you taught jazz runs to your marching band before? How'd you go about doing it?

My Week in Reflection - Aug 10, 2014

As always, I'm excited for this week, but had such an amazing week last week that I wanted to reflect a bit. 

1. Dinner #1: A friend came over for dinner (take-out from our favorite delivery Thai, Chao Phra Ya) and washed her car here, because she lives downtown in DC where washing your own car is kind of a pain. 

2. Dinner #2: Two friends come over and we had "Sunday Gravy" which is the Italian American tradition...usually on Sundays (duh). I made a tomato sauce with italian sausage, meatballs, and some sort of meat with a bone (I used a marrow bone from the farmers market). Then I cooked it ALL DAY in a slow cooker. It was so delicious and had that umami flavor you can only get from cooking something like that with meat for so long. Plus, you throw everything in a pot (more or less) and you just let it cook. Not much work involved.

I served the pasta with the sauce (no meat) first for the Primi Piati (first course). Then the meat separately as a second course (or you are lazy like me and serve it like the picture illustrated below). The sauce freezes beautifully, but I bet if you freeze the meat it would completely fall apart because it's so tender. I vote eat the meat in the next couple days, and freeze the leftover sauce.

Here's a Cook's Illustrated page that explains more along with their picture:

http://recipes.cooksillustrated.com/stews-recipes/italian/pork/hearty-italian-meat-sauce-sunday-gravy-recipe/ 

3. Peach Picking: I went with a friend to Stribling Orchard to pick peaches and a few of their first available apples. So delicious! And my daughter seemed to enjoy it. The drive, not so much (but she's teething...can't really blame her!). 

4. Band Camp: It's that time of year again! I went in on Thursday to Stonewall to teach...not just the guard but the entire band! I taught the guard for about 1.5 hours and then taught the entire band how to jazz run! The whole thing was entertaining because I had my 7 month old daughter with me, and this is the first rehearsal she's been to now that she doesn't sleep 24/7 (I brought her when she was between 1 and 2 months old to teach Stonewall in the winter). I'll start working on a post about how to teach jazz runs to non-dancers!

5. Hershey Park: My dad retired in June and instead of a party, he took the family to Hershey for the weekend!! It was such great fun to stay at a lovely hotel, enjoy the amusement park, hang out at the hotel pool, and eat tons of food and, of course, chocolate. We actually enjoyed the park Friday night AND Saturday because you get to go in Friday night if you're staying at the hotel with a Saturday ticket AND you get to go in 1 hour early Saturday. We also ate delicious BBQ on our way in on Friday at Shakedown BBQ. If you're ever in town, we highly recommend it! And if you see a Reese's Funnel Cake, GET IT! 

Color Guard: 5 Methods to Teach Performance Qualities

One of the most difficult tasks for instructors of newer guards is to draw out performance qualities and get them to really convey the show to the audience and judges. I am teaching Broad Run High School tomorrow morning and started to think how I would help them learn how to perform.

I've put together a few methods you can try out to see what works for you. I've tried all of these, and it just depends on the group as to which will work best.

  1. Faces  

Around 2004 I taught color guard at a Vivace Productions camp with Todd Marcocci and there were four girls from this school in Maryland who never competed, they only performed at halftimes for their football team. Yet...they were incredible! It baffled me why their band director didn't like competing, but nonetheless, their performance ability was so spot on that I started to take notice. One day into the four day camp, I realized they would say "faces" happily to each other to remind them to perform. They would use that one word to mean "use your face to tell the story" and "change your face so it's not static throughout the choreography."

I also recently read an article online about the Rockettes1 and they had some great tips that I've highlighted below:

1. Relax your jaw and your tongue inside your mouth to give your face a relaxed look.
2. Lift your eyebrows a little - like you would if you're having an interesting conversation with someone.
3. Take in your surroundings with your eyes. Bonus! This will help with things like balance and spotting, too.
4. Breathe in through your nose, and let your breath escape through your mouth, which will be slightly open due to your relaxed jaw.
5. If you're having fun (and we hope you are! you're dancing!), let the shine in your eyes lift the corners of your mouth and smile.

  2. Storyline  

In 2006 at Act 1, our inaugural season, we had a show to the music of George Michael's Mother's Pride. The show was about sending off men and women to war. About halfway through the season, the director, Marcus Lewis, asked each of the 8 members (our team was TINY!) to write their character's story. They each took a week between rehearsals to think about their show, the movement they did, the interactions they had with other members, and they wrote their personal story for the show. The main dance soloist's story was about how her husband went off to war and didn't come back, and then her son was following in his footsteps. 

I also found out Pride of Cincinnati did something similar in 2013 for their Weight of the World show. Each member wrote about something that weighed heavily on them. Then they listened to the show music and thought about what they wrote, letting go a balloon when they felt like it was appropriate. I could see how this would help someone actively think about what weighs them and how to portray it in the show, and it would also be cathartic to write it down and then let that balloon go symbolically.

  3. Improv  

Improv is by far the most effective technique to get performers out of their comfort zone, but it's also really scary for rookies (and sometimes vets)!! I tackle it two ways. 

First, I have the staff and maybe 1-2 REALLY strong team members demonstrate the idea. 

Second, I don't put on music and say "go." I give them parameters for the improv so that it's structured. For example, I may tell everyone to start on the ground and that they must stay on the ground. Then 8-16 counts later I call out the next direction; perhaps I tell them to show they're trying to get off the ground but they can't. Then I say work your way to standing. Once they're standing I tell them to move without actively using their arms. Then they can move one arm. You get the gist. This takes the big scary improv, and gives it to the members in manageable "I can do that" pieces. 

  4. Imagery for Each Move  

When I write a section of movement for Stonewall Independent, I often make up short phrases to explain ehat they're portraying. For example, if I have the dancers reach towards the rifles, I may say "don't leave me" because if I don't, some of them may think they're supposed to be communicating "come hither" which is a very different look. Sometimes, however, I make up something more nonsensical. For expand le two years ago they had a ripple to start the show where they fluffed their dress and then turned to the back. We called it the fluff and fold!

  5. Watch other Groups Perform  

Often times people watch good groups only that are in the same style as your group (i.e., in color guard, watching Onyx). I would employ you to think outside the box on this one. Try looking at these types of groups and see what you can learn from everything:

• Not so good color guards - what can you learn from these?
• Dance companies or dance teams - watch their formations
• Cheerleading competitions - check out the lifts
• Baton twirlers - figure out how they turn so well
• Parade performances - sometimes simple and clean is effective

I think the most important advice a coach can give a team attending a competition for the first time is that they should watch every single group. As they watch they should start to make mental notes about (a) what they enjoyed and why they enjoyed it, (b) what interesting new moves they saw that they could work on, and (c) what they saw that they did not like as much and how they could do it differently.

IMPORTANT: You have to follow the golden rule in color guard: NEVER talk negatively about any group or person while at a competition. Not in the audience. Not in the cafeteria. Not even in the bathroom. Assume someone from that group, or their mom, can hear you. Don't say, "I didn't like xyz color guard" but you could say "the style of that group wasn't really for me." Avoid saying anything that can be interpreted as "they are bad" but saying something that implies "it's me, not you" is okay.

If you like these posts, check out the Stonewall Rules that translate into the real world: Rules 1-5, and Rules 6-10.

References:

1. http://www.rockettes.com/dance/facial-expressions.html

Mom Posts: Nursing Friendly Dresses

One thing that saddened me about going back to work was that I had to buy new outfits and couldn't wear dresses anymore (most are not nursing compatible!). Out of curiosity, I tried on a couple of dresses I had worn pre-pregnancy and then during some of my pregnancy and they worked!!

Lauren by Ralph Lauren has a few dresses that are matte jersey, and the tops are crossed like a wrap dress. The two I have happen to also have rouching on one side that allowed me to wear them while my tummy got bigger during pregnancy. I tried finding some pictures of the dress but can't seem to find it online.

Here are two dresses that are similar to the one's I use. The cross / faux wrap top is what makes it feasible, combined with the stretchy matte jersey fabric (one without the other wouldn't work!). The dress below is one of the exact dressed I have (the other one is yellow, navy and white):

Find this White and Blue Dress on EBay Here

The first two dresses below are the same exact cut, but different fabric pattern. The other two are very similar and would likely work just the same.

Find the Blue Ikat Dress at Nordstrom's Here

Find the Purple and Brown Dress on EBay Here

Find the blue dress on Amazon.com here

Have you found any other dresses or work outfits that work for nursing and pumping? I'd love to hear more!

My Week Ahead - Aug 3, 2014

In my second installment of my week ahead, Monday won't have the blahs because my week is exciting!

1. Dance: This week I get to take our little daughter to her first dance performance! We're seeing Taylor 2 and I'm hoping that even though she's only 6 months old, she'll love dance as much as I did from an early age.

2. Teaching: Saturday I get to teach Broad Run HS's Color Guard for the first time in quite a while! I have a three hour dance block in which we'll warm up, stretch, do some technique block, cover some basic and fun across the floors, and then learn a combo! Now I just need to figure out which song to use for the combo. Any suggestions? The front runner at the moment is Peace by OAR.

3. 4-H Fair: The annual Frying Pan Farm Park 4-H Fair ends Aug 3 and we're hoping to bring our little one to see the animals!

4. Coffee: Two days a week I'm a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) and one of those days this week I'm meeting up with a friend so she can take a quick coffee break at work! I can't wait to catch up, and for her to see how much our little girl has changed since she last saw her about a month ago.

5. Leadership Coaching: This week at work I'm listening in to a webinar focusing on mindfulness within leadership and coaching. I'm loving coaching, and I'm someone who constantly wants to learn so webinar's like this excite me! Maybe I'll report back after the session to share what I learned.

Color Guard: Rules at Stonewall (#6-10)

A few days back, I posted the first five rules of Stonewall color guards, and how they apply to the real world. Here is the next installment: Rules #6-10.

  #6 Do What You Can Do, to the Best of Your Ability  

At Stonewall, we push the team members to consciously understanding what they're good at and encourage them to do whatever it is to the best of their ability every single time. There will always be things you're not great at (maybe it's a specific toss, or a turn, or a drill move), but there will always be things you're great at. Exploit that! Then start to work on the things you're not so good at, one at a time (see Rule #7).

Real World Application: Often times people focus on improving what they're not good at. Think about at school, it's the classes that you don't do well in that you often focus on, and if you pay attention closely, you'll notice it's likely at the detriment of what you're really good at! Gallup - a consulting firm best known for it's polling capability - talks about exploiting your natural talents, and then do your best to make your weakest areas acceptable.  For some more insight, check out Gallup's website, and how they distinguish between a talent and a strength here. At work, if you are known for something, people will know to call upon you for that subject matter expertise, and it becomes part of your personal brand. For example, at work I'm known for my expertise in Federal Recruiting, even though I also know how to do Competency Modeling, Workforce Planning, Leadership Development, and leadership Coaching. People know that if they need expertise in Federal Recruiting, they call me first, but they also know I'm capable of doing other things as well.

  #7 Make One Thing Better Each Time  

Particularly during auditions, at spin clinics, or when learning new work, we tell the members to make one thing better each time. Sometimes if they think about the work as a whole, they get overwhelmed and they try to get everything right every time...and as a result, don't get anything right and worse yet, get anxious and frustrated. Instead, if you don't worry about everything, and focus in on one thing to improve, you're more likely to actually improve that one item. Think of it as a small win! If you add up all the small improvements you make, by the end of running through the choreography ten times, you'll have fixed ten things!

This advice is also something choreographers, coaches and instructors should remember. Don't expect one of the members to fix everything you're asking them to fix in one try. Give them corrections at the same rate that they can actually apply those corrections. For example, if you're teaching a movement section, first fix the steps or their feet. Let them get that right, and then work to correct their arms. Once that's corrected, then give them more information about where their head should be facing. You get the idea.

Real World Application: No one is perfect, and yes, you should knock it out of the park in the talent area you have (See Rule #6), but that doesn't mean you should ignore your weaknesses - or as we like to say at my company "opportunities for improvement." But sometimes when you try to improve in multiple areas at once it's overwhelming and you're less likely to make noticeable improvement. Take, for example, my job. I need to know multiple functional areas of human capital (like I mentioned above), I need to know the contracting process, I need to know financials (finance I know, our method of finance tracking I do not know). I have to be good at people management, and I could go on. Each of those categories has multiple areas that I need to learn, too! If I try to become good at all of that, I won't be able to improve a noticeable amount in any area. However, if I choose a couple areas to focus on at a time, I'll get noticed for my improvements. For example, this year I'm working less on learning new functional areas within human capital, but rather am continuing to develop my project and people management skills. I love both areas, but am finally getting the opportunity to build on what I know and manage a team and a project. By the end of this project, my boss will know I can manage people and projects, and I can start expanding my financial knowledge next!

  #8 Finish Strong  

Color guard is a judged activity. Human nature is to remember your first impression and your last impression. Every performance will have mistakes - be them minor or major - but the judge and the audience will remember how you end. Choreographers and show designers keep this in mind when they create the show. We want to have an opening that sets the stage for what the judges and audience should expect. And most importantly, we need an ending that leaves an impression with them so they remember your team. Here's an amazing moment from SI in 2013, captured by Jolesch during their finals run at WGI World Championships, where they went on to win the silver medal in Independent A (IA) class.

2013 Stonewall Independent WGI IA Silver Medalists
The Ending
(c) Jolesch Photography

Real World Application: Let's say you're on a project for 6 months, and a couple moths in, the client or your boss is less than thrilled with your progress, your team is showing up late or missing meetings, and you have a new requirement you somehow need to adjust for! Life happens. It's what you do next that matters. Your job is to produce a high quality end product. If you can do that , your client/boss will remember the end result, and may even recognize how you overcame difficult obstacles. No matter how a task or project appears to be going in the present, there's almost always time to finish strong!

  #9 Just Breathe  

Often times in color guard or other performing activities, coaches remind the performers to "just breathe." We often use this at Stonewall when we're warming up before a show and someone is trying too hard to get a toss and is messing it up over and over. I remind them to take a deep breath and it helps them recenter, and remember that there's no need to stress. I would say 9 times out of 10, just a few deep breaths are enough to recenter the students I work with, and remind them that they're supposed to LOVE performing, not stress about it. The other 1 time out of 10, I just have to try something else.

Real World Application: Breathing is the body's natural way to de-stress regularly. There's even research that shows that how you breathe can cause your brain to get out of the stress mode, it can lower your blood pressure and heart rate, spark brain growth, and can even change gene expression (check out this article on NPR or this one on Forbes)! Imagine you're at work, you just found out your client/boss hates what you're working on and you have to redo it tonight because it's due tomorrow. So you stop, and take a few really deep breaths. You automatically can refocus and stop panicking, so that you can stop wasting time worrying and move into action to get the job done.

  #10 Don't be Married to Anything (aka expect change)  

At Stonewall, we constantly tweak every single count of the show. We have about 7-8 months to work on a four minute show, rehearsing about 15-20 hours a week....on four minutes of a show! That's a lot of repetition. Many color guards have portions of their show that don't change and they practice by repetition over and over. At Stonewall, we run rehearsals a bit differently. We do far fewer repetitions, and instead spend time in rehearsals tweaking parts until they make the most sense. We expect the members to pick up the changes quickly, and just get them right, even if we only get to practice it a few times. As a result, our show changes every single week, and not in the sense that we add to the show. No, we fundamentally change a couple sections, and then minority change nearly every single section of work (adding lower body, adding free hands, turning some people around to face backwards, adjusting choreography, switching entire drill spots).

We don't EVER set anything in stone, until the last week (and even then, we make changes!). The students we teach understand that change will happen, and they know we always have the best interest of the show and group in mind. It's never personal when we make changes (okay, ALMOST never personal). As a result, they've all learned to adapt to change incredibly well! It is not innate in everyone to be adaptable like that; you have to practice it so that you can change quickly, when needed.

Real World Application: When I hear about employees or staff who are unhappy at work, it's often because there is a major change occurring (or they perceive the change to be major). However, my assumption is always that change will occur. I can decide to go with the change or find another job, but there's no use in stressing over the change. If you start to embrace change as a necessary occurrence for business to align to the market, then you won't see change as a bad thing, or a personal attack on you. Imagine if you just go with the flow, and start to find ways to make the change work, you'll be seen as someone who is a problem solver, instead of a problem identifier. And your stress level will go down 10000%!!


There are probably 20 more rules at Stonewall that apply in the real world, so there may be yet another post. We shall see! What rules do you have in your performing group that may translate to the real world?