Five Minutes: Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2011 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2011…

Learning duo trapeze and our first big performance at The Dirty Show, meeting Pants for the first time & his sneaky plan for our first date, lots and lots of brunches, playing in the snow, getting my splits, fancy night out to see Mary Poppins & serious bonding with Mandy & Mae, Corktown St. Patty’s Day Parade, mini vacation to Vegas and seeing Cirque and The Descendents live for the first time, finding out that we were going to perform at two Theatre Bizarre shows, shopping for sex toys + making dinner + hooping + champagne with Mandy and Mae, melting at the Tigers game, two nights of Motion City, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream domination, picking my brother up from the airport at the buttcrack of dawn to surprise my sister for her graduation, starting to teach at The DAKA, launching my portfolio site, Gold Cup – my first real soccer game, dancing in the kitchen, bbq-ing on my tiny grill, photoshoot for the circus book, painting my dining room black, buying my very own silks and learning to rig, my sister moving in and not killing each other even a little bit, hosting brunch at my house, romantic Detroit date with Mandy, Wings game for my Bday, two shows at The Rust Belt, lunches and brunches for mega brainstorming…

Whew! This ladies and gentlemen is why I have a blog. So happy to have such a fantastic year documented :)

Look who is my new screen saver :) I’m off to go on a date with Pants tonight. We almost never go out to eat on account of him being such a good cook, so I’ve been looking forward to tonight all week. Makes it a little more exciting that we planned a date a few days ahead instead of just randomly deciding to go out. I’m also looking forward to hang out with Mandy & Mae at Mandy’s new apartment, making pierogi with my mom AND working on the syllabus for the aerial class I’m going to start teaching in a few weeks. Yep! If any of you Michigan (or non-Michigan) peeps want to learn to fly you can come downtown and take a class from me!

I’ve wanted to learn Spanish for quite a few years now, but once you’re out of college it’s kind of hard to take classes. Pants is fluent and I have a little fantasy of us having secret conversation while we’re out and about (like no one else knows Spanish…rolling my eyes at myself here haha). My aunt is always handing out books on CD, but my attention span is never long enough to learn anything, which is why this Mind Snacks app is so awesome. While I don’t think I’ll be speaking in sentences any time soon, it’s a start!

The lessons start with a list of words or phrases – level 1 was numbers, level 2 was colors and days of the week. To hear the pronunciation you just tap the word and when you’ve got them cemented in your brain you start on the games.

The games focus on different parts of language learning, like spelling and word recognition and there are challenges to unlock more games! There are 50 levels with 1,400 words and phrases. I’m on level 8 after just a week!

The algorithm is designed to continuously reinforce material from past lessons that may be tougher to retain as you progress through new material, and adapts to your individual performance and needs by focusing more on words that you have difficulty with and less on those that you don’t.

The app is free for one level, which was enough to completely sell me! The full version can be purchased for $4.99. I’m not one to pay more than a dollar or two for an app, so you know this one is good if I’m shelling out five!

More info in the App Store >>>

* Mind Snacks didn’t pay me to write this review. I just went searching for Spanish apps one night and came up with gold :)

[ Photo by Trevor Long ]

So I’ve got an idea for a new feature, but I need your help!

Over the past year and half I’ve been posting about my journey to becoming a circus freak and I’ve gotten such wonderful, supportive feedback on all my posts…some of you have even been inspired to find an aerial studio near you. So, I was thinking that I would feature a few people who are also making awesome things happen in their lives.

That’s where you come in…do you know of anyone who is doing (or has recently done) something spectacular? Climbing mountains, volunteering in another country, chasing their dream? I’m looking for people who are pushing boundaries, creating something amazing, leaping out of the box, inspiring the people around them and sending tons of Vitamin A (awesome) out into the world.

If you have any suggestions feel free to leave a comment on this post, send me a tweet or email me at xosillygrrl [at ] gmail.com.

Thank you!

The pot of herbs on my deck has been overflowing with basil, so my first concoction was pesto. Toss all the ingredients in, 30 seconds later…presto! pesto! Next I threw in vanilla ice cream with fudge swirls, peanut butter and a little milk for a fantastically fast smoothie.

For a post-workout or morning protein shake I used fresh organic strawberries, bananas, kale and vanilla yogurt. Looks completely disgusting, but it was really good!

And my favorite Magic Bullet creation…potato cheese soup. Boiled (or roasted) potatoes, sour cream, veggie stock, sharp cheddar, a little salt and pepper…so fast and so good!

If you met me offline, you’d quickly realize how attached to that little black zebra stripe notebook I am, whipping it out at the mere mention of making plans.

I’ve tested out quite a few iPhone calendar apps and none of them completely fit the bill. I need to be able to see my week and list of appointments and tasks at a glace, so the generic monthly calendar with dots for events was not going to work at all. I need to be able to add items fast, without a bunch of fancypants options.

I found one that looked simple, with high ratings and cheap at $1.99. I tentatively added a few items from my paper planner to test it out. The interface was easy to use with a clean design  and day by day I started pulling out my phone instead of my planner.

I generally don’t use the first calendar page, but it’s there if you need it and makes flipping through months simple. The second page scrolls up and down through the day and I can see everything I have planned all at once, this is KEY.

Setting or changing dates or creating an event that will repeat, like my aerial classes, is quick. I generally skip the location field as to keep all the info on one line. And it syncs with multiple calendars if you use a desktop agenda as well.

For now I still keep my paper planner in my bag, a safety blanket of sorts, but haven’t pulled it out in the past week. And I may be fantasizing about buying tiny, cute clutches and tossing my giant purses aside for good!

Endlessly entertained by that haha. If Anto convinced you, you can buy their new album “Good For Me” here.
Come oooon you guuuyysss!

I’ll be back in a few days, but for now I leave you with a little silliness…

Hasta luego!

When I told my sister I was going her first question was, “Are you going wear a fancy hat?!” No, no fancy hats…it’s not that kind of raceway. It’s more Bud Light and beer guts than feathers and cigars. Half of the jockeys were in the chunky division, riding behind horses with their tongues hanging out the side of their mouth. I saw a kid on a leash and Pants got a margarita in a can.

We stood along the raceway, choosing horses by their names from the rain spotted booklet. I’m not a gambler, so Pants did the betting. Despite the cheers, Riddin Dirty and Tattoos & Scars didn’t win him any money. We watched three races and Pants gave me the basics of the very complicated scoreboard.

Post-horse track shenanigans we headed downtown to a party for Pants’ soccer league. I had only been to the Old Miami once, on my 22nd birthday after bowling and many drinks, so my memory of the bar was a bit fuzzy. It’s your typical dive bar, with lots of old couches, and a stage in back for bands and djs. I knew where was a patio outside, but didn’t realize what a fantastic hang out spot it was. Just outside the door, desipte the rain was a pack stone patio with a fire pit and heaters. We’re standing there chatting, half underneath the makeshift awnings when a couple walks by and says ‘there are a couple seat around back free.’ So we venture around the corner, up onto a deck and find two chairs, shielded from the rain, surrounded by twinkle lights and opening onto a huge yard dotted with a mish-mash of lawn chairs and statues. Now in Detroit this is a very strange thing to come upon. There are lots of bars with decks or patios, but a whole yard? Definitely going to be hanging out there more this summer.

Sunday the weather was absolutely beautiful…so happy that it’s finally warming up! I impressed Pants with my cooking skills and made waffles for breakfast. We sat on the deck enjoying the sunshine for a while and took the piglet for a walk. Then we decided to take advantage of the climbing temps and pulled our bikes out of storage. First order of business, getting me a sweet new helmet!

[ My sweet bike riding outfit ]

We rode to Royal Oak so I could buy somebody special a birthday gift and was good and only bought sunglasses for myself. We walked over to Cafe Habana for lunch before heading back home for ice cream. I had Mexcian chocolate and it was so good and spicy!

Yes…we were rocking matching socks >_<

After all that riding we passed out on the couch for a few hours and then Pants made eggs benedict for dinner. I’d never had hollandaise before and it was so good! It was really a perfect weekend, one of those that you just want one more day of awesome before going back to work.