Monthly Archives: January 2015

Being On Hold With A Job (or Not Quite A Quitter)

I’ve talked about my day job situation a lot in the past. I’ve got my main day job doing the box office work and that’s the only one with regular hours. Everything else is as-needed status and nobody seems to need me right now.

For babysitting, personal organizing, and substitute teaching; I don’t mind that I don’t work right now. I know that clients for babysitting and personal organizing will come and it’s a situation where I am my own boss and I don’t feel guilty when I’m not working.

And for substitute teaching, I’ve spoken to my boss there about how right now I don’t have the time to work but I wanted to stay on the roster since they aren’t hiring. I’d be scared if I left the roster and then needed the work and couldn’t get my job back. So I’ve been honest and they know my situation. That’s fine with me.

But for my data entry/survey coding job it’s been a different situation. I worked a lot for them at first, but once I started my box office job, I could no longer do graveyard shifts (or I could, but I found out that my body does require sleep so I don’t want to do them). And while I thought at first I could do the work from home in between my customers for the box office job, I never knew what to list as my availability. I didn’t want to say that I was available the entire time because they might assign me a job that takes 5 hours when I only have 3 hours in chunks.

And because my availability was so limited, the company wasn’t using me for work. In the past few months, I worked about 2 or 3 hours for them. And while some money is better than no money, I felt like I was leading the company on.

So yesterday, I sent an email to my 2 bosses at that job. I explained my situation and gave them the two options that seemed right to me. Either they could keep me on as an employee and understand that I have extremely limited availability and perhaps one day that would change and they could use me again. Or we could end our work relationship.

I don’t want to quit, but at the same time I felt so guilty about not being honest to my bosses about my situation. I don’t want to quit, but I would understand if they didn’t want to keep someone on staff who couldn’t work as much as they would like.

I heard back from one of my bosses within an hour of sending the email. She thanked me for my honesty and decided that she’d like to keep me on in case my schedule changes and I become more available for her.

I’m so grateful that that is what her decision was. It was exactly what I was hoping for by sending that email. I haven’t heard back from my other boss, but he is the one who runs the graveyard shifts and technically I’m only on that schedule as a backup (my main job is the work from home part).

I still need to find something else to do, but at least some of my guilt that was associated with this job is gone. And hopefully with less guilt, I will be able to focus more on finding the perfect job to fit into my schedule.

Starting The Year With A Lot Of Transformation (or Who Will I Be By Next Year?)

I’ve been doing a lot of transformational work in the beginning of this year. I wasn’t expecting this all to happen at the beginning of the year (that’s a little cliché for me), but the timing of it all just happened to all be in January.

The first transformational thing I have been working on is increasing my workout days. This was something that was planned in my goals for 2015. Now I’m just making sure that I’m doing what I set out to do. I’m tracking all my workouts in a simple calendar checklist app, and I’m on pace to meet my monthly goal right now (it’s way too easy to think that I’m on pace to meet my yearly goal).

The only minor setback I’ve encountered is that there are so many people who want to go to Orangetheory now that if I don’t set up my classes over a week in advance, I run the risk of being put on the waitlist! That happened to me for this Saturday. I wanted to add the noon workout to my schedule and asked if I could get in that class when I was working out on Monday. The class was booked and there was only 1 spot left on the waitlist! I’m still on the waitlist now and hopefully I can get into the class. If not, I’ll have to add another workout to next week.

I’m also starting another Orangetheory Weight Loss Challenge this week. It starts on Friday and this time, it’s a national weight loss challenge so there will be people from all the Orangetheorys around the country participating. There is a lot of money for the winners, but I’m just going into it thinking of it as a personal challenge. I looked at how much weight some of the past winners have lost and for me to equal that I would have to lose weight at a very unhealthy rate for me. Some of the winners had lost over 25% of their starting weight! That’s just not realistic for me.

Then, continuing on my cooking trend, I’ve got my 4 week cleanse coming up. I just got the materials for it and while most of it seems very simple for me to do (lots of fruits and veggies), part of the cleanse is to spend the 4 weeks cutting out  dairy, meat, and processed food like bread. I can probably cut dairy without missing it at all. But I’ve gotten very used to having peanut butter on toast for breakfasts and having chicken or pork with my dinner. Fortunately, the cleanse comes with a bunch of recipe ideas so I will be taking advantage of those (and posting my favorites on here!).

Then yesterday, I saw a bunch of my friends posting on various social media sites about the Money Love Challenge. I checked it out and within minutes of reading what it is all about, I signed up. It’s a free 21 day challenge (it started yesterday so it’s not too late to sign up) to help get in control of your financial situation.

This is something that I totally need in my life. Every year I say that I’m going to get rid of more and more of my credit card debt. While I’ve brought it down, it’s not nearly as low as I’d like it to be already. And I want to see how much I can bring it down in 2015. Hopefully by doing this challenge, I will be inspired to find ways to accomplish that goal.

This is a lot of change at one time, but all of these things pretty much came organically to me and I chose to do them. I’m excited to see what the next few weeks and months bring to me!

Learning From My Screeners (or Maybe My Pain Isn’t So Bad)

I’ve been spending a bunch of time lately watching my screeners for the SAG Awards. A majority of them have been digital screeners so I’m watching them either on my Apple TV or on my iPad.

I’ve been lucky that my day job has a lot of downtime. There are a bunch of days where my work setup looks like this:

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I’ve got my computer running all my work websites and my iPad next to it playing my screener. I have to pause the movie whenever a customer calls or starts a chat, but I’ve been watching a movie a day the last few days.

Obviously, all the movies are amazing otherwise they wouldn’t be nominated for the SAG Awards. And some of them are hitting me a little harder than others.

I watched “Cake” with Jennifer Aniston yesterday. Without getting too much into the story, it’s about a woman who is living with chronic pain.

I have always considered myself someone who deals with more pain than the average person. I don’t think I would ever say that I have chronic pain, but a majority of the time I have to take at least one painkiller to get through the day. Before my hip surgery, I was maxing out on two different types of painkillers every day and I was still in very intense pain.

Even though I know that the actors were pretending to have this sort of pain, it really made me realize how lucky I am that my pain isn’t worse. I hurt a lot, but I can still walk around pretty much every day (there are a few rare days where it’s difficult for me to get out of bed or off the couch). I’m able to work out even though on the treadmill I have to take breaks every so often to take a break from the pain.

Watching the movie has also motivated me to be a bit more proactive in seeing what other things I can do to put off the next few surgeries that I need. I’ve already done well by not doing activities that make my situation worse and have gone well past my surgeon’s guess that I would have needed my next surgery by 2009. I also haven’t shown signs of arthritis yet which my surgeon thought I would have by now.

I haven’t scheduled my appointments to meet with new surgeons yet, but I will be doing that in the next week or two. And when I spoke to my dad about this, he advised me to go in with an open mind. The original plan for me was created in 2006. A lot has changed medically in that time and while I will still most likely need a hip replacement on my right side one day (being bone on bone will cause that to be an issue eventually), maybe there are new things I can try to prevent me from needing the same surgeries on my left side.

Seriously, all this motivation and new perspective came from watching a movie.

Another Bombshell Partnership! (or Doing A Healthy Detox)

I’m super excited to announce that for the next month, Finding My Inner Bombshell is going to be part of a partnership with Nykki Hardin and Nykki’s Cleanse!

Before I go into what the cleanse is all about, a little backstory.

At Orangetheory, they sometimes have special guests who come in and speak for free on issues that are related to healthy living. They’ve had a couple of different fitness clothing companies and some nutritionists. But they have usually been in the studio either on days that I’m not there or during and after my workout class (and when I’m done working out I usually just want to go home).

Last Wednesday, Nykki was the guest speaker and my workout buddy Sarah convinced me to stay and hear what she had to say. I’m so grateful that Sarah peer-pressured me into staying!

I usually hesitate when I hear the word “cleanse” or “detox”. They usually are things like juice cleanses or similar programs where you don’t eat any normal food. I’ve gone through that with the UCLA RFO program in the past and I don’t want to put myself through that again. I’ve learned that any food changes I make need to be changes that are sustainable and can be something I do for the rest of my life.

And that’s exactly what Nykki’s Cleanse is all about!

Her program is all about eating whole and clean foods (which is something that I’m doing with my bulk cooking). You supplement the whole foods with tonics that are designed to help to rebalance your system and get rid of any toxins. You add the tonics for 14 days to your balanced meals. And afterwards, you continue to eat whole and clean foods (as you really should).

Nykki provides recipes for the balanced meals so you can try new and healthy foods and to help build up your personal recipes that you will continue to make after the cleanse ends. And the program that I’m going to be a part of also includes 1 week before the cleanse doing prep work to prepare for the 14 day cleanse and 1 week after the cleanse to help continue living a balanced lifestyle outside of the cleanse. There is a group about to be a part of this 4 week journey so I will have a community around me (which I love!) and there will also be webinars about various healthy living topics.

I’m going to be starting this 4 week journey on Friday, and similar to how I post weekly recaps about Orangetheory, I’m going to share with you updates each week on what I’ve been doing on the cleanse and how things are going. I’m so excited to start this next month and to get more inspired to eat clean and cook at home more!

It really feels like this came into my life at just the perfect time. I’m now very comfortable cooking in my home and have been spending a lot of time online looking for inspiration for more recipes and how to improve my food choices even more. Now, I have a wonderful coach in Nykki to help guide me through this healthy food world that I’ve just started to explore.

New Workout Gadgets And Records (or Improving On My Workouts)

This past week brought some fun things to my Orangetheory workouts. The first thing was at my Monday workout.

Since I started at Orangetheory, there has always been heart rate monitors. This is part of the reason why I love Orangetheory. The heart monitors that have been used in the past are by Polar. I owned my own strap and every time I worked out, I got a pod (the device that hooks on to the strap) from the front desk. The pods belonged to Orangetheory and had to be turned in after each class.

But on Monday, we all got a nice present waiting for us at the front desk.

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We got new heart rate monitors! This is the OTBeat system. It uses Bluetooth to connect in class and you can even use it for workouts outside of class (which is perfect since the battery in my other heart rate monitor still needs replacing). And now I don’t have to get a pod from the front desk (or remember to turn it back in) each workout!

The only possible glitch with the new heart rate monitor for me is the calorie count. It’s saying that I’m burning about 200-300 calories less than the old system did. And when I use the app on my phone with the heart rate monitor (while I’m in class), it says I do burn those extra 200-300 calories. I’ve told the management at my Orangetheory and we are trying to figure out why this is happening. I’m not sure if I should trust what the class calorie burn is or the app calorie burn is. Hopefully this will be resolved this week.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to do the Monday Challenge this past week. It was a 1/4 mile on the treadmill at 10%, but you couldn’t hold on to the treadmill while you did it. Since I have so many balance and walking straight issues, it was more important for me to hold on and not fall than to try the Monday Challenge.

Other than not being able to do the Monday Challenge, I had a great workout.

Wednesday I pushed myself to some new limits with my weights. The new OTBeat system shows how long you have been in the orange and red zones (the zones that help your body burn calories post-workout), so I wanted to see if I could get more time in those zones. In the past, you only knew how long you were in those zones after the workout, but now that I can see how close I am to my goals throughout the workout, I feel extra motivated to push myself farther and farther.

And pushing myself was the theme of my Friday workout. For the treadmill block, we had some distance races. The first and last 7 minutes of the treadmill block were for distance. The first 7 minutes, I got to .401 miles. My goal was .4 miles, so getting that little extra was super motivating. When we had the next 7 minute race, I made myself go even faster than last time (so much easier to do that on a treadmill where it forces me to go faster if I increase the speed on the machine).

Going faster (and at 6% incline instead of 3% which is the norm), was painful at times, but all I really wanted to do is to go for the full 7 minutes without taking a break. And somehow, I managed to do that.

When I looked at the treadmill to see how far I went, I was in shock.

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That’s so much better than the first time, and I was exhausted this time from doing the first 7 minute race and the intervals we had between the 2 races.

Honestly, the rest of my workout after that was a bit of a blur. It was a blur of pain and happiness that I was able to go so much farther than I ever expected.

This coming week, I’m going to be calling Kaiser to try to get an appointment with a potential hip surgeon. I know what my old surgeon had as a plan for me, but since he isn’t at Kaiser anymore and that plan was created almost 8 years ago, I want to know what else is possible for me. My goal is to find a way to be able to walk faster without pain and to perhaps find more ways to delay the 3 surgeries that I was told that I need. Seeing how far I can push myself when I’m in pain in a workout has really motivated me to work with a new doctor to make my future workouts even better.

Be Bold (or My Word For 2015)

I’ve seen several other bloggers do a post for their word of the year. I didn’t think much about it at first, but then I noticed more and more people doing it. So I thought about it for a while and decided to have a word for 2015.

And this is what I came up with.

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My word for 2015 is bold. Or more specifically, be bold.

I’ve never been a shy person, but I’ve noticed that I’ve been quieting myself down lately. I didn’t want to be seen as aggressive, boasting, or bragging. But then I realized that all the things I was scared of sharing were positive changes that I’ve made in my life.

I should be embarrassed or ashamed to share my workout or food successes. When I have a great audition or book something, I want to do it without worrying that people are thinking I’m full of myself.

But my fears of sharing things really doesn’t have to do anything with anyone else. It was my fear of how others would perceive me.

But in the second half of 2014, I started to be more vocal about the things that are going well in my life. And I realized that not only were people not annoyed by them, they liked to see them! I’m still shocked every time that someone tells me how much they love reading my workout recaps or seeing my photos after I finished a crazy workout.

Now that I’m more comfortable being bold in my personal life, I’m trying to take this philosophy to my professional life. For so long I’ve seen friends put together amazing projects that I’d love to be a part of. But I always figured that if they wanted me to be a part of it, they’d ask me. But if I don’t ask, how would they know that I’m interested?

This really doesn’t count for major network shows (unless I hang out socially with the casting director for that show and even then it would be a little weird). But for friends who are putting together their own web series or movies, there’s nothing wrong with asking them privately if there are any parts in their project that I would be right for and I could come in and audition for.

I’m still a little scared to approach people about projects I want to be a part of, but that’s what I’m working toward this year.

Since I spend probably too much time at my computer (especially since that’s where I work from for my day job), I decided to change the background of my desktop from my favorite picture from Lake Tahoe to something that will remind me of my word of the year.

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You can see that my neat freak and OCD tendencies even manifest on my computer desktop. It’s actually messier than I’d rather have it.

I know that I set goals as well, but I feel like this is more like a theme for the year instead of specific goals.

Do any of you have a word for the year? I’d love to hear what your words are and why you felt like they were the right choice for 2015!

Surviving At The Dentist (or When Will I Grow Out Of My Fear)

I had to go to the dentist this week for a regular cleaning. Although, for me, even a regular cleaning feels like a major procedure.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’m sick and tired of having panic attacks over the dentist. I tell myself over and over that things will be fine, but I’m still a mess when I get there.

While I’m happy that I have the timing of my panic pills down to a science so I know exactly when to take them in order to make things not as bad as they could be. But it’s still horrible going in.

This time, there was a combined panic because not only was I going to the dentist but because I was unable to find parking I was sure I was going to be late (I hate to be late and being late makes me feel a bit panicky as well). By the time I was walking up the stairs to the office, I was sweating like crazy and my vision was getting very dark (I’m lucky I never passed out).

I’m basically holding back on having a panic attack for the first few minutes of the appointment. Once the dental hygienist does the counting thing and moves on to the cleaning, I figure that any tragedy with my teeth (like cavities or something worse) would have already been discovered.

While I am grateful that my dental team knows how bad my fear is and is very accommodating for me, I’m ready for this fear to end. I haven’t had it my entire life so I feel like there should be an end date.

I’m not sure what I can do to make the fear go away. I know of hypnotherapy (which I’ve done before and it doesn’t work on me that well) and exposure therapy, but I don’t know if either would really help. And going to the dentist 3 times a year and having no problems is basically exposure therapy.

I’ve got the same frustration with my fear of flying. I’ll be flying in about 7 weeks and on the flight home, I might not be able to take my panic meds (I’ll be wine tasting that morning and you can’t mix alcohol and the medicine). I might skip the wine tasting to take my meds, but I wish there was a way to test myself to see if I really need them without actually flying without my meds.

So I’m reaching out to all of you for suggestions. Have any of you successfully gotten over something that you feared or had panic issues with? How did you do it? And how can you test if the fear/panic issues are really gone?

Honey-Dijon Pork (or Inventing My Own Recipe)

Since I was getting a little bored with basic chicken every week when I did my bulk cooking, I decided to spice things up a bit this week. I did a lot of searching online for ideas that seemed yummy and easy.

I found a lot of great ideas, but they all took so many ingredients! So I decided to take the ideas that I was finding online and simplifying them to make it something that I wouldn’t have to buy a ton of ingredients for.

And this is what I came up with.

Honey-Dijon Pork Chops

What You Need:

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Dijon Mustard

Honey

Garlic

Pork Chops

Here’s What To Do (it’s seriously so simple!)

Put the pork chops in a zip bag.

Measure out about 1/4 cup of Dijon mustard and pour into the bag.

Measure out about the same amount of honey and pour into the bag.

Finely chop some garlic (I used 2 cloves because I love garlic!) and put that into the bag.

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Zip up the bag and let most of the air out. Then massage the mustard/honey/garlic mixture all over the pork chops.

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Put the bag into the fridge and let it sit for about an hour or two.

When you are ready to cook, pre-heat the oven to 425.

Take each pork chop out of the bag and place them on a foil-lined baking sheet.

Pepper the top and bottom on each pork chop.

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Cook in the oven until they are done (for me it took about 25 minutes).

Take them out of the oven and set them onto a chopping board or other surface to rest (you don’t want them to stay on the hot baking sheet or they will continue to cook).

Since I was doing this for bulk cooking, I portioned out my pork into my dinner containers (I forgot to get a picture of how beautiful they looked before I cut them up).

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Seriously, that’s it! They were so delicious, flavorful, and juicy! When I made them, I used closer to 1/2 cup of the mustard and honey and that was way too much. There was so much marinade on the pork when I removed them from the bag that I had to wipe them off a little.

I’ve had this for the past 2 days so far, and I’m really enjoying it! You can probably use the same marinade for chicken and maybe for fish as well.

This will totally be a part of my regular food planning from now on and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I have!

Seriously, I can’t believe how far I’ve come in my cooking over the last month. I started out scared to cook at all and now I’m creating my own recipes!

A Full Friend Day (or Cheesecake For Lunch And Drinks For Dinner)

This past Saturday was full of hangouts with my friends. I had my usual morning shift at work, but after that was done, I was off to The Grove to hang out with my birthday twin Joanna!

It was time for our tradition of going to The Cheesecake Factory for cheesecake around the holidays. We knew that we would have to wait until after New Year’s for this hangout, but I was fine with waiting.

While eating at The Cheesecake Factory could be a crazy calorie fest, I had worked out hard during the week and I knew that this meal was going to be the main meal for my day. I got to the restaurant first, so I put our names down and waited for our table. Joanna got there and moments later our table was ready. Good thing because we were both ready to eat!

Because I knew that the cheesecake was going to be extremely high in calories, I ordered my meal off of their low-calorie menu. I chose a salad that was under 600 calories for this entire plate!

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It was pretty delicious and I will probably order it again for future cheesecake hangouts.

Then it was time for what we came to The Cheesecake Factory for! The cheesecake! We decided that we would get 2 different cheesecake slices and then each take half of each slice. We decided on red velvet and tiramisu cheesecake.

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Neither of us finished our cheesecakes, but they were so rich that I don’t know if there was any way to do that unless we didn’t eat a meal first.

I was so full when we left, but I was so happy!

Then, a few hours later my friend AJ was doing a hangout in downtown LA. I hadn’t seen AJ since Krystle and I saw him in “Heathers” so I was super excited to see him again! The hangout was at the Yard House and it was very chill. There were about 8 of us and it was just a nice relaxing meal. I got a Dirty Shirley and had some dinner (I needed something to eat so I could feel safe to drive after having a drink).

Of course, AJ and I had to get a picture together!

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It was so great to see AJ again. He should be back in LA to visit soon and I’m hoping to make it out to New York in the fall.

Overall, my Saturday was the ultimate cheat day (my stomach actually hurt on Sunday from all the delicious food) and the best friend hangout day! Another great start to the new year!

Sweating Away 2014 And Into 2015 (or Starting The Year Off The Right Way)

With the past week, I wanted to make sure my workouts set me up for a great 2015. I decided to make it a 4 workout week and push myself to the limit again.

Monday was a good workout. Not horribly tough, but I was able to push myself and not feel overwhelmed. But then the Monday Challenge happened.

It was a challenge of full body pull-ups on the straps. Basically, you hold the straps at your waist and then drop down into a super deep squat. So deep that your butt touches the ground. And then you pull yourself back up using the straps.

We have done these a bunch in class, but I never do them properly. It’s not easy for me to squat down like that and have my butt touch the ground. My hips get stuck a lot that way and I sometimes will have my bones grind against each other when I try to stand. But for the Monday Challenge, if I wanted to participate, I had to do the full movement.

It was a 1 minute challenge and I was hoping to get to double digits. The first few reps weren’t so bad. They were tough, but I was able to do them. Then I got stuck on the ground. I literally wasn’t able to pull myself back up. I managed to stand up again after shifting my legs and hips, but it wasn’t fun. Then on the next rep, I pulled myself up so hard that I almost fell face-first into the mirror.

In the end, I was able to do 11 full body pull-ups in 1 minute. I was nowhere near the top 5 board, but I met my goal of double digits.

Wednesday was New Year’s Eve and I had an early (and half) shift at work. So I was able to attend a lunchtime workout so I would have time afterward to get ready for the party that evening. I wanted to look festive, so I found a silver sparkly headband (made by Sweaty Bands) to wear for that class.

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A couple of people joked that I was wearing a tiara, but I just wanted something fun to help me celebrate the year that introduced me to Orangetheory. Going to a workout was the perfect way to celebrate the end of the year, and a lot of people must have agreed with that idea because the class was packed! We did a 3G workout, which means that there is one group on the treadmills, one group on the rowers, and one group doing strength work (instead of the usual two groups). It was a little hectic, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.

Then, just to push myself even more, I attended a workout class the morning of New Year’s Day. I was a little tired from being out the night before, but it was a later morning class so I was able to sleep in a little. My workout suffered a little from being tired, but again, this was the perfect way to celebrate the new year. And with my goal of 175 workouts this year, I need to workout even on holidays.

I did like how my new workout gloves looked with my New Year’s Eve manicure. I like looking girly and tough at the same time!

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And then, to complete the trifecta of pushing myself, I worked out on Friday as well! Not only was this my 4th workout of the week, it was another time working out 3 days in a row!

I was still tired from a lack of sleep and my body was getting tired from the workouts, but since it was a strength day I wanted to see if I could use some heavier weights. I ended up doing all of my strength work with 15 pound weights. When I started, I was using 8 pounds and recently I have been using 12 pounds and occasionally 15 pounds. But I didn’t let myself go down to 12 pounds. It was tough and my arms are still a little sore, but I’m proud of myself.

Then in the cardio section, there was a new challenge for me. As a walked, when we have push paces or all-out paces, I up my incline on the treadmill when joggers and runners up their speed. But for one of our treadmill blocks, everyone became a walker. We had to do 15% incline (which is what I usually do as my all-out pace), but we were allowed to go 2-3mph (I typically am walking at 3.2mph).

At first, I wondered why we were going to be allowed to go slowly, but then I found out that it was for 5 minutes! I had never done 15% incline for more than a minute or maybe 90 seconds. I was so glad that I was allowed to go slower and I made it through the 5 minutes with only taking one quick break to pop my hip back in (I know that that sounds gross).

I’m trying to pay more attention to my body not just during the workouts but after the workouts. I was a little sore after Friday, but nothing that was worse than any other day. This just proves that I can work with heavier weights and my body is ready for that.

I really feel like these workouts got me off to a great start for 2015, and I wonder how far I will be able to push myself over the next year of workouts!