Tag Archives: summer

Time Is Flying By (or How Is Summer Already Halfway Over?)

It seems like I’ve been super busy and not busy at all lately. I go through times where I’m on the go for days on end followed by days where I have nothing to do. I’d like to be able to spread out the stuff I do more, but I know that’s not always realistic.

But this week has been a bit slow and I finally have gotten on top of some tasks I’ve been putting off. And one of those tasks has been to get through my emails that I haven’t taken action on yet. I’m usually really on top of my emails, but things have been distracting me and I haven’t been taking care of things the way that I normally do. I’ve been trying to delete stuff I know I won’t have time for or have passed, but I’ve realized that a lot of stuff that I wanted to go to have already happened.

I don’t know how it’s already the middle of July. It hasn’t really felt like summer yet (although it’s been hot enough to need my a/c so that proves it’s summer). And it probably hasn’t felt like summer because I really haven’t done many of the things I usually do during the summer. I’ve been going to movie screenings (which is a big summer thing for me) and I haven’t been able to get to Disneyland since my pass is blacked out for the summer, but there’s so much that hasn’t happened yet this summer that I figured I would be doing.

I haven’t gotten to the beach at all. I don’t go to the beach every summer, but whenever I do make it there I’m always so happy and enjoy it. And it would be so easy just to get stuff in my car and go to the beach. It’s so close and doesn’t take much effort. But somehow I just haven’t made it there and I really should try to figure out when I’m going to set aside some time for it.

And the biggest thing that I was surprised I haven’t done yet or at least made a plan for is going to the Hollywood Bowl. I’ve looked at the schedule before and found some things that I really wanted to go to, but I never asked around to see who else wanted to go with me and buy some tickets. There’s no good reason why I haven’t done this yet and now the summer is half over I really need to get planning or I might not make it to the Bowl at all this season.

It’s not that I haven’t had other things taking up my time this summer. I’ve had my Pantages tickets and work keeping me busy. And work was extra busy because one of my day jobs was allowing me to almost double the number of hours I worked. That extra money really helped out with some expenses this summer and it was worth not doing as much fun stuff in order to make more money.

And I think that I might still be in a bit of the mindset that I don’t want to make plans too far in advance because I’m still afraid that I will need surgery. That’s the reason I didn’t make plans for the summer to begin with. I didn’t want to have plans and then have to cancel them because I was still recovering from surgery. I know that I usually recover really well, but I didn’t want to set myself up for failure. And when the surgery got cancelled I didn’t make the effort to make the plans that I was putting off.

I know my next MRI won’t be until September or October so there’s no reason not to make plans this summer. But I guess I’m still a bit paranoid that something will happen and I’m putting stuff off when I don’t need to. It’s funny how this surgery has kind of altered how I’m scheduling things even when there is no current surgery plan. This is one of the reasons I was uneasy about not needing the surgery when I planned. Now the idea of it is hanging over my head and I feel very uncertain and hesitant to do much.

I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my summer, but I totally haven’t been taking advantage of it. Hopefully I can make the second half of summer much more exciting and interesting than the first half and I can try to get as much of my favorite summer stuff in! It’s just a matter of finding the time and money (and hopefully the friends who want to come with me) to do it!

Heat and Hormones (or Not Letting Cravings Take Over)

I’ve written about the heat from time to time on here. I don’t know why each year when it gets hot I seem surprised by it and how my body reacts. I know that my body swelling is a reaction to the heat and I understand that I shouldn’t be stressed about it. But knowing about something and feeling that way are totally different things. So of course, as soon as my body starts swelling (and my clothes stop fitting as nicely), I start to stress out.

And knowing that I’ve gained a little weight lately doesn’t help me stay rational about this. I’m working on getting my weight loss back on track, but it’s not easy to do. There are so many things that feel like they are working against me and sometimes I forget that it’s not always all my fault. There are things beyond my control at times and I have to try to manage them the best that I can.

I do have air conditioning now, but I do limit how often I use it. It’s not too expensive to run, but I also don’t want to feel dependent on it. I use it when it gets really hot and stuffy inside my house and once it feels cool and comfortable again I’ll either turn it off or adjust the temperature setting. But I really don’t need to limit it as much as I do and I have to tell myself that it’s ok if I get a bit spoiled with the air conditioning. I’m hoping that I will never feel like I always need it on and end up spending a ton of money on electricity (which is unlikely to happen with my current energy-efficient a/c), but there is a lot of middle ground between how little I’m using it now and using it all the time.

The other thing that I’m dealing with (and is probably being made worse with the heat) are the food cravings I’ve been having lately. I’m still adjusting to having hormone fluctuations and haven’t had to deal with cravings this way since I was in high school. Since I was on continuous birth control pills, I didn’t get a period and didn’t have PMS. The cravings are so weird to me and I’m working on trying to distinguish the difference between cravings because of hormones and cravings because of my eating disorder. I need to treat each type of craving differently and it’s not easy to know what to do.

I’m working on finding good and healthy options for when I do have hormonal cravings. It’s not easy when you want something that you know isn’t good for you, but hopefully I can figure out what will satisfy my body when I feel like I need something. This is all new to me, but hopefully once I’ve been birth control pill free for a year it will normalize. It’s only been 6 months and I know a lot of people told me it could take a year or two for things to be stable. While some things stabilized right away, I have to keep reminding myself that other things might not have normalized as quickly and I have to allow myself for an adjustment period.

I hate that I feel like I have these issues every single time that it gets hot and I wonder when it will stop feeling so crazy. I’m letting myself have these feelings because I know that things aren’t always in my control and I shouldn’t try to avoid feeling however I’m feeling. But it does annoy me that it feels like the heat and the cravings have ganged up on me right now and are making my life extra difficult.

But as all the other struggles I’ve written about on here, I know this is temporary. I have things in place to help me out this time. I’m in a better mental space to deal with the issues and I know what I can do to work on them. It’s not easy and I have to accept that it might never become easy. It’s all about getting through the tough times so that the next time they happen you are better prepared. I haven’t had to deal with the heat and hormone fluctuations together yet, so this time it might be a bit tougher. But that just means that next year should be better and that is what is helping me deal this time.

4th Of July Weekend (or An Early Holiday)

With the 4th of July falling on a Monday this year, things were a bit different from normal for me. Since I have Mondays off in a normal work week, I didn’t get any extra time off for the holiday (that’s going to happen again at Christmas and New Years too). And since most of my friends had Monday off for the holiday, the big party ended up being on Sunday night so everyone could take their day off to recover.

So I headed over to Chris and Marie‘s house on Sunday night for their annual BBQ party. I made Drunk Fruit again since it was such a big hit last time and I bought extra fruit so we could have some regular cut up fruit too (this was before I realized that 4 of us would be bringing watermelon to the party).

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As with all of the parties that Chris and Marie throw, this was a fun but low-key party. It was actually one of the biggest parties I can remember them having, so it was a lot of people in the backyard eating a lot of good food and just being silly. And even though it wasn’t the 4th, there were a couple of people around the neighborhood shooting off (illegal) fireworks so we didn’t miss those. I didn’t go up on the roof this year to watch the fireworks, but I could see them pretty decently from the ground in the backyard.

And since we started a tradition a few years ago with a couple of us running through the sprinklers, we had to do that again this year. Technically, only the first time we took the photo (2 years ago) we were running through the sprinklers. Now we pretend that the sprinklers are on but the photos are now a tradition that we have to keep up. And the photo looked pretty amazing this year!

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I just love how the first year we were just running through the sprinklers, last year we were almost making fun of ourselves, and this year we were making fun of making fun of ourselves.

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I can’t imagine how crazy the next year’s photo will be! And because everyone had to watch us take the photo, a few others wanted to join in on the fun so we got a slightly larger group to be in another pretend sprinkler photo.

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I stayed at the party until about 10:30pm and then headed back home. I’m sure everyone else was staying up late and continuing the party, but since I knew I had stuff to do the next morning I didn’t want to be out too late.

On the 4th, I actually had a pretty low-key day. I went to my workout and then I spent a bit of time with my friend Dea. She’s been getting a lot of donations to replace what she lost in the fire and I went over to help sort things and get them organized. It was amazing to see how many things people have given to her and I know that as soon as she finds a new home to rent she will be set up really quickly.

After helping out, I drove home and thought about going out to see the fireworks somewhere. I texted a bunch of friends, but people either already had plans or weren’t going to go out. After a while, I decided that I didn’t feel like going out and spending money to see fireworks somewhere. So I ended up spending the night home watching silly movies on Netflix and listening to some crazy neighbors set off fireworks down the block (they sounded so close that I could feel my house shake sometimes).

Overall, I think this was a pretty awesome 4th of July weekend. I got to hang out with my friends and be at a BBQ and I got to be lazy and relax around my house. I don’t know what more I could have wanted out of my weekend because this really was the perfect combination of everything I wanted to do.

A Busy Summer (or Realizing I Have A Lot To Look Forward Too)

While summer is definitely here now (I’m so grateful for my a/c because it’s been pretty hot here in LA lately!), I haven’t really thought too much about my summer plans. Summer doesn’t really mean as much now as it did as a kid, but I still think of it as the time I want to make some really fun plans and try to get out and do summer things like go to the beach or hang out with my friends at a BBQ.

I’ve been adding things to my calendar as I hear about them (or get tickets to them as it is the case with the Hollywood Bowl), but I haven’t really thought that I had a ton of stuff planned yet. In fact, I was thinking that I needed to look into more things that I want to do. It just didn’t seem like I had a lot planned out and I figured I would have lots of gaps in my calendar that I would want to fill up.

Then I looked at my calendar.

For the next 6 weeks, I don’t have a free weekend. Each weekend is booked with some pretty cool things. Sometimes I’m going to a show. Some days I have a party I’m going to. There are a couple of meals with friends already on my schedule. I’ve got my short film shoot one weekend. I’m going to a blogging conference one weekend (although my time there is going to end up being very limited so I won’t get to experience it all). And I’m going back east for a weekend for a family reunion (some of the family there I haven’t seen in 16 years!). Then of course there are some weekends that are already booked with work (not counting my usual Saturday morning shifts).

It’s a lot of stuff to do and that’s just getting me to August! In August, I’ve got my birthday to figure out and I’ll be going to San Diego to celebrate with my parents for their anniversary and my birthday. But that month is relatively clear for now but I know there are a couple of shows at the Hollywood Bowl that I’m hoping to go to that I haven’t gotten my tickets for yet.

I think I’ve really set myself up for a great summer. I will be extremely busy and I’m sure at times I might get a bit overwhelmed at my schedule, but I’m happy that I’ve got so much to look forward to instead of feeling like the summer weekends are going to drag on.

Of course, after the beginning of September my calendar pretty much only has my work and workouts scheduled (plus my season ticket dates for the upcoming season at Pantages) so I know I’ll need to plan some fun things for the fall too. I’m already working on one trip I’m hoping to take in October (thanks to some airline credits I have to use up before the end of the year) and of course I have Thanksgiving in the fall too.

I feel like this is the first summer that I’ve really been looking forward to in a while. Summers lost some of their specialness after I was out of school and working meant there wasn’t a big chunk of time off (unless I was unemployed). In the past, it was just time that I was going to keep working and I knew I’d have to deal with the heat in creative ways. Now, I’ve set myself up to have as much fun as I can while still working 3-4 day jobs. I don’t think I could have done it any better.

A Summer Of Movies (or Grateful For Union Membership)

While TV is the medium that I dream of working in, I love going to see movies. A couple of years ago when I was out of work (before I started this blog), I would try to watch at least one movie a week. Most of the time it was something I got from Netflix since I didn’t have money coming in. But seeing a movie at home is still better than no movies at all.

For a while, I wasn’t seeing movies that often. Money is part of the reason, but I’m not really sure why I stopped. Movies make me happy and they should be a part of my life when I can go.

Since becoming a member of SAG-AFTRA, I have more opportunities to see movies for free. Most of the free movies are around the holidays and into the new year because they are screenings for the SAG Awards (I have to see movies to be able to vote on them). I’m also getting more opportunities to see movies through Women in Film.

But for the past few years I’ve paid to be a part of the SAG-AFTRA Film Society. Between the membership into the society and the parking pass I pay for, it costs me about $200 a year to be a part of the film society. And in the past, I’ve tried to see as many movies as I can. The more movies I see, the better value the membership each year is.

This past weekend was the opening weekend for Film Society (the season runs May-March/April). And I decided to go and see both movies.

The movies that screened last weekend were “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” and “Mad Max: Fury Road”. Both movies screened in 3D and for both movies I brought a guest (all movies through Film Society allow me to bring a plus one). So with just this first weekend, I’ve already gotten about $60 value out of my membership (based on the idea that a 3D movie ticket costs $15).

I really enjoyed both movies. Neither are movies that I probably would have picked on my own. But both movies came highly recommended by friends so I decided to give them a chance.

I found it really interesting that while they were both action filled movies, Avengers was CGI based and Mad Max had practical effects (very few effects were done with CGI). It’s fun to see how the actors are able to react to effects that are really happening versus effects that get added in after the actors complete their part. Neither was better than the other, it was just different.

Now that I’ve got my Film Society membership started up again, I’m going to limit how many movies I will pay to see. I was happy to pay to see “Pitch Perfect 2” since I was going with a group. But I am spoiled because I have a tough time justifying paying for movies when I might get to see a screening for free or when they will eventually be on Netflix. But with this summer having a ton of movies I want to see, I might have to spent a bit on movies over the next few months. I usually don’t know what I get to see through Film Society until a week or two in advance, so I’m going to have to wait to see how many movies on my wish list will be included.

I’m really excited to see all the amazing movies this summer and making sure that I continue to keep myself happy by going as often as I can.

Heat Wave In LA (or Another Post About The Heat)

I feel like a broken record. I’m having issues with the heat again.

If you don’t live in LA, trust me, this heat wave is ridiculous.

In the valley, it’s much worse. But everyone who I know who lives in the valley has air conditioning. At my house, on the westside, it’s still pretty hot and I still don’t have air conditioning.

What’s making things worse is that it’s not cooling down at night. I’m typing this at 8:35 Tuesday evening and it’s still 87 degrees out. So it’s really tough for my house to get a bit cooler at night.

I’m trying to deal with it the best that I can. I have my fan and I’ve been moving it around to whatever room I’m in. And I’m sleeping with ice packs in my bed. I actually have 4 ice packs but I sleep with 2 at a time. Then when I wake up in the middle of the night and those ice packs are melted and warm, I swap them out for the ice packs that have been in the freezer. That’s really helping.

And I’m not trying to fit into any of my tighter clothes. I know that my body is swollen with the heat. My workout pants are feeling tight. So I’m not even going to try to put jeans on.

There are some positives with all this. First of all, there should be a break in the heat wave toward the end of this week. It will help so much to have it be 10-20 degrees cooler at night!

And, I’m finally looking into portable air conditioners! My landlord approved me getting one (just not a window unit) so I can get something to help for next summer. I won’t be ordering it until this heat wave is over because none of them are on sale yet and many stores are sold out. But this should be the last summer that it’s so miserable that I can’t really sleep.

But until then, I’m just sweating it out in my house and when I’m done working I head to my car to enjoy the super powerful air conditioning that my car has!

Weight Loss Update (or Why I’m Trying Not To Get Frustrated)

So I’ve completed 3 weeks of my Orangetheory challenge so far. I’ve been working out 3 days a week (and burning about 500 each workout) and I’m trying to eat below my calorie goals (which seems to happen about 6 out of 7 days).

You’d think that I would have lost a good amount of weight so far. Maybe even in the double digits. That’s what I thought I would have done by now.

But instead, I am currently down 6 pounds from where I started at the beginning of the challenge.

I should be happy with those 6 pounds. They say that you should lose 2 pounds a week to have a maintainable weight loss and that’s exactly what I’m doing. And I know that my body composition is changing and I’m gaining muscle so that could also cause my weight loss to stall a little.

But I still keep thinking about how when I did the RFO diet I would lose about 6-10 pounds a week (my first week I lost 14). And I’m aware that that was a medically supervised starvation diet and that the weight loss was not maintainable. But I still miss those days when I lost a pound a day.

It doesn’t help that all over the media there are people losing weight at a rapid fire pace. On Extreme Weight Loss, people lose 100 pounds in 90 days. And yes, almost all of those people have more weight to lose than I do, but it’s still a message that sticks in my head. It’s possible to lose more than I am right now.

So why am I stalled?

Besides the reasons that I’ve already listed, I know that the weather is affecting me as well. It’s very hot right now, and with my house having horrible insulation, it’s very hot even when I go to bed (averaging at 90 degrees when I go to sleep each night). I have a fan next to my bed, so that helps, but I’m still overheated. And when I’m overheated, my body swells up. So my clothes feeling tighter is an illusion. It’s a frustrating illusion, but I know that I haven’t gained weight.

Right now, there’s not much I can do to make myself lose weight faster. I’m thinking of cutting my calories back a little (maybe from 1600 to 1450), but I’m not going to do anything drastic.

I just have to keep pushing along and eventually my body will catch up to all the hard work I’m putting in. I just have to make sure that I don’t give up before that happens.

Hating The Heat (or Again, My Body Is Lying)

I’ve mentioned before how I don’t like when it’s really hot out because my body feels like it’s gained a ton of weight. Well, with the current heat wave in Los Angeles, I’m having the same problem again.

First of all, let me say that I know that the heat here is temporary and I’m grateful for that. And that most of the country has much worse heat waves that last for a lot longer than this will (it should be normal again here by next week).

But it doesn’t help the feeling of annoyance that I feel whenever I try to get dressed in the morning. Lots of clothes in my closet don’t fit right right now. I spent the past few days in yoga capris and tank tops since those have a lot of stretch in them.

And I’m sure my annoyance isn’t helped by the fact that the past few nights I haven’t slept well since it’s very hot in my bedroom at night. I have a fan on full blast next to my bed, but it only blows hot air around.

This heat wave is one of the first times I’ve missed having to go into a job every day. At least when I had to go somewhere else for work there was air conditioning. Working at my house is pretty warm. But staying in yoga clothes helps a little (since those clothes are pretty breathable).

But the most important thing for me to remember in this heat wave is not to give up on trying to lose weight while it feels like everything is suddenly 2 sizes too small. I’m avoiding my scale until the temperature goes back into the 80’s (or lower) and I’m going to live in my yoga clothes unless I have to go out dressed differently for some reason (like when I went to work last night at my box office job).

Sorry to have a rant on here after having 2 really fun posts the last few days. Since getting back from Disneyland all I’ve done is work from home and try to survive the heat the best that I could. If I had something more interesting to share, I would. But this has taken over my life the rest of this week.

Hollywood Bowl Evening (or A Perfect Way To End The Summer)

This past Friday, I went to the Hollywood Bowl to see John Williams conduct the LA Philharmonic. This show is done pretty much every year and I went to it about 2 years ago. But this time, my friends Kate and Beth came with me and neither of them had seen this particular show before (also, Kate had only been to the Bowl one other time, so she was excited to get to go again).

First of all, a tip to everyone who goes to the Bowl: never drive yourself there! The parking is outrageously expensive plus it’s stacked parking so it takes forever to get out of there. You can take the subway to Hollywood and Highland and walk up the hill, but we wanted to bring a big picnic so that wasn’t the best option. What we did (and what I do almost every time I go to the Bowl) is take the Bowl Shuttle there. There are pickups all over town (we left from Santa Monica this time) and it drops you off right at the front. It’s only about $5 per person round trip so it’s very affordable!

After we took the shuttle to the Bowl, we picked up our tickets and headed to our seats. We were almost all the way on the end, but we were pretty close to the stage.

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We were all pretty happy to be there, even though it was a crazy hot night!

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I was super excited to see the show since I knew how amazing it was last time. But I was extra excited because of who the guest narrator was!

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Julie Andrews was the narrator for the first half of the show!!! It was so incredible. She was as graceful as all the characters she’s played in movies and I was in awe watching her.

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That’s her on the end of the stage. Since we weren’t super close to the stage, I spent most of the time watching her on the giant screen right by our seats.

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The second half of the show featured movie soundtracks that John Williams did. There was a lot of Indiana Jones (which always makes me think of Disneyland). And the highlight of the evening was when the Star Wars music started. People come to this show with lightsabers just for this part of the show. And it was pretty cool to see the place lit up by them (sorry for the dark picture, but it was either that or a super blurry one).

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There were 2 encores as well. The first one was Star Wars music again. And the second encore was the theme to “E.T.”. I remembered this being the last song the other time I saw this show. And at the final notes of the theme, the Bowl was lit up like a rainbow.

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After the show ended, we headed back to the bus for our ride back to Santa Monica. I’m so glad I got to go to this show (and thank you Kate for buying my ticket for my birthday present!). I like to try to go to the Bowl every summer but this summer has been a little crazy.

I’m planning on going to this show again next year. I’m hoping my parents can come out for it (my dad has never seen a show at the Bowl before). But any show at the Bowl is really the perfect way to spend a summer evening!

Playing Beach Chicken (or How To Fully Enjoy Only Having To Work A Half Day On Saturdays)

I’m making an effort to fully enjoy the time that I have on Saturdays after I work my half shift at work (my shift then is from 10-2). So this past Saturday, my friend Kate and I made a plan to hang out for the afternoon.

First stop was Monte Alban for lunch. I got fajitas (which were delicious).

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But I did notice that on the menu, they had a pretty odd option for a meat.

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After lunch, we drove up PCH to go find a fun beach to hang out at. We ended up at Thornhill Broome Beach because the beach was super close to the road (unlike in Santa Monica where it’s 1/4 mile or so from where to park to the water).

It was such a gorgeous day out.

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We got our feet in the water a bit.

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And then we played beach chicken. Beach chicken is essentially playing chicken with the waves. You go out into the water and only run away when the wave is going to be too big (or for me, when the wave was going to get my clothes wet).

Honestly, it was a lot of fun.

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At least until a bigger wave came and was higher than my knees.

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I really don’t take advantage of living near the water as often as I should. I don’t think I went to the beach at all last summer. And the last time I had my feet in the water was probably 2 or 3 years ago (I’m not a huge fan of the ocean).

But running in and out of the waves really was an awesome way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

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Eventually, we had to head back to our part of town. I needed to run errands and Kate had a super early day at work the next day and wanted to go to bed early. On the drive back, we saw a lot of people surfing, and even a kite surfer (who seemed to be going very fast).

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It really was a great way to spend a free afternoon. I’m going to make an effort to make it to the beach a few more times this summer. Maybe I’ll start to like the ocean more (which would be helpful before I go to Hawaii).