Monthly Archives: October 2012

Being My Authentic Self (or Ignoring All The Outside Voices)

Posted on October 3, 2012 | Comments Off on Being My Authentic Self (or Ignoring All The Outside Voices)

Yesterday, I was working at an interview for Inside Acting Podcast (I’m their production coordinator). I can’t share who was interviewed yet, but this person said some things that really stuck with me. And it wasn’t just what they said that affected me, it was the fact that over the past few days, I’ve heard this so many times.

What they said was that the most important thing to do is to always be true to yourself and be authentic. And to ignore what everyone else might be saying. As long as you are authentic, it doesn’t matter what other people think about yourself.

I first heard this after I wrote this post. People had told me that the girl who called me fat was an idiot (that’s actually one of the nicer words used to describe that person) and that I shouldn’t listen to other people’s opinions of me.

My opinion of myself is most important. The problem comes when my opinion of myself isn’t the most positive.

Since starting this blog, I’ve lost about 10 pounds. That should be amazing. I should be so happy.

But I’m not.

The first problem comes from something that shouldn’t matter. I’m used to getting so much positive reinforcement about my weight loss from other people. People say how good I look and ask me how much I’ve lost. But then when I maintain that weight, the compliments stop coming. And this is where I’ve lost focus in the past. I shouldn’t worry about other people commenting on the change in my body. Yet, I’m still a little peeved that nobody has mentioned anything to me yet (and I’m not fishing for compliments).

I’m also not happy because it doesn’t feel like I’ve lost enough. In the past, when I’ve been on crazy diets, 10 pounds could drop in a week. When you watch “The Biggest Loser”, losing under 10 pounds is a week is a huge disappointment. I need to get myself out of the mindset that losing 1-2 pounds a week is a bad thing.

I’m working really hard at getting all the outside voices out (and my own negative voice out). I’m trying to focus my energy on being true to myself and being the best Jen that I can be.

It sounds so cheesy, but I think it’s exactly what I need.

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Posted in Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Updating Me (or It Never Hurts To Ask)

Posted on October 2, 2012 | 1 comment

This morning, I had a phone meeting with Joanna Brooks, who is the photographer that I’ll be using for some new headshots. I’m getting some new headshot done because I’ve been using these two for a while and I want some new ones.

And yes, I am wearing the same shirt in both pictures. I didn’t think about that at the time I was taking the second one, but I know that color looks good on me based on Jill Kirsh’s color methods. They are both great pictures, and I love both of the photographers that I worked with, but I need a change.

This photo is pretty much the only thing that decides whether or not I get an audition. When hundreds of actors are submitted for the same job, I need to make sure that my photo stands out and gets their attention.

Joanna and I had a really great phone meeting. I love her energy and she has some great ideas on how to shoot me in order to get the results that I am hoping for.

I had also brought up my weight loss in our phone meeting and my concern about having to do new pictures every time I lose 25-30 pounds. I asked about possibly pre-paying for a bunch of smaller sessions so I could use them when I needed an updated shot. Joanna was so sweet about it on the phone and she gave me a deal for future update shoots that will work perfectly for my budget and what I’ll need. So the plan for me for photos is one shoot this month with 3 looks, update shoots while I’m losing weight, and then once I’m at a weight that I’m happy with and am able to maintain (which is always the tough part) then we’ll do another big shoot then.

I’m so happy that I was able to work something out that works for both her and I. I’m always nervous to ask for something different or special, but if you never ask, you’ll never know. I think the confidence to ask for things like this has come from my day job. When I’m taking orders, we are supposed to ask if the customer would like to also make a donation to help our educational programs. Donations are the main thing that help keep that program alive. At first, I was so scared to ask for the donations. But now, I’m fearless with it. The worst someone can say is no, and then I’m no worse off than I was before I asked.

I’m just glad that when I asked Joanna about update photo shoots for me, she said yes. Now I have another motivation to keep me on this weight loss journey, however long it may take.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Weight Loss

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It’s a Stripper Penguin! (or The Best Bachelorette Party Ever!)

Posted on October 1, 2012 | 5 comments

First of all, I managed to survive Carmageddon with all the driving I had to do around town. The only time that I was caught in awful traffic was trying to get from Culver City to the Valley on Saturday evening. It took me over 2 hours to get there. But it was worth it, because I was on my way to my friend Marie’s bachelorette party!

I’ve been to a few bachelorette parties in the past, but they have all been pretty tame. Sometimes just dinner and dessert with the girls. But I knew that this party was going to be a bit more outrageous than that, and I was right!

(sorry that this post has so many pictures and is so long)

The evening started out with some drinks and appetizers at the apartment of one of the girls hosting the night. It was a very chill part of the night, but we were all just so happy to be celebrating the upcoming wedding of Marie (19 more days to go)!

Then, the entertainment arrived. If you don’t know Marie, you just need to know that she LOVES penguins. When she first got engaged, I wanted to get her a penguin cake topper, but I couldn’t decide on which one to get her (I got her a wedding planning guide instead). And the starter entertainment for the night was a stripper penguin!

I guess technically he wasn’t a stripper, he wore a sweat suit over the penguin costume and took that off, but then he danced the rest of the time in the penguin outfit. This was seriously the funniest thing I’ve ever seen! I was laughing so hard I was crying! Everyone loved the penguin.

After that craziness, we were off to dinner. Marie arranged for a Cadillac limo to drive us all around. That was so nice. If we didn’t have that, we would have taken 4 cars to get everywhere. And the limo had 3, yes 3, bars inside.

Also, the mood lighting inside was pretty fun too.

Our dinner stop was at Lala’s Grill. I had never been there before, but it was so delicious! The steaks were wonderful and I wanted to drink the chimichurri sauce! I was enjoying my meal so much that I didn’t get any pictures of that part of the evening.

After dinner, we had the driver drive us around the valley a bit so we could enjoy some drinks in the limo (all of the locations we were going to were very close together). And then we ended up at Oil Can Harry’s. I had never been there before either, but it was great! Saturday nights are disco nights. Downstairs there is dancing and upstairs there is karaoke.

We did some dancing.

And the bride to be did some karaoke (sorry for the blurry pic, all I had was my phone).

And eventually, it was the end of the night and we headed back into the limo to go back to the apartment to enjoy some dessert.

After then, it was getting close to 3am and I had to be up early the next day (and still drive all the way back home). I said goodbye to everyone, and laughed about the stripper penguin for the entire drive back.

I had the most fabulous night. I want to thank Jacole and Kelly for planning such an awesome event and inviting me. And thank you Marie for getting married so this party could be thrown for you! I’m so happy that Marie is getting married and I’m getting excited for my adventure in Texas for the wedding soon!

Oh, and an extra special thank you to our limo driver, Mike, who put up with all of our craziness all night.

And, he let us call him Magic Mike.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

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