Monthly Archives: December 2012

Sandy Hook (or There Are No Words)

Posted on December 17, 2012 | Comments Off on Sandy Hook (or There Are No Words)

On Friday morning, I was rushing to get to work. Fridays are one of my early days, so I was trying to get dressed and eat breakfast quickly. I had the news on in the background, and as I was about to step out the door, the news anchor mentioned something about a shooting at a school. They didn’t know if anyone was injured or hurt at that time.

Later at work, I was checking twitter and the news just kept getting worse and worse. It was a shooting at an elementary school, there were adults who were killed, there is an entire class missing and feared dead.

It was awful. I was trying to focus on working, but I couldn’t stop watching my twitter feed. Then I saw a tweet from my friend Heather. Her friend’s nephew was killed in the attack. That just made it hit home for me so much more. I don’t know Heather’s friend or her nephew, but my heart still broke.

I was hanging out with another friend and her kids that afternoon and it was nice spend time being silly and not focusing on the horrible things going on.

The monster who did this should not be acknowledged. Part of the problem is how the media will glorify the killer but the victims names are forgotten.

I won’t let that happen, at least in my mind.

I’ve learned that my friend’s friend’s nephew was named Noah. He had just turned 6 last month. His twin sister and older sister were in other classrooms and survived. His favorite color was blue. He loved Legos and superheroes. If you’d like to help Noah’s family, there are some ways to help at this link.

I read about two different heroic teachers who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect their students. Victoria Soto was 27 and was killed while she shielded her students from the gunman. Lauren Rousseau was 30. She was a substitute teacher at Sandy Hook. That hit me really hard. I am a K-12 substitute teacher for a public school district in Los Angeles. I would only hope that if something this horrible would happen while I was subbing that I would have the same courage that Lauren Rousseau had.

There are far too many victims to talk about each one. I found this website where all the victims are named and some memories of them are shared as well. I appreciate that the killer is not included on this list. I want him to be forgotten but the victims to be remembered forever.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Shooting (or Enough Is Enough) Default ThumbnailMy Version Of Back To School (or I Need To Get Out Of My Summer Mindset) Default ThumbnailSandy (or I Hope You Are All Safe) Default ThumbnailWe Need To Make A Change (or I Just Don’t Have The Words) Default ThumbnailBoston (or Again, I Have No Words) Default ThumbnailMy Love Letter To The Actors’ Network (or Sorry Kevin, I Couldn’t Keep It Under 500 Words)

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Posted in Tough Stuff

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Being Defined (or How I Was Inspired By Ben Affleck)

Posted on December 14, 2012 | Comments Off on Being Defined (or How I Was Inspired By Ben Affleck)

This week was Barbara Walters’ “10 Most Fascinating People” show.

I didn’t care for too many of the people on it. Did Honey Boo Boo really need to be on that list? Seriously. I didn’t find her or her family fascinating at all. And their show was practically unwatchable for me. Also, I fast forwarded through the part with One Direction. Maybe it’s because I’m not a 13-year-old girl, but I didn’t feel the need to hear what they had to say (although when I was a teenager, I loved *NSYNC and would have been glued to the tv for their interview).

The interviews with Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie were interesting to watch. And even though I disagreed that David Petraeus was the most fascinating person of 2012, I agree that he was definitely in the top 10.

My favorite interview was Ben Affleck. I think he has done some amazing things in his career. Yes he was a paparazzi fixture for a while, but he’s also become an amazing director (and he’s an Academy Award winner).

In his interview, he discussed the path that his career has taken and has admitted that he’s been in some pretty bad movies. But then he said that he believes that a person is defined by the way they rise and not the way the fall.

I had to pause my DVR for a second after he said that because it was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. The past few post have been a bit negative, and I’m sorry for that. I’ve been focused too much on how I have fallen. Even though I haven’t risen yet (and am able to focus on that), I should focus on the steps I’m going to take to get myself back up.

I know that if I ever make it big, it will come out that I have an eating disorder. And if I am skinny (or skinnier) when I make it big, photos of me at my heaviest will come out. But I will have nothing to be embarrassed about. This is just a part in my journey. And hopefully people will admire me for overcoming either my eating disorder, obesity, or both.

Thanks Ben Affleck for inspiring me. For that, I forgive you for all the bad movies that you’ve made. Although I will say that “Jersey Girl” isn’t nearly as bad as most people think.

😉

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Posted in Acting, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Just Because I’m Not Skinny Doesn’t Mean I Don’t Want To Look Cute (or More Shopping Drama)

Posted on December 13, 2012 | 1 comment

I’ve talked before about hard tough it can be to shop when you aren’t skinny. I’ve also talked before about my love of Pinterest.

I love searching the boards on Pinterest for tons of stuff. One of my favorite sections is the Women’s Fashion section. There are so many ideas for clothes. Some of them are craft ideas with clothes (I totally want to make this sweater!). Some pins are about accessories.

But most of the pins are of really cute outfit combinations. I would totally rock any of those looks.

But sadly, until I lose weight and fit into a “normal” size, I won’t be able to create those outfits. There are a few stores that carry clothes in my size. Even fewer that carry pants or jeans that are both plus size and petite. And unless I want to order things online and take a chance on it fitting, I have only select stores that I can go to.

I am not trying to sound like a victim. I know that it is my fault that I am this size. I haven’t gotten control over my eating disorder yet. I hope that one day, the eating disorder will be a distant memory (although I think I’ll always have disordered eating habits).

But until that day, I need to still cloth myself and I’d like to look cute. I’m single, young(ish), and trying to live a full life. But when most of the clothing options for me are either very old-looking or something that maybe a middle schooler would wear, it’s tough to look how I’d like.

I’m thinking about seeing about testing out a personal shopper (you can use one for free at Bloomingdales). I might not purchase the clothes, but at least I can get an idea of what I should look for in other stores. Or maybe I can say that I’d like to look at clothes that are mainly on sale.

I don’t think I’ll have time to do too much shopping before I’m (f)unemployed, but maybe this could be something to look forward to in the new year.

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Default ThumbnailThrowaway Clothes (or Why I Hate Shopping Sometimes) Default ThumbnailGirls Night Out (or How to Find a Cute Dress When You Are Bigger Than a Size 18) Default ThumbnailThis Weekend’s Shopping Adventure (or Still Trying to Find Some More Cute Dresses) Default ThumbnailBusting Out Of My Comfort Zone (or I Bought Skinny Jeans) Default ThumbnailAnother Rut In My Life (or Time For Some Shopping) Default ThumbnailLunch And Shopping (or Proof My Work Is Paying Off)

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Shopping, Tough Stuff

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Trying to Not Be Defensive (or Accepting Myself)

Posted on December 12, 2012 | Comments Off on Trying to Not Be Defensive (or Accepting Myself)

I made some cute new actor business cards. On the front, I’ve got two of my favorite headshots.

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On the back I’ve got thumbnails or two other headshots and my contact information. I put my phone number, email, twitter handle, website, and I included this blog as well.

I normally give out these cards to actors or other industry people who I meet. When they find out that I have a blog, they are pretty excited about it and want to hear more. And I’m usually really excited to talk about it because they are creative people and this is one of my creative sides.

Occasionally I’ll give a card out to someone random. I had a friend of a friend ask for it because she might use me as a babysitter in the future. These are the only cards I carry with me, so I gave her one.

She was commenting on my photo and flipped the card over. She noticed the URL for the blog, and asked me what it is. I was instantly embarrassed and apologized for not having another card with me. But my friend who was right there spoke up and talked about my blog and how she likes to read it (which I still find hard to believe sometimes). And her friend then started talking about how much she loves blogs.

I don’t know what I was defensive and not being as open about the blog to a non-industry person as I am to an industry person. It didn’t have to do with her being a stranger, because I’ve talked about my blog with complete strangers I’ve met at Women In Film.

I’m trying to have more pride in what I’ve accomplished with this blog. I don’t know what made me be so embarrassed at that moment.

This blog is as much a part of me as my acting career or anything else. When I talk about how awesome other aspects of my life are, I need to remember to start including this.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

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Holding On (or When Is It Time To Donate Old Clothes?)

Posted on December 11, 2012 | 2 comments

When I lived at my old apartment, my closet was so big, you could fit a bed in there (seriously). I kept all my clothes in there, even those that didn’t fit because they were too big or too small. In my current house, my closet is tiny (people in the 1920’s didn’t have nearly as many clothes as we do now).

So under my bed, I’ve got these:

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They are giant under the bed clothing storage bags (you can tell that they are almost as long as my queen bed is wide).

In those bags, I’ve kept a lot of my “skinny” clothes. There are some things in there that I never got to wear (the white top with a blue Hawaiian print was never worn). Some of these clothes probably won’t ever be worn again because they are a bit out of style or I feel are a little too young for me. I should probably drop them off at Goodwill to get a tax deduction.

But I can’t seem to get rid of them.

I’ve got this dress that I loved in the summertime. Here I am wearing it at Disneyland.

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And this dress that I wore to my brother’s graduation from USC.

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I wore this dress to my Grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary dinner.

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And this dress was only worn once on the night after Thanksgiving one year for my Grandma’s birthday dinner.

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I’ve got my high school prom dress (I liked when I was the same size I was in high school).

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And I’ve got a bathing suit that I wore when I was very close to my goal weight in 2007 (I remember being so nervous to wear it because my scars from my hip surgery had not fully faded after a year).

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Some of these things, I probably will want to keep forever for sentimental reasons. But when I was digging though the bags over the weekend, I realized that some of these items would be perfect for the week I’ll be in Hawaii for my brother’s wedding next year.

I don’t want to make it a goal to fit into them, because if I don’t I’ll be very upset and could be a bit depressed. But if I did manage to fit into them, it would be amazing.

I’m thinking about taking one dress out of the bag soon and keeping it in my closet as a test dress. Maybe as I keep losing weight (even though it’s still going slowly) I can see how much closer I am to fitting into it.

I know I need something other than the scale to test my progress and maybe this could be it.

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Posted in Shopping, Weight Loss

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Alternative Motivation (or Why Can’t I Transfer My Dedication From One Area to Another)

Posted on December 10, 2012 | Comments Off on Alternative Motivation (or Why Can’t I Transfer My Dedication From One Area to Another)

On Friday evening, I attended the Actors’ Network annual holiday party. I love this holiday party! It’s a great mix of industry types and I always run into people who I don’t see as often as I’d like.

I haven’t been able to go to many Actors’ Network events since starting my new day job in May. Most events are between 1 and 7:30pm and I pretty much always working then. I plan on attending more events when I’m (f)unemployed soon.

As I was chatting with a friend who I hadn’t seen in almost a year, we were discussing what had been keeping us busy. I mentioned this blog, and they asked me about it. I said how I just recently passed 100 blog posts and they commented on how motivated and dedicated I must be.

I always have thought of myself as someone who needs more motivation in life. If I was a motivated person, I shouldn’t have a weight issue. I would be motivated to eat better and exercise more.

But the more I thought about it, it’s true that I’m really motivated.

I’m motivated to write every day here, and I’m super happy about that. I love thinking of what to write about and what you will all think about it.

I’m also really motivated in my job, which is good.

I’m motivated to keep acting. I know that one day I’ll “make it” and it will all be worth it.

I’m motivated to watch my favorite tv shows even when I’m tired (this might not be the best one, but it’s true).

I just can’t find the motivation all the time for my health. I don’t know what the block is in my brain. I want to do it, but I can’t seem to do it. I don’t know if I’ve convinced myself that I don’t have enough time/energy/whatever to do it. But now that someone else has made me realize that I do have a motivated personality, I’m going to work on figuring it out.

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Posted in Acting, Fitness, Food, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss, Work

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Pinning Freak (or I’m Going To Turn Myself Into Someone Crafty)

Posted on December 7, 2012 | 3 comments

I’m totally addicted to Pinterest. I know a lot of people who are as well.

I’m always pinning awesome recipes, beauty ideas, organizational tips, book suggestions, and even ideas for the future like wedding or baby things. I’m hooked.

I love seeing all the cute baby things that my friends with babies are pinning. And my future sister-in-law is now on Pinterest pinning ideas for their wedding.

A lot of the time, I’ll email my dad some of the things that I’m looking at since he is very crafty. And we have done some projects that we found on Pinterest. One of the big ones is cutting the bottom off of wine bottles so you can put candles underneath. Cutting off the bottom of the wine bottle is pretty tough. I believe my dad has been able to successfully do it 2 or 3 times. I don’t have a great photo of what the wine bottle candle holder looks like, but you can see it behind my birthday bouquet in this photo.

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I wish I was crafty enough to do most of the things I see. Just today, I saw a pin on how to make your own glitter tights (perfect for New Years Eve!). If I made them, the tights would probably get glued together and somehow I’d get glitter glued to various surfaces in my house (even if I did the project outside).

So I’m going to start small with my crafty projects from Pinterest. There are a bunch of recipes that I’m going to try soon (and I just got a CrockPot so that’s pretty awesome!). And I found directions on how to make your own dry shampoo for dark hair. I could probably do that without too much craziness.

I know that I’ll probably never been as crafty as the ideas I see, but I’m going to take some baby steps and maybe one day I’ll get close to that. In the meantime, I’m excited to pin silly things like travel ideas, quotes that I like, blogs that I like, and ideas for a dream home in the future.

Oh, and if you want to follow me on Pinterest, you can do so here.

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Posted in Beauty, Food, Fun Stuff, Shopping

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Aria V Wine Shop (or Another Living Social Win!)

Posted on December 6, 2012 | 1 comment

I’ve had some good Living Social deals and some pretty awful ones. And over the summer, I had seen a deal for 12 wine tastings plus 2 appetizers at Aria V Wine Shop in Culver City. Seemed like a decent deal to me since it only cost me $25.

The deal was going to expire next week, so yesterday my friend Kate and I decided to finally test it out. It was located in a kind of weird area of Culver City (almost under the 405 and right next to a shut down hospital). But we managed to find some free street parking around the block and headed inside.

It’s actually located inside the Polentoni restaurant (so if you are going look for that sign), but inside a little private room. When Kate and I got there, we were the only ones in that room, but it quickly filled up.

We explained to our waiter that we were here for the Living Social deal and he explained that we could choose 2 appetizers that were priced at $12.50 or under and then 6 wines each to taste that were priced at $42 a bottle or under. Anything over that and we would just have to pay the difference.

We checked out the menus.

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I asked our waiter if I could get the Prosecco as 2 of my tastings and then pick 4 more and he was ok with that.

We got our food.

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(I ate lightly earlier in the day to save up for these calories).

And when our “tastings” arrived, we were shocked by how generous the pour was.

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I’m a pretty lightweight when it comes to alcohol, and there is no way I could do 6 tastings like that!

In the end, I had 2 glasses of Prosecco and one glass of a rose that the waiter had selected for me. And Kate had 3 glasses of Italian reds that the waiter had selected for her (one was called a Super Tuscan, but I don’t know the rest).

As we were brought the bill, the waiter also brought us glasses of their special holiday mulled wine.

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It looked and smelled delicious, but personally I didn’t like it very much.

And when our bill arrived, it proved that we got our moneys worth on this deal.

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We left a very nice tip.

I’ll totally go back to Aria V, even if I don’t have a deal for it. It was yummy, the atmosphere was fun, and it’s pretty close to my house.

And I’ve been in a bit of a funk the last few days (the work schedule and lack of sleep is getting to me a bit). But nothing can bust you out of a funk better than hanging out with your best friend and having moments where you are laughing so hard that you are crying.

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Saving

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It’s The Most Social Time Of The Year (or I Wish There Were Two Of Me)

Posted on December 5, 2012 | Comments Off on It’s The Most Social Time Of The Year (or I Wish There Were Two Of Me)

I love how many events there are to go to this time of year. I’m learning to not say yes to all of them, but there are still plenty I want to attend.

There are the usual holiday parties, happy hours, and New Years Eve parties. But this year, it’s the first year I’m a member of SAG-AFTRA (an actor’s union in case you didn’t know) and there are a ton of screenings that I’m invited to for movies that are coming out now.

I wish I could go to them all. This week, there are 4 screenings that I wish I could go to. But since I work late 3 nights a week, I can’t go. This is the end of the season for my job, so I really can’t ask for any time off. If I get an audition or something, I know that my boss will let me go, but I don’t think asking to attend a screening is very appropriate.

I’m trying to pick out screenings to go to on Wednesdays (the one day a week I work “normal” business hours), but either there aren’t any on that day or they are for a film that I don’t care to see.

Fortunately, I will have some days off around Christmas and New Years so I can attend events then. One of the girls in my Girls Night Out group is throwing a New Years Eve party that I’m going to go to. And I’m not totally sure what I am doing for Christmas, but the “traditional” Jewish thing to do is to go to a movie and then have Chinese food. I’ll probably do that, I just don’t know if anyone else will be joining me.

In the meantime, I have to be careful with my time. I can fit a couple of events in between my work shifts, but I also need to remember to take time out for myself and time to sleep. For example, next Sunday I have acting class until 10pm. Then there is a LA Actors Tweetup that I want to at least make an appearance at. But then the next morning, I am babysitting at 9am until my work shift starts and then I’ll be at work until 8:30pm.

That’s a whirlwind couple of days!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

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Feeling The Pain With The Weather (or The Full Story About My Hip Problems)

Posted on December 4, 2012 | 8 comments

It’s been pretty rainy the past few days in LA. I know that we are lucky because a majority of the time it is gorgeous and sunny, but I hate the rainy days.

I used to hate it because my hair would frizz, my makeup would run, and my clothes would get wet (I hate wet shoes the most). But now I hate this weather because of the pain I am in.

I’ve always heard of people joke how they can feel it in their bones when it’s going to rain. Especially in bones that have been broken. Until 2006, the only bones that I had broken were in my toes (small hairline breaks that weren’t too bad), and I never felt it in my toes when it was going to rain.

But in 2006 (July 7th to be exact), I had my hip surgery on my right hip. I haven’t really explained what was done to my hip before, so here is my attempt. In 2005 I started having severe hip pain. It hurt to walk, and I felt like I couldn’t move my right leg all the way. For 6 months I was misdiagnosed (they thought it was a muscle tear) until finally my physical therapist recommended I go to an orthopedic surgeon. I did, and after an MRI to confirm it, I was diagnosed with a hip labral tear. There weren’t too many options for me to correct it without surgery, so I went for it.

In my surgery, they discovered that I had a bone spur on the top of my femur and that is what caused the tear. They removed the bone spur, removed the torn cartilage, and after about 3 months, I was pretty much fully recovered from surgery. I have the same problem on my left side, but since it doesn’t hurt too much, I haven’t scheduled surgery for it yet.

But because of the removal of the bone spur, the top of my femur feels the change in weather like a broken bone. I hate taking too much pain medicine because I had to do that for so long. Most of the time, I just try to not sit still too long (that causes pain too), and hope for the best.

Well, there you have my hip story. And just for fun, here’s a picture of me after surgery with the giant bandage that covered the 3 tiny scars that I had (my surgery was done arthoscopically).

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