Monthly Archives: August 2015

Workouts With Modifications (or Dealing With A New Injury)

Posted on August 17, 2015 | 14 comments

This was an interesting week of workouts for me. I was feeling great from doing 4 workouts the past week and had every intention of doing the same this week. But then everything changed for me.

My Monday workout was fine. I was a bit tired from my birthday fun the night before. I swear that I was sweating out cake during the class. I might have been a bit sluggish, but nothing too extreme. I continued working on increasing my weights and my treadmill speed and felt like I was finally getting into a good groove of taking my workouts to the next level.

Then on Wednesday, my right calf was bugging me all morning. I thought maybe I slept funny because it felt like a bruise or that my calf muscle had been squeezed all night (like a charley horse). I didn’t think too much of it because I figured a workout would help get things stretched out.

I gave the coach for the class a heads up that I was feeling sore, and she said to take it easy. I got on the treadmill to warm up at 3 miles and hour, and after maybe walking for a minute I felt a pop in my muscle and my vision went white.

I was terrified that I did something horrible, but the pain decreased a bit when I stopped walking and my vision returned to normal after a second. So I hopped off the treadmill and went over to the bike for my cardio. I told the coach what happened and she noticed that a bruise was forming on the back of my leg. She said that I needed to not push myself and to not do anything that would hurt me.

I stayed on the bike for the entire cardio portion and really took it easy with the weights. By the end of the workout, the bruise on my left was from my calf down to my foot and I was still in pain when walking.

After consulting with my mom and dad, we figured that I must have torn my calf (the bruise is from the blood from the torn blood vessels). There’s nothing you can really do for this type of injury besides rest, ice, and elevation. So that’s what I did all evening.

Busted Calf

Even with the pain, I knew that I wasn’t going to skip my Friday workout. I decided against doing a 4th workout for the week, but I was going to get my 3 in for sure.

By Friday, the pain was about half as bad as it was on Wednesday. I wrapped a compression bandage on my calf and went to my workout. I tried the treadmill but it was just too painful for the speed that I would need to get my heart rate up. So I moved back to the bike again (guess my birthday bike ride was getting me ready to work out on the bike at Orangetheory). The bike hurt a little, but I was ok. I had lots of issues rowing because I couldn’t bend all the way, so I did little half rows. And I used lighter weights for the lower body work, but that meant that I increased the weights for my upper body.

I’m so used to working out with my hip issues or when I get sick, but this is an entirely different thing. With the type of tear I have, I should be close to 80% better either today or tomorrow and fully recovered in a week or two. This sucks, but it’s not the end of the world. I just have to continue with extra modifications and remembering that it’s all about consistency.

Hopefully this week will be a bit better with my workouts, but if not, I know that soon enough that I will be back to my normal self.

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Default ThumbnailSome Holiday Workouts (or Back On The Treadmill This Week) Default ThumbnailTransitioning Back To Normal (or Going Slow) Default ThumbnailGetting Back To My Workouts (or Dealing With Not Being 100%) Default ThumbnailMy Workouts Are Never Simple (or I Need To Keep Working On Modifications) Default ThumbnailWorking Through The Workouts (Modifications Are Harder At Home) Default ThumbnailInjury After Injury (or I Swear It’s Not Because I’m A Klutz)

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Posted in Fitness, Health, Tough Stuff

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The End Of The Election (or Actors Please Remember To Vote)

Posted on August 14, 2015 | Comments Off on The End Of The Election (or Actors Please Remember To Vote)

I had mentioned before that I’m running as a convention delegate candidate for Unite For Strength in the SAG-AFTRA election. When I was asked first if I’d like to run, I wondered how involved I could really get because I’m not running for the board but for a convention delegate. But I’ve been able to be more involved than I thought and I’m so happy about that!

I’ve been pretty active on social media getting the word out that I’m running and who else is on the slate I’m running with. If you are SAG-AFTRA and haven’t voted yet, you can check out our handy voter guides and see who else is running with me!

I’ve gotten to know so many actors who have been very involved with the union for years, even before the unions had merged. Some of these actors are actors that I have watched on TV or in movies for years, and it’s makes me smile now that I can consider them my peers.

I’ve learned so much about the union that I was uninformed about in the past. I’m a bit embarrassed about how uninvolved I’ve been in the past, but I’m hoping to make up for that now. I have friends who have come to me with issues that they have encountered on sets or auditions in the past. I’ve been able to bring those up to current board members who are running for their seat again to find out what we can do to fix those problems. And I’ve learned that as actors, we do have more power than I thought before.

I have met people who are running on the other slate. Online, there are many nasty people. There are people online claiming that I (and my slate) are responsible for actors not making a living and that few actors are eligible for healthcare (the healthcare eligibility has gone up since the merger, but it’s still a small percentage of actors who make enough to qualify). But those running on the other slate who I’ve met in person have been for the most part very nice and friendly people. Although they have very different ideas about what is most important for us to focus on as a union, we have been able to have some polite and honest debates. I’ve brought to them some of the arguments or complaints that people have said online about why they won’t vote for me and the people from the other slate have pretty much said that all those reasons are either not the fault of the slate or something that no slate could fix anyway.

I’ve met lots of actors who either haven’t voted yet or didn’t realize that there was an election going on while I have been campaigning outside of union events. The elections typically have a turnout of about 20%, and that is just sad to me. More actors should care about their union and who is representing them. If you are a SAG-AFTRA actor and have not voted yet, do it now! You need to have you ballot received by the 20th, so we recommend mailing them today or tomorrow to get here in time!

Whether or not I win my seat, I’m so grateful that I’ve been a part of this election process. It has motivated me so much and has made me realize that even if I’m not elected there is so much more that I can do with the union to make sure that my voice is heard. I’ve learned so much about the union in general and have heard what other actors are concerned about regarding the union and the acting industry in general. And I’ve been able to hang out with old friends and make some new ones along the way.

UFS

Please remember to vote if you are a SAG-AFTRA actor and get your ballot in the mail today!

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Continuing The Birthday Fun (or Pie and Makeup)

Posted on August 13, 2015 | Comments Off on Continuing The Birthday Fun (or Pie and Makeup)

Even though my birthday had ended, I wasn’t ready to end the celebrating quite yet. I had a couple of other birthday deals I wanted to take advantage of, so I did some of them on Monday (my day off from the day job).

First on the birthday agenda was Marie Callendars for birthday pie. This has been a tradition for a while because they send you a coupon for $5 off an entree plus a free slice of pie. So I went with my friend Emily to the location that we like the most.

I hadn’t seen Emily in a while. Our schedules just haven’t been matching up and we haven’t been attending the same events lately. So it was awesome to get to see her and hear about all the adventures she’s been on lately. She’s got a new gig as a writer for the LA Kings (she’s a super fan) so that was really fun to hear about.

Emily and I both got some yummy food, but we were both saving plenty of room for the pie!

Birthday Pie

We got the chocolate satin pie (which we get every time) and the lemon cream cheese pie. They were both delicious but I was so full after eating!

I had something that I had to attend that evening in the same area as where we got lunch, so I decided to try to stick around there for the afternoon instead of going home. I went through my birthday deals that I had left, and decided to go over to Sephora for my free birthday gift!

I also picked up a few other things while I was there (I had a few things I needed but hadn’t had a chance to go to a Sephora location recently), but I was most excited for the freebie!

Birthday Sephora Gift

I don’t usually wear lipstick because I’m a lip balm addict (I use Natural Ice as my balm of choice), and if I wear lipstick I can’t put on more lip balm. But I’ve also been saying that I’d love to have a great red lipstick to wear for special occasions. So this freebie was perfect! I haven’t had a chance to wear it yet, but I’m sure I will soon. I’m not very good about putting on makeup, but I think that I can do lipstick ok (unlike eyeliner).

After my Sephora run, I had to get to my evening event so I wasn’t able to do any more of the birthday deals on my list. I don’t think I’m going to do them all this year. But there are maybe 1 or 2 more that I know that I want to take advantage of before the month (and the deals are over).

I know I’ve said this every year, but I love how I can just extend my birthday to be the entire month!

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My Birthday! (or Laundry, A Bike Ride, and Dinner!)

Posted on August 12, 2015 | 4 comments

My actual birthday was a pretty awesome day! It didn’t start off so awesome, though. Last week the dryer where I live was broken. It got fixed, but at some point during the week both the washer and dryer broke. I had no idea until I tried to do laundry on Sunday morning. So at 7:30am I put all my dirty clothes in my car and went back to the laundromat. It costs almost 4 times what it costs at my place to do laundry, but I needed clean clothes! Fortunately, I got a couple of birthday phone calls while I was there so that helped to pass the time.

After I got home with my clean clothes, it was off to the first part of my birthday adventure. CicLAvia is an event in LA where they shut down a major street (or several major streets) to non-motorized traffic only. So you can bike ride, skate, or walk without fear of being hit by a car. CicLAvia not only happened to be on my birthday this year, the street that was shut down was only blocks from my house! So even though I don’t ride my bike in traffic, I rode the few blocks in traffic to get to the street that was closed down to cars.

Bike Ride

I was hoping that I’d be able to ride with a couple of friends, but it was too difficult trying to coordinate schedules (and some friends were also still searching for bikes that they could rent). So I went off on my own for a nice bike ride.

I don’t get to ride my bike that often. Like I said, I don’t ride where there is traffic (I’m a good bike rider, but cars intimate me) and it’s not fun to have to get my bike into my car. So I know that I could ride more often if it was more convenient. There may be a new bike ride near my house in a year or two, but until then I have limited biking practice.

When I do go out on my bike, it’s usually a pretty short ride of 2 or 3 miles (getting the bike in and out of my car takes up so much time). But for this ride I decided to just ride until I started to feel a bit tired and then turn around. I forgot to turn on a tracking app on my phone when I started my ride, so I didn’t get my mileage count until I got home and could map it out.

Birthday Bike Ride

That’s the farthest I’ve ridden on my bike since I got it! My legs definitely felt it after the ride was done. But I was able to relax at home before the second part of my birthday.

I didn’t want to do a big party for my birthday because they are too stressful to organize. But I did want something different from going to a bar. So I invited a bunch of people to come out to dinner, and we had a nice little group there!

Birthday Dinner

Yes, my birthday dinner was 6 girls and 1 guy, but I don’t think he was complaining. It was a really fun dinner with lots of great conversation. And I had some really delicious food!

Food

After dinner, my friends had set it up for the waiter to bring a slice of cake with a candle in it. But we were all so full from our food that between all of us we maybe ate 1/10th of the cake slice.

Between my birthday outings, the phone calls I got, the Facebook notes, and the gifts that friends and family gave me; I had a really amazing birthday. I know that I say that every year, but it’s so true. My birthday was pretty much perfect (I wish the laundry wasn’t broken) and I have no idea on how to top it next year!

But even though the calendar says my birthday is done, I’m not done celebrating quite yet!

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Birthday Twin Dinner (or Zero Dollar Bill)

Posted on August 11, 2015 | 1 comment

As I have done for the past couple of birthdays, I joined my birthday twin Joanna at Truxton’s for our completely free birthday meal. We actually did our birthday dinner before our birthdays this year. It worked out well with our schedules, so we went for it.

Truxtons

Usually, the birthday promo is good for one free entrĂ©e and one free dessert per person. You don’t have to order anything outside of the free food to get the deal (which is unique and what makes it my favorite birthday deal), so Joanna and I have always gotten an entrĂ©e and dessert each and ended up with a zero dollar bill. But this year, they changed their promo. This time you would get $20 of free food per person. This could include entrees, desserts, appetizers, or even drinks. And there was no minimum purchase so we knew that a 100% free bill was possible still. So between the two of us, we had $40 to spend and endless options from the menu.

I had thought long and hard about what I was going to order before going to Truxton’s, but I was still undecided because I wanted to make sure that Joanna and I got a 100% free meal. We had to figure out how much we could each spend on each part of the meal. We did some calculations and figured out exactly what we would have after we figured out the appetizer and dessert we were going to split (yes, those had to be figured out first). And since my entrĂ©e was cheaper than what I was able to “spend”, Joanna got some of my extra money for her entrĂ©e. I was actually very happy with our food choices. Normally we get the 2 free desserts, but we never need both. But to be able to get an appetizer made me pretty happy.

As always the food was fabulous. We got monkey bread as our appetizer, I got the chicken dinner that I had last year as my entrĂ©e, and we got the apple tart for dessert (which we’ve actually never gotten before over the years).

Free Monkey Bread Free Entrees Free Dessert

We had a bit of a snafu when we got our bill at first. It showed that we had a bill for a couple of dollars. After figuring out that we were charged for one incorrect entrĂ©e, we got a new bill which showed that we have continued our tradition of a zero dollar bill at Truxton’s. Even though our bill was nothing, we still like to leave a big tip. The waitress we had this year was actually the same waitress that we had last year, and she remembered us as the 100% free birthday girls. The tip that we ended up leaving equal about 50% of what the bill would have been, so I think that’s pretty good.

Zero Dollar Bill

Joanna and I joked about how we need to figure out how to make this work and include drinks as part of our free $40 and Truxton’s money. It may involve not getting much food, but free drinks sounds pretty awesome. We’ve got an entire year before we have our free birthday meal again, and I’m sure will have it figured out by then. Then again, Truxton’s may change their birthday club within the next year and then we’ll have to figure it out all over again.

This was the perfect way to kick off my birthday celebrations (as always there were multiple celebrations). And tomorrow I will share with you all the fun that I had on my actual birthday!

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My Last Workouts of Being 31 (or 174 Workouts)

Posted on August 10, 2015 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts was intense for me. The workouts were harder than they have been in a while (several people said that so it’s not just me), I finally did 4 workouts again in a week after several weeks of only 3 workouts, and I pushed myself harder than ever to celebrate my last 4 workouts of being 31.

This week had a bunch of run/row days. I personally like those because I’m not a huge fan of the treadmill. So when it’s a run/row day, you don’t spend as much time as usual on the treadmill. During the run/row days, we sometimes have longer treadmill segments, but sometimes we have sprints. And on Monday we had sprint segments. Those short segments were perfect for me to test out if I could bump up the speed a bit more on the treadmill.

I was able to do several of those run segments at 3.8 and 3.9 miles an hour. And for one I did it at 4.0 miles an hour, but that was starting to hurt me and make my heart rate up too high so I brought it down a bit. I’m still struggling with increasing my base pace, but it’s nice to know that I’m able to get sprints in a bit. I think that since 4.0 seems to be too fast for me (at least for now), I really want to try to focus on stepping up my base pace. That is important for me to do in order to increase my 5K time. I’ve got about 3 months before my next race, so I’m feeling like it’s time to get more into training mode.

Besides progress on the treadmill, I finally was able to make some improvements with my strength workout! I know I’ve been talking about hoping to do that for awhile, I just was too scared to do it. I’m still using the same weights for many of my strength exercises, but I’m definitely experimenting a bit with the heavier weights. I finally had a chance to use the heavier ones on Saturday. We had a strength block were all the exercises were 6 reps each. That’s nothing. Especially when in the block before it there were 20 reps each. So since the rep count was so low, I knew that this was my chance to work with the heavier weights.

For my pullovers (when you lay on the weight bench with your arms behind you and pull your arms up toward your stomach) I usually was using 15 pound weights. But we were encouraged to go for it and see what we could do. I went for 25 pound weights. It was tough and my arms were shaking, but I did it! I wasn’t able to do the bicep curls with the 25 pound weight, but just doing it for the pullovers was better than nothing.

And finally, this week I did my last workouts of being 31. I celebrated turning 31 at Orangetheory last year. That was at the beginning of my Orangetheory journey. I added up how many workouts I did between that birthday and this birthday. And as you can guess from the title of this post, I did 174 workouts. I was shocked by that number. I had set a goal of doing 175 workouts in 2015. That goal was set after my birthday (obviously since my birthday is in August and I set that goal in January). So the first few months of the last year of workouts was before that goal was set, and therefore before I really starting tracking my workouts. Even without tracking for those few months, I still was only 1 workout away from what I now have as my 2015 goal. That makes me think that maybe my goal was set too low.

I think that those 174 workouts were amazing. I think I’ve made some serious progress in my fitness and I think that others are able to see it as well. I’m seriously so beyond grateful that I found my workout home at Orangetheory. I love that the people who work there are awesome and that they care about the people who work out there (and not just because they are paid to).

Orangetheory Birthday

 

So that’s the end of my workouts as a 31-year-old. Now to see what great things I can accomplish in my workouts as a 32-year-old!

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Goodbye 31 (or Hello 32!)

Posted on August 7, 2015 | Comments Off on Goodbye 31 (or Hello 32!)

First of all, this is my 800th blog post! That’s so crazy! I feel like I need to start planning something amazing to do for my 1000th post now!

Anyway, back to today’s post!

This weekend is my birthday! As you know I look forward to my birthday every year. I enjoy all the freebies that I can, and I get to see so many of my friends over my birthday adventures.

This is always a busy time for celebrations for my family. Not only is it my birthday on Sunday, it is my cousin’s birthday and my parents’ anniversary today! I like having all these celebrations at the same time. Sometimes being at the tail end of all the celebrations isn’t fun, but that’s ok. The best time with the celebrations back to back was when my entire family traveled to Africa for my grandparents’ 50th anniversary. While we were in Africa, we celebrated my cousin’s birthday, my parents’ anniversary, and my birthday. That birthday is still one of the most memorable ones for me (and not just because I had the worst food poisoning of my life the night before my birthday).

Africa Birthday

I know many people my age hate getting older, but it doesn’t bother me at all. Maybe that’s because I don’t look my age, or maybe that’s because in the acting world I play younger than my real age. In fact, there are times that I forget my real age and only remember my acting age. That always makes for an awkward moment when I’m having to think about how old I am.

Getting older doesn’t scare me at all either. I’m not in the place I thought I would be when I’m 32, but I also never knew I could be in the place that I am in right now either. I have a really amazing life. I have really amazing friends who love and support me 100%. I am living in my dream city and working on making my dream career come true. I always thought by the time I was 30 that I would be married and have kids. By 32 I figured I’d be living a stay-at-home mom life and maybe still pursuing acting.. I still have the dream of getting married and having kids, but I don’t feel the same time crunch that I imagined in my 20’s.

Turning 32 isn’t a milestone birthday. But whenever I try to do things for milestone birthdays, they’ve never happen the way that I wanted them to. I remember my 21st birthday, I was supposed to have a ton of friends come meet me at a restaurant so we could celebrate my first legal drink. Throughout the day, friends were contacting me saying that something came up or there was a family emergency. I didn’t feel like I was being bailed on, most of these people had real conflicts and it didn’t help that I had done the planning at the last-minute. In the end it was me and two friends celebrating that first legal drink. But I wouldn’t change a thing about it. It also stands out in my mind how the morning after my 21st birthday, I had to be at work at 7 AM. So there was not a lot of drinking to be done that night. So I don’t see the point in trying to make milestone birthdays special (unless I’m not planning it).

I wrote about my 30th birthday on the blog. While it was a milestone birthday, it was still a relatively low-key birthday celebration. For some reason, turning 31 seemed like a much bigger deal than turning 30. Turning 32 feels more like turning 30 but it did turning 31.

I’ve got lots of fun things planned for my birthday this year. I’ll be sharing them over the next couple of blog posts. I’m doing things a little bit more low-key this year than I have in the past, but that’s exactly how I want them to be.

I’m going into my 32nd year a much stronger, confident, happier person than I was before. This is exactly how I want to start my 32nd birthday. While I’ve had struggles and challenges this past year, I wouldn’t change one thing. Each of the struggles has improved me. While I would like to believe that I would still be the same way even without these challenges, I know that without them I never would have been able to build myself to be the way that I am.

So here’s the last few days of being 31! And here’s to making 32 my most amazing year ever!

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Needing To Get Back Into The Kitchen (or Can I Blame The Heat?)

Posted on August 6, 2015 | Comments Off on Needing To Get Back Into The Kitchen (or Can I Blame The Heat?)

I’ve gotten pretty bad about making my own meals lately. Part of it is because of the heat, part of it has been a laziness thing (I’m embarrassed to admit that). The heat doesn’t look like it will be getting much better anytime soon, so I do need to look up some alternative solutions. I know that eating frozen and already prepared meals is not the answer.

So many of the things I know how to cook do require either the stove or the oven, so I know I don’t want to do those. I’m not a big salad person, but I’m trying to remember some of the salads that I liked to make during the cleanse so I can make those for my meals. I’m also looking at some alternative kitchen gadgets that can help me make healthy meals without having to use any heat appliances.

I recently purchased a spiralizer, which can help me turn vegetables like zucchini and carrots into pasta-like strips. This is very new purchase so I have not had a chance to use it yet. But it didn’t come with a free cookbook and I’m starting to get excited about some of the recipes inside there.

I’ve also been looking at some free cookbook downloads. I don’t have the money to spend on cookbooks right now, so these downloaded cookbooks are really great option for me. I’ve found quite a few of them and I’m keeping them on my computer desktop instead of printing them (maybe I’ll print one or two recipes, but I don’t want to print the entire book).

Cookbook Downloads

I think part of the reason I haven’t been cooking for a while is I feel like I’ve lost some of my inspiration I had in the kitchen. I enjoyed cooking when I was doing it. But now that I’ve stopped, it feels hard to start up again. It’s like workouts. When I was in a groove before, everything was fine. But when I took a break, I always found it very difficult to get back to a regular workout schedule. This may be one of the reasons I’m so scared to do fewer than three workouts a week at Orangetheory. I don’t want to lose the momentum that I’ve worked so hard to get.

Even with the heat making me lazy, I’m still trying to make the best choices that I can even with using frozen foods. I’m not getting the usual low-calorie frozen foods I used to get. There are so many chemicals and things I don’t want to eat in those. I’m focusing on the all-natural frozen foods that I can get at the grocery store (I like Amy’s), mainly those that have ingredients that I can pronounce. That seems to be a guideline that many health websites seem to use for which frozen meals are ok to have.

The one thing that I haven’t slipped back into doing is getting delivery food as often as I have in the past. There are those rare times that I realize that I haven’t eaten in a while, my fridge is a bit empty, and I need to get some dinner. And I don’t want to go to the grocery store with at empty stomach because then I will buy everything I see. In those circumstances, it’s almost safer for me to get delivery food than it is for me to go to the grocery store. But those situations are becoming less and less frequent because I’m getting better about going to the grocery store on the regular and finding things that are good choices to keep in my house.

I hate using the heat as an excuse, but that really does feel like the thing that is the setback for me. I want to believe that when it cools down, I’m going to get back into my routine of cooking at home. But I also know that it’s possible to get into the habit of not cooking at home again. That’s what I’m trying to prevent now.

Hopefully I can break out of my cooking rut (again) and get back on track with preparing my own food and eating as healthy as I can.

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Recovering From A Bad Day (or Making Sure I Fill In My Checklist)

Posted on August 5, 2015 | Comments Off on Recovering From A Bad Day (or Making Sure I Fill In My Checklist)

After my bad day, I knew that I would have to wake up the next morning with a better attitude. I didn’t want a bad day to turn into a bad week. In the past, I would just try to do random stuff to cheer me up. But now, I have a record of things that make me happy.

So my Monday was focused on my checklist and seeing what I could get done. I have never gotten all 10 items in a single day, nor do I think that that is really possible, but I wanted to get a bunch off.

My day started with a workout. Even though workouts aren’t my favorite thing in the world, that is a great start to a day. Between the workout and marching in place while watching tv, I managed to get my 10,000 steps in for the day.

After my workout, I had some time to kill at my house. I wrote a blog post for one of the blogs I freelance on. Since it was so hot in my house I took advantage of the speech to text feature on my phone and wrote the post in bed in front of a fan. So that was much better than typing at a hot computer (this post is typed at my computer, but I’m going to start taking advantage of the speech to text feature more often!). Getting blog work done always makes me happy because I’m always stressed about what I will write about. Fortunately I had some inspiration for that article.

After writing I read for a long while. I just finished one book and had fun choosing what I would read next. So of course I got sucked into my book and read probably longer than I should have.

My evening ended with meeting up with a friend and going to see “Ant Man”. We had been meaning to see it for a while, and we finally both had some time free. I go see comic book movies with this friend because he knows everything about the comic book world and was able to explain things I didn’t get after the movie. I really enjoyed the movie, even more than I expected! The only thing that bugged me was I knew that I knew the actor who played the bad guy from somewhere. I didn’t want to be an annoying theater patron so I didn’t try to slyly look it up on my phone. As soon as the credits came up, I looked and realized I knew him from a Lifetime movie! Super random.

Overall, it was a pretty great day. I checked 7 things off of my happiness checklist which I think is pretty amazing. And I really got out of my bad day funk. Things from that day are getting better. My schedule is back on track, I’m sleeping better, and the new chain for my necklace should be delivered in a day or two.

I guess you really do have to just accept sometimes that a day might suck but know that the next one doesn’t have to.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

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Just A Bad Day (or This Time It Wasn’t A Bad Hour)

Posted on August 4, 2015 | 3 comments

I wrote just the other day about my panic/gallbladder attack that made me have a really bad hour in what was otherwise a relatively good day. That wasn’t so bad. But this past Sunday, I just had a bad day. And instead of trying to feel better (and in turn then feeling worse because it wasn’t getting better), I just let the bad day play out.

The bad day actually starting with my sleep. I had a horrible night sleeping. It was a combination of the heat and having some heartburn issues (those are rare) so I kept waking up and staying awake for a long time. Over the course of the night, I think I got about 4 hours of sleep. I usually need between 6-7 to feel rested.

Not only did I have a bad night sleeping, I overslept because I was so tired in the morning that I didn’t hear my multiple alarms going off (or I managed to turn them off in my sleep). I ended up oversleeping about 3 hours so the start of my day ended up being rushed.

If I wasn’t rushing around enough that morning, I had a major delay with my first chore I was trying to get done. I have laundry on-site where I live. We have one washer and one dryer and while they do break down from time to time, it’s usually pretty obvious when they aren’t working (like they don’t turn on). I did my load of laundry and when I got it out of the dryer, the dryer had been turning but there was no heat or warmth. So my clothes were just slightly less wet but they were still cold and wet.

I wasn’t going to waste more money in a broken dryer so I put a note on it for my neighbors to see and threw all my wet clothes in my car and drove to a laundromat that is in a strip mall near my house.

Laundry

I paid again to dry my clothes but instead of being able to do other things while my clothes dried, I was stuck there watching. I did have a book with me so I did read. But I felt like my time was almost wasted.

The reason I was rushing around so much was because I had to work that evening. I got my clothes dried and dressed into work clothes in time to drive to work. I was prepared for another long shift so I had my book and was looking forward to getting paid for reading (the best thing ever!).

Only to find out that my shift was going to be less than 4 hours instead of 6 hours like I thought it would be. Yes, it was good I wouldn’t have to be there as late. But I really could have used the extra money and if I had known I would be done so early I might have tried to make some plans for the evening.

Then toward the end of my work shift, I felt my necklace slide down my neck. I caught it only to discover that the chain had broken toward the middle.

Broken Chain

I couldn’t find a broken link (I’m now thinking that maybe one link totally broke and fell to the floor) and there was no way to put it back on. So I put the chain and the charm in my wallet and continued on with my work shift (although my neck felt naked from then on).

After my shift ended, I went home to end my day. Honestly, this day kind of stunk for me from beginning to end. I know I try to always think positively, but sometimes you just have to realize that you are going to have to suffer through the day and hope that the next day is better (it was). I still tried to get things done even though I felt like the world was against me. And while it wasn’t my most productive day, I still did what I needed to do. I just didn’t get everything done.

I hate having a bad day and not being able to reduce it to a bad hour or bad morning. But I have to know those days do pass and it will be back to normal happy days quickly.

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Posted in Tough Stuff

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