Monthly Archives: March 2016

Grownup Dinner (or Seeing A Gym Friend Outside Of The Gym)

Posted on March 17, 2016 | 1 comment

Even though several of my plans over the weekend had ended up not happening, the one thing that didn’t get rescheduled was my dinner on Monday evening. I had dinner plans to hang out with my friend Dani.

Dani and I pretty much see each other every week at Orangetheory, but it’s not that often that we see each other outside of workouts. We see each other for our Pantages shows (although she didn’t come with me to “The Illusionists”) and we also sometimes hang out like at her birthday party or at the Disney musical show. But usually our hangouts are at the gym and we catch up on life before class starts.

So when Dani asked me if I wanted to get dinner with her on Monday night, I was super excited to get to hang out with her! She suggested a restaurant in downtown Culver City and it worked perfectly for me. Downtown Culver City is only a few blocks from my house. And since the clocks changed it was still pretty light out when I was leaving for dinner at 7pm. So I took advantage of the late sunlight and walked to dinner.

Walking In Culver City

I don’t walk to restaurants in downtown Culver City too often because I don’t walk home at night alone. But Dani said she could drive me home after dinner, so I was able to walk there (and get in a bunch of steps for the day).

We met for dinner at Akasha. I had been there before, but I hadn’t been there in a long time so I was excited to go again. When we got there, we went to the hostess stand to get a table and found out that since we didn’t make a reservation it was going to be over an hour wait! I couldn’t believe it because it was a Monday and so many tables in the restaurant were empty. But since we didn’t want to wait that long we found seats at the bar to eat there (the entire menu is available at the bar so that’s good).

As soon as we got our seats at the bar, the first order of business was ordering drinks. I don’t drink that often (I can’t because of taking Vyvanse), but I can have a couple of drinks a month if I want to. I haven’t had a drink in a while, so I figured that getting a glass of prosecco would be nice (I ended up only being able to drink about half of the glass). Dani and I kept joking that this was a grownup dinner since we were in normal clothes and not gross and sweaty after a workout. It was a nice change of things.

The conversation was pretty awesome. Dani has a really cool trip coming up so she was telling me all about it and I was sharing with her how nice it was to have a lazy weekend the past weekend (sadly, I didn’t have too much to share since I hadn’t really done much lately). There was also a guy also sitting at the bar who looked really familiar to Dani so we spent a little bit of time trying to figure out if he was on a tv show or something.

As far as dinner goes, I’m still trying to eat healthy so I ordered a bit differently than I probably would have in the past. I got a salad and a small plate (I think it might technically have been an appetizer but it was the perfect size for me). That isn’t that different from what I would get most of the time, but the salad was me testing out a food I don’t like: kale.

I know that kale is super hip right now and everyone seems to be eating it, but I don’t. When I was a kid, my family had a pet lizard who ate kale. Back then it wasn’t something that most people ate (I’m guessing it was super cheap because of that) and I only saw kale as lizard food. I really believed that until a few years ago nobody ate kale. But once it became super popular I tried it and didn’t really like it.

I have a rule that if there is a food that I claim to hate that I have to try it at least twice a year. I do make my best effort to try the foods I don’t like that often but I know that it doesn’t always happen. The only food that I have decided I don’t have to try again is pineapple. I tried it the last time in Hawaii and I still hated it. Even though I love my Dole Whips, I hate pineapple. So I don’t try that again anymore. But since kale has still been on my hated food list, when I saw it on the menu as a kale caesar salad, I figured I’d try it.

Kale Salad

Honestly, I think the reason I liked it was because of the dressing and not the kale. But I still ate most of it and did enjoy it! So now I know that if kale is prepared with other flavors I love, I might like it. Good for me to know!

My dinner was the small plate of potato gnocchi with mushrooms. It was pretty small (especially compared to Dani’s dinner with was a giant plate of awesome food), but it was tasty and just enough food for me.

Dinner

We were hoping to go on a quick shopping adventure after dinner, but since there was a line to get out of the parking structure we ended up skipping it. But I know that the shopping adventure will be happening in the near future.

It does feel like a bit of a luxury to go out for dinner with a friend like this. Normally going out for dinner is Chipotle or Lyfe Kitchen (ironically I had a dinner with a friend at Lyfe Kitchen the next day). There’s nothing wrong with those places, but they are not nearly as nice as a sit down dinner where you have to spend more than $20 to eat. It’s not something that I can do that often, but it’s not unreasonable to do as a treat. It does feel really grownup to do that since most of the times I go out for a nice dinner I’m with my family. It’s just not something I get to do with a friend normally.

But after splurging on going out to dinner with Dani, I realize that treating myself like that every once in a while is totally worth it. Yet another thing to work on planning into my schedule to make my life the best it can be.

1 Comment

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged dinner, food, friends

Lack Of Plans (or A Lazy Weekend)

Posted on March 16, 2016 | 1 comment

Before this past weekend started, I had so many things scheduled to do. I had several hangouts scheduled with friends (some which were also going out to eat hangouts), meeting with people who I’m thinking about working on projects with, and doing the regular weekend chores like laundry and getting groceries. While I wasn’t over booking myself, I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed with everything that I was going to get done Saturday-Monday (I consider Monday part of my weekend since my days off are Sunday and Monday).

Then slowly, my plans started to get cancelled. If you are one of my friends I was supposed to meet with, don’t feel bad at all. Honestly, as my schedule got more and more open I started to relax. I don’t know why the plans were stressing me out, but clearly I needed a weekend to myself.

Saturday ended up being the only day that seemed busy. I had my usual work schedule and then as soon as I was done at 11am I got into my car and headed to my friend Erin’s house. Erin cut and colored my hair (I really needed it since it hadn’t been done since before Thanksgiving!) and I felt nice and refreshed. I originally was going to watch her kids so she and her husband could have a date night, but Erin was getting over the flu so she wasn’t going out that night. But she did have some errands to run so I watched her kids for about an hour so she could do some kid-free shopping.

Usually when I’m watching her kids, it’s late so we just do dinner, watch a movie, and the kids go to bed. But since this was the afternoon we decided to do some fun activities. Erin’s daughter is super into science experiments, so we decided to do a search on YouTube for kid science things. I had no clue there were so many videos on easy to do science projects! We did a couple of projects (some successfully and some not-so-successfully) and before we knew it Erin was home again and I headed back home.

Even though I was babysitting and driving back and forth to Erin’s house, it really didn’t feel like I was doing much. During my drive I listen to my podcasts and babysitting Erin’s kids is usually pretty easy (and they were so into those videos online that they didn’t even care that I was there).

After leaving Erin’s house, I headed back home and got some of my errands done and then just relaxed at home. And that’s pretty much how I spent Sunday too. I did the chores I needed to do, but most of the time I was just being lazy at home doing very little stuff. I did a lot of reading and watched a movie at home, but that’s not really that productive.

Monday (the end of my weekend) was a bit busier with a workout, a drive down to Anaheim to do some shopping, and I had plans that evening. But it still felt like I was being selfish by doing only what I wanted to do.

Even though my weekends aren’t too busy, it felt nice to have a really lazy weekend. I got to decompress a bit and get things in order the way I wanted to. I worked on some organizing work that I had been meaning to do and didn’t worry about how long I was spending on them. It really was the perfect way to spend the time after plans were cancelled.

I do need to remember to schedule time for myself from time to time. I think I feel like I do that because I work from home and spend many evenings at home after my workouts. But when I’m working my focus is on work and after my workouts I’m usually showering, eating dinner, and then spend a little time getting ready for the next day before going to bed. So that time isn’t always spent doing what I want to do. I think if I had one day a month where I had nothing I had to do and could just spend it being focused on me, that would be perfect.

Of course, I need to schedule that day into my calendar otherwise I wouldn’t remember to do it.

1 Comment

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged scheduling, weekend

Remembering My Time At Slimmons (or I’m Glad Richard Simmons Is Ok)

Posted on March 15, 2016 | 2 comments

I haven’t really talked too much about what workouts I did before I started this blog. So I pretty much only have talked about my races, SoulCycle, and Orangetheory. But I had done workouts before those. I used to belong to a couple of different gyms around LA. At one of them, I had a personal trainer so that was what got me to the gym (it’s also why I think I connected with Orangetheory so much). At the other gym, I just had a membership and I would go and do some cardio, but nothing special. But there was one other workout place that was special to me in my past.

Back in 2008 when I met my friend Alex, she was telling me about her favorite workout in LA. And that place happened to be Slimmons Studio, the fitness Studio that Richard Simmons started. It sounded cool to me on its own, but then I found out that you get to work out with Richard himself! So soon after Alex and I met, I joined her for a workout at Slimmons with Richard.

It wasn’t an easy class, but I didn’t feel awkward or weird at all. Richard was so great about offering modifications for all fitness levels and abilities. I had so much fun in the class listening to Richard be ridiculous and yelling at us. The music was great and everyone in class had fun.

The class was $12, but I got a membership for $50 that let me go to classes for only $10. I wasn’t going super regularly, but I tried to go once a week to class. Richard was teaching on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday (with Saturday being the most crowded), so I usually could find a night that fit into my schedule. And when Richard wasn’t there teaching, one of his other teachers would teach and they were just as amazing as he was.

Besides having my friend Alex in class with me, I started making friends because I would see the same people each week. One of my current bosses (who was also my boss at another job) is someone I met at Slimmons. In fact, I started working for her because after class I had mentioned I was looking for work. The company she was with then had an opening, I got an interview, and then I got a job! I even met a blogger who had lost 150 pounds when he recorded a video in class for the Ellen DeGeneres show (yes, you can see me in the background in the video).

And once I started sharing online that I was working out with Richard Simmons each week, my friends wanted to come with me.

Richard Simmons Justin's Birthday

I even convinced my parents to come to a class. My dad came with me alone first. I don’t think he believed me when I said it could be a tough class, but he’s not really a dance person. So he had to focus a ton on the choreography and I think he believed me afterward that it’s not a joke class. After my dad came with me, the next time my parents were in town we convinced my mom to come too. My parents were talking with Richard after class when my mom mentioned that our dog, Dante, was waiting in the car for us. As soon as Richard heard we had a dog, he made my mom go out to get him so he could meet Dante.

Richard Simmons With Mom and Dante

I did stop working out with Richard Simmons shortly after that photo with Dante was taken. It had nothing to do with the workout, but someone happened that upset me. The basic details was I was told that I won a scholarship to work out at Slimmons and when I tried to claim my prize, I was told I didn’t win it. That was before my parents were in class with me. Then when my parents were in class, Richard said something about how I wasn’t taking advantage of the scholarship he had given me. I told him that there must have been a misunderstanding because I was told I didn’t get it. Then I called the next day to find out about the scholarship and was told that I didn’t win it and would have to keep paying for class. It’s not a big deal, but I was upset and didn’t really feel like going back.

While I wasn’t in class regularly, I always saw updates from my friends about Richard and the antics from his class. And then I started seeing posts about how he hadn’t been teaching lately. Then I saw posts about how nobody had really heard from him in a while. People assumed that he was dealing with health issues and would eventually appear again, but eventually over 2 years had passed and nobody had really seen him.

Even though I had been hurt by what happened, I was hoping that Richard would make an epic return to Slimmons and he would be ok. Then this past weekend an article came out claiming that Richard was being held hostage by his housekeeper. People who knew Richard well were saying how this was very unlikely and the person claiming this story was also trying to promote an e-book, so it seemed like maybe he just wanted publicity.

Fortunately, Richard did do a phone interview yesterday saying that he’s fine and not being held hostage. He didn’t really sound like the same Richard to me. He seemed very subdued and not as vibrant as he was in class. But he didn’t sound in distress or in harm. So I’m thinking that maybe he took a break from teaching 3 days a week (and usually traveling and teaching the other 4 days a week) and needed some time to himself. He might be enjoying the calm or using it to recover from something, but there’s nothing wrong with that.

I know that so many people had their lives changed by Richards Simmons. Lots of friends lost weight, regained confidence, and improved their lives by meeting with him and going to his class. Even though I had my negative experience the last time I was there, I benefitted a lot from him too. From making friends to finding a day job, from feeling like I can work out at any size to trying to do a regular fitness routine; all of these things were made possible because of my time at Richard’s class.

I do hope that he will return to teaching in the future. I have a bunch of friends who want to check out the class and I want to go back too because I want to see how I do with all the training I’ve been doing at Orangetheory. I bet I’ll be stronger than I was last time (but I might not do as well with the choreography). Hopefully I’ll have the chance to take his class again one day, but for now I’m just glad that he did that interview to prove that he’s ok.

2 Comments

Posted in Fitness

Tagged fitness, friends, Orangetheory, SoulCycle, workout

Reaching New Goals (or Time To Go All Out)

Posted on March 14, 2016 | 1 comment

I had a pretty intense week of workouts. I had thought I might try to do 4 workouts this week (it’s been a while since I’ve done that), but now I’m so glad that I kept it at 3. But I know that I need to do another 4 workout week soon in order to reach my goals. But these 3 workouts totally felt like I did at least 4.

Monday was a tough day for me starting out. I was exhausted and in a lot of pain from when I woke up that morning. I tried to stretch as much as I could before class, but when you are going to an 8:30am class, there isn’t a ton of time to get ready before the workout. So I went into class hoping it wouldn’t be too tough and planned to do my best.

This class was insane! We had 9 all out segments between the 2 treadmill blocks. In a typical treadmill block, I’d say we would usually have maybe 2-3 all outs. But to have 4 all outs in one block and 5 in the other was a lot! And for all of these all outs, I did do my typically all out speed/incline (3.6 mph at 8% incline). The good thing was all the all outs were short enough that it wasn’t too horrible, but I could really feel the work I did later that day. Despite being tired and in pain, I didn’t let that stop me from working really hard on the floor work too. I was using my heavy weights and not doing too badly at it.

Wednesday was a crazy class, but I only have myself to blame. I found out before class started that it was going to be a 7 minute challenge day. Basically you have 7 minutes to go as far as you can on the treadmill. You do your own speed and incline settings and it’s just a personal distance challenge. I keep photos of my records on my phone (it’s the easiest way to remember them), and I thought that my previous 7 minute challenge distance was .424 miles. So I was determined to beat that. And when I looked at the treadmill after my first attempt, I was pretty frustrated.

Attempt 1

We had a short block between the 2 7 minute challenges so I tried to not let my first attempt get me down. I went even faster on my next attempt, spending 5 of those 7 minutes at 3.6 miles an hour and was so happy when the 7 minutes were done.

Attempt 2

I was so happy that I got a new PR! And when I looked at my phone to delete my old PR photo, I realized that I had remembered my old PR wrong. My old PR was .421 miles, not .424. So I beat my PR both times. Not only that, my old PR was a .007 increase over my old one and this time I had a .008 increase. I know it’s not a lot, but that’s improvement to me!

After the 2 7 minute challenges, I was so tired. Thankfully, most of the floor work was abs so I was able to relax a bit while doing it. I wasn’t trying for any other records after my new PR, so I didn’t push myself too much on the floor work.

On Friday, I was still on a high from my new 7 minute challenge PR. That helped because we had to do 30 minutes straight on the treadmill and we had a lot of all outs. All the blocks seemed to be 3.5 or 4 minutes and thankfully we had walking recovery time between each block. With all the short blocks, the treadmill block actually felt shorter than the 30 minutes usually feels. But even with it feeling shorter, I was still so tired by the time the treadmill was done.

On the floor on Friday, we had a lot of rowing, TRX strap work, and planks. I’m definitely getting some balance improvement with my TRX strap work (I can occasional do work where we have to balance on 1 leg). My planks are a struggle because it’s still a bit painful in my calf to do the work on my toes. So I’m usually doing plank work on my knees, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

Just typing out all of the things I did in my workouts this week is making me tired! I was telling a friend that I swear the classes feel harder now than they did when I was starting (with the exception of my first class that made my quads hurt so badly). I’m sure that this isn’t true. But I’m also not used to trying harder and to improve in my workouts the way I am now. In other classes, it’s so easy to just keep doing things at the same effort that you always have. Nobody really notices and you don’t worry about it.

But now, I have my heart rate monitor keeping me on track, my coaches knowing what I’ve done in the past and pushing me to do more, and finally being motivated myself to want to see how much better/faster/stronger I can get. It’s no longer a big deal that I’m maintaining a regular workout routine, it’s that I’m really improving and not just using it to try to lose weight.

1 Comment

Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged challenge, Orangetheory, progress, strength, strong, workout

Cooking Routine (or Adding Flavor)

Posted on March 11, 2016 | Comments Off

I’m working really hard at cooking more at home. With my challenge for this month being no delivery food, I must have better options in my house to eat so I don’t fail at the challenge.

I think what I really struggled with in the past was the sheer number of options for foods to make. I have dozens of cookbooks (I recently gave some away so I think it might just be under 2 dozen cookbooks now) and all of them have lots of recipes that seem super delicious and I know I could probably make them. I’m a good cook and I can follow a recipe, so I don’t worry too much about not being able to make something (although I do worry about something not tasting good if I make it).

I think the other problem with a majority of the recipes in the cookbooks are the number of ingredients that a recipe requires. Maybe if I had a huge kitchen I’d keep a ton of ingredients on hand to be able to make anything with very little grocery shopping required, but that’s not my situation. My kitchen is a small but functional and I don’t have much storage or counter space. So I have to keep things limited that I store. So many of the recipes seem like I would have to fill an entire grocery cart with the ingredients just for that meal. That’s expensive, that’s a lot of stuff to store, and chances are most of it would spoil before I used it up.

So a lot of the things I’ve been making in the past have been pretty plain. I do a lot of the same veggie bowls that I made a year ago on the cleanse I did. Even though the meatloaf I make is a bit fancier, it’s still not a ton of ingredients and it’s really easy to put together. I keep lots of things that are easy to make (like turkey burgers and veggies) in my freezer so it’s not too difficult to put together a basic dinner. And I’m glad that this is a habit that I’m still sticking with.

But I’m still looking to bring more variety into my cooking because even though basic foods can be healthy, they can be boring. And I know that if I get bored with something I won’t keep eating it (that’s why I stopped making veggie bowls for so long). So I’m working on easy ways to add variety to the flavor of my foods but don’t require too much effort or shopping.

This past week I had a couple of different meals that worked out really well. Toward the beginning of the week, I made a turkey burger for dinner (which to me is perfect just plain on its own). But I knew I’d want a good side dish to go with it. I had picked up some broccoli because I figured I’d make broccoli at some point, so I figured this was as good of a time as any. I steamed the florets in the microwave and then put those into a bowl to cool a bit. Then I browned some butter in the microwave (it’s a bit messy, but the flavor is totally worth it) and after that was done added some fresh lemon juice to it. My mom does this to broccoli all the time and it’s one of my favorites. And it made a delicious and nice looking dinner that night.

Turkey Burger

Next time I’ll make more of it because I ate so much of it and I need to do some adjustments to the flavor of the sauce (I needed more lemon), but it was really good and reminded me how good healthy food is.

Then on Wednesday night after my workout I knew I needed to cook dinner. I used to hate cooking dinner on workout nights, but I’m starting to be ok with it. In the past, I might microwave a dinner or get delivery after a workout because I was tired. But honestly it’s not that much harder for me to cook (I know, everyone has been telling me this for years but I didn’t believe it) and as long as I have things in my kitchen that are easy enough to put together I can get it done really quickly.

One thing that I’m a bit obsessed with right now are smashed potatoes. I use baby potatoes and cook them for a few minutes in the microwave. Then I smash them down with a paper towel and bake them until they are super crispy. I usually use my oven to bake them in, but on Wednesday I wasn’t using my oven for anything else. So I tried making them in my toaster oven. And to add some flavoring to them, I tried this new seasoning grinder I got at Trader Joes.

Garlic Salt

While the potatoes were baking, I cooked up some chicken sausages and thankfully I timed things out pretty well because the potatoes were done pretty soon after the chicken was. While I’ve made these potatoes a lot lately, adding this new garlic salt seasoning really made a huge difference and made them so good! I’m thinking maybe I’ll try this seasoning on some chicken next week.

While I’m super happy that I’m still keeping up with cooking at home and that I’m taking more chances and finding more things I enjoy making, I’m still worried that this is a phase and I will go back to my old ways. Maybe being cautiously optimistic is better than feeling overly confident that I’ve changed and will never go back to how I was before. I really want to keep making steps toward a healthier (and cheaper) life and I know that cooking is a huge part of that. Hopefully I’m able to keep this up.

Comments Off on Cooking Routine (or Adding Flavor)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health

Tagged cooking, dinner, food, health issues, meal planning, meals

Being Proactive (or Bringing Acting To Me)

Posted on March 10, 2016 | Comments Off

It’s really tough as an actor when you feel l like you aren’t making any momentum in your career. I haven’t had an audition in a while and that’s a bit frustrating. Right now there are no improv classes at a time that works for me, so I can’t enroll in the next level of classes. I’m not really losing weight so I don’t need new headshots or other things like that. And there’s not too much I can do about those things.

I know that so many people say that actors should focus on creating their own roles and projects, but I’m not a writer. I can write on here and on other blogs, but it doesn’t translate to writing a script. I’ve tried writing even little sketches and even those are difficult for me and I get really annoyed I can’t translate what I want to say to paper.

But I’m lucky that I’ve got several friends who are writer types and want to collaborate with me. And over the past week I’ve been able to find time to meet with a couple of them and now I finally feel like I’m moving forward again

I hate that I have to be really discrete on these projects, but they are all in the super early stages so I don’t want to say too much. I’m not trying to be cool by not sharing things.

With one of my friends, she and I are working together on a non-acting idea. We’ve got an idea for an event we want to do that is somewhat entertainment industry related, but it’s not an acting thing. We came up with this idea super randomly and it snowballed from there. We are coming up with plans and logistics and I really think that this could be something really cool and easy to accomplish this year if we get the right people working with us. Even though it’s not acting specific, because it’s something that seems fun to me it still activates the same creativity side of my brain. She and I are also talking about how we should work on an acting project together, but that’s not the first priority right now.

I also met with a writer friend of mine recently. She and I have discussed doing a project with a bunch of friends in the past and I think that we can finally start working on that idea more. We don’t have an idea for a script or characters, but I think this would be the type of project that we need to be inspired to do and not just write it because we want to write something. Hopefully something soon will inspire us and we will have something fun to work on together this year.

And finally I’ve got a friend who is a writer and just wrote us a short film. He and I had talked on the phone and I guess he got inspired to write a 2 person short film and had me in mind for the other character (he wrote it for me so there are aspects of it that fit me perfectly). He sent me the script as soon as he wrote and I read it, loved it, and emailed him back with a couple of notes. He sent me another version and we decided to meet up to work on it together.

We met on Tuesday after work and discussed ideas and plans for the short film (I’m always a “think big” person so I’ve got big ideas for it). There are a couple of things in the script that could be changed to make a bit more sense (they are all minor things) and we came up with some really funny ideas for the beginning and end of the film to make it a more well-rounded script that would be a great showcase piece for both of us as actors and for him as a writer. If he and I could find a crew to help us shoot this short, I think we could have it done and edited by the summer to share with everyone.

It’s so nice that I’ve been able to have so many friends who are self-motivated like I am but are in the parts of the industry that I’m not so great at. If I had to write my own projects, it would never happen. I would be endlessly frustrated and never finish anything. Or I would just make little improv-based movies which can be fun, but they aren’t always that great without a decent outline to keep the plot on track. Having friends who are strong where I am weak and want to collaborate really is awesome.

I’m hoping that by the end of 2016, whether or not I have another audition, that I’ll have at least 2 projects that I’ve been in this year. It’s totally possible, but I need to just focus on who I know who can work with me and not the fact that I can’t write. If I focus on the positives and work on creating work with others, there’s no reason why I can’t have new credits to my name this year.

Comments Off on Being Proactive (or Bringing Acting To Me)

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged acting, film, friends, inspiration, work, writer

A Night Of Magic (or Not Quite A Musical)

Posted on March 9, 2016 | Comments Off

Even though I got a really great Black Friday deal on tickets for the Pantages (and already got my 2016-2017 season tickets), I’m always on the lookout for good deals for shows I don’t have tickets for. It’s so funny that I’m seeing so many shows now since before my season tickets last season for Pantages I hadn’t been there since I moved to LA in August 2001. It’s almost like I’m making up for lost time. I’m not able to see everything I want because of money issues, but fortunately lots of shows do random deals and my season tickets were a bit cheaper than expected so I had a little extra money.

Most of the runs at the Pantages are longish runs. Some shows are there for a couple of weeks, and some shows are there for a few months (when “Hamilton” is here next year, they will be here for 5 months). But sometimes they have shows that are here for a week or two and they can be tough to get into because there aren’t as many shows to go to.

I had seen that one of the short runs at the Pantages this year is a show called “The Illusionists”, which is a magic show that was on Broadway. The show is with 7 different magicians each with a different speciality or theme. I love magic (I’m hoping to get back to the Magic Castle soon!), but my friend Dani who did the Black Friday deal with me didn’t want to see that show. So we didn’t put it as a part of our season and I let it go.

But a few months ago, my friend Sarah mentioned that she and her husband wanted to see the show. So we agreed to be on the lookout for cheap seats and we’d go together. Sarah ended up finding $45 seats and was supposed to get the tickets, but things came up and she couldn’t do it. But it worked out for the best for us because I got an email a few days later offering $30 seats! So I got our 3 tickets and ended up getting us seats pretty close to center in the first row of the balcony!

We saw the show this past week and it was so much fun! Our seats were pretty amazing and I’m glad that we were able to get in the balcony because it was probably better to see the show from up there instead of in the back of the orchestra.

The Illusionists

The show was broken up by magician and each person would do an illusion or two before the next magician came out (each magician did a couple of different segments). It was a little like seeing a bunch of little shows and even though it didn’t quite flow together it was still great. And a couple of the magicians also did some comedy so it became like a mix of standup and magic.

I’ve seen a lot of behind the scenes magician specials so I do know how some of the illusions are done. But that didn’t ruin any of the fun for me. And there were plenty of illusions that I have no clue how they were done and they shocked me! I wish that I could watch videos of them because I want to see them over and over again!

While I do feel like it was a really fun show and I’d encourage people to get tickets, there were a couple of things that weren’t so fabulous. The sound quality was pretty off and some of the music was so loud that we were starting to get headaches. Also, it was very showy and lots of parts of the show could have sped up to make it more fun (we didn’t need to spend several minutes watching a magician prepare for one trick with no music or other things happening). And some of the jokes were a bit off to me, but that could be just my sensitivities. If we had paid the full price of tickets for where we sat, I might be a bit more picky. But for $30 seats it was a great evening out!

This show really did make me want to get to the Magic Castle again soon. The magic there is so amazing because you are up close to the performers and it’s very toned down and basic. They don’t have music, effects, and a huge stage to hide behind or to hide what they are doing. Everything is right in front of you and you feel very connected to the show. That wasn’t the case with “The Illusionists” since we weren’t in the areas where they got volunteers and had to watch a lot of stuff on a screen since we couldn’t see from that far away without it. But that’s what happens when you go to see a magic show in a large venue.

I don’t know if there are any additional shows coming up that I’ll be buying tickets for outside of my Black Friday deal this season or my season tickets next season. I think I’ve got tickets for everything that I want and unless someone offers me free tickets I don’t know if I’ll have the money for it. But I’m getting to see a lot right now and I’m so grateful to have entertainment like this close enough to my house and within my budget!

Comments Off on A Night Of Magic (or Not Quite A Musical)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged Broadway, friends, Hollywood, Los Angeles, magic, Pantages Theater, show

Tax Time (or Happy To Owe The Government Some Money)

Posted on March 8, 2016 | 1 comment

I just had my taxes done last week and it was a totally different experience than I’ve ever had. So I wanted to share it with all of you in case you are still looking for a tax preparer.

In the past, I’ve always had my parents’ accountant do my taxes. When I lived at home (when I was working in high school), my parents just brought him what I made and to be honest I have no idea if I ever owed anything. Those jobs were pretty part-time and if I did owe something, maybe my parents helped me out. Once I moved to LA, I got a tax preparation packet from the accountant in the beginning of each year. I’d fill it out, make a list of my deductions, and stick all of that plus my W2 and 1099 forms in an envelope and mailed it to my parents. They brought it in for me and everything was done. I’d get a letter in the mail a few weeks later either saying how much I owed or how much I’d get back.

It was fine, but I realized last year that I needed to be a much more active participant in my taxes. 2015 was the first year that all of my income was 1099. And while I did pay estimated taxes (although I’d learn not enough so I still had a penalty), I knew I’d owe more money. I was prepared to owe money and had been saving about 1/3 of every paycheck I got. But I was still worried that it wasn’t enough.

So many of my actor friends recommended going to Chuck Sloan and Associates for taxes, so I made an appointment there. They are cheapest if you go in January or February (although they are always pretty affordable), so I made my appointment for the last day of February. Even before my appointment, I became a fan of the office. I had to change my appointment time a couple of times due to conflicts that came up, and they never seemed annoyed or bothered by that. They just gave me a new time and seemed happy that I’d be coming in.

Since I work from home, I wasn’t sure what the rush hour situation would be like on the freeway (the office is in the valley). I gave myself a little over an hour to get there, but made it in 20 minutes! So I sat in my car and listened to podcasts while I waiting for my appointment time.

Chuck Sloan

I was assigned Daphne as my tax preparer. And even though I know I was assigned to her randomly, I felt like it was fate that she was helping me. She totally got how nervous I was about everything and we chatted a bit about our mutual love of podcasts before getting down to business.

I had explained to Daphne that while I had saved money and paid estimated taxes that I was so worried that I would still owe more than I could afford. So instead of doing everything at once, she entered all of my income, unemployment information, and health insurance information to show me the absolute worst case scenario I could be in.

And even that was less than what I had saved!

I was so happy that I wouldn’t have to figure out where to get extra money to pay my taxes that I burst into tears. I was crying out of relief from the stress I had felt from the past year and from the joy knowing that the first time I tried to be more involved in my taxes that I did do something right.

Daphne was happy to explain all the deductions that she entered for me. I was terrified to put down a home office because I’ve heard that is often a red flag for the IRS. I do work my jobs from home, so it is totally reasonable for me to put down a home office on my taxes. It still makes me a bit nervous that I did that, but Daphne reassured me that when you work as a virtual employee (like I do), it’s expected to have a home office on your taxes.

After everything was entered, explained, and double checked; Daphne showed me my total tax bill. And it ended up being less than half of what I had set aside to pay my taxes! While I wish that I was getting a refund or owing even less than that, anything less than what I had saved is awesome! I don’t have to worry about borrowing money or figuring out a payment plan with the IRS. I just sent in my checks and it’s done.

I really cannot thank Daphne and the rest of the employees at Chuck Sloan and Associates enough. They worked together as a team to make sure that I was getting all the deductions that I deserved and that everything was perfect before it was sent it. They dealt with my craziness, my stress, and my tears without looking at me weird. And they made me excited to get my taxes done! I doubt most people could say that.

When Daphne was working with me on my taxes we went over a couple of ideas of how I could organize things better for 2016, and I’m working on implementing those now. It mainly has to do with organizing things by type and not by month since the IRS doesn’t care about when things were purchased or paid for, just what category all of that money goes into.

I know that I’ll be going back to Daphne next year for my taxes since she was the first financial type person I’ve worked with who didn’t look down on me for how little money I had, got the weird things I spend my money on for work, and totally got my organizational system. And having someone like that on my team is invaluable for me.

Taxes By Daphne

1 Comment

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Saving, Tough Stuff, Work

Tagged acting, money, savings, taxes, work

Pushing A Bit Too Much (or Glad I Took The Weekend Off)

Posted on March 7, 2016 | Comments Off

This week I had 3 workouts. I had originally planned for 4, but I was so exhausted after Friday that I knew that a Saturday workout wasn’t in the cards for me. I really did push myself hard this week and I think that my body was done after those 3 workouts.

Monday was an afternoon workout for me (instead of a morning one) because of an appointment I had that morning. I’m pretty used to my Monday morning workouts, but I still prefer afternoon ones so I was fine moving my workout. It was a run/row day, so that made me pretty happy too. Any time I don’t have to spend a full 30 minutes on the treadmill is a good day for me. All the segments in the run/row were pretty doable for me so I used the time to try to push myself in my speeds. I was actually able to do 1/4 mile (a little more than 4 minutes) at 6% incline and 3.5 miles an hour. That’s the longest I’ve done 3.5 miles an hour since my calf injury and it’s another sign that I’m almost back to where I was before my injury. It wasn’t easy to do that fast for that long, but it was a big step for me and I’m glad that I pushed myself to do it.

The floor work on Monday was an interested adventure. It was a single block (about 23 minutes) that had 6 exercises in it. We had to go through the 6 exercises continuously (each round had a different number of reps), but every 3 minutes we had to pause. Every 3 minutes we would get a 1 minute exercise to do (like burpees). After that minute we went back to the regular 6 exercise plan and pick up where we stopped. It was very different from what I’m used to, but I actually really liked the plan. It helped to break up a long block of floor work and since the 1 minute exercises were different and didn’t repeat, it almost felt like a break when we had them.

Wednesday was a switch day, so it was another day that I didn’t have to do the full 30 minutes on the treadmill straight. It was a strength day, which means lots of inclines on the treadmill. I always do inclines since I’m a power walker, but I tried to push my inclines a bit more that day since that was the goal of the day. I’m still struggling with going higher than 8% incline for a long time, but we had an interesting walking break in the workout that allowed me to work on that. Everyone had to do a power walk at 10% incline for 3.5 minutes. Since everyone was instructed to walk, we could slow down our speeds (even the power walkers). I did my 3.5 minutes at 3.1 miles an hour and was able to stay at the 10% incline for the entire thing. It wasn’t easy and my hips were feeling pretty sore after we were done, but it wasn’t as bad as the pain I’ve had in the past so I’m trying to think of it as improvement.

With strength days, we are also supposed to use heavier weights when we are on the floor. So I decided to go for it and did all of my bicep work with 20 pound weights. When the reps are lower that’s not that difficult for me, but the higher reps rounds were really tough and I could feel my arms getting so tired by the last few reps. But that’s exactly what we are supposed to feel. I know I was doing great with the weights I had chosen for my floor work because my Wednesday coach, JZ, came over and was very impressed that I wasn’t using 12 or 15 pound weights.

Friday was the day that kind of broke me. I have no clue why I was so tired (I didn’t get as much sleep as usual, but that wasn’t enough to make me as tired as I felt), but the entire workout felt like it was a struggle for me. For a lot of it, I felt like I was underwater and couldn’t move fast enough. It wasn’t supposed to be a switch day, but I’m so thankful that it ended up being one. I have no idea if I would have been able to do the treadmill blocks back to back.

On the treadmill, we had a couple of long push paces. I was doing them at my usual speed and incline, but I was barely able to make it a minute before I needed to step onto the rails and catch my breath. My heart rate was really high and I was sweating like crazy too and I don’t think I was pushing myself that much harder than I normally do. I just wasn’t able to keep up with what I do most days. On the floor, I worked on pushing myself (I was able to do squats with a 20 pound weight in each hand), but again I was exhausted and had to take several breaks during each block. It was really frustrating to feel so weak while working out, but I’m hoping it was a weird issue (maybe I was getting sick?) and it won’t return again.

With my days off over the weekend, I was dealing with a bit of soreness and feeling a bit off. But I’m hoping that after 2 rest days I’ll be back to normal this week and ready to get back to what I’m used to doing. I’m not used to having such an extreme off day, but maybe I needed it as a reminder of how far I’ve come lately.

Comments Off on Pushing A Bit Too Much (or Glad I Took The Weekend Off)

Posted in Fitness, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, pain, struggle, tired, workout

Oscars Time! (or Inside Out vs. Star Wars)

Posted on March 4, 2016 | 2 comments

After seeing my sister-in-law on Friday night and spending Saturday day/night and Sunday morning in San Diego, I was ready to lay low on Sunday and relax. But that was not in the plans for the day. This past Sunday was the Oscars, and as always I had an awesome party to get to!

I had planned out my costume carefully for the party. I knew that I would be coming back from San Diego that morning and wanted to make sure that even if we got caught in horrible traffic I’d have time to get ready. So I decided to make something that was easy to put on in case I only had minutes before I had to get out the door.

There were a couple of ideas that I had going for my costume, but the one I went with was actually the original idea I had.

Inside Out

I was Riley from “Inside Out” and had all the emotions coming out my head. I accomplished this by attaching each character to a zip tie that I had tied around a headband. It took a couple of tries to figure out something that would work (glue wasn’t helping to keep the characters upright), but I think it looked pretty cool in the end!

I was super excited to see how Marie and Chris would decorate their house. They definitely go all out and over the top, and I love it! And this year didn’t disappoint!

That X-Wing plane was made out of cardboard and PVC pipe and took up a good chuck on the backyard. And they made the BB8 and R2D2 out of various things they bought (the bottom of BB8 was a yoga ball). This was so impressive and amazing and we all took tons of pictures of it.

Before the Oscars started, I saved my seat in the quiet viewing room and got some food. I got there early enough that I had time to hang out with my friends before my focus went to the show.

Overall, I enjoyed the Oscars this year. I know there is a ton of controversy surrounding the show and the lack of diversity, but I think the Academy is taking some really great measures to make sure that this does not happen again. And of course the lack of diversity was mentioned a lot on the show so they weren’t trying to cover up for anything.

Normally I’m pretty good at guessing the winners, but this year was pretty bad for me! I got a couple of random ones right and best actor/actress correct. But there were plenty of surprises this year. While I enjoyed seeing “Mad Max”, I wasn’t expecting them to win as many Oscars as they did. They were all deserving wins, but not how I thought the Academy would vote. I also think that so many people were surprised by the supporting actor category as well as the best song (we were all crying watching Lady Gaga perform). And we were all pretty split on what would win best picture, and even though I really liked “Spotlight” it was not what most of us had picked to win.

Even though I was in the quiet viewing room, we were a bit louder than usual. Nobody seemed to mind so it worked out really well. There were a couple of people who were new to the Oscar party so we kept them informed on what the plan was for the night. I helped to let people know that after the In Memoriam segment several of us would gather to do a shot in memory of those we had lost in the past year. This year there was a special twist to it. At the New Years Eve party I had brought some of my grandpa’s vodka. The entire handle wasn’t consumed so we used that for the shot. And I had also brought the last jar of my grandpa’s blue cheese olives so many of us ate an olive (or added it to our shot like I did and made it like a martini).

For Grandpa

After the show ended, we all gathered in the backyard for the costume contest. While there was some variety in the costumes, it seemed like a majority of the costumes were either “Inside Out” themed or “Star Wars” themed. It was pretty crazy to see how many of us had the same idea (or the same costume like Dani and Marie had).

The Reys

Even though I liked my costume, I knew I didn’t stand a chance in the costume contest. I just like getting to participate and see what else everyone comes up with. I was the only person who had all the “Inside Out” characters on their head, so I was proud that I was at least a little bit original.

After the winners of the costume contest and award guessing were announced, most of us started to head home. I had an early morning the next morning and was still pretty exhausted from my weekend.

As I do every year, I had the best time at this party! It’s so much fun getting to watch the awards with friends who are just as excited about them as I am. And seeing how creative all my friends are with their costumes truly inspires me. Thank you Marie and Chris for being the most amazing hosts and creating such a fabulous party!

Monthly Archives: March 2016

Grownup Dinner (or Seeing A Gym Friend Outside Of The Gym)

Like this:

Lack Of Plans (or A Lazy Weekend)

Like this:

Remembering My Time At Slimmons (or I’m Glad Richard Simmons Is Ok)

Like this:

Reaching New Goals (or Time To Go All Out)

Like this:

Cooking Routine (or Adding Flavor)

Like this:

Being Proactive (or Bringing Acting To Me)

Like this:

A Night Of Magic (or Not Quite A Musical)

Like this:

Tax Time (or Happy To Owe The Government Some Money)

Like this:

Pushing A Bit Too Much (or Glad I Took The Weekend Off)

Like this:

Oscars Time! (or Inside Out vs. Star Wars)

Like this:

Follow me on Twitter

Like Me On Facebook

Follow Me On Instagram

thejenlevin

Recent Posts

Archives

Monthly Archives: March 2016

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Connect With Me!

Subscribe To Finding My Inner Bombshell!

Follow me on Twitter

Follow Me On Instagram

thejenlevin

Recent Posts

Archives