Monthly Archives: March 2016

Bachelorette Adventures (or 24 Hours In San Diego)

After all the other adventures I had done recently, one of the final adventures for my February was going to my friend Rayshell’s bachelorette party! While I had been super excited about this for a while, I was a bit stressed with all my other scheduling things I had to work with. But the closer we got to the weekend, the more excited and less stressed I got. By the time it was time to go, I couldn’t wait!

The bachelorette party was in San Diego and was from Friday night until Sunday morning. Because of my workout schedule, meeting my sister-in-law for dinner, and rush hour traffic; I made the decision not to drive down on Friday night. I wouldn’t be getting there until after midnight so I figured it would be best to drive down on Saturday morning. But since I was driving down on Saturday instead of Friday, I was able to drive down with another friend also going to the bachelorette party! She had offered to drive (which I was so grateful for!) and I was the navigator. Between some random traffic and a big freeway closure, it took a little longer than expected. But we were still in San Diego at noon on Saturday.

Rayshell’s maid of honor had found an amazing house for us to stay in while we were there. There were a ton of rooms and couches for everyone to crash on. The only downside was that you had to walk up about 2 flights of stairs to get to the front door and then another flight of stairs inside to get to the main part of the house. It was a good workout, but my hips didn’t love it. I limited how many times I walked up and down so it wasn’t too horrible.

After we arrived, there was a bit of time to get some food and relax for a minute before we headed out for our first adventure of the party. Rayshell really wanted to try out an escape room and they found one that wasn’t too far from the house we rented for the weekend. The escape room we had was a zombie theme and we had to unlock various locks to find an antidote and the code to get out of the door in under an hour. With me being claustrophobic and having issues with fainting when things jump out at me (which is ironic since I worked at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios for 3 years), I asked the employees there if I would be fine. They told me that it never gets dark inside the locked room and while there is a zombie inside the room, you always see her and there are no startle scares. So I figured it would be fine for me to be inside and I went in with the rest of the group (we had arranged for the escape room to just be for us, but typically they will add in other groups to fill the room).

In the first part of the escape room, we had to get a code to get into the main room. We had figured out that it had to do with the numbers on the periodic table. So I was leaning over to read the numbers so we could figure out the answer when the sheet on a table right in front of me started moving and making noise (I think it was supposed to be a fake dead body). I honestly freaked out. It was pretty horrible. I didn’t faint (I’m still surprised that I didn’t), but I almost fell to my knees and I burst into tears. It wasn’t my best moment and I’m not proud that it happened, but it was my honest reaction to being scared like that.

Rayshell wanted me to leave after then, but I told her that I could calm down and the employee inside the room saw how freaked out I was and told me that in the other room there wasn’t anything like that to scare me. I wish that the employee that I had asked before going in the room had warned me about that. I asked him afterward why he hadn’t, and he didn’t think it would scare me since it was fake.

After my freak out, I focused on how I could help get us out of the room. I found some locks that needed to be unlocked and focused on opening those. I worked on solving equations and other things and pretty much stayed in one section of the room where nothing scared me and the actress playing the zombie couldn’t get me (if you were tagged you had to stand off to the side in “quarantine” for a couple of minutes before you could join back in).

In the end, we didn’t get out of the room. We opened a lot of the locks we needed to and even had the code to get out of the door. But because we didn’t get one thing unlocked, we couldn’t get to the keys that unlocked the cabinet that had the antidote we needed to win the escape room. But it doesn’t matter that we didn’t win, we all had a really great time (not counting my freak out time).

Escape Room

After the escape room, we headed back to the house to relax before getting ready for dinner. We ended up on the rooftop deck playing Cards Against Humanity. We got to enjoy a gorgeous sunset and had so much fun playing the game.

Cards Against Humanity

Next we all got ready to go to dinner and we all gave Rayshell the lingerie gifts that we got her (that was the plan for all of our gifts). And of course, we had to get some pictures with the bachelorette before we went out!

Levin Sandwich

We went to dinner in Little Italy at Trattoria Fantastica and had a table on the patio (they had a heat lamp so it was nice out there).

Bachelorette Group

We got some wine for the table and everyone was able to find something yummy to eat, even with the dietary restrictions people might have (they even had gluten-free pasta!). I got short rib pasta and it was really great (I also ate it all since that was really my first real meal of the day)!

Dinner

After we all got full on pasta (and for some people, drinks), we headed out to the Altitude Sky Lounge which is on the 22nd floor of a hotel in the Gaslamp Quarter. I’m not a nightclub/lounge person, but even I was in love with the view that we saw up there!

San Diego

Some of the girls had fun dancing, but a couple of us who aren’t really dancing people found a couch that overlooked the view and had a heat lamp above us (not everyone was dressed totally weather appropriate because we wanted to look cute). We also enjoyed sitting on the couch watching the craziness going on around us. There was one couple that we were mesmerized watching. The best way to describe it was that the guy was pretty much dancing like how we would imagine a monkey would dancing and was hard not to watch. When the bouncers walked over our way and ended up blocking the view, one of the girls asked the bouncers to move because we were watching them dance. Even the bouncers were mesmerized watching them and totally got why we wanted a clear view to enjoy the show.

The next stop for the night was another club for more dancing. But 4 of us were feeling pretty tired and not up to dancing so we split up and some went out and the rest went back to the house. I’m glad I left when I did because when I was going back up the stairs to the house, my hip decided to go out and I couldn’t get it to stop hurting. So after chatting with the other 3 girls who left early with me, we all got ready to go to bed and went to sleep. Even though there were beds downstairs I could sleep in, I couldn’t get down the stairs with my hip so I ended up sleeping on a couch (it wasn’t so bad).

Sunday morning everyone kind of got up around the same time. Most of the girls were going to go out for breakfast, but the friend I drove with and I wanted to leave by 9am because we wanted to beat the traffic and I had the Oscar party to get to! So we said goodbye to everyone and headed back to LA.

It was a crazy quick trip (we left LA at 9am Saturday and got back 11am Sunday), but it was full of so much fun stuff and awesome adventures! I really haven’t been to San Diego outside of family stuff, so it was great to explore the city with some friends and doing things that aren’t usually what I get to do down there.

The bachelorette party was the last event leading up to Rayshell’s wedding. I’m hoping that she and I can hang out for a happy hour before her wedding (we are overdue for one), but I’m really looking forward to the wedding. I know it’s going to be gorgeous and it’s another opportunity for me to celebrate my amazing friend!

A Dinner Hangout (or Seeing My Sister-In-Law in LA)

Even though my schedule the past week was crazy (I haven’t even covered the craziness of my past weekend), I still tried to have fun when I could. So when my sister-in-law Krystle sent me a text saying that she was going to me in LA on Friday, I knew I had to hang out with her! Since she and my brother moved to Santa Barbara, she and I haven’t really hung out in LA too much. She’s come over to my house for a quick visit, but it’s usually just a stop on their drive back from San Diego.

While I couldn’t hang out with Krystle and Ross while they were exploring LA (I was working then), I was able to join Krystle for dinner after she dropped my brother off at a friend’s house and before she and a friend went to a concert.

Since she was dropping my brother off in Brentwood, it worked out really well for me. I was working out at Orangetheory at 4pm, so we made plans to get dinner around 5:30/6. As soon as my workout was done, I showered and changed there (they have really nice shower facilities but I usually go home to shower after class). We were meeting for dinner at a burger place across the street from Orangetheory. But because Orangetheory is valet parking (we get 90 minutes for free), I moved my car across the street to cheaper parking.

I had never been to Barneys Hamburgers before, but I usually don’t hang out in Brentwood. I just go there for my workout and then go home. But this place seemed really cute and the menu seemed awesome when I looked online, so I was excited to check it out.

Krystle and her friend had gotten a table before I arrived, but they only beat me by a few minutes. Of course, she and I tried to catch up right away. But since they had a concert to go to, we knew we needed to order food first so they could leave on time.

I was a bit overwhelmed by the menu at first, and I didn’t want to eat anything too crazy since I had just worked out. But then I realized that it was ok to splurge a bit and found a couple of burgers that looked pretty awesome to me. I figured I’d have to go back another time soon to try another burger, so I chose one that looked good but not too crazy. It had cheese, bacon, and BBQ sauce on it. It wasn’t the healthiest thing on the menu, but it was far from the worst. We also ordered truffle fries for the table (even though Krystle doesn’t like truffle fries, her friend and I do so I’m grateful that she let us get something to share even if it isn’t her favorite).

Post Workout Burger

The burger was really great! I don’t eat burgers like most people do. I tend to take the top off of it and then cut into it with a fork and knife. It’s a weird habit that I’ve had for a while, but it works for me and it keeps me from getting hamburger from falling out of the bun and onto my clothes.

While we were eating, Krystle was telling me about some upcoming trips that she and my brother are taking and how her wedding planning business is going. I’ll be seeing her in Santa Barbara next month when I’m there for Rayshell’s wedding, so we also talked about what we want to do while I’m there (my parents are going to be in Santa Barbara then too so it will be lots of family time).

We also got to talk a bit about the next trip that she and I take together. We though it would be a fun weekend in Las Vegas, but life got in the way and if we are going to do that it will have to wait until the fall or winter because we don’t want to be there in the heat of the summer. But this coming winter is when we also thought we’d go back to New York, so we have to decide which trip we want to take. Either one will be awesome and I’m super excited to get to spend more time with Krystle soon on an adventure.

We only got to hang out at dinner for about an hour before Krystle and her friend had to leave to get to the concert. Even though it was a fast hangout, it was seriously so much fun! I hope that Krystle can come down to LA every so often so she and I can do stuff here. There’s so much fun stuff in LA that she hasn’t done, so I’m hoping she can join me when I find out about a cool event.

After I said goodbye to Krystle and her friend, I headed home to get ready for my crazy weekend. But more on that in tomorrow’s post…

Monthly Recap Update (or My New Habits)

I’m 1/6 of the way through the year and I’m still totally loving my Spark Planner and using it every day! I’ve been using almost every single feature of it (I’m still not 100% sure what to do with the monthly calendar, but I’m working on it) and it’s made a huge difference in my life!

I’m pretty much using most of the sections of the planner as they are intended. I use the weekly goal setting for weekly goals, monthly goal setting for monthly goals, and monthly challenges for monthly challenges. I love how I’ve been accomplishing so many of the weekly and monthly goals I’ve been setting. Some of my goals are easy to achieve (like how many workouts I’ll do that week), but I always set a couple of challenging ones too. I’ve been working on going to bed earlier and I’m setting weekly goals to slowly do that. I’m setting a goal to go to bed 5-10 minutes earlier each week. So far, I’m in bed 45 minutes earlier than before and I’d like to work to maybe 10-15 minutes earlier than I have it now.

Even though most of the features are being used exactly how they are set up, I’m still playing around with the weekly calendar and love what I’ve got going so far. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m using the first of the 3 sections on the weekly planner as my blog planner. This has been so helpful for me and it’s really helping me plan out posts way in advance (for example, I’ve got a couple of things already planned for the end of this month in the works). This also allows me to see when I don’t have something fun to write about yet so I can work on what I want to write about that day.

The bottom section of the weekly planner relates to what I had set to be my 30 day challenge for last month. I’m using that section every night to write at least 5 things that I’m grateful for. There are a lot of repeating things on that list, but it’s a nice thing to do at the end of the day to reflect on what I’ve done and to keep myself in a positive mindset. I’m finding that even on days that I struggle to find 5 things to be grateful for, I can always figure out something. And that reminds me that even on my worst days there are still good things.

I started to do this in January but I really wanted to make sure I continued doing this last month. I never missed a day (I did forget to write once but I did it immediately the next morning) and now I have reminders set to go off to remind me to do my daily gratitude, weekly goal setting, and monthly goal setting. I’m making sure that I stay on top of things.

I’m not even letting myself slack off when I’m on vacation. I remembered to bring my planner with me when I went to Sacramento and worked on my goals in my hotel room at the end of each night.

Spark Planner

I’ve just set up my 30 day challenge for this month. My goal is to not order delivery food for 30 days. I’ve done it before so I know it’s not impossible, but I’ve gotten into a bad habit of getting delivery food when I’m tired. I don’t need to spend the money (especially since delivery food has a minimum for an order) and I definitely don’t need the calories. I’m not saying that I won’t go out to eat at all, but I won’t be getting delivery food. If I want something from a restaurant, I’m going to have to go there to get it (I would rather not do take-out either, but sometimes I like to get something yummy but need to eat at home so I’ll allow that in my challenge).

What I’m loving about these monthly challenges is that they are starting to turn into habits. I’m still keeping up my January monthly challenge of 100% food tracking (I’m pretty much only using Recovery Record now). And I can totally see myself keeping up my nightly gratitude notes. I don’t think that giving up delivery food will be a permanent change, but I’d love it if I could keep delivery food to a minimum.

It’s so funny that for years I was trying to figure out how to do almost everything digitally and not have a paper planner or tracker anymore. I had finally gotten everything to that point and then started using my Spark Planner. It’s not a planner in the same way that my planners in the past have been, so maybe that’s why I never realized how great it would be to write some things down to track and that I would be able to accomplish more goals each month than I ever expected.