Monthly Archives: August 2016

Loving The Olympics (or Feeling Like An Athlete)

Posted on August 17, 2016 | Comments Off on Loving The Olympics (or Feeling Like An Athlete)

I’ve always loved watching both the summer and winter Olympics. I think it’s so amazing to see the athletes competing against each other and the fact that countries are coming together for a single goal. I think I love both the summer and winter games equally and I’m so glad I have a DVR now so I can record everything and watch them when I have a chance (I’m slowly making my way through the various events and I think I’ll be caught up soon).

During the winter games, I love all the skiing events. Even though I haven’t been able to be on the slopes for about half my life, I still consider myself a skier (I wonder how I’d do if I tried it again?). I miss the feeling of going down the mountain and feeling like you are flying and are alone in your own little bubble. It was such a sense of freedom and if I wasn’t high risk for breaking my hip I’d probably still be doing it.

And I’ve always loved gymnastics during the summer games. I think my love for watching the gymnastics really started during the 1996 games in Atlanta. One of the gymnasts on the team, Amy Chow, was from where I was from. And she trained at the gym where I used to take gymnastics class (I didn’t get too far into the sport, but I still can do a couple of tricks). Even though I didn’t really know Amy, it felt like someone who was just like me was out there winning a gold and it was just incredible to watch.

I also love the track events during the summer games. When I was in middle school, I was on the track and field team. I wasn’t a runner even as a kid, so I only did field stuff. And my 2 events were long jump and triple jump. I don’t think I was very good at either, but since there was a lack of participation in triple jump I did occasionally place because last place was still in the top 5. Watching real athletes do those events is so much fun because I remember how hard it was for me to do them.

But this year I’m looking at the Olympics a bit differently. This is the first time that I’ve been working on my fitness as hard as I am while the games are happening. Of course, some of the things are a little overwhelming like how they can do a 10K in the time it takes me to do 1.5 miles at my best speed. Knowing that I’m 3 times slower than an Olympian is a bit weird to think about, but I’m not frustrated by it.

Of course, I’m still loving gymnastics and watching the athletes throw their bodies in the air in ways that seem impossible! I even got into watching diving and trampoline because they have similar elements to gymnastics with the flips and twists. To think how hard they must have trained to get their bodies to do that is insane and sometimes I have to pause my DVR just to get into my head what I just saw.

But this year, I’ve discovered an event that I didn’t really care too much for before but this year has taken on real meaning to me: rowing. I do rowing all the time at Orangetheory and I know how long it takes me to do certain distances on average. Yes, we use a rowing machine, but it’s a water rower so we do have to move the paddle of the machine through water to make it go. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s as close as you can get to being on the water.

I didn’t know this before this year, but all Olympic rowing events are 2,000 meters. That’s a distance we do from time to time at Orangetheory and I know that I will never look at 2,000 meters the same way again. To know that technically I have the endurance to complete an Olympic distance blows my mind!

But the craziest thing to me about watching the rowing was seeing the times that the athletes were getting. While they were faster than I can do (about 2 minutes faster than I can do), they weren’t as much of a difference as I was expecting. And I know some people at Orangetheory that can row 2,000 meters in a similar time to what these athletes did.

Olympic Rowing

Of course, my immediate thought was to message my friends who I know row that fast and joke that they need to start training for the next Olympics! I don’t know how much slower they would be on the water versus the machine, but it still gave me something to think about.

I know I’m not close to being an Olympian, but to know that I’m not 3 or 4 times slower than them makes me feel pretty amazing. I’ve said before that I am starting to feel like an athlete in training versus someone in the gym working out to lose weight. But having this knowledge about rowers makes me think that even more.

I’ve still got a few more days of Olympics to watch and I can’t wait to see what happens. I’ve been so inspired already and any extra inspiration that I can get would be awesome!

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The Best Birthday Party! (or Wine Bar and Breakfast Bar)

Posted on August 16, 2016 | 1 comment

This past Saturday was my birthday party and I have to say that it was one of the best birthday parties I’ve ever had in my life! Planning a birthday is stressful for me (worrying about if anyone will show up, if it costs money if people can afford it, hoping that everyone gets along) so while I love having a party I hate having to plan it. But I decided to go for something easy again this year and had a gathering at Bodega Wine Bar where I’ve had my birthday before.

I have to say, the staff at Bodega Wine Bar are amazing! I worked with one of their party coordinators and she was really easy to work with and didn’t require me to do too much. All we had to figure out was how many people would be there so we could figure out what reserved section would be best. I figured that maybe 10 people would be there and I loved the horseshoe section where my party was before so that was set up for me.

I set up a Facebook event for my birthday and about 7 people said they could make it, so I figured it would be a fun and relaxing hangout with my friends. And since it was my birthday, I decided to go with a really fun outfit and wore a tutu I got at Kiyonna a while ago (this picture is from the end of the party so I’m looking a bit wrinkled and my makeup and hair are not as done as they were at the beginning).

Birthday Outfit

A friend drove over to Bodega with me so I wouldn’t be there alone when I arrived. But it turned out some of my friends were already there! And by the time we sat down, even more people had arrived and we were starting to fill up our reserved section.

Usually with birthday parties like this, people arrive throughout the evening and there is a flow of people leaving and arriving throughout the evening. But this time, it seemed like almost everyone was there within the first 30 minutes! We quickly filled all the seats in our section at the bar and started to have to grab more chairs for everyone to sit down!

Most of the people at the party didn’t know the others who were there. But so many of them were people who I wanted to introduce to each other and everyone seemed to be getting alone and having a great time seeing the few people they knew and getting to know the people that they didn’t. Every so often, I just had to sit back and look at how awesome it was to have so many people there to celebrate my birthday and to watch everyone just having an awesome time!

And of course, we had to get a group picture with almost everyone who made it. The picture isn’t the best quality, but you can see that everyone is happy and it was an amazing turnout (I’m all the way in the back).

Bodega

We had some food and drinks but mainly we were all just talking about the most random stuff (like Disneyland or podcasts) and everyone was joining in on the conversation and enjoying being around everyone else.

As we got closer to 10pm, most people were leaving (some had come in from the valley and they didn’t want to be out too late), but there were a few of us who weren’t ready to end the night yet. Then we remembered that Nighthawk Breakfast Bar (which closed down shortly after I went there) just reopened in Venice that week! So we got into our cars and drove over to Venice and hoped that we could get in so we could have some of their amazing food!

Fortunately, there was a table available when we got there and we were quickly seated and checking out the menu to see what we wanted to get.

Nighthawk

My friend Elisa wasn’t able to get to Bodega but was able to join us at Nighthawk. And then I realized that the 4 of us (me, Elisa, Michelle, and Dani) who got the season tickets for Pantages for next season were all together for the first time ever! And not only that, Saturday marked exactly 1 year until we are going to be seeing “Hamilton” during opening weekend in our season! That is something to celebrate and we tried to get a photo to acknowledge that.

Hamilton

None of us really wanted to have drinks since we drank at Bodega, but we had to get some food for sure! Michelle and I have both been craving the Benedict Fries since we went to Nighthawk the first time. So of course we got those to share with everyone. And the last time we went we were tempted by the Tower of Bacon, but didn’t have room in our stomachs so we got that this time as well. The fries were better than they were before and the bacon was super delicious, but we wouldn’t have called the bacon a “tower”.

Tower of Bacon

We all enjoyed the food so much and it was the perfect way to end the evening! Even though Nighthawk was not the original plan, it worked out so well and I’m so glad we decided to make a stop there after Bodega! It really made my birthday so amazing and I had the best time!

I’m so grateful for my friends who were able to make it out to celebrate with me and for the ones who couldn’t make it but were celebrating virtually through texts and Facebook messages. I really had the best birthday ever and I’m hoping that this means that this year is going to be the best year ever as well!

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Working On Pushing Things (or Hoping I Am Stronger)

Posted on August 15, 2016 | 2 comments

I’ve been feeling a bit stuck in my workouts lately. I think it’s because I was doing so amazing when I started running and was able to make huge jumps in my progress with very little effort. Now I’m feeling a bit in a slump because I’m not progressing like I feel like I should and I don’t know how to get better. I know that I’m being really hard on myself, but that’s just what I do. So this past week of workouts, I really tried to make some baby steps in my progress to feel like I’m at least moving forward and not being stuck.

Monday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power and we did get to switch between blocks. Those days are becoming one of my favorites (I think run/row days are still my favorites) because the blocks are short and I feel like I’m able to recover between each thing. For the endurance block on the treadmill, we had some long push paces. The push paces were 1 minute, 2 minutes, or 3 minutes. I ran for the first minute of each push (I know I could probably run the 2 minute one too, but I was scared to overdo it) and then walked the rest. I did run all of the all outs and tried to bump up my speed a bit each time. For the strength block, since those are hills I had to stick with walking. I can run a bit on hills, but I’m not really good at doing that. But for the power block we had 1 minute pushes and 30 second all outs and I ran for all of that.

For the floor blocks there was a lot of focus on arms, but we also got to do some sprint rows. I’m getting much better with my form for the rowing, especially with sprints, so I was happy to get to work on that a bit more. And I was able to finish up the workout with a block of ab work which was a nice way to end things.

On Wednesday, we had a strength day but we did get to switch between blocks. The blocks were pretty short, so they weren’t too bad. Most were under 5 minutes. I didn’t run most of the treadmill time because things were at an incline, but I did try to walk at a higher incline than normal. I did run the all outs (they were on a flat treadmill) and I also ran an all out that was on a 3% incline which was a nice challenge. Since I usually have my treadmill at 4% or higher while walking, 3% while running wasn’t too bad.

When I was on the floor, I took the fact that it was a strength day to heart. I wanted to do better than I normally do, so I decided to stick with 25 pound weights for my arm work. It was really tough for some of the moves, but I didn’t want to go down to the 20 pound weights (which is what I usually use). I had to take breaks during some of the sets, but I was able to get them done with the heavier weights and it really made me feel great! I still remember when I started how I was using maybe 10 pound weights and thought the 12 and 15 pound ones were so heavy. I’ve totally made progress from where I started.

Friday was another day that had endurance, strength, and power but there were no switches between the blocks. For the endurance block, I decided that I was going to walk the 3 minute push but then tried to run as long as I could with the other push paces. For the 1 minute one I was able to run the entire thing and for the 2 minutes one I ran for just about 90 seconds before I walked the last 30 seconds. 90 seconds isn’t the longest I’ve run, but since I’m doing mostly 1 minute runs knowing that I ran a bit longer than normal was good. I need to remember that 30 seconds of more running is still more running.

For the strength section, I walked everything except the all outs on the flat treadmill. I do think I could have run some of it, and I think I need to stop doubting myself and just go for it. The doubt is stopping my progress and once I get over that hurdle, maybe I won’t feel as stuck. But for the power block, since they were short pushes to all outs (with walking after), I ran all of that and felt very accomplished when I stepped off the treadmill.

Once I moved to the floor, we had a couple of arm moves and I used my usual 20 pound weights (my arms were feeling a bit off because I slept funny the night before and I didn’t want to push too much). We also had sprint rows of 150 meters and I was able to improve on my time each row. While those parts of the floor work was good, we also had a couple of things that aren’t that easy for me. We had some lunges which sometimes are fine but my hips weren’t loving them at the end of the workout. I had to hold on to the wall to get my balance several times and I was feeling a bit stuck and sometimes couldn’t seem to switch legs. We also had pop jacks which are always so hard for me and Friday was no exception. Fortunately, I didn’t get my hips stuck on those and I just pushed through and was glad when I was done with them.

Reflecting back on the last few months of workouts, I really have made incredible progress even if I sometimes find it hard to see. Maybe before my workouts I need to review what I was doing a few months ago and seeing that what I’m doing now would have been impossible for me back then. Even if I am stuck in my progress, there is still progress that has been made. And I really want to focus on that idea instead of the negative.

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Almost Free Birthday Dinner (or Spending My Birthday With My Birthday Twin)

Posted on August 12, 2016 | 3 comments

My actual birthday was a pretty low-key day for me. I had to work both of my main day jobs (10 hours total) that day and since it was a weeknight I really didn’t have much planned to do that day. I debated about going to workout that afternoon, but I ended up deciding against it. But I still wanted to do something fun on my birthday and it ended up being the day I went to my free dinner with my birthday twin!

We ended up making this plan about a week ago when I got the email about the free birthday meal. I texted Joanna to ask her when she wanted to go for our dinner, and she asked me when I was free. I knew I was free on the evening of the 9th, so I asked her if there was any chance that she was free too. And by some awesome fate, she had also been looking for something to do that night of her birthday! So we decided that it was meant to be that we had our birthday meal on our birthday!

The birthday deal at Truxton’s has changed in the 7 or so years we’ve had this tradition. It used to be a free entrée and free dessert per person. It was easy to plan what to eat then. Now, it’s $20 toward the meal so we have to plan accordingly so that we make sure we don’t go over the $40 we get (we are so set on making sure our meal is totally free).

Free Birthday Dinner

We got to Truxton’s about the same time and headed inside for our awesome birthday meal. As soon as we sat down, we took out the birthday deal emails so we could give them to the waitress. She didn’t seem too upset that she got the table that was there for a free meal (which is what I’m always afraid of) and she totally understood our desire for a free check because it was our tradition.

After we ordered, Joanna and I opened the birthday cards we got for each other. I was thinking that somehow we might each buy the same card, but we got different ones for each other and both cards were perfect!

Birthday Cards

For our food, we did things a bit differently since we weren’t stuck to just doing 2 entrees and 2 desserts. Like last year, we got the monkey bread to start. It was super delicious and we were both so hungry that I totally forgot to get a picture of it before the plate was empty!

And for our food, we were both torn on what to get. We were debating it back and forth (with me checking the total on my phone to make sure we stayed under $40) and we both were thinking about getting one of the sandwiches that was new to us. Since we both were thinking of getting the same thing, we decided to get a big salad and one of the sandwiches and split everything.

Dinner

It ended up being so much food that we couldn’t finish so it was a good plan to split things like this. I have a feeling that this might be a part of the new tradition. And of course we had to get dessert. They always have amazing desserts at Truxton’s so anything we got would have been great. But the giant cookie with ice cream on top sounded super tempting and we decided to go for it.

And even though neither Joanna nor I asked them to put candles on the dessert, they did that for us since they knew it was both of our birthdays. That was a nice touch and we both enjoyed it!

Birthday Dessert

And yes, we pretty much finished that entire cookie between the two of us. It was a big splurge, but totally worth it to me.

When we got our bills, we noticed that there was a slight difference than normal. They had to split the checks because there can only be 1 birthday coupon on each bill, and since things were split up it wasn’t totally free. We were under $40, but because of the split we owed under a buck.

Almost Free

While the tradition of the totally free birthday meal didn’t quite happen, we are still super happy with the deal. We got all that food for under a dollar and we still got to feel awesome leaving a giant tip (we left $30 on what was technically a $37 bill).

We sat around allowing ourselves to rest a bit after eating so much food, and then we decided to walk for a bit before we both had to get into our cars. I checked out my phone to see what time it was (I still had a bit more work to finish up after dinner) and I saw that it was 8:09 on 8/9 which was pretty cool.

8:9

We walked for a bit and then headed back since Joanna had a bit of a drive and I had to get home to get to work. But it was a super awesome birthday hangout and I’m so happy that I got to spend my real birthday with my birthday twin! That doesn’t usually happen so it’s pretty special.

And of course, we had to discuss what our next crazy birthday twin adventure would be. We will have our usual cheesecake outing, but we are also thinking about doing something for our half birthday (which would be in February). So we might be having another amazing birthday twin celebration on our half birthday which would be so much fun!

There’s still more birthday adventures to come. My birthday party is this weekend so I’ll let you all know how it goes next week. And while I don’t have any other birthday adventures planned yet, the month isn’t over so I might think of some more things!

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A Day In San Diego (or Celebrating An Anniversary And A Birthday)

Posted on August 11, 2016 | Comments Off on A Day In San Diego (or Celebrating An Anniversary And A Birthday)

Even though I was out pretty late this past Saturday night, I got up early on Sunday morning so I could head out for the day. My parents were down in San Diego visiting my grandma and this past Sunday was their 34th anniversary! So since they were so close to me, I drove down so I could spend the day with them (and with my grandma and aunt).

Growing up, it was pretty cool that my parents’ anniversary was only 2 days before my birthday because we could celebrate them together or back to back. But I don’t think I’ve seen my parents on their anniversary since I moved to LA so this was a pretty special treat! Plus, as I joked to them, we all saved money on stamps not having to mail cards to each other.

My drive down was pretty uneventful (thankfully) and I got there just around lunch time. My parents had found an apartment to rent for the weekend so we had a nice place to hang out for the day. It was pretty close to where my grandma lives so my aunt was going to pick her up and bring her over to be with us. But before they got there, I got some time with my parents and the dog.

I know I just saw my parents 2 weeks ago, but it was really nice getting to see them. And I hadn’t seen Tucker since April and he seems to have gotten bigger since then! My grandma and aunt were supposed to arrive about 30 minutes after I got there, so my parents and I went for a walk in the neighborhood where they were staying so I could stretch my legs and the dog could get some energy out.

Tucker

It was a nice day for a walk and I loved being right next to the ocean. And of course Tucker loved getting to check out all the other dogs that were out on their lunchtime walk.

Right after we got back to where my parents were staying, my grandma and aunt showed up. We all hung out outside enjoying some food (I brought leftovers from the night before) and catching up with each other. I hadn’t seen my grandma or aunt for a while, so it was good to get to see them again (I won’t see either again until Thanksgiving but that’s not too long from now).

We all gave my parents their anniversary cards and they opened them and shared them with everyone. My parents do homemade cards for each other and we got to see what cards they made this year. And then I opened my birthday cards (I only opened the ones from my parents, grandma, and aunt since I didn’t bring the others with me) and shared them with everyone as well.

After opening cards (and thanking my grandma for my birthday check that will help me fix some more stuff on my car), we just spent the afternoon relaxing and enjoying time as a family together. I’ve really come to appreciate the quiet time I get to spend with my family since so many times when we are together it is for an event and things are a bit crazy and hectic. Just being with each other is a nice change.

My mom cooked dinner that night (it’s easy and usually better than going out) and we had a pretty early dinner since my parents knew I didn’t want to drive back too late. My dad, aunt, and I discussed how we might have even more family joining us this year for our Thanksgiving morning workout at Orangetheory and we are pretty excited about that. It should be a fun workout (as always) and I’m so happy that we started this new tradition with the family.

After dinner we spent a little bit more time together and then it was time for my aunt to drive my grandma back home. After they left, I stuck around a bit longer because my parents were giving me their leftovers from what they had cooked that weekend in San Diego (I’ve been eating their leftovers all week!). They also had some stuff for me to take back home (mainly donations to take to My Friends Place) so they helped me pack up my car.

I should be seeing my parents again in October (I’m hoping to make it to Tahoe since it’s been a while since I’ve been out there) so it’s not going to be too long before I get to hang out with them again. And as I said, Thanksgiving is coming quickly and I know I’ll be with them for a few days then as well.

Overall, I’m so happy that my parents just happened to be in San Diego on their anniversary so I got to spend the day with them. It was a nice way to spend the day and since I’m used to driving to San Diego just for the day, it wasn’t bad to drive down and back within a few hours. And even though it wasn’t my birthday, it still felt like I got to celebrate my birthday with them which is something that hasn’t happened since I turned 18. Hopefully we can celebrate their anniversary and my birthday together before another 15 years pass.

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My First Cinespia Experience (or Watching “Speed” In A Cemetery)

Posted on August 10, 2016 | 1 comment

I’ve lived in LA for almost 15 years now, so I feel like I’ve done a lot of the things that people love to do in LA. I go to the Pantages, I go to the Bowl, I go to the beach, and I go to the mountains. I go to a lot of movie screenings (mainly thanks to my union) and I get to do a lot of fun adventures quite a bit! Most of the time when I see lists of the top things to do in LA, I’ve done all of them. But there was one thing that it seems like everyone does that I hadn’t done until this past weekend: Cinespia screenings.

Cinespia organizes some pretty amazing movie screenings, but I never had gone to one before. I believe they have screenings throughout the year, but their most popular ones are the summer ones at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. I’ve actually driven past the cemetery on screening nights and seen the huge crowds there lined up to get into the cemetery. It seemed a bit overwhelming but fun at the same time.

So when my friend Erin asked me if I wanted to join her and some friends to a screening of the movie “Speed” at Hollywood Forever cemetery this past weekend and I figured this was a perfect opportunity to check out what the screenings are all about. I got my ticket online and got some picnic stuff together for Saturday’s fun.

I got to the cemetery a little more than an hour before we could go inside. There was a big line in front where you wait before you have your tickets checked, and one of Erin’s friends had gotten there early and got us a good space. So I met up with everyone and we sat down and waiting for the gates to open so we could go inside.

Once we got inside, I really didn’t know what to expect. A couple of people went ahead to claim a good spot for us to put our blankets down at, but I walked a bit slower with some of the other stragglers. I wanted to check out the cemetery plus I was carrying a bunch of stuff and couldn’t go that quickly.

The cemetery was pretty cool, but so many of the headstones had headshots or photos on them and I thought that was a bit different. I don’t have a ton of experience being in cemeteries, but from the few I’ve been in I don’t remember so many photos of people on their graves. But it was still interesting to look at and some of the people buried there were buried a very long time ago.

Once we walked around the cemetery we got to where the screening was going to take place. We got a pretty good place to put our stuff down and once we got all the blankets out a couple of us went wandering around. The cemetery is pretty beautiful so I’m glad we got to explore a bit.

Hollywood Forever

We went looking around at the various graves to see who was buried there. There are quite a few famous people who are buried there, but the first “celebrity” marker that caught our eyes was the one for Toto.

Toto

We also saw Mickey Rooney and Hitchcock, but I didn’t get pictures of those. And as we were walking back toward where the screening was happening, we saw the photo setup they had for the movie. We were all hoping it would be some sort of bus, but it was a bus stop and I think we got a pretty amazing photo as a group.

Cinespia

At the end of the night (after the credits of the movie aired) they put a couple of the photos up on the big screen to show off and our photo was one of maybe 10 that they chose to do that with. I don’t know if that means we were one of the top 10 photos of the night, but we felt pretty special.

Once the photos were done, it was starting to get dark so we headed back to our blankets to get settled in before the movie started.

Movie Time

We also all brought some food with us to share, so we were eating while we waited for 9pm which is when the movie was supposed to start (I brought the feta dip I make for Thanksgiving).

Once the movie started, it was pretty exciting. We had an ok view of the movie (the people in the chairs in front of us blocked our view a bit) but I have seen “Speed” so many times that I was ok not having a perfect view.

Speed

The crowd was very energetic and it was so exciting to watch a movie this way. At the screenings I usually go to, people are quiet and trying to be respectful. This screening had people cheering and yelling at the screen and it was so much fun!

The only negative to me (besides having a partially blocked view) was my lack of preparation to be there. I brought a nice beach blanket with me and I thought that would be fine. But I wish I had brought something to lean against or one of the camping seats that are on the ground but have a back to them. I was getting a bit locked up in my hips and toward the end of the night I was starting to be in a decent amount of pain. But since I had never been to a screening like this before, I didn’t know what to expect and now I’m more prepared.

I’m so glad that Erin invited me to join her for this screening! It was such a fun night out and while I don’t know if I’ll make it to another screening this summer I’m totally going to do this again!

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Happy Birthday To Me (or So This is 33)

Posted on August 9, 2016 | 3 comments

Today is my birthday! As you’ve seen from past birthdays, I’m a big birthday person. I love celebrating other people’s birthdays and I love celebrating my own. So my birthday being today is a pretty special day for me. I’ll be writing posts later about how I celebrate my birthday (as usual it will take place on a couple of different days). But today I just wanted to reflect on turning 33.

I have no fear about being 33. I’m not really where I thought I’d be by 33, but this is the first year it’s really not bugging me that much. When I was in high school, I figured by now I’d be acting full-time, be married, have kids, and have a pretty stable life. Technically right now, none of that is true. The only thing that is close is the stable life but that’s not really how I feel about my life right now.

Yes, I still want to get married, have kids, and be acting full-time but I’m not feeling like it needs to happen right now as I thought in the past. If I was already married, that would mean I married someone I dated in the past and I’m really happy that didn’t happen. Those relationships ended for good reasons and I doubt I could be happily married to any of them now.

And I’m aware that there is a countdown until I can’t have kids any more (stupid biological clock), but I’ve still got a few years to work on that before it’s really going to be an issue. I’ve seen so many of my friends build their families in ways other than having their own kids, so I know that I don’t need to get pregnant to have kids one day. Having that pressure taken off of me and my mind has been a good thing for me.

Even though my life isn’t where I thought it would be, I’m pretty darn happy where I am at 33. The acting part of my life is the only part where I’m a bit annoyed at times that I’m not where I want to be, but I’ve gained patience and am so grateful for any opportunities I do have to perform and work to make the most of every moment I get to be in front of the camera. And I have faith in myself that I will get to where I want to be one day.

And I’ve made some amazing friends as an adult and I know having them in my life has made things so much better for me. Those friends push me to better myself and help me get to where I want in life. I never imagined what friends I would have at this point in my life when I imagined my future while in high school, but I never could have imagined having friends as incredible as the ones I have in my life now. So that is so much better than I dreamed of.

Overall, I’m really excited to be 33. I think this is going to be a great year for me. Things are in a much better places than they have been in the past and I know that things are just going to continue to get better and better. As I say quite a bit on here, I’m just excited to see what comes next because I know that good things are coming my way.

Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes! Some birthday fun recaps to come soon!

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Default ThumbnailGoodbye 31 (or Hello 32!) Default ThumbnailA Milestone Birthday (or I Have A Feeling 35 Will Be Awesome) Default ThumbnailHappy Hour Birthday Dinner (or Just Having A Nice Catch Up Chat) Default ThumbnailHappy Birthday Grandma! (or Double Birthday Celebrations) Default ThumbnailHappy Birthday To Me (or I Can’t Wait To See What 34 Will Be Like) Default ThumbnailHappy Birthday to Me! (or Part 1)

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Working With Friends (or Having Someone To Push Me)

Posted on August 8, 2016 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts was a nice change-up from the past few weeks. 2 of the workouts had partner elements which we haven’t had in a while. I really love the partner workouts because it pushes me so much harder when I know that someone is counting on me to finish so they can finish. So I think this past week was really great for me (especially since I had a pretty bad food week).

Monday was mainly a run/row day for us. It was an endurance day so I wasn’t able to run as much as I can, but I did run for all the 1 minute segments that I had. This part of the workout wasn’t partnered, so I was just doing the run/row on my own. Once I got to the floor, the focus was on arms and after rowing during the run/row my arms were feeling a bit dead. We ended those blocks with about 15 minutes left to go in the workout. So that’s when the partner stuff started.

We all partnered with one other person and one of us went to the rower and the other was on the floor. The person on the floor controlled the pace of things, so the person on the rower just rowed until they were tagged by their partner. While on the floor, we had to do push ups, pop jacks, and squats. Pop jacks aren’t that fun for me (it isn’t easy to do with my hips) but I was really motivated to get them done so I could get my partner off of the rower since that was the harder part (at least it was in my mind). We were able to switch back and forth pretty quickly and pretty evenly and at the end of the workout I was exhausted but felt great about what I was able to get done.

Wednesday was a power day where we switched between blocks. But we switched after having 2 blocks together for a very good reason. We did some distance challenges on the treadmill that day. So 2 of the blocks were the same time so we did those back to back to compare what we were able to do. I was pretty excited to see what I’d be able to do and since they were shorter than most treadmill blocks I knew I could push myself a bit more.

For the 5 minute distance challenge, we had a 2 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, 1 minute push pace, and 1 minute all out pace. It’s a lot to do and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to run for all the push and all out segments. So the first time I did it I walked for the 2 minute push and then ran the 1 minute push and 1 minute all out. I was pretty happy with the distance I got, but I knew I could do better. So right after doing that we did it again and I ran for the first minute of the 2 minute push and then walked for that second minute (and kept the rest of it the same as the first attempt). I did bump my speed up a bit as well, and I had a major improvement from the first to the second attempt!

5 Minute Challenge

I was pretty proud of myself for how much better I was able to do and while it was tough to run for 2 minutes (between the push and all out), but I’m so happy I did it because I need to work on my endurance and I have to make myself uncomfortable to get better.

After those two blocks, I went to the floor. The first block was 5 minutes of rowing and the second block was a lot of arm work but I was able to use some pretty heavy weights. But I was ready to get back on the treadmill to try the next distance challenge.

The last two treadmill blocks were both 4 minute challenges. It was a 1 minute push, 1 minute base, 1 minute push, and 1 minute all out. I knew that I could run all the of the push and all out segments and I would walk for the base to recover. This time I knew it would be much harder to have an improvement between the first and second attempt, but I did my best to bump up the speed the second time around so that I could get at least a little bit more distance. It wasn’t as huge of an improvement as my 5 minute challenge, but I’m still so happy that I got a little bit farther.

4 Minute Challenge

The final work on the floor that day were pretty tough for me. I know I pushed myself a bit too much on the treadmill and my body was feeling it. I wasn’t feeling so great by the end and I didn’t want to do anything that might make things feel worse. We were supposed to do burpees during that floor work, but I knew I couldn’t do that so I did pushups on the TRX straps instead. I hate not being able to do something we are supposed to do, but I also have to do what’s best for my body.

And to wrap up my workout week, Friday was also a partner workout! This time, it was 3 people on each team and my blogger friend Jordan was in class so we partnered up. We also partnered up with another awesome lady, but I never caught her name (sorry!). This time, as a group our goal was to row 6,000 meters. Each of us were responsible for 2,000 meters and we did them 500 meters at a time.

So for this workout one of us was on the rower, one was on the treadmill, and one was on the floor. The person on the rower controlled the pace of things. They would row 500 meters and then tag the person on the treadmill to stop so they could get on the treadmill. The person on the treadmill was doing a push pace for the entire time they were on there. And once the treadmill person was tagged, they went to the floor to tag that person and the floor person went to the rower to do their 500 meters.

It was a lot of switching, but it was great because we were pretty much only doing one thing for 3 minutes at a time. My group didn’t quite make it to 6,000 meters during the workout (it was my last 500 meters that didn’t get done), but that wasn’t because of our speed on the rower. We had some transition issues that I know slowed us down and prevented us from finishing right on time.

Since I was going to the treadmill from the rower (where I was working really hard to row fast), I didn’t do any running during the partner workout. I power walked at 6% incline to try to get my heart rate down a bit but still trying to workout. On the floor, we had some arm and abs work to do and I tried to take that time to catch my breath more and take sips of water to get ready to be back on the rower.

I really enjoyed this workout even though we didn’t complete the challenge. It was a great way to push myself for really quick segments and then move on so I didn’t get too tired from one thing. I was exhausted after it was all done, but it was a good exhaustion and not too overwhelming like it is sometimes when I push myself too hard.

I’m starting to get really excited for when my running watch gets here because I’m thinking I’ll test it out for some OTF stuff too. It will be a great way to test out features and to figure out how I want to use it, plus it might give me more insight into my running at OTF than I get from the treadmill or heart rate monitor. The watch may arrive this week or it might not make it for another 2 weeks, but as soon as it gets here I know it’s going to make my workout recaps even more interesting!

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Default ThumbnailTesting My Running (or Holidays and Friends) Default ThumbnailRowing And Partners (or Enjoying A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailAnother Week Of Taking It Easy (or Feeling Strong While Not Working As Hard) Default ThumbnailGoing Big During Peak Performance Week (or A Week Of PRs) Default ThumbnailNew Limits (or Having Friends To Push Me) Default ThumbnailTime To Push Myself Again (or Running Some Hills)

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Tacocity (or A Book Review And Giveaway!)

Posted on August 5, 2016 | 7 comments

I’m so excited for today’s post! Not only do I have an amazing book recommendation for you, but I’m giving away a signed copy too! I recently had the opportunity to read “Tacocity: Los Angeles” which was written by my friend Rob Gokee. I’ve known Rob for a couple of years through various friends. He’s an amazing composer, big user of twitter, and obsessed with tacos! I feel like almost every picture he posts online is of tacos.

So when he started mentioning that he was writing a book about the tacos of Los Angeles, I wanted to read it! I’m not a huge taco person, so if I’m going to go get a taco somewhere I want it to be the best. And since Rob tested out dozens of taco places for his book, I know any place he recommends is going to be one of the top spots to go to.

Rob gave me a copy of his book to read (full disclosure, he gave me a free PDF version to review but the review is all my own) and I was very happy when I started reading it.

Tacocity

Obviously, I knew that the book was going to review taco places in Los Angeles, but I didn’t know much more. I was happy to see in the table of contents that he actually breaks down his reviews geographically so you can look at the area of Los Angeles that you happen to be in. Where I live in West LA, there aren’t a ton of awesome taco places. But while there were some familiar names in the West LA section I loved seeing that there were some places I hadn’t gone to yet and I immediately added them to my list of restaurants to try.

West LA

For each of the restaurants that Rob reviews, he includes a little bit about each place and what they are best known for. He also gives some tips about what to order, when the lines might be shorter (or in some cases if you should go to the outside line or inside line), and sometimes advice on parking which can be tough to find in LA. I loved hearing his stories about what he tried at each place and all the photos that were in the review section made me want to go have everything!

After the reviews of all the taco places around LA, there is a recipe section with some of Rob’s favorites. As you all know I’m working on trying to cook more at home, so I hope to soon have a recipe post for you all of me trying one of the ones from the book! This mole taco one might be the one I have to make because I keep coming back to the picture from the book and thinking it looks incredible!

Mole Tacos

I think this book is perfect for anyone who lives in LA or might be moving to LA soon! It’s a great guide to amazing food in the city and I think even people who have lived here their entire lives will discover a new restaurant in the book. And even if you don’t live in LA but love tacos, this is a great read from the recipes in the back as well as giving you inspiration for a LA taco trip (I’m sure if you tweet at Rob he can help you plan a taco crawl).

Now for the fun part! You can enter to win a signed copy of “Tacocity: Los Angeles”! There are a ton of ways to enter this time (just make sure you leave a blog comment as that is the required entry). While most entries are only one-time things, you can tweet every day for extra entries! Rafflecopter will randomly be selecting the winner at the end and you will be getting a signed copy of the book from Rob!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck and I can’t wait for you all to read the book too!

PS: There will be a book launch/signing for “Tacocity: Los Angeles” coming up on August 22nd from 5:30-8:00pm at Salazar (one of the places Rob writes about in the book). I hope to see a bunch of you there!

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Default Thumbnail“The Wisdom Of Walt” (or Time To Win An Amazing Book!) Default ThumbnailLearning About “Breaking Vegan” (or An Amazing Book Giveaway!) Default ThumbnailScared Speechless (or A Book Giveaway!) Default ThumbnailHaving A Book Nerd Moment (or The Little Things That Make Me Smile) Default ThumbnailFood Should Taste Good (or Time For Another Giveaway!) Default ThumbnailBook Of Mormon and Marrow (or Another Night Out At The Pantages)

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Figuring Out The Next Step (or I Need To Keep Acting)

Posted on August 4, 2016 | Comments Off on Figuring Out The Next Step (or I Need To Keep Acting)

As soon as I finished the shoot for “Single Parent Date Night”, I got the feeling that I had been missing out on acting for far too long. I’ve had auditions from time to time (I wish I had more but I understand that sometimes that’s out of my control) and I was in my improv class last year. And of course I have my meetings with my WIF mentoring group which is one of the most inspiring things for me.

But since my shoot, what I’ve been doing doesn’t feel like enough. I know I’m limited in some situations like I cannot force myself to get more auditions or don’t have the financial ability to do a short film like that one all the time, but that’s no excuse for me anymore. I need to keep going and I feel like I have no other choice.

I’m looking again into acting classes. I’m still torn if I should do the next level of improv classes, but I’m leaning more toward not doing it now. I’ve got a few more months to sign up for the next level before I have to start back at the beginning, so I can still change my mind if I want. But there are so many other types of acting classes outside of improv so I’m exploring those.

There are some acting classes that I’d love to take, but they are just too far beyond my price range. I can’t afford classes that cost more than my rent, and there are some like that out there that I know would be worth it if I had the money. And while the cheap ones are a good deal for me financially, I have to make sure that they are the right choice for my career as well.

I’ve got things narrowed down to a couple of classes that meet both the financial and career requirements that I have. I’m going to take a bit more time to look into all the options and I’m going to try to figure out what order I want to take them in. I will have to save money for each class I take, so it may take me a few years to get to all the classes that look interesting to me right now (and by then I’m sure there will be even more classes I want to take).

I’m also looking at doing more work on my own. They won’t be as professional as “Single Parent Date Night” all the time, but there are some beautiful projects I’ve seen that were shot on an iPhone. So I figured why couldn’t I do the same thing? I would need to keep the script and locations simple, but it is possible to work on my own stuff instead of always just waiting for someone to create one for me.

I took the first step to self-producing by becoming a SAG-AFTRA Signatory Producer. It was a very simple process online for me that allows me to produce union projects (which I have to do since I am union). Since I’m still not really a writer, I need to find friends who do write that I can collaborate with, but this is a start.

And I’ve already started working on another project. This one would actually not have me in it, but it’s an idea that I’ve been wanting to do for a little bit. I’m working with a writer friend and the script is done now. We are working on finding what actors want to be in it and once that is done we can submit all the paperwork to the union to get everything approved and ready to shoot.

Hopefully through the collaborations I’ve been a part of lately, I can find more people to work with and who can help me create my own work or will create work for me to be in. And yes, I still want to get more auditions so that I can book something that is on network tv so that I can feel like my career has taken a big step. For but now, I need to focus on what I can do where I am right now and hopefully that will be enough until whatever big thing I will book comes my way.

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Default ThumbnailHelping Out A Friend (or Getting To Act) Default ThumbnailMaking My Acting Bold (or Feeling Great From An Audition) Default ThumbnailBack To Basics (or How A Win At My Day Job Can Help My Acting Career) Default ThumbnailBeing Proactive (or Bringing Acting To Me) Default ThumbnailHalfway Through Class (or Not Thinking About The Next Step) Default ThumbnailFinding New Ways To Be Creative (or Almost As Good As Acting)

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