Monthly Archives: November 2016

Full Thanksgiving Week (or Lots Of Family Time)

Posted on November 30, 2016 | 1 comment

I feel like I’m still decompressing from my Thanksgiving week. It was such a great week and even though it was the same length as most of my Thanksgiving trips, I felt like I got more family time this year than I have in the past.

I was able to get my work shifted to be a bit earlier during Thanksgiving week, so I could start my drive to San Diego 2 hours earlier than normal. That made a huge difference in my drive since I ended up missing the big rush of traffic and was able to get down to San Diego in about 2 1/2 hours (normal for me is 2 hours and last Thanksgiving was over 4). My drive got a bit delayed when I was almost to the rental house when I got pulled over by a cop. Turned out my loaner car from the mechanic didn’t have the current registration sticker on it! It took some time for the cop to write the ticket, but since I’m not the owner of the car it isn’t my ticket.

Even with the time spent waiting for the ticket, the drive was easy and fast and once I got to the rental house I relaxed. I felt like I was totally in vacation mode and the view we had from the house really helped.

first-sunset

And Tucker decided to make himself very comfortable by using me as his personal pillow. At least I know he loves me since he was always laying on my legs if I was on the ground or on my feet if I was sitting in a chair.

tucker

The day I arrived, we didn’t do too much. Most of us had gotten to San Diego that day, so we were fine with relaxing and not rushing around. My parents, brother, sister-in-law, and I went out to dinner that night which was nice since we were going to be around a ton of family the rest of the week.

On Wednesday of Thanksgiving week, I had to work from the rental house in the morning. There was a breakfast bar in the kitchen so I worked from there. It was a bit noisy, but it allowed me to still hang out with my family while I was working. I didn’t want to isolate myself so it worked out nicely! After my shift was done, I went with my dad to take the dog to a dog park (he needed to get out some energy). It was another pretty low-key day until dinnertime. We all headed over to my aunt’s house for dinner that night. Almost the entire family was there (we were only missing 1 person) and it was awesome!

It was a casual dinner which was nice. I ended up at a table with my brother, sister-in-law, cousin, and my cousin’s kids (so we were at a kids table), but that was fine. Eating dinner was pretty quick and most of the time we were there was spent in the living room talking. I was telling my grandma how you can look up census paperwork online and showed her how I found the paperwork her parents (my great-grandparents) filled out when she was little. Their maid was listed on their paperwork since she lived there and my grandma was telling us all stories about the maid and her parents. It was a really special thing to get to hear  since we don’t know a ton of stories from when my grandma was growing up.

Thanksgiving day was pretty busy. My morning included the family workout at Orangetheory (which is quickly becoming one of my favorite traditions!) and then I was trying to help out my mom with getting dinner ready. A lot of stuff was done in advance but there was still plenty to do the day of. One of my jobs was to help with the big table we were using, but unfortunately even with all of the muscle in the family, we weren’t able to get the extra leaf in the table. But we managed to get everyone in between the main table and a card table (for the little kids), so it worked out well.

table

On Thanksgiving Day, my cousin Adam and his girlfriend arrived and with them there we had the entire family at Thanksgiving for the first time in a very long time! It was a very full dinner, but it was incredible to have 17 people from 4 generations together.

img_1499

This was also the first time in 6 years that the 5 of us in my generation (my cousins, brother, and I) were all together. I’m hoping this will be happening more often, but we had to get a photo together just in case it is a few more years before we can do this again.

cousins

The day after Thanksgiving, I had to work a full shift for work. I was able to get my hours shifted early again, so I only had to work from 8am-1pm. And I worked in the kitchen so I was spending time with my family in between customers (we didn’t get a ton of people calling or using our chat system so there was a lot downtime). My brother and sister-in-law left to go back to Santa Barbara while I was working, but everyone else was going to be coming back to the house for dinner again that night.

That last night in San Diego had another incredible sunset and my mom and grandma pulled some chairs over to the big windows so they could relax and watch the sun go down. We also tried to see the green flash with the sunset, but it was a bit too cloudy.

family

After having leftovers for dinner, I got back into my loaner car to make the drive back to LA. It would have been nice to spend another day in San Diego, but I really needed to get back. I said goodbye to everyone (a lot of them I might not see again until next Thanksgiving) and made the drive back up. Fortunately, I had a very easy drive (and didn’t get pulled over again) and was home in time to unpack before needing to go to bed.

Overall, it was a pretty wonderful Thanksgiving week. I know that I’m so lucky that my family can get together like this and I’m very grateful that we all make the effort to continue this family tradition.

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Thanksgiving Prep (or So Little Time)

Posted on November 29, 2016 | Comments Off on Thanksgiving Prep (or So Little Time)

Leading up to Thanksgiving, I knew there was a lot of stuff I had to get done and I was really trying to plan things out the best I could. Of course, things never work out the way you think they will. I’m just glad I got all my prep work done before I left last week!

The main part of my Thanksgiving prep was getting the food made that I knew I was bringing. I only was bringing 3 dishes with me, but when you have a tiny kitchen making 3 dishes can seem overwhelming! Especially when I don’t have multiples of the kitchen things I was using!

The first thing I made was banana bread. This has become a tradition over the past few years and I’m glad I’m able to make it to help out. It’s a pretty easy recipe to make and I happened to have some bananas that were overly ripe that I could use. I had almost all of the ingredients that I needed for the recipe at my house (except some of the dairy and the blueberries) and it was a quick thing to put together and get into the oven so I could make the 2 other things I needed to make.

The other dishes I was bringing were dips. I made the feta dip that is a tradition with the family (usually my mom makes it but it is now my thing to make). This is another easy thing to put together, but it is something that I usually don’t have the ingredients for in my house. But once you have everything you need, you just throw it all in the food processor and it is done! The other dip I made was a white bean dip that I found online. It was another really easy thing (just white beans, garlic, parsley, olive oil, and lemon) that was a food processor dip. The only complication I had was I only have one food processor bowl. So I made the feta dip, washed and dried the bowl, and made the other dip. Between the dips and the bread, I got everything done within about an hour.

thanksgiving-food

Packing was something else I tried to plan out, but it ended up being something that I was doing while I was working the day I was going to be driving to San Diego. My family now does casual Thanksgiving and that does make things easier with packing. But because I have lost a pretty significant amount of weight lately, I’ve been realizing that many of my clothes don’t fit anymore. So I grabbed all of the things I was thinking of packing and was trying them on between customers. I guess I should just feel lucky that my work is online chat and phones and my customers can’t see me!

Between packing and cooking, I felt like I had enough on my plate. But I also ended up having my liver MRI the night before driving to San Diego. I was at the hospital for a few hours getting it done so that was a bit of a time suck. The MRI itself wasn’t too horrible. Once the IV was in and I was in the machine, it was about 45 minutes. And at this hospital, you can listen to music while in the MRI tube. They had Pandora as an option and I requested the Broadway station. All the songs that played were things that I knew, but the best moment was when I heard my friend AJ singing on the “Heathers The Musical” soundtrack in-between 2 songs from “Hamilton”! That really made me happy and forget about all the stuff I had to do to prepare for San Diego the next morning.

And because all that craziness wasn’t enough leading up to San Diego, on Monday morning as I drove to my workout the power steering in my car died. I’ve never driven without power steering before and I knew that it was something that needed to be fixed before driving down. I took my car into the shop around 10am on Monday and discovered that the power steering in my car isn’t the standard one used so it would be tough to find a replacement part. They were hopeful that my car would be fixed by Friday, but that meant I wouldn’t have my car for Thanksgiving. Fortunately my mechanic offers free loaner cars so I got one of those and drove that to and from San Diego. As I’m writing this, my car still isn’t fixed. They got the replacement part in on Friday, but it’s still not fixing it. I’m hoping I’ll get my car back this week, but at least I have a loaner car to use so I don’t have to pay for a rental.

My Thanksgiving prep did end up being a bit stressful, but it all worked out in the end. I got everything done that I needed to (plus some things I wasn’t expecting) and I had an awesome Thanksgiving trip. But my Thanksgiving recap won’t be until tomorrow’s post!

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Posted in Family, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

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Thanksgiving Workouts (or Continuing A Tradition)

Posted on November 28, 2016 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts included some in LA and 1 in San Diego. It’s pretty much a once a year occurrence that I work out somewhere other than my Brentwood Orangetheory, but it was awesome to get to work out with my family in the middle of the week.

My workout on Monday was in LA and it was an endurance day. We had a lot of long push paces but I pushed myself a lot. I was preparing to work out with my dad and I wanted to make sure I was in the best running shape possible. For the 3 minute pushes, I did my 1 minute intervals. For all the pushes that were 2 minutes or under, I ran the entire time. We also had a progressive push for 4 minutes where we were supposed to get faster every minute. I know I can’t really run for 4 minutes yet, so I set up my own intervals. I did 90 seconds of running, 30 seconds of walking, and 90 seconds of running to get through that long segment. And when we had a 1 minute all out, I decided to go really fast to see what I would be able to get for my distance in class. And to find out I did 2 miles again was a nice confidence boost!

2-miles

For the floor on Monday, we had 2 blocks. And each of those blocks started with a 750 meter row. That’s a pretty decent distance to row and I knew it would be tough. But I still wanted to go as quickly as I could to see what I was able to do. I managed to get them done in 3:37.6 and 3:26.7 which isn’t bad at all! We also had a lot of arm work including chest presses and flies and using the straps to do rows and bicep work. By the end of the class, I felt pretty prepared for my Thanksgiving workout with my family.

My next workout was on Thanksgiving at the Orangetheory in La Jolla. As usual, my dad was able to join me (one of my aunts was supposed to come for the 3rd year, but she was dealing with some injuries that prevented her from working out). My aunt who came for her first class last year was also with us. My brother came back after missing the workout last year. And my cousin and sister-in-law were there for the first time! We had a pretty large group and our experience levels were a big range, but I was so excited about it. I think my cousin and sister-in-law were both a little nervous (and having me explain the workout wasn’t making it better), but I think everyone was happy that we were doing something to help burn off the calories we’d be eating later.

This workout was a 3G (or 3 group) workout like it is every Thanksgiving. We were able to start on the treadmill and it was an 8 minute distance challenge. My dad and I were on treadmills next to each other, but I knew he could go farther than I could since he can run pretty well. But it was cool to have my dad next to me since this was the first time he was getting to see me run. I did 2 minutes of running with 1 minute of walking for my intervals and I managed to get .6 miles done in those 8 minutes.  We were back on the treadmill one more time and we had a 5 minute block with pushes and all outs. Each segment was 90 seconds or under, so I was able to run the entire time for those.

We also had a bit of a partner workout between the rower and the floor. The people on the rower were rowing for distance while they waited for their partner on the floor to tag them out. On the floor, we had to do squats, squat half swings, and push ups. Because of how the partnering worked, none of my family was partnered with each other. But that might have been for the best because then we didn’t have to be mad at each other for taking too long to tag us out. On the other half of the partner workout, I didn’t end up having a partner (it wasn’t a full class). So we had 1 minute row sprints and then went over to the floor to do shoulder pressed, one leg deadlifts (I did them one-legged but held on with one hand) and more push ups.

For the end of the workout, we had 5 minute rotations where the rower was quick pushes and on the floor we did some plank work. It wasn’t an easy workout, but it wasn’t the worst I have done. But for my family who isn’t used to the pace or pattern, I know it was a bit tough on them. But fortunately everyone had a great time (my sister-in-law even said that she would join Orangetheory if there was one in Santa Barbara for her to go to) and I think that everyone will be joining us again for the workout next year.

And as always, we had to get a photo as a family with our coach. We had someone different this year (the past 2 years we happened to have the same coach each time), but this guy was awesome! I hope he will be our coach next year!

family-otf

We also got a silly picture after the workout. There had been an ongoing joke about if my brother would get sick from pushing himself too hard in the workout this year, so in the silly picture he is pretending to throw up (he’s hidden behind my dad’s arm).

silly-otf

I got back from Thanksgiving late on Friday, so my next workout in LA was on Saturday morning after work. It was a strength day and I was pretty glad for that. I was a bit tired from Thanksgiving and was happy to have a lot of walking during the treadmill time. But it ended up not being a standard strength treadmill day. We had 3 blocks on the treadmill and each started with a 90 second push pace at no incline. I ended up running for all of those. Then we had our hill climbs. Those ranged from 3 minutes to 90 seconds and I walked at an incline between 8-12% for all of those. Then we ended each block with an all out pace (between 30-90 seconds) and it was at a 4% incline. Normally, I wouldn’t run those, but I figured I’d try it because 4% is my walking flat road. Running at 4% isn’t easy, but I was able to do it and I’m glad that I tried.

On the floor, the first block was more focused on arms. We had push ups with weighted rows plus bicep curls (I was using 20 pounds for the bicep work) We also had some ab work in that first block. In the second block, we had lunges plus some strap work and then rowing. The rowing was between 300-400 meters so it was more like a sprint than some of my rowing in the beginning of the week. I was glad that I chose to do a workout on Saturday because it really helped me to get back into my normal schedule after being out-of-town for a few days. And I also knew I ate a bit more than normal over Thanksgiving so I wanted to make up for that.

For the next few weeks of workouts, I don’t think I have anything too crazy going on. There is a contest at my Orangetheory where you have to do 15 workouts in 6 weeks, so I know that should happen for me (if you get that done, you win tickets you can use for various drawings for prizes). I’ve heard there is a sprint dri-tri coming up, so I’m going to look into that and see if it fits with my schedule. But mainly I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing to make sure I end 2016 better than I started it!

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A Friend Party (or A Casual Hangout And Catchup)

Posted on November 25, 2016 | Comments Off on A Friend Party (or A Casual Hangout And Catchup)

Even though I’ve had a lot of awesome friend adventures lately, a lot of them have been with the same group of friends. And I realized that I hadn’t seen some of my other friends lately. So when my friend Rayshell sent me an invite to a last minute party that she and her husband were throwing, I knew I had to be there! I was a bit tired from my day, but I knew that even if I could only be there for an hour or two it would be worth it!

I got to their party a little after it started (there was some filming on their street so parking was difficult to find) and I’m glad I got there then. Normally at the beginning of their parties there aren’t a ton of people there yet. So I’m able to focus on the few people who were there and fortunately the people there at the beginning were the people I wanted to see!

Rayshell has been working out at Orangetheory lately, so it was great to catch up with her and hear what has been happening lately in her life. We haven’t been able to work out together yet, but I’m hoping that will happen soon. And we keep saying that we are due for another happy hour hangout, but both of us have been really crazy with our schedules.

Rayshell also was curious to get an update on me with my health situation. I know it can sound scary to hear that someone has a tumor in their liver, but I’m in no pain or discomfort and if I didn’t know I had the tumor nothing would be different in my life. I think letting her know that I’m totally fine reassured her that I really am ok. And I updated her on when I’d have updates so she could know when to expect them.

I also got to see my friend Sarah at the party. Again, we hadn’t seen each other in a while so it was so much fun to catch up! Since both of our last names are Levin, we figured that we must be somewhat related (there is a story that all people named Levin are at least 35th cousins or something). So we were reviewing our family trees to see if we could figure out any overlap. So far, we haven’t figured out where our family trees overlap, but I have a feeling that eventually we will figure it out.

Most of the time I was at the party, I was just catching up on life with my friends. We did discuss other things (mainly politics and the craziness going on right now), but it did feel like everyone wanted this party to be a catch up party. It did make me feel a little less guilty about not seeing my friends lately since it seemed like everyone was feeling the same way. Knowing that a bunch of us felt like this made me so grateful that Rayshell and Paul threw this party so we could all hang out.

I got to see a few other friends at the party, but when it was about 10pm, I needed to head home. I had been up since 6 that morning and I knew I needed to be up at 7 the next morning. As much as I wish I could have stayed later and seen my other friends who I knew were showing up later that night, my sleep has to be a priority for me now (I’m totally turning into an old person!). But before I left, Sarah and I had to get a photo with Rayshell in the middle. It’s a photo we’ve done a bunch of times so it’s become a tradition for us now!

levin-sandwich

Hopefully either Rayshell will have another party soon or I can organize a hangout with my friends soon so I can see them again! I don’t want to go a few months without getting to catch up again!

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Happy Thanksgiving! (or Time To Be Grateful)

Posted on November 24, 2016 | Comments Off on Happy Thanksgiving! (or Time To Be Grateful)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that all of you are having a great day celebrating with whoever you choose to celebrate with. I am with 4 generations of my family (plus the dog) and I will post a recap of my Thanksgiving next week. But for today, I just wanted to do a short post of things I’m thankful for this year. Things have been so negative lately in the country (and the world) so I just wanted to put a little bit of positivity out there.

I’m so grateful for my family. I don’t get to see them that often, but spending time with them at Thanksgiving is very special to me. And this year, I also got to spend time with my dad’s side of my family. I don’t get to see them that often (because they are on the east coast) so it was really wonderful to spend any time I could with them. I’m hoping I can see them more often, but I know that with the difficulty for me to go back east (or for them to come out there) it might be a few more years before I see them again.

I’m beyond grateful for my friends. This year so far could have been a very difficult one for me, but because of my amazing friends that didn’t happen. I’ve had more fun adventures this year than I ever could have imagined and I know that more crazy outings are coming up for the end of this year and through next year.

I am grateful for my health. I’ve had a couple of health setbacks this year (I’ll have an update on my liver tumor next week after I see my liver surgeon again) but they are not life-threatening. Having a tumor isn’t great, but it is far from the worst thing that could be happening to me. And I know that whatever my surgeon says next week about what needs to happen next, it will be ok and I will not have any problems getting through it.

I’m grateful for my eating disorder recovery journey. The journey is not as easy as I would like, but I am seeing progress and things are getting better and easier over time. While I really wanted to be fully in recovery by the end of this year, I know now that it’s not realistic to have a timeline set in my head for recovery. It is coming to me when it comes to me and I just need to keep working on building my recovery skills so I can use them when I’m recovered.

I’m grateful for my fitness. This year, I started to run again. Not only did I start running at Orangetheory, I was doing a really great run/walk interval in my last 5K. And that run/walk plan got me my new PR! But it’s not just running that makes me grateful for my fitness. I’m lifting heavier weights and I’ve noticed that the strength I’m gaining has made more of my day-to-day stuff easier. This is just going to keep improving and I can’t wait to see what’s coming next.

And finally, like I say all the time, I’m grateful for this blog and my readers. This has been a great sounding board for me and I’ve gotten some incredible advice from you all. Thank you for joining me on my journey and hopefully you are all excited to see what the future will bring!

Now go and enjoy your Thanksgiving however you chose to celebrate the day!

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Gilmore Girls Time! (or A Fun Afternoon At UCLA)

Posted on November 23, 2016 | 1 comment

I think pretty much everyone has heard by now that “Gilmore Girls” is coming back with new episodes on Netflix. I’m really excited about this! “Gilmore Girls” was one of the first shows that I can think of that my mom and I watched together but in different locations (she was in the Bay Area and I was living in LA) where we would talk after the show to discuss the episode. My mom and I have always been really close, but having this show to connect us when I moved away from home helped to keep our bond strong.

I may get to watch one of the new episodes with my mom since they premiere the day after Thanksgiving and I’ll still be in San Diego then. But we probably will still be watching most of it separately and then discussing the show after we finish it. But either way, knowing that one of my favorite shows is coming back (even if it is only 4 episodes that are 90 minutes each) is making me so happy!

There have been a lot of “Gilmore Girls” related events happening leading up to the new season. There were the Luke’s Diners that popped up all over the country for the day, but I wasn’t able to make it to that due to work conflicts. And more recently there was the premiere of the first episode of the new season, but I couldn’t go to that either. But when I heard that there was going to be an event at UCLA where they made it look like Stars Hollow (the town in the show), I knew I had to go!

I got my tickets and then shared online that I was going. A few of my friends got tickets, but it quickly sold out so it was going to be a small group of just the 3 of us. One of my friends was going to get in line early for us, and then my other friend and I were going to meet her there so we could go in together. But then my friend who was supposed to line up came down with a horrible migraine/cold and was stuck feeling horrible in bed. And my other friend got stuck at work and then needed to take her car in to be fixed. So I ended up going alone, but that was fine.

I was shocked at how many people were in line when I arrived! I got there almost an hour before the event started, and I was questioning if I was even going to make it inside. The event was limiting people to 45 minutes inside and we figured they would let a few hundred people in at once (I heard a rumor it was 350 people each time), so I was hoping I wouldn’t be in line for too long. Fortunately, I ended up being at the end of the third group that got to go inside. So I did have to wait a few hours, but my book kept me pretty entertained.

And once I got inside, it was totally worth it!

festival-of-four-seasons

I used to work at the WB studio as a tour guide, so I got to see the Stars Hollow set every day at work. And they did a great job making this area look similar to what the studio lot looked like.

stars-hollowtown-sign

There were a couple of fun photo opportunities including a gazebo that was in the center of the space they were using. I didn’t do that photo since there was a huge line since the photos were with cast members from the show. But I did take advantage of the photo setup they made with umbrellas (if you watched the show, this was a reminder of when Rory jumped with Logan off of the tower). Some of the umbrellas were hanging from the trees so it made it look like you were falling back to the ground, but they were a bit too high for me to reach. So I took advantage of one of the umbrellas that was not attached to the trees.

photo-setup

They also had a Luke’s Diner set up. They were serving coffee in Luke’s Diner cups, but since I don’t drink coffee I just took some photos and admired the attention to detail they put into the area.

lukes luke

There were also some swag type things you could get. Besides the coffee (people loved having those cups and I bet they were planning on saving them), there were bags of candy to get and buttons with funny sayings from the show (I personally got the vicious trollop one).

kirk-buttons

They also had a Stars Hollow Post Office set up with postcards that you could send to anyone you wanted and they would pay for the postage.

gilmore-girls-postcard

I really wanted my mom to have one, so I grabbed it and didn’t mail it since I would see her before the postcard got to her.

greetings-from-stars-hollow

There were also props from the show in a tent that you could go through. And the last thing that I did was going to the photo booth where you could get some cute free photos.

photo-booth

It’s tough to see it in my photo, but 3 of them are me holding signs with the various boyfriends’ names (Team Dean, Team Jess, and Team Logan) and me doing a frown. The last photo is me holding a sign saying Team Rory and doing a thumbs up. They had a lot of other cute fun signs to choose from, but since I was doing the photos solo I wanted to think of something cute I could do with one sign at a time. And this came to me and I went for it! The photo that printed out is a bit faded (maybe they were running low on ink), but since the entire event was free I can’t complain about any of it.

Before I knew it, the 45 minutes for my group was up and it was time for us to leave. While I’m sure I would have had an amazing time with my friends there, I had fun on my own and I’m so glad I went.

It’s almost time for “Gilmore Girls” again and this just got me even more excited for the new season to premiere!

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Another Night At The Rockwell (or Jeff Goldblum and Jazz)

Posted on November 22, 2016 | Comments Off on Another Night At The Rockwell (or Jeff Goldblum and Jazz)

When we were at the Rockwell to see the Hocus Pocus musical, we heard that there were still seats for that coming Wednesday to see Jeff Goldblum. While that sounds cool anyway, my friend Michelle was beyond excited. She’s been wanting for years to see Jeff Goldblum perform and had been telling me about it over the past month. So when we discovered there were still a few seats left for that show, we bought them immediately!

Jeff Goldblum (from “Jurassic Park” and “Independence Day”) plays jazz with his band at Rockwell pretty frequently. A lot of times the show is sold out before we knew it, so it was just perfect that we were able to get some seats. I didn’t know too much about the show going into it, but I’m always up for a fun night out and I knew this would be interesting!

When we ordered our seats, there were almost no options left. We pretty much could only decide if we wanted to sit at the bar or sit at a table. We opted for a table and I’m glad we did. There is a 2 item minimum for the shows, and I knew we’d be ordering dinner. And since we got there a bit closer to showtime, we would be eating while the show was happening.

As always, the menu looked really good to me.

rockwell-menu

I ended up ordering some soup and some truffle fries. Not the healthiest meal, but it was what I was craving so I decided to go for it. Plus, I figured we wouldn’t be ordering dessert so I was fine getting a bit of a splurge for dinner.

After we ordered, we noticed a bit of commotion behind us. I turned around and noticed that Jeff Goldblum was walking around and taking photos with everyone! I’m so used to events where the cast isn’t out before the show started, so I thought this was very cool. Since Michelle is a big fan of his, I was saying that she should go over to get a photo. She didn’t want to, but when he came over to our table and started talking to us, there was no way we could miss this opportunity!

jeff-goldblum

He was seriously so cool and really just wanted to go to everyone at the show to make sure they were already having a good time and to thank them for coming to the show! I’m not sure what I was expecting as far as interaction goes with him, but this was not what I thought would happen. He was so down to earth and really a nice guy who wanted to make sure the audience was having the best time ever!

Before we knew it, the show was starting. The band was really great and played some awesome jazz songs. And if you are familiar with Jeff Goldblum from his movies, he plays music exactly how you would imagine him to do it. It was really entertaining and even though we were in the back of the room and had a slightly obstructed view, it was just perfect.

jazz-show

Between each song, he would get a piece of paper with movie trivia, guess the political quote questions, or options of would you rather. It was so funny and even though I didn’t really know many answers to anything I enjoyed hearing his commentary on the questions and the random answers people shouted out from the audience.

There was about an hour of show, then a 10 minute intermission, and then about another hour of the show. I could have listened to it for much longer because it was so entertaining, but that was all the show they had that night. I’m not even that big of a jazz fan, but the music was played really well and with a lot of skill and everyone in the band was so into it that you couldn’t help but enjoy each song and think it’s one of the greatest songs you’ve heard.

Michelle and I have already said that we will totally be going back to this show another time. As of right now, it only shows this Wednesday available (he plays on Wednesdays when he isn’t busy working as an actor). But he said at the end of the show that this week wasn’t the last week and that there would be more shows coming up. We are getting more and more familiar with the Rockwell venue and where we like to sit, so we are going to pick a show where we can get seats at the table that we like.

I still smile when I think about all the awesome adventures I’ve had lately. This is exactly the mood booster I needed in my life. The election got me down quite a bit. And while I’m not feeling bad about the liver tumor, knowing that there are still some unanswered questions makes me a bit stressed and tempted to google things to try to find more answers (which isn’t the best thing right now). I wish that I had more fun money in my life that could be used for events like this, but at least I know I’ve got a couple of other things scheduled that I can look forward to!

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Default ThumbnailHocus Pocus (or Musical #3 For The Week!) Default ThumbnailA Night Of Magic (or Not Quite A Musical) Default ThumbnailAnother Night At Pantages (or Hedwig Take 2) Default ThumbnailA Night At The Bowl (or Movie Music With Friends) Default ThumbnailA Night Out On The Town (or “Nothing To Hide”) Default Thumbnail42nd Street (or So Much Tap Dancing!)

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Making Progress (or Preparing For My Thanksgiving Workout)

Posted on November 21, 2016 | 2 comments

This past week of workouts were really great! I’m not sure what happened, but I was able to do things better/faster/stronger and I wasn’t necessarily trying for that. I know that part of it might be that I’m getting ready for my workout with my family on Thanksgiving. My dad and I are pretty competitive with that. I know he will always do better than me on the treadmill (although he hasn’t seen me run yet), but I want to do better on the rower and lift heavier weights. And I think this week really got me ready for that.

Monday was a strength day. I was able to run during the flat road push pace during the treadmill time (it was for a minute). But since the treadmill time was very focused on hills (as strength days are), I mainly power walked. I did try to do my inclines at the recommended incline or higher. We had a lot of 2 minute hill segments and I was usually keeping the treadmill at 8-12% incline. The inclines are finally getting easier for me (they got really tough after I tore my calf and I don’t know why it took so long to get easier) so I’m testing the higher inclines again during strength days. I’m glad that things seem to be getting better and I think I can start to challenge myself on strength days again.

For the floor on Monday, it was mainly arm work. But we had rowing to do for each of the 3 blocks. The first block was 600 meters, the second block was 500 meters, and the last block was 400 meters. The average time I seem to get is about 30 seconds for every 100 meters (which is what beginners are supposed to do). When I tore my calf, rowing got tough but that didn’t last too long. But then when I got my stomach bug/gallbladder issue, it got tough again to row. My stomach didn’t like being compressed like that. It hasn’t been easy rowing lately, but I figured this was a good day as any to challenge myself. And I really went hard. I managed to do my 600 meters in 2:35 (instead of my usual 3 minutes), the 500 meters in 2:03 (instead of 2:30) and 400 meters in 1:31 (instead of 2 minutes). Some of those are the best rowing times I’ve done for those distances and it was at the end of the workout so I felt really great that I could still accomplish something that awesome when I was that tired.

I had to skip my Wednesday workout (more on that tomorrow), so I went on Thursday instead. And I honestly think that Thursday was one of the toughest days I’ve had ever at Orangetheory (several other people I know agreed with me on that). It was worse than the Hell Week workouts! It was an endurance day, but it wasn’t a normal workout day. All of the blocks were 6.5 minutes long. We started with the treadmill for a block. I was able to run the 90 second and under push and all out paces completely. For the 2 or 3 minute pushes, I ran for 1 minute and walked for a minute.

After that block, the treadmills headed over to the rower. We had 2 different 3 minute distance sprints. Inspired by my awesome rowing on Monday, I decided to see what I could really do with these sprints. Normally for 3 minutes, I would get just about 600 meters done. And rowing for 3 minutes straight isn’t easy, so I can’t push myself as much as I can with the sprints. But after completing the 2 distance challenges, I was pretty darn impressed with myself!

rowing-challenge

I’m very happy that I was close to 700 meters both times! And I got my further distance on the second sprint, which most people couldn’t do. That was nice. After the rowing, we headed back to the treadmill for another block of work.

When we got to the floor, it was a lot of hamstring work which is always tough for me. Most of that work is too tough on my hips, so I have to do modifications. It’s not bad, but it does sometimes frustrate me because I really do want to do what everyone else is doing. After one block on the floor, we headed up to the treadmill and had a treadmill block in the middle of our floor work. That treadmill block included a 3 minute push, so I did my 1 minute intervals with it. And we finished up with another floor block. I was so exhausted after that workout, but it was a good exhaustion.

Going back on Friday after that tough Thursday workout wasn’t fun. But fortunately for me, it was another strength day so I mainly was walking on the treadmill. Again, I ran the push and all out paces that were on flat inclines (30 seconds to 1 minute), but everything else was walking on inclines. This time, the inclines were a little bit lower (usually between 6-12%) but I was increasing my speed a bit more to compensate for the lower incline.

The floor work was a lot of focus on shoulders. I was doing my shoulder press at squat fly with 15 pound weights. I know that in the past I’ve done shoulder presses with 20 pounds, but I must have slept funny the night before because my right shoulder was bugging me. I didn’t want to push it too much and risk an injury, so I went a bit easier. But I was able to use the 20 pound weight for my triceps work (one day, I know I’ll have buff arms!). We also had some rowing to do while on the floor. During the first floor block, we had a 500 meter row. And with the second block we had a 350 and 300 meter row. I didn’t do any super spectacular row work that day, but considering what I had done earlier in the week, I was just happy to be able to do what I normally do.

And I managed to do a 4th workout this past week too! I’ve realized that there’s a good chance I won’t make it to my workout goal this year (at my last count, I’ll be 4 workouts short and I’m seeing if I can add them in somewhere). So I’m trying to get in as many workouts as I can to be as close as I can get to the goal. I worked out on Sunday (which is something I rarely do) and it was a pretty great workout. It was an endurance, strength, and power workout; but it wasn’t done in the normal order that I’m used to. It’s normally in the order it’s is described, but this time it was strength, power, and endurance.

For the strength block, we started with a 2 minute push pace on a flat incline, so I did that and ran for the entire thing. Running for 2 minutes isn’t easy, but I’m glad I did it. For all the incline work, I was at 8% incline and bumped up my speed a bit more with my power walking, But the final part of the strength block was a 1 minute all out pace at 4% incline. Since 4% is considered “flat road incline” for power walking, I’m pretty comfortable at that incline. So I decided to do my all out as a run with the incline. I really felt the incline in my legs, but it wasn’t unbearable.

The power block was pretty short with push paces to all out paces that were less than 2 minutes total. So I was able to run all of that and I even bumped up my all out pace a bit and finished that block running at 6mph. And the endurance block was tough as always. For the 3 minute push pace, I did my usual 1 minute intervals. But we had a 2 minute push toward the end of the workout and I figured since I ran a 2 minute push at the beginning I’d like to try to bookend the treadmill time with another 2 minute run. This was a bit harder than the first 2 minute push (I was tired by this point), but I’m really glad I did it.

For the floor work, we had a pretty good mix of things. We had some hip/leg work, some back work, some core, and some rowing. The blocks were going much faster than they normally feel and I was pretty happy with all my work on the floor. I did struggle with one of the ab things because my hips weren’t feeling up to it, so I just did regular full sit ups instead and that seemed like a good substitute to me.

I’ve got one more workout (this morning) before I head to Thanksgiving and have my family workout. But I think I’m in significantly better shape this year than I was last year and I’m in a great spot to be able to battle with my dad during the workout.

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Default ThumbnailFeeling Better About My Progress (or Coming Back From The Dri-Tri) Default ThumbnailHills And Power Outages (or Not My Usual Workout Week) Default ThumbnailRoutine Is Still Progress (or Proving I’m Improving) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Workout Week (or Being Ok With Being Ok) Default ThumbnailNot Too Much Progress (or Just Being Happy With What I Can Do) Default ThumbnailSome Progress and Some Setbacks (or Trying To Set New Workout Goals)

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Planning My Next Project (or Meeting A Director)

Posted on November 18, 2016 | Comments Off on Planning My Next Project (or Meeting A Director)

Now that “Single Parent Date Night” is pretty much done (we are just submitting to film festivals now), I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanted to work on next. I’d love to find another project that I can star in again, but it’s not that easy. I thought about seeing if I can find another writer friend to help create a project for me, but again that isn’t easy and I didn’t know if that was the right step.

But a while ago, my friend Camber (who I met through our WIF mentoring group) mentioned an idea for a documentary that she was thinking about doing. I’ve helped to produce one documentary before, but that project was pretty easy. Our entire movie seemed to come together really well and since it was mainly interviews it was an easy shoot to do. But the documentary that Camber brought up to me will be much more involved and will require more planning.

I don’t want to get into too many details (mainly because they aren’t figured out yet), this documentary idea would be one about nature. It would involve travel both within the country and internationally and it would require a pretty decent budget. Also, since it wouldn’t be interview based, we would pretty much have to write a script for the documentary to help guide the project.

Neither of us have experience with creating a documentary like this and we knew that we would need some help pretty much from the beginning. I brought the idea to the director of “Single Parent Date Night” (who also directed the documentary I produced previously) to see if he wanted to be a part of this project too. I trust him so much as a director and would have loved to have him a part of this. But the subject isn’t one that interests him and that is something that is important to us. We don’t want someone directing a project just to do it, we want them to have a passion for it since we need their guidance on how to tell the story.

So I posted in a couple of different industry related groups that I’m a part of to see if there were any directors who specialized in documentaries and possibly had an interest in doing a documentary about nature. I kept the post a bit vague as we are still figuring out what our documentary will totally be about. I got a couple of responses, but there was one director who seemed to be very interested in discussing the project so Camber and I met with her this past week.

I feel so lucky that I’ve had some amazing people come into my life in regards to acting and other entertainment related stuff. The director we met with is very much on a similar wavelength as Camber and I are. And she had some great ideas for us on how to narrow down our ideas and to build a narrative for the film. She even gave us a list of films to watch so we could get some more ideas!

The best thing was that she said that even if we didn’t want her to be our director, she still wanted to help us make it! That is just so generous and I know that she will be a great asset to the film. I’m just so grateful that she responded to my post and was willing to meet with us even though we don’t have a full concept to present yet.

Camber and I have a lot of work to get done before we meet with this director again (or meet with any more directors). We know this documentary that we want to make may take more than a year to do, so we want to do everything right. And even though it isn’t acting, this project is a creative one and is helping me exercise the creative part of my mind. I hope that we can make this documentary a reality. Not just because I want to be able to do it. I really feel passionate that I want everyone to see what we are hoping to make and I feel like it can have a big impact on a lot of people.

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Default ThumbnailJust A Fun Dinner Out (or Remembering To Have Fun) Default ThumbnailWorking On A New Plan (or Self-Producing) Default ThumbnailGeneral Meeting (or Hanging Out With A Casting Director For Free) Default ThumbnailLast Official Mentee Meeting (or Planning For 2016) Default ThumbnailA Lunchtime Meeting (or Feeling Very LA) Default ThumbnailAnother Mentee Meeting (or Beach Brunch)

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A Premiere Morning (or Seeing Myself On The Big Screen)

Posted on November 17, 2016 | 2 comments

This past weekend, we had the premiere screening of “Single Parent Date Night”. This film has been a pretty quick process (which is nice) and we’ve been able to get things done very efficiently from pre-production to post-production. I’ve been seeing the film through each edited version, so I knew what to expect. And I had seen the final cut already (but just on my computer), but seeing it premiere for an audience is always different.

We ended up renting a theater in the valley to hold the screening. And since our film is only about 9 minutes long, Christopher (the writer and my co-star) decided to create a 3 film screening of different films he wrote. The entire thing was only 30 minutes, but it was nicer to have that than to just have everyone come to a theater for a 9 minute movie.

When I arrived, I couldn’t stop smiling. As soon as I walked to the theater where we were screening, I saw our movie listed above the door. Everything looked so real and official and this was the first time a movie I was in had this.

single-parent-date-night

The theater we were screening in was a regular movie theater, so there were a bunch of seats and the screen was a full-sized screen. It was a little overwhelming, but awesome at the same time. Most of the people who came to the screening were friends of our director, Bryan. But I had a couple of friends show up too and I was glad they were there! I knew they would be honest with me about the movie and even though I knew it was good, I was very critical about my performance.

Our film was the last one screening, so I tried to stay calm while the other 2 movies played. And before I knew it, it was time to show off “Single Parent Date Night” to the world!

movie

It is always very tough for me to watch my own performances. I feel like things weren’t done right, I said something funny, or with this film that I blinked too much and too long. I’m very nitpicky and it’s hard to get over that. So I tried to focus on the audience watching the show for the first time.

Fortunately, it seemed like everybody really liked it! A lot of my lines got laughs, people seemed to be very into the story, and we got a lot of applause when the final credits came up. And I did manage to watch a bit of it when I wasn’t feeling too nervous and was in shock with how crazy it was to see myself on the huge screen there!

on-the-big-screen

When the screening was over, we all went up to the front to thank everyone for coming. Some of the people there were people who supported our Kickstarter and I wanted to make sure they knew how much we appreciated every dollar that was given. We were willing to do a Q&A too, but since most people there were also filmmakers and our film is pretty self-explanatory, there weren’t any questions.

After that was done, I went over to my friends to see what they thought and they all really loved it! They enjoyed my performance and thought the story was really cute too! I’m glad I had their support there because it is very nerve-racking to see a project that you have worked so hard at completing be done. All you want is for everyone to love it, and thankfully it seems like that was the reaction we got from the audience.

I know that a lot of people wanted to come to the premiere and couldn’t (either due to scheduling or distance), but we decided to put our film up online for everyone to see. So make sure you check out “Single Parent Date Night” to see what all our hard work created!

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Default ThumbnailAnother Screening (or Enjoying A Film Festival) Default ThumbnailAlmost Ready To Make A Movie! (or Can You Spare A Buck?) Default ThumbnailPlanning My Next Project (or Meeting A Director) Default ThumbnailFiguring Out The Next Step (or I Need To Keep Acting) Default ThumbnailCast and Crew Read Through (or We Get To Make A Movie!) Default ThumbnailA Night At A Screening (or Forgetting What Non-Screenings Are Like)

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