Monthly Archives: October 2020

Finishing Holiday Shopping Before Halloween (or Thank Goodness For Internet Bookmarks)

Posted on October 30, 2020 | Comments Off on Finishing Holiday Shopping Before Halloween (or Thank Goodness For Internet Bookmarks)

I take so much pride in getting people awesome gifts. I know the best gifts don’t have to cost a ton of money, and this year that’s more important than ever. I don’t have much extra money to spend (I’m still spending more than I should, but I’m working on it). But I still wanted to get Hanukkah presents for my family like I do every year. And I really like to make sure that I find presents that they will really like and might be things they wouldn’t think of getting for themselves.

Because I find presents that they might not think of on their own, I do tend to get a lot of random things for people. But they are random things that I truly think that they will love. I don’t know how long I have felt this way about gifts, but I know it’s been a long time. I know it goes back at least until I was a teenager. Back then, I would start planning out gifts maybe a month or so in advance. I know that’s more in advance than some people do, but for me, it didn’t feel like enough time. So I started planning better.

I know what gifts I will have to buy every year. I know when birthdays are happening and I know I do Hanukkah presents with my family at Thanksgiving. So planning it out is a pretty set schedule. I do still occasionally have a time crunch with figuring out gifts, but more often I am considering a few options when it’s close to the time I will be shopping. I always am seeing things online in various lists or looking through catalogs that have different types of gifts. And no matter what time of year it is, whenever I see something that I think would be right for someone, I save it in a bookmark in my web browser. I actually need to be a bit more organized with that because it’s just a single bookmark folder called “Gift Ideas” and I should organize it by person. But I have a few dozen things I’ve seen over time that I like as possible gifts for the people in my life.

I don’t always shop from the list. Sometimes I like to do some extra shopping to see if there is something else that inspires me. For example, this year for Hanukkah I got one gift for my parents and one gift for my brother and sister-in-law (Rory already got his gift early). The gift for my parents was something I saw on a list online about a year ago and I knew it would be something they could use. It’s not a big gift and it feels a bit silly, but it’s something I know they will use a lot and they wouldn’t have thought of for themselves (sorry to be vague, but my parents sometimes read this blog and I’m not spoiling their gift). But for my brother and sister-in-law, I wasn’t feeling too enthusiastic about the things I had previously saved as bookmarks for them. So I did a bit of online shopping and had a discussion with my mom about some potential gifts. And I think I figured out the perfect thing for them!

I’ll be seeing my family soon and that’s when I’ll be bringing everyone’s gifts. We are doing Thanksgiving as a small family unit before Thanksgiving this year. So exchanging gifts will be earlier too. I’m not totally sure if everyone else is planning on doing gifts then, but they all know that I will be doing it. It saves me a bit of money to not have to ship gifts later, and if I can save money doing something easy then I’m going to do it. And fortunately, I already have everyone’s gifts at my house. I just need to wrap them (since I’m not flying anywhere I can use wrapping paper again) and then bring them with me in a little over a week when I see everyone.

It’s a bit crazy that I’m done with all my holiday shopping before Halloween happened, but it’s also nice. I don’t want to stress over presents and knowing that they are done is a little bit of calm in my life right now. And that also means I can start looking at potential gifts for next year now so I’ll be ready in a year when I’ll be doing my holiday shopping again.

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Almost Election Day (or I’m Asking You All To Please Vote)

Posted on October 29, 2020 | Comments Off on Almost Election Day (or I’m Asking You All To Please Vote)

We are less than a week away from Election Day. Honestly, I’m ready for the presidential campaign to be done. It feels like it’s been going on since the last election. And that’s partially true since Trump started his re-election campaign right after he was elected. And this election has been very overwhelming. There are so many things we are all aware of as a country with what happened that might not need to have happened. We have seen how other countries have worked with slowing the pandemic and it’s frustrating to see that our national leadership isn’t doing the same. And since so many of us are out of work, we all have more time to be informed about the news each day.

Election Day feels like a very different thing this time. Normally, it felt like most people would go out to vote on Election Day. I always voted by mail, but I know a lot of people who never did that before. This year, people are calling Election Day the deadline to vote, not the date to vote. I can’t think of any of my friends in California that are voting in person. Everyone is voting by mail and almost all of us have been dropping off our ballots in a ballot box instead of mailing them back.

And I think most of us are aware that we probably won’t know who won by the end of Election Day. The projections that the various news agencies put out are just projections, not totals. Typically, it takes a few days (if not longer) after Election Day to finish counting ballots. And this is because, in most states, they cannot start counting ballots until the morning of Election Day. I don’t think states should be counting and announcing what is happening with the mail-in ballots before Election Day, but I do think it makes sense to allow states to start going through them and counting. Especially because some politicians are starting to say that they do not believe ballots should be counted after Election Day. I’m not even talking about ballots that are mailed before Election Day and arrive after. This is about ballots that are ready to be counted on Election Day but because of time they are not counted before midnight. Let’s say there are 10 million mail-in ballots but only enough time to count 7 million before midnight. Should those 3 million votes not count? Should your vote be a luck of the draw if it’s considered? No. Every vote should be counted. And there is no need for us to know who won immediately. In the last several elections, we didn’t know right away. So why do we need to know that night now?

And for ballots that are mailed back before Election Day, there are issues with those too. Many states have decided that if a ballot is postmarked before Election Day but does not arrive on time, it is not valid. And considering how slow the mail is these days, I think a lot of ballots that are mailed won’t make it in time. For example, when I mail things to my family it’s usually there within a day or two. The last time I mailed something to my parents, it took almost 3 weeks. The slow mail is the reason I used a ballot box this time. And I’m lucky in LA that we have so many ballot boxes. Other states are making it very difficult to return a ballot. For example, in Texas, they are restricting ballot boxes to 1 per county. Some counties have millions of people or are very large and people have to drive miles to get to the box. And if you mail your ballot back, it can only arrive the day after Election Day to count, so many people are dropping them off. That has lead to lines at the ballot boxes that can take hours to get through. And not everyone can take the day to drop off a ballot (or wait in line to vote in person). So making it harder to vote is also potentially preventing people from voting.

But even with all the difficulties that there might be voting this year, I want to encourage you all to vote. Actually, because of the difficulties I want people to vote. We can make voting easier for everyone if we have politicians in office who believe in doing that. Texas didn’t have to make things difficult. They made that decision and said it would be fine. Hopefully, those who are upset with these new policies will vote in people who want to make voting accessible to all. It’s not just about voting for the president (although that is important). It’s about voting for the people who will be making the decisions in your state, city, and district. You want people in office who represent you and that you agree with. And that only happens if you vote. If you don’t take this chance, you are silencing your voice for what you want.

If you have a mail-in ballot, please do not mail it back. Even if you have to drive a bit to a ballot box, it’s the only way now to guarantee your ballot will arrive on time and can be counted. If you are voting in person and if your state has early voting you may want to do that to avoid the lines that might be happening on Election Day. I know the lines for early voting are happening too, but you can time early voting around your schedule so hopefully, you can go on a day that you have more availability.

And I hope that no matter what way this election turns out, that we can find a way to come together again. The split in our country has gone too far and we need to find a way to work on supporting each other. Just because people might not have voted for a politician doesn’t mean that politician can say they aren’t going to help them. Just because you didn’t vote for someone means you should be protesting anything they do and threatening them. We are stronger when we are united and together. And we need to be stronger than we have been in the recent past so we can regain what we have lost this year.

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Shopping More To Shop Less (or Finding Ways To Be Less Wasteful)

Posted on October 28, 2020 | Comments Off on Shopping More To Shop Less (or Finding Ways To Be Less Wasteful)

I’ve always tried to be aware of how much trash I create. I’m nowhere near what those zero-waste people do, but I try to recycle when I can and not just throw away stuff that could be reused or donated. I know that it’s really easy just to put something in the trash and it seems to go away. But that’s not what really happens and it’s possible to create a lot of trash every day.

I think since the pandemic started, my trash seemed to be more and more. I think part of that was due to things being packaged differently or how we couldn’t use reusable bags at the grocery store. I know some of my friends said they had more trash because they were home more, but I don’t really have that excuse. I just was using more stuff that was disposable that I usually didn’t. And it was starting to feel a bit much and I knew that I needed to do something about it.

There are some things right now that I use that have to stay disposable. For example, I do rely a lot on grocery deliveries so I can avoid the store, and there’s no way to get paper bags instead of plastic. And because cleaning products are limited in stores, the disinfecting cleaner I use happens to be wipes right now instead of spray. And there are a few tasks I do that I use rubber gloves for, and my dishwashing gloves are too thick so I use the blue one time use ones.

But there are also a lot of things that I have been using disposable things for that I’ve realized I can find better options for. And these options are better for multiple reasons. First, they are better because they don’t create trash. But they also are better for me because if I find things that can be reused, that means I don’t have to go to the store to find more. And even though many reusable things cost more when purchasing them, the cost per use is much lower because you don’t have to keep replacing them.

I’ve slowly been adding more and more reusable things to my life. Some of these things are things I did years ago, such as using reusable cotton rounds that I wash each week instead of the throwaway cotton ones when using toner or makeup remover. I do wish I had gotten them in black instead of white because they are looking dingy, but they still work as well even though they aren’t looking super bright white.

But more recently, I’ve been trying to limit the paper products I use each day. Part of this was because it was harder to find things like paper napkins or paper towels. But I have known I needed to change this habit for a long time. So I guess the pandemic was just the catalyst for change for me. I have invested in things like cloth napkins and microfiber cloths.

I’ll admit, I’m not so great about using the cloth napkins for now, but I also have a lot of paper ones left, so I can take my time with the transition. I think part of the hesitation is how to clean them if they get super dirty. I don’t have my own washer and drying and it’s expensive to do a load. So I can’t just do a load of napkins. But I bet I could do something like doing a little handwash for the dirty ones before putting them in the laundry with my clothes.

For the microfiber cloths, I’ve been better at using those as replacements for paper towels when I clean. There are a few things I clean that I use sponges for and still use those sponges. But there are so many things I have used paper towels for and they just get thrown out. I know I’ve wasted a lot when I probably didn’t need to. For washing those, I shook them out after cleaning to get any bigger things off of them like crumbs from my kitchen counter. Then I put them in a mesh laundry bag before putting them in my laundry because I read online that would help if there was a lot of dirt left on them. It seemed to work pretty well with washing.

And the most recent thing I got as a reusable thing was mopping pads. I have a Swiffer mop that works perfectly for cleaning my house. And those mops use disposable pads that are designed to help scrub the floors and absorb extra cleaning solution. I’ve been using those disposable pads since I got the mop, but I’ve never really loved them. I don’t know why I didn’t look into alternatives until this month, but I finally decided to do some searching to see if there was something better to use. I wasn’t necessarily looking for something reusable, I just wanted something better than the branded pads. But when I did my search, everything kept coming back to reusable pads and these were the highest recommended ones.

I’ve used it once so far, and I feel like it cleaned my floors a lot better than the disposable pads ever did. And just like with the microfiber towels, I put it in a mesh laundry bag before putting it into the laundry. And it came out clean and my clothes didn’t seem to be dirty from being washed with them.

I know that starting to use more reusable and eco-friendly products has to be a natural progression. There are a lot of things that I have wanted to use but couldn’t get into. I have beeswax wrap to use instead of plastic wrap, but I haven’t loved it just yet. Maybe something will change, but for now, I just find other alternatives to plastic wrap that I like more. I also still use store-bought cleaning solutions. I know I can make my own, but again, I’m just not into using the ones I have tried that I made. But I do try to buy the largest size product and I can always decant it into a container that’s easier to handle.

I have been spending a bit of extra money in order to get these reusable products and I know that it’s a privileged place to be able to do that. Not everyone can spend more upfront right now. And I also know that for some people, there are other reasons why they have to use disposable products over reusable ones. I’m not perfect and I don’t expect anyone else to do exactly what I do or be perfect. But I’m trying and I think that’s the best I can ask of myself or anyone else. The small changes I have been able to make have benefitted me and I hope that I can continue to make these changes as I find things that work for me.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Shopping

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My First COVID Test (or This Was Much Easier Than I Expected)

Posted on October 27, 2020 | Comments Off on My First COVID Test (or This Was Much Easier Than I Expected)

Getting a COVID test hasn’t really been something I thought about too much. When the pandemic started, it was not easy to get a test. Only those who had symptoms could get them, and I didn’t really have any symptoms. And then when it was easier to get a test, I felt no need to get one because I wasn’t leaving my house at all. I’m aware that being in LA I am privileged and can easily get a test if I need one and not everyone in every state could do that. But I didn’t do one because I didn’t need to for any reason and figured it wouldn’t be good to waste a test just to do it.

And technically, right now I don’t need one, but I did get one as an extra precaution. I’ve had a really bad cough for close to 2 years now. I know it’s not COVID, but I know that it made some people in my family nervous. So before I am going to see my family, I’m not only doing a full quarantine but I’m getting COVID tests to prove I’m ok. I was told that you should do a test before doing a 2-week quarantine to prove you don’t have it already and then another at the end of your quarantine to prove you weren’t exposed right before your first test. So that’s exactly what I am going to do.

Getting an appointment for a test wasn’t too bad. Originally I was going to go to the hospital to do it, but that ended up being harder to do. So I went to the LA County COVID test page to find a place I could get a test and sign up there. There are a lot of locations near me and appointments were available every day. I was surprised by how easy it was to sign up. And the test was going to be free, but they did ask me for my insurance information so my insurance would cover the cost.

The test was a drive-thru and I never had to get out of my car. I was a bit intimidated by the line of cars when I arrived for my appointment window, but I figured I’d just listen to podcasts and work my way up the line. But even though the line was over a mile long, it went by quickly. I was through the entire thing in under 45 minutes.

The first station I stopped at was just to confirm I had an appointment. I had an email with an appointment code and I had to show that to someone so they knew I didn’t just show up. The next station was to tell someone the code so they could look it up and find my information. Then they wrote that on a bag with all the testing supplies and used a grabber to pass it to me.

This test was not the nasal swab but the mouth swab, so I was going to administer the test myself. Before my appointment, there was a video to watch about how to do it, but they also had people there to help.

So after getting the bag, I drove to the next station where there was a man who was going to guide me through doing the test. First, I had to roll my window back up and cough 5 times while wearing a mask. Then I put my window down a little bit so I could hear the man giving the instructions and he had to take the swab out of the sterile bag and told me how to swab my mouth. You had to get both cheeks, top and bottom gums on both sides, all over my tongue, and on the roof of my mouth. It was about 30 seconds of swabbing and it felt almost like brushing my teeth. Then, I put the swab into the little vial and broke the handle so I could close the vial. Then I closed the bag and drove to the final station where there was a bin to drop my test into. I actually missed the bin and it hit the ground because of the wind, but there was someone there to use a grabber to pick it up and put it in there. And that was it!

Honestly, it was such an easy process. I know that the nasal swabs are a little harder to do, but from my friends who have done them, they still aren’t too bad. Many of my friends have to do multiple tests a week because of their jobs and nobody has said it was too difficult. But it’s still nice that the test I took was the easiest one.

They told me that I would get results within 3 days, but the next morning I got an alert that my test results were in. And they were exactly what I expected.

I actually would have been shocked if I didn’t test negative. This was more to just confirm what I already knew, but at least I have proof.

I’ll be doing another test right before seeing my family, but it’s nice to know that it’s going to be a simple test to do and I have nothing to worry about.

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Another Week Of My Own Hell Week (or Hell Month Is No Joke For Me)

Posted on October 26, 2020 | Comments Off on Another Week Of My Own Hell Week (or Hell Month Is No Joke For Me)

When Hell Week was announced this year, I thought it wouldn’t be as bad as it seemed. It was spread out over the entire month, and even though the last week of the month would be what I’m used to, it seemed like I would almost be easing myself into it. But then I have been dealing with other things that made my workouts harder. For example, I didn’t have any Hell Week workouts the week I was feeling nauseous, but it was just as bad. And that’s kind of what I ended up going through this past week.

I didn’t have any Zoom workouts this past week, so they were all video ones. And I only did the official Orangetheory ones because I wasn’t feeling up to planning out more than that. But for the first two workouts last week, I was still feeling awful. I was struggling so much with the workouts and I actually ended up pausing the video several times to let the nausea pass because I knew I would be missing a majority of the workout otherwise.

I know that I can do more than what I did this past week. I do that when I’m in the studio working out. I don’t know if it’s a lack of motivation or lack of encouragement. But whatever it is, I’m not working as hard as I can even when I do struggle.

Friday’s workout was the first one that I was feeling pretty decent for. I was able to push myself a bit more and I eased into doing some of the harder things that I usually do in my workouts. And on Saturday, I finally had another official Hell Week workout. Thankfully, I was feeling much more like myself for that one.

I still had to do some modifications to that workout because of a few things. Some of the exercises were things I couldn’t do because of my hips. Some of them were things I wasn’t strong enough to do after having so many workouts where I had to take it easy. But I tried really hard to push myself because I know that’s the point of Hell Week. It was only the second Hell Week workout I had done, even though there were already 5 that had happened. But this coming week I’ll be making up for it.

Every day this week is a Hell Week workout. I only need 2 more to earn my shirt, and I’ll get at least 3. It depends on if I have a Zoom workout this week or not. So I’ll either be doing 3 Hell Week workouts and 1 Zoom one or 4 Hell Week workouts. Either way, it’s going to be a hard week to end out the month.

And soon, there’s a chance I might be able to push myself even more. The downtown LA studio has been doing outside classes for a while now. I haven’t gone because they aren’t that close to me. But starting next week, the studio in Marina Del Rey will be doing outside classes. They will be smaller than the normal class size and things will have spacing (plus masks will be required), so they are trying to make it as safe as possible.

Even if I wanted to go, I wouldn’t be able to go for the first few weeks since I’m doing a quarantine right now before seeing my family. But that does allow for time to make sure that everything is running smoothly and I can see if any of my friends are going to do the classes too. I know that the safest workouts will be the workouts I do at home alone, but I also know that I’m craving something more. Even when I feel awful, I want to be doing something more. And these outside workouts might be the safest option for me to find something more than what I’m doing.

But that would still be a few weeks away if I start adding those to my weekly workout. For now, I’m ready for the last week of Hell Week, finishing out this challenge, and earning my shirt!

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Posted in Fitness

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An Outing To The Dentist (or Doubling Up On The Panic)

Posted on October 23, 2020 | Comments Off on An Outing To The Dentist (or Doubling Up On The Panic)

So many people have been putting off things during the pandemic. I’m guilty of that for sure. There are some doctor appointments that I typically do at the end of summer or beginning of fall that I haven’t done yet. Right now, I want to try to avoid going to the hospital if I can. But I also know that putting things off can make any issues worse. People who are putting off their mammograms might not catch breast cancer at the earliest stage. People who are putting off care for on-going conditions might find things getting worse. I’m not putting off anything that is urgent (for example, I was supposed to go to the dermatologist for an annual mole check, but I also haven’t been going outside much this year), but I also know that I can’t put things off forever.

That’s kind of what happened with the dentist. Earlier this year, I was supposed to go in for my cleaning. I have shared several times that I have genetically bad teeth. I can do everything right, but things can still go wrong. I initially put off the appointment because they were closed for everything except emergencies, and my cleaning wasn’t an emergency. When they reopened, I wanted to see how the cases were going before making an appointment (since you can’t wear a mask at the dentist), but then I ended up having an emergency with my crown. So I went in for that to be fixed as well as my cleaning, and I found out things were worse than they normally were for me because I waited a few months for the appointment. It’s not necessarily my fault, but it’s a sign of why I need to keep up with my cleanings on the schedule that I normally have.

So after that last cleaning and major work, I made sure I set up my next cleaning appointment and I told myself I had to keep that appointment unless something really crazy happened. And that appointment was yesterday and I went. When I originally set that appointment, I was hoping I’d be back at work by now. But since I’m not, I was able to change my appointment time to be a bit earlier. That was better for me so there was less time that I was worried about stuff before I went in.

But my panic attacks about the dentist came back yesterday morning. I was a bit surprised by how bad it was. I wasn’t going to cancel the appointment, but I knew things were not going to be easy for me. I was trying to think through why I was so panicked, and I realized that I probably was experiencing my normal panic about the dentist and then had the panic about being somewhere without a mask on top of that. I know my dentist is cleaning their office really well between patients and they are keeping it limited to 1 patient at a time. But it’s still hard to feel calm about being somewhere without a mask right now, especially when there is no distance between me and the dentist (who was in a mask and a face shield). And as soon as I saw the dental chair, things got even worse for me.

The dentist knows how hard being there is for me and she was very patient with me and tried to keep me calm. I asked her to do things a bit out of order and check my teeth for any major issues before anything else because I know that will help bring my panic down. I’m grateful that she did that and she was able to tell me that there was nothing wrong with my teeth or any of my previous dental work and that this would just be a regular cleaning and that’s it.

Things went as well as I could have hoped except for one part of the cleaning. Normally, they use an ultrasonic cleaner to do some of the scraping work. That makes it go by so much faster and it’s much easier on me. You don’t feel the same tugging on your teeth with that cleaner and in my head, it’s less stressful on my teeth (I have no clue if that’s true or not). But because 0f the way that cleaner works, it can create an aerosol mist/spray that might have some saliva in it. So it’s not safe right now to use that. So the dentist had to use the regular scraper, which I hate and I ended up needing a few breaks during the cleaning to get my breathing back under control.

I’m sure I sound super dramatic about this all, but it’s hard when you know you have to go somewhere that makes you so nervous and panicky. But I know I have to do this in order to not make things worse for me. And in under an hour, I was done with the appointment with clean teeth and no more feeling of doom and dread.

My next dentist appointment is in 4 months, which is my normal schedule. Again, I’m hoping that maybe things will be a bit more normal by then, but I’m also realistic that it might be just like it is now. Hopefully when I go in, I’ll be a bit more prepared for both the dentist and being without a mask. But if not, I will just have to keep reminding myself that I will be ok and that it’s a minor blip in my day that will be done quickly.

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Posted in Health, Tough Stuff

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Another Reminder That It’s Ok To Be Struggling (or We Might Be Isolated But Not Alone)

Posted on October 22, 2020 | Comments Off on Another Reminder That It’s Ok To Be Struggling (or We Might Be Isolated But Not Alone)

I’ve written a few posts about struggling during isolation. I think it’s such a common thing to be dealing with right now. Everyone is having difficulties in one sense or another. My friends with kids are trying to figure out how to make school make sense while they are home. I have a lot of friends who lost their jobs and are struggling to find new ones if they don’t think their jobs will be coming back. Anyone who lost a job that will be coming back is also struggling because of how low unemployment payments are (and there is still not a new plan signed that will supplement it). Some people have roommates or partners that they might not be getting along with.

And then there are people who live alone, as I do, who are dealing with extreme isolation. It’s still hard for me to be as isolated as I have been. Missing physical touch like hugs hasn’t been easier either. I think the longer I am without regular contact with others, the harder it’s been to deal with. And I think a big part of this struggle has been related to feeling like I’m losing a year of my life. This year is the year that very little progress will be made in my life. Some of my friends who are single and are my age have been talking about how we already feel like there is a clock with fertility and how tough it is to take away one of the last years they feel like they can have kids. I don’t feel that stress about kids as much as my friends do, but I understand the feeling completely.

And giving up a year of your life is harder when it doesn’t seem like everyone else is doing that. It feels at times that everyone else is out and living their lives while I stay home and do nothing. I know this isn’t true, but it’s tough to remember how many others are isolating like I am. I’ve described this feeling before as being on my own little planet and I think that still describes it. I’m out in the world staying in my house and things are continuing on without me being there. Again, I know this isn’t necessarily true, but it feels like it so much.

Part of being isolated is not realizing how many others are doing the same thing. On social media, people who are isolating are probably not posting about it as much as people who are going out and doing things. So you don’t hear their stories as much. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. The more I talk to my friends, the more I know what they are doing. And the more I post about struggling, the more people who come forward saying they feel the exact same way.

Being alone and isolated doesn’t allow you to see who else is doing the same. We may be alone in our homes, but we are not alone in our actions. And I’m trying to remember that more and more. And I’m trying to remind myself that I’m not isolated for no reason. I’m doing this to keep myself healthy. I’m doing this to keep others healthy. And I’m doing this to help make this end sooner. The sooner more people isolate and stay home, the slower the spread of this will be. And maybe it can be almost eliminated from the area. I don’t have high hopes about it being gone from the country until we have a national plan, but if it can at least be safer to be outside my house, that will be a big step forward.

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Virtual Pumpkin Party (or Time To Be Crafty)

Posted on October 21, 2020 | Comments Off on Virtual Pumpkin Party (or Time To Be Crafty)

My friend Anne throws an amazing Pumpkin Party each year. Even though I’m not the craftiest person, I love going and trying my best with decorating a pumpkin. I also love seeing how creative everyone is and it’s just an amazing and inspiring room to be in. And even though I don’t know most of the other women who go to the parties, it’s always a great conversation and everyone is so welcoming and friendly.

But just like so many other things this year, I had no idea what was going to happen with the party. Anne mentioned something online about how it and I commented to say that if she did a virtual party I would totally participate! She ended up doing a survey to see if others would be interested in that idea as well, and I guess she got a good response because she announced a Virtual Pumpkin Party! And she also said since she usually provides all the supplies, she was going to make us craft kits that we could get so we would have a pumpkin and supplies for decorating. I was so excited about this and couldn’t wait to have the virtual party!

Part of my adventure driving around LA was picking up my craft kit from Anne. And because she’s the amazing woman that she is, it wasn’t just something simple or basic. We got adorable tote bags with all the supplies inside. I got paint, paintbrushes, fake leaves, yarn, decals, ribbon, decorative paper, and paper cut-outs. It was an amazing craft kit!

I started to think of some ideas for decorating before the virtual party, but I knew that my plan would probably change. But I liked the spider cut-outs I had and thought I could go with that for something.

We had a Zoom room going for us during the party. We were all working on our pumpkins and trying to show them off when we got done with different steps. As I said, everyone in the group is super creative and I’m not creative that way, but I still love to try to do something fun. I tried to do a spider web with the yarn, but it wasn’t really working for me so I did it with some black paint. I straightened out paperclips to make holders for the spiders and added some yarn between the spiders for a little more and just the painted on web. Even though it wasn’t the most labor-intensive or crazy pumpkin, I think the end result was pretty good!

But as always with the parties, it was much more about the conversation than it was about the pumpkins. And we did have a great conversation with us all. The group wasn’t too big that we had a lot of issues with people talking over each other. Everyone was sharing what was happening with their lives and of course, the discussion about politics came up. But it was a positive conversation sharing how we were helping to make sure people registered to vote and to get the word out.

The party lasted about 2 hours and then people had to sign off of Zoom for one reason or another. But a 2-hour hangout was a pretty perfect length and I felt like I got so much out of it. I felt less alone than I had in a while. I felt connected to others and not like I’m on my own little planet. I felt like things were almost normal and not in this crazy world we are living in now. It was the escape I needed from life and it put me in the best mood I’ve been in for a long time.

Thank you Anne for doing the Virtual Pumpkin Party! I got so much out of it (and now I have craft supplies and need to make a craft box). I had the best time and I loved seeing everyone virtually. Hopefully, by next year’s party, it will be able to be in person!

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Posted in Crafts, Fun Stuff

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Driving and Voting (or Having A Fun Afternoon)

Posted on October 20, 2020 | Comments Off on Driving and Voting (or Having A Fun Afternoon)

I don’t leave my house that often these days. I do drive my car every few weeks so the battery doesn’t die, but those drives are usually just driving around with no purpose. It gets me out of my house, so I guess that’s something. But I rarely have something I have to do. But this past Friday, I actually had a few things to do and it got me driving around LA.

First, I had to drive to the valley to see 2 different friends who both had things for me. We still kept our distance and wore masks, but it was so nice to see friends in person. That’s really a rare treat these days. And even though I didn’t see either friend that long, the minutes I did spend with them was really nice. I got to catch up with them both and just feel a little bit of normalcy.

I have chatted with friends through social media, texts, phone calls, and video calls. But there is no substitution for seeing someone in person. And it was weird not being able to hug them or be closer when we were talking (plus the weirdness I still feel wearing masks), but this was better than nothing. And it was something that I had been looking forward to for about a week, so it was nice to have something fun in my week to keep me going when I wasn’t feeling so great.

Both of my friends lived within a few minutes of each other, so it was easy to go from one place to the next. And I lucked out with finding great parking at both of their places. Again, the little things make me happy.

Then I drove back home to my side of town for one more important errand. Last week, I worked on my ballot and made sure I got it all done. I always vote by mail, and I usually mail it back. But with the mail being slow these days and how many people might be mailing ballots back, I decided to drop off my ballot. I never have done that before and I didn’t actually realize there were drop off boxes that were not in voting places. I just thought if you dropped off your ballot that you were going to where people voted and there was a box there. I think the boxes are somewhat new to LA, but I’m not sure. I never looked into other options besides putting my ballot in the mail.

There are so many drop-off box locations around LA. I could have found one in the valley near my friends’ homes, but I didn’t think about doing that until after. I just did a search online to find the one closest to me (if you live in LA, you can use this page to search for them) and saw a few options. And the one that I knew would be easy to get to and have easy parking would be at the library near my house. Besides being near my house, it was right off of the freeway that I would be on to get home. So it was the perfect stop for me on my afternoon.

I know there are still people who will be doing in-person voting, but I think a lot more will be doing voting by mail. And that was clear when I parked at the library to drop my ballot off. There were at least 20 people that I saw while I was there (I did sit in my car for a few minutes to finish a phone call). Everyone was standing back and waiting for others to drop off their ballot to give a little space. And most people were doing some type of ballot selfie or photo when voting, and everyone was patient for that too. I waited until there wasn’t anyone else waiting and then went to take a quick voting photo before putting the ballot in.

I also have signed up for text alerts so I will know that my ballot has been received and counted. I don’t know how often they pick up the ballots from the boxes, but there’s still plenty of time so I know I’ll get those texts soon.

I know I could have spread out these different outings on different days to have more excuses to leave my house, but it just felt right to have a full afternoon. I felt relaxed knowing that I got things done that I needed to do and I felt so happy that I got to have a bit of social time. I am really learning how to appreciate all the little things so much more. 8 months ago, voting and seeing friends would have made me happy but not this happy. Now, doing these things really made my week.

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My Own Type Of Hell Week (or Working Through Some Tough Workouts)

Posted on October 19, 2020 | Comments Off on My Own Type Of Hell Week (or Working Through Some Tough Workouts)

Even though it is currently the month-long Hell Week right now, I technically didn’t have any Hell Week workouts this past week. I will get my 4 workouts in to earn my shirt, but I still have a little more time before the next official workout happens when I do my workouts. But that didn’t make this past week any easier for me because it was when I was dealing with really bad pain and nausea.

The week didn’t start off too bad with pain and nausea, but I was dealing with extreme fatigue. Even just getting dressed was exhausting me. I think this was related to all my other hormonal issues and not that I’m sick, but I wasn’t expecting it. But starting on Wednesday, the pain and nausea really kicked in. And it hit me so hard. I got to the point where I was crying a lot because of how awful I felt. But I really tried to push through and do the best that I could.

I went a lot easier on myself because of how I was feeling. I didn’t make my weights as heavy as I normally would. And sometimes I didn’t use weights for some exercises. I just did the movements and tried. And I got into the same feeling of wondering if I was doing enough and having to remind myself that doing something is better than doing nothing.

Fortunately, the workouts this past week didn’t have a ton of exercises that would make nausea worse. I pretty much can’t do face down exercises like planks or I honestly feel like I would throw up. And I rarely am lucky enough to not have to deal with those exercises when I feel sick. But this past week didn’t really have much of those. And the few that were in the exercises were very easy for me to modify. So I do have to focus on that being a positive thing because that was a nice treat for me.

And even with how hard the Zoom workout was, I managed to make it through it. My coach knew I was having a tough time and she let me know there wouldn’t be any face down exercises. The main modifications I had to make were with the mini-bands. Some exercises had mini-bands on our legs while we did squats and I tried to always start those exercises with the bands. And if it was getting too hard on my hips, then I’d take it off to finish the exercise.

I have been doing more jump rope work recently, but I didn’t do any this past week. Jumping rope would make my nausea so much worse and it’s not worth me trying to do it. Maybe I could do a little bit of it, but I also know that’s a really risky thing to do because it could also make me feel awful very quickly. But honestly, I didn’t feel like I was up for it either. I wasn’t upset that I couldn’t do it. I just felt off and I let myself feel that way and not try to force myself to do anything I can’t handle.

I’m hoping this week will be a bit better for me. I’m not sure if it will, because I’m still feeling off. This might last through this entire week, but I’m hoping it might only last a few days. I won’t know until I feel better, which is a little frustrating. I wish I knew that I would feel better on a certain day so I could plan accordingly. But I just have to take it day by day and hope that I am really doing the best that I can.

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