Monthly Archives: August 2022

Taking Advantage Of Having Extra Space (or My First Overnight Guest In My Condo)

Posted on August 3, 2022 | Comments Off on Taking Advantage Of Having Extra Space (or My First Overnight Guest In My Condo)

Ever since I lived in LA, I have always been happy to have guests stay with me. When I lived in the dorms, I had friends who slept in a sleeping bag in my room (with my roommate’s permission). I actually don’t think I had any overnight guests in the first apartment I lived in, but I only lived in that apartment for a year and I wasn’t very happy when I lived there. In my second apartment, I had friends who slept in the living room or in my room, depending if I was between roommates or not. And in my last place, I had friends who needed a place to stay and slept on an air mattress in my living room. Having guests in my last place was always a tight fit since it was such a small space. But I made it work by either moving my couch around or rearranging my living room so that there was enough room for an air mattress to fit.

I have never minded having guests stay with me, but at my last place, it was always a bit awkward. The air mattress took up almost all the space in my living room and the only bathroom was accessible only by going through my room. So if someone needed to use the bathroom during the night, they had to come into my room and the bathroom was only about a foot away from my bed. Fortunately, anyone who stayed with me was always just grateful to have a place to stay without having to pay for a hotel, so they never minded the awkwardness. But it wasn’t ideal for having people come to stay with me.

When my parents and I originally started looking at condos about 5 years ago, we were only looking at one bedroom condos since those were in the price range we wanted to stay in. I don’t think we ever looked at two bedrooms until when we started looking again more seriously about a year ago. And when we got serious about finding a condo, my parents and I set some requirements. And my parents said I needed to find a two bedroom condo. And while I was happy to find any place, I knew having a second bedroom would be nice to have since I work from home. Plus, then I could have guests stay with me and it wouldn’t be as weird as it has been for the last 20-something years I’ve lived in LA.

When my mom and I started to plan out what furniture I should look at, setting up the office/guest room has gone back and forth quite a bit. Originally, we looked at murphy beds since those would take up the least amount of space. Then we switched to looking at sofa sleepers. And I think we finally landed on a very cool (but not cheap) murphy bed that has bookshelves so the space will look like an office and have a lot of storage but will also have a full-sized bed for guests when they come to stay with me.

I won’t be getting this new piece for a few more months, but I had my first overnight guests at my condo this past weekend! A friend of mine was coming to LA for a wedding, and they needed a place to sleep the night before their vacation rental was available. I let them know that I didn’t have a real bed in the room yet, but I did have an air mattress, and they were fine with that. I did realize before they came to stay with me that I didn’t have sheets for the air mattress anymore, but I lucked out because I was at Costco after I realized that and they had sheets on clearance so I was able to get some.

When I was getting the air mattress set up, I discovered that the wall color in that room matched pretty well. I picked this color because I want to be able to self-tape auditions without needing to use a backdrop. So it turns out that self-tape blue and air mattress blue are almost the same.

It was awesome having my first guest in my new home. First, I hadn’t seen this friend since the start of the pandemic because they moved away right after things shut down. So getting to have some time to hang out in person and catch up was so great. And I know she was grateful to have a place to stay, even if it was on an air mattress. She had seen photos of the renovation as it was happening since I was texting it to people, but she got to see everything in person. I am really proud of how everything looks, so I do like to show off my new space. And of course, it was so nice having someone stay with me who had their own bathroom to use and didn’t have to always go through my room.

Even though I have always enjoyed having friends or family stay with me, it will be so much better now that I have a guest room for them to use. It will be nicer when I have a real bed in here, but at least it’s still a separate space for an air mattress and doesn’t feel like someone is just staying out in the open in the middle of my home.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMaking Condo Hunting More Fun (or Taking Advantage Of Ways To Be Social) Default ThumbnailStarting To Move In (or Taking The Roadrunner To The Condo) Default ThumbnailA Transition Of What Feels Like Home (or Getting Even Closer To Moving) Default ThumbnailNot My Typically 4th Of July (or Taking Advantage Of A Day Off) Default ThumbnailCleaning Up And Giving Things Away (or Finding More Space In My House) Default ThumbnailAnother Busy Condo Weekend (or A Working Visit For My Parents)

Comments Off on Taking Advantage Of Having Extra Space (or My First Overnight Guest In My Condo)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged , ,

Trying To Refocus On Goals (or Doing Another Reset This Month)

Posted on August 2, 2022 | Comments Off on Trying To Refocus On Goals (or Doing Another Reset This Month)

It’s August, which means it’s almost my birthday! I am excited about my birthday coming up and even though I don’t know if I’ll be doing much to celebrate, I still have fun with my birthday each month. And since it’s the beginning of a new month, that also means it’s time to switch my monthly challenge.

In July, I wanted to refocus on my goals for 2022. I realized that I had been losing focus on those goals and wanted to see if I could get back on track to successfully end this year. And there were 3 main goals that I think I needed to refocus on. First, I wanted to be more mindful of my time. This one I did do a bit better with because of some changes in my job. Because I don’t have to switch back and forth as much, I was more mindful of my work time and made sure that I was focused on specific things each day. My time outside of work wasn’t as mindful, but I tried. I did make efforts to see about going out and doing things, but that just didn’t happen much in July. That’s not necessarily my fault, but I know there were more people I could reach out to and see if they wanted to go do things. So there is some work to do with that. And as far as restarting my budget, I did make a fresh start in the budgeting app I’ve been using, but I’m really torn about using it. I don’t find it as intuitive as it used to be for me. Things have changed about it and I don’t know if it makes as much sense as it used to. So I’m looking into new apps and systems to use that might be better for me. But I am getting back on track with being aware of my spending and financial situation, which is the biggest goal for me with budgeting.

And for August, I decided to do another challenge that feels like a bit of a refocus for me. My eating habits have been off for too long. I think ever since I started my move in April, things haven’t been great. They haven’t been horrible, but I know I’m not doing everything I should be doing. I especially am not eating as many fruits and vegetables as I should. I have been buying things and then not eating them. I have a burst of feeling motivated and then when things are in my fridge they aren’t what I want to eat. And I know that I’m getting in some fruits and vegetables each day, but it’s not what it should be.

So I want to set my challenge this month to be about putting the focus on fruits and vegetables in my diet. I want to make sure that I eat what I buy and stop having food waste the way that I’ve had before. I know that I will need to prep the things I get as soon as I get them so they are easy to eat and don’t involve extra work. And if I need to eat something slightly less healthy to go along with fruits and vegetables, that’s ok. I know that eating veggies with a dip that I like is better than not eating veggies at all. And maybe I just need to meal plan a bit with just breakfast or snacks and make those fruit and vegetable heavy and get them in that way. I’m going to see what works for me and go with that since that’s the most important thing for me.

I don’t think adding fruits and vegetables will make me lose weight or change my health immediately, but it’s something that I know I need to do for my long-term health. And I want to get back to eating healthier things and having more food prepared in my home so I don’t make the choice to order food (which is more of a budget concern for me than a health one). And if I do have other results because of eating this way, that will just be an added bonus.

I know I won’t be perfect this month and there will still be days where I don’t do my best, but I’m going to at least try this month and see what happens. That’s all I can do and I’ll report back in a month about how it goes!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailTaking A Month To Reset (or This Doesn’t Really Feel Like A Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailNot Perfect This Month (or Challenged With The Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailPlanning For The Future In A Few Ways (or Connecting One Monthly Challenge To Another) Default ThumbnailPlanning Ahead and Getting Excited (or Working On Getting Back To The Old Me) Default ThumbnailMy First Challenge of 2022 (or Trying To Get Back To Better Habits) Default ThumbnailMarch Recap (or I Almost Hit All My Goals)

Comments Off on Trying To Refocus On Goals (or Doing Another Reset This Month)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged , ,

The Beginning Of A Bad Workout Week (or Just Pushing Along As Always)

Posted on August 1, 2022 | Comments Off on The Beginning Of A Bad Workout Week (or Just Pushing Along As Always)

I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to my calendar before this past week of workouts, so I didn’t realize at first that this was going to be the start of my bad week (or weeks). Fortunately, it didn’t hit me right at the beginning of the week so I didn’t have a totally bad week, but it is always frustrating when they do hit because it really affects every part of my workout.

I wasn’t doing too bad on Monday. I did feel a little off, but it wasn’t anything that was too distracting which is probably why I didn’t just assume it was kicking off my bad week. Monday’s workout was one that I did earlier in the month, but it felt different this time.

For cardio, we started with a 2-minute base pace and a 30-second all-out. We had a 1-minute recovery before starting the next part of the block. Again, we started with a 2-minute base pace and ended with a 30-second all-out but we had a 90-second push pace in the middle. We had another 1-minute recovery and then we repeated the second section again but we added a 1-minute push to all-out before the 30-second all-out.

On the rower, we had 3 blocks. Each block had a stroke drill and a medicine ball exercise. The first block had 10 strokes for each row and then we had bicep curls using the medicine ball. The second block had 12 strokes for each row and then squats using the medicine ball. And the last block had 15 strokes for each row and then we were supposed to do isolated squats with bicep curls with the medicine ball, but I split the exercise up so I did the squats and bicep curls separately.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was all about building up to an ultimate burpee. Since I wasn’t feeling so great, I modified each exercise to make it easier on me. For most things, I used the bench for my hands so I wasn’t fully face down. We had plank low rows, push-ups, pop jacks, squats to shoulder presses, and then ultimate burpees. For the ultimate burpees, I didn’t do the low rows since it isn’t easy to grab the weights from the bench and hold on to them. But I did try my best with what I could do. And in the second block, we had plank jacks and high plank kick-throughs. I did the plank jacks using the bench, but the kick-throughs are really tough to do no matter how I feel since my hips don’t like that movement. I did try those from the ground since I was worried about falling, but I mainly did plank side reaches.

Wednesday’s workout was a new one for me. I was feeling a bit worse, but my medications were helping so it wasn’t as bad as I know it could be. For this workout, we had 2 blocks for each section of the room.

For cardio, both blocks had a mix of flat inclines and incline work. The first block started with a 90-second push pace without incline. Then we had a 1-minute base pace. The next push pace was 1-minute long but at an incline followed by a 1-minute base pace without incline. We repeated the pattern with shorter push paces with inclines and the 1-minute base pace without an incline. The second block was a little shorter so we only did 2 rounds with the inclines and then ended with a 30-second all-out with an incline.

On the rower, we started with a 300-meter row, and then we had high knees. We repeated this pattern for the first block and decreased the row by 50-meters each time. For the second block, we started with a 100-meter all-out row. Then we got to rest as much as we needed and we had a 50-meter base row and then a 100-meter all-out row. We repeated this pattern with adding 50-meters to the base row each time. Because we got as much rest as we needed, this wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I didn’t get that far in the second block but I was able to row each time without needing to stop in the middle of the row.

On the floor, each block had one drop set exercise and one regular exercise. The first block started with a drop set for uppercuts. So we did 12 uppercuts with a heavy weight and then did as many reps as we could with a lighter weight right after. After doing both sets, we had lateral lunges with hammer curls. For the second block, the drop set was with sumo squats. So we had 12 sumo squats with a heavy weight and then as many as possible with a lighter weight. And the other exercise after the squats was reciprocating rows. The rows were a bit tough since they were something that should be face down and but I did do my best.

Thursday was a much harder day for me, so I had to do a lot of rest throughout the workout. This was another repeat workout for me, but I feel pretty certain that I did much better the first time I did this one.

For cardio, the first block started with a 75-second push pace followed by a 60-second base pace. Then we had a 60-second push pace and a 60-second base pace. Then we had a 45-second all-out, 30 seconds of recovery, and another 45-second all-out. The second block was very similar to the first, but we had 3 rounds of a 30-second all-out instead of 2 rounds of a 45-second all-out.

On the rower, we started with a 600-meter row. Then we were supposed to do lunges with a tricep extension with a medicine ball. But I split the lunges and the tricep extensions into separate exercises. Then we had 2 rounds of a 300-meter row with the same medicine ball work. And the last part was 4 rounds of a 150-meter row with the same exercises. I didn’t get through all the rows, but I was into the last section when the block ended.

And on the floor, each block had a mix of strength exercises and stability exercises. In the first block, the strength exercises were front squats and chest presses. And the stability exercises were lunges to squats on the straps and chest presses on the straps. And in the second block, the strength exercises were single-arm shoulder presses and hammer curls and the stability exercises were lunges and balance bicep curls. I did the bicep curls as regular ones, so I didn’t really get the stability part of that exercise, but I know stability exercises are always the hardest for me with my hips.

Friday was another repeat workout for me and probably the worst I felt all week. And we also found out that the coach we have on Wednesdays and Fridays would be leaving and this class was possibly their last class. I was really sad about this because she’s been my coach since I started going to the Culver City studio and I really love how she coaches and pushes us. I’m really going to miss her and it was sad knowing this might be my last class with her.

I had done this workout toward the middle of the month, but again I know I did better the first time I did this workout. For cardio, we started at no incline and for those on the treadmill, they increased the incline by 1% every .1 miles (I increased it every .4 miles on the bike). We did this for 6 minutes before we had some recovery time. Then for the second block, we started at the highest incline/resistance level and then decreased it by 1% every .1 or .4 miles.

On the rower, both blocks were focused on 150-meter rows. But in the first block, between each row, we had bicep curls and in the second block, we had deadlifts to overhead presses. Doing a 150-meter row is a good distance for me, especially when I don’t feel great. It’s a pretty short row so I’m done quickly and I can push myself a bit more since it is shorter. But because of how I was feeling, it was still tough and I just tried to get through each row and I wasn’t too focused on making improvements each time.

And on the floor, both blocks had timed exercises. In each block, we had one exercise that was for 45-seconds long and we had another exercise that we had 1 minute to complete 12 reps and then we could rest. In the first block, we did lateral lunges for 45-seconds and 12 uppercuts within the minute. And in the second block, we had arnold presses for 45-seconds and 12 lunges within the minute. The arnold presses were harder than I expected and I possibly should have gone lighter with the weights, but considering how few opportunities I had to push myself in this workout, it was probably good to have this challenge.

This week of workouts could go a bunch of different ways. It might be a really bad week, or it might not be as bad as it could be. It’s something that I will just have to see how I feel each day and manage my expectations from there. But hopefully, even if I feel horrible I will have some workout wins this week.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailAlmost Having A Second Hell Week (or Just Pushing Through) Default ThumbnailSurviving My Workout Week (or I Knew It Would Be Bad, But Not This Bad) Default ThumbnailThis Is The Workout Week I Expected (or I Knew It Would Be A Bad Week) Default ThumbnailLast Regular Workout Week Of 2019 (or Still Pushing Through) Default ThumbnailA Better Workout Week Than Expected (or I Like When Things Aren’t As Bad As I Thought) Default ThumbnailA Bad Workout Week For A Different Reason (or I Guess I Was Too Optimistic)

Comments Off on The Beginning Of A Bad Workout Week (or Just Pushing Along As Always)

Posted in Fitness

Tagged , ,