Category Archives: Celebrations

Bachelorette Adventures (or 24 Hours In San Diego)

Posted on March 3, 2016 | 2 comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Escape Room

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

Cards Against Humanity

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

Levin Sandwich

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

Bachelorette Group

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

Dinner

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

San Diego

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Travel

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Workout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness)

Posted on February 29, 2016 | Comments Off on Workout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness)

I really had a great week of workouts this past week. I was very nervous that I’d have a bad week (more on that in a bit), but it ended up pretty good and I think that I could not have improved on it.

My first workout of the week was on Tuesday morning. I got home late on Monday night from Sacramento and had my WIF meeting on Tuesday afternoon. So my only workout time option was 7:30am on Tuesday. I’m not the biggest fan of those early mornings, but they’ve become much more tolerable as I’ve done more. Bruce (who is usually my coach on Fridays) was my coach that morning and he saw me in the lobby while he was wrapping up the 6:30am class. I think he was pretty shocked to see me since he usually only sees me in the afternoon.

Tuesday Morning With Bruce

I was super happy to see that Tuesday’s class was a run/row day! That means less time on the treadmill for me so I try to do speed training. Most of my treadmill segments were at 3.5 miles an hour, but I did do some bits at 3.6 miles an hour and it didn’t feel as difficult as it did the week before! So that’s some good improvement for me. And the rowing was 200 meter sprints, so I was able to really push myself on those without getting too tired.

Even though I was pushing myself a lot in class, my heart rate stayed pretty low. I’m thinking it was a false reading because I was really out of breath in class and felt like I was pushing myself as much as I normally do. Maybe it was low because I was tired or something, so I didn’t let the low heart rate affect me too much.

Wednesday was another fun class because it was my Wednesday coach JZ’s birthday class! Technically her birthday was later in the week, but it was the Wednesday class closest to her birthday so that counts too. The treadmill section of class was a solid block (so 30 minutes without the breaks on the floor) and it was full of push paces. It almost felt like almost every part of the treadmill time was a push or all out with very limited base paces between them. Most of the push paces were 1 or 2 minutes so they were a bit long but not too long. I was able to maintain my regular push pace of 3.5 miles an hour (which isn’t easy on the long treadmill days). But with all those push paces (and the incline associated with them), my hips were hurting me pretty badly by the time we got to the floor.

I’m not sure if the treadmill time was too tough on me or I was just having an off day, but I was having some serious issues with my balance on the floor. I was trying to do my best, but I was spending a significant time trying to balance myself and not doing the workout. I was able to do at least one round of everything on the floor, but I can usually do at least 2 rounds.

After the class, of course we had to take a birthday photo with JZ!

Happy Birthday JZ!

My last workout of the week was on Friday (I only did 3 workouts this week). It was a switch day, but the switching between blocks wasn’t the way we usually do them. For me starting on the treadmill my blocks went treadmill, row, treadmill, floor, treadmill, and finishing on the floor. The treadmill rows were pretty tough with long push paces including a 3 minute push pace (which is the longest we do). That 3 minutes seems to take forever, but I was able to get through it and didn’t hurt too much. And for the brief all outs we had to do, I was able to do 3.6 miles an hour even after the really long push pace.

My legs were feeling wobbly after the treadmill blocks, so I was a bit careful on the floor blocks. We were supposed to do running man and plank jacks on the Bosu for one of the blocks, but I knew that it would be too much for me. But I was able to do them without modifications on the floor. There was a time that I couldn’t do either move at full speed, so to know that I’ve improved enough to not need modifications for the basic move made me feel really proud of myself.

This coming week will either be a 3 workout or 4 workout week (I’m still trying to decide if I’ll go on Saturday). But I’m happy that I’ve been pushing myself more and more each week because I’m really starting to see some big improvements in my workouts, strength, and endurance. Even if I’m not losing weight right now, improvements are signs of progress and that’s really what I want!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff

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Staying Calm In The Crazy (or Is This Month Over Yet?)

Posted on February 23, 2016 | Comments Off on Staying Calm In The Crazy (or Is This Month Over Yet?)

In my effort to do more fun adventures this year, I may have overdone things lately. There are a bunch of things back to back in my schedule and it’s starting to stress me out a bit. But I know my schedule calms down soon so I’m just trying to focus on getting through things.

My schedule craziness has a lot of factors in it. I’m currently doing the Orangetheory Weight Loss Challenge. While the weight loss challenge isn’t too crazy, one of the requirements made my schedule a bit weird lately. You have to do 3 workouts a week, but the weeks are from Friday-Thursday. So when I did a workout on a Thursday instead of a Friday recently, I had to make up an extra workout on a day that I don’t usually go on. While that alone didn’t make my schedule crazy, it did eliminate a free afternoon that I’m used to having and that threw things off a bit.

I’ve also just spent the weekend out-of-town. I went to Sacramento with my mom and my aunt (recap to come tomorrow) and being out-of-town for about 2 1/2 days changed when I would have time to do things about in my life. I had to rearrange when I could do errands that I typically do on the weekends. I had to figure out a new time to clean, do laundry, and do grocery shopping. With most of my afternoons the week leading up to the trip busy with workouts, I had to figure out when I had little breaks in my day (typically before 9am) when I could do things. It’s not horrible to have to schedule like this, but when things are a bit different they can be stressful for me and make me feel a bit too anxious.

I’m also going out-of-town this weekend. This time it will be to San Diego for Rayshell’s bachelorette party. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while, but again it’s requiring me to do some crazy scheduling. The party is from Friday evening until Sunday. Fortunately, I got that Saturday off of work so I could drive late on Friday night (after my workout) or early on Saturday morning without having to worry about working until 11am. And while some people will be hanging out there for a good chunk of Sunday morning, I will need to be back in LA by noon on Sunday because it’s Oscar Sunday! I made a really simple costume for the party so I don’t need much time to get ready, but I still need to get back to LA, get ready for the party, and I’d like to do laundry then too. I have the option of driving back late on Saturday night and I’m still debating about doing that. I think I might not know what I want to do until I do it.

Besides those two weekend trips (which I hadn’t planned to be back to back but are), I’ve got some other fun adventures in the next few weeks. I’m going to see my WIF mentees soon, I’ve got another bonus show at the Pantages that I just got tickets for, and some of my friends and I are trying to figure out a time to go whale watching together.

These are all super fun things coming up. And I’d love it if I could get used to schedules like this. I think it could be really good for me to have more social time and less alone time at home. I love my alone time to read or watch TV, but I might do better with less of that. I’m already alone most of the day working at home, so making my afternoons, evenings, and weekends more social helps to balance things out. I think that I might have jumped into making myself busier with both feet instead of easing into it and I’m a bit overwhelmed right now.

Despite my stress, I’m really excited about every event I’ve got in the next few weeks. I do plan out my blog posts and I love that my upcoming schedule is pretty full with fun posts and less boring ones (like this one). I hope that you enjoy reading about all of my upcoming adventures and hopefully these next few weeks for me go by without too much more stress added to it.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Travel

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Still Cooking (or It’s Almost A Habit)

Posted on February 19, 2016 | 1 comment

I’m scared to be too excited about this, but I’m happy to report that I’m still doing a lot of cooking at home. I’m not doing this because I have to for a specific reason (like a diet plan or limiting food options). I’m doing this because I want to.

Most of my cooking is still pretty basic. It’s not as much of a lazy thing, it’s more because I don’t want to have to buy a ton of ingredients or risk a recipe coming out badly. Turkey burgers and sautĂ©ed veggies are still a staple for me. It’s super easy and fast to put together and while it isn’t the most flavorful meal it keeps me full. And when I’m getting home late after a workout, I really don’t want to have to spend a long time putting together food.

But when I do have the time, I’m testing more and more recipes so I can have more things that are easy enough to put together and are very tasty. So many cookbooks seem to have dozens of ingredients (and things that I don’t always keep in my house), so I’ve been doing a lot of searching online for recipes that include a lot of what I already have (or something that I decided to pick up at the store that week).

This past weekend while doing my grocery shopping, I decided to pick up some ground beef. I honestly had no plan of what I would do with it, but I figured I could make meatballs or hamburgers or something. So I did some searching online for fun ground beef recipes and what came up most often was meatloaf. I’ve made meatloaf before and it didn’t come out so great because the outside was overcooked and the inside was undercooked. But then I started to do a search for meatloaf muffins and found enough basic recipes to put something together myself.

I made meatloaf (made pretty simply with a pound of ground beef and added a minced onion, diced a red pepper, added some ketchup (about 4 tbs), some Worcestershire sauce (about 1 tbs), a cup of bread crumbs, an egg, and some salt and pepper) and mixed it up pretty well. Then I took a disposable cupcake tin and divided the mixture into 6 portions. I baked it for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees (I waited until a meat thermometer got to 160 degrees in the middle of one of the muffins) and they looked pretty amazing. I also made smashed potatoes (I microwaved baby potatoes until they were soft, smushed them onto a baking sheet, and baked them with some garlic olive oil while the meatloaf baked) and my food looked pretty incredible.

More Home Cooking

Between the prep time, the baking time, and the time to let things cool down so I could serve myself; it was only about an hour from start to finish (and I was able to do all the dishes while the food was cooking). That’s not bad at all and the food tasted pretty great! The potatoes could have used a bit more olive oil on them (and maybe some actual garlic on them too) and the meatloaf had a bit too much Worcestershire in it, but overall I was pretty happy. And I know the next time I make the meatloaf I’ll add some more veggies in the mix because you couldn’t tell they were in there at all. Maybe I’ll add some mushrooms, carrots, and zucchini since I usually have those in my fridge anyway. And the recipe is pretty easy to double, so I can always make even more and freeze them so I have easy microwave meals on days I’m too tired to cook (instead of having limited time to eat leftovers in the fridge).

I’m seriously proud of myself for cooking when there isn’t a specify reason I have to. This is the start of making cooking more of a habit for me. And I know that this habit has started and stopped for me a couple of times in the past, but this time things are different. I’m not trying to be trendy (by following a specific plan or tying to bulk cook). Those trendy cooking things work for so many people but I guess it doesn’t help me. I just need to cook when I feel like it, allow myself to have easy meals on nights that I don’t, and to have enough variety to not get sick of what I’ve made and want to go and order delivery food instead.

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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Another Year Of Disneyland (or No More Ink Money)

Posted on February 5, 2016 | 1 comment

I just renewed my Disneyland pass for another year! I’m so happy because I think you all know how much I love Disneyland. And because I have a double grandfathered pass (my pass level is only available if you are a renewal now and I have the parking add-on that doesn’t exist anymore), I have to make sure I renew before the pass expires each year. I don’t mind having to do that each year, but I do make sure to get to Disneyland before the expiration date because of this.

I knew my pass was expiring soon, but I didn’t have a Disneyland day planned before the expiration date. And since paying for my pass is complicated (more on that in a minute), I can’t renew over the phone. So on Monday after my workout, I drove down to Disneyland with the only purpose to renew the pass.

I’m glad that the drive was super easy this time. I was on the tram from the parking lot to the parks in under an hour after leaving my house. It was so empty at Disneyland that I was a bit sad that I really didn’t have time to stay and go on rides (I had errands to do at home that afternoon).

Once I got to the ticket counter, it was time to deal with the complications of paying for my pass. Because I recycle ink for my mom, I was able to get a bunch of Visa gift cards and Disney gift cards from Staples. I also had gotten some gift cards for my birthday from friends. All together, my parking add-on was totally paid for by the cards plus about $50 of my pass. It’s a bit weird to pay this way because the cast member helping me has to set up the payments to be as if it was on a payment plan so they don’t accidentally charge one of the Visa gift cards the full amount of the pass (since they are each only worth about $25). It took a little bit of time, but I got everything taken care of and I was on my way.

I was super tempted to go into the parks because of how ridiculously empty it was, but I figured that if I did that, I would stay there too long. So I just took a photo at the gates and headed back toward the parking lot tram.

Disneyland

I made a stop at the Disney store since I never really go in there and of course I got distracted by all the really awesome Disney stuff. There were some kitchen things I was super tempted to buy, but I didn’t have the money to spend $60 on something. Then, I was intrigued by the dog toys and found the perfect thing to get for Tucker!

Disney Dog Ties

They only had the ties in XS/S, but I saw that all the girl dog things also came in M/L (which was the size Tucker needs), so I grabbed the ties and brought them to the register to have them order the larger size for me (Disney is usually awesome like that). Sadly, they only make the boy dog things in XS/S and there is no way that our 70 pound dog could fit in something that tiny. So I left Disneyland empty-handed (well, I guess I did have my renewed pass to bring home with me).

While I’m super excited for another full year of Disneyland adventures, I’m a bit sad because this looks like it will be the last year I can use my ink recycling money to help pay for my pass. You used to be able to use Staples Rewards for gift cards online (but not in stores), so that’s how I got my gift cards. But sometime recently they changed the rules (or started enforcing rules) and you can no longer get gift cards with Staples Rewards money. I understand the reasoning behind it now that I’ve done some research on how gift cards sold from third-party retailers work, but it still stinks for me.

Having a few hundred dollars in gift cards really helps to make my pass affordable. I have no plan on letting my pass expire in a year. There are other options for me to pay for my pass. I can use the Disneyland payment plan which doesn’t have interest and can be paid off in advance if you have the money. Or I can figure out other ways to save for it (or just ask for only Disney gift cards for my birthday or Hanukkah). I’ve got a year to figure it out.

But I can’t let the end of the ink money bring me down. I’ve got an entire year to make more Disneyland memories and I have a feeling that my park adventures are going to keep getting more and more amazing!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Saving, Shopping

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SAG Awards (or Watching After Knowing The Winners)

Posted on February 3, 2016 | 2 comments

I really love the SAG Awards. All awards shows are amazing and I love watching them, but this one is so special. Part of it is that it is the only awards show that I get to vote for (at least, the only one I can vote for so far). And part of it is because these are my peers being nominated and one day I could be too. I take my voting seriously and work as hard as I can to see everything nominated (I don’t always succeed, but I make a big effort to see them all).

I usually watch the show live on TV and try to live-tweet my excitement over the winners. It’s fun to live tweet those sort of events and see what everyone else has to say about things. Even if I can’t watch with my friends, I still get to be connected with them while watching.

But when the show happened this past Saturday, I was babysitting. So I didn’t get to watch live this time. I don’t mind babysitting, but I was a bit sad that I wouldn’t get to watch the show when it happened. But I needed to babysit and I had my DVR set to record the show (plus an extra hour in case they ran late). So it wasn’t that horrible that I didn’t get to watch live.

Fortunately for me, twitter and various news sites online kept me posted on who the winners were throughout the evening. I was finally able to see who all the winners were when the kids were asleep at the babysitting job and was pretty happy with who won (a majority of the people/shows I voted for won) and I was anxious to hear all the speeches.

I got home from babysitting super late, so I didn’t get a chance to watch the awards until Sunday morning. Since I knew who all the winners were, I was able to fast forward a bit on my DVR. I watched all the introductions and speeches, but I skipped when they announced the nominees and the moment the announced the winner. But even with skipping those parts, there was so much good stuff to watch.

I loved all the speeches. Everyone seemed so grateful and gracious when they won. I knew that some of the winners were people who had almost given up on acting or had been trying to make it for years and seeing them win gave me hope that I will be there one day. And of course there were some random funny moments and I loved those as well.

Plus, I loved getting to see my friend Woody’s name in the credits at the end.

SAG Awards

All in all, it was a really great show. It did feel a bit weird not watching it live and not being interactive with people while watching. It was almost like it was my own awards show viewing and not something that everyone else watched. But even without being online and tweeting with people while it was happening, it still made me have so much pride to be a union member.

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fun Stuff

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How My Goal Setting Is Going (or A Spark Planner Update)

Posted on February 2, 2016 | 1 comment

I’ve officially been using my Spark Planner for a full month now and I have to say that I’m loving what I’m getting done with it! While I still use my phone/computer for my scheduling (things overlap and change too often to handwrite everything), I’m using the goal setting sections of the Spark Planner and finding my own ways to customize it to work for me the best that I can. So I figured that a month in would be a great time to do an update!

First of all, I’m still using the weekly calendar feature for blog scheduling. Since the weekly planner has 3 sections for each weekday (morning/noon/night), I use the morning section to write what I want to write about here for that day. It’s so helpful for my Monday posts about Orangetheory because now I write down what I did for each workout after I get home so I don’t forget about the workout (I hope that you’ve noticed that change on here!). It also helps me see where I’m missing an idea or where I have too many posts scheduled for that week so I need to move something to the next week. I’m hoping to make Finding My Inner Bombshell bigger and better this year and planning out my posts will be a big part of that!

For the beginning of January, I didn’t really do much else with the weekly planning section. I sometimes put a to-do list in the noon section so I had it there to check off, but that’s not a daily thing. Then, about a week ago I saw something about making gratitude lists each day to help stay in a positive mindset. So I decided to put a list of at least 5 things I’m grateful for in the night section of the weekly planner now. I’m loving this routine but I need to create an alarm for my phone to remind me to do this in the evening (sometimes I get in bed and realize I forgot to do it, so I have to get up and write them out quickly). I’ve actually made my gratitude lists my 29 day challenge for February!

Speaking of the monthly challenge, I’m so excited to share that I was very successful in my 31 day challenge for January! I decided to challenge myself to do 100% accurate food tracking for the month and I did it! This may be the first time that I did 100% tracking for an entire month and I know that I will be able to keep it up now. The big change I found while doing this challenge is that I’m not loving My Fitness Pal as much as I have in the past.

While I have loved seeing the exact numbers for my calories and knowing I’m under my calorie goal, that also created anxiety when I was over my calorie goal. So I stopped tracking on days where I was going over or when I had a binge. I didn’t want to see what I had done and the number of calories I ate. And that was creating avoidance for me. So I’ve been using Recovery Record now and I love it! There are no numbers on the tracker. You just write what you wrote and how you feel. That’s all. And there are meal reminders so even though I don’t always remember to eat lunch, I at least have the alert that I should eat then.

I’m also loving the monthly/weekly goal setting pages. I don’t hit all my goals at the time, but it gives me something to work toward and each day I look at what the goals are so I can make sure that I’m on track to check off as many of them as I can. It also has made me think more about what goals I want to track and what is really important to me. I never thought that maybe I had some bad goals in mind, but I’m now reconsidering some of them (don’t worry, I’m happy with my 2016 goals I announced on here).

I’m still not sure what I want to do with the monthly calendar or if there is something I want to do regularly with the noon section of the weekly planning pages, but the beauty of this planner is that there isn’t something that I feel has to be there. It’s freeform and I can do what I want. I’m thinking about some ideas with meal planning or maybe workout tracking. I’ve been seeing some awesome inspiration on the Spark Planner instagram page. I know I’ll think of something soon and then that will be what I keep up for whatever time remains in the year.

No matter what else I do with my Spark Planner, I can’t believe how much this planner has influenced and changed my life in the first month. I’m so excited to see how amazing it helps to make my year and how much I’ll be able to get done.

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A Little More Time In Santa Barbara (or Hanging Out With My Sister-In-Law)

Posted on January 20, 2016 | 1 comment

When I found out that Rayshell’s bridal shower was going to be in Santa Barbara, the first person I texted was my sister-in-law. The last time I was in Santa Barbara was the week before she and my brother moved there, so I had never seen their apartment. My parents had been there before and told me how cool it was, so I knew I wanted to check it out as soon as I could. So I made plans to meet up and hang out with Krystle after the shower was over.

It was a super quick 5 minute drive from Rayshell’s parent’s house to my brother and sister-in-law’s place, so I had plenty of time to hang out there before I wanted to start driving back to LA. They have a very cute apartment (I didn’t take any pictures, sorry) and it was awesome to see where they had put some of the stuff they had in their San Francisco apartment in their new place. They also had gotten some stuff from my grandparent’s when they downsized, so it was nice to see that stuff too. They also have a really great view from their deck, but it was a bit foggy and cold so we didn’t stay outside too long.

The first thing I did when I saw Krystle was give her the birthday present I got for her. Her birthday isn’t for a few more weeks, but I found the perfect gift for her about a month ago and I wanted her to have it right away. So I brought it with me and gave it to her to open right then.

Krystle runs a wedding and event planning business (if you are in Santa Barbara you totally should use her for your events!) and I wanted her to have a really professional and cute business card holder to keep in her purse. So when I saw this Kate Spade card holder, I knew it was exactly what she should have. I just didn’t have any idea that it would match her business cards perfectly!

Card Holder

I think she loved it and I think that she will look so cool when she hands out cards to prospective customers! I’m just so happy that I got to give her the gift in person and see her expression when she opened it! That’s so much better than shipping the gift when it’s actually her birthday.

After she opened her gift, we headed out to a wine bar. My brother was sleeping (he worked a late shift the day before) and we didn’t want to wake him up. I don’t remember the name of the wine bar we went to, but it was surrounded by a ton of other wine bars that all had unique looks to them. This one looked like a place that my sister-in-law would have decorated herself.

Wine Bar

She got some wine and we shared some food, but we really didn’t eat too much. We spent our time there catching up on life and discussing how much we want to do another trip together soon. We are going to do a fun day trip along with my brother and a bunch of my friends in about 2 months, but she and I are hoping to do a weekend in Las Vegas sometime soon. That’s in the works and we have to figure out when we are both free (and when I’ll have money to do it). We are also hoping to get back to New York again in the next year or two because there was so much stuff that we never got to do the last time we were there!

Before we knew it, we had to head back to the apartment because Krystle had a call with one of her clients and I wanted to get back to my car so I could start the drive home. When we got back, my brother was awake so I got to see him for a few minutes. But he had to head out to work so there wasn’t a lot of time to catch up.

Right before Krystle had to get on her call with her client, we said goodbye and I got into my car to drive back to LA. I’m so glad that they live so much closer to me now. It’s not that unreasonable to go up to Santa Barbara for the day (or for her to come down to LA for the day). It’s actually a shorter drive than when I go to San Diego, and I do that drive a lot! So I have a feeling that there will be more Santa Barbara days in my future!

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A Bridal Shower Celebration (or My Morning In Santa Barbara)

Posted on January 19, 2016 | Comments Off on A Bridal Shower Celebration (or My Morning In Santa Barbara)

With my friend Rayshell’s wedding coming up in a few months, there are a couple of different wedding related celebrations that I get to attend! This past weekend was her bridal shower, and I was so excited to get to go!

It was held in Santa Barbara so it was a little bit of a drive for me. But fortunately, there wasn’t any traffic so I got there early. I hung out in my car listening to podcasts until it was time for the party to start (I found out later that it would have been fine for me to show up early).

The party had a Paris theme to it and all the decorations were so cute!

Decoration

Each guest had a champagne glass with their name on it to use for drinks. They had champagne, wine, water, and a couple of different juices. I think most people had a mimosa, but I decided to go with orange juice because I need to limit my alcohol since I am on Vyvanse.

Party Favor

Rayshell’s bridesmaids did an amazing job putting together this party. They had a really nice brunch set up. I had some fruit and veggies and quiche. It was very yummy but casual so we all could enjoy hanging out with each other. I’ve been to other bridal showers where things are over scheduled or a bit too fancy (none of those have been written about on here), but I loved that this shower was relaxing and allowed us all to have a nice time.

There were two games that we played. One was where we all wore a fake diamond ring and if we said Rayshell’s name we had to give our ring to the person who caught us doing that. I was doing ok for a bit, but I said her name and my friend Sarah was the one who got my ring. I’m glad she got it because she ended up winning the ring game!

The other game we played was naming the movie that different movie quotes came from.

Movie Quotes

We all thought these were pretty tough and I only got 2 of them. The winner got 3, so I didn’t feel too bad.

After games and food, it was time for Rayshell to open her presents. Everyone got her really nice stuff. Some of it was stuff off of her registry, and some of it was just fun stuff that they knew she’d like. I asked Rayshell what on her registry she wanted now instead of waiting until her wedding to get and she said that there was an entry way rug she wanted. I ordered it off of her registry and it arrived right before the shower. So she had sent me a text when she got it showing me how nice it looked in her house.

Rayshell's gift

While it was a super practical gift and not the most fun or silly thing to buy, I’m glad I was able to get her something that she (and her fiancĂ©e) really wanted to have for their apartment now.

After gifts, it was time to start wrapping things up. I talked with a bunch of the other girls there about details for Rayshell’s bachelorette party which is coming up in a month. It will be a really fun time and I’m excited to get to have a fun night out with everyone. And in a few more months, it will be Rayshell’s wedding which I know is going to be fabulous! I have seen what the venue looks like (and I was there when she got her dress) so I know that it’s going to be an incredible wedding.

While I know that some of my single friends don’t love going to weddings or participating in wedding related events, I don’t mind it at all. I love getting to celebrate my friends and all the wonderful things happening in their lives right now. Eventually, it will be my turn and I know that they will all be there to celebrate me then. But for now, I’m just so excited for Rayshell to get married so she can have her happily ever after!

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My Spark Planner (or Being A Little Low-Tech This Year)

Posted on January 8, 2016 | 2 comments

I’m pretty big with using technology to make my life easier. I love having my calendar sync between any devices I use and I can color code it as much as I want. It’s pretty helpful when I have a lot of overlapping events in my life. I would possibly be lost without my phone calendar and the alerts it gives me (especially the 24 hour alerts before a Southwest flight so I can check in).

But toward the end of the year, a bunch of friends were posting about their new paper planners for 2016. Because of my changing schedule (and the overlapping issues), I don’t really see myself using a paper planner. It would be too messy for me to feel ok using it. But as I started to look into the planners that some of my friends were getting, I was intrigued by the other things that the planners offered.

So many planners now are designed to be more than just a schedule. They can be goal focused and I loved that idea! I looked around at various planners, and the one that seemed best for my life was the Spark Planner. So I put an order in and got it just before the new year! I’ve been using it for a little more than a week, and I wanted to share with you all about how much I’m loving it (and no, they didn’t pay me to say this)!

Like I said, my plan for my planner was not to be a scheduling tool. That’s not something that I would want to use it for, but if you wanted to do that, there are plenty of ways to plan in it. But I’m going to focus on what I use my planner for.

First of all, I love that it’s a plain planner! If I want to decorate it, I can. But I love that it’s not super cutesy or obvious.

Spark Planner

Mine lives on my desk and it goes nicely with all the other things I have as desk accessories and looks professional if I did have it in my bag and took it out to use in public.

There are planner pages for each week. They are broken down by morning, noon, and night but you can use it for anything you want. They aren’t broken down by hour (I would hate it if it was) so things can be much more freeform. I’m currently using the weekly pages to do my blog planning because I’ve been blog planning on post-its in the past and that’s not efficient. This way, I can not only plan my posts each day, I can take notes on what I want to write about (which is very helpful in my workout recaps).

Blog Planning

I have decided what to do with the other blocks of time, but I might use them for just random notes or I might think of something later that fits perfectly. But that’s why I love the freeform of the planner pages!

The main focus on my Spark Planner for me is the goal setting pages. They have so many goal pages and I’m loving them all!

2016 Themes

I used the 2016 goal setting pages to help me plan my goals for the year as well as my word of the year. I haven’t started filling in the achievements page yet, but I’m excited to document all the great things I accomplish this year! I’m really using this section as a companion to the goal setting that I do on here, and I like having it written down so I don’t have to search my blog to see the specifics of goals I’ve set for the year.

Monthly Goals

The next thing I’m loving are the monthly challenges! My current challenge for this month is to accurately track my food every day. I’m still toying with which app I want to track my food with, but this is a great way to be accountable even if I’m working on my challenge in two different places. There is also a monthly goals page, and I’m using that as a breakdown for what I need to do this month to be on track for my year goal.

Weekly Goals

Finally, there are weekly goal pages. I’ve been using these for goals that aren’t necessarily specific to my monthly/annual goals. I’ve been using them as more of a weekly to-do list. I’ve got things on it like to book flights for upcoming trips, do things related to the blog, or appointments that I need to set. At the bottom of the weekly goal pages, there is a section to reflect back at the end of the week. You are supposed to review all of your goals and celebrate what you were able to get done.

Besides all the goal setting stuff, there are also prompts to help you reflect on goals and ideas that you want to work on. And there is a lot of free space to doodle, make lists, or do anything you want.

I’m sure that some people use the Spark Planner in a much more regulated way, but I’m so happy with the freeform and lack of time constraints that I’m finding in my planner. I know that over the year I will find new ways that this planner will help me in my life, but for now I’m loving how it is helping me work toward each of my goals.

If you want to get your own Spark Planner (and I highly recommend you do if you want to work on goals this year), you can pre-order the ones that will be released in March. And if you want to get a free PDF of the Spark Planner, if you share the website on social media and then email them a screenshot, they will send you the PDF!

Whether or not you chose to buy a Spark Planner, I think that having a planner that helps you work toward your goals is such a wonderful gift to have. And I know that I will be more successful in my goals this year because of all the tracking I’m doing!

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