Category Archives: Celebrations

“The Wisdom Of Walt” (or Time To Win An Amazing Book!)

Posted on September 17, 2015 | 18 comments

I’ve covered almost everything from the Entertainment New Media Network Conference in my past two posts. But I did skip talking about one of the speakers. And it’s not because I didn’t enjoy it. It’s because it was my favorite speaker of the entire event!

Jeffrey A. Barnes is a professor, an author, and a Disney fanatic. And as a fellow Disney fan, I was super excited to hear what he was going to talk about.

Without giving away a ton of Jeffrey’s story, he had always dreamed about writing a book about Walt Disney and Disneyland. Then he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He put off having surgery for a while because he was teaching a college class on Disneyland (where was that class when I was in school?!?). After having the tumor removed, he had mentioned that he had the life regret of never writing his book. His wife told him that he still had plenty of life to live and encouraged him to write the book he always wanted to.

The book “The Wisdom Of Walt” was written as both a story about the history of Disneyland as well as leadership and self-help through the lessons that Walt Disney went through while building his park.

When Jeffrey was speaking at ENMNCon, he talked about how we needed to be the hero in our own stories. Every story needs a hero who is willing to fail, willing to act, and willing to dream. And to get your dreams accomplished nobody can be that hero except for you.

His talk really connected with me. I try not to be the victim in my story, but sometimes that’s tough. I need to focus as much as possible on being my own hero and making sure that my dreams are my priorities.

Obviously as soon as the conference was done, I bought “The Wisdom of Walt”. To say that I’m devouring the book is an understatement! I’m putting off watching my favorite TV shows to read more and more of the book! I’m getting close to the end of it and I’m already planning on re-reading it because I know that there is so much to absorb in the book.

I love the history of Disneyland parts. I do know a lot of Disney history but I’m still learning new things. And I love the lessons that are in each chapter. The book is such a great mix of learning Disney history and leadership skills with fun facts about the parks.

Why am I sharing this all with you? Because Jeffrey A. Barnes is super amazing and is giving away a copy of “The Wisdom Of Walt” on my blog! Not only is he giving away a copy, the winner will have their copy signed and personalized!

All you have to do is enter at the bottom of this post. There are a bunch of ways to enter including commenting on here, following me on twitter/Facebook/Instagram, and tweeting out the contest (you can do that every day and earn extra entries!). The contest goes until midnight on Thursday September 24th so you have lots of time to enter and earn extra entries!

And if you don’t want to enter (or if you enter but don’t win), Jeffrey has decided to give all readers of Finding My Inner Bombshell $5 off his book if you order it through his website! All the books ordered through his website will be signed (just not personalized) and if you enter the code “blog” in the notes, you will get a $5 refund after purchase! If you would prefer the Kindle version, you can get that on Amazon (but no discount and obviously it won’t be signed).

Good luck to everyone who enters! And I hope that even if you don’t win, you get this book because it is truly amazing!

Please make sure you enter through the Rafflecopter below even if you just enter by writing a comment. I will be selecting the winner randomly from the Rafflecopter entries on Friday the 26th!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

18 Comments

Posted in Celebrations, Food, Shopping

Tagged author, blogging, books, contest, Disney, Disneyland

Skipping Over An Anniversary (or Forgetting But Not Forgetting)

Posted on September 11, 2015 | Comments Off

This past Monday was my grandparents’ anniversary. Last year, I was lucky enough to spend their anniversary with them in San Diego. It was a pretty fun trip and I had a great time celebrating with them and seeing some of my other family. And after that I got to see my grandparents a few other times prior to my grandpa passing away.

Obviously, you never know when someone is going to pass away. We had no clue that my grandparents’ anniversary last year would have been the last one that they would celebrate together. And even if we did, I don’t know if we would have done anything different with our celebration.

I’ve mentioned that days that used to be celebrations for someone who has passed away have been weird for me. Some dates are harder than others. Usually dates where I remember that I don’t need to buy a card are the worst. But this is the first time that there has been an anniversary that I usually celebrate where one person has passed away. It’s one thing to not celebrate a birthday or even Father’s Day for someone who has passed away. But an anniversary where one person in the couple is still alive does seem weird to not celebrate.

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to call my grandma for her anniversary or anything so I checked with my mom and my aunt. Both of them said that we weren’t going to celebrate it because it may have upset my grandma. We weren’t trying to forget that it was their anniversary, but we didn’t want to bring it up and make my grandma sad that my grandpa isn’t alive anymore. I think they might have also thought it is a weird thing to try to celebrate when half of the people you are celebrating are dead.

Even though I was nervous about how to celebrate my grandparents’ anniversary, it did feel weird not celebrating it. I did acknowledge it on social media by posting the photo that I took at their last anniversary.

With this anniversary gone, I wonder if it will be weird again next year on their anniversary. Or how it’s going to feel at Thanksgiving when I think it will hit us all pretty hard that my grandpa isn’t there. There was a Thanksgiving years ago where my grandpa got sick and ended up in the hospital on Thanksgiving (we brought pie to the hospital after dinner). That dinner was weird enough and we all knew that he was fine and being released from the hospital the next day. What’s it going to be like when we know that he isn’t just somewhere else and we’ll see him the next day?

I guess this is all part of the grief process. I’ve had a weird time with grieving his death. Obviously I’m sad that my grandpa is gone. He’s the only grandpa I knew. But he and I have a very complicated relationship. While I’m sad I also have other conflicting feelings. But the sadness is greater because I also have the sadness I feel for other members of my family and how they are grieving.

Dealing with all these complicated feelings can be tough. I know that grief can be a long process and having these significant dates can bring up lots of feelings or make you feel like you took a step back in dealing with death. I’m just trying to focus on the positives and think about how much fun it will be at Thanksgiving this year with all of my family, even if we will be missing one family member.

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Tough Stuff

Tagged anniversary, death, grandparents

Brunch and Shopping (or Helping A Friend Make Some Upgrades)

Posted on September 1, 2015 | 1 comment

I had the best Sunday this past Sunday! I got to hang out with my friend Jane (who is in my Women In Film mentoring group) and help her do some awesome things!

We had originally made plans for brunch. We went to Flores and Sons in West LA (I’m a bad blogger and forgot to take pictures of the food). We were seated on the front patio which was perfect because we had a fan right next to us! Over brunch, we were catching up on things that we have been up to lately. I told her about the SAG-AFTRA election and stuff about my day jobs. And she was telling me about her new apartment.

Jane had just moved into a new place very recently and she was still trying to get settled in. She was lacking a lot of furniture that she wanted to get and was hoping to get a mattress in a Labor Day sale. I told her about Sofa Club (where I got my couch) and told her I’d be happy to take her there to see if she could get a good deal on a mattress.

After talking about that, Jane had mentioned that she needed to do some more upgrades in her life. Mainly with her wallet and purse. She had asked me where I had gotten mine (they are both by Lodis) and I mentioned how I had bought them both years ago and they aren’t made anymore. But I knew that there was a really awesome Nordstrom Rack near where we were and said that we should take the day to do some shopping for fun and her new apartment!

The first stop was Nordstrom Rack. Of course, as soon as we got to the purse section I found my dream purse that was on sale for $130 (from $395). As much as I wanted to get it, I don’t have the money for it right now and this shopping day was for Jane. We ended up finding her the perfect purse and wallet, plus a really cute set of outdoor lights for her new patio. I think that the purse upgrade was a big upgrade and she’s going to look super chic now when she’s out and about town.

Next was an adventure to Sofa Club. I warned her that the outside of the building isn’t impressive but they have great stuff and amazing deals. We had to wait to be helped (we sat on one of their comfy couches while we waited) but the wait was totally worth it! She got a new mattress, box spring, and frame for much less than she was expecting to pay. And they gave her free next day delivery too!

After all that shopping, we needed a quick cool down snack (it was insanely hot out). And right by Sofa Club is Rita’s. I hadn’t been to a Rita’s since the tasting event and this location is super close to my house. I got the mint chocolate ice with vanilla custard and it was perfect!

Finally to end our adventure, I got to see Jane’s new apartment. I was so inspired by her new place and we spent probably an hour or so rearranging the furniture she has now and planning what she should get to complete the place. I think that I’m going to go shopping again with her this weekend to help her set up some more stuff.

It was seriously such a great day. Obviously, it’s always fun shopping when it’s for someone else (and with someone else’s money). But it was more than that. Jane had said that she needed to upgrade her life a bit and I got to be a part of that! She’s such a fabulous person and she deserves to feel that way too!

Hopefully after our next shopping adventure, I will have some before and after pictures of her new place to share with you all!

1 Comment

Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff, Shopping

Tagged brunch, fashion, friends, home, shopping

My Return To Disneyland (or Being Lazy And Enjoying Air Conditioning)

Posted on August 27, 2015 | 3 comments

It’s been a long summer blackout for my annual pass at Disneyland, but I was finally able to return to the parks this week! I had this on my calendar since my last Disneyland day, so I’ve been looking forward to it for a while.

I went again with my friend June (who went with me for the last day before our blackout). June lives 2 blocks from my house, so it’s pretty convenient to go to the parks together. And since I have parking on my pass and she doesn’t, we like to carpool.

Just like our last day in the parks, it was another super hot day. We got there at about noon (I had my workout early in the morning) and we were off and running as soon as we parked. First on the list was to get our favorite treat: Dole Whips!

Last time, we enjoyed our Dole Whips in the shade outside of the Enchanted Tiki Room, but since it was so ridiculously hot out we decided to go inside. I usually don’t go into the Enchanted Tiki Room, but the air conditioning was totally worth it!

Next on our list was something we had both been waiting on for a while. The Peter Pan ride had a pretty big refurbishment and had opened over the summer when we were blacked out. So we wanted to go on and see how the refurbishment looked. I’ve seen several videos on what they worked on so I knew to look for particular things in the ride. Overall, it looks pretty cool. I’m not too happy with the scene where you are flying over London. To me, it looks too bright and not as three dimensional as it looked before.

Next on the list was another ride that we knew would have some air conditioning: Indiana Jones. This is definitely one of my favorite rides and it didn’t disappoint. There was a weird technical glitch where things weren’t syncing up properly with the ride vehicle (the boulder scene was delayed and the Indiana Jones animatronic at the end didn’t come alive until we were driving away), but I actually thought those technical issues were pretty cool. I go on the rides enough that when I get to see things not show perfect, I’m pretty exciting. It doesn’t top when I rode the Finding Nemo submarines and all the computer imagining failed, but this was a pretty fun glitch to watch.

After Indiana Jones, we were feeling pretty overheated and a little hungry so we rode the Monorail into Downtown Disney for a late lunch/early dinner. We went to Tortilla Jo’s because we both were craving ice-cold margaritas (mine was a virgin since I am still on painkillers for my torn calf).

I had a pretty amazing steak burrito for my meal. While there are some good food options inside the parks, I have to remember to go to Downtown Disney too because they have a lot of variety for meals.

After the food, drinks, and air conditioning, we were ready to go back on some more rides. Next on the list (after riding the Monorail back into Tomorrowland) was Space Mountain. We waited for the ride and just as it was our turn the ride broke down. There was no set time for when it would re-open, but we decided to wait it out a bit. Just as we were getting close to the time deadline we had set for our wait, the ride started back up. We got to ride in the front of the car and it felt so much faster than it ever has. I’m not sure if I just forgot how fast it feels or after it’s shut down for a while somehow the ride gets faster. But it was perfect!

The last ride in Disneyland was Star Tours. That was a relatively uneventful ride. Except the guy sitting next to me was grabbing the outsides of the armrests so he was almost holding onto my leg instead of the seat and I wasn’t able to hold on on one side.

We headed over to California Adventure next where we had hoped to get some Fastpasses for World Of Color. Sadly, those had gone pretty quickly that day so there was no way for us to see the show. We were a little disappointed, but decided to just ride a few more rides before heading home. We rode Soarin’ (one of my favorite and the music from it is the ringtone on my phone). That ride will been changing the movie in the future so we want to get as many rides on it as we can.

Then it was time for another cool down break inside of Starbucks where I got a strawberry smoothie. After that, we were feeling pretty lazy and didn’t want to walk over to our next ride, Tower of Terror. Honestly, it isn’t that far away but we just didn’t want to walk it. And California Adventure has a little trolley that goes through a couple of parts of the park. So we waited longer than it would have taken us to walk to ride the trolley to what was going to be our final ride of the night.

After Tower Of Terror, the trolley happened to be right in front so we hopped back on and rode it to the exit gate of the park. But before we left, I wanted to make one more quick stop.

I never get the buttons at Disneyland, but I wanted to get an “I’m Celebrating” button to celebrate my SAG-AFTRA convention delegate win!

And after that, both June and I were ready to go home. The drive home was pretty quick and we’ve already made plans to go in a month to see the Halloween decorations.

Overall, I think it was a pretty great day at Disneyland. We were much lazier than usual, but that’s one of the perks of being an annual pass holder. We felt no need to rush around all the rides and we took advantage of whatever air conditioning we could find. Hopefully when we return next month, it will be a bit cooler.

I can’t wait to see what the Halloween decorations will look like! I know that that Disneyland day will be another great memory!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged adventure, air conditioning, Disneyland, lazy, rides, theme park

The End Of The SAG-AFTRA Elections (or Being An Observer)

Posted on August 25, 2015 | 2 comments

This past Thursday, the ballots for the SAG-AFTRA election were counted. The ballot count was at the SAG-AFTRA offices starting at 9am and originally we were told that we would hear results around 5 or 6pm.

As much as I would have liked to be there in the morning, I had to work. So as soon as work was done at 3pm, I headed to the offices to wait for the results to be announced.

At first, I just waited outside the counting room. I knew I couldn’t use my phone inside the room and I was helping to update a lot of people who couldn’t be at the count. But some of my fellow candidates encouraged me to go inside, so I did.

I have to say, watching the counting was pretty cool. The main counting was done so I never got to watch the counting machines in action. But what I did get to observe was the counters hand counting questionable ballots. Those questionable ones were ones where people might have over voted (or over voted and then crossed some things out) or where the bubbles weren’t filled in in a method that the counting machines could recognize. It was pretty cool seeing these people analyzing what the intention of the voter was. It’s impressive to see how seriously they take their jobs and I feel very comfortable with the integrity of the count. If you ever have the opportunity to do something similar for a ballot count, I highly recommend it.

6pm came and they were saying we were still hours away from the results. So my slate went next door to Marie Callendars to eat and wait (too bad I already used my birthday coupon!). Ken Howard, who was running for National President, was going to get a phone call when the national results were in (we knew those would be first). Every time his phone rang, everyone got quiet and waited to see if it was “the call”. Finally, it was and Ken got the happy news that he was re-elected as president! But then we had a twist: his running mate for Secretary/Treasurer was not elected but instead the candidate from the other slate one that position. Everyone in the room was celebrating when we heard that Ken won, but then went into shock when we heard that Jenny O’Hara lost. I was really hoping for Jenny to win. I had gotten to know her really well while campaigning and I felt like she would be so amazing in that position. But now I must have faith in our new Secretary/Treasurer Jane Austin.

After Ken’s win, we heard that it might be another hour or two for the rest of the results. Many people decided to go home, but I figured I might as well stick it out as long as I could.

Since the restaurant closed, we all went back to the offices and hung out in the counting room. We kept watching for signs that the count was done. We had been told that if we were still in the room when it was done, they would let us go in and meet with the election committee one by one in private and they would tell us our results. If we weren’t there, we would get an email (actually, we’d get an email either way but finding out in person was going to be first).

I knew I couldn’t sleep until I knew so I waited it out. And finally around 11:30pm we were told to line up. There were a couple of people in front of me and some of them didn’t get elected for everything they ran for. I was so incredibly nervous and when it was my turn the nerves were even worse.

The room that we had to go into for the results felt like a judging. It was as conference room with about 10 people and you had your name and what you were running for announced so they could all check their information. It felt like forever before they could find my name. And when they did, I got the happy news that I won my convention delegate seat!

I went outside and waited for everyone else from my slate to get their results. There were some surprises on some losses, but in the end my slate has maintained the majority that we had before. And I think that maybe having the national positions split will help bring the two slates closer together and the next election won’t be as nasty.

I went to bed as soon as I got home and had this email waiting for me when I woke up in the morning.

It all feels real now! And I’m getting emails about joining committees and other things. I’m seriously so excited! While I haven’t been treating my career as a hobby, I think that maybe I have been treating my union membership as one. I’m so excited to be more involved from now on with the union and hopefully make a difference in our working conditions, pay, and other issues that I and all SAG-AFTRA actors deal with.

Thank you to all of you who voted for me! I’m so excited to serve you as a convention delegate for the next two years! And who knows, maybe in 2 years I’ll be running for a board position too!

2 Comments

Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, election, SAG-AFTRA, union, winner

Another LA Anniversary (or What Will Year 15 Bring?)

Posted on August 21, 2015 | Comments Off

14 years ago, I moved to LA. My first LA home was my dorm room at Loyola Marymount. My parents and best friend drove down with me (my parents in one car and my best friend and I in the other). We carpooled for the 6 hour drive down and used walkie talkies to stay in communication (although I still wonder why we didn’t just use our cell phones). I remember that as soon as they drove away, they called me to make sure that I wasn’t crying because they left. But I was just too excited about the adventure that was ahead of me.

My college years weren’t the best, but I made them the best that I could. And that meant doing as much away from school as possible to experience all that I could in LA and work hard at my acting career from the moment I got here. I was lucky enough to have a car here from day 1, so I was always driving around and exploring the amazing city that I was living in.

My first 3.5 years in LA were college years. And after college I knew that I would stay here. LA felt like home from the day I moved here and it has never stopped feeling like that. Even when I went home for winter break my freshman year of college, my parents’ house didn’t feel like home anymore. Every place I’ve lived in LA has felt more and more like home to me. And the house I live in now is somewhere that I see myself living until I one day buy a place. I’ve always dreamed of living in an old studio bungalow (I love the idea of the history behind one of those bungalows) and that’s exactly where I live now.

I’ve managed to build a wonderful life for me here in LA. Yes, I wish that I was making more money and my acting career was fully supporting me. But I look at the riches of my life in other ways. I have great friends, a support system that I can count on at any time, and get to live my dream every day.

There have been some hardships too in those 14 years. Like I’ve mentioned, college wasn’t the best time for me. But I managed to get through it the best way I could. Some of the friendships I’ve lost have been very tough on me. Dealing with my mom’s cancer while I’m not near her wasn’t easy on me. And there have been times that my loneliness was horrible and all I wanted was to find a place to express myself without fear (which is what this blog has become for me).

I don’t take advantage of living is such an amazing city as often as I should. I’m so close to the beach and I haven’t really been at all this summer! I haven’t gone into the hills or to any amazing scenic viewpoints lately. And I haven’t been to any concerts at the Bowl this summer (I’m hoping to still make it to one eventually). But it’s nice to know that I have all those things here for me when I have the time and money to do it.

In my 14 years in LA I’ve gone to college, performed with improv troupes, studied with multiple acting coaches, held a couple of “real” jobs, held dozens (if not hundreds) of day jobs, made lots of friends, lost a couple of friends, attended red carpet events, had lots of acting jobs, gone to Disneyland more than I could have dreamed of, and had so many other amazing adventures! I’m not sure I could have asked for more in my life.

Now I’m wondering what year 15 will be for me. I’m in a very different place in my life than I was in the past and feel like this is going to be a wonderful year for me. I have such a positive mindset on where I am in my life and I no longer have fears about where I am not. I feel like that really is going to help make this year the best year I’ve had so far!

Soon, I’ll be coming up to where I will have live in LA for a majority of my life. It’s so crazy to think that my entire adult life has been spent in a city that I spent my entire childhood dreaming about.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged anniversary, Los Angeles

Continuing The Birthday Fun (or Pie and Makeup)

Posted on August 13, 2015 | Comments Off

Even though my birthday had ended, I wasn’t ready to end the celebrating quite yet. I had a couple of other birthday deals I wanted to take advantage of, so I did some of them on Monday (my day off from the day job).

First on the birthday agenda was Marie Callendars for birthday pie. This has been a tradition for a while because they send you a coupon for $5 off an entree plus a free slice of pie. So I went with my friend Emily to the location that we like the most.

I hadn’t seen Emily in a while. Our schedules just haven’t been matching up and we haven’t been attending the same events lately. So it was awesome to get to see her and hear about all the adventures she’s been on lately. She’s got a new gig as a writer for the LA Kings (she’s a super fan) so that was really fun to hear about.

Emily and I both got some yummy food, but we were both saving plenty of room for the pie!

We got the chocolate satin pie (which we get every time) and the lemon cream cheese pie. They were both delicious but I was so full after eating!

I had something that I had to attend that evening in the same area as where we got lunch, so I decided to try to stick around there for the afternoon instead of going home. I went through my birthday deals that I had left, and decided to go over to Sephora for my free birthday gift!

I also picked up a few other things while I was there (I had a few things I needed but hadn’t had a chance to go to a Sephora location recently), but I was most excited for the freebie!

I don’t usually wear lipstick because I’m a lip balm addict (I use Natural Ice as my balm of choice), and if I wear lipstick I can’t put on more lip balm. But I’ve also been saying that I’d love to have a great red lipstick to wear for special occasions. So this freebie was perfect! I haven’t had a chance to wear it yet, but I’m sure I will soon. I’m not very good about putting on makeup, but I think that I can do lipstick ok (unlike eyeliner).

After my Sephora run, I had to get to my evening event so I wasn’t able to do any more of the birthday deals on my list. I don’t think I’m going to do them all this year. But there are maybe 1 or 2 more that I know that I want to take advantage of before the month (and the deals are over).

I know I’ve said this every year, but I love how I can just extend my birthday to be the entire month!

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Posted in Beauty, Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged birthday, birthday deals, food, free, lunch, makeup

My Birthday! (or Laundry, A Bike Ride, and Dinner!)

Posted on August 12, 2015 | 4 comments

My actual birthday was a pretty awesome day! It didn’t start off so awesome, though. Last week the dryer where I live was broken. It got fixed, but at some point during the week both the washer and dryer broke. I had no idea until I tried to do laundry on Sunday morning. So at 7:30am I put all my dirty clothes in my car and went back to the laundromat. It costs almost 4 times what it costs at my place to do laundry, but I needed clean clothes! Fortunately, I got a couple of birthday phone calls while I was there so that helped to pass the time.

After I got home with my clean clothes, it was off to the first part of my birthday adventure. CicLAvia is an event in LA where they shut down a major street (or several major streets) to non-motorized traffic only. So you can bike ride, skate, or walk without fear of being hit by a car. CicLAvia not only happened to be on my birthday this year, the street that was shut down was only blocks from my house! So even though I don’t ride my bike in traffic, I rode the few blocks in traffic to get to the street that was closed down to cars.

I was hoping that I’d be able to ride with a couple of friends, but it was too difficult trying to coordinate schedules (and some friends were also still searching for bikes that they could rent). So I went off on my own for a nice bike ride.

I don’t get to ride my bike that often. Like I said, I don’t ride where there is traffic (I’m a good bike rider, but cars intimate me) and it’s not fun to have to get my bike into my car. So I know that I could ride more often if it was more convenient. There may be a new bike ride near my house in a year or two, but until then I have limited biking practice.

When I do go out on my bike, it’s usually a pretty short ride of 2 or 3 miles (getting the bike in and out of my car takes up so much time). But for this ride I decided to just ride until I started to feel a bit tired and then turn around. I forgot to turn on a tracking app on my phone when I started my ride, so I didn’t get my mileage count until I got home and could map it out.

That’s the farthest I’ve ridden on my bike since I got it! My legs definitely felt it after the ride was done. But I was able to relax at home before the second part of my birthday.

I didn’t want to do a big party for my birthday because they are too stressful to organize. But I did want something different from going to a bar. So I invited a bunch of people to come out to dinner, and we had a nice little group there!

Yes, my birthday dinner was 6 girls and 1 guy, but I don’t think he was complaining. It was a really fun dinner with lots of great conversation. And I had some really delicious food!

After dinner, my friends had set it up for the waiter to bring a slice of cake with a candle in it. But we were all so full from our food that between all of us we maybe ate 1/10th of the cake slice.

Between my birthday outings, the phone calls I got, the Facebook notes, and the gifts that friends and family gave me; I had a really amazing birthday. I know that I say that every year, but it’s so true. My birthday was pretty much perfect (I wish the laundry wasn’t broken) and I have no idea on how to top it next year!

But even though the calendar says my birthday is done, I’m not done celebrating quite yet!

4 Comments

Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged bike, birthday, dinner, friends

Birthday Twin Dinner (or Zero Dollar Bill)

Posted on August 11, 2015 | 1 comment

As I have done for the past couple of birthdays, I joined my birthday twin Joanna at Truxton’s for our completely free birthday meal. We actually did our birthday dinner before our birthdays this year. It worked out well with our schedules, so we went for it.

Usually, the birthday promo is good for one free entrée and one free dessert per person. You don’t have to order anything outside of the free food to get the deal (which is unique and what makes it my favorite birthday deal), so Joanna and I have always gotten an entrée and dessert each and ended up with a zero dollar bill. But this year, they changed their promo. This time you would get $20 of free food per person. This could include entrees, desserts, appetizers, or even drinks. And there was no minimum purchase so we knew that a 100% free bill was possible still. So between the two of us, we had $40 to spend and endless options from the menu.

I had thought long and hard about what I was going to order before going to Truxton’s, but I was still undecided because I wanted to make sure that Joanna and I got a 100% free meal. We had to figure out how much we could each spend on each part of the meal. We did some calculations and figured out exactly what we would have after we figured out the appetizer and dessert we were going to split (yes, those had to be figured out first). And since my entrée was cheaper than what I was able to “spend”, Joanna got some of my extra money for her entrée. I was actually very happy with our food choices. Normally we get the 2 free desserts, but we never need both. But to be able to get an appetizer made me pretty happy.

As always the food was fabulous. We got monkey bread as our appetizer, I got the chicken dinner that I had last year as my entrée, and we got the apple tart for dessert (which we’ve actually never gotten before over the years).

We had a bit of a snafu when we got our bill at first. It showed that we had a bill for a couple of dollars. After figuring out that we were charged for one incorrect entrée, we got a new bill which showed that we have continued our tradition of a zero dollar bill at Truxton’s. Even though our bill was nothing, we still like to leave a big tip. The waitress we had this year was actually the same waitress that we had last year, and she remembered us as the 100% free birthday girls. The tip that we ended up leaving equal about 50% of what the bill would have been, so I think that’s pretty good.

Joanna and I joked about how we need to figure out how to make this work and include drinks as part of our free $40 and Truxton’s money. It may involve not getting much food, but free drinks sounds pretty awesome. We’ve got an entire year before we have our free birthday meal again, and I’m sure will have it figured out by then. Then again, Truxton’s may change their birthday club within the next year and then we’ll have to figure it out all over again.

This was the perfect way to kick off my birthday celebrations (as always there were multiple celebrations). And tomorrow I will share with you all the fun that I had on my actual birthday!

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged birthday, birthday deals, birthday twin, dinner, food, free

My Last Workouts of Being 31 (or 174 Workouts)

Posted on August 10, 2015 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts was intense for me. The workouts were harder than they have been in a while (several people said that so it’s not just me), I finally did 4 workouts again in a week after several weeks of only 3 workouts, and I pushed myself harder than ever to celebrate my last 4 workouts of being 31.

This week had a bunch of run/row days. I personally like those because I’m not a huge fan of the treadmill. So when it’s a run/row day, you don’t spend as much time as usual on the treadmill. During the run/row days, we sometimes have longer treadmill segments, but sometimes we have sprints. And on Monday we had sprint segments. Those short segments were perfect for me to test out if I could bump up the speed a bit more on the treadmill.

I was able to do several of those run segments at 3.8 and 3.9 miles an hour. And for one I did it at 4.0 miles an hour, but that was starting to hurt me and make my heart rate up too high so I brought it down a bit. I’m still struggling with increasing my base pace, but it’s nice to know that I’m able to get sprints in a bit. I think that since 4.0 seems to be too fast for me (at least for now), I really want to try to focus on stepping up my base pace. That is important for me to do in order to increase my 5K time. I’ve got about 3 months before my next race, so I’m feeling like it’s time to get more into training mode.

Besides progress on the treadmill, I finally was able to make some improvements with my strength workout! I know I’ve been talking about hoping to do that for awhile, I just was too scared to do it. I’m still using the same weights for many of my strength exercises, but I’m definitely experimenting a bit with the heavier weights. I finally had a chance to use the heavier ones on Saturday. We had a strength block were all the exercises were 6 reps each. That’s nothing. Especially when in the block before it there were 20 reps each. So since the rep count was so low, I knew that this was my chance to work with the heavier weights.

For my pullovers (when you lay on the weight bench with your arms behind you and pull your arms up toward your stomach) I usually was using 15 pound weights. But we were encouraged to go for it and see what we could do. I went for 25 pound weights. It was tough and my arms were shaking, but I did it! I wasn’t able to do the bicep curls with the 25 pound weight, but just doing it for the pullovers was better than nothing.

And finally, this week I did my last workouts of being 31. I celebrated turning 31 at Orangetheory last year. That was at the beginning of my Orangetheory journey. I added up how many workouts I did between that birthday and this birthday. And as you can guess from the title of this post, I did 174 workouts. I was shocked by that number. I had set a goal of doing 175 workouts in 2015. That goal was set after my birthday (obviously since my birthday is in August and I set that goal in January). So the first few months of the last year of workouts was before that goal was set, and therefore before I really starting tracking my workouts. Even without tracking for those few months, I still was only 1 workout away from what I now have as my 2015 goal. That makes me think that maybe my goal was set too low.

I think that those 174 workouts were amazing. I think I’ve made some serious progress in my fitness and I think that others are able to see it as well. I’m seriously so beyond grateful that I found my workout home at Orangetheory. I love that the people who work there are awesome and that they care about the people who work out there (and not just because they are paid to).

So that’s the end of my workouts as a 31-year-old. Now to see what great things I can accomplish in my workouts as a 32-year-old!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged birthday, fitness, Orangetheory, progress, workout

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