Category Archives: Celebrations

Santa Barbara Weekend (or Family and Friends Time)

Posted on July 22, 2014 | 3 comments

This past weekend, I was up in Santa Barbara (which if you aren’t familiar with the California geography is about 2 hours north of Los Angeles). My friend Rayshell was celebrating her 30th birthday and her parents offered to throw her a party. So the party was held at her parents’ place in Santa Barbara.

I’m sure at some point in my life I’ve been to Santa Barbara, but it must have been when I was little because I don’t remember ever going there. I know that I’ve never been there as an adult, so that’s at least 13 years.

I knew about the birthday party a few months in advance (Rayshell wanted everyone to have the chance to make hotel reservations if necessary). My sister-in-law’s parents live in Santa Barbara, so as soon as I knew that I would be up there, I texted them to see if they could meet up while I was there. My sister-in-law’s mom wasn’t sure if they would be in town while I was there, so she asked me to text closer to the date.

When I texted her again, she let me know that my brother and sister-in-law were going to be in Santa Barbara the same weekend. So I made plans with everyone to meet up with them for a little bit on Saturday before I went to the party.

I drove up by myself and got to my sister-in-law’s parents’ house in about 2 hours (traffic wasn’t my friend the entire way). It was so great to see everyone. I hadn’t seen my brother or my sister-in-law’s parents since Christmas and I hadn’t seen my sister-in-law since our NYC trip.

I was only able to stay there for about an hour, but it was a nice visit. My brother and sister-in-law are going on a trip to Africa next month. They are going to be going to Tanzania, which is where my family went when we went to Africa in 1997. So we were chatting about different things to prepare for the trip and memories that my brother and I have when we went there as kids.

After my visit, I got back on the road to head to Rayshell’s parent’s house. It was only about 10 minutes from my sister-in-law’s parent’s house, so that was easy.

The party was in the backyard and they had hired a taco man to cater dinner. Technically, he was more than a taco man because you could also get a salad, a burrito, a quesadilla, or nachos. I opted for the beef nachos because they looked so amazing!

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I totally made the right choice! My nachos were awesome!

I was sitting next to my friend Sarah Levin (who I refer to as the “other Levin” and she does the same to me) and it was so nice to get to catch up with her. She recently got engaged and will be getting married soon. So I got to see the ring and hear all of her incredible wedding plans.

And of course, Sarah and I wanted a picture with the birthday girl.

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Not only is Rayshell in a Levin sandwich, Sarah and I are dressed alike (blue dresses, black sweaters). I thought it was pretty funny.

Also at the party, there was a magician. He reminded me of the magicians who perform the close-up magic show at The Magic Castle. There were some tricks that I’ve seen before, but there were also a bunch that I had never seen and I was amazed how they were done (I might have googled some of the tricks because I just couldn’t understand how he could have done it).

And one of the final tricks of the show was the magician juggling a machete, a bowling ball, and a torch lit on fire while balancing on a board that was on top of a plastic pipe.

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I know you can’t see that he is balancing in the picture, but trust me, he was. And he was very close to the tree in the backyard so everyone was nervous that he would catch the tree on fire. But fortunately, everything was safe and not on fire at the end of the show.

After the magic show, there was some dessert and then people started to head out. Some people had to make the drive back to LA, some were headed to their hotels (or houses if they were locals), and some people headed out to the bars. I was very lucky that Rayshell’s parents said I could spend the night at their house. Hotels were very expensive (especially for a Saturday night in the summer). So while everyone else was leaving, I was helping with some cleanup.

And while putting away the leftover alcohol (which I didn’t have any of), I discovered the biggest tequila bottle I’ve ever seen!

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It’s Costco brand but everyone said that it was great.

After cleaning up, everyone who was staying at Rayshell’s parents’ house just hung out outside for a while talking around one of the fire pits that they have.

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It was a very relaxing way to end the evening. And before we knew it, it was 1am and we were all exhausted. I slept in the living room on the couch, and it was a perfect place to crash after a party (I can’t imagine trying to make the drive home after the party).

The next morning, we all had breakfast together and then I headed back to LA. Sarah needed a ride back so I drove her and that gave us even more time to catch up and just have fun talking.

It was such a perfect little mini-getaway! It felt like a vacation but I didn’t have to go that far.

Thank you so much to Rayshell’s parents for letting me stay at your house! You are both so generous and were amazing hosts! And Rayshell, even though I’ve wished you a happy birthday a couple of times by now. Happy Birthday again! I hope you had a great time at your party! I know I did!

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Default ThumbnailFamily Weekend (or Hanging Out With The Dog) Default ThumbnailMore Family Time (or Seeing All My Immediate Family Last Week) Default ThumbnailA Little More Time In Santa Barbara (or Hanging Out With My Sister-In-Law) Default ThumbnailSanta Barbara Wedding (or Dancing The Night Away) Default ThumbnailSanta Barbara Engagement Party (or Sunburn and Rain) Default ThumbnailA Bridal Shower Celebration (or My Morning In Santa Barbara)

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Food, Fun Stuff, Travel

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Happy Birthday To FMIB! (or 2 Years And Finally Taking Myself Seriously As A Writer)

Posted on July 16, 2014 | 4 comments

Today marks 2 years since I started blogging on here! I still can’t believe that I’ve been able to keep this up for so long. Even though there are plenty of days where I struggle thinking of what to post on here, I still have posted now every weekday for 2 entire years!

I really should stop being shocked at myself for being so consistent. And I’m also really working on taking myself seriously as a writer.

And that’s important to do now because I lost my one day job with steady hours.

So I’m down to 6 day jobs, but none of those have guaranteed hours. And some of them won’t have hours available to me until the end of August or beginning of September.

Since I haven’t been able to save any money lately (and I’m only able to make the minimum payments on my credit card), I’m desperately looking for new days jobs now.

I started applying for the usual types of jobs like receptionist/assistant/data entry type of work. But then some people encouraged me to pursue writing jobs. They said that I am a writer (I’m working on believing that myself). I have over 500 posts on here to prove that as well as over a year of monthly posts on two other blogs.

So I spent some time creating a new resume highlighting my writing experience (there really isn’t much yet) and started to apply for various blogging and copy writing jobs. I probably applied for about 50 or 60 jobs, but I have heard back from one already. They wanted to know my blogging background and I had to answer a dozen questions about how I would handle different job situations.

I’m so glad that when I responded, I could say proudly that I had been writing on here for about 2 years (I applied for the jobs earlier this week so my 2 year mark hadn’t hit yet and I wanted to be totally honest). I also was able to provide multiple writing samples about various subjects.

While the job hunt is getting me down a bit, I’m going to spend today in a celebratory mood. 2 years is a huge milestone! I should allow myself to be happy and proud!

And I know that there are a bunch of you who have been supporting and following me through the entire 2 year life of this blog so far and I have to say thank you! Every day I’m still amazed that there are people reading this and responding about things that are going on in my life! And if you are new to following me, thanks for all the support you’ve already given to me and I hope that my next 2 years on here will bring more fun posts to share with you all!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Work

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Birthday Countdown (or Taking Suggestions On How To Celebrate)

Posted on July 11, 2014 | Comments Off on Birthday Countdown (or Taking Suggestions On How To Celebrate)

My birthday is less than a month away! I know I want to do something fun again for my birthday, but I’m stuck on what I should plan.

Last year’s outing to Bodega was pretty awesome, but there is a minimum you have to spend there in order to reserve an area (they dropped the minimum for me last year and I don’t know if they’d do it for me again). And I’m usually not the sort of person who organizes gatherings like that.

It can be stressful to plan a party for yourself! I love helping plan parties for other people, but when it comes to be I tend to lay low. I’ve had some instances where I tried to plan a party (like a house-warming party when I moved into my house) and pretty much nobody showed up. Actually, to my house-warming party I believe 2 people showed up eventually.

So I’d rather have a party where the lack of people (if there is one) isn’t too noticeable. Which is why I enjoyed having my party at a bar last year.

I put it out on various social networks that I’m taking suggestions on where to have my party this year. So far, I haven’t gotten a ton of ideas. And I know that planning a month out is pretty far out, but I’d rather have an idea of what I’m going to do early than try to scramble and put something together at the last minute.

While I’ve always been a big birthday person, I haven’t always been much for celebrating my birthday in a big way. Growing up, we always had a party, but I remember that since my birthday was in the summer there was no guarantee that people wouldn’t be out of town. And then for 2 or 3 summers I was at summer camp on my birthday (which was actually pretty fun). In college, it was weird celebrating my birthday because most of my friends would go home for the summer and I was still in LA. I remember my 21st birthday party only had 3 co-workers from the summer camp I worked at then. Not a huge party.

And after my “breakup” with my best friend, I lost a lot of LA area friends. But I’ve been lucky that creating and finding new friendships came easily to me after a while and now I have an amazing group of friends. But those friends, just like me, live crazy busy lives and aren’t always available to come and celebrate whatever there is to celebrate at that time.

Basically what I’m saying is while I do want to have an awesome birthday celebration, I’m always scared that nobody will show up. And I’m not asking for a pity party. I’m sure a bunch of people feel the same way that I do. And I’m sure that there are people who have experienced parties where nobody (or almost nobody) has shown up. I just need to get that fear out of my head, plan something awesome for my birthday, and know that I’ll have fun no matter how many people come to my party.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

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My First OA Meeting (or Celebrating A Friend’s Milestone)

Posted on July 9, 2014 | 4 comments

About a month or so ago a friend of mine invited me to check out Overeaters Anonymous with her. Since the group is anonymous and my friend has asked me not to share her name, I’m going to refer to her as E. (that’s not one of her initials so don’t start going through my old posts trying to figure out who E. is).

I wasn’t able to go with E. for a while, but then she asked me again recently. This time, she asked me to attend a particular meeting because she would be celebrating her 1 year mark with OA and wanted me to be a part of it. I was honored to go, so even though I’ve had my reservations about going to OA in the past, I wasn’t going to miss this meeting.

This meeting was held in the valley right after rush hour. So if I was going to attend meetings in the future, it probably wouldn’t be this one (it took me over an hour to get there). But I got to the meeting early enough to get to hang out with E. and catch up a bit before we went inside.

I didn’t know what to expect, but I’ve done group therapy before. It was a major component of the RFO diet that I did in the past. So I’m used to sharing with a group and getting feedback from fellow members. But OA was very different from any other group therapy I’ve done before.

In all the past group therapy I’ve done, the entire time was spent letting people talk about their problems/victories/concerns and letting other people respond and give advice or encouragement. In this particular OA meeting, the meeting was an hour-long but over 30 minutes of that was doing going over rules and other administrative items such as reading the 12 steps and traditions of OA as well as a member sharing her story (she has been in OA for decades). Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not what I expected. E. told me that there are several meetings that are over an hour just so there is more time for talking.

After all the administrative talk at the meeting, it was time to celebrate people’s anniversaries with OA. E. got a candle to celebrate her 1 year mark and there were some other women celebrating 3 years. I was so proud of E. for many reasons. She’s stuck with something for a year, and that’s so tough to do. And she was open to sharing this with me, which is also incredibly tough to do. I remember when I wrote about my eating disorder on here for the first time I cried for about 3 hours and almost didn’t publish that post.

Next, people had a chance to talk. But they are only given a certain amount of time (I’m not exactly sure of the time limit, but I think it was about 4 minutes). There is someone at the meeting with a timer and they let people know when their time is up. Again, this is not something I’m used to. In other group therapy, we could easily spend 30 minutes on one topic with multiple people chiming in. But perhaps with the time restrictions on the OA meeting, they’ve discovered that they need to keep people on time so they can do everything that needs to be done.

One of my biggest concerns and reasons I hadn’t checked out OA in the past was the issue of God. I don’t believe in God (and I don’t want to start a debate on here about that). But when I looked over a lot of the information about OA, it talks about letting a higher power guide you and things to that nature. While I do believe in putting things out into the universe, that’s not to have the universe guide me. I guide myself.

This particular meeting was very “God-ish” as E. and I put it. But she told me that most meetings weren’t this way and this particular meeting was one of the most “God-ish” that she’s been to.

Overall, the meeting was some of what I expected and a lot of what I didn’t expect. After the meeting, E. and I talked in my car for a while about it and she listened to my concerns and addressed all of them (including telling me about meetings that are longer than an hour and how this meeting seemed very “God-ish”). I’m not 100% sure that I’m going to check out another OA meeting soon, but I’m so glad I went. I got to see what it was all about and I did meet some really great people there (I wish I could tell you about them but that would defeat the “anonymous” part).

Sorry if this post seems scattered (it feels that way to me when I’m reading it and I’ve edited this several times now). The OA meeting wasn’t super recent. I waited to share this for me to gather my thoughts a bit more about it. If any of you attend OA and are ok with sharing your thoughts, I’d love to hear them. But I also understand if you don’t want to “out” yourself. It’s not an easy thing to do, but I’m so glad that E. “outed” herself to me and I was able to share in one of her victories.

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Tough Stuff

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4th Of July (or Hot Dogs, Fireworks, And Rooftops)

Posted on July 8, 2014 | 1 comment

I spent my afternoon and evening of 4th of July over at my friends Chris and Marie‘s house. They really do throw the best parties and this was the first time I’d be over there for 4th of July.

I’m always a little wary about driving on 4th of July (or any holiday where there is a lot of drinking) so I tried to time my drives for when there wouldn’t be a ton of traffic. So I headed over there around 5pm and got to their house pretty quickly.

Everyone was hanging out in the backyard and just relaxing and catching up. Definitely my type of party (I’m not a fan of crazy parties). After being there for a while, the sprinklers came on in the backyard. Marie and Chris just got new grass for their yard and they had to water it a lot so the grass would grow properly.

Since it was pretty hot out, I decided that I wanted to run through the sprinklers. I wasn’t really wearing the best outfit for that (I wore jeans), but I didn’t care. And I didn’t want to run through the sprinklers alone, so I decided to recruit some other people to join in.

Marie was the first person to say yes, and then 2 other party goers saw what we were going to do and they took off their shoes to join us.

I have to admit, even though I didn’t like that my jeans got soaking wet, running through the sprinklers was pretty awesome and a perfect activity for the party.

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After the sprinkler adventure, Chris got the grill fired up and started taking orders for hot dogs. Ordering was necessary because he and Marie and gotten 7 or 8 different types of hot dogs for the party! I wish I had taken a picture of the sign they made because they gave all the hot dogs really clever names.

I ordered a cheddar dog mainly because I had never had one before and it sounded good. And it was! Sadly, no photos were taken of the food because I was too busy eating it (I was hungry after my workout earlier that day).

We all spent time just relaxing and enjoying each other’s company while waiting for the sun to set. Even though having fireworks is illegal in Los Angeles County (unless it is a professional show), Marie and Chris said that last year plenty of people near their house set off fireworks.

So once the sun was down, a bunch of us climbed a ladder to hang out on the roof of their house to watch the fireworks. And since they were being set off so close to us, the fireworks were huge in the sky!

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We were up there for a while until someone complained that they were just hit by a piece of fireworks shrapnel. We didn’t know what had happened until we used the lights from our phones to look on the roof. We found a marble sized hard ball that must have been part of one of the fireworks (maybe it held some sort of propellant to make the fireworks go into the sky?).

After that, we all got a little nervous about being on the roof, so we headed down to watch the rest of the fireworks safely in the backyard (where I guess technically something could still hit us but we had the overhang from the roof to protect us).

I hung out at the party until about 11pm. I had figured that 11pm was a pretty safe time to leave. People who went to firework shows had already left and bars were still open so a lot of people were hanging out there. Thankfully, my plan worked and not only did I get home safely, I got home very quickly as there was no traffic on the freeways.

Even though this was a pretty low-key 4th of July, it was really a perfect way to spend a day off. I was around great friends, great food, and great conversation. What more could you want?

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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No More Playing Victim (or Taking Control)

Posted on July 4, 2014 | Comments Off on No More Playing Victim (or Taking Control)

I realized the other day that I’m starting to act like a victim with many things in my life. My job situation isn’t so great right now, I’m still struggling with food issues, and I have no money.

But acting like a victim isn’t going to get me anywhere in life. Sometimes you need to wallow in how annoying things are in your life for a minute, but after that you need to pick yourself up and start changing things.

While I’m hopeful that I won’t lose my job, I’m preparing for the worst. I spent part of the day yesterday trying to reopen my unemployment claim. I have no idea how long it will take for it to reopen, but I figure starting early can’t hurt. I’ve also taken the advice of everyone who has offered to help me and applied for all the jobs that were suggested. I’m also hoping that the survey coder job will be able to start training me soon so I can do that job, so I’ve made myself very available for those graveyard shifts. And I’ve let my box office job know that my availability might be changing soon, and if that happens they can put me back on the schedule sooner than September.

As far as the money issues go, that’s pretty much related to the job situation. And like I said yesterday, if I’m not making money, then I need to focus on saving money where I can.

And for food, that will be a struggle for a long time, if not for the rest of my life. That’s tough to accept, but it’s my reality. Some people have other struggles for their entire lives so why should I think that my struggle would go away so easily. I’m trying to focus on keeping only “good” foods in my house and limit going out to eat or getting delivery (which helps in the idea of saving money).

While my life isn’t really stable and in control right now, I’m doing my best to make an attempt at control right now. There are things that I can change easily on my own and there are other things that are dependent on others helping me. But knowing what I can control does help me create steps to make sure I’m not acting like a victim but instead getting stuff headed in the right direction.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

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Spending The Next 2 Months Going Orange! (or A Bombshell Partnership!)

Posted on June 27, 2014 | 4 comments

I have some exciting news to share with  you all! Orangetheory Fitness was so inspired by my story and how I want to lose my extra weight (and not gain it back again) that they have offered to help me.

Orangetheory will be sponsoring my workouts for July and August! For the next 8 weeks, I have committed myself to working out there 3 times a week (right now I’m scheduled for Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays). This is both super exciting and scary.

I haven’t worked out 3 times a week regularly for a while. I know that this is something that I should do, but it hasn’t happened. 2 times a week seems doable, but the whole idea of this partnership is to push myself and to see what I’m really capable of.

And I’m so excited because this is a commitment. I can’t back out if I’m tired or just not feeling up to it. I’ve given Orangetheory my word (and I take that very seriously).

I start my 8 week challenge/partnership with them next week. And I’ll be posting on here at least once a week with updates on my workouts. I’ll be sharing my challenges and my goals as well as updating you all on my progress.

And I’d love to have some of you come with me to a class over the next 8 weeks! If you go to the Orangetheory website, you can get signed up for a free class! Just let me know that you want to workout with me and I’ll let you know what times I’ll be going that week.

This is a major positive step in my weight loss plan. I know that I need to get better about working out, and this is exactly the push that I need. I know that it will be tough and I’m sure that I will wonder what I got myself into at least once or twice, but I know that after 8 weeks I’ll be stronger and hopefully weigh much less than I do right now. And they say that it takes 21 days to create a habit, and I’ll have 60 days of this ahead of me!

I can’t wait until Monday for my first class of this new journey!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Weight Loss

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Happy Hour Party (or Getting To See Co-Workers Again)

Posted on June 19, 2014 | Comments Off on Happy Hour Party (or Getting To See Co-Workers Again)

This week was the end of the year party for the theater I work at. We had a party last year at the end of the season, but that was when I was still working in telesales and I was working 6 days a week.

Now that I’m in the box office, I’m lucky if I’m there 1 day a week. And even though I’ve been back for a while, some people didn’t know that I was back until a staff meeting that we had last month. Everyone works in an office building across the street from the theater except for the box office staff. We, obviously, work in the box office that is attached to the theater. So unless someone is coming over to the box office for some reason, they never see us.

I’m still getting used to being back. It’s weird to work in a job that is so similar yet so different from what I’m used to doing. While I do know some things, there are so many things that in telesales we couldn’t do. So I’m still learning a lot every day.

Also, I’m used to this time being the busiest (and most profitable for me) time of the year. But in the box office, we maybe get 1 phone call over a 3 hour shift. We don’t have tickets on sale yet to the public, so we don’t have a ton of work we have to do.

Anyway, back to the party.

Before the party, there was a staff meeting and then we all headed over to Bodega (yes, where my 30th birthday party was last year). Bodega is only about 3 blocks from the theater, so it’s super convenient. I used to go to Bodega all the time. But that was also when I worked in telesales until 5:30 on Wednesdays and wanted to wait out rush hour traffic. Since being laid off from telesales, I haven’t been back.

It was free food and drinks for everyone, which made it pretty fun. I only had 1 cocktail since it was only 2pm and I knew I had work to do at my house later.

We played some random games like get-to-know-you BINGO where it turns out I’m the only person who works at the theater who has been to Africa. But honestly, it was just a nice time to get to chat with people who I don’t really get to see at work. Again, some people forgot that I had been brought back to work in the box office. I’m the only person from the telesales team who is back.

After 3 hours of hanging out with everyone, I headed back home. It’s nice to be social with co-workers and I feel like the fact that I was social before is one of the reasons that I was asked to come back to work. Building relationships with people always helps and I’m glad that when I was let go I had left a positive enough impression for them to want me back.

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff, Work

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Culver City 5K (or 5K #2 For The Year)

Posted on June 17, 2014 | 8 comments

I’ve obviously slowed down on the number of 5Ks that I’m doing this year. In fact, at this point last year, I had just done 5K #5 (and reached my year-long goal 6 months early!). But when I had that goal in mind, I didn’t have any other workouts that I love. Now I have 2 different workouts that I’m really enjoying so my 5Ks aren’t getting the same focus that they used to.

But I’m still going to do some of my favorite races, and this past weekend was one of the ones I really enjoyed last year. It’s the Culver City 5K (if you couldn’t guess that already from the title of the post). I like this race for a few reasons. One, it’s a super flat course. I actually walk a similar path when I do some walking in my neighborhood. Two, this 5K starts and ends about 3 blocks from my house so it’s extremely easy to get to. And three, there is a discounted entry for substitute teachers of Culver City Unified (which I’m still signed up to do), so I don’t have to spend a ton of money to do the race.

This past Saturday was the bib pickup and it’s held in the parking lot of one of the schools I used to sub at a lot. It’s easy to get to and since this race is pretty small, it’s only takes about a minute to get everything done.

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Since the race is pretty much down the street from me and it had an 8am start, I didn’t have to wake up too early. But as soon as I got up in the morning, I realized that it could be a pretty warm morning. And I’ve had issues with crazy hot 5Ks in the past and haven’t liked it. So I drank a ton of water and tried to think cool thoughts as I headed over to the start line.

I was also very excited for this race because I finally got to meet a new friend in person! Lyndsay blogs on The Balance Brunette and we had connected recently over several FB groups that we are both a part of. She lives very close to me and we had been trying to meet up at a happy hour or something, but our schedules just didn’t match up. But we realized that we both were doing this 5K, so we finally got to meet!

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Originally, Lyndsay was going to run this 5K, but since some things had come up, she changed her mind and decided to walk with me. I warned her that I am slow and if she felt like she wanted to go faster she could ditch me and my feelings wouldn’t be hurt. But she said that she planned to stick with me.

Of course, I had to get a quick “before” photo of me before the race started.

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We ended up being toward the front of the pack for the start, but we stayed off to the side to make sure we didn’t make any of the runner mad.

This was one of my slowest 5Ks ever. I finished in about 1 hour and 8 minutes. But I don’t care. I know that I walked slower than I would if I was racing alone because I wanted to chat with Lyndsay while we walked. And if I had been going as fast as I could, I would be too out of breath.

We had a nice walk together just chatting about random stuff. We did a lot of chatting about blogging and the various issues we both have. We also both babysit so we talked about that as well.

And at around the one mile marker, one of the coolest things that has happened to me so far regarding this blog happened. Lyndsay and I were walking and I was telling her a funny story about a store that we were walking past when I heard someone yell, “Jen, hi!”. I turned to look who had called my name and I didn’t recognize her. Since I’m horrible with faces and names I figured I just forgot who she was. But as she came up to me she told me that she reads this blog and just wanted to say hello! How cool is that!?!? And to the woman who said hi, you totally made my day! But you didn’t say what your name was so I can’t acknowledge you properly. Hopefully you are reading this and you can comment and let me know who you are!

After finishing the 5K, Lyndsay and I had to get some victory pictures with our new race bling.

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This was actually Lyndsay’s first race where she got a medal (and I know it won’t be the last)!

Eventually we headed our separate ways to head home.

Even though this was my slowest 5K possibly ever, I totally consider this a success. I finished and I didn’t finish last (about 15 people finished after us). That’s all that matters. And I got to finally meet my new friend.

My medal holder in my living room is starting to get a bit full now. I think it looks awesome. My dad is scared that I’m reaching the weight limit on it. Hope not because I know I’ve got some more awesome race bling coming up later this year!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff

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500 Posts! (or A Reason To Celebrate!)

Posted on June 13, 2014 | 6 comments

Today’s post is about a lot of good things that have happened lately.

First of all, like the title of this post says, this is my 500th post on Finding My Inner Bombshell! That’s so bonkers to me! I write 5 days a week so that means I’ve been writing for 100 weeks. So yes, that also means that my 2 year anniversary of the blog is coming up soon as well.

I’m still in shock how this blog really has become an important part of my life. When I started, I hoped I’d be able to keep it going. Now when I’m not writing on the weekends, I feel like something is missing. I’ve made new friends because of the blog and I’ve become closer to old friends because of my honesty here. It’s just awesome.

The next part of my awesome news is that my mom got her BRCA test results back and she doesn’t have the gene mutation! When my mom texted me with the news, I cried in relief. This is a weight lifted off my shoulders (and I’m sure the rest of my family feels this way). When I talked to my mom that day, she said that getting these results have allowed her to relax and she can go on and enjoy life. And for me, it means that while I still have a higher risk of getting breast cancer in my life because my mom had it, it’s not nearly as high of a risk if I had had the gene mutation.

I’m still going to be monitored much closer and I’ve already talked with my gynecologist about setting up a mammogram appointment after I see her (I’m sure I’ll be writing about that appointment when it happens because I’m still crazy nervous about it).

The third, and technically, final good news is that I’m finally starting to get back on track with losing weight. I’ve lost about 10% of what I had gained recently. It’s not a lot, but it’s totally a start. I’m working on my eating and I’ve been working out again. My journey is still going to be a long one, but I’m happy to be moving in the right direction again.

And in other celebratory things (but not technically good news), today is my friend Kate’s birthday! I’ll be seeing her next week, so we’ll get to celebrate her birthday then, but I wanted to acknowledge how amazing of a friend she is. She was the first person I talked to when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. She kept the news a secret for a while until my mom was ready to go public with the news. And she was there to listen to me whenever I was freaking out or having a tough time. Not many friends would or could do that and I’m so insanely grateful that she was willing to be there for me.

So to recap: yay for 500 posts, yay for my mom not having the BRCA gene, yay for me losing some weight, and happy birthday to Kate!

I love how my life has become so wonderful and positive!

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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