Category Archives: Celebrations

Off On An Adventure (or It’s Hawaii Time!)

Most likely, as you are reading this, I’m on a flight headed to Maui right now. I’ll be there for the next week for my brother’s wedding.

I had a bunch of goals connected to this event. I really wanted to lose a lot of weight, but that didn’t happen. I did lose weight, but nowhere near the amount I wanted to lose.

But you know what? I don’t really care. At this is the first time that I’m not devastated about missing a goal. I’ve done so much good stuff for my body lately that the number on the scale isn’t the be all end all for me anymore (I still weigh myself obsessively, but I don’t focus as much on the number).

I’m excited to spend this next week with a lot of my family. Besides the actual wedding, there will be plenty of other times that I’ll get to hang out with family that I don’t get to see that often.

I’m a little nervous about spending a lot of time in a bathing suit (I wonder if I will ever feel comfortable in one). I’m also nervous about the ocean. I hate swimming in the ocean. I have a fear of any creatures that live in there (even the fish). But I’m hoping to at least try to swim in the ocean, but I’m not going to force myself to do it if I start to get panicky.

But I’m super excited for getting out-of-town and recharging my batteries some more. I got a taste of that during my weekend in Tahoe, but I can’t remember the last time I was away from LA for more than a long weekend. I will be posting on here every day as usual, but besides that I will be trying to stay away from the internet and social media as much as I normally do. It’s so easy to be on vacation and spend the whole time with your face in your phone. I want to focus on the experience of my trip. I don’t get to do things that like that often and I want to fully take advantage of it!

My next post will be from Hawaii!

Pushing Myself (or This Will Make Me Feel Better If I Only Get 9 5Ks Done In 2013)

I’m really pushing to try to do 10 5Ks in 2013. I’ve done 5 so far, and I’ve signed up for 4 more.

In October, I’ll be doing the LA Cancer Challenge 5K. This is a Halloween themed race and will be my first time doing this one.

I’ve got 2 races in November. First will be the Hard Rock 5K. This is going to have a similar course to what I did for the Hollywood Half 5K, so I’m not too nervous about it. After that it’s the weSPARK 5K at Universal Studios. I’m super excited for this race since it will be the 3rd year in a row for me. Although I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the giant hill.

And in December I have the Santa Monica-Venice Christmas 5K. This one was recommended to me by a couple of friends and I might have a friend doing this one with me. I’m already thinking of a cute outfit to wear for this one (I’m thinking red tutu and red and white striped socks perhaps).

I don’t know if I’ll find a 10th to do. I don’t have too many other weekends available when I’m not doing something else.

And I realized that my 3 races in October and November are only 14 days apart! I’m doing one on Sunday 10/27. Then 6 days later I have another one on Saturday 11/2. And just over a week later, I have my 3rd on Sunday 11/10! That’s going to be crazy! I’ve never done so many races so close together!

If I don’t make it to 10, that’s ok. My goal has already been conquered. And I’m thinking ahead to 2014 now. I’m thinking of doing the New Year’s 5K on January 4th.

If I don’t make it to 10 in 2013, then I’ll do it in 2014. I’ve got races from this year that I know I’ll do next year. And I’m getting way more adventurous with my races as well. Both of these things will help me reach whatever goal I have for 2014.

If any of you out there would like to join me for any of these 5Ks, let me know! I’d love more buddies out there on the race course!

Another Birthday Outing (or Seeing My Birthday Twin)

I haven’t been taking advantage of a lot of the birthday freebies this year. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit busy. But there is one birthday freebie that is a tradition that cannot be missed.

My free entrée and dessert at Truxton’s with my birthday twin, Joanna! Joanna and I have enjoyed our $0.00 meal for the last couple of years, so this year was no exception. There is now a Truxton’s in Santa Monica (just down the street from my work), so we went there instead of the one by LAX.

As soon as we sat down, we each got out our free birthday coupon.

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The servers were actually excited that we were celebrating our birthdays and even more excited when they found out we shared a birthday (I was afraid they wouldn’t be happy to wait on a group that had a completely free meal).

Joanna and I each got a burger as our main dish (we had to save room for our desserts!).

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As always, the food was delicious! I had never had a burger in all of my previous Truxton’s adventures and I was glad that it was a good choice.

Joanna and I had actually picked out our desserts before ordering dinner (doesn’t everyone do that?). We always get this crazy banana dessert thing and then we also decided to get a cream cheese brownie.

It was pretty crazy when both desserts were brought over to us.

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We split them pretty evenly, but either of us was able to finish our half. I have to say, the brownie thing is my new favorite dessert! I know that Joanna and I will be ordering that again next year at our birthday outing.

It was seriously so great to have a nice dinner with a friend and catch up (I don’t think we’ve seen each other since Christmas). We chatted a bunch about my brother’s wedding (her brother recently got married), crazy day jobs, and just general life craziness.

Before we knew it, we had been at dinner for a few hours and needed to each head home.

Even though our bill was nothing (literally), we still left a very nice tip.

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I know that people who come in with a freebie meal or Living Social deal get a bad rap because they don’t tip enough (or at all), but I want to make sure that I go above and beyond what the tip should be when a meal is completely free.

With this being the last week of my birthday month, I’m almost out of time to use up my birthday freebies. I still have my $30 at Benihana, but I won’t get to use that one because it’s only good for weekday dinners. Oh well.

At least Joanna and I made sure to do what is one of the most important birthday tradition meals.

Another Birthday Celebration (or A Pie Date!)

I’ve mentioned last year how much I love birthday freebies. I print out all the freebies I get emailed to me as soon as I get them and I really do try to use a couple (I have yet to ever use the free ice cream at Baskin Robbins though).

One of the freebies that I always look forward to is the free pie at Marie Callenders. It’s a tradition for me to go with my friend Emily for free birthday pie (or pie to celebrate any other special occasion).

There is a fancy Callenders Grill in the Mid-Wilshire area in the same building as the SAG-AFTRA office. We pretty much always go to pie at this one so we can multi-task (we have a friend who works for the SAG Foundation so we try to visit him after pie).

As anyone who enjoys meals at Marie Callenders knows, all meals start with their super yummy cornbread!

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Emily and I both ordered the chicken mac and cheese (my photos of it came out really badly).

And then it was time for the main event (at least for us). Pie!

We always get 2 pieces of pie and then we each have half. We also always get the chocolate satin pie. We jokingly call it chocolate baby pie because we think it tastes like chocolate pie and chocolate mousse had a baby (it’s seriously that good!). We get something different for the second piece of pie.

This time, we got cream cheese pie along with the chocolate satin one.

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They were seriously sooooo good! And yes, I did track all of my calories for the meal (this ended up being my only meal that day so I actually managed to stay under my calorie goal).

I know that this entire meal is a huge splurge, but since we usually only do it twice a year, I figure that’s ok. Plus, how could I turn down free pie?!?

Birthday Evening (or What Happened After 4pm)

So, the adventures of my 30th birthday continue.

After getting my hair done, I went home to get dressed for my party at Bodega Wine Bar. I had rented a cute sparkly top from Gwynnie Bee and I was super excited to wear it! The only problem was, the top was now a little too big on me (guess I have been losing a bit of weight). So I ended up wearing a sweater on top to cover up the too-big arm holes. But I think I looked pretty cute.

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The actual party was pretty chill, which is exactly how I wanted it. My friend Rayshell came over to my house early (since she works very close to where I live), so we hung out for a bit before heading over to the bar.

When we got to Bodega, we saw the reserved sign right away.

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The area we got was right next to the bar (we had a waitress so that didn’t matter too much) and right by a window looking out onto the street (that will come into play a bit later).

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Over the course of the evening, about 15 people made it out to celebrate with me. But it was nice that everyone wasn’t there at once so I actually had a chance to chat with everyone who made it.

As I mentioned before, Rayshell was there.

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So were my friends Kate and Beth.

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And my friend Jennifer who was married earlier this year (her husband came too!).

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As well as a bunch of other people (too many pictures to include everyone on here!).

I ended up drinking Prosecco the entire evening (it is one of my favorite things), but our waitress also brought over some celebratory shots for the group to enjoy as well (one was a Soju pineapple mint thing and I don’t remember what the other was). We also got some food for the table.

While the entire evening was fun, one of the funniest things that happened was when one of my co-workers tried to come by. I guess that she forgot to grab her ID with her when she came, so the bouncer wouldn’t let her in. As she was leaving, she noticed me in the window and I guess either she was waving or pointing at me (my back was to the window, so I only heard from my friends that someone was trying to get my attention). I saw her, walked over to the bouncer, and we finally convinced him to let her in without an ID. I was getting a good laugh from that.

Eventually, the evening came to a close (it was pretty close to midnight and I had to work the next morning).

I’m usually not the sort of person who has birthday parties. I normally just do a bunch of little events. Those seem easier to organize and are less stressful. But I have to say that this party was so much fun! I didn’t feel stressed at all (thanks Bodega for making things easy on us!) and I got to see a bunch of friends!

To everyone who said happy birthday to me (in person, on Facebook, on twitter, via email, on the phone), thank you! I had an amazing birthday and you were all a part of it!

Now, I get to move on with my life as a 30-something!

Happy Birthday to Me! (or Part 1)

A lot of things (and a lot of pictures) happened over my birthday, so I’m splitting this into 2 posts. This is pretty much what happened before 4pm on my birthday.

The day started off with happy birthday phone calls from various family members. One of my favorite phone calls to get is from my cousin Stephanie. Her oldest son, Dalton, sings happy birthday to me each year. It’s a tradition that I totally look forward to. This year, we FaceTimed so it was extra special.

The call started with a lovely video chat with my cousin’s youngest son, Hudson (who I will get to meet in real life for the first time at Thanksgiving).

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Then a very sleepy Dalton and his sister Annabelle came to the phone to sing to me.

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(I love being able to take screenshots of video chat!!!)

After those festivities, it was time for me to head over to SoulCycle for a spin class! This class was with Ben B., who taught the very first class that I went to. I actually hadn’t been to his class since that first one (he doesn’t teach with I can normally go), and it was really fun! He’s so high energy and upbeat.

When I was putting on my heart rate monitor for class, I noticed that even that was celebrating my birthday with me!

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During the stretch part at the end of class, one of the front desk people came into the room with a brownie with a candle in it. The entire spin class sang happy birthday to me! It was awesome!

Something else awesome about the class was a group that was in there. Remember last week when I was talking about how “The Biggest Loser” is one of my guilty pleasure but their workouts are a bit unrealistic? Well, it turns out that some of the contestants in the upcoming season of “The Biggest Loser” were in that spin class! I didn’t see any cameras so I have no idea if they will show it on tv. But I did get to see who some of the new contestants are (and no, I didn’t see Ruben Studdard). I didn’t take any pictures of the contestants since there were production people nearby and I didn’t want to get in trouble, but as soon as the new contestants are announced, I’m excited to see who it was that I saw in class! I guess that some of the workouts that they do are realistic since it’s something that I do pretty much every week!

After spin class, I got home and saw these flowers from my parents on my doorstep.

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After showering and getting dressed, I headed out to the one pampering thing I decided to do on my birthday. I got a blowout from DryBar. I had never been before, but I figured why not try it out.

It’s super nice inside. I loved the pop of yellow throughout the salon.

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They have a menu of styles that you can choose from. I chose the Cosmo-Tai since it seemed pretty fun (and not something I could do on my own).

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It also reminded me a bunch of this headshot of mine that I love!

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The stylist I got was very nice. She and I chatted a bit and then she got to work.

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While she was working on my hair, it didn’t really look at all like the style that I wanted. But I didn’t say anything because I’ve learned that you can’t judge a hairstyle by the process, you have to wait for it to be done.

Once it was done, it looked nothing like the picture in the menu. I asked her to fix it a couple of times, but I realized that it wasn’t going to be what I thought. It was a cute style, but I really wanted what I saw in the photo.

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With my cute hairstyle, I headed home and started to get ready for my birthday party. But those photos will have to wait for part 2 coming tomorrow!

Dirty Thirty (or A Look Back At My 20s)

Holy moly, I’m thirty now! This is crazy! I remember growing up and thinking that by thirty I would have my own tv show, be married, and probably already have a kid or two.

Yeah, none of that has happened yet.

But instead of looking back at what didn’t happen in my 20s, I wanted to take a look back at the accomplishments I did have. So here are the important (to me) highlights of my 20s.

I graduated from LMU. I actually was able to graduate in 3 1/2 years because I took some summer school classes and did independent study. I think the fact that I graduated early is something to still be proud of.

I had a “real” job. In 2006, I had a job doing radio sales coordination. It was a salaried job and was a standard 9-5 thing. I hated it. I was miserable a lot because I couldn’t do any acting stuff. But at the time it was the best thing for me because I was working there when I had my hip surgery, so I made money while I was recovering. I was planning on quitting and went to tell my boss that, but he let me know that they were going to lay me off within a month or two, so I stuck it out so I could get the unemployment.

I’ve had dozens of day jobs. I’ve worked everything from movie studio tour guide to dog walk. From personal organizer to substitute teacher. From data entry to transcription. From babysitting to volunteer coordinator. I’ve seriously worked pretty much all types of jobs except retail or being a waitress. Technically right now, I only have my one job, but I still do other random jobs on the side to help out.

I’ve gotten an agent and have gone out on amazing auditions. I’m still not quite where I’d like to be in my acting career, but I’m enjoying the journey. I’ve gone out for small one line (or even one word) parts, and I’ve gone out for the one of the main characters in a new tv show. I’m just waiting for that perfect part for me, but I know it’s coming. And I love that I have such a supportive team working with me.

I’ve found a workout that I love. This is huge for me. In the past, workouts have been just something annoying that I have to do. I’ve had personal trainers before because if I didn’t have that appointment to go to, I probably would have skipped the gym. But now I’ve found something that I actually look forward to doing (I’m even going to a class today to start 30 off right!).

I’ve started this blog and have become a much more honest person with myself and with others. This really is a huge thing for me. My whole life I’ve been pretty secretive about the things I find shameful about myself. But doing that really only makes it worse. By putting it all out there, it’s no longer something to be ashamed of but instead something to learn from and get over. The personal growth that I’ve had since starting this has been incredible (it’s almost better than going to therapy). And the support that I’ve gotten from people who I’ve known for years or who I’ve never met has been truly a gift.

Well, there are a couple of highlights of what I’ve done in past decade. Today, I’m starting off my 30s in an awesome way. I have the day off (because I’m working all weekend this weekend) so I’m going to spin class and then having a fun gathering at Bodega in Santa Monica. Whether or not we’ve met before, if you are local to LA, feel free to come by my party at Bodega. The more the merrier and I want to ring in 30 with as many awesome people as possible!

And since I don’t have a photo (yet) of me celebrating 30, here’s a cute photo of me from my 1st birthday!

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Life Updates (or Some Of What’s Going On)

Today, I’ve decided to update you all on a couple of little things going on in my life.

First of all, the most recent car accident I’ve had. I haven’t gotten my car fixed, or even gotten an estimate. I’m hoping to do that sometime in the next few weeks. I haven’t decided if I’m going to fix it at all. It doesn’t look horrible, and right now I don’t have the money for the deductible (I could get it together in time, I just don’t know if that’s a priority for me right now).

Also, I’ve finally decided what I’m going to wear to my brother’s wedding. I’m nowhere near the weight loss goal I had for myself, but that’s ok. The wedding is in Hawaii, and it’s black tie optional. I don’t want to wear a full length dress, so I’m going to wear the same dress that I wore to my friend Marie’s wedding last year in Texas. The dress is fancy and I think the color is tropical. Here’s a little picture of it.

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I still need to figure out what I’m wearing for the rehearsal dinner and need to go out and buy another bathing suit (I only have 1 right now), but I’ve got some time to get those done. At least the most important outfit for the trip is figured out.

I also wrote about how I have a black thumb a while back. I’ve been trying really hard to not kill my plants this time. I think I’ve succeeded in not killing my plants (yet).

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I sent this photo to my dad, and he thinks that it looks like the plants are thriving. Hopefully they will still look this good when he comes to visit me in the fall.

And finally, a long overdue update. I said last year that I was thinking of getting rid of cable. I kept my cable but tried to only watch my shows through Hulu, Netflix, and the internet. And while it worked for many of my shows, it just wasn’t a good solution for them all. In order for me to do my research, it would get to be pretty difficult to not have cable and a DVR.

But I am trying to expand my shows to be things that don’t air on traditional TV. I had yesterday off (there was an awards show filming at my work and it wasn’t safe for us to be there), and I watched all 13 episodes of “Orange Is The New Black”, which is a Netflix original series. If you haven’t watched this show yet, start now! It’s amazing! It might be one of the best shows on tv (and it’s pretty much an all female cast which is amazing and pretty much unheard of).

So that’s what has been going on in my life. I’m feeling pretty reflective as I’m coming to the last week of my 20’s. I’ve been looking back at some photos and just thinking about how much I changed over the last decade. And how so much will change again for me in this next decade. I know I’m probably sounding very sappy, but big birthdays will do that to a person. And when I turned 20, I had no idea that I would be in the place that I am now. So my imagination has been going wild thinking of the possibilities that could be when I’m looking back at my 30’s ten years from now.

Back To Basics (or How A Win At My Day Job Can Help My Acting Career)

Yesterday at my day job, we had a little awards ceremony. I think calling it an awards ceremony was a bit of a stretch, but my boss decorated our break room and brought in Chinese food for us for lunch. And, as any awards ceremony would have, there were prizes.

From the time we came back to work in April until the end of the fiscal year in the beginning of July, there were a couple of contests going on. They were most number of memberships, most amount raised by memberships, most number of tickets sold, and most amount raised in ticket sales. We had similar contests last year, but I didn’t win any of them.

This year, the winners would get a Visa gift card and free tickets for shows coming up in our season. I wanted the free tickets because my dad is going to come back for another show this year and I wanted to treat him. And Visa gift cards are always nice for anything (like my Disneyland pass).

After the lunch portion, my boss first gave iTunes gift cards for those who didn’t win (at least everyone got something). Then, he awarded the person who got second place in memberships a gift card and 4 pairs of tickets to shows of their choice.

Then he announced that I actually won all four contests. I honestly wasn’t expecting that at all! I knew I had a chance at one, but who knew I’d get all four! So I got a very nice gift card and 8 pairs of tickets to shows in our upcoming season!

There’s a lot that I could use that gift card for. I wish I could use it to put toward my credit card, but you can’t do that (I checked). So what I’ve decided to do is to use it for some improv classes.

I’ve talked about how getting back into acting classes was one of my goals for this year. I need to get some more prestigious classes on my acting resume. Casting directors don’t really care unless you have improv training from one of the big schools. So I’ve decided that I want to go to UCB.

The gift card I got will pay for over half of my tuition for level 1. And it’s looking like I might be unemployed again in the fall, so I could take their intensive class and get the first level done in 2 weeks instead of 8. Then I could decide if I want to move on and then take those classes on the regular once a week schedule when I’m back at work.

I’m starting to get excited about this. The classes for the fall aren’t online yet, so I’ll keep checking until it is. But I think that I really am making the right move right now. While I’d love to use this gift card for next year’s Disneyland pass, maybe by taking this new improv class I can book an acting job that will pay for one.

I love when things fall into place for me like this!

Almost The End Of A Decade For Me (or The Birthday Countdown Has Begun)

My 30th birthday is in less than 2 weeks! I’m so excited to be turning 30 (and I say that with no sarcasm at all)!

You may recall how much I enjoyed my birthday last year. I had a bunch of little celebrations, which is how I’ve spent many of my past birthdays. It’s just easier to organize a couple of friends at a time and spread out the birthday fun.

This year will be a little different. I will still be doing some of my smaller birthday celebrations (like my free meals at Truxton’s, Benihana, and Marie Callendar’s), but I’m planning a big 30th birthday celebration too!

I figure you only turn 30 once (technically, I guess that is true with any age), so I might as well make this a party to remember!

I thought about a couple of places where I would like to have a party, but I kept thinking about how fun it would be at Bodega Wine Bar. I really love it there, and the food and drinks aren’t too horribly expensive.

When I looked at their reservation information, there was something that made me realize I might need a backup plan. If you have a reservation on a Friday or Saturday (my birthday happens to fall on a Friday this year), you must have a minimum bar charge on one tab. That’s pretty tough to do when most of my friends will be dropping in for part of the evening and will want to be able to pay for their own drinks on their own credit cards.

So I came up with a few backup locations before I called Bodega to see about having the minimum charge rule dropped (it can’t hurt to ask, right?).

I spoke with the manager, Charity, and I have to say that she was so incredibly nice! I was prepared to have to convince her to drop the minimum. But after I explained that it was my 30th birthday and how much I love the bar, it was all taken care of!

So now I get to look forward to an amazing birthday party in 11 more days! I think I have an outfit picked out (something I rented from Gwynnie Bee) and I’m most likely having the day after my birthday off at my day job (since we have to work a long shift on Sundays when we normally have a day off).

All in all, I think this plan is coming together very nicely and will be the perfect way to say goodbye to my 20’s and hello to my 30’s!