Category Archives: Food

Honey-Dijon Pork (or Inventing My Own Recipe)

Posted on January 7, 2015 | 1 comment

Since I was getting a little bored with basic chicken every week when I did my bulk cooking, I decided to spice things up a bit this week. I did a lot of searching online for ideas that seemed yummy and easy.

I found a lot of great ideas, but they all took so many ingredients! So I decided to take the ideas that I was finding online and simplifying them to make it something that I wouldn’t have to buy a ton of ingredients for.

And this is what I came up with.

Honey-Dijon Pork Chops

What You Need:

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Dijon Mustard

Honey

Garlic

Pork Chops

Here’s What To Do (it’s seriously so simple!)

Put the pork chops in a zip bag.

Measure out about 1/4 cup of Dijon mustard and pour into the bag.

Measure out about the same amount of honey and pour into the bag.

Finely chop some garlic (I used 2 cloves because I love garlic!) and put that into the bag.

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Zip up the bag and let most of the air out. Then massage the mustard/honey/garlic mixture all over the pork chops.

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Put the bag into the fridge and let it sit for about an hour or two.

When you are ready to cook, pre-heat the oven to 425.

Take each pork chop out of the bag and place them on a foil-lined baking sheet.

Pepper the top and bottom on each pork chop.

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Cook in the oven until they are done (for me it took about 25 minutes).

Take them out of the oven and set them onto a chopping board or other surface to rest (you don’t want them to stay on the hot baking sheet or they will continue to cook).

Since I was doing this for bulk cooking, I portioned out my pork into my dinner containers (I forgot to get a picture of how beautiful they looked before I cut them up).

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Seriously, that’s it! They were so delicious, flavorful, and juicy! When I made them, I used closer to 1/2 cup of the mustard and honey and that was way too much. There was so much marinade on the pork when I removed them from the bag that I had to wipe them off a little.

I’ve had this for the past 2 days so far, and I’m really enjoying it! You can probably use the same marinade for chicken and maybe for fish as well.

This will totally be a part of my regular food planning from now on and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I have!

Seriously, I can’t believe how far I’ve come in my cooking over the last month. I started out scared to cook at all and now I’m creating my own recipes!

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A Full Friend Day (or Cheesecake For Lunch And Drinks For Dinner)

Posted on January 6, 2015 | 1 comment

This past Saturday was full of hangouts with my friends. I had my usual morning shift at work, but after that was done, I was off to The Grove to hang out with my birthday twin Joanna!

It was time for our tradition of going to The Cheesecake Factory for cheesecake around the holidays. We knew that we would have to wait until after New Year’s for this hangout, but I was fine with waiting.

While eating at The Cheesecake Factory could be a crazy calorie fest, I had worked out hard during the week and I knew that this meal was going to be the main meal for my day. I got to the restaurant first, so I put our names down and waited for our table. Joanna got there and moments later our table was ready. Good thing because we were both ready to eat!

Because I knew that the cheesecake was going to be extremely high in calories, I ordered my meal off of their low-calorie menu. I chose a salad that was under 600 calories for this entire plate!

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It was pretty delicious and I will probably order it again for future cheesecake hangouts.

Then it was time for what we came to The Cheesecake Factory for! The cheesecake! We decided that we would get 2 different cheesecake slices and then each take half of each slice. We decided on red velvet and tiramisu cheesecake.

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Neither of us finished our cheesecakes, but they were so rich that I don’t know if there was any way to do that unless we didn’t eat a meal first.

I was so full when we left, but I was so happy!

Then, a few hours later my friend AJ was doing a hangout in downtown LA. I hadn’t seen AJ since Krystle and I saw him in “Heathers” so I was super excited to see him again! The hangout was at the Yard House and it was very chill. There were about 8 of us and it was just a nice relaxing meal. I got a Dirty Shirley and had some dinner (I needed something to eat so I could feel safe to drive after having a drink).

Of course, AJ and I had to get a picture together!

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It was so great to see AJ again. He should be back in LA to visit soon and I’m hoping to make it out to New York in the fall.

Overall, my Saturday was the ultimate cheat day (my stomach actually hurt on Sunday from all the delicious food) and the best friend hangout day! Another great start to the new year!

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What I Plan To Do This Year (or 2015 Goals)

Posted on January 1, 2015 | 5 comments

Now that I’ve reflected back on my 2014 goals and how well I accomplished them, I really thought hard about what I want my 2015 goals to be. I think I’ve got a good list going for this year and I’m excited to see how well I get them done over the next year.

My first goal is workout related. I want to get 175 workouts done in 2015. That’s pretty much 3-4 workouts every week of the year. I’m not allowing myself workout vacation time (even though my dad did suggest it). I’m sure a majority of the 175 workouts will be at Orangetheory. I have every intention of going at least 3 times a week (and trying to add in a 4th day every other week). But I’m also going to include any 5Ks that I chose to do this year as well as other fitness classes (SoulCycle and maybe trying yoga again). I will also consider including hiking, but I don’t think I’ll have a lot of hiking days except when I get to Tahoe in the summer.

My next goal is a food goal. I want to have home cooked dinners at least 4 times a week. Since I started bulk cooking, I’ve been eating something home cooked most weeknights. I usually prepare food for 4 nights and then on weekends I’m out. And many times on Tuesdays or Thursdays (when I don’t workout after my day job) I don’t necessarily eat dinner. I’ll have a big late breakfast (since my shift doesn’t start until 10am) and then have another bigger meal around 4 or 5pm. Both of those meals are home cooked, but I don’t know if it counts as dinner. So I’m saying home cooked dinners 4 nights a week. If I do more than that, all the better for me.

Next is a day job goal. I want to be down to 2 main day jobs (not counting babysitting or running the film festival). Right now, I have 1 main day job and 6 sporadic jobs. I don’t make enough each week (to the point that I’m still collecting unemployment to make up for the fact that I don’t make enough to not be eligible anymore) and this needs to end. I’m enjoying my box office from home job and if I made enough doing that job I’d be so happy. But I don’t think that will be a reality even with the raise we are supposed to get this year. And while I love being able to make some extra money babysitting, I don’t see that as something that will make enough to make up for what I’m lacking. So I need to find one more steady day job that has regular hours to help me make enough to pay all my bills comfortably. There is a chance to make the film festival another main day job, but there is no guarantee with that.

And I’ve made this a goal in the past, but I really want to get into an improv class this year. I think that now that I feel secure with my day job and have a steady schedule with it, I will be able to pick out a class time that will work for me. I’m working on saving up the money for the class right now.

Again, another repeat goal from last year, but I’d like to travel again this year. I have a trip to Napa planned in 2 months and I’m really looking forward to that. And there is a possibility of another New York trip in the fall this year. I don’t know if I’ll have any other trips (besides visiting my parents or grandparents) but 2 trips in one year sounds wonderful to me!

And my final goal which is a goal every year is to keep blogging. Not just on here, but on other sites as well. I freelance on two blogs and I’ve written a few guest posts on other sites. I had no idea when I started this blog how important and therapeutic writing would become for me. It’s an amazing journal of the past few years of my life and I love going back and reading some of my old posts to remind me how far I’ve come. And I can’t wait to track 2015 the same way.

So those are my main goals for 2015. And in a year, I’ll let you all know how I did with them.

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Travel, Weight Loss, Work

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Reflecting Back On 2014 (or How I Did With My Goals)

Posted on December 31, 2014 | 1 comment

I can’t believe that 2014 is ending! It really seems like it was just a month or two ago that I was posting my goals for this year.

I just want to take some time and reflect on my year and the goals that I had set out for myself.

I really felt like 2014 was a rebuilding year for me and my family. While 2013 did have some great moments, there were also a lot of sad and stressful ones. I think of 2013 as the year that Ross and Krystle got married, that my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and my family lost two dogs. While we did technically adopt Tucker right before New Year’s Eve last year, I think of 2014 as the year he joined our family.

In 2014, so many positives happened for my family. Adopting Tucker was a big one, but the biggest was my mom being declared cancer-free. Knowing that she is ok (even though we all knew that she would be in the beginning) really has taken so much stress out of my life. I know that there are still some stressful times ahead with making sure that she stays cancer-free (and now I have annual mammograms to worry about too), but knowing that it’s all good right now just makes me so happy.

This was also a rebuilding year for me as far as my health goes. I have finally connected with a workout in a way that I had hoped for. And very recently I’ve been getting my food in a better place too. This isn’t to say that I don’t have days where I seriously struggle, but I’m taking more and more steps in the right direction.

So let’s take a look back at my goals from last year and see how I did with them.

My first goal was to continue to do 5Ks. I did 3 this year. And while that is much less than the year prior, I’m ok with that. I don’t love doing 5Ks as much as I want to, but the few races that I did do are ones that I look forward to a lot. I also got a new PR which I am very excited about!

My next goal was to make spin a regular habit. This did not happen. I stopped going to SoulCycle a while ago because I have replaced it with Orangetheory. I’m planning on going back next year every so often to spin, but I really wanted to focus on Orangetheory during the second half of this year. But since I did make exercise a regular habit, I’m declaring this goal as a partial success.

Next on my list was to track my food/exercise better. I’m still using MyFitnessPal to track my food every day. I’m much happier tracking it when I’m making smart choices. And as far as tracking my exercise, I think I’m doing pretty great at that too. It makes it easy to track my exercise in MyFitnessPal when Orangetheory tells me exactly how many calories I’m burning in each workout.

The next goal I had set was to get into an improv class. I failed to do this goal. I had every intention of getting started at UCB this year. I even purchased the book that all students are required to read. But I think the lack of stability with my job got to me. When I thought I knew when a class would fit into my schedule I would lose my job and everything changed. I’m feeling pretty stable with my current day job, but I’m still looking for something else to help me make enough each month. Once that stability is set, I think I can look into class again.

Next was pay down my debt and not add more. While I did pay down some of the debt, it was impossible to not add more this year. With some expenses having to be put on a credit card, there was no way to not add to it. But when I did have those expenses, I tried to pay off exactly what I spent by the time the bill came around.

Then I had the goal of going on another vacation. While I did go to visit my parents, those don’t seem to feel like vacations to me. They seem like getting to have family time. That’s probably because I’m either visiting them at the house I grew up in or I’m at their place in Tahoe. But I did get to go on a fabulous trip to New York with my sister-in-law this past spring. That trip was amazing and we are planning to try to go to New York again in the coming year.

My final goal for 2014 was to continue blogging. While some days are tough to come up with a topic to write about, I have maintained posting a new post Monday-Friday every week of this year. That’s a lot of posts!

All in all, even though I didn’t complete all of my goals, I think that I did a great job in trying to do them all. I’ll post my goals for 2015 tomorrow.

I hope that you all have an amazing New Year’s Eve tonight! If you chose to drink, please don’t drive. Take a taxi/Uber/Lyft to get home. Or you can call AAA for a Tipsy Tow.

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Pre-Burning Jewish Christmas Calories (or Holiday Workouts)

Posted on December 29, 2014 | 1 comment

This past week of workout were intense! That’s good because I had a nice splurge on Christmas, but it was not easy getting through the week!

Monday and Wednesday both were Christmas themed workouts (since those were in the days leading up to Christmas). They reminded me a lot of Hell Week during Halloween and were pretty much as tough as those workouts were.

Monday’s theme was the 12 Days Of Christmas. We had a list of 12 cardio tasks and a list of 12 strength tasks. This was the cardio list.

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It went 100 meter row, 2 minute push, 3 squat curls, and so on. You worked your way down the list and if you were able to complete it, you worked your way back up.

The first few things on the list weren’t too bad. It was a nice way to ease into the workout. At 7 (or the 700 meter row) I was starting to get exhausted. I slowed my rowing down to try to keep my form nice and it seemed like that row took forever! I did make it to the 1200 meter row, but I only completed about 300 meters of it before it was time to switch to the strength portion.

This was also a list of 12 tasks, but you went through the tasks like the 12 Days of Christmas song. I don’t remember all 12 tasks but the first few were 1 full burpee, 2 squat jumps, 3 push-ups, and 4 pop jacks. But instead of working down the list like we did for cardio you started with 1 burpee; then 2 squat jumps and 1 burpee; then 3 push-ups, 2 squat jumps, and 1 burpee.

Holy moly was that tough! I think I made it to 10 on that list before time was called. The last task of the day was the Monday Challenge. I saw a sneak peek at the challenge on Instagram and new ahead of time that is was going to be a 100 meter row. I didn’t have a previous record saved in my phone for a 100 meter row, but I did have a 1 minute record of 313 meters. So I set it in my head that I wanted to do better than 20 seconds. And I managed to do it in 19.5 seconds, so I was pretty darn happy with myself!

Wednesday’s workout was Christmas Eve so I tried to dress festively.

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Sadly, that little Santa hat that I’m wearing broke right before I took the picture. It was attached to a headband that snapped in half when I tried to wear it. Oh well.

The theme on Wednesday was Naughty or Nice. There were 2 stockings in the room, one for cardio and one for strength. When you did the cardio section, you pulled a card from the stocking and it told you what to do. After completing that task 3 times, you pulled a new card. There were Nice cards that were short exercises and there were Naughty cards (like having to do a 5K on the treadmill or rowing machine). I was lucky and only pulled Nice cards during cardio. It was essentially run/row workouts. The first card was .13 mile run (really a walk for me) and then 400 meters on the rowing machine. My second card was a 1 minute all-out pace on the treadmill followed by a 1 minute row. I just got through those 2 cards when time was called.

For the strength section, we all had the same exercises to do. But the cards would tell us how many reps we had to do of each workout. I pulled 2 Nice cards and 1 Naughty card. In the end, I did about 80 reps of each workout.

On Friday, I was a bit tired and feeling the effects of my Chinese food, but I was ready to burn off all that junk in my system. The cardio portion was all treadmill and the strength portion was a mixture of body weight, strap work, rowing, and abs. I was doing ok until the abs portion. I’m really losing flexibility in my hips (this is actually really worrying me and will be something I discuss when I interview potential new hip surgeons), and the lack of flexibility makes sit-ups and crunches really tough to do. I can’t really have my feet flat on the floor and bring my upper body to my legs. The pain in my hips is too intense. So most of the time, I either do crunches where I don’t bring my upper body up as much or have my legs straight out in front of me.

Doing full body sit-ups with your legs straight ahead of you is not easy to do, and my Friday coach Whitney saw that I was struggling and in a lot of pain. So she came over and held my legs down so I could successfully complete my sit-ups.

It’s the little touches like that where you can really see that the coaches at Orangetheory care about you and want to see you succeed that makes me so happy that I found my workout home.

I only did 3 workouts this week. My body probably could not have taken a 4th workout this time. But with the New Year almost here I’ve got some goals set in my head that will make the 4th workout more of a regular thing.

But it’s not time for me to share my 2015 goals quite yet. That’s coming up in a few days.

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Lazy Christmas (or Cleaning And Chinese Food)

Posted on December 26, 2014 | 2 comments

I hope that you all got to celebrate Christmas exactly how you wanted to yesterday!

I spent the day at home by myself, which was fine with me. Spending time with my family on Christmas isn’t something that usually happens and last year was the first time that I was there on Christmas in possibly 10 years.

My day started off by sleeping in. This is something that I rarely get to do, so it was very nice to sleep in past 7am (I was still up by 8, but that’s an extra hour of sleep).

My entire day was unplanned, so I just relaxed. I started by hanging out reading on my couch. After a minute, I realized that one of the tv stations has the fake fireplace airing during Christmas morning, so I put that on and pretended to be reading by the fire.

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After reading a couple of chapters, I decided to work on doing a big clean up of my house. It wasn’t necessarily dirty, but to do a good cleaning job takes time, and I usually don’t have the uninterrupted time to do it.

After cleaning, I went through my kitchen to do some rearranging. While doing that, I realized that I had way too many water bottles. I get them a lot in swag bags and I have just been storing them. I counted 27 water bottles when I really only use 2 of them. So I bagged the extra ones up and will be making a stop to donate them (along with some other items) next week.

After cleaning, I decided to work on some decorating ideas. My parents gave me a teak tray back in August. They have had it for a long time but don’t use it. And I figured I could do something cool with it. When my parents were here for their layover visit, they bought me a cube ottoman and the tray has been living on that ever since.

But it had been empty since I had no idea what to do. But yesterday, I was inspired. I put some candles on there along with a driftwood candle holder my dad made and the pine branch bouquet I made at the event at the mall. I want to replace the pine branches with some flowers (the branches are dying and dropping needles everywhere), but I think that it looks pretty good so far!

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After all of that housework, I spent the rest of my day watching movies and tv shows on Netflix. I didn’t really feel like driving anywhere and was just happy spending a day being super lazy.

And of course, for dinner I ordered some Chinese food from my favorite place. It’s a big calorie splurge for me, but I think that on special occasions it is worth it!

All in all, it was the absolutely perfect Christmas for me!

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I Really Am Doing Everything Right (or It’s Frustrating Not Losing Weight)

Posted on December 25, 2014 | Comments Off on I Really Am Doing Everything Right (or It’s Frustrating Not Losing Weight)

First of all, Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that you are all having an amazing day doing exactly what you want to do today! My recap of Christmas will come soon.

I’ve been on a very good path lately. My exercise routine is getting to be in a very good place. I’m going to Orangetheory 3 times a week every day and I’m even adding a 4th day every so often. I’m thinking that for 2015 I will do 1 week of 3 workouts and then 1 week of 4 workouts just to push myself.

I’m getting so much stronger and I know that I’m getting much healthier. While I haven’t necessarily tested my cardiovascular abilities, I know that I don’t feel as tired as I did my first few weeks of workouts after the cardio section. And I can row much farther than before without having to take a break.

There are some things that aren’t on the right track. My hips are hurting more and more each day. They aren’t nearly as bad as I know that they can get, but I do sometimes miss my pain-free days as now they are much less frequent than they used to be. I’m also starting to lose a bit of flexibility that I had worked very hard to get back after my hip surgery. I’m not sure what exactly is causing this, but I think it’s a combination of the pain and maybe my muscles being stronger and bigger. I’m going to be interviewing new orthopedic surgeons soon and this is a concern that I’m going to bring up with them.

And finally, I’m starting to get my food in control. I’m getting very comfortable with cooking and in fact am planning on spending some time today reorganizing my kitchen to help make things more efficient when I am doing my bulk cooking.

I still have some food setbacks, but they aren’t as often or as crazy as they used to be. Having my food ready for me the moment I’m hungry really does help stop me from needing to run to the store to buy something in desperation.

So why am I frustrated?

I’m really not losing weight at the pace I feel like I should be. I know the saying that muscle weighs more than fat and I could just be gaining muscle, I should be seeing the scale go down in more significant increments that they are doing right now.

I know that sometimes it takes some time for the weight loss to show up on the scale so I’m trying to be patient. But having that instant gratification of knowing that I’m doing the right things really does help with motivation. And I have some clothes in 1 size smaller that I’d really like to start wearing.

I really don’t think I can do more than I’m doing right now. I guess I can work on adding more workout days, but I do need those recovery days for my hips to stop hurting. And I don’t want to decrease or increase my daily calories. The number of calories that I’m eating right now is something that my old therapist/nutritionist set up for me and I know that it’s a good number for me.

So for now, I just have to keep doing what I’m doing and hope that my scale pays attention one day.

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Home Cooking (or Getting Used To Making What I Eat)

Posted on December 23, 2014 | 1 comment

Since my first attempt at bulk cooking, things have been going pretty great so far.

I’m getting into a groove with my food, and for once it’s almost all food that I make myself. I know that boredom is going to happen eventually, but for now, my focus is to just get used to cooking on a regular basis.

My focus on cooking has been my dinners as that is my weak point in my day. 3 days a week, I’m getting home from my workout at dinnertime. And I don’t want to think about making something then. So it’s been really easy in the past to run to Subway on the way home for a veggie sub or to make a microwave dinner.

My dinners are pretty simple. My first week of bulk cooking, I put each food in a container and each night I would take out what I needed. But after that first week, I learned that doing things that way make my Fridays full of doing dishes. So now, I make dinner boxes (each container is a full dinner).

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I always have chicken breast for dinner. I’m going to start exploring other good protein options, but this one works for me right now. I get skinless boneless chicken at Trader Joes and season it with some Trader Joes seasoning or another salt-free seasoning. Then they go into the oven until they are done. Then I put the amount of chicken I want for each night (right now it’s 4 oz cooked chicken) in the container.

I also have always had sweet potatoes in my dinner boxes. The first week of bulk cooking, I made them whole, but they got a little slime toward the end of the week. The next week, I tried cutting them into rounds, and those were ok. But this week when I went to Trader Joes to get my food, I saw pre-cubed sweet potatoes and made those instead. I think cutting them up myself is a better plan for me, but it’s good to try something else.

The last thing that I have had each week is roasted/caramelized red onions. I love onions, especially red onions. I’ve quartered them and roasted them once but this week I cut them into rings to roast them. No matter what, they are so delicious and I know that I will keep having onions in my dinner boxes.

Then there is always a vegetable. The first week I had broccoli and green beans. Those were awesome. Last week I had asparagus, and they didn’t turn out so great. I ended up going out and buying more asparagus so I could make some each night for dinner. This week, I tried to roast carrots. But something went seriously wrong. They never felt cooked (they felt really hard), but they turned white in the oven. I have no idea what I did, but they went straight into the trash. Fortunately, I had some frozen veggies that I hadn’t used so I microwaved those and put a cup of the veggies in each dinner box.

I’m still working on more lunch ideas, but I’ve been having hard-boiled eggs and turkey meatballs a lot. And on days I don’t have a workout, I sometimes have a sandwich. But I’m looking for more easy options that I can eat while I work (I don’t get a lunch break at my day job).

This week, I know that Thursday will be a “bad” food day since I will be ordering Chinese food. But hopefully since I’m doing really well the other days, I will still be able to make some progress. After all, isn’t this how I’m supposed to live? Mostly eating the right foods but allowing myself to have a splurge every once in a while?

If you have any bulk cooking things that you love, I’d love to hear them in the comments! I know that boredom will happen soon and I’d like to have some ideas to be ready for that!

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Podcasts and Twitter (or An Evening Out With Some Actors)

Posted on December 18, 2014 | 1 comment

Monday evening was a pretty fun evening for me. I had done my workout in the morning so I would be free for the festivities.

First, there was a gathering for fans of the podcast that I work for. Also, some of us on the team of the podcast attended. It was a casual get-together at Chipotle. I got there a bit early and met up with the community manager and one of the hosts of the podcast.

It was a nice catch-up for us and I’m always happy to go out and get some Chipotle. Soon, some of our listeners showed up to hang out with us and meet the team in person.

I love getting to meet new people who are as motivated as I am to work in the entertainment industry. There are so many people out there who aren’t working hard for themselves and are waiting for their agents and managers to do everything for them. I’m not like that and it’s so great to find others like me.

After dinner at Chipotle, we walked a few blocks down the street to where the LA Actors Tweetup was happening. On the way, we passed a step and repeat for some event that Netflix was doing. There wasn’t anyone there, so we took the opportunity to take a photo or two.

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We got to the Tweetup just as it was starting. I hadn’t been to a Tweetup in a while. They are either on nights that I have other things to do or I’ve been out-of-town. But since we were doing the podcast hangout before the Tweetup, I made sure to clear my schedule.

I got to see some friends who I hadn’t seen in a while and meet a bunch of cool new people. But around 9pm, I was exhausted. I had gotten up at 6am and I didn’t know it at the time but I was getting sick (as soon as I got home that evening my nose was completely stuffed up). So I made my rounds of goodbyes, which always takes forever, and headed back home.

It’s always so great to meet people who support the same things that you do or support the projects that you are a part of. I really should make more of an effort to attend more Tweetups and similar events. For a while, I didn’t want to change up my workout schedule because I was scared that it would be a sign that I would stop going. But now I’m feeling more comfortable shifting my workouts as long as I’m still getting my 3-4 workouts in during the week.

Again, this is all a great sign that I’m transforming into a better person.

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Default ThumbnailAnother IAP Hangout (or The Entire Team In One Place) Default ThumbnailCelebrating 200 Episodes Of The Podcast (or Come and Celebrate With Me!) Default ThumbnailTweetup Time (or Back To Acting) Default ThumbnailAnother Actor Night (Tweetup And Inside Acting) Default ThumbnailSeeing Actors Supporting Actors (or An Awesome Union Working Project) Default ThumbnailContinuing To Find Ways To Be Creative (or Podcasts and Online Shows)

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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A Birthday Brunch (or Celebrating With Some Fabulous Ladies)

Posted on December 16, 2014 | 1 comment

Recently it was my friend Brandi’s birthday. Right before her birthday she sent me an invite to her birthday party which was a brunch at 26 Beach.

I love when my friends have casual birthday get together like this. There are always a lot of people who can attend and it’s a relaxing time. I was so excited to hang out with everyone.

While 26 Beach might be famous for their French Toast, I’m trying to be good even on splurge days. So while a lot of the girls ordered some delicious sounding French Toasts plates (some of which came with ice cream), I tried to have a healthier splurge.

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I got eggs, bacon, and breakfast potatoes. It was super yummy and not too horrible of a splurge.

Most of the afternoon was spent just catching up with these ladies. Everyone has been up to some fabulous things and I loved hearing about them! Brandi, along with some other friends, won a film festival recently for her short film “Muted” and will have her film airing on HBO soon! It was awesome to hear about the adventure that winning that festival has taken them on.

This gathering made me miss doing more stuff with our Girls Night Out group (many of those girls were at the brunch). We are going to try to make an effort to have an outing every few months so we can make sure that we don’t go 6 or 7 months without being together as a group.

And of course, since this was a celebration of Brandi’s birthday, there was an ice cream cone with a candle in it and everyone in the room sang Happy Birthday to her.

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After that, I had to head out. I had a lot to get done that afternoon/evening and I needed to start my preparation. But before I left, we got a group picture (or an almost all group picture since some girls had to leave before we could take it).

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I love getting to spend time with these ladies. They are going to be the leaders in the entertainment industry soon, I just know it. Everyone is so motivated and talented and they inspire me to do more and push myself so I can feel like I’m catching up to all of them.

I’m just so lucky that I get to call them my friends.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Birthday Outing (or Seeing My Birthday Twin) Default ThumbnailContinuing The Birthday Celebrations (or A Birthday Twin Adventure) Default ThumbnailAlmost The End Of A Decade For Me (or The Birthday Countdown Has Begun) Default ThumbnailBloggers And Bellinis (or A Fabulous Brunch With Fabulous People) Default Thumbnail4 Years Of My Mentoring Circle (or Celebrating With Brunch) Default ThumbnailCelebrating A Friend’s Birthday (or Not Letting Feeling Gross Stop Me From Being Social)

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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