Category Archives: Food

Time For A Celebration! (or A Pie Date)

Posted on January 30, 2014 | Comments Off

Yesterday marked my mom’s final day of chemo. Not just the final day of a type of chemo. The end of all chemo treatments!

Even though my mom still has radiation to go, the end of chemo is something that everyone in my family has been counting down to. It seems like it’s taken forever and taken no time at all at the same time.

I told my mom that she should celebrate with the nurses at the chemo room. She was already ahead of me and told me that she was going to make a carrot cake for everyone. And I promised to celebrate for her in LA.

A few days ago, it was National Pie Day. My pie friend, Emily invited me out to pie but I had to work a crazy shift that day. So I suggested we get pie to celebrate the end of chemo. We went to Marie Calendars (where we always go for pie) and my friend Kate joined us too.

The way we always get pie is each person gets a slice and then we share the slices among the group. So we got 3 slices: cream cheese, chocolate, and razzleberry.

I know the pie doesn’t look pretty since we cut each slice up to share, but it was still delicious!

It was a nice lunch outing. We spent a lot of time catching up on life and I updated my friends on my job situation. One of the advantages of being laid off is having time to see people I haven’t seen in forever and having a relaxing visit with then.

And of course, we thought about how awesome my mom is. Through all of the chemo, she’s rarely complained. The only times I really remember her saying a thing negative is when I called to ask how she was and she’d tell me that she was having a bit of joint pain. But the pain didn’t get her down. She’s been busy training Tucker and making sure that he is becoming a well-behaved and polite dog (he’s totally getting there). She’s played tennis every week and her record has way more wins than losses.

Even though radiation is an unknown and we don’t know if it will be easy or tough on my mom, I don’t question for a second that she won’t still be kicking butt and doing all of her usual things every day.

The final countdown of my mom’s treatment has begun and I can’t wait until we can really celebrate the end of this.

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Food, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged breast cancer, cancer, chemo, mom, pie

Take Two With Day One Of Unemployment (or Doing Some Fun Stuff, Finally!)

Posted on January 29, 2014 | Comments Off

I’m going to share my second attempt at my first day of unemployment, but first, I want to do some updates.

First, an update on my job. It was officially announced yesterday that we are not coming back. They have decided to use an outside company to do telesales, which is what they did before I started working there. I’m hoping to see if there are any other opportunities for me at my current work, but I’m also working hard on finding something elsewhere.

Second, an update on my health. Thanks to everyone who tweeted, Facebooked, or messaged me that they hoped I was ok. I’m almost feeling 100% back to normal now. Those antibiotics really worked quickly!

So after my first day of unemployment was spent in pain or at urgent care, I wanted to try to make my next day be a lot better. I was calling it my do-over first day.

I spent a lot of my morning binge-watching “Veronica Mars” on Amazon Prime. I’m almost done with the second season and I know that I’ll be done with the third season before the movie comes out.

I met a friend of mine for lunch in downtown Culver City. She saw that I posted on Facebook that I was looking for some recommendations of places to go to in New York when I take my trip with my sister-in-law. She used to live in New York, so she had a ton of recommendations! She was going to email me a list, but since she and I are both unemployed right now, I said that we should meet for lunch so she could go over her list with me.

We met at Ugo and they have an awesome lunch menu where pretty much everything is under $7. I had a sandwich and she had some fries (sadly, I forgot to get a picture of the food but it was delicious!).

After eating, we went over the list that she made for me about New York. When she mentioned making me a list, I thought maybe it would be a couple of things in a few categories. No, this is an awesome list that had more suggestions than we’d have time for!

I know you can’t really read it in that picture, but just know that it’s a full-page list that is double-sided!

After lunch, I had some time to relax and then I went off to work to work a show shift. I personally didn’t think it would be awkward, but since everyone had just found out about us being let go, others thought it was. A couple of people who work there came up to me in shock that we weren’t coming back. I guess I’m not too shocked because I had a warning that this would probably happen about a week ago. I’ll be working 2 more show shifts this week and then I’m not too sure what will happen after that.

All in all, it was a pretty good 2nd try at my first day of unemployment (although can I still call it unemployment when I worked 2 hours at my old job?).

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Travel, Work

Tagged job, lunch, unemployment

400 Posts (or Wow, That’s A Lot Of Writing!)

Posted on January 24, 2014 | Comments Off

Today marks my 400th post on Finding My Inner Bombshell! I remember when I started writing I wondered how long I could keep doing this. Now, it’s a part of my day that I look forward to!

I’ve mentioned in the past how this blog is almost like therapy for me. I’ve gotten so much out of it that I would probably still do this even if nobody read it (but please keep reading it because I love the feedback and stories I hear from you all!). Writing on here has also helped my relationship with my family and friends. There have been many things that I never would have the courage to share with them if I had to say it out loud. But writing it helps to disconnect it from me and make it seem less personal.

In the last 400 posts, I’ve done a lot of things. So I thought I’d share some of the highlights of my first 399 posts.

The scariest (and best) thing I’ve ever put on here was in the beginning when I wrote about my eating disorder and credit card debt. I was so terrified to put that out into the world. I’ve hidden both of those things for many years and even some of my close family had no idea (or if they did, it’s because they guessed it and not because I ever told them). But after writing that post, it was like there was a weight lifted off my shoulders. And people started sharing their stories about money issues or eating disorders. I had no idea so many people had the same problems as me. By sharing my story, I discovered I wasn’t alone.

Another tough post to write was when I wrote about my mom being diagnosed with breast cancer. I knew about the cancer for a few weeks before I was allowed to share her story. I felt like I was faking it on the blog because I couldn’t be completely honest. But sharing that story again has made me feel less alone. Many people have shared their stories with family members dealing with cancer. When my mom was diagnosed, I started to research joining a support group. I never found one that I connected with. Then once I shared on here, I realized that my support group was on the blog. And I hope that I can support others in the future who are going through the same thing. And just to update you on my mom, she’s still kicking butt and only has 1 more chemo treatment to go before starting radiation (the final treatment step)!

The most positive thing that has happened since starting the blog was discovering SoulCycle. I never thought I would connect with exercise this way. But it’s happened and I’m definitely obsessed (this entire list is totally true for me). Celebrating a year doing the same exercise is a first for me, and I’m already looking forward to my next SoulCycle milestone (maybe taking 50 classes?).

I wish I could make some predictions to what the next 400 posts will bring. But honestly, when I started this 400 posts ago, I had no idea that it would become what it is today.

Thank you all for reading and following my journey so far. I just know that the journey will only continue to get better and there are amazing things ahead for me.

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

Tagged blogging, breast cancer, cancer, debt, eating disorder, exercise, milestone, SoulCycle

Finding A Balance (or Eating Healthy And Fun At The Same Time)

Posted on January 9, 2014 | 3 comments

I’m struggling a bit with food again. As someone with an eating disorder, I guess I should be prepared to deal with this for the rest of my life. I just hope one day it gets easier.

I’m really working hard at staying under my calorie goals every day, but there keeps being something that prevents me from doing that. And part of it is because so much of my social life revolves around food.

Now, I don’t want to make my friends who have gone out to meals with me feel bad. That’s not what this is about. I just don’t understand how they can eat the same things as me (or more) and not have issues with it. I’m feeling insane guilt and sometimes feeling like I screwed up my whole day.

It’s hard to find the balance with healthy and fun foods, but I know it’s possible. I see people do it all the time.

And maybe I do have some sort of health issue causing problems again. I’ve met with an endocrinologist many times and some of my test results have come back suspicious. But whenever they re-test me, everything is fine again. Maybe I have to go through that process again (although it does involve blood work and I’d rather avoid dealing with needles if I can help it).

I know that a big part of what keeps me on track certain days is working out. If I work out in the morning, I have more calories to play with during the day (although I normally don’t eat my exercise calories). And if I work out at night, I feel like I have to be good all day so I feel ok to exercise after those meals. I can’t work out every evening right now because of my work schedule, but I’m looking into doing that when I’m (f)unemployed again.

I also have to think back to the time I was on the RFO Diet. For those months, I literally could not eat when I went out for meals with my friends. Sometimes I would bring my supplements with me and have them there, but more often than not I just sat there and enjoyed the company. I might start doing that again so I don’t eat foods that I regret later.

And trying restaurants I’ve never been to before is another way to prevent my guilt eating. At restaurants that I’ve been to when I’ve not worried about my weight, there are some very bad choices that I used to love to eat. And if I go back there, I’m tempted to have those things again because my memories of them are that they were delicious. There’s one sandwich at Jerry’s Deli that I used to always get. I still think about it from time to time, but I don’t go to Jerry’s anymore because I don’t want to have to deal with how many calories it is.

Sorry for the little rant today. I’m getting frustrated with my weight loss (it’s stalled right now) and I don’t know what else I can change. But I promise tomorrow will be a very exciting and positive blog post. I can’t tell you why yet, but make sure you read here tomorrow to see what happened!

3 Comments

Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged calories, diet, food, weight loss

Cheesecake With My Birthday Twin (or Continuing A New Tradition)

Posted on January 6, 2014 | Comments Off

In 2012 around Christmas time, my birthday twin Joanna and I went out for cheesecake. We decided then that we would make Christmas time cheesecake one of our new traditions (like us getting our free birthday meal).

Somehow, we both totally forgot that we said that this would be a new tradition until after Christmas. I texted Joanna to see how we could fix this, and she suggested that we get cheesecake right after New Year’s (it could still be considered holiday cheesecake then).

I was super lucky to have the day after New Year’s Day off so that ended up being our cheesecake day.

We went back to The Grove where we had cheesecake last time. But this time it was in the daytime so there were no holiday lights. And there were people taking down all the Christmas decorations so I didn’t take any pictures (you don’t want to see a tree coming down, do you?).

We got lunch and cheesecake this time. Since I’ve been working on being good with my calories, I looked at the low-calorie options that Cheesecake Factory had. Most of their regular dishes have about 1,000 calories in them and I couldn’t do that plus my cheesecake.

I’m normally not a fan of the low-calorie menus, but I have to say that this one was actually pretty good! Joanna and I both ended up ordering off of it. Joanna had a salad and I had a sausage and cheese flatbread (which was 460 calories if you were interested).

Then it was time for the main event (at least what we both considered the main event). While I would have loved to have gotten the red velvet cheesecake again, my calorie budget did not allow for that. So I checked on MyFitnessPal to see which cheesecakes that I like fit into my calorie budget (it helped that I didn’t have time to eat breakfast that day so I had some extra calories to play with). I ended up getting one of my all-time favorite cheesecakes, the tiramisu cheesecake.

Joanna got the plain cheesecake with strawberry topping on top.

It was a great meal! And of course, any time I get to hang out with my friend Joanna is awesome (we don’t see each other as often as we used to). We had a fun chat discussing our day jobs, acting, and just having a catchup talk.

I’m so glad that I have this new tradition continuing. Hopefully this year we will remember to do it around Christmas time so we can see all the awesome decorations again.

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged birthday twin, calories, cheesecake, lunch, my fitness pal

Starting The Year Off Right (or Spinning Away)

Posted on January 3, 2014 | Comments Off

I was very lucky to have New Year’s Day off from work. Again, nobody wants to be making phone calls on a holiday. So I tried to make the most of my day.

I did sleep in pretty late. I had gotten home just around 1am but I stayed up a bit later trying to get some work done while I felt awake.

I knew that I wanted to go to spin class on New Year’s Day, I just wasn’t sure exactly when I wanted to go. There were some special classes that day that were 90 minutes long (double the length of a normal class), but I didn’t think my body would be up for that.

Fortunately, Patrick was teaching one of the regular length classes in the early afternoon. That gave me time to get some food in my stomach and relax before sweating out all the fun I had the night before.

The class was great and exactly what I needed. I got in a great workout and according to my heart rate monitor, I burned more calories in this spin class than I had in any previous class! Part of that may be due to the fact that during the weights portion of class, I got heavier weights than I’ve ever used. But I’d also like to think that is has something to do with me getting fitter, stronger, and able to push myself harder.

I left the class super sweaty, but I look at the sweat marks on my clothes as something to be proud of. I don’t even mind walking back to my car in my sweaty clothes without covering up. If people think I look weird all sweaty, who cares? I did an amazing workout.

I got home and ended up taking a nap after class. I was still pretty tired from the day before and the class wiped me out. The rest of the day was spent hanging out at home and reading a book, which helped to make the day a perfect day off from my day job.

But I did do some of my goals for 2014. I got in my spin class and I tracked every single calorie that I consumed that day. I was under my calorie goal and made lots of good choices for the day. It’s tougher for me to plan my meals when I don’t do spin class first thing in the morning, but I’m proud of the job that I did with my food choices that day.

I’m definitely off to a good start this year.

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Posted in Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged goals, New Years, SoulCycle, spin class, workout

2014 Goals (or Hoping To Get More Goals Done This Year)

Posted on January 1, 2014 | 4 comments

So last year, I didn’t accomplish as many of my goals as I would have liked. That’s ok. I picked some goals that were very big stretches for me and while trying to do them I learned a lot.

I’ve thought a lot about my goals for this year. And for some of them, I’d also like to explain why they are worded the way that they are worded.

Continue To Do 5Ks

One of the things that I’d like to do in 2014 is to keep doing my 5Ks. I did 9 last year and that was amazing. But the reason I don’t have a number that I’d like to do this year is because last year, I picked some races that I really didn’t care to do just to see how many I could do in a year. And the races aren’t that cheap. For a while, I thought that it would be cool to make a goal to be 10 5Ks in 2014 (that way I would have raced 31 miles and I’m turning 31 this year). But I don’t want to have that pressure on me. I want to do the races that I want to do and that’s that (plus, each race entry fee adds up!).

Make Spin A More Regular Habit

While I do go to spin pretty regularly, it’s not as regular as I would like. I pretty much go every week, but I still don’t have set days/times that I know I will go. And if I don’t schedule my classes ahead of time, sometimes I’ll schedule other things in the times that I should be going. So I need to sit down with my schedule and SoulCycle’s schedule and pick out the classes that will become my regular ones.

Track My Food/Exercise Better

I’ve been using MyFitnessPal for a couple of years now. It’s easy to track my food on there. But sometimes when I’m eating foods I’m not happy about or overeat, I stop tracking my food for the day. I need to own up to everything I eat whether I’m within my calorie limit or have gone many times over. And tracking my exercise is much easier now that I have my heart rate monitor. I just need to remember to wear it all the time or pack it in my bag if I’m working out after work.

Get Into An Improv Class

Meant to do this last year and didn’t. I’m not going to keep putting it off. Currently looking at the schedule and figuring out which class I can take.

Pay Down My Debt And Not Add More

I know that I can’t stop using my credit card completely. There are some charges, like Netflix, that are charged every month. But I can stop frivolous spending. I need to work on using cash for most of my needs.

Go On Another Vacation

I loved having time off of work and getting out of LA. I need to do that again to help keep me sane. There is a trip in the works right now and hopefully all the plans will fall into place. But if that one falls through, I’m going to try to plan another getaway from LA at some point.

Keep Blogging

I think this one is pretty self-explanatory.

That’s my goal list for this year. I’m optimistic that it can all be done. And if it doesn’t I know that I’m going to try as hard as possible to do each one.

4 Comments

Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Travel

Tagged goals, New Years, plan, resolutions

Breakfast Bread Pudding (or Another Delicious Recipe!)

Posted on December 30, 2013 | Comments Off

When I went home for the few days around Christmas, I had decided that I wanted to make a special breakfast for Christmas morning. Even though we don’t celebrate Christmas, I figured it was a good excuse to make something fun.

Originally, I had thought that I’d make overnight french toast. But then a few days before my trip, there was a potluck lunch at my day job. And one of my co-workers made this savory bread pudding. And as soon as I had it, I knew that it was going to be our Christmas breakfast.

Bacon And Egg Bread Pudding (modified from A Good Appetite)

What You Need:

6 Slices of Bacon, Chopped

4 Cups of Bread (we used Challah), Cut Into 1/2″ Cubes

8 Eggs

1 Cup Milk (we used 2%)

3oz Grated Cheddar Cheese

Salt and Pepper

What To Do:

Cook bacon until crispy. Drain on paper towel and set aside until cool.

In a bowl mix cooled bacon, bread, and about 1oz of the cheese. Pour dry mixture into 8×8 baking dish (sprayed with Pam or greased with butter).

Wisk eggs and milk together and add salt and pepper. Pour wet mixture over dry mixture. Mix to ensure even coating on bread.

Sprinkle remaining cheese on top.

Let sit for at least 30 minutes. What we did was make this the night before and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

When ready to bake, heat over to 375.

Bake about 40 minutes or until it is puffed up and the top is golden.

Serves 4

This was very yummy! Even though when we made it it was only a few hours after Chaucer’s passing, it helped to make the morning a bit better. There were only 3 of us eating that morning, so my dad saved some for leftovers. He had it a few days later and reported back to me that it was still delicious!

I’m definitely making this again. But I think that I would add some veggies into it. Maybe some mushroom or peppers. While it tasted great, it needed some more color.

If any of you are looking for a fun New Year’s breakfast that you can make ahead of time, I highly recommend this!

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged recipe

Peppermint Meringue Cookies (or It’s Easy But Not As Easy As I Thought)

Posted on December 12, 2013 | Comments Off

I’ve been invited to another cookie party (it’s actually tonight) and I wanted to try something new this year to bring to it. I loved making the red velvet white chocolate cookies last year, and even though this party is with a different group of people, I wanted to expand my cookie making abilities.

I went through the family cookbook that my mom and I put together (and presented to my entire extended family at Thanksgiving last year) and found a recipe for meringues. I love meringues! But I made a few changes to the recipe to make them a bit more festival.

Below is the full recipe. I only made a half batch because the first batch I made came out wrong (there might have been a bit of yolk or oil and the egg whites didn’t stiffen). When I went to make a second batch, I realized I only had 2 eggs left.

What you need:

4 large egg whites (room temperature)

1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup sugar (extra-fine is best)

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp peppermint extract

peppermint candies

What to do:

Separate eggs (doing this while they are cold is easiest) and allow them to come to room temperature (30 minutes).

Preheat oven to 250.

Unwrap peppermint candies and place in a zip top bag.

Using a rolling pin or mallet (thanks again Dad for the mallet!) crush the peppermint candies. Make the pieces as big or as small as you would like.

Beat the egg whites, Cream of Tartar, and salt (I used a hand mixer but a stand mixer would be better) at a high speed until foamy.

Then, add the sugar, 1 tbsp at a time, to the mixture while continuing to beat the egg white mixture at a high speed.

Continue beating the eggs until stiff peaks form. Then add the extracts and beat until blended.

After it’s all mixed, fold in the peppermint candies.

Drop batter onto 2 baking sheets with parchment or a Silpat. I put the batter into a zip top bag and piped it onto the baking sheet. They didn’t look super pretty, but I think they look better than if I free-formed them.

Bake at 250 for about 2 hours or until the meringues are dry and can be removed from the baking sheet without sticking to your fingers).

Turn off over and leave door partially open while allowing meringues to cool for 1 hour.

Remove from oven and let meringues to completely cool on wire racks.

Store meringues in a zip top bag or container to keep dry (moisture is meringues’ enemy).

This should make about 40 cookies.

It’s not too tough to make these. Just make sure that everything you use does not have any oil or egg yolk on it. That’s probably where I went wrong. I’m hoping these cookies are a big hit tonight at the party! And if you make these or some other type of meringues, let me know! I’m looking for some fun variations of this since I know how to make them now!

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged cookies, party

Quick Family Visit (or My Extra Long Lunch From Work)

Posted on December 9, 2013 | Comments Off

My parents were driving down to San Diego this past Thursday. Originally, the plan was for me to go back down to San Diego again this past weekend and spend time with them there. But my schedule wasn’t going to allow me to be there for too long, so the new plan was for my parents to stop in LA for lunch with me.

My boss at my day job okayed me taking a long lunch that day (as long as I was back by 6pm because I was running a table at the show that night). My parents got to my work around 2:30 with my dog. I was so excited to get to see Dante again! After his diagnosis, I wasn’t sure how many more times I’d get to see him, that’s why I took the quick visit home a few weeks ago. And of course, I was excited to see my parents again.

We went to lunch near my work and had a nice chat. My parents wanted to know all about the film festival and other things going on in my life. And of course, my dad and I chatted about my spin class.

After lunch, we drove down near the Santa Monica Pier and took Dante for a walk. He’s doing so much better compared to the weekend I was home. His incision is healing nicely and he can walk properly again. You can see the tumor on his leg growing again, but it doesn’t seem to be hurting him. And every time we passed another dog, Dante perked up and wanted to play with them. It was nice seeing him act like his old self again.

Before I knew it, my parents drove me back over to my work so they could continue the drive to San Diego (it should only take 2 hours from my work, but it ended up taking them 4). But before they left, we exchanged Hanukkah presents. I got my mom tinted lip balms (I use them and she tried mine and liked it when we were at my brother’s wedding). And when my dad was visiting me a few weeks ago, he mentioned that he needed to buy a new belt. Right after my dad left, I got an Uncommon Goods catalog and saw this belt that was made out of recycled bike tubes. So I got him that and I think he loved it! I also got my brother and sister-in-law presents but I haven’t giving them their gifts yet so I can’t share what they are.

And my parents got me noise canceling headphones! I had mentioned after flying to and from Hawaii that my ear buds weren’t that great on the plane. I could barely hear my movies and that I really should invest in better headphones. I’m so excited to have my new headphones and I’m planning on using them on my flight home soon!

Even though I only got to spend a few hours with my parents, it really revitalized me. I got to see that my mom and my dog are doing great. And it helped me get over the weirdness that I felt over Thanksgiving. I’ll be seeing my family again in about 2 weeks and that time I’ll get to see them for a few days. I’m already looking forward to that!

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Posted in Family, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged cancer, dog, family, Los Angeles, lunch, San Diego, visit

Category Archives: Food

Time For A Celebration! (or A Pie Date)

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Take Two With Day One Of Unemployment (or Doing Some Fun Stuff, Finally!)

Like this:

400 Posts (or Wow, That’s A Lot Of Writing!)

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Finding A Balance (or Eating Healthy And Fun At The Same Time)

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Cheesecake With My Birthday Twin (or Continuing A New Tradition)

Like this:

Starting The Year Off Right (or Spinning Away)

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2014 Goals (or Hoping To Get More Goals Done This Year)

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Breakfast Bread Pudding (or Another Delicious Recipe!)

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Peppermint Meringue Cookies (or It’s Easy But Not As Easy As I Thought)

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Quick Family Visit (or My Extra Long Lunch From Work)

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