Category Archives: Food

Another Attempt At A Reset (or Feeling Sick Got Me Into A Bad Routine)

Posted on January 29, 2020 | Comments Off on Another Attempt At A Reset (or Feeling Sick Got Me Into A Bad Routine)

When I was feeling sick from antibiotics, I dealt with a lot of random symptoms. Many of them were similar to what I deal with each month with pain and nausea, but they weren’t being resolved by the things I usually do to feel better. I was also dealing with other symptoms that made me just feel awful.

I was able to work and go to my workouts, but that’s about all I could do. I was exhausted because I was waking up constantly at night. I wasn’t eating well because I went from not being hungry to feeling so hungry and nothing seemed to be what I wanted. And I wasn’t drinking enough water (which is a rare issue for me to have since I tend to overhydrate) because for some reason drinking water was making me feel very full and my stomach was hurting.

I’m not proud of what I was doing while I was feeling sick because they really weren’t the best choices for me. The sleep issue was one that I couldn’t help too much, even though I probably could have tried to go to bed earlier so I would have maybe gotten a bit more sleep. But whatever sleep I would have gotten would have been interrupted, no matter how early I went to bed. That’s been a bit easier to get back to my normal routine than getting my eating back has been.

I didn’t do anything as bad as I have done in the past with binge episodes, but they weren’t good either. I was making bad choices constantly and I’m paying for it now. I don’t feel like myself and I just feel like I’m recovering from poor nutrition choices and I’m not feeling better. Fortunately, this is just a general uneasy feeling and not a sick feeling like the week before.

I was finally done with antibiotics over the weekend and I started working back toward what I know I need to be doing. But it hasn’t been easy to do, just like every other time I try to have better habits. And I’ve done this attempt so many times in the past and I know how frustrating it can be for me. But I have to do it because there really isn’t another choice for me.

I’m trying to get back to some basics with food. As much as I want to learn how to cook a lot of good options for myself, I also know that having too many options can be a bad thing for me. I need to be a bit more regimented in what I keep in my house and what I might each for each meal. It’s not the most fun thing to do or super interesting, but it’s a way to reset myself before I focus on adding more things back in. And I’ve been wanting to do the autoimmune protocol diet for a while so I might not be adding things back in once I do reset things for myself. But that’s not something I’m focusing on right now.

Right now, it’s about making sure I’m getting some good food into my body every day, even if that’s not all I eat all the time. And I need to get back to drinking more water on a regular schedule so I can stay hydrated but make sure I don’t start overhydrating myself again. I’m not too focused on eating on a regular schedule since that is a much bigger struggle for me that I don’t need to worry about right now. But I do need to make sure that I eat enough so I don’t have horrible cravings.

As things are so often in my life, it’s a huge balancing act to figure out the right combination of foods and schedule so that I’m not swinging too far one way or another. And while weight loss isn’t the point for me right now with trying to reset myself, I know it will be a result of my efforts because the poor choices I was making last week did make me gain weight.

Hopefully, in a week or so I will be back to a slightly more normal situation and I can focus on improving it more from that point. But I need to get back to my normal first before I make more changes. I’ve made the mistake of trying to do too much at one time with fixing my eating and I have seen it backfire. So I’m going to go slowly this time and hopefully I can prevent the issues I’ve had in the past. But if nothing else, I just want to be back to my normal and reset myself so I’m not feeling like I went so far back to old habits and I’m stuck there.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMy Cold Caught Up With Me (or I Guess I Was Due To Get Sick) Default ThumbnailYup, I’m Sick (or Trying To Take Care Of Me) Default ThumbnailHaving Bad Days (or Did I Make Myself Sick) Default ThumbnailBeing Sick (or Feeling Off) Default ThumbnailFeeling Sick Just Isn’t Fun (or I Was Already Doing Nothing) Default ThumbnailRoutine Time Again (or Getting Back On Track)

Comments Off on Another Attempt At A Reset (or Feeling Sick Got Me Into A Bad Routine)

Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

Time For Traditional Cheesecake (or It Can Still Count As Celebrating The New Year)

Posted on January 17, 2020 | Comments Off on Time For Traditional Cheesecake (or It Can Still Count As Celebrating The New Year)

I don’t have a ton of traditions that I do every year, but the few that I do have are very special to me. And one of the few traditions I have are dinners with my birthday twin. We have our (almost) free birthday dinner and we have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory around the new year. The birthday dinner is usually done very close to our birthday since we have to go during our birthday month to get our discounts. But our cheesecake dinner is a bit more flexible. Sometimes we go before the holidays and sometimes we go after the new year. But whenever we go, we have been pretty good about making sure we have our dinner even if it’s a month or so late.

This year, I decided to be proactive in making sure we got our dinner in as close to the new year as possible. I knew both of us are busy so it might be tough to figure out when we could make dinner plans. So I reached out Joanna right around the 1st to say we needed to plan our dinner. And we were able to find some time this week that worked for both of us after work. Since the restaurant we go to is closer to my side of town than it is for Joanna, I let her decide the best time for her to meet. We had to be a bit flexible with each other because our schedules ended up being a bit busier than we expected, but we managed to arrive within minutes of each other and we were quickly seated for dinner (which was a miracle since there is usually a 30-minute wait).

We actually had decided on our cheesecake choices before we decided on our dinners, but we wanted to get the food ordering out of the way first so we could eat and get to our catch up talk.

We usually talk about the same few topics whenever we meet up. We catch each other up on what’s happening with our families and acting careers. But the main thing we usually talk about is the craziness about the dating world. We both have had a lot of random stories to share over the years and I love that we both have stories so it’s not just me sharing them. And as always, we both had lots of dating updates to give each other. And since both of us take screenshots of the profiles of the guys we meet (it’s a safety thing), we could show each other who we’ve had dates with. I’m waiting for the day that she and I (or any friend I know who is dating) discover that we have gone out with the same guy. That hasn’t happened yet, but I bet one day it will happen.

Both of us have had some good and bad dating stories to share, so it wasn’t all crazy stories. And I think hearing a friend is going through the same ups and downs that I am helps me feel like I’m not alone in my random journey with dating. And we can also support each other which is another positive. We both have recently had situations that hurt a bit, so it was nice to get some in-person support. And even though I know dissecting what happened on dates doesn’t necessarily do any good, sometimes it’s nice to go over things and have someone else confirm that the situation was weird or that I didn’t do anything wrong.

And of course, being at the Cheesecake Factory we had to have cheesecake! We did our usual tradition of ordering 2 different types and each getting half of a slice. Things are so much easier now that we know we can ask them to cut each slice in half. 2 halves of a slice are so much cheesecake, but it’s so good!

After our dinner and cheesecake, we were both very full. Since the restaurant wasn’t crowded we didn’t feel too bad about hanging around there for a while. And also, our service was a bit slow so we had to wait a very long time to get our dessert and the check. We ended up being there much longer than I expected, but we had a great time being able to hang out and catch up. And it was nice not feeling rushed that we had to get out of there. But since we both had to work the next morning, we didn’t stay out too late because we both wanted to get home to get to bed at a decent hour.

Every time Joanna and I meet up, we say that we need to hang out more often than our 2 traditions. But our schedules don’t always work that way and before we know it it’s time to have one of our traditional meals again. We do make efforts to see each other more than twice a year, but at least I know we will have our birthday dinner in August for our next catch up if we don’t have one sooner.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailCheesecake With My Birthday Twin (or Continuing A New Tradition) Default ThumbnailAn Evening Of Cheesecake (or Just A Calm Dinner With My Birthday Twin) Default ThumbnailVery Belated New Years Cheesecake (or A Birthday Twin Dinner) Default ThumbnailCheesecake Dinner (or A Half Birthday Outing) Default ThumbnailHoliday Cheesecake (or Birthday Twins and Twinkle Lights) Default ThumbnailA Full Friend Day (or Cheesecake For Lunch And Drinks For Dinner)

Comments Off on Time For Traditional Cheesecake (or It Can Still Count As Celebrating The New Year)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , ,

2020 Goals (New Year, Not All New Goals)

Posted on January 1, 2020 | Comments Off on 2020 Goals (New Year, Not All New Goals)

Happy New Year! Even though I know that the start of a new year (or a new month or week) doesn’t have to mean a lot, I like the idea of a fresh start and kicking off the time with something new. And that’s exactly what I’ve been able to do for the past few years.

And just like the last several years, I’m going to be using a Volt Planner to do my goal tracking and monthly challenges. They are really beautiful planners and they are laid out perfectly for what I want to. They do keep me organized and I spent some time this past week working on what I wanted my goals to be for 2020. Some of them are new ones, but there are several that I feel like I have tried to do multiple times. But just because I didn’t accomplish a goal in the past doesn’t mean I can’t get it done this year.

My first goal shouldn’t be much of a surprise. I want to do at least 200 Orangetheory classes this year. This goal is one I have been setting each year (or at least I would have a target number of classes I wanted to get to) and it’s a goal that I know I don’t have to think about much. I typically go to 4 classes a week which will easily get me to 200 classes. It also allows for a bit of flexibility if there are a few weeks that I can’t do 4 classes. Of course, something could come up that would prevent me from working out, but I’m not expecting anything to do that so this goal should be one that in a year I can say I was able to do.

My next goal is that I want to cook more often. I have had this goal several times and the reasons for it have always been the same. I know that it is healthier for me to cook at home plus it is a good way to save money. I have the ability to cook, I just don’t have the motivation. I need to work on finding the motivation because I know that it’s the main thing holding me back. I also want to work on finding recipes that inspire me and can become something I cook regularly.

The next goal is one I already have started. I want to continue to work on my home organization and be able to maintain it. I have slowly been going through my house and seeing what I really need and what I might be able to get rid of or donate. I’m also getting things that help me organize what I do keep. For example, my bathroom is tiny and there is no storage space. But I finally found a little basket I can use to keep my cleaning supplies together so they don’t look as cluttered. It’s not necessarily organized, but it looks that way. My big challenge will be organizing my desk, but I’m giving myself plenty of time to work on it.

Next is a bit of a combo goal. I want to get back to my job hunting as well as working on my budget. I’ve been doing ok with my budgeting work. The app that I use has made huge changes and I finally had to switch to the new system. There is a bit of a learning curve with it, but that’s why I want to make budgeting one of my goals. I can see how easy it would be to let this slip, and I don’t want to do that. I do not want to get back into credit card debt and the best way to do that will be to budget carefully. And along those lines, budgeting would be easier if I had more income. And that’s why I need to get back to my job hunting. I am so lucky I have the job I have right now, but it’s not enough. It’s never made me enough money and I can’t keep ignoring that fact.

Another combo goal is to be more social and to have more fun. I have a tendency to be a bit of a homebody. And even though that is something I choose to do, I get a bit lonely when I do that and I crave going out. I need to be more productive in making plans with friends and seeking new ways to go out and have fun. And part of this may be working on expanding my circle of friends and finding different groups to be a part of. It’s not easy making friends at my age, but it’s not impossible either. And I can’t make an excuse to not do it because it might be difficult.

And the last two go together even though I consider them very separate goals. I want to be more active in union service and I want to focus more on my acting career. I have gotten very involved in union service and it has been an amazing addition to my life. I love what I have been able to be a part of and how much more I understand my union. But I know there is so much more I can do and I want to work toward that. I have more ways to be involved and I want to get more people involved. And along with that, I need to focus on my acting career. That is my goal in life and I need to get things back in order because I didn’t prioritize them enough in the past year. Some of the things I need to do cost money and that was holding me back, but I need to find ways to make it happen because my career is important to me and I don’t want to waste time not doing it.

I think I have a good variety of goals for 2020. Some of them I know will be easier to do than others, but they cover a variety of areas in my life. And even if I only get half of them done this year, my life is going to be so much better with them accomplished.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailWhat I Plan To Do This Year (or 2015 Goals) Default Thumbnail2014 Goals (or Hoping To Get More Goals Done This Year) Default ThumbnailMy 2016 Goals (or I’ve Got Some Big Ideas This Year) Default ThumbnailAn Almost End Of The Year Review (or Looking Back At My Goals) Default ThumbnailMy 2017 Goals (or I Know This Year Will Be Amazing!) Default ThumbnailMy 2013 Goals (or I’m Not Calling Them Resolutions This Time)

Comments Off on 2020 Goals (New Year, Not All New Goals)

Posted in Acting, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Saving, Work

Tagged , ,

The Rest Of Thanksgiving (or Getting In Lots Of Family Time)

Posted on December 4, 2019 | Comments Off on The Rest Of Thanksgiving (or Getting In Lots Of Family Time)

I have already posted about the first half of my Thanksgiving trip. That time was mainly spent with my parents or my immediate family. But Thanksgiving Day was all about all of my family that was together for the holiday. We had 16 people (plus 2 dogs) this year in one place. And there was a bit of sadness as this was the first Thanksgiving since my grandma passed away, but we were all so grateful to be together with everyone in those 3 generations in one place.

Thanksgiving morning started with the family workout at Orangetheory. I love that we have that tradition now in the family and it was a great way to start the day. Even though the studio was really close to the hotel, it was really cold out so we ended up driving over to the workout. I made sure I worked out a little extra hard to make up for us having to drive over. But it was fine.

After the workout, we had some time at the hotel to shower and get ready plus some time to relax. There was no rush to get over to my aunt and uncle’s house and it was nice having time to read and not stress out about getting ready and leaving by a certain time. We were still over there a few hours before dinner, so we had a lot of family time. But we didn’t feel stressed that we had to get there by at a specific time and we didn’t have to worry about if we were going to miss anything.

Thanksgiving was originally planned for Sacramento because that’s where my grandma was (and she couldn’t travel). We knew that she wouldn’t be able to be at dinner, so I was prepared already for her not being there. But I had made plans that I was going to visit her before dinner so it did feel a bit like we forgot to do something. Starting next year my family will be rotating where we do Thanksgiving (which is what we used to do every year), so I think it won’t feel like we missed something. But it worked out fine for Thanksgiving to be in Sacramento and since all of us live on the west coast, it’s not too difficult to travel there. It was so awesome having everyone at dinner this year. We haven’t had the entire family together in a few years and I know how lucky we are that we can do this.

We were all hanging out in the kitchen and living room spending time together. A lot of the cooking was done in advance, so there wasn’t a lot of craziness in the kitchen. It felt very relaxed compared to some of the past Thanksgivings and I liked that. And it gave us time to enjoy things like the gorgeous sunset that we had that evening.

Also, I convinced my brother and my cousins that we should try to recreate a photo that was taken in 1988. This photo wasn’t from Thanksgiving that year, but it’s the first photo I think of when I think of a photo of all of us when we were little. I actually don’t love the photo, but it’s still the first one that comes to mind. My cousin Stephie was excited to do the recreation too, so she helped me get the guys together for it. And my cousin John even tried to match the pose from the original photo. I think it looks awesome!

I think that everyone loved the photos once I combined them and that they agree it was a good choice to take it. The 5 of us aren’t always together at Thanksgiving, so I am glad I took advantage of that. I remember the last time we were all together that we took a photo and it was only after we left that I was upset we didn’t match the old one. Now, I finally got to do what I regret not doing a few years ago.

Thanksgiving dinner was awesome as always. We had all the usual things that my family has and they are always delicious. My favorites are the green beans and the corn casserole, but everything that I had on my plate was so good!

After we had dinner, we did go around the table talking about our favorite memories of my grandma. Some people included memories of my grandpa too, but my memories were all grandma ones. She was very particular about her hair and makeup and always looked perfect. I remember when I was little that my grandma went on an amusement park ride and somehow she was the only one out of us that got wet. That was so funny. I also remember a Thanksgiving when we were young that my cousin convinced my grandma to try his rollerblades and she got on them inside the house and my cousin helped her stay up. I loved the memories that everyone else shared too and I’m glad that for the most part that was an upbeat thing. I was worried that it would be sad, but there was only one time that I cried. The rest of the time was all about smiling and reminding each other of these random memories that we loved.

After dinner, we had to get a family photo. And while I loved the one we had last year of all of us laughing, this one was a bit more normal. But I do love the dogs looking at each other.

Overall, it was a really great Thanksgiving and we had some amazing family time. And my concern about being sad while I was there didn’t come true. There was so much joy and happiness in being together and sharing memories that the sadness was minimal. And I’m so glad about that.

The day after Thanksgiving was pretty low-key. I had to work that morning so I worked in the hotel room. My brother and sister-in-law left that morning but they stopped by the room before driving home. And while I was working my parents took the dog for a long walk. I was fine being alone because it made me feel a bit better about having to work. When I work around all my family, it is fun because I’m a part of everything happening. But I also feel a bit guilty when I ask everyone to be quiet or when I can’t participate in a conversation or have to end talking to work with a customer.

When I was done with work, we headed over to my aunt and uncle’s house for some leftovers and a bit more family time. Unfortunately, I had to leave before some of my family was able to get there because I had to catch my flight home. But hopefully, the family that didn’t get to see me understood that I needed to be at the airport on time.

My flight home was much calmer than my flight there. There wasn’t as much turbulence so I was able to relax a little. I still don’t love flying, but this was much more normal and I only had my normal anxiety. And once we landed, it was pretty quick for me to get back to where I parked my car so I could get home. It was a bit weird when I was unpacked and everything felt normal when I was just with my family a few hours before.

Next year, we’ll be somewhere else for Thanksgiving. But I know we are going to have so many of the same traditions happening wherever we are. And I’m so glad that we all agreed as a family that our annual Thanksgiving gatherings are important to us so we are going to keep them going. I can’t wait for next year!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailGrandma’s Birthday Dinner (or One Of Our Thanksgiving Traditions) Default ThumbnailFull Thanksgiving Week (or Lots Of Family Time) Default ThumbnailFull Thanksgiving Trip (or Being With My Family In San Diego) Default ThumbnailThe Rest Of My Maryland Trip (or More Family Time) Default ThumbnailA Family-Filled Thanksgiving (or 4 Generations In One Place) Default ThumbnailFamily Thanksgiving (or Relaxing In San Diego)

Comments Off on The Rest Of Thanksgiving (or Getting In Lots Of Family Time)

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

Tagged , , ,

Taking Time For A Show (or Seeing Summer)

Posted on November 14, 2019 | Comments Off on Taking Time For A Show (or Seeing Summer)

I feel like a broken record because I am always saying how much I love going to the shows at the Pantages and how much they have benefitted my life. Not only are they awesome entertainment, but they also give a sense of routine or normalcy with my life. When I’m going through a crazy time and I have a show coming up, I know I will take that time to go and that I’m going to have a great time. Or if I’m feeling down for one reason or another, I know the show is going to get me out and social and I’ll be in a better mood. I still can’t believe how much I get out of having my season tickets, but it always makes me so happy when I see a show coming up.

I’m going to write about this a bit out of order by talking about the show first. This time, the show we saw was “Summer” which is the jukebox musical about Donna Summer.

For most jukebox musicals, I know going into it that I will probably know a bunch of the songs even if I don’t know that I know them. Since I’m not a big music person, I expect that I won’t know songs by the name or artist. But they are familiar when I hear them and that’s exactly what happened this time. The show was good and I enjoyed the music, but I wish they had shared more about her life. I thought there was a lot of interesting stuff that was starting to be talked about but then didn’t go into them much further. But since the show was done without an intermission, there’s only so much you can put into a show without making it too long.

But before the show, Dani and I went to dinner at Wood & Vine. Going there is one of our favorite pre-show dinner locations and we were worried about what we were going to do when our shows move to the Dolby soon. When we sat down for dinner, we ordered and then looked at what restaurant options would be over there. There are a lot of chain restaurants so we wanted to find anything interesting and unique. We weren’t having much luck, but we decided that we would have some time to do the research. We wanted to focus on our awesome dinner at Wood & Vine instead of looking up other places.

We got some of our familiar favorites and some new things as well. The Cesar salad was so good! It was really garlicky which I love. We were debating getting another salad but decided to wait until after we had everything else. We also got the vegan risotto with mushrooms which was incredible. It had great seasoning and was very flavorful. The mac and cheese and pork are favorites of ours and I figured we’d get them because we always love them. And for dessert, we were torn on what to get and we shared a few of our favorites and said they could surprise us. We got the banana caramel and butterscotch, which were perfect ways to end the meal.

While we were eating, the manager Wally came over to talk to us. We love chatting with him before the show because he always shares fun things with us about what happened when he saw it or things we should look out for. He was the one who told us that there wasn’t an intermission and I was so grateful he told us before we were sitting in our seats. And we talked about what we were going to do when the shows move to the other theater.

Wally mentioned how there is the subway and I had completely forgotten about that until he mentioned it. There’s a stop right next to both theaters so it would be easy for us to do that. We also could take a rideshare from one place to the other. And there may be some sort of shuttle service that we could use too. Knowing all this made me feel so much better about our dinner options for the other shows because it wouldn’t be too hard to eat where we like to go and still make it to the other theater. We may have to do things a little earlier to make sure we have enough time, but that’s a minor change we would need to make. I would be much happier going to our favorite restaurants a little earlier than having to try new restaurants and maybe not enjoying them as much. Wally gave us a lot to think about and I’m so glad we discussed this so Dani and I can figure out exactly what we want to do.

We still have 1 more show at the Pantages before they switch. And then it will be a very different experience seeing a musical at the Dolby because we will be sitting in a different area than we are used to and it’s a much bigger theater. But I think that even in the new theater, the shows are going to make me just as happy as I am seeing them at the Pantages.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailFinally Seeing A Popular Show (or It’s “Rent” Time!) Default ThumbnailThe Last Show Of The Season (or Ending On A High Note) Default ThumbnailAn Amazing Dinner and Show (or The Food Might Have Been The Highlight Of The Night) Default ThumbnailAnother Dinner And A Show Night (or Classic Musicals And Yummy Food) Default ThumbnailFunko and Frozen (or The Last Pantages Show For A While) Default ThumbnailAnother Round Of A Repeat Musical (or Seeing A Show A Different Way)

Comments Off on Taking Time For A Show (or Seeing Summer)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

Belated Birthday Dinner (or We Don’t Mind It’s Not Totally Free Anymore)

Posted on August 28, 2019 | Comments Off on Belated Birthday Dinner (or We Don’t Mind It’s Not Totally Free Anymore)

I haven’t done much for my birthday this year. I don’t mind that I haven’t been celebrating like I thought I would because I’ve had other things taking up my time. I am hoping to maybe do some birthday things next month, but I don’t know if I’ll be motivated to do them by the time things calm down. If I don’t really celebrate my birthday, it’s not the worst thing. While I love celebrating my birthday and it’s one of my favorite things, having an off-year is to be expected. And this August has been extremely busy for me and I just couldn’t put my focus on my birthday.

I usually take advantage of several birthday freebies as well. Many of them have to be done on your actual birthday and I have to skip most of those. But the things that are for your birthday week or month are things I usually do. But just like with celebrating, I haven’t really taken advantage of that this year. I haven’t even gone to Sephora for the birthday freebie (which most women would agree is the one birthday thing everyone seems to do). But there is one birthday freebie that I prioritize over all others and that’s going to my birthday dinner at Truxton’s with my birthday twin Joanna!

The birthday dinner deal has changed over the years. It started as a free entree and free dessert for each of us. Then it was $20 free for each of us and they would combine them on one check. Now it’s still $20 free for each of us, but they have to split the checks. Because of that, we no longer can have a completely free birthday meal. But we know that and expect that so it’s ok. We still are having an almost free meal and the best part of the tradition is our hangout anyway.

Because of all the work I have been doing for the election and some family that Joanna had in town, it was tough for us to find a time that worked for both of us. But we were able to find time this past weekend so we didn’t miss getting our dinner in before the deal ended since the requirement is that it just has to be during your birthday month.

We had a pretty routine meal for us. We had the monkey bread like we always do, we both had a burger, and we split the cookie ice cream dessert. It was delicious as always and the perfect birthday meal. And just like always we had lots of fun and random stories to tell each other. We did talk a lot about the election since things have been a bit crazy with that and she has been seeing the stories in the news. And we both had some random dating stories to share. Although I think she might have had a crazier story than mine with a guy that basically through a temper tantrum after he had a medical issue and she was worried about him. I don’t think either of us will ever understand why some guys act out that crazy when they don’t need to act out or react at all.

We also both talked about how neither of us did much for our birthdays this year. We might be able to do something together later as a late birthday celebration, which would be nice since we rarely do a big birthday thing together. But even if we don’t manage to get that organized, I’m so glad we did get our birthday dinner in. It’s one of my favorite birthday traditions and I love how much we both look forward to it. And it’s been one of the main ways I’ve been able to celebrate my birthday this year.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailContinuing The Birthday Celebrations (or A Birthday Twin Adventure) Default ThumbnailAn Almost Free Meal (or Amazing Food And Crazy Dating Stories) Default ThumbnailAnother Birthday Outing (or Seeing My Birthday Twin) Default ThumbnailAlmost Free Birthday Dinner (or Spending My Birthday With My Birthday Twin) Default ThumbnailVery Belated New Years Cheesecake (or A Birthday Twin Dinner) Default ThumbnailBirthday Twin Tradition (or An Almost Free Meal)

Comments Off on Belated Birthday Dinner (or We Don’t Mind It’s Not Totally Free Anymore)

Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , ,

Last Musical Of The Season (or A Classic Pantages Night Out)

Posted on July 24, 2019 | 2 comments

This past Sunday was the last show for my current season at the Pantages. This has been a great season and I have really enjoyed it. Even the shows I didn’t love were still enjoyable and I was glad that I got to see a bunch of classic shows that I hadn’t seen before or had never seen on a big stage.

It’s been a slightly different season this past season because my group had a few date conflicts from time to time. We rarely all made it to a show, which was fine. But I do wish that we had been able to go as a group more often. And for this last show, it was just me and my friend Dani as the other 2 people in the group couldn’t make it.

But Dani and I had a lot of fun. We started our evening at one of our favorite pre-show dinner places.

I think this was the first time that it was just 2 of us for dinner at Wood & Vine. One of the things I love about Wood & Vine (besides the amazing food) is that everything is designed to be shared with the table. That allows us to order so many different things so we can try a lot and not be overwhelmed by too much food. But with just me and Dani, we had to limit what we ordered so we weren’t stuffed.

For our dinner, we got some of our favorite things like the charred romaine salad, the pork shanks, and the shells and cheese. They were all as good as we remembered them and I think we ordered the perfect amount with a mix of some healthier options and some splurges. And since we made our dinner reservation on the earlier side, we had plenty of time to enjoy the food and patio before we had to head across the street for the show.

But before we left, the manager at Wood & Vine sent us 2 of the new desserts on their menu to try.

We got to try the dark chocolate cake and the banana caramel cream. The dark chocolate cake was so luxurious! It was like the most perfect mousse and the caramel on the side was so good! But I think my new favorite dessert is the banana caramel cream. It was one of the lighter desserts we’ve had there and the perfect summer dessert. It wasn’t overly sweet and every bite was a little different. I hope the banana caramel cream stays on the menu because I know I want to get it again!

Once we paid for dinner, we headed across the street to the theater for our show. And just like so many shows this season, this was another one I had seen before.

I had only seen “Miss Saigon” one time before and it was almost 19 years ago. I saw it on my 17th birthday when I was in New York on my drama club trip in high school. I remembered the show a bit and had some random memories of things like how we learned how some of the actors had to wear their mike packs under their wigs instead of on their backs. It’s so odd what I remembered about the show, but I was excited to get to see it again to remember more of it.

Once the show started I remembered how much there is in the plot. It’s very busy to get in the story and it can be confusing. I, fortunately, remembered enough about it to be able to follow along well. I also took a glance at the main plot points online before going to the show, so that probably helped too. But it still was a bit overwhelming to watch it again.

Also, this show had some of the most obstructed views for us. Because we do cheap seats, we are off to the side. And because of how the set was done, we didn’t get to see a few moments that were far off to the side. We didn’t miss much, but it does make me a little sad whenever we have a blocked view like we did that night.

But even with how busy the show is and the obstructed view from time to time, it was still an amazing show. It was just as good as I remembered it and I loved the performances. Everyone was very talented and I especially loved The Engineer. He was so funny and Dani and I joked how there should be just a show of him and his fun songs. His character brought some needed levity to the show because it is a very heavy show. Even though I knew that going in, it still hit me really hard.

And I think it hit me hard because of some of the things that Dani and I discussed after the show. Whenever you see a show, you see it from a specific viewpoint and mindset. And when I saw this show before, it was a different time. And now, with there being so much hate regarding immigrants and the “other”, this show connected on a different level. It was similar to how I connected to other shows this season that weren’t as heavy for me in the past. It’s interesting to have very different memories of seeing this show, but they both are good memories and make me think of very different things which isn’t bad.

Our first show for next season is in October, so it is a bit longer until the show than I originally thought. For some reason, I thought our new show started at the end of August. But that’s ok because we have had a lot of shows recently and it will be a little break. I do have another musical thing this weekend, but it’s a little different (and I’ll write about that next week). Looking back at the entire season, it’s very close to what I thought it would be before the season started. Lots of fun shows, some great classics, and a chance to see a show again that I hadn’t seen in a very long time. Next season will be very different, but I’m excited about that!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailKicking Off A Musical Season (or Seeing A Cartoon Brought To Life) Default ThumbnailA Virtual Musical Night (or Trying To Replicate My Routine) Default ThumbnailA Weird Night In Hollywood (or Another Musical In Our Season) Default ThumbnailAnother Dinner And A Show Night (or Classic Musicals And Yummy Food) Default ThumbnailAnother Musical Season (or Enjoying A Repeat Musical) Default ThumbnailAn Epic End To The Pantages Season (or We Aren’t Going To Throw Away Our Shot)

2 Comments

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged , ,

A Random Brunch With A Friend (or So Many Pancakes)

Posted on June 5, 2019 | Comments Off on A Random Brunch With A Friend (or So Many Pancakes)

I’m aware that I am pretty set in my ways with so many aspects of my life. I have my favorite foods, my favorite stores, and my routines for getting things done. It’s not a bad thing to have routines and patterns, but it can sometimes be hard to break out of that when you are so used to it. Breaking away from the norm is one of the things that I get from doing my monthly challenges. Sometimes it is hard to change. But other times all it takes is a friend reaching out and me deciding to go along.

I was doing some errands this past Sunday when I saw some texts from a group text I’m in with some of my Orangetheory friends. One person in the group was craving pancakes from a particular restaurant and wanted to see if any of us wanted to go. It was a restaurant that I hadn’t been to before and I’m not usually a big fan of pancakes. But I was getting frustrated with my errands so I said I’d go just to give me a reason to stop going crazy with what I was trying to do. She gave me the information for the restaurant and I was there pretty quickly. And I lucked out with finding parking in their parking lot so I took that all as a good sign.

We went to A-Frame in Culver City which is a Hawaiian restaurant. But one of the things they are known for is their all-you-can-eat pancakes on the weekends. They have a few different varieties of pancakes that you can choose from. You get one variety at a time and they come in stacks of 2 pancakes. So they aren’t crazy huge, but they are still filling. Since this was my first time there, I wanted to try a few different types but I also didn’t want to be overstuffed.

I started with the standard buttermilk pancakes and got the fried chicken with it (you can get fried chicken with any of the types if you’d like). Next I had the banana macadamia nut ones without chicken. And I got the sweet red bean ones with chicken as my last plate. And they were all really delicious! They were light and fluffy and very flavorful. I think my favorite was the banana macadamia nut ones because they tasted like banana bread. And even though I don’t really like fried chicken, I enjoyed the chicken too! They weren’t greasy which made me happy. And they chicken was so good with the maple syrup too!

I wasn’t able to finish all 3 of my plates (I was super impressed that my friend was able to!) but I definitely got my money’s worth. Good food and good value are important to me when going out to eat, but the most important thing I think is having good company. And it was so much fun to have brunch with my friend when we rarely get to hang out outside of our workouts. She is also an actor so we were talking a lot of industry related stuff, but we also talked about lots of random things. It was the perfect thing on Sunday when I was really feeling down about my errands not going the way I hoped they would go.

We both had things we needed to get to that afternoon and we also were both very full after all the pancakes, so we didn’t hang around too late. And I felt a food coma coming on after eating something that I usually don’t eat. It was still worth it even though I was dragging on a bit for the rest of the day. This isn’t a brunch treat I will do that often, so I’m glad I took the time to enjoy it.

And I was so glad that my friend invited me out to somewhere new. I don’t know if I would have gone there if a friend didn’t specifically invite me out there. I’ve been trying to make brunch plans with a few friend (brunch seems to be a time of day many people can meet up) and I seem to always suggest the same place because it is where I like to get brunch and I don’t know a lot of other places. But this random brunch at A-Frame really made me realize that I do need to make an effort to either look into new places or have more friends suggest where to go. Because I never know when I will go somewhere I have never heard of and discover that it’s amazing and that I want to go back!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailAnother Business Brunch (or A Delayed Mentoring Circle Meeting) Default ThumbnailA Belated Brunch (or Just Enjoying Supporting Each Other) Default Thumbnail4 Years Of My Mentoring Circle (or Celebrating With Brunch) Default ThumbnailAnother Delayed Brunch (or I Wish I Had More Accomplishments) Default ThumbnailBrunch and Shopping (or Helping A Friend Make Some Upgrades) Default ThumbnailAnother Brunch Check In (or Wishing I Had Done More)

Comments Off on A Random Brunch With A Friend (or So Many Pancakes)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged , ,

Avoiding Something I Should Be Doing (or Scared Of What I’ll Find Out)

Posted on April 10, 2019 | 1 comment

Usually, if I know something is going to help me or be good for me, I don’t hesitate to do it. There are a few exceptions, but I don’t normally waiver on the idea that something is going to better me. For example, even though I knew going off hormonal birth control would likely be an issue for me, staying on it was going to make my liver tumors continue to grow. I stopped the pill without a second thought. When I knew that I needed to add different supplements to my life to help with recurring medical conditions, I went to the store and bought them after leaving my doctor appointment. Even getting the non-wart/actual tumor off my face was something I didn’t go back and forth on once I found a doctor willing to do it.

But lately, I’ve been avoiding doing something that I know I probably should do. I have a few different autoimmune conditions and for one of them I deal with it flaring up. When I have flares, it causes very painful bumps on my skin and it can affect so many aspects of my life. There’s no cure for it and most treatments have a lot of negative side effects. And my condition is not nearly as bad as it is for many people so a lot of treatment options aren’t even options for me yet since they are for people with much more severe cases.

But something that I could do would be to find what my triggers are for my flares. Most people find that there are certain foods or categories of foods that trigger flares and you can stay almost flare-free if you avoid those foods. And the easiest way to figure out what foods cause flares is to do something called the AIP diet (which stands for autoimmune protocol diet). It’s like an elimination diet where you don’t eat foods that are common triggers for a period of time and then you slowly add the foods back in one by one. That way, when eat something that causes a flare you will know what it is so you can make sure you don’t eat it. This isn’t a diet that is meant to be long-term. You only follow the protocol until you know what your triggers are and then you go back to normal and just avoid the foods you need to.

I’ve known about this diet for a long time, but it was only recently when I decided to do it because I noticed I was having flares more often than normal. I originally planned on doing it after I had my trip last month, but then I got sick. There was no way I could follow the rules while sick and I knew my food habits would be weird then so I had to wait until I was better. And once I was better, I was dealing with pain and nausea so I decided to wait.

But this is just sounding like one excuse after another. And I had to think about why I have been acting like this. It took a few days of me doing some real soul-searching and thinking, but I think I finally realized what it came down to.

I’m terrified of what I will or won’t find out by doing this diet.

First, I’m scared I will find out I can’t eat foods that I love anymore without having flares. I would hate it if I couldn’t have dairy, eggs, or certain fruits and vegetables anymore. But I know that this is very likely because something is most likely one of the triggers for my flares. I don’t want to have to worry about every single thing I eat and if it has something in it that I won’t be able to eat. I’m scared that it will make eating at a restaurant difficult or that I will find it hard to adjust if something I love has to be out of my diet.

But I’m also scared that I won’t find out that any foods are causing flares. If I can’t find something that triggers them, that means I can’t do anything to help myself for now. I either have to see if I can do a treatment option that may be too harsh for me right now or I might have to wait to see if things advance to a more severe stage.

I don’t know which of those two terrify me more. They both sound horrible and I would be upset if they happened. But at the same time, doing nothing isn’t a good option either. I know I want to see if I can do something to help my autoimmune condition so that I don’t have to stress out about when a new flare will happen. I am lucky that the condition I have does tend to have food triggers because not all conditions have that. I have options I can try before I go to medications with lots of side effects and I owe it to myself to try those.

This is something that isn’t just something I should do for myself but what I need to do for myself. I do still need to do a bit more research on the plan so I can do it successfully, but I have a feeling I’ll be doing it soon so that I can try to find out some answers.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailBlogging Led To A Breakthrough (or I Need To Believe I’m Worthy) Default ThumbnailStill Figuring Out Meal Planning (or Will Food Ever Be Easy For Me?) Default ThumbnailFinding A Balance (or Eating Healthy And Fun At The Same Time) Default ThumbnailI Guess This Made My Life A Bit Interesting (or An Outing To Urgent Care) Default ThumbnailCheating With Pie (or Trying To Splurge The Right Way) Default ThumbnailWhat Will Happen In A Week (or Why I’m Excited And Scared To Go Home)

1 Comment

Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged , ,

Disney Views and Food (or Rides Were A Low-Priority)

Posted on April 9, 2019 | Comments Off on Disney Views and Food (or Rides Were A Low-Priority)

The Food and Wine Festival at Disneyland is happening right now. This has been an annual event that I’ve been able to check out for the past few years. While I don’t drink, I always love seeing the fun and unique food offerings and it makes a really fun day at Disneyland. And with the food pass you can get, it actually makes things not too expensive. So of course I had to check it out again this year.

I went with my friend Dani last week, and it was the perfect spring day. We’ve been having warmer weather, but it wasn’t too hot and we had a gorgeous blue sky with all the flowers in bloom!

The main reason we went to Disney was for the Food and Wine Festival, so we immediately went over to California Adventure to get a food pass and start looking at what each booth had to offer. The food pass allows you to get 8 items and we figured that we would be splitting pretty much everything. There were a few things we each wanted that the other didn’t, but it all balanced out.

There were a few repeat things from the past few years and several new things. We tried our best to vary things up and I think we got a good mix.

My favorite things were the asparagus Caesar (which was a repeat from the past, but they added chicken this year), the pepperoni egg rolls, the corn nuggets with bacon, and the garlic mac and cheese (which was another repeat).

Dani got the ghost pepper mac and cheese (I don’t eat spicy food) and she said it was good and tasted like a spicy version of the garlic mac and cheese we split.

Not everything was a winner for us. The two things we got that we didn’t love were the fried artichoke hearts and the parmesan salt and vinegar wings. The artichoke hearts were a repeat thing but they were just soggy and didn’t have a ton of flavor. The chicken wings were fine, but we couldn’t really taste parmesan or salt and vinegar. They were good wings, but we were expecting something different.

There was also a new thing this year with how you could order food. Instead of having to go to every booth to order what is there, you could order anything at any booth and just bring your receipt to the correct booth to pick up the food. We didn’t try this until we were using our last food pass tabs and we ordered a bunch of different things at one booth. It worked out fine for most things, but we did discover the downfall to doing this.

We ordered the beef tenderloin slider at a booth other than the one that serves it. When we went over to the booth to pick it up, we were told they were sold out and that they wouldn’t have any more for about 30 minutes. We had the option to wait or we could get anything else from any other booth. We didn’t really want to wait 30 minutes for something that we’ve had before, so we decided to go through the options and see what we wanted to get instead.

Since everything we got had been savory, we decided to get something sweet. They had a popsicle duo that had lime and strawberry at a booth. Dani took the lime one and I took the strawberry one. They were good, but nothing special. I probably wouldn’t have picked it normally, but we just wanted something easy and it was a good choice to end the time at the Food and Wine Festival with.

While we were on the California Adventure side, the only ride we did was Toy Story Mania. We didn’t want to do any of the fast rides since we were eating so much food, but we also didn’t want to spend time on rides we could do whenever when the food offerings aren’t always there.

We headed over to the Disneyland side thinking we’d do a few more rides, but when we got there the first thing we noticed was how nice it was with the flowers and trees in bloom. The castle is being worked on so it’s covered by a mural, but that didn’t take away from how pretty it was.

We did Pirates of the Caribbean and then we were going to go over to Fantasyland to do the Storybook Canal Boats. And as we were walking, we saw yet another gorgeous Disney view.

By the time we got to the boats, the sun was down and I was hoping the little houses would all be lit up. But they didn’t have as many lights as I seemed to remember. It wasn’t bad, just different from what I thought we’d be seeing.

We did a lot of walking around and wandering through different parts of Disneyland. It wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t as crowded as we thought it might be. We had a few other rides we wanted to do, but we weren’t having good luck and it seemed like the few things we thought about doing happened to be down when we were over there.

And even though we had a day full of food, of course there is always still room for Dole Whips. I had the orange/raspberry one which I think is my favorite combination.

After the Dole Whips, we started to head out of the park because the fireworks were starting. We didn’t want to be stuck in the crowds exiting the park when they finished, and we managed to be just at the gates as the crowd started heading that way. We still hung out in Downtown Disney doing some shopping, but we didn’t stay too late since we both had early mornings the next day.

Considering that the main point of this Disney day was to check out the Food and Wine Festival, I would say it was a success! It would have been nice to do a few more rides, but since we can do those any other day we are there I was ok with missing out on a few things we wanted to do. I’d love to go back to try a few more things at the different food booths, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it back before it ends. But if I can’t, then I know I’ll just be back to check it out next year!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailAnother Disney Birthday (or Eating All The Foods Again) Default ThumbnailAnother After Work Disney Adventure (or Holiday Time And Random Fun) Default Thumbnail2 Restaurants and 2 Rides (or A Very Low-Key Disney Afternoon) Default ThumbnailFestival Of Holidays (or All The Food, Some Of The Rides) Default ThumbnailEpic Disney Evening (or 8 Rides In 3 Hours) Default ThumbnailDisney Afternoon (or Beauty And The Beast And Rides)

Comments Off on Disney Views and Food (or Rides Were A Low-Priority)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,