Category Archives: Fun Stuff

It’s My Birthday! (or Starting Off My Last Year In My 30s)

Posted on August 9, 2022 | Comments Off on It’s My Birthday! (or Starting Off My Last Year In My 30s)

It’s my birthday today! I’ve been someone who celebrates throughout the month, but the past few years have been harder for celebrating. I haven’t been able to do a big party because of the pandemic or my lack of organizing something. I still don’t know if I’d want to do a big thing because of the risk of getting sick. I’ve tried to keep up my birthday traditions however I can, but it seems like there are fewer traditions I’m keeping these days so my birthday celebrations don’t take up as many days. But I do still love to celebrate my birthday even if I’m not doing much for the actual day.

For today, as far as I know, I won’t be doing too much. I have my usual work routine plus I am doing a workout this morning even though I normally don’t go on Tuesdays. I don’t have plans after work, but I know that could change if I decide to do something or if a friend reaches out to me to see if I want to get dinner or something. But even if I don’t do much other than work, that’s ok. I have my other traditions that will happen on other days and I’ll be able to feel like I’m celebrating then.

I don’t usually feel my age, and I think knowing that I’m turning 39 now makes me feel even more disconnected from my age. I know that what other generations were doing by 39 doesn’t really mean much for what I should have in my life. And I know that I don’t look how I would expect 39 to be. Of course, I think so many people of my generation says that as we age and look at what our parents or grandparents were doing at our age. And I’m lucky that there isn’t any pressure from friends or family to be at any specific lifetime milestones so I don’t feel like I’m missing out. There are things that I wonder about and if I’ll have things in my life, but it’s not really a feeling of sadness or missing something. It’s more of a curiosity.

And I do love that everyone my age is redefining what this age means. I remember when I was younger and people were talking about getting close to 40 or turning 40 and how they were old and over the hill. And yes, I know that I could be past the halfway point of my life, but I also don’t see it that way. I see getting older as something interesting now. I don’t fear my age and I don’t lie to people to seem younger. I’m proud to be 39 and there’s nothing wrong with not having kids, being single, or anything else that is happening in my life right now.

Just because I feel good mentally about being in the last year of my 30s doesn’t mean my body is the same. I do have more pain now than I did before. I notice certain foods affect me in different ways and if I’m not sleeping well it takes longer to recover. But that just means I need to be more aware of what I do each day and accept that sometimes I might not recover from something crazy the way I used to. That’s nothing to be too upset about, just to be aware of.

I think I had a much harder time as I was getting closer to 30 than I am now. I didn’t really write about things when I was turning 29 about worrying about being 30, but I do remember being a bit more nervous about leaving my 20s behind and what my 30s would bring. And while there were negative or sad moments in my 30s so far, there were also some really great things that I never could have imagined. My life isn’t what I thought it would be, but that’s not always a negative thing. I have to celebrate the unbelievable things that have come my way as well. Even a year ago for my 38th birthday, I had no clue that the place I had been living in would be sold and I would be moving.

So much can happen in a year, and I’m excited to see what comes in my last year of being in my 30s to kick off a huge milestone birthday next year!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

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Making Sure I Have Nice Birthday Hair (or Sometimes The Timing Works Out Nicely)

Posted on August 4, 2022 | Comments Off on Making Sure I Have Nice Birthday Hair (or Sometimes The Timing Works Out Nicely)

I try to stay on top of getting my hair done at regular intervals. I wasn’t always great about this, but I’ve been doing a lot better lately about scheduling my appointments to be about every 6 weeks apart. I think not being able to get my hair done when everything was shut down kicked my butt into gear about not slacking off. I also think between stress and my hair loss getting worse, I’m noticing my gray hair quicker than before. I don’t know if I have more gray hair or not, but as my hair gets thinner I feel like any gray hair stands out more.

Because I’m doing my hair pretty much every 6-8 weeks, the timing isn’t always with things that I would like my hair to look nice for. If it’s close, I might get my hair done earlier or later, but since I’m trying to stay on schedule, I don’t change it up too much. So when things do align, it’s always nice.

After the last time I got my hair done, I realized that the next time I was due would be right before my birthday, so that was perfect! And because of my hairstylist’s schedule, it worked out for me to go in a week before my birthday. It might have been nice to get my hair done the day before my birthday so my hair was extra nice on my actual birthday, but because I don’t think I will do much for my birthday it doesn’t matter too much. I just was happy that I would have my hair freshly dyed for any birthday things I might do.

I was planning on getting a hair topper to cover my thinning hair (and the gray hair), which would be like a partial wig that just clips into my hair. And I was hoping to get this done before my appointment. But because of the timing of life and me just slacking off on remembering to do it, I didn’t get it in time. I do want to order it and bring it with me to my appointment because it will likely need to be dyed and styled to match my hair. They aren’t cheap, and I’ve tried to cut back on spending so it’s something that I do need to double-check that I’ve got money to spend on it right now. But I think I should be able to get the money together before my next appointment. It’s more of a matter of remembering to do it and having my hairstylist confirm I’m ordering the right base color and length.

But no matter what, at least now my hair is refreshed and looking nice so it should look good during anything I end up doing for my birthday. And while I don’t mind getting older, I do really dislike the gray I have in my hair. I think if it was more concentrated like in a streak, I might not mind it as much. But because it is sporadic and sticks out so much in my hair, I just don’t like the look. I have seen more and more people who have grown out their gray hair and I think I would love to do that one day. But I would need to be basically completely gray before I take that plunge. And I don’t know if I would just let it all naturally grow out or if I would strip the color and dye it gray so you don’t see it as gray roots. But I think I have a while before I will consider doing that so I’m not going to worry about it for now.

For now, I’m just glad that I’m continuing at least one regular beauty routine. I still haven’t gone back to anything else that I used to do, but I have thought more about getting other stuff done that I miss. I just need to make a plan for those and consider the risk factor of going. I’m lucky that for my hair, a friend of mine does it and the salon usually has very few if any other people in there. But for anything else I might go back to, I just have to think more about it and decide what will be right.

One day in the future, I will have a better routine for beauty/self-care things. But at least right now I have my hair done and am ready to celebrate my birthday this month!

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Taking Advantage Of Having Extra Space (or My First Overnight Guest In My Condo)

Posted on August 3, 2022 | Comments Off on Taking Advantage Of Having Extra Space (or My First Overnight Guest In My Condo)

Ever since I lived in LA, I have always been happy to have guests stay with me. When I lived in the dorms, I had friends who slept in a sleeping bag in my room (with my roommate’s permission). I actually don’t think I had any overnight guests in the first apartment I lived in, but I only lived in that apartment for a year and I wasn’t very happy when I lived there. In my second apartment, I had friends who slept in the living room or in my room, depending if I was between roommates or not. And in my last place, I had friends who needed a place to stay and slept on an air mattress in my living room. Having guests in my last place was always a tight fit since it was such a small space. But I made it work by either moving my couch around or rearranging my living room so that there was enough room for an air mattress to fit.

I have never minded having guests stay with me, but at my last place, it was always a bit awkward. The air mattress took up almost all the space in my living room and the only bathroom was accessible only by going through my room. So if someone needed to use the bathroom during the night, they had to come into my room and the bathroom was only about a foot away from my bed. Fortunately, anyone who stayed with me was always just grateful to have a place to stay without having to pay for a hotel, so they never minded the awkwardness. But it wasn’t ideal for having people come to stay with me.

When my parents and I originally started looking at condos about 5 years ago, we were only looking at one bedroom condos since those were in the price range we wanted to stay in. I don’t think we ever looked at two bedrooms until when we started looking again more seriously about a year ago. And when we got serious about finding a condo, my parents and I set some requirements. And my parents said I needed to find a two bedroom condo. And while I was happy to find any place, I knew having a second bedroom would be nice to have since I work from home. Plus, then I could have guests stay with me and it wouldn’t be as weird as it has been for the last 20-something years I’ve lived in LA.

When my mom and I started to plan out what furniture I should look at, setting up the office/guest room has gone back and forth quite a bit. Originally, we looked at murphy beds since those would take up the least amount of space. Then we switched to looking at sofa sleepers. And I think we finally landed on a very cool (but not cheap) murphy bed that has bookshelves so the space will look like an office and have a lot of storage but will also have a full-sized bed for guests when they come to stay with me.

I won’t be getting this new piece for a few more months, but I had my first overnight guests at my condo this past weekend! A friend of mine was coming to LA for a wedding, and they needed a place to sleep the night before their vacation rental was available. I let them know that I didn’t have a real bed in the room yet, but I did have an air mattress, and they were fine with that. I did realize before they came to stay with me that I didn’t have sheets for the air mattress anymore, but I lucked out because I was at Costco after I realized that and they had sheets on clearance so I was able to get some.

When I was getting the air mattress set up, I discovered that the wall color in that room matched pretty well. I picked this color because I want to be able to self-tape auditions without needing to use a backdrop. So it turns out that self-tape blue and air mattress blue are almost the same.

It was awesome having my first guest in my new home. First, I hadn’t seen this friend since the start of the pandemic because they moved away right after things shut down. So getting to have some time to hang out in person and catch up was so great. And I know she was grateful to have a place to stay, even if it was on an air mattress. She had seen photos of the renovation as it was happening since I was texting it to people, but she got to see everything in person. I am really proud of how everything looks, so I do like to show off my new space. And of course, it was so nice having someone stay with me who had their own bathroom to use and didn’t have to always go through my room.

Even though I have always enjoyed having friends or family stay with me, it will be so much better now that I have a guest room for them to use. It will be nicer when I have a real bed in here, but at least it’s still a separate space for an air mattress and doesn’t feel like someone is just staying out in the open in the middle of my home.

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Trying To Refocus On Goals (or Doing Another Reset This Month)

Posted on August 2, 2022 | Comments Off on Trying To Refocus On Goals (or Doing Another Reset This Month)

It’s August, which means it’s almost my birthday! I am excited about my birthday coming up and even though I don’t know if I’ll be doing much to celebrate, I still have fun with my birthday each month. And since it’s the beginning of a new month, that also means it’s time to switch my monthly challenge.

In July, I wanted to refocus on my goals for 2022. I realized that I had been losing focus on those goals and wanted to see if I could get back on track to successfully end this year. And there were 3 main goals that I think I needed to refocus on. First, I wanted to be more mindful of my time. This one I did do a bit better with because of some changes in my job. Because I don’t have to switch back and forth as much, I was more mindful of my work time and made sure that I was focused on specific things each day. My time outside of work wasn’t as mindful, but I tried. I did make efforts to see about going out and doing things, but that just didn’t happen much in July. That’s not necessarily my fault, but I know there were more people I could reach out to and see if they wanted to go do things. So there is some work to do with that. And as far as restarting my budget, I did make a fresh start in the budgeting app I’ve been using, but I’m really torn about using it. I don’t find it as intuitive as it used to be for me. Things have changed about it and I don’t know if it makes as much sense as it used to. So I’m looking into new apps and systems to use that might be better for me. But I am getting back on track with being aware of my spending and financial situation, which is the biggest goal for me with budgeting.

And for August, I decided to do another challenge that feels like a bit of a refocus for me. My eating habits have been off for too long. I think ever since I started my move in April, things haven’t been great. They haven’t been horrible, but I know I’m not doing everything I should be doing. I especially am not eating as many fruits and vegetables as I should. I have been buying things and then not eating them. I have a burst of feeling motivated and then when things are in my fridge they aren’t what I want to eat. And I know that I’m getting in some fruits and vegetables each day, but it’s not what it should be.

So I want to set my challenge this month to be about putting the focus on fruits and vegetables in my diet. I want to make sure that I eat what I buy and stop having food waste the way that I’ve had before. I know that I will need to prep the things I get as soon as I get them so they are easy to eat and don’t involve extra work. And if I need to eat something slightly less healthy to go along with fruits and vegetables, that’s ok. I know that eating veggies with a dip that I like is better than not eating veggies at all. And maybe I just need to meal plan a bit with just breakfast or snacks and make those fruit and vegetable heavy and get them in that way. I’m going to see what works for me and go with that since that’s the most important thing for me.

I don’t think adding fruits and vegetables will make me lose weight or change my health immediately, but it’s something that I know I need to do for my long-term health. And I want to get back to eating healthier things and having more food prepared in my home so I don’t make the choice to order food (which is more of a budget concern for me than a health one). And if I do have other results because of eating this way, that will just be an added bonus.

I know I won’t be perfect this month and there will still be days where I don’t do my best, but I’m going to at least try this month and see what happens. That’s all I can do and I’ll report back in a month about how it goes!

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Busy Building New Things (or At Least Some Of This Was Easy)

Posted on July 26, 2022 | Comments Off on Busy Building New Things (or At Least Some Of This Was Easy)

I’m pretty familiar with building different things for my home. I have done this as long as I have lived alone and had to build different storage things for my college dorm. I’ve gotten so many things over the years from places like Ikea, Target, and Amazon that require to be put together and I feel like I have gotten pretty good at doing that. Sometimes, it does require a second person, but usually I can figure out a way to do it on my own. Sometimes that means I’m holding things up in weird ways, but I’m always really proud of myself when I complete a project and I have something new in my place.

I have had to build some random things for my new place, but I haven’t had to do a lot since so much was done in the remodel. I used to have to build things for storage or organization because my old place lacked it, but the new place has been much easier to set up. But that doesn’t mean it was perfect. And we didn’t want to ask the contractor to build things that I knew I could get at a box store and could likely put together myself. And that’s what I’ve been doing most weekends.

I’ve been searching online for the perfect things that I wanted to get, and I waited until the floors were done before I ordered things. And now, they have been coming in.

The first thing that I built was actually 2 different pieces. I wanted to turn the closet in my office/guest room into a bit of a pantry or storage area. At my old house, I had the utility room that I used for this idea. I would mainly store things like extra cleaning supplies, toiletries, and my tools. And I didn’t have a great place already set up in the new place to do that, so I wanted to build some shelving. There were a few ideas of what to build, but I settled on some nicer-looking storage shelves. I didn’t like the idea of just wire shelves, and I found a strong shelving system that looks a lot more finished and complete than a lot of what I found online. I ordered 2 units because I wanted to fill half of the closet.

They arrived about a week apart, so I build one before the other. And despite some of the reviews online saying they were hard to put together, they were pretty simple. I finished the first one in about 20 minutes and the second one only took a bit longer because I wanted to make sure I got the shelves to match. But I think they look exactly what I was looking for now that they are in place.

I still need to organize the shelves a bit better, but this got a lot of stuff out of boxes that I’ve had on the floor and that makes me very happy. And when my parents are visiting me this fall, my dad will help me make these a bit safer by attaching them to the wall so they won’t fall over if there is an earthquake.

And this past weekend, I worked on a new bookcase for my living room. I will be using this as a way to display different things I have and not really for books, but I wanted something to help to fill out my living room space. Originally, I was going to get a new entertainment center, but the ones I was liking were very expensive and would be something I would need to take time to save for. So I got this bookcase knowing that it might be moved to a different spot eventually, but it would be a good thing to have for now.

This build ended up taking much longer. It didn’t come with instructions, so I had to find them online to figure it out. And I don’t know how I did this, but I actually built it incorrectly. It’s fine the way that it is, but each side was flipped. So where the shorter section is now is where the longer one should be. I think it’s fine that it’s this way, but I think it’s pretty funny that I managed to do that. And once it was completed, I got it next to my tv so I could see how it looks. I still need to move the tv a bit further over (and get a new tv), but I think my living room looks a lot better!

I want to say that I don’t think I have any more things I need to build for a while. I will eventually have the bookcase bed for my office/guest room that my dad and I might try to put together, but that might also be something that needs to be done by a professional. I’m not going to worry about that for now since I won’t be ordering it for at least a few months. But even though I think now that I have no other projects to build, I know that something will probably come up and I’ll be doing another project soon enough.

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A Few Days Of Working In Person With Others (or Helping To Train A Friend)

Posted on July 21, 2022 | Comments Off on A Few Days Of Working In Person With Others (or Helping To Train A Friend)

Recently, a friend of mine started to work for the same company as me. When she started, her job wasn’t directly connected to my work. But as she has been going through training and a few things have changed, she has started to work in the customer care department. Even though my new position with the company isn’t exactly in customer care, I still do a few hours each day covering that work until we have a few more team members. And since I have helped to train other employees, it made sense that I was asked to be a part of the team helping to train her.

The first part of the training was over Zoom because it was just going over a lot of the different spreadsheets and systems that the customer care team works with each day. I was a part of those Zoom sessions, but a lot of the time I was doing other work so I wasn’t fully able to participate in them. I tried to help however I could, but I know my focus was split and I wasn’t as involved as I would have liked to have been. But with the next stage of training, I knew there would be more opportunities to be a part of things.

After new team members are trained on the systems we work with and shadows while we work to see what it looks like to put everything together, the next phase of training is doing the work while you are supervised. So the new team member would be responding directly to our clients, but they would show their responses before they sent them so we could double-check everything. And I realized that even though this process has always happened over Zoom before since my friend only lives a few minutes from my house we could work together in person instead. So I made that offer to her, and she agreed it would be better to work side by side instead of over a screen. So for the past 2 days, I’ve been helping to train my friend while she has been over at my place.

I rarely get to work in person with another person. I’ve worked from home for so long and there’s no reason to work with any of my co-workers. Most of the days that I haven’t worked alone in the last several years have been when someone else happened to be in the same place as me, not because we were co-workers working in the same space. The last time I had a co-worker working next to me was when another friend of mine was observing my work so we could improve some of our systems. I do like working from home and I can’t imagine ever going into an office again for a day job (obviously, I can imagine going somewhere else for work if it was an acting job), but it can feel a bit lonely at times. I haven’t really felt that way too much, but during the worst of the pandemic, I was feeling very isolated and craved in-person connections. Now, I just celebrate these random times I work with someone else and they are something fun, rather than something that I have needed desperately in my life.

And getting to help to train my friend in person was really fun. She really had a good grasp on the work and the things I was pointing out or correcting were really tiny things that didn’t have to be changed. I know that this job has a lot of information to know about, but most of the work is only using a part of what we train on. But I totally get wanting to understand everything since I am the same way and I was happy to explain anything I could to help my friend feel more confident in her work. But I have no hesitation in my mind that when she’s working on her own, she’s going to do a great job.

I might work with my friend in person again in the next week or two when she’s starting to work alone. It can be easier to answer questions or help assist when you are in the same place and not doing it over text or Zoom. But even if we don’t work in the same space again, I’m glad we got to do this over the past few days because it really was something fun and different with my job.

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Repeat Birthday Presents (or This Really Makes A Big Difference In My New Home)

Posted on July 19, 2022 | Comments Off on Repeat Birthday Presents (or This Really Makes A Big Difference In My New Home)

Now that the renovation on my new place is finally done, the work I have left is the fun stuff like decorating and getting new furniture. I put off getting quite a few things since I didn’t want to have stuff in boxes all over my place while work was still happening. But I have been doing a lot of browsing online and saving links for things that I wanted to get. There are a few things that I will have to wait to get because I need to save up for them, but it’s been fun to plan things out.

One of the few things that I ordered ahead of time was a new couch. This was something that I wasn’t originally planning on getting. I thought I might add an armchair or something else to my living room, but when my parents saw how my old couch didn’t fit well into my new living room, they said we should at least go and look at new ones while they were visiting me. And we found something we could customize a bit so it would be perfect for my new living room.

My old couch was a birthday present from my parents back in 2014. It was really the perfect couch for me when I was living at my old place. Since it was such a small space, I had to be very careful with how things were set up and the size of anything I put in my home. I was very lucky to find such a perfect couch that fit everything that I needed and I loved how my living room looked in my old place.

But my new living room is several times larger than my old one, so when I had the movers move my couch, it really didn’t fit well. Even with the original plan to add an armchair, it just didn’t seem right. I couldn’t figure out why until someone pointed out that the color seemed off now. In my old place, the walls were a yellow-based white and my couch looked gray. In my new place, the walls are a blue-based white and the couch almost looked brown. It just didn’t fit and I figured I would just keep my old couch until I found something I liked. I didn’t think I’d find one while shopping with my parents, but that’s how it all turned out. I put the purchase on a store credit card because they had an offer for a gas card with the purchase, plus there would be no interest for a year so I would have more time to pay it off without having extra charges. But after I got that all set up, my parents said that they would like to help me pay for the couch for my birthday present this year. I think that is so generous of them and I love that I will still have a couch that is a birthday present!

Since I was going to have to delay the delivery of my new couch, I had some time to find a buyer for my old one. I posted about it online and a friend of a friend needed a new couch and was willing to pay close to what I was asking. I wasn’t trying to make a lot of money off of it, but I did want to get something for it. So taking a little less than asking was fine with me. The old couch was supposed to be picked up a few weeks ago. Originally, it wasn’t going to be here when my floors were redone. But the person buying it off of me was delayed, so it was here until this past weekend. I think that worked out perfectly because I was able to arrange for the delivery of the new one to also be this past weekend. And that way, I was only without a couch for 1 day instead of several weeks.

It was sad to see my old couch go since I did love it for so long. But I know that it wasn’t going to be the right thing to have in my living room to have the look I wanted. And I only had to be sad for a day before the new one was delivered. When we ordered the couch, they had a deal going on for the delivery to be white glove service, so they would set up everything and take away all packing material. So I didn’t have to worry about all the plastic and boxes that the different pieces came in. And the delivery people were very nice and willing to let me try out 2 different combinations since this sectional and be adjusted however I’d like. But I went with the original layout that we were thinking and I think that it looks perfect.

I think everyone who has seen this photo agrees that the new couch fits in so much better than the old one.

It was only delivered on Sunday and I haven’t had much time to sit on it, but it is very comfortable. And I can move the ottoman around so I can extend the couch wherever I’m sitting. It’s much better than the little square ottoman I’ve been using that is just big enough for my feet. And if I decide to make the couch a different shape, it’s pretty easy to move the different pieces around. I haven’t really lived somewhere I could do that before since at my old place, everything pretty much only had one way that it would fit into the room. Now, I have so much more space to play with and I’ve been loving it!

Just like I’ve said so many times in recent months, this is helping to make my place feel more like my home. There is still stuff to get and different decor that I want to get up, but at least now I have a couch that really fits the space and makes my living room look so comfortable and inviting.

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Default ThumbnailA Busy Family Weekend (or Continuing To Set Up My Home) Default ThumbnailA Birthday Present For Me And My House (or Thank You Mom And Dad!) Default Thumbnail2 Busy LA Days (or Getting More Renovation Planning Done) Default ThumbnailA Busy Family Visit (or Making Some Choices For My New Home) Default ThumbnailMinor Remodeling (or Putting My Parents To Work On Their Vacation) Default ThumbnailI’ll Have A New Home Soon (or The End Of The Condo Hunt)

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A Full Decade Of Blogging (or I Do Love Milestone Anniversaries)

Posted on July 15, 2022 | Comments Off on A Full Decade Of Blogging (or I Do Love Milestone Anniversaries)

I know it’s a day early, but I’ve been blogging for 10 years! It’s crazy to think that it’s been a decade since I put my first post out on here. Since I typically write the day before the post goes up, that means that 10 years ago today I was writing that very first post.

I know I’ve said this so often, especially on blog anniversaries, but I still can’t believe I’ve been able to keep this up for so long. I know I wanted to keep this up as long as I could, but I never knew what amount of time that would be. Obviously, I’m glad that I’ve been able to write for 10 years now, but I know if I was able to keep it up for a few months and then stopped, I would have been proud of myself for the work that I was able to do.

10 years of posts means that I have written about a lot of things and a lot has changed in my life. I have written about so much that I’ve learned about and how I have figured things out that work and don’t work for myself. When I started this blog, I was in a very different situation. I was not in a regular fitness routine. My day job situation wasn’t as stable as it is now. I lived in the same place for almost the entire time that I’ve been blogging, but I have written about condo hunting over the years, even before we really got serious about it. And now, I live in a much better place than I was in before.

I’ve written about a lot of fun things and adventures that I have gone on in 10 years. I love finding fun (and sometimes random) things to do around LA. One thing I love about living here is that there are always things you can go out and do. I don’t always go out and do them and I’m working on that, but whenever I want to find something to do and I feel motivated, I know I will find something to do. And it will usually make a fun post on here. I haven’t been able to travel as much as I would have liked, but I do love getting to write about a place I haven’t been to before or a place I haven’t been to in a long time.

And I’ve written about some tough stuff over the past decade. I don’t think anyone would expect that they could go 10 years without some sadness. I think I’ve been lucky because I haven’t had to deal with too much hardship over the last decade. There have been hard things I have gone through and that I have watched others go through. But for the most part, the people in my life have been able to stay safe and healthy.

Because the pandemic has been going on for about 2 1/2 years, I guess 25% of my blog has occurred during a pandemic. I wrote about some of my struggles with isolation and my fears around getting sick, but I have been lucky and I have been ok so far. And now, I have this record forever of going through a historic time and what I was doing and thinking. I don’t know if I would remember as much if I had to just rely on my memory and not my past posts.

And I have used this blog as a record when I can’t remember when something happened or a specific point about an event. So when I want to look up something, I can search my past posts. It is a bit weird sometimes to think about it, but it’s also really cool. And I have tried to be as open and honest about the good and the bad so I have an accurate record of my life as I have been writing.

10 years of blogging and just over 2600 posts is a lot. But it’s also amazing. And I am so grateful that there are people who read this blog. I love knowing that others enjoy these posts and I’m not just writing into a void. I have gotten support from people who have read my posts and that is always incredible. And again, having a record of what I have gone through in the past 10 years can also provide help and advice if someone looks up an old post.

I’ve said this over and over again, but I have no intention of stopping my blogging. I’m sure at some point, I will stop or cut back on how many posts I do a week. But I don’t have a plan for that just yet. 10 years ago, there was no way for me to know that my life would be the way it is. And there is no way for me to predict where I’ll be 10 years from now. But I’m excited to see what happens and I will be sharing about it on here just like I always do!

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Default Thumbnail9 Years Of Blogging (or Just Keep Writing) Default ThumbnailMissed Milestone (or 1,009 Posts!) Default Thumbnail19 Years In LA (or The LA Anniversary Between Two Big Milestone Anniversaries) Default Thumbnail1500 Posts (or This Really Is Just A Part Of My Life) Default Thumbnail8 Years In (or Another Blog Anniversary) Default Thumbnail900 Posts (or My Next Milestone Is A Big One)

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Feeling Like The Summer Is Slipping Away (or Trying To Make A List Of Things To Do)

Posted on July 14, 2022 | Comments Off on Feeling Like The Summer Is Slipping Away (or Trying To Make A List Of Things To Do)

There are so many things that I love to do around LA. Not everything is specific to certain times of the year or seasons, but there are a few things that can only happen during the summer for example. And I usually have been good about making plans to be able to do at least of few of these. But the past few summers haven’t really been that way.

The summer of 2020 was really spent being at home and making sure I don’t get sick. Yes, I missed out on doing a lot of things that I love, but it was more important for me to stay safe and not get sick. Last summer, I did a few things that I usually try to do, but I was still being very cautious about where I went and who I was around. I also didn’t get out as much because so many of my friends had moved away from LA. It’s tough when you are used to doing certain things with specific friends, and I wasn’t doing a very good job about just asking around to see who was free and wanted to go do something.

This summer, I’ve just been busy. Moving and getting settled into my condo has taken up a lot of my time, although that is something that I’m glad I have been doing because I want to make my condo feel like home. I have also been busy with work. I am still getting used to working more hours than I did before the pandemic. And I am enjoying the work that I’m doing now, especially since I have created my own new position at the company, but it still is taking up more hours than I am used to having for work. For example, I no longer have Mondays off, which used to be the day that I went out and did a lot of fun things. Now, unless I take a day off of work, my only day without work is on Sunday. And I usually spend a lot of Sunday getting things ready for the week.

But I know that saying I’m working more can also be an excuse. I do have a lot of things in the evenings, but that’s not every evening. And I do work on Saturdays, but that’s only in the morning so I can plan for more things mid-day or later in the day. And I know that if I can more fun things to my schedule, it won’t feel as tiring as adding more work hours to my schedule. If anything, it might be a little refreshing to have more time with friends and to get out of the rut that I tend to be in during the week.

So I have been making an effort to make a plan for the second half of the summer. I know that I won’t be able to do everything that I would like to do, but if I could do a few things I know that it will be a benefit to my life. I’ve been looking back at things that I have enjoyed doing and seeing what is possible with my schedule and finances. For example, looking at the schedule at the Bowl or seeing movies at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. Those are a bit more time-specific, but if I find something that I want to see, then I can try to fit it into my schedule. And I’m also working on reaching out to more friends to see who would like to go do things with me. I’m rebuilding friendships that were more like acquaintances in the recent past and that’s been a really great thing for me.

I know that the summer will be over before we know it. Time always seems to move quicker every year and I know that if I don’t make an effort that summer will be done and some of the things I want to do won’t be options until next summer. If I don’t make it to anything that I would like to do, I want to make sure that I at least try. And maybe if I can’t get things done this year, it will help remind me to make plans for next summer so I don’t miss out on that time again.

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Default ThumbnailTime Is Flying By (or How Is Summer Already Halfway Over?) Default ThumbnailA Busy Summer (or Realizing I Have A Lot To Look Forward Too) Default ThumbnailWorking On Planning My Summer (or Really Hoping Things Continue To Get Better) Default ThumbnailAn At-Home Labor Day (or The Unofficial End To A Weird Summer) Default ThumbnailUnemployed Again (or Trying To Not Make It Feel Like Summer Break) Default ThumbnailDisneyland Bucket List (or One Last Visit Before The Summer Blackout)

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Now I Think This Is The End Of The Renovation (or I Keep Thinking I’m At The Finish Line)

Posted on July 13, 2022 | Comments Off on Now I Think This Is The End Of The Renovation (or I Keep Thinking I’m At The Finish Line)

There have been so many points where I said the renovation on my condo was done. When I moved in, there were still a few things to do but pretty much everything was completed. Then when we worked on the fix-it list and discovered the floors had to be redone, getting the new floors felt like the end of the renovation. There were still a few things to get done after the floors, but that was the last really big thing that needed to be completed for the remodel. But now, I think I might actually be done with the renovation.

A few things happened in the past week. The contractor came back with a crew to finish the last few things on the list. These were all pretty minor things such as some paint touch-ups, repairing one broken tile that was in the kitchen, straightening a handle on a cabinet, and cleaning up some of the stuff they had left on my patio. These were all very quick and fast fixes, but they needed to be done so the project felt complete. And all of this work was able to be done in a single day, so it felt like it was done really fast.

The one thing that wasn’t done the same day as the rest of the work was getting the leftover stone from my kitchen counters. I now have that on my patio after it was brought over and we are looking at seeing if we can turn it into a coffee table for outside. But at least it’s off to the side of my patio and out of the way. But it was the last of the leftover materials that we were waiting on (I have the leftover paint and tiles in my storage space in my garage already).

I also finally got my curtains installed last week. This was separate from the contractor because I used a chain curtain/blinds store. I had picked out the curtains about a month ago and I knew the installation would take a few weeks. Fortunately, this was only for the back slider door because the rest of my windows have shutters. So I wasn’t lacking privacy in my place, but I wanted to have this done since I didn’t like having such a big open window that others could see into at night. This installation took longer than expected, but I was just working while they were doing it, so it wasn’t a big deal. And having curtains added really made the space look finished.

I still need to organize and get my new couch (and get rid of my old couch), but having curtains made a big difference. I didn’t know it would feel that big, but I think having something that feels homier and makes my place feel cozy is helping a lot. And I like that the sheers I picked don’t completely obscure the view so I can still see into my patio. Eventually, I’ll have furniture out there too, so that will be nice.

And the last step to the renovation was getting my place cleaned again. I had done this before I moved in, but since fixing the floors got this dusty, we asked the contractor to bring a cleaner in so I didn’t have to pay for another one. I am debating about setting up a monthly cleaning service (it feels like a splurge, but I think it would be worth it), but it was nice to not have to pay this time when the reason we needed the cleaning wasn’t something I was in control of. And of course, it was nice to have a super clean place, which is why I’m considering a regular cleaning service now.

My parents still want to see all the fixes and work before we officially say that the renovation is done and they will be back in LA this fall. So being officially done might have to wait until then, but I still consider the work done. There are no projects left that are not being done by me or by someone I might hire directly (such as building a murphy bed). The keys the contractor had to get inside were turned into me so they do not have access to my condo anymore. I’m making plans to change my locks, which I had to delay while the work was being done. And I’m buying new furniture and storage systems so I can finally get more things out of boxes. It really feels like it is done now.

And I’m so excited to see things coming together. When my new couch arrives, that will be a big change. I’m looking at getting a new tv and some nice display cabinets for my living room to fill out the space. There will be some things and projects that I have to wait on due to finances, but I’m taking steps to get them done. And every day, I’m feeling more and more like I am home and less like my old place is home. It’s been a process to get to this point, but I’m so glad it seems like everything paid off. And even if the renovation process took much longer than expected, I’m so happy with all the choices we made. Now, I think I can finally sit back and enjoy the home I have helped to create.

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Default ThumbnailOne More Design Choice (or I’m Ready To Be Done With The Renovation) Default ThumbnailSeeing My New Home Come Together (or This Feels Like We Are Starting The Last Renovation Stage) Default ThumbnailOne More Step Closer To Being Done (or I Can Finally Add In More Furniture) Default ThumbnailInto The Next Stage Of The Renovation (or Seeing Things Come Back Into My Place) Default Thumbnail2 Busy LA Days (or Getting More Renovation Planning Done) Default ThumbnailNow Things Are Feeling Real (or So Far, We Are Ahead Of Schedule)

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