Category Archives: Fun Stuff

Excitement and Speaking Up (or My Last Monthly Challenge of 2021)

Posted on December 1, 2021 | Comments Off on Excitement and Speaking Up (or My Last Monthly Challenge of 2021)

It’s so crazy that it’s already December. This year feels like it didn’t happen, but I think part of that is similar to what happened last year with the pandemic. I didn’t get to fully live my life the way I’m used to, but in other ways I created new things within my life. But still, this year is almost done and that just seems bonkers!

And since it’s the beginning of the last month of the year, it’s also time for me to review last month’s challenge and plan out this month’s challenge. Last month, my monthly challenge was to be more excited in my life. I knew I needed this challenge because I was feeling like I focused more on negatives and preparing for the worst and it was really starting to affect my life. I know I did this partially as a coping or protection mechanism because of some things happening in my life, but I knew last month I needed to move on from that feeling.

And I think I did a pretty good job with this challenge. A lot of the things that were causing me to focus on the negative were out of my life. I also worked on trying to make plans or have more things in my life that make me happy. Things are still not perfect and I do still worry about things more than I probably should, but I think the balance is much more toward the positive and excitement than to the negative. And just like with so many of these types of challenges, the biggest progress has been in my ability to recognize when my thoughts are getting this way and being able to take action sooner than I did before.

And for my last challenge this year, I have decided to do something that I have struggled with for a while but I have taken steps toward progress recently. This month, I challenge myself to speak up more for myself. This isn’t about being bossy or not listening to others, but about being a better advocate for myself.

I struggle a lot with this because I feel like speaking up could make me seem difficult or unlikeable. But I need to get over that feeling because I shouldn’t have to tolerate something that I’m not ok with just to assume the other person is going to be upset with me if I say otherwise. And this is something I struggle with in both my personal life and my work life.

For my personal life, I see this being an issue most with dating. There is the idea of being the cool girl and not pushing for things or stating you might want something more than what a situation is at the moment. I don’t think I was ever fully like that, but I know I didn’t speak up a lot in the past when I could have done so. I shouldn’t have to fear asking for what I want. If me saying I want to find something serious scares someone off, then they never would have been right for me. There is a saying that you will never be too much for the right person. I have to remember that. It would be better to stay single than to tolerate multiple half relationships where I don’t say what I really am hoping to find. I’ve been getting better at this, but there’s still a lot of work to go and fear to get over.

And for work, I’ve gotten much better about this, especially recently. There are a lot of systems at my job that just don’t make sense or work for me. And for many of them, there doesn’t seem to be a reason why things are like that other than that’s how it was done before and how we were trained. But as the company grows, there’s no reason to avoid change. But unless someone speaks up and explains why a system isn’t working, there’s no way for those in charge to know and look into alternatives.

I feel like I do have an advantage with this since one of the executives at the company is a friend of mine. And when he was sitting in with me while I worked, I was able to be very blunt and honest about systems that just make work harder than it needs to be. I know that this really is a benefit with this job that I can keep in mind when discussing ideas like this with other jobs. But it’s still the same idea about not fearing I will be fired because I bring up a concern.

I hope that I find some good ways to speak up more for myself when I need to this month. I know that I am worth asking for what I want or expressing when things don’t seem right to me, but sometimes it’s hard to believe that in the moment.

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Posted in Dating, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

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A Thanksgiving Week Of Workouts (or Still Keeping Up A Tradition)

Posted on November 29, 2021 | Comments Off on A Thanksgiving Week Of Workouts (or Still Keeping Up A Tradition)

For this past week of workouts, I knew I would likely start dealing with some pain and nausea, but I tried to not let that stress me out before it happened. Instead, I tried to focus on the good things coming up during the workout week. I had a slightly different workout schedule, but having that allowed for something pretty cool.

Monday’s workout was a strength day, and it was a pretty normal strength-based workout. For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block was rounds of short distances where we added to our incline/resistance level each time. We were on our own for this block since everyone would have different timing with completing the distances. But we were supposed to remember our distance from that first block and use it as a goal for the second block. In the second block, we had rounds of a 90-second push pace at an incline with 30-seconds of a base pace between each one. Because the timing was different from when we were going on our own, we had to try to make sure we could beat our distance from the first block. With the bike, you don’t see as specific of a distance as you would on the treadmill (the bike goes one decimal point and the treadmill has three decimal points), but just as the block ended I beat my first block’s distance!

The rower had a lot of medicine ball work with a little bit of rowing. This was because the next day was a rowing benchmark (I wasn’t going to do that workout, but I knew it was happening) so we weren’t supposed to burn out too much. In the first block, we had ground to press, front press, and squat to press with the medicine ball first and then a 100-meter row. Each time we had the row, we increased the distance by 50 meters. And in the second block, we started with a 100-meter all-out row and then had more medicine ball exercises. We had bicep curls, overhead tricep extensions, and calf raises. And again, each time on the rower we increased the row by 50 meters.

And we also had 2 blocks on the floor. In the first block, we had single-arm chest presses, concentration curls, and shoulder presses to stand. I was really struggling with the shoulder presses and then standing, so I split that exercise into shoulder presses alone and then squats. And in the second block, we had single arm low rows, push-ups, and hip hinge reverse flys. I think I did a lot better on the second block than I did with the first.

Wednesday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it was themed around cluster exercises. The idea with cluster exercises is that you do one thing for 3 different rounds and you work until fatigue for the rounds so you don’t necessarily have a specific number of reps or time for cardio to complete.

For cardio, the plan was to have a 30-second all-out followed by a 30-second recovery. Then we did an all-out as long as we could followed by a 30-second recovery. And finally one more all-out as long as we could followed by a 1-minute recovery. And each round, the incline/resistance level for the all-outs increased by 1. The idea was that you should never be able to do an all-out longer than a minute or your all-out isn’t hard enough. For me, I usually managed to stick it out for about 45-seconds before I needed the recovery.

For the rower, we had rounds of an all-out row and a recovery row with a medicine ball exercise in the middle. We had 3 rounds of 10 strokes of an all-out followed by 5 strokes of a recovery row. Then we either had an overhead press or a front press with the medicine ball before going back to the 3 rounds on the rower. I know 10 strokes of an all-out row doesn’t sound that hard, but when you only have 5 strokes to recover is gets really tough!

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. In the first block, we had seated low rows and chest presses on the straps. For the seated low rows, we did 5 reps for the first round, had 10 seconds to recover, and then did 2 more rounds until failure with recovery between those rounds. And for the second block, we had weighted chest presses and high rows on the straps. For the weighted chest presses, it was the same as the low rows with the 3 rounds with recovery.

Even though I had my family Thanksgiving workout 2 weeks early when I worked out with my dad and brother, I still wanted to do a Thanksgiving workout. And since I had the day off of work for the holiday, I had a lot of flexibility with what time I would work out. So when I was looking at the schedule, I noticed that there was a Lift 45 class as the last class of the day (which was still in the morning). Lift 45 is a really unique class. Instead of working with cardio and the rower, it’s a 45-minute class that is only on the floor. My studio does Lift 45 classes each week, but the times they are scheduled are always times that I’m working. So I decided to take this opportunity to try something new that I’ve been wanting to check out!

We had 4 blocks for the entire workout, but we started with a group warm-up on the floor since nobody was warming up on cardio (which is what I’m used to). The first block had goblet squats and jump squats (which I did as squats with calf raises). The second block had hip hinge swings, step-ups (which I did as lunges), and sit-ups to squats using the benches. The third block had sumo squats, single-arm deadlifts, and mountain climbers. And the last block was all lunges, which had different types of lunges but I had to modify them to just be regular lunges for the entire thing.

Obviously, this workout was a lower-body class. The Lift 45 classes are split into upper or lower body workouts. And while lower body is usually harder for me, I didn’t know how hard this workout would be without cardio. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this may have actually been harder than a regular workout for me! Maybe I pushed myself more because I knew I wouldn’t have cardio. Or maybe I’ve been going too easy on the floor in most of my workouts. No matter the reason, this was the first workout that made me seriously sore after it and I loved that! I wish this class was offered times I could go, but maybe in the future, I’ll have more opportunities to take them. The only real downside for me in this workout was this was the first workout that my nausea really hit me, so I had to go easy when I wanted to push myself. But at least the nausea wasn’t that bad so I didn’t have to limit myself too much.

And even though this was my actual Thanksgiving workout, I still used my workout from 2 weeks ago in my photo collage of all my family Thanksgiving workouts that I shared online.

Being sore from Lift 45 made my Friday workout a bit harder. I also had a bit more nausea in that class, but it still wasn’t as bad as I know it can be. This workout was a power day, and I’m glad it wasn’t another strength day. But we had a lot of similar exercises to what I did on Thursday, so that was a bit tough.

We had 3 blocks for cardio. The first block was all about 30-second intervals. We had rounds of a push pace to a base pace and ended with an all-out. The second block was a 3-minute distance challenge. And the last block was all 45-second intervals with a push pace, all-out, recovery, and one last all-out.

On the rower, we also had 3 blocks. The first block had rounds of a 1-minute all-out row followed by lunges. The second block was rounds of a 30-second all-out row with squats and the goal was to try to beat the distance from the first row (which I didn’t quite get to). And the last block was timed out with cardio with the 45-second intervals. I really struggled on the rower overall because of how I was sore, so I rowed slower than normal to make sure my form wasn’t too bad.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had deadlifts, hip hinge swings, skater lunges, leg raises, and sit-ups. The deadlifts and hip hinge swings were especially tough since I had done them the day before, so I went a bit lighter with the weights than I normally do. And the second block was timed with the rest of the room with 45-second intervals and we alternated between hip bridges and v-ups (which I did as crunches).

While I have done weeks before where I do 3 workout days in a row, I wonder if having the Lift 45 class made things a bit harder for me. But I still am so glad I took that class since I don’t know when I’ll have another chance. And I might have a chance to try out doing 3 workouts in a row again because there is a chance that this week and next week I won’t be able to work out on Saturday. I have toyed with the idea of not doing Saturday workouts since I have to do them so late in the morning because of my work schedule. So this might be a good test to see if I want to switch to only doing weekday workouts. I guess I’ll have to wait and see how it goes!

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Another Low-Key Thanksgiving (or Doing Some Of My Traditions)

Posted on November 26, 2021 | Comments Off on Another Low-Key Thanksgiving (or Doing Some Of My Traditions)

Since my family celebrated our Thanksgiving early, I didn’t have things to do with my family on actual Thanksgiving Day. I wasn’t sure what I’d do for that day, but I knew I’d have the day off of work so I wanted to make some plans for myself. And even though this wasn’t my traditional Thanksgiving, I think I did a pretty good job for myself.

I allowed myself to sleep in. But since I’m so used to getting up so early every day, sleeping in for me now is closer to what time I used to get up before the pandemic when I had my old schedule. But it was still nice to have extra sleep and I also was able to be lazy in bed for a while instead of rushing to get things done.

Next I went to a workout at Orangetheory. I had my family workout 2 weeks ago, but I didn’t want to miss my Thanksgiving day workout. I’ll write more about this in my workout recap, but it was a nice thing to do that felt like a normal Thanksgiving to me. Last year, I did work out at home, but going to the studio is so different and I’m glad I had the chance to do that this year.

The next thing I did was to go over to my condo to do a bit of work. I am going to be selling some appliances, so I needed to get good photos I could use to list them. And I wanted to try to do a few other tasks around the condo that helps to prep things for the renovations that will be coming up. But since I was going to be at the condo for a while and I knew traffic wouldn’t be too crazy, I asked my friend Robert if he wanted to come check out my new place. I hadn’t had any friends come over to see my condo, so it was exciting to have someone see the place I’ve been talking about! And since his background is in design, he and I were working on some ideas for how to arrange my furniture. I’ve already been excited about my new place, but having a friend come over and be excited too took my excitement to a new level!

And the last part of my day was to cook and have a bit of some Thanksgiving food. I didn’t make as much as I did last year and I didn’t want to go too crazy. So I made green beans with shallots and bacon (one of my favorites). And instead of doing a big turkey breast like last year, I found turkey breast cutlets at the grocery store when I was seeing what options I could make. And while I was at the store, I looked for some recipes and found a simple one that only required a few extra ingredients. So I made that too and had a pretty basic Thanksgiving dinner, but it was still delicious!

And after dinner, I just relaxed and watched tv before going to bed. I didn’t do anything crazy or fancy, but it was still a nice day for me. And since having a full day off of work is rare for me, even just that felt like a luxury and I was happy to have a chance to relax.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving doing whatever you did! And if you cooked, I hope you had success like I did!

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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Happy Thanksgiving! (or My Tradition To Have A Short Post)

Posted on November 25, 2021 | Comments Off on Happy Thanksgiving! (or My Tradition To Have A Short Post)

As I usually do on Thanksgiving, this is going to be a pretty short post today.

I really hope that you all are getting to celebrate Thanksgiving the way you want and with the people you want to be around! As I am writing this post, my Thanksgiving Day plans are still a bit undecided, but I know whatever I end up doing I’ll be enjoying my time!

I know so many of us felt like we couldn’t celebrate last year, and I hope you all can celebrate safely this year.

Enjoy great food, awesome laughs, and an overall amazing day today!

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Having An In-Person Co-Worker For Once (or Work Plus A Friend Hangout)

Posted on November 24, 2021 | Comments Off on Having An In-Person Co-Worker For Once (or Work Plus A Friend Hangout)

I’ve worked from home for several years now. I honestly do prefer it because it allows me more free time when I don’t have to worry about a commute. And I know that some people think it’s lonely or that it’s hard to feel like you ever leave work, but I didn’t really have those issues (or at least didn’t until the pandemic). But because I work remote jobs, I really never work with others in the same space. For some of my jobs, I’ve never met my co-workers in person even though we’ve worked together for years!

With my customer service job, I do know some of my co-workers because I knew them socially before I started with this company. But I’ve never worked alongside anyone from that job until this week.

I do feel very lucky that one of the executives at my job (and in a way, one of my bosses) is a friend of mine. We’ve been friends for over a decade and we’ve worked together in union service for quite a while too. And we have joked on calls or in texts when we are talking as friends or as boss and employee, but we have a good way to keep things compartmentalized when needed. And I’m very open and honest with him about work stuff because I don’t have the same fear I’ve had with other bosses at other jobs. So when we were discussing work stuff over the summer, I told him he really needed to sit with me for a day at work because he didn’t understand why the issues I was running into were issues. It took a while to get this coordinated, but this week he was finally able to come over and sit with me for an entire shift.

It was interesting to have someone else sitting with me while I worked because I’m so used to being alone. And I did have to slow down some of my work so I could explain to him the systems and processes I use for different tasks. I also use different websites than what he has access to, so I went over those so we could brainstorm together on how we can make these things more efficient and streamlined.

It wasn’t that crazy or busy of a day, which made it hard to demonstrate what happens when things get very busy. But enough things were happening that he could see what it would be like if they were multiplied and why that may be an issue for us with managing it all. And he was able to see what processes could be automated so we didn’t have to be as hands-on when it didn’t require it.

A lot of the changes and ideas we went over are very big picture ideas, but at least someone higher up than me in the company has seen what I have been talking about and understands why we want things to be changed so we can focus more on what needs to have a priority over getting other things done. And there were some very simple fixes like setting a formula for automatically forwarding specific types of emails so we don’t have to manually do them every day.

Overall, I think it was a big win for work and what I will be able to do with the company moving forward. But equally as big of a win was getting to spend the day with my friend. Even though we have worked together for almost a year now and we text dozens of times a day, it had been almost 2 years since we had seen each other in person. Seeing each other in a Zoom or over text isn’t the same. And while we were focused on work and talking out ideas, we got to also have a little hangout time during the lunch break and before and after work. And just like I’ve said with a lot of other hangouts I’ve had, I don’t know if I knew how much I needed this until it happened. But I needed this social time and ability to connect with a friend in person, and I’m so grateful I got to do it.

I knew that having him sit with me while I work would be a very positive thing for my work, but I’m so glad I had a double win with it also being positive for my social life and mental health!

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Union Committee Work (or Continuing To Be More and More Involved In My Union)

Posted on November 23, 2021 | Comments Off on Union Committee Work (or Continuing To Be More and More Involved In My Union)

Each year that I’m a union member, I seem to find new ways to be involved or new ways to be involved in things that I’ve already been doing. Being a delegate has been part of that. Running for the local board is another part. But I’ve also been working on being more involved with different committees.

It’s not always easy to get onto committees in the union. There are only so many spots for committee members and a lot of people apply for each one. But the more I’ve been involved in the union, the more people know who I am. And having people know who I am has been helpful with getting onto committees because they are aware of my past union service and what I can bring to the group.

It’s been a process with getting more involved in committees. After the election in 2019, I was an alternate for one national committee and a member for a local committee. And I tried to be involved in the meetings and events, but because of the pandemic, the opportunities were more limited than they normally are and there weren’t as many meetings so I know I wasn’t as informed as I probably should have been about the committees I was a part of.

But when the applications came out this year for both national and local committees, I knew I wanted to apply again and hopefully get back on the committees I was a part of before and possibly be added to additional committees if possible. We haven’t heard back from the local committees yet, but I’m hoping I’ll be asked back to the one local one I was on before. And I was asked to be an alternate again for the national committee I was an alternate on last time.

But this year, I also found out some exciting news about one of the national committees. The Health Care Safety Net committee is all about providing information for different health care related opportunities and helps to organize things such as health fairs, clinics, and screenings. And not only was I asked to be a member of this committee, I was asked to be the Vice Chair!

As Vice Chair, I will help the Chair to run the committee and meetings and make sure that we are accomplishing all of our goals. I had my first training with the union recently and I learned a lot about how the national committees work and what we need to do behind the scenes to keep a committee running smoothly. It was really informative and I understand the process that the committees go through a lot more now. As the Vice Chair, I don’t pick who is on the committee, that was already done. So I know who is on the committee and our staff liaison will help us contact all the committee members when we have our first meeting (which will likely be around the beginning of the year).

I will have other trainings about running meetings and other union rules and policies, but I’m already really excited to be even more involved with the union than I have before. I never thought I’d be asked to be one of the leaders of a committee yet, I was just hoping to be a member. But I do know I’ve been working hard the past few years with my union involvement and I guess others are seeing that as well. And while I am a little nervous to be a leader because it is something new for me, it’s very exciting too!

I can’t wait to see what I’m able to do as the Vice Chair and what the entire committee can accomplish during the next year and a half. And as I’ve said every time I’ve gotten more involved in the union, I love that this is adding more ways for me to feel connected to my acting career when so many things about acting are out of my control.

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Another Full Workout Week (or More Family OTF Time)

Posted on November 22, 2021 | Comments Off on Another Full Workout Week (or More Family OTF Time)

This past week of workouts was another good one. I had my usual schedule, but there were a few things that changed. But I think the variation in my workouts was for the best.

Monday’s class was a 3 group class. I think most of my classes will be 3 group ones right now (that can change, but I think it will be like this for a while). And that means I get to do more rowing, which is both good and bad. I think rowing is the toughest thing for me, but that’s why I need to do it more. And this workout was a power day so it was a good day to kick off having more 3 group classes.

We had 4 blocks for cardio, 2 that were longer and 2 that were super short. The longer blocks had push pace to base pace intervals ending with an all-out and the short blocks were just an all-out. I was doing better than I had over the weekend, but I was still dealing with the end of the side effects from my booster shot so I didn’t go too crazy.

On the rower, our blocks matched cardio with 2 long and 2 short blocks. For the first long block, we had either a 1-minute or 30-second row with squats between each row. And for the second long block it was either a 300-meter or 150-meter row with squats between each row. And the short blocks were just an all-out row.

And on the floor, we also had 4 blocks. In the first long block we had lunges to a neutral thruster with weights, lunges to hops, and plank punches. In the second long block we had goblet squats, squat jumps (which I did as squats with calf raises), and plank rotations. The first short block had bench sit-ups to squats and the second short block had froggers. It was a lot of work, but I took my time and rested when I needed to.

Wednesday’s workout was a special one for several reasons. First, it was a benchmark workout which is always special. Also, my dad worked out with me. He’s done a bunch of Orangetheory classes, but this was the first time that he’s done 2 classes within a week! And finally, this was Coach Benzo’s last class with us. He got a promotion and can’t keep the regular Wednesday classes, but he’s hoping to come back as a sub from time to time. I’m happy he got a promotion, but I’m sad he won’t be my regular coach anymore. He was my first coach back after the studio reopened and I’ve loved having him motivate me in the morning. But the class was more celebratory than sad, so that was good.

For cardio, we just had the benchmark to do. The benchmark was the 12-minute distance challenge. I hadn’t done this challenge since before the shutdown, so I wasn’t too stressed about trying to get a PR. And for my dad, this was his first time doing a benchmark so he knew he’d PR. And since he’s a runner at his gym, this wasn’t too hard of a challenge for him. For me, I set the bike resistance at the level between my base and push paces and just tried to keep my pace steady until we were almost done and then I went crazy to go as fast as I could for the last minute. I didn’t do my best, but I was close to my distance from before the shutdown.

On the rower, we had decreasing rows with lunges between each round. We started with a 400-meter row and went down 50 meters each round. I was doing better on the rower than I had on Monday. And even though normally my dad and I challenge each other when we row next to each other, we didn’t really do that this time and just tried to get in our best workouts.

And on the floor, we had one long block that had both upper and lower body exercises. We had balance bicep curls, seated torso rotations, knee tucks on the ab dolly (a piece of workout equipment my dad never used before), single-arm low rows on the straps, and triceps on the straps.

And of course, after the workout we had to get a photo! Both to celebrate Benzo’s last class and because I always get a photo after my dad comes to class with me!

Friday was another power day and I really did try to push myself more. I was finally feeling normal again and I know it’s only a bit of time before I start having nausea again so I wanted to take advantage of this workout.

We had 3 blocks for cardio and they were similar. The first block was a 2-minute push pace, 30-second all-out, 1-minute recovery, and 30-second all-out. The second block was 2 rounds of a 1-minute push pace and 30-second all-out with a minute to recover between. And the last block was 2 rounds of a 30-second push pace and 30-second all-out with a minute to recover between. I tried to not only increase the resistance level on the bike but also pedal faster, especially with the all-outs.

On the rower, all 3 blocks were similar with 3 different types of rowing. We started with a stroke drill, then a 100-meter all-out row, and then a recovery row. In the first block, the stroke drill and recovery each had 15 strokes. In the second block, they were 12 strokes. And in the last block they were 10 strokes.

And on the floor, we had 3 blocks and each block had 2 exercises. We had chest presses and power push-ups, hip hinge low rows and pull-ups on the straps, and seated torso rotations and sit-ups. My upper body was tired after all the floor work, but I knew I needed to push myself this way.

Saturday’s workout was a 2 group class (I think this one will be staying as a 2 group class for now). The workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it gave me a lot of opportunities to work on a bunch of different things.

For cardio, we had 4 blocks that were basically the same. Every block has a 1-minute push, 1-minute base, 1-minute all-out, 1-minute of recovery, and a 1-minute all-out. The difference in each block was the incline/resistance level for the base pace. It started at the highest level and went down each block. I didn’t go too high for the resistance level on the bike, but I tried to keep it at either the level I use for my push pace or the level between my push and base paces. That wasn’t exactly what we were supposed to do, but it worked for me so I could do the all-outs faster.

And on the floor, we also had 4 blocks but there was one set of exercises for all of the blocks. For each block, the first 3 minutes was doing the exercises, then we had a minute to get to the rower, and then we had a 1-minute all-out row. Wherever we left off on the exercises, we picked back up there each block when we were back on the floor. The exercises were skater lunges, lateral lunges, deadlifts, and plank low rows. I didn’t go too heavy on the weights because I needed to be able to row and there wasn’t a lot of rest time. But because there weren’t breaks, the weights I used felt heavier.

I really enjoyed the workouts this past week, even when I had moments I was struggling. And this week, I’m excited because I will be doing my traditional Thanksgiving day workout even if it’s just me and not with my family. But I’m glad I’ll be keeping up with the tradition and I think it’s going to be a fun one!

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Default ThumbnailMy Short Workout Week (or 6 Years Of Family Workouts) Default ThumbnailHaving A Shorter Workout Week (or Having A Few Changes In My Workout Plan) Default ThumbnailHell Week Prep (or The First Part Of My Workout Week) Default ThumbnailLast Regular Workout Week Of 2019 (or Still Pushing Through) Default ThumbnailA Good, Strong Workout Week (or I Really Love Feeling Like Myself) Default ThumbnailAnother Short Workout Week (or Still Can’t Believe My Milestone)

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A Busy Family Visit (or Making Some Choices For My New Home)

Posted on November 19, 2021 | Comments Off on A Busy Family Visit (or Making Some Choices For My New Home)

When I started looking at condos again in September, we had no idea how quickly I would find a place I liked. It would have been amazing if I had found a place when my parents were in town, but I also knew that was going to be very unlikely. Then, I started to hope that maybe the timing of finding a place would be when my parents were going to be in Santa Barbara for our early Thanksgiving. What ended up happening was finding a place before my parents were here this month, but I think it worked out better. Because the condo is officially ours now, my parents were able to visit me after the early Thanksgiving so we could focus on the work we want to do before I move in.

Technically, I could move into the condo in the condition it is in now. Not everything is working perfectly, but I could do quick fixes to make them work. And some work could have waited until after I was living in there. But it’s easier to do the work before I move in, so that’s what we decided to do. There aren’t really any structural changes we want to make, but we want to fix up things that are outdated or broken and make the condo really my style. Fortunately, the ideas my mom and I had were not too different, so deciding what projects we wanted to do wasn’t too hard. But that was the easy part.

So for the past few days, my parents have been in LA helping me plan out fixing up the condo. They have been doing most of the work because I have had to be working while they were here. So they interviewed contractors and discussed bids, which was better for them to do since I’ve never done this before. They also took a look at a few things that we might be able to fix ourselves and what little projects we might want to add or remove from the plan.

They also made some decisions on a few things like if we should try to fix up something already in the condo or if we should remove the broken thing and put something new in. We are mindful of a budget, but it would be easier to do this all at one time and not have to wait until later and do another big project. And we don’t want to do something that might break in a few years so we want to find a good balance of low price but good quality. Again, I’m glad my parents are helping me with this because I don’t know what to look for or even what prices seem reasonable.

Since I was working most of the time they were visiting, I only saw them in the evening after work. But I did take one day off work so we could do a lot of design planning. We went to multiple stores to try to see what styles I was interested in and to pick out a lot of materials we would be using. The main materials we needed to find were for the kitchen for the counter and backsplash. I had an idea of what I wanted, but I also hadn’t looked at counters and tile together and I knew that would be important. I originally picked out a tile I loved for the backsplash, but it was 4 times the price of almost any other tile. So that had to be replaced. But I think I found the perfect combination of counter and tile for my kitchen.

I also had to find tile for the bathroom and there were so many ideas of what we could do. I think my mom and I decided on something a bit more unique with a textured tile for the walls so it has a bit of character. But for a lot of what we are looking at, we are just trying to keep things clean and somewhat neutral. I can add a lot when I move in with art and my furniture. To me, moving somewhere that is fresh and new will feel amazing, so I don’t think I am too worried about things like what style handles are on a cabinet. Most of the things I ended up liking as we went from store to store were the most basic and generic models. Fortunately, that meant they also tended to be on the lower price side. But we are still shopping around since I do have time before I need to have everything figured out.

My parents might not be back in LA until after the condo is done. That depends on how long things take to finish and if I need more help. But we did make a lot of progress on this project and I’m excited to start getting things moving! The point of my parents visiting me this time was to get work done and not to have as much social time, and I think we accomplished just that!

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Default ThumbnailAn Unexpected Family Visit (or Making Plans, Canceling Them, And Making Plans Again) Default ThumbnailI’ll Have A New Home Soon (or The End Of The Condo Hunt) Default ThumbnailWork Time Family Visit (or Already Preparing To Renew My Disneyland Pass) Default Thumbnail24 Hour Visit Home (or Another Cancer Patient In The Family) Default ThumbnailQuick Family Visit (or My Extra Long Lunch From Work) Default ThumbnailPart 1 Of A Family Visit (or Letting My Parents Relax A Bit)

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Surprises Really Can Make Your Day (or So Grateful To Be Celebrated)

Posted on November 18, 2021 | Comments Off on Surprises Really Can Make Your Day (or So Grateful To Be Celebrated)

The other day while I was working, someone rang my doorbell. I rarely have anyone unexpectedly showing up, so I thought at first it might be a salesperson. Even though I have a doorbell camera, it was just faster to get up and see who it was. And it was a delivery person with a big thing of flowers!

My first thought was that they had the wrong house, but they asked for me and I confirmed this was my address. So I took the flowers and brought them inside and spent a moment just admiring them because this was one of the prettiest bouquets I’ve seen!

I really was trying to think who it might be from, and I thought maybe someone I know congratulating me on the condo or something like that. But I was shocked when I saw that it was from my customer service job. And even more shocked when it was to congratulate me on having a good MRI scan and not needing my tumors to be monitored anymore!

I’ve never had a job send me flowers before. And I’ve never had a job congratulate me on something that wasn’t related to work. So this really meant so much to me. And I know that part of this might be because my friend is one of the executive team members and he knew what was going on. But it was still sent by others who don’t know me as well and it was really so special.

I did celebrate myself when I had the good news about my tumor, but it was different this year since in the past I was able to celebrate with others as well. And this was a big MRI because it also meant that I was done being checked on a regular basis. But in a way, this wasn’t as big of a celebration since I wasn’t around my friends or going out to dinner or something to recognize good news. So receiving flowers made things feel more special and I didn’t realize how much I needed that.

But I also didn’t really understand how special getting something so unexpected would feel. And it’s making me think about trying to do things like that for my friends since I want them to feel special too. I’m not sure if I’ll do flowers since they can get expensive, but I do want to try to find little ways to make people feel as special as I did getting these flowers.

And I also rarely have fresh flowers in my house. And having them right now just feels luxurious when I know it’s not a huge expense. I might not do this until after I move, but I want to look into maybe having a semi-regular flower delivery or making more of an effort to buy flowers when I go to the store. It’s crazy how something so small can make a big change in how I feel in my home. But it would be a nice thing to do for myself and to remind me that I do deserve to celebrate the little things.

Who knew that a simple flower delivery could mean so much to me? I had no idea. But I am so grateful that my work thought to do that and I could feel so special and grateful that others are celebrating the wins I have in my life as well.

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Not Quite Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Time (or A Full Family Day)

Posted on November 16, 2021 | Comments Off on Not Quite Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Time (or A Full Family Day)

As I mentioned in my workout recap, this past Saturday my family celebrated Thanksgiving early. Thanksgiving is the main holiday my family celebrates, and last year was the first time we weren’t celebrating together. But since we are all vaccinated, we wanted to get together this year to celebrate. And it was decided that since it is significantly less expensive to celebrate on a weekend other than Thanksgiving weekend, it was decided that this past weekend would be when we would get together.

Things were in Santa Barbara this year, so it was going to be easy for me to get there. But because of how my schedule was, I knew my time with everyone was going to be limited. I had things to do pretty late on Friday, so I was going to drive up on Saturday morning. And the original plan was for me to stay the night and go home on Sunday, but I would be leaving early on Sunday morning so I said I might just drive home Saturday night. But when I got all my stuff together, I did it with the plan that I might spend the night.

I drove up pretty early, but it didn’t feel too early to me since I’m up early anyway most days. And since it was early, there was no traffic and I had a very easy drive up. I got there with a bit of time before we were going to go to our workout, so I hung out with my parents before my dad and I left for Orangetheory (my brother was going to meet us there).

After the workout, I went back to the rental house my parents got and showered and changed before we headed to the club that my brother and sister-in-law belong to. They were there with my niece and nephew (and my cousin was there with her kids) because it was a very hot day and everyone wanted to swim. I just hung out in the shade at a table because I was still dealing with some of the side effects from my vaccine. But that was fine with me because I got to spend a lot of time catching up with my sister-in-law and cousin. Plus I got to hang out with my niece (my nephew is still a bit wary of me, but hopefully he starts to remember me).

It was nice just being outside and enjoying time with family, even if I wasn’t feeling completely ok. And since I hadn’t seen my cousin or her kids in almost 2 years, it was crazy to see how much her kids have grown! Her oldest son is almost taller than me now!

And after swim time, everyone went back to where they were staying and we got ready to celebrate our not really Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner. This was also held at the club my brother and sister-in-law belong to, and we had a private dining area so it didn’t feel like we were in a restaurant or around a lot of people. It wasn’t exactly our traditional Thanksgiving celebration, but we were celebrating together as a family and that’s what is most important to us and how we celebrate.

Dinner was a few hours (which I guess is a bit more traditional for us) and then everyone started to say goodbye. Even if I was going to stay the night there, I wouldn’t see my family the next day so I had to say goodbye to everyone. And there is a good chance I won’t see most of them until next Thanksgiving. I’m used to spending a few days with family for Thanksgiving, so only having one day didn’t feel like I got my full fix of family time. But it’s so much better than last year when we had to celebrate over Zoom.

I did end up driving back home that night after dinner since it’s just easier for me to sleep in my own bed. And I forgot a few things I would have needed if I did spend the night in the rental house. But I’m about to have more family time with my parents soon, so missing one overnight isn’t too bad.

Normally, I feel like I have a ton of pictures after Thanksgiving. I’m not sure if it was because I didn’t have as many days with my family or if I was enjoying my family time and not focused on taking photos, but I don’t have a lot of photos from my day with my family. But I did get a cute photo of my nephew, a nice one with my niece (I couldn’t get her to smile), and a silly one of my parents’ dog.

Next year, hopefully we will be together for Thanksgiving (or fake Thanksgiving) again as a family. I missed this tradition so much last year and I’m so grateful we had it back again this year!

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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 Thanksgiving (or Getting In Lots Of Family Time) Default ThumbnailFamily Zoom Time (or Thanksgiving After Thanksgiving) Default ThumbnailMore Family Time (or Seeing All My Immediate Family Last Week) Default ThumbnailThe First Half Of Thanksgiving (or My Pre-Thanksgiving Activities)

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