Category Archives: Fun Stuff

Random Life Hacks (or Cleaning Up And Packing Stuff)

I’m always looking for ways to make my life easier, but so many life hacks I see online seem much more complicated than they are worth. I’d love to have easier ways to store things or clean my house, but not if it takes me buying 20 different things and doing 37 steps before it becomes easier. So if I’m going to try a life hack, I need to make sure it is worth my time and effort before I consider doing it. Fortunately, I’ve found 2 things that actually did help me that were super easy and I wanted to share them with you!

The first is a hack for helping me so something that I know I don’t do as often as I should: cleaning my makeup brushes. I know how gross it is to not clean my brushes often, but it always seems like I only remember to do it when I need to use the brushes and can’t wait for them to dry. Also, I’ve learned how it’s not the best to dry brushes while laying them on their sides so I’ve been trying to figure out a better way to dry them (and never dry them with the brush side up as that can get water into the glue and ruin the brush).

I saw online that there are brush drying racks and I thought that might be a good option for me. But it does take up counter space, which I don’t have in my bathroom, and I really didn’t need something that big. I only have 4 or 5 brushes I use and I don’t need a dryer that can hold over 15 brushes. For someone who uses a lot of brushes, it does seem like a perfect thing to have, but it’s just not for me. But I liked the idea of how it was holding brushes the right way and I decided to try to figure out what I could do to create something like it.

What I ended up doing is using hair elastics and wrapping them around a basket I have in my bathroom. Then I could slide the brush in the elastic and it held them perfectly to dry without taking up really any space!

I shared this online and someone suggested putting a strip of magnets on the basket so I could attach the metal part of each brush on there. I do have magnetic tape so I might try that next time. But this was so easy and simple to do so I might just keep doing the hair elastic trick. I also recently got a new silicone scrubber and brush soap bar so hopefully this motivates me to clean my brushes more often.

The other new life hack I used was one for getting ready to travel for Thanksgiving. I don’t travel that often and I fly even less often (the last time I flew was 2 years ago!) so I don’t have a ton of travel containers that I use for storing lotions and other toiletries. The last few times I’ve traveled I just brought full size containers with me in my car since I had all the space I wanted to pack things. But since I’m flying I have to be aware of how large the containers are and I couldn’t really find what I was looking for at the store in the travel section. I wanted little jars for my day and night face lotions and all of the containers seemed to be big ones.

So I was wandering around the store to see if I could find something and I found the perfect thing in the pharmacy!

Since I only needed 2 containers and it came with an extra lid, it was perfect. I separated out 2 of the jars and used the 2 lids. I could have combined them if I needed more containers and stacked them, but this was the perfect solution for 2 lotions and it was very easy to pack. And the containers should be easy enough to clean so I don’t have to worry about the lotions getting gross inside of the jars like I do with some of the travel containers I’ve had in the past. I have no idea when I will fly again after this trip, but I will store them after they are cleaned so they are ready for the next time I need them.

I know this is a bit of a random post, but I seriously was just so happy when I figured these 2 hacks out and when I find something I love I just have to share it with everyone! Hopefully you all will find one or both of them helpful in your life, and if you know of any other easy and simple life hacks I’d love to know about them!

Yet Another Life Lesson From Dating (or Finding Power When Not In Control)

I don’t know why I’m learning so many life lessons from dating. Maybe it’s because that’s the main thing in my life that hasn’t been a part of it for as long so I’m discovering new things all the time. Maybe it’s because that’s the place I’m out of my comfort zone the most and that is pushing me to change and set my standards. Or maybe it’s just random and doesn’t mean anything. Whatever it is, I just keep learning more as I date. I am ready to find someone amazing and not keep learning from dating, but that’s not what seems to be in the cards for me right now.

Every so often, I feel like guys from my past come back into my life for some reason. These always happen in groups so when one guy from my past comes back into my life, I know it’s just a matter of time before another one comes along. And that has happened in the past week for me. One guy is just someone I lost contact with and it was nice to reconnect with him. Our communication was always through the app and when my account got banned I lost my conversation with him. So when we rematched and were able to start talking again, it was nice. Hopefully I’ll get to see him again soon and see if we still have fun.

The other guy is a guy that I didn’t have as nice of an ending with. I’m not going to go into specifics with it because it doesn’t matter, but we ended on a bad note and I figured I would never hear from him again nor did I want to. But he reached out to me, we talked a bit, and I don’t have as many negative feelings toward him. But he is seeing someone else right now and I am not going to be the other woman or someone he sees on the side. I understand that when you date someone, if you haven’t said you were exclusive that you should assume you aren’t the only person they are seeing. But if you have an understanding that you are exclusive with someone, seeing someone else is cheating.

I told him that I am not willing to be a secret or someone he cheats with. If he wants to go out with me again, then the person he is seeing now needs to know that they aren’t exclusive. My understanding is that she believes that they are, so he would need to have a real conversation about how he wants to be able to see other people. I don’t necessarily want to be with someone who is serious with someone else, even if they have an open relationship. But if he wants to try seeing me again to see if we could be together again, the only way to do that is if all parties involved know that they aren’t exclusive.

I let him know this and told him it is his choice. If he wants to see me again, he knows what I require. If he doesn’t want to have to have that talk, then he and I won’t see each other again. If he doesn’t want to have the talk but still wants to see me, it’s too bad. I’m not willing to do that. I guess it’s kind of an ultimatum, but I really didn’t see it that way. I saw it as setting my standards and letting him decide what he wants to do.

I was sharing this story with a friend of mine after I told this guy what options he had, and I was having a bit of a tough time explaining why I felt so powerful in what I did. I have no clue what the next step will be as the guy has to make the next choice. But I feel completely in control and have no regrets. My friend and I were talking around the idea and I was just trying to find the words to express what I was feeling.

The idea of “the ball is in his court” kept coming to my mind, but that didn’t seem right. That makes it feel like he has the power and the choice of what is next and that was not how I felt. So I came up with the idea of “the ball is in his court, but I was the one who served it to him there”. That felt perfect to me. Yes, he has the choice in what he wants to do next. But I am the one who presented the choices to him and there is no other option than those. If he doesn’t want to pick one, then we won’t see each other and that is fine with me. I am not going to go against my standards and I feel very secure and comfortable in that idea.

So many things were so clear to me once I came up with that idea. Even when I am not the one deciding the next step, that doesn’t mean I have to be powerless or helpless. I have ways to find power even in situations that I don’t completely control. After that idea was said out loud to my friend, a huge weight felt like it was lifted off of me. I don’t care as much about what this guy will decide next anymore. While it would be nice to see him again and see what we could be, I don’t want to see him if it isn’t in a situation I’m comfortable with.

I don’t know how I can apply this new mindset to other things in my life, but I want to figure it out. I know that rethinking when I have power and control is important and can be used in so many other situations I find myself in. I guess I just have to naturally let those situations find me and remember this idea so I can apply it in the moment.

A Tasting And Theater Night (or Enjoying A Fun Night Out)

The current season for the Pantages has officially begun! Our first show of this current season was actually an add-on show, so this past weekend was the first show of the main season. And since this season is so close to the end of the last season, it does just feel like one long season. And that’s perfectly fine with me.

And just last the past few seasons, we are going to try to have dinner before the show to make it a full night out. And even before we started to plan what we would do for dinner before this show, I got an email from the manager at Wood & Vine. They have a new chef there and they wanted to see if we wanted to come in for a tasting! We all love Wood & Vine so there was no question that we would be coming in!

I had taken a look at the menu before we went in, and everything looked delicious! I knew it would be tough for us to decide what we wanted to get, but I had a feeling that anything we picked would be amazing.

When we got there, my friends ordered cocktails and we knew we wanted the French onion dip with chips so we got that ordered right away. Then we checked out the menu and I think we got a pretty good variety and selection of things to try.

For starters/side dishes we had the dip with chips, wedge salad, and asparagus.

For entrees we had the shrimp and grits, the 50/50 burger (we got it without a bun as one of my friends has a gluten allergy, scotch eggs, and pork shanks.

We also tried the pasta dishes. We got the mac and cheese and the vegan spaghetti and meatballs.

And we got 3 of the 4 desserts they had (one of them was already sold out so we couldn’t try the cobbler).

It really was a ton of food, but the portions aren’t ridiculously huge and almost everything was split among the 4 of us. So while we were all full, it wasn’t that bad. And everything was so good so it was so worth it!

There was nothing we tried that I wouldn’t get again. But there were a few standouts to me. We all loved the French onion dip and even asked for more chips so we could keep on eating it. Then when we got our burger we discovered that dipping the fries in the dip was even better! The pork shank was a favorite among the entire group and I know that I will be getting that every time I’m there and it’s on the menu! The shrimp and grits was a hit with my friends, but since I’m very sensitive to spicy foods I had to only have a little taste. But what I tried was delicious! And I think the mac and cheese was the best variation of it that we’ve had from all of the times we’ve ordered it at Wood & Vine (yes, even better than the lobster mac!).

All the desserts were delicious and we were happy to see they kept the butterscotch on the menu. This version was a bit lighter and had more air whipped into it, but I liked that. And the ice cream was the perfect thing to have with the butterscotch. But I think if we had to pick a favorite dessert, the donut holes were the winner! It came with a chocolate bacon sauce and a raspberry sauce, and they were both great dipping options.

We also got a chance to meet the new chef, Rick Sipovic. He has been the chef at restaurants all over the country, but he grew up in the south so a lot of his dishes are inspired by that. He was so friendly and fun to talk to! We enjoyed hearing about how he decided on certain things on the menu and how the crowds that come in for dinner before the show can be very different from show to show. We were enjoying talking with him so much that we were there until about 5 minutes before showtime! We quickly said goodbye and thank you to Rick and everyone else at Wood & Vine to go across the street to the Pantages.

The show we saw this time was “A Bronx Tale” and none of us knew really anything about the show. A few of us knew it was based on a movie which was based on real life, but we hadn’t seen the movie. But I’ve heard that sometimes when seeing a show based on another thing, it’s best to go in with limited knowledge. We didn’t have the movie to compare the musical to and that’s usually a good thing.

We enjoyed the show. It was an interesting journey about the life of the main character when he was a kid and as a teenager and the story was easy to follow (a worry I have when I don’t know anything about the story). There were several very catchy songs and a bunch of them reminded us of other musicals which was a fun surprise. I think it was a nice musical to have to officially start off the season and it’s one of the only shows this season I had no familiarity with before going in. I’ve said it before but it will be interesting this season when I know a majority of the shows we are seeing, since usually I only know one or two of them.

This really was the perfect night out! The show was fun and we had a truly incredible dinner! There was never a question before that we would keep going to Wood & Vine before several of our shows, but now I’m looking forward to it even more to try the other things on the menu and see how it changes as the menu is based on what is available that season. I’m sure the winter, spring, and summer menus will be just as good as this fall one is. And I am so excited to keep having the best dinners before seeing some of the best musicals!

A Mini Photo Shoot (or Enjoying A Voter Freebie)

I know that on Election Day there were quite a few freebie or discount offers for anyone who voted. Busses and trains in LA were free, ride share companies were offering free or discounted rides to polling places, and there were a couple of fast food or chain restaurants that offered things like free coffee or dessert if you were wearing your voter sticker. I usually don’t do any of the voter freebie offers since they aren’t things I need or want, but this year I did take advantage of one.

One of my headshot photographers, Adam Emperor Southard, posted on social media last month that he was offering free mini shoots for anyone who voted. These would be 10 minute shoots and done quickly and efficiently. This doesn’t mean they wouldn’t look as good as normal headshots do, but it would be done in studio with a single background and with a single look. It’s been a while since I’ve done headshots (right now I don’t have the money for new ones but I look like my current ones enough so it’s ok), so I immediately signed up for a mini shoot!

I was going through my clothes to pick out what I wanted to wear for my shoot. Even though I knew it was just a single look, I was hoping that maybe I could do 2 very similar looks if I made it quick. So I had a black tank top on and brought a sweater and scarf with me. I was hoping that maybe I could do photos in each, but I also knew that I might have to just pick one and that would be ok with me.

For regular headshot shoots, I have someone do my hair and makeup. I timed my hair being done so it was done the day before the shoot. I knew that would make it still look nice and not as frizzy as it can be when I do my hair. And for my makeup, I really just tried my best to do my makeup. I’m getting better about doing it and realizing that I have to almost look overdone when I look in a mirror to actually look good. I think that’s because I don’t wear makeup that often, but it’s still a tough thing to remember that I don’t look like I’m wearing too much to everyone else.

I went to the shoot right after I was done with work on Election Day. Traffic wasn’t as crazy as it could be so I got there much earlier than my appointment time. I figured it would be fine if I had to wait but maybe Adam would be ready to take my photo if there wasn’t someone right before me. He was just finishing a shoot when I arrived so it ended up being perfect timing! And I asked if I could do both looks since it was such a minor change and he said that I could!

I did the look with the sweater first and tried to not think too much about how I look. It was tough because I know that normally the makeup artist is checking to make sure my hair looks good and nothing else is off. I asked to see a preview of a photo and fixed my hair a bit (even though it can be fixed in retouching too) and tried to relax. While I was doing my photos someone else showed up for their shoot, and I let them go after I was done with the photos in my sweater and would do the photos in my scarf after they were done.

When I did my second half of the shoot, I tried to do a variety of faces and looks. But since it was so quick I know that I probably didn’t do as much as I would have loved to. And to finish off the shoot, I decided to do some fun pictures with my voter sticker (which I love that I get since I do a mail in ballot) and those ended up looking very fun when Adam showed me a quick preview of how they looked.

Adam just sent me the photos from the shoot and I will spend some time going over them and seeing which ones I like. With this free shoot he is also including a free retouch, but I can pay for more to be retouched if I want them to. So far, from what I have looked at, they look amazing! My hair isn’t quite what I thought it would look like because there was a weird piece out of place but my makeup is much better than I thought it would be! And of course, since Adam is an amazing photographer the photos are all incredible!

I love that Adam did this shoot as an incentive to get people to vote. I would have voted with or without this shoot, but it was fun to have something awesome as a bonus for voting in this midterm election. And it is a bonus that really is something I needed and will be very helpful with my acting career. This was really just an amazing gift that Adam offered us all and I am so grateful I was able to be a part of it.

Doing Some Beautification (or Feeling Better From The Outside In)

This isn’t a recap of my current monthly challenge (I’m only a few days into it), but it is related to it. I’ve been working on finding myself again and getting back to me. And I really thought a lot of that was going to be stuff about my emotions and feelings and that I needed to reconnect to myself that way. But over the past few days I did a few things for my outside that really did help me feel so much better.

I’ve been getting better about doing self-care and taking care of myself, including things like skincare and beauty. I have noticed that I have looked better on the outside since I’ve been making more of an effort on those things. I don’t know if weekly sheet masks are really making my skin better or if doing those sheet masks is bringing down my stress which is helping my skin look better, but either way it’s working. I know that physical beauty isn’t everything, but when you don’t feel at your best it can be a hit on your self-esteem and how you feel about yourself.

Since I have been doing all these new self-care things, I really didn’t think that doing some more beauty stuff was going to make a difference. But there were some beauty things that I have been slacking on for a bit that I finally got a chance to do. A lot of this slacking has to do with not having the money to do it, but it also has to do with timing.

The first thing I did for myself was getting my eyebrows done. I know this is a luxury thing to do, but for me it almost feels like a necessity. My eyebrows are pretty crazy to begin with, but I cannot trust myself to do the work on my own. I don’t even try to use tweezers because I will overdo things and pluck way more than I should. I don’t want to do any damage to my eyebrows so I try to get them done professionally on a regular basis. When I went to cheap places, I would try to go once a month or every other month. But those cheap places were not worth it as I would get burns from wax and other issues from them. So I go to a slightly more expensive place (but still on the cheap end of things) and I can’t go as often.

My eyebrows weren’t the worst they have been, but they weren’t great. And I have something happening this week that I want to look my best for so I wanted to get them done. Even though this wasn’t the most dramatic eyebrow makeover I’ve had from getting them done, just having them look clean and professional really helped. Since I don’t wear a lot of makeup on a regular basis, having my eyebrows look good makes a big difference in my appearance.

The other beauty thing I did recently was getting my hair done. I used to be much better about getting my hair done on a regular schedule. Since I color my hair, when I don’t get it done it’s usually very noticeable. It used to be bad because I went lighter with my color, but since I’ve been going darker my roots don’t show as much. But since I’ve been getting more and more gray hair, now it’s really bad! When I was getting it done, my friend who does my hair said I’m about 30% gray now. I started going gray around 20, but it got drastically worse in the past 2 years. Now, my gray hair is all over and there’s no way to pretend it’s not there. I do have powder I can use to cover them, but it still needed to be done.

I was going to have my hair done around my birthday, but I put that off because I didn’t do a big birthday thing. Then I was thinking about doing it in September, but because I can’t afford to get it done as often as I like I didn’t want to do it then and have my hair look bad for Thanksgiving. I put it off longer than I would have liked to, but I finally got it done this week when it was looking really bad.

I like to take before and after photos of my hair, and the before ones are always much worse than I look on a normal basis. I always remember to take them right before my appointment, but that’s when I haven’t done anything to my hair. I just wash and condition it and let it air dry. Normally, I put product in my hair after it’s washed and I blow dry it. So my before picture has much more frizz and random curls than I do on normal days. But you can still tell a big difference between the before and after photo when you ignore the style of my hair.

The color is back to what I like it to be and you don’t see any gray or weird color changes from the top to the bottom of my hair. My hair was also super long and looking stringy so it was cut and shaped. It looks like a lot of length was taken off, but it’s actually not that much. In my after photo my hair is curled a bit so it looks shorter. I still had about 2 inches taken off to make it look healthier, but it’s still long. I have toyed with the idea of going short again, but I still love it long right now.

Before getting my eyebrows and hair done I didn’t think it was going to make that much of a difference, but it really did. I feel so much better about myself and just much calmer about things. It’s so weird how working on how I look on the outside made that much of a difference about the uneasy feeling I’ve been having. I still need to do more work on myself and I’ll recap that at the end of the month. But for now, I’m just so glad that doing something that seemed so frivolous really ended up being a big deal.

NaNoWriMo Take 2 (or Still Working On The Same Book)

It’s November and just like last year I’m going to participate in National Novel Writing Month! Last year was the first year I did it and I used the month to work on my book on online dating. It was a great way for me to work on a project that seemed so overwhelming and scary. There is a goal to write a certain number of words over the course of the month, but I knew that I didn’t want to hold myself to that because this book is an ever-changing thing.

I got a lot done last year during NaNoWriMo and continued to work on my book every so often since then. I do try to add stories or at least notes after I have a date that I know needs to be in the book. I haven’t been working on it as seriously as I probably should have, but I also don’t feel a rush to finish it. I still wonder what the end or lesson of the book should be. I know it doesn’t need to end in something significant, but until I feel like I know what I want the reading to think at the end of the book I don’t know if it will ever be done.

Even though I haven’t been working on it that much, I know that I probably should have done more since many of my dates over the past 6 months haven’t really been written about beyond the notes I made. And for what feels like the millionth time, I have changed what I want the book to be like. I have gone back to my original plan to have each story a standalone story and to split the book up into good dates, bad dates (or just horrible guys online), and the cheaters I have encountered. I feel like it is a good way to organize things and makes the book more of a collection of stories versus something that needs a clear beginning, middle, and end.

I don’t know if NaNoWriMo is supposed to be for working on the same book year after year, but that’s what I’m using it for. When you sign up for the challenge each year, you are supposed to announce the book you are working on. I didn’t see an option to say that you are still working on the same book from the year before, so I named my book something that represents what’s happening for me.

I’m not planning on doing the different events that are happening during this month, so I’m not too concerned about if I am supposed to be working on the same book. And when I registered this year and it asked me to update my word count, I did put down how many words the book currently is at. So I look much more accomplished than I really am. But I am using this month as a tracking device for me. I love the idea of working with others to accomplish a goal, but I don’t think doing different challenges or trying to win swag for various reasons is right for me with what I’m trying to do. If I had a novel that I had an outline and grand idea for, maybe it would be different. But since this is the story of something that is currently happening to me, it’s not really fitting into getting it all done this month.

But even though my goals aren’t to challenge other people or to hit certain word counts, I do still have goals for this month. I do want to finish the stories of the guys I have gone out with that I know I will not be seeing again. Most of those are guys I went out with once or twice and I have no plans to communicate with them again. But there are still some stories that have not ended because things are still happening or changing, so with those stories I can’t really finish them. But I can make sure that those stories are as up to date as possible. I know that as things continue to change that I might have to edit my story, but I’d rather edit a story than have to write it all just because things aren’t over. And those changing stories are really just a small percentage. There are maybe 4 or 5 that I don’t think are totally over (not all of them are guys I’m still seeing, but their stories haven’t ended), and I have dozens of stories that are over. So those few can’t be an excuse for me to not work on the others.

I think the first time I did NaNoWriMo, I had much higher hopes for what I would be able to accomplish based on what other friends have done. But I’ve learned that my story isn’t the same as everyone else’s and I can’t stress to hit the targets that others are doing. I just need to be as consistent as possible and know that I am making progress. And maybe during this month I will find something out that makes me realize I have a way to end my story, but that’s not what I’m expecting to happen. But it would be nice to feel like this story is done and I can finish it.

But as long as I go out with guys that end up being super ridiculous stories, I’m going to write about them. Even if I never do anything with this book, I want to have these stories written down and saved. I might use them for a laugh in the future or inspiration for a script or another project. But I still think that one day turning this journey into a book would be a really fun thing to do and I’m keeping an open mind about it all!

Struggling To Figure Out A Monthly Challenge (or Finding Myself Again)

It’s almost the end of the year! I can’t believe that in 2 months it will be 2019! And with the start of November I am recapping a monthly challenge and sharing a new one. While this year as been the year of more abstract challenges, I feel like this might be the most abstract one and a bit tough to explain. But first, I want to share how my October challenge went.

I wanted to continue building on my challenge to not shop online by being much clearer on what I wanted to buy when I did shop online or in person. I did do some online shopping last month, but it was much more deliberate than it has been in the past. I did work on using my Amazon wish lists and just leaving things in my cart online to not shop until I had something I really needed. Then I would reevaluate what I was actually going to purchase. The only time this didn’t work was with ordering a bra online because I thought I added both of the ones I wanted and it only had 1 in the order. Since I really wanted both (I think the women reading this understand that when you find a bra that fits you want it in multiple colors to go under anything you might wear), I did 2 orders back to back to get everything ordered that I was hoping to have. It wasn’t impulsive or done for just convenience like I had in the past, which is a good sign.

For shopping in person, I got much better about making my lists. I usually would make a list on a sticky note before I went to the store and that helped a lot. I wasn’t forgetting things at the store like I sometimes do and I was cutting back on how often I had to go to the store. I did still have some impulsive buys when I saw things I wasn’t expecting (like the Wonder Woman sheet mask I saw at CVS when I was getting contact lens solution), but it was much less than before. I still took my time when shopping and wandered around the stores, but it was more of seeing what else is out there than trying to figure out what I wanted to get. I had already been doing shopping lists from time to time, but I’m glad I forced myself to do them more often and I plan on keeping this up.

Now for November’s challenge, I really struggled to figure out what I wanted to do. I had lots of little ideas, but none of them seemed to really connect to me or feel worthy of a monthly challenge. Some of them were things I was already planning on doing this month and that almost felt like a cheat since it wasn’t a new challenge. I probably was thinking about this since the beginning of October and by this week I still didn’t have an idea of what I would do.

But I was inspired by a phone call I had with my aunt the other day. We usually talk every week (we discuss the tv shows we both watch), but we had been having trouble connecting on the phone so we hadn’t talked in almost a month. We both have been dealing with lots of randomness so it wasn’t either of our faults that the phone call took forever to happen. And while we were talking we discussed what was happening in our lives. And I just kept saying some variation of how I just don’t feel like myself or like I’m back on track to normal life.

I don’t know exactly why I’m feeling like this, but I know that some of the smaller challenge ideas I had for this month are a part of that. I am struggling with money right now and it’s a huge stress on my mind. Worrying about money as often as I am right now isn’t what I’m used to. I do worry about money, but not like I am right now. My food has been off too, but that is due to lots of different factors that I’m trying to resolve. My sleep has been a bit of a struggle, but it’s slowly getting better and I’m closer to the amount of sleep I know I need to get. And some things are just piling up and I’m so far behind (like catching up on podcasts or reading) and I can’t figure out why this is happening or where my time is going.

So this month, I’m trying to find myself again. I don’t know where I went or what happened, but I need to fix this. It’s such an abstract challenge and I have no idea how I will measure if I am successful or not, but it’s exactly what I need to do right now. This is similar to many of the other abstract challenges I’ve done this month, but this time I’m not being specific on what I’m trying to accomplish. I just want this uneasy and unsettled feeling to go away and to feel like I know I can and should. And I want to do whatever it takes to make that happen and I’m not sure what it will involve.

I know some of the things I need to work on and what I can do to try to fix them, but I don’t know if those individual things will make me feel more like me again. It might take other things that I haven’t thought of that I will discover as the month goes on. And having this challenge as open and general as it is will allow me to do what I discover I need to do. And hopefully in a month when I recap this post I will be able to share that I am feeling much more like me (even if I’m not all the way there yet) and will know what changes I needed to make in my life to get there.

Last Mentoring Group Brunch For The Year (or Switching Things Up For Next Year)

It’s been over 3 years since I started meeting with my current mentoring group. Next year will be 4 years since the first meeting and I love that this group is still going strong! Even though not everyone can go to every meeting we have as a group, we all still support each other whenever we can. We email the group from time to time and know that we can turn to each other if we need advice or help. I’ve said this over and over again, but I am so lucky to have this group of women in my life!

This past weekend we had one of our catchup brunches. It ended up being a smaller group with just 3 of us being able to make it, but with everyone’s crazy schedule we knew that it was going to be tough to get a big group there. We try our best, but we also know that for everyone to be able to attend it would take a miracle. So we try to pick the date that works for the most of us and we do our brunch then. And usually someone can make it to the next brunch so we just get to double up on the update from them the next time.

With it just being 3 of us, we had a quick update time. I had a few things to share this time which was a nice change compared to feeling like I have nothing to share. There’s nothing major happening, but I did have a recent change in my representation. I still have the same agents that I had before, but instead of them being at the same agency they are now split at 2 agencies. This isn’t a huge thing, but it will be the first time I don’t have my agents working at the same agency so there are a few changes I need to be aware of. It’s mainly things like notifying each of them separately when I book out when I’m out of town or making sure the other knows when one gets me an audition. I really don’t think anything else will change, but I guess I’ll find out as time goes on.

The other 2 people at brunch had some fun updates including a new show that one has written and is working on presenting to different networks. She was telling us all about the show and it does sound amazing! I have a feeling other people will be interested in the idea and it has a good chance of being worked on as a pilot. We all know there are so many variables with what happens for a show to get on the air, but just getting it in the works is a huge deal and I really hope that it happens!

While we were at brunch, we were talking about how tough it has been lately for us to find dates that work for a bunch of us. And if we were trying to do every other month like we have been for the past few years, that would make our next brunch in December. I know that it will be impossible to find a date to meet in December because of the holidays and everyone having travel plans. So we knew that the brunch was going to be in January.

But one of the women at the brunch mentioned that since we’ve been struggling to find the time to meet up, maybe it was time to make a change in the attempted frequency of our meetings. Things naturally have just worked out this year to pretty much be a meeting once a quarter. We try for every other month and then it gets pushed back a month. So to do a meeting every 3 months isn’t going to be much of a change. We brought it up to the rest of the group who wasn’t at the meeting and it seems like everyone thinks this is a good idea.

I think it will be nice to have some of the pressure off to try to plan these every other month. Also it will give me more time to have more of an update each time we meet up. I know I don’t have to have a big update every time, but I do like to have something to contribute to the conversation. And it’s a great opportunity to get advice but I can’t get that advice unless I ask for it or have a specific question. So having a bit more time to have things happen in my life will be a good thing for me.

It’s crazy to think that by the time we have our next brunch we will have been meeting for 4 years! That’s such a long time to keep this going but we are all so lucky that we’ve been able to keep it up. I know it’s only possible because everyone else is as motivated as I am about continuing these meetings. And I’m glad that we are just as motivated as we were before as well as being flexible to change things up as we see need to be adjusted.

Having Some Halloween Fun (or Creating A Clever Costume)

This past weekend was the Halloween party that my friends Marie and Chris throw every year. It’s one of the parties I love so much that they throw (and they throw some incredible parties throughout the year) and it’s always so much fun to see what costumes people come up with. This group of friends is pretty competitive when it comes to costumes. We have costume contests for the Halloween party as well as the Oscar party, and I’ve only placed once in the Oscar party about 10 years ago. So I know that if I want to be in the running to win, I must have a great costume.

I was trying to find some inspiration for a costume searching online and nothing was really connecting with me. But then I saw an article from a few years ago of people who created costumes about dating apps, and I thought that was perfect! I had a few different versions that I was trying to figure out with this costume, but I decided to go a bit smaller in scale than some of the ones I saw online. So I used a poster board to look like the Tinder app (and I made the back look like an iPad so it looked like you were using the app on an iPad) and then stalked all my friends who would be at the party on Facebook. I took photos of them, printed them out, laminated them, and then made it so the photos could be swiped left or right. I think it looked pretty great when it was done!

I added the binder clip to hold the photos together at the top because I didn’t want the photos to be swinging around while I was at the party.

When I got to their party, a lot of people were already there. And I loved seeing all the amazing and fun costumes that other people showed up in.

While I had hoped that my costume was going to be good enough to place in the costume contest, as I walked around the party I realized that everyone stepped up their costume game this year and it was going to be even more competitive than it normally is. But I was still having fun showing off my costume and everyone at the party seemed to enjoy swiping through the photos to see if their photo was in there and to swipe left and right on everyone else. Since my photo was on the top, people didn’t realize that all the photos were of people who were expected to be at the party. So as they swiped through, it was a fun surprise for them and I got so many compliments on having a really smart costume and for being really creative.

Marie and Chris always do a theme to their parties, and this year the theme was Day of the Dead. They had so many paper flowers all over the backyard and they added some new string lights that made their yard look more festive than before. and the photo spot was with these skeletons.

I really loved the decorations and thought they were so nice. I know they usually do really crazy things in their yard, but I loved what it looked like this year. And of course almost everything was handmade and that touch makes everything look so special.

I spent most of the party just hanging out with friends. I did a lot of hanging out one on one with people which was nice. I usually am around so many people at a time so getting individual time was nice and allowed me to have more substantial chats with people.

When it came time for the costume contest, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to place. Some of the costumes were just incredible and detailed and others were really good puns. But everyone looked amazing and I had a hard time picking which 3 I wanted to vote for. But I did pick 3 and 2 of them did place in the top 4.

After the costume contest, it was pretty late and I decided to start saying my goodbyes to my friends so I could head home. I would have loved to have stayed longer, but I was starting to get tired and I didn’t want to drive home when I was really tired. But of course, because I had so many friends there, it took over 30 minutes to say my goodbyes to everyone. But it was worth taking the time to do that because it gave me a little more one on one time with my friends.

The next party with this group will probably be the New Year’s Eve party which seems like it’s far away, but it’s really only 2 months. So I know it will be here before I know it!

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Staying Strong And Having Standards (or Still Learning From Dating)

So many of the changes I’ve made in my life over the past few years seem to come from things I’ve dealt with in online dating. I’ve questioned if it’s a good thing that I’m discovering so much about myself through dating and how men see me, but I’m starting to think it’s a good thing. This isn’t just about dating, but dating makes it a different environment. I’ve always been a people pleaser, but I’ve notice that this can also allow for people to walk over me. And this wasn’t as clear to me before as it has become after a guy treated me that way. So I’m just thinking that dating has given me a new perspective to view behaviors in my life and how I react to them.

I do still have things to work on and those issues are much clearer to me now, but I feel like I have become a much more confident person recently once I stopped worrying as much about what men think of me. I’ve allowed myself to be rude when it was warranted. I never would have done that before because I didn’t want someone to think I wasn’t kind or nice. But there are times where it doesn’t matter what someone else thinks because you need to do what is going to give you the answers or life you need. I still won’t be mean out of nowhere and I do hesitate to reject a guy when I’m questioning some things. I will always err on the side of being nice, but when I need to stand up for myself I will do so.

I’ve had a few chances to do that this past week, both with guys that I had gone out with about a year ago. It’s weird how guys from my past seem to reach out around the same time, but it has happened that way more than once. With these guys, things ended for different reasons so while my feelings about them were both something I questioned I still had different feelings.

For one guy, it didn’t end that well. It doesn’t matter why it ended, but it was something that made me mad and I held on to that feeling longer than I should have. He reached out to me to say how he missed me and wanted to see me again. And I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I was willing to see him even though he didn’t treat me that well before. But of course, even before I could see him he ended up treating me with the same lack of respect that he had before. I did allow it last year and I guess he thought he could still treat me the same way. But I called him out on the behavior and I didn’t see him. If he reaches out to me again, I would love to say I would ignore him but I honestly don’t know. It seems like some people are harder to kick out of your life than others.

The second guy was someone who I went out with a few times. Things ended because we were in different places in our lives. He had a bit of an issue with follow through when making plans, which annoyed me, but nothing was that bad. It ended, but it didn’t feel like it was for any reason other than I didn’t want to waste my time if I wasn’t feeling totally certain about him. And with that feeling, someone could change my mind because the things that didn’t work are things that could easily be fixed.

With this guy, I was very clear about my stance on what I am looking for and that if he didn’t want the same I didn’t want to waste time. He said he wanted the same and we made plans to see each other. And based on all my past experience I shouldn’t have been surprised when again he lacked the follow through for making plans. And I’m more than happy to call him out on it if he reaches out again. If someone wants to date me, they have to make plans and do those. Or if they need to reschedule they need to let me know. They can’t just say that we will be seeing each other after work on a certain day and then never make plans even after I text to ask what we are doing. This is something that can be changed, but I also know that I can’t go into something wanting someone to change. They need to want the change for themselves.

In the past, I would be terrified to let either of these guys out of my life or to stand strong on what I want and what I deserve. I would have felt lucky that anyone was interested in me and would be doing whatever it takes to not be too much work for them to want to be with. I would not allow myself to have my own standards and conform to theirs because I wouldn’t feel like I had the right to want something different. This has been a very tough thing for me to overcome because I had heard that I didn’t deserve it for so many years. But I’m so glad that the automatic thinking that was in my head for a majority of my life is starting to chip away.

I have no clue if I will give either of these guys another chance, but I know for sure that if I do allow them one I will continue to be strong in what I want and deserve.