Category Archives: Fun Stuff

A Dapper Day Attempt (or Trying To Make The Best Of An Afternoon)

Disney has lots of unofficial days in the park. I almost never go to these because they are on weekends and I rarely go to Disneyland on a weekend. I have gone to Pin-Up Day once but I haven’t gone back to it since. But of all the unofficial days, Dapper Day is the biggest one for sure. I had never been to the park during Dapper Day and never really had a plan to, but when my Disney friend Michelle asked me if I wanted to go I decided to check it out.

Dapper Day is a day when lots of people go to the park dressed up like they would have dressed when Disneyland opened in 1955. I don’t have a lot of outfits that would fit that idea, but I tried to pull something together that looked a bit more vintage than my usual outfits.

Michelle has a ton of vintage outfits so she had a super cute dress on but I didn’t end up getting a photo of us together. But there is a good reason for that.

We had a bit of a later start getting to Disneyland. I had my brunch in the morning and I headed straight to Michelle’s place and got there around 12:45pm. We were in the car quickly and there wasn’t a ton of traffic getting to Disneyland. We were at the exit for Disneyland in about 45 minutes and saw a line of cars trying to exit. We knew the day would be crowded so seeing a line of cars didn’t surprise us too much. We figured it would move quickly and we would be parking soon.

Then we noticed that we just weren’t moving. 30 minutes passed. An hour passed. And we still weren’t off the freeway. The flyover from the freeway exit to the parking lot was closed so we thought maybe it had to do with cars trying to get through the traffic light. But that didn’t explain it enough. We finally started to get closer to the parking lot entrance, and we noticed some cop cars and an ambulance going by. I still don’t know why they were there, but we were not allowed to go into the parking lot and were being redirected to park at the convention center.

Even once we were on Disney property trying to drive over to the convention center, the traffic was still unbearable. It had been about 3 hours after we got to the freeway exit and it didn’t seem like anything was getting better. And after being in the car for so long, both of us desperately needed to find a bathroom. We were terrified it would take another 2 hours to park, so when we saw the street to the Grand Californian Hotel, we turned and begged them to let us park the car so we could run into the lobby to use the bathroom. Fortunately, they let us do that and then we got back into the car to try to figure out how to get to a parking lot.

Because of how the exit from the hotel went, we couldn’t continue going toward the convention center. And it was so weird because the endless traffic jam that we were caught in was gone and there were no cars on that side of the street. We drove back toward the entrance that we came in and discovered the parking lot was open again! We had to drive a little bit of a loop, but we managed to finally park the car in the parking lot that we attempted to get to about 4.5 hours earlier.

I know that Disney did their best for the crowds that they were dealing with and they may have been a medical emergency that was causing more issues, but we were both feeling a little bit fed up once we were out of the car. Instead of heading straight into the park to see everyone in their Dapper Day outfits, we went to the Mexican restaurant in Downtown Disney to decompress and try to get into a better mood. Fortunately, margaritas and chips helped us and we were in a slightly better mood when we finally headed over to Disneyland.

By the time we were in the park, it was getting close to 6pm and we were already exhausted. But we wanted to try for at least a few rides and we were thinking about trying to stay for the fireworks. Our first ride was Pirates of the Caribbean because it was the last day before the ride went down for a refurbishment. They are changing the bride auction scene and are turning the redhead from that scene into a pirate. So we had to say our goodbye to the redhead.

The ride was as good as it always was and while I love the ride as it is I’m excited to see the changes when it reopens.

After Pirates, we went on the Haunted Mansion since it was located in the same area of the park. We were checking out some of the fun outfits that people were wearing for Dapper Day, but I think both Michelle and I were just kind of feeling done with the day. The long wait in the car while trying to park kind of wore us down and we never recovered from it. So after the Haunted Mansion, we were back on the tram to take us to the parking lot.

We did figure out that technically we were at the park a little bit longer than we spent in the car trying to park, but it’s sad that it was only maybe a 20 minute difference. When we were stuck in the car, we had talked about just giving up and going home, but we were stuck where we couldn’t turn around. I’m glad we didn’t go home and we did manage to get on a few rides, but it was not the best first time going to Dapper Day. If I go again in the future, I’ll make sure I try to get there around the time the park opens so hopefully there won’t be the same parking issue. But to be honest, I’m just happy to go on my random Mondays and don’t know if going on the unofficial days is really my thing.

Another Delayed Brunch (or I Wish I Had More Accomplishments)

I’ve been doing my meeting with my WIF mentoring group for a few years now. At the beginning we were really good about meeting every other month as a group (when we started, the alternate months were meetings with our mentors). When we were on our own, we still were pretty good about maintaining our every other month meetings and they seemed to be much easier to schedule. But lately, we’ve been having some issues with scheduling which is fine. The reasons have been because everyone is getting very busy with some awesome career stuff, but we are still trying to make an effort. So after a few reschedules recently, we finally had our 2nd brunch of the year this past weekend.

I’ve struggled a bit lately in our brunch meetings with what I have to share with the group. I always feel like I’ve had a lack of progress compared to everyone else, but I also know that it’s not good for me to compare myself to the others. We all are on our own paths and are at different stages in our careers. So there’s really no way I can look at what someone else is doing and compare my accomplishments to theirs. Even so, it was a bit frustrating that I didn’t have really anything related to acting to share with the group this time. I know that the point of our meetings isn’t just for me to share what’s happening in my life but for me to support the others in the group, but there is almost a sense of feeling left out when I don’t have good things to share.

I did share about some craziness that’s been happening with my day jobs and how I’m doing social media management as a side job right now. I know that sometimes I think that there isn’t much happening in my life until I look back at various blog posts, but I think this time there really wasn’t much related to my acting career since the group met back in January. I’ve started to wonder if I haven’t been focusing on it enough, but I know that I’m staying involved in the union and other actor related things with various groups and meetings I’m attending. That counts for something even if I’m not auditioning a lot. I would like to get back into class eventually, but until I’m in a better place financially I can’t afford to do that. But maybe this feeling of left out will help kick my butt into gear into figuring out what else I can do that is not dependent on me having auditions.

Even with my negative feelings about my personal accomplishments, I was so happy to be at our brunch so I could hear about the accomplishments that everyone else had! Because we’ve been meeting for so long, when someone has a big breakthrough it sometimes feels like I’ve had the breakthrough too because we’ve been going on the journey with them. I love getting to hear that someone had an amazing meeting with a producer, is getting financial backing for their project, or that they just had fun on set. I’m not feeling jealous of any of them at all. My feelings of being left out are more to do with my lack of accomplishments and not at all about their successes. I guess if I must have any negative thoughts, I’m glad that they are just a me issue and it’s not about anyone in the group.

The other thing that made me so happy with this past brunch was that we had almost everyone in the group there. We were only missing one person and it felt amazing to have all of us who could make it at brunch. Of course, we all would love it if we all could make it but we know how tough that is with our schedules. But getting to see everyone I did see and seeing how excited they all were to see each other really made me so happy and grateful for the group that we have.

We really are striving to have another meeting in 2 months, but we are also aware that we may need an extra month or two to get everything scheduled. At least we all understand the situation and nobody was upset that we missed having our brunch last month (they are all just grateful that I am willing to schedule and organize our brunches so they continue). And while I can’t control if I have any auditions or bookings before our next meeting, hopefully I can figure out something else to move my career forward that I can share next time.

A Badass Workout Week (or Better Than Expected)

This past week of workouts had the potential to not be as great as I would like. Because I know when I typically will be nauseous, I was worried that 2 of my workouts would be affected by that since going by a typical schedule I should have started to feel nauseous mid-week. But my body decided to go easy on me (maybe my body was also celebrating my Medical Miracle Anniversary too!) and I had a much better workout week that I was expecting!

Monday’s workout was a 3 group switch workout. It’s funny how normally I love these types of workouts but when I’m trying to get a lot of treadmill mileage for my challenge they are my least favorites. But I was just happy to have a workout that I was excited about even if it meant I wouldn’t be spending a lot of time on the treadmill. Essentially, we had 3 rounds around the room and each block was 4 minutes each, but we also had 1 round that was a little bit different.

For the treadmill, the first and last round was a 4 minute distance challenge. I knew I couldn’t run this even though I really wanted to, so the first time I did it I just did my normal speed with my push pace incline. But when I got back to the treadmill for the last time, I really wanted to do a little bit better so I increased my speed by .1 for the first 3 minutes and then bumped it up again for the last minute. Power walking that fast was a bit tough and I don’t think I could do it for a longer block, but it did make me think that maybe I could work on testing my walking speeds a bit more. And on the rower, the first and last round were 4 minute distance rows. I got over 800 meters both times and did better when I did it the second time which is always something that makes me happy.

But for the second round around the room, the treadmill and row was almost more of like a run/row format. The block was split into 2 and we had 90 seconds on each side. I did it twice since we had one run/row when I started on the treadmill and another run/row when I started on the rower. This was when I really started to test my speed on the treadmill for power walking. I kept my incline at my base pace incline but worked on increasing the speed. I got it up to .3 faster than I normally walk but that was almost too fast for me. I managed to keep it up for the 90 seconds I had to do it, but I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t do much longer than that.

And on the floor, each of the 3 blocks started with lunges and then we had 2 different exercises to finish out the 4 minutes. The first block was full thrusters with weights and high rows with the straps. The second block was squat low rows with weights and bicep curls on the straps. And the last block was pull ups with the straps and seated torso rotations. I was using lighter weights than I have in the past because I was getting really tired on the floor. I worked really hard on the treadmill and rower and I know my floor work suffered a bit because of that. I also was using the floor time as almost a bit of a rest time since we were going so much with very little rest time between rotations. I know the idea is to keep working because when you work through you build up endurance. But I’ve also learned from all my coaches that it’s so important to listen to your body and my body was saying I needed to take things a bit easy on the floor.

Wednesday’s workout was a strength day which meant inclines on the treadmill. I was a bit worried about the workout because I really didn’t sleep the night before. I tried to sleep, but even though I was in bed for 7 hours I only got about 90 minutes of sleep. That’s not the best way to sleep before a morning workout but I was determined to see what I could do. We had 3 blocks on the treadmill and they all followed the same pattern: 90 second push pace at an incline, 45 second base pace at no incline, repeat, and then end with 90 second push pace at incline followed by 30 second all out pace.

The first block I did the inclines at 8%, the second block I did at 7%, and the last block I did at 6%. Those inclines were a bit lower than power walkers were supposed to do, but they were pretty good for me. And with the final push to all out pace, I just kept my incline the same so I basically ended each block with a 2 minute push pace. The first block at 8% was really tough for me because that is usually the incline I use for all out paces and those aren’t more than a minute. So to do it for 90 seconds and 2 minutes was not easy. I did have to take some breaks during the inclines, but I did much better than I expected. I kept my normal speed for all 3 blocks and got a decent amount of distance on the treadmill by the time we switched to the floor.

The floor also had 3 blocks. Each of the blocks had a 300 meter row if you got done with the floor work, but I never made it to the rower. The first block used the mini-bands for 2 exercises. I’m used to using the bands on my legs, but this time we used them on our arms. We had walkouts with the bands which made the walkouts so tough! My shoulders and arms were really feeling it but it was good because walk outs are typically pretty easy for me. We also had lunges with arm rotations with the bands on our arms. Again, that made me feel it in my shoulders so much. The second block was bench burpees and lateral lunges. And the last block was lunges and crunches. For the weighted work I used my normal weights, but I also added a dumbbell to my crunches which isn’t something I always do. It definitely made them harder to do, but I think I needed to push myself a bit when I know that crunches can be pretty easy for me.

Friday’s workout was on my Medical Miracle anniversary, so I was excited to work out. Marking 1 year since not needing surgery was a big deal and I was happy to celebrate it by sweating hard! This workout was endurance, strength, and power based and I started on the treadmill.

We had 5 blocks and they all were themed to one type of workout. When we had power blocks, they were short and either short push to all out paces or just an all out pace. For the endurance block, we had a longer push pace, a base pace, a shorter push pace, a base pace, and an all out pace. And with the strength block, we had incline work with the inclines going up every minute. For most of the blocks, I did my usual inclines and speed. For the strength block, I wasn’t able to get the inclines up as high as I should have but I still tried to increase my incline each minute. I was having some minor nausea issues that morning so I did need to take some breaks to let that pass, but it wasn’t that bad compared to what I usually experience.

The floor was also 5 blocks and it was very focused on core work and lunges. We had a block with ab dolly knee tucks and ab dolly roll outs. A block with clean to presses with weights, lunges with shoulder presses, and then rowing for distance until time was called on the block. Another block with ab dolly knee tucks and ab dolly roll outs. A block with lunges to shoulder presses, bicycle curls, and rowing for distance until time was called. And we ended with a block of ab dolly knee tucks. I usually love ab dolly work, but it was a bit tough with the nausea. I just worked on taking breaks and getting upright when I needed to and was able to get through it pretty easily.

Saturday’s workout was a signature workout for Orangetheory. This was the Orange Inferno and it was a workout I had done before so I wasn’t too stressed about it. My main fear was that I was going to be super nauseous during the workout, but before going in I was still feeling pretty decent so I was optimistic that I’d do ok in the workout.

The Inferno was during the cardio which was a run/row. We had rounds of .25 mile runs (.13 miles for me since I was walking) and 200 meter rows. The goal was to do 5-8 rounds in 23 minutes. Run/row days are some of my favorites, but I also knew that I’d have to work extra hard because a run/row meant I wouldn’t get as much time on the treadmill. I think I might have to keep doing mileage challenges because they really are motivating me on the treadmill! After my warmup, I had a goal in my head that I wanted to at least complete the 6th round on the treadmill. Because of the distance in my warmup, that would get me to 1 mile for the class which is a good goal to have.

The first time I was on the treadmill, I did my usual speed and at 6% incline which is what we were supposed to be at. But after that, I realized that I would have to kick things up a bit to get all the rounds I wanted to get in. The next 2 rounds I increased it by .1mph and it didn’t feel too bad. At the end I had to get to the max I can do as a walk in order to make sure I finished and that was pretty tough. I probably could increase my walking speed a bit, but I totally went too hard at the end. And with all the 200 meter rows, I had to look at those as almost my recovery time since I didn’t want to waste time doing nothing. But even considering those as recovery I always got them done in under a minute. Once we were done with the 23 minutes, I hit my goal and actually went a little bit further. I didn’t switch over to the rower at the end, but I did .15 miles in that last round which brought me to be just above a mile for the entire block.

Once I was on the floor, I was exhausted. My legs were so tired, but fortunately the floor work focused on upper body and arms. The first block had push ups, chest flys with weights, tricep work with weights, and crunches. The second block was plank low rows with weights, low rows on the straps, hammer curls, and sit ups. And the last block was a core blast with leg raises and sit ups. I didn’t go too heavy with the weights I was using because I was feeling tired and I knew my form was a bit sloppier than I would have liked. Heavy weights would have just made my form worse. But even with the lighter weights I still felt it and was ready to take a nap when class was done!

I’m so happy with how this past week of workouts went for me. I really was expecting it to be so much worse than what it ended up like. I am still worried about when my nausea may hit me, but I’m trying to stay optimistic that maybe this month I won’t have to deal with it or I’ll only have it for a week instead of 2 weeks. I’ve only got about 5 more workouts in my mileage challenge and I’ve already hit the first goal I had in mind. But I’m only halfway to the next goal I had and I don’t think that I’ll be able to make it to that one. But I’m definitely debating doing these mileage challenges on my own each month so I’m just looking at this as my starting point. I know that I can do better in the future!

Medical Miracle Anniversary (or A Year Of My Liver Being A Badass)

1 year ago today I was supposed to have my liver surgery to remove my tumors and about 30% of my liver. And as you know if you’ve followed my blog for a while, that surgery didn’t happen. Even though the research shows that the type of tumors I have don’t typically shrink on their own, somehow mine did. The tumors were caused by hormonal birth control and I guess going off of it made the tumors smaller. I’ve done some research on my own and it seems like even though this situation is still very rare, it is a bit more common than we previously thought.

For my hip surgery, it’s easy to know what the anniversary is because it happened on a certain date. For this medical situation, it was a bit tougher to pick what my anniversary date would be. There was the date when my OB/GYN called me to tell me my MRI results were in and the tumors shrank. At that time I only knew the tumors shrank and that it was almost unheard of that happening. She didn’t know what was the next step and I assumed I might still be having surgery. Then there was the phone call I had with my liver surgeon that happened 2 days before I was supposed to go in for my pre-op appointment. That was when my surgery was officially cancelled and I knew that I was a medical miracle.

But to me, I think I want to consider my non-surgery date as my medical miracle anniversary since it is the anniversary of my surgery not happening. It’s also an easier date to remember because I have to look back at a calendar to figure out what dates I got the phone calls from the doctors. And the surgery date was ingrained in my head while I prepped for it so it will be hard for me to forget it. So that mean today marks my 1 year anniversary of being a medical miracle.

It’s weird to think that 1 year ago I would have either still been in surgery or in a recovery room recovering from a major surgery. While I was looking forward to the surgery because I knew that I needed it, I’m much happier that I didn’t have to deal with a very long recovery from a major surgery. While I’ve had a few surgeries in my life, this would have been the biggest one and the first time I would have been in the hospital overnight (I would have been there for multiple days and nights to recover before going home).

When my surgery was initially cancelled, I did have a bit of a struggle because it felt like something in my life was unfinished. I also felt a bit out of control and disconnected because I had no sense that this was happening with my body (both the tumors existing and the tumors shrinking). It took a while for that feeling to go away, but now I’m just so grateful that I was lucky enough to not need a major surgery. As much as I prepared for that recovery, I know that there really isn’t a way to prepare and I was worried about how painful it might be and what my body may not be able to do for a while. I’m glad I didn’t have to have those worries but instead just got to enjoy a long visit with my parents instead of being in the hospital.

Since my medical miracle, there has been very little I’ve had to do with my liver. I am still limiting my drinking since I know alcohol can stress my liver (and I doubt stress is good for it). I’m taking some supplements for liver health because I figured it can’t hurt to do that and it’s not expensive to take them. And while I don’t have to worry about the tumor breaking off and causing me to bleed internally as much as I did before, I’m continuing to be cautious of not bumping my stomach into anything and avoiding any trauma I can to my abdomen.

I had an MRI 6 months after the miracle because my surgeon had no idea what really would happen with the tumors. The hope was that they would continue to shrink, but there was the possibility that they would either stay the same or grow and that would have led to me needing surgery. Fortunately, they did shrink a bit more (but not nearly as significantly as they did previously) and my surgeon and I went over what the plan would be. The plan is pretty limited as this is not the normal path, but basically I’m just continuing doing what I’m doing and then I’ll have another MRI in October (1 year from the most recent MRI).

Even a year later, I still think I’m a bit shocked about how this all turned out. Discovering I had a tumor was pretty dramatic with a full day at the hospital. Discovering what type of tumor I had and how large they were was pretty crazy too. And then being a medical miracle and having my surgery cancelled is something I never believed could happen. Even though my family always believes in the best for medical situations, my tumors shrinking to the point of my surgery being unnecessary didn’t really enter any of our minds. Hopefully the dramatics with these tumors is done now and my next MRI and all future ones will show the tumors shrinking. I guess I’ll find out in 6 more months.

I Love Good Customer Service Stories! (or Sometimes A Dream Purchase Isn’t One)

I’ve shared a few different customer service stories on here. While I’ve had some bad experiences, I’d rather share the good ones. Maybe this is because I work in customer service and I hope that my customers feel as happy as I do after a positive outcome. Or maybe it’s because my dad and I love to share customer service stories (good and bad). Either way, I’m happy I’ve got another good one to share.

I’ve been trying to get better with my spending. I have been working on cutting back where I can but occasionally I do still have splurge purchases. And most of the time, these splurges are either things that I have been looking forward to (like my Disney pass or Pantages tickets) or something that I’ve been stalking online or in stores and wait for it to go on sale. A lot of the time, if I’ve been stalking something I’ve wanted to buy eventually I don’t care about it anymore. But there was a purse that I had been stalking online for a while.

I’m not going to name the company because I don’t have the best things to say about the purse, but this isn’t a designer bag even though it wasn’t cheap. But I view purses as investments and this cost about the same as what my last purse cost and I’ve been using that bag for about 8 years! So spending more to have an investment piece is worth it. I didn’t need a new purse (my current one was starting to show wear, but it wasn’t broken or torn), but I did want one. And when I saw this purse for sale online, I jumped at the chance to get it!

I was so excited because one of the features of the purse was how roomy it was even though it was a smaller bag than I’m used to. There were a bunch of videos online about how to pack it full of lots of things. While I do keep my purse clean, I keep a lot of stuff in there. I have a bag that has all the random things I may need when I’m out (lip balm, hair tie, mints, safety pins, pen, notebook, and other things like that). Based on the videos that I was watching online, I should have been able to fit all my things in the bag with room to spare.

And when the bag arrived earlier this week, I loved how nice it looked! It wasn’t showy and it was smaller than I’m used to, but it seemed super functional. That is, until I tried to start putting my stuff in it. Maybe if I didn’t have everything organized into a bag and had all my money things in a wallet, it would have worked. There were lots of pockets for organization, but the larger pockets didn’t really fit my things in it. I tried putting my stuff inside and walk around my house and it just wasn’t meant to be. Not only did I have issues with the bag seeming overstuffed and being difficult to pull things out of, the way the strap of the bag hung on me was just off. The strap was cutting into my neck (which totally surprised me) and one of the adjustment buckles on the strap was getting caught in my hair and pulling some strands out!

Honestly, I thought about if I could make this bag work. I tried to downsize what I carried in my purse but I still had issues with it feeling overstuffed. I readjusted the strap to see if it wouldn’t bother my neck or if the buckle wouldn’t get caught in my hair. But when I adjusted it to fit my body and hair better, it wasn’t the length of the strap I wanted it to be. It’s unfortunate because I really loved this purse but it just wasn’t meant for my body or my lifestyle.

I looked at their website to see their return policy and it stated that the purse had to be in completely unused condition to be returned for a refund. But in order for me to try the purse, I had to unwrap the tissue it was wrapped in. And the tissue on the straps had tape so there was no way to put that back exactly like it was when it was delivered. But I took a chance and emailed the company to see if there was anything they could do to help me out.

Within minutes of me sending the email, I got 2 emails back from them. The first was an apology that the purse wasn’t working out for me and that as long as I had the tag with the bar code (which I did) that they would accept the return and refund my money. And the second email was a shipping label that I could use to send it back. I wasn’t expecting this at all since their return policy was pretty clear that it had to be totally unused, but it made me so happy that they were willing to try to make me a happy customer even if I didn’t love the purse I bought. There are other bags they sell that I would totally consider buying in the future, but I don’t need them now.

While I had been dreaming of having this purse for so long, it just wasn’t meant to be for me. And while I really wish I could have made it work, I know that the money I spent on it could be used for other more important things. I probably shouldn’t have made the purchase in the first place but it was something I had been wanting for a long time and the want for it wasn’t going away. I had to take the chance on getting it when it was on sale, and I’m just lucky that even though I have to return the purse that I experienced amazing customer service so I don’t have to worry about the money I spent.

Doing Some More Dating Reflection (or It’s Been An Interesting Year)

About a year ago, I got back into online dating. It wasn’t the first time I had tried online dating, but from the very beginning this time was so different. Immediately, I was getting more matches and more dates than I had in the past. There are a few reasons my friends and I joke about why this could happen, but there is really no good reason I can think of. It’s ok that I can’t think of a reason because it really doesn’t matter. And when I got back into online dating, I didn’t really have a timeline of how long I’d be doing it. I know for sure I didn’t think I’d still be doing it a year later.

To be totally honest, I really hoped that I would meet someone incredible and that I wouldn’t need online dating a year later. I’ve met some great guys (and I’m still seeing a few to see if it turns into anything), but nothing significant has come out of my dating adventures. Well, I should probably rephrase that and say that no significant relationship has come out of it. But some significant things have happened to me.

As much as I hate to say that I gained confidence by being wanted, that’s something that happened to me. After being told by someone that I was not worthy of people caring about me, I do like having the validation that it’s not true. I’m not dependent on others to gain confidence, but it did help me at first. Now I’m not feeling the same need to be wanted, but it’s still nice to have.

I’ve also gained some strength in knowing what I want and not tolerating what I don’t want. In the past, I would tolerate things that I shouldn’t have to because I was scared that I would not be able to find someone better. I know that that’s not the truth for sure now and if there is something that is a deal breaker for me I don’t feel the need to see if I could put up with it and see if I could make the relationship last (or make a date turn into a relationship). While I do have a little lingering fear that I will end up alone the rest of my life, being alone forever is a better option that putting up with crap and I’m glad I’m confident in that idea now.

It hasn’t all been good. I’ve encountered more guys that I’d like to think about who are online and trying to cheat on their significant other. I’ve been getting good and figuring out those guys and I usually call them out about it. And of course there are a ton of scammers and fake accounts on all the different sites I use. Those are usually easy to figure out too, but sometimes it takes a few messages exchanged before I realize they are fake. There’s only been one faker that I feel like I wasted way too much time with, but he was a pretty good fake account. But as soon as I figured it out, I moved on. The only thing that annoyed me was the time wasted and not that he wasn’t real.

I’m still pretty active with a few different dating sites. There are 3 that I pretty much only use but I’ve got 2 others on my phone that I’ll check occasionally. And I do try to check the main 3 apps every day for at least a few minutes. I know how easy it could be to just not bother with it, but I do want to try to find someone who I really like and wants to possibly be serious with me. And as much as I don’t love online dating, I know it’s the best chance for me to meet someone these days. So I just have to keep chugging along and making an effort to put myself out there each day.

I would love it if I don’t have to celebrate 2 years (or more) of being back on online dating. I really am trying to stay hopeful that I will find a guy who becomes the person who gets me to delete all the apps. I am trying to find the fun in dating and with first dates, but they can be a bit stressful too. I just keep trying to remind myself that each new first date is a potential new chapter in the book I’m working on about my adventures in online dating. But I’d love to have the final chapter figured out so I could just move on from the first date portion of my life.

A Gift From A Stranger (or Positivity Online)

There are so many social media and forums online that there is no way to participate in them all. I am on a few forms of social media (FB, Twitter, IG), but I’m sure there are at least a dozen other apps and sites that I’m not on. I can’t be on everything, so I pick and chose the ones that fit into my life. The same with online forums. I use FB a lot of online forum type discussions and for a long time I used the forums on IMDb to discuss tv shows and movies. But when the forums were shut down, I started looking for new places to chat with other fans of shows and movies I love.

I was never a real big user of Reddit in the past. I would look at it occasionally, but I didn’t do anything on it. And I never really thought I would use it. But after the forums on IMDb shut down, several people were saying how they were using Reddit instead so I finally signed up for an account on there and was pretty much just a lurker when I started. But I started to figure out how to use Reddit and subscribed to several subreddits for things I love (like Orangetheory!). Ironically, I don’t use Reddit for discussing tv and movies except on rare occasions but I’ve been enjoying Reddit for what I do get out of it.

There have been gift exchanges through Reddit several times a year and I participated in my first one during the holidays. It was fun buying a gift for someone who I didn’t know and they posted online about how much they loved their gifts! The gifts I got weren’t things I necessarily loved, but I put the blame for that on myself. I wasn’t that great at filling out the form to let my Secret Santa know the types of things I like. They got me things that fit what I said I liked, but not necessarily things I would use (such as t-shirts with the poster of a show I like, except I would never wear it).

So when I decided to sign up for another Reddit gift exchange, I tried to be much more specific about what I like and the types of gifts I would love to get. This exchange was to celebrate the 400th gift exchange so there wasn’t really a theme to the gifts. They did say we could send 400 of something, but it wasn’t a requirement (some of the gift exchanges are pretty specific like comic books, bookmarks, or themed for a specific hobby). I pretty much wrote in my gift preferences that I love to listen to podcasts and I love Disney. I think that pretty much sums me up!

When the matches were done, I was excited to see who I got to send a gift to. As I’m writing this, they haven’t posted on Reddit if they liked their gift or not. But they mentioned they are in dental school and love candy. So I found gummy candy teeth to send to them. They also joked that they would like $400 million as well, so I found fake $1 million bills to send to them. I didn’t send 400 fake bills, but hopefully they will get a laugh out of it.

Right after I sent off my gift, the gift I got from my Secret Santa (who isn’t the same person I sent a gift to) arrived at my door. They had given me a heads up that it was going to be in 2 shipments, but they happened to arrive at the same time so that was fun. And when I opened up the box, I was smiling so much!

While I don’t need a book on how to start a podcast, it’s going to be the perfect thing to tell others to read when they ask me about doing a podcast! And while I don’t have a trip planned yet for Disney World, I’ve been telling my friends how we need to figure out how to get to Disney World since it’s been a while since I was there and so many new things have opened at those parks!

But the book on poster art in Disney parks is the most amazing and perfect gift! I haven’t seen this book before but it is totally something that I would have seen and would have loved to buy but wouldn’t get it for myself. I’ve looked through the book a few times already and it makes me so happy to see all the incredible posters that are in each of the chapters. I love anything to do with Disney and love Disney history so this is the perfect thing for me!

I seriously love everything I got and these gifts almost make me feel bad for the person I bought gifts for because I know these gifts are so much better than what I bought. But I also can’t always compare what I gift to others to what others gift to me (this is true with Reddit gift exchanges and in normal life). This person happened to guess pretty perfectly what I would love but they had a chance that I wouldn’t love it. I’m just so grateful for what I got and have thanked them for figuring out the best gifts to get me.

I’m going to do more Reddit gift exchanges since I’ve had fun with them with the first 2 I did. I won’t do too many since I do have to spend about $20 on the gifts and then pay for shipping sometimes. If I had more money to spend I could totally see myself doing a ton of these exchanges and hopefully one day I’ll be able to do that. But for now, I’ll just have to be picky about which exchanges I’ll do. I’ll maybe pick one more to do that is fun plus the holiday time one. And there do appear to be some exchanges that are about postcards so those are less expensive to do. I’ll just have to do some investigating since these gift exchanges are still a bit new to me.

But I’m so glad that I did take the chance on doing them and that I lucked out and got someone who really did an amazing job picking out gifts for a stranger!

A Fun And Unique Workout Week (or Not Letting Setbacks Set Me Back)

This past week of workouts could have been pretty bad for me, but I was able to stay positive and it ended up not being so bad. I really have learned how to manage my setbacks recently and not let them control my workouts. I do have to be careful with myself and not push myself too hard, but I also know that being super easy on myself isn’t always the best thing either.

Monday’s workout was a bit of a weird day. On Sunday evening, while I was getting out of the shower, I felt a very sharp tinge in my calf muscle. I pretty quickly recognized it as the start of a tear in the muscle (something that I’m sadly familiar with). I took it easy on Sunday night, but on Monday my calf was still feeling a bit tender so I knew I would need to be taking it easy in the workout. Fortunately, it was a 3 group workout so I knew that I wouldn’t be at any part of the room for too long.

I started on the rower where we had one long block. We started with a 600 meter row followed by squat front raises. Then the row went down 200 meters and we continued that pattern going down and back up until time was done. Because of how I bandaged my calf, I wasn’t able to row that hard. I knew my rowing times would be on the slower side and I didn’t concern myself too much about how long each row too. I was on the floor next where we had one long block that was split into 3 segments. The first segment was doing pull overs on the BOSU followed by hammer curls. The second segment was hop overs on the BOSU and then knee tucks on the BOSU. And the last segment was running man and then BOSU burpees. Because of my calf I had to do some modifications such as lunges instead of hop overs, skipping the knee tucks, and limiting how much I did with the burpees.

I ended the workout with cardio. Between the calf issue, knowing I’d be at Disneyland later, and doing cardio at the end; I knew I’d have to use the bike. There really wasn’t an option for me if I wanted to be able to do stuff after my workout. There were 2 blocks and they had decreasing push paces. I worked on getting the watts and cadence on the bike up during all the push paces even if I was using the same resistance. I think I did a pretty good job at doing that and I was feeling like I was working hard. I wished I could have used the treadmill since I have been tracking my miles in my workouts, but I am glad I went with the bike because it was a good break for my body while still allowing myself to feel a bit challenged.

Fortunately my calf was doing much better by Wednesday. Even though I did a lot of walking on Monday, I think the compression bandage along with resting on Tuesday helped so that I was feeling almost completely better by my Wednesday workout. And that workout ended up being a strength day with another benchmark challenge. This time, the benchmark was the 500 meter row.

I looked at my past 500 meter row challenges and knew that there was no way I would do a new PR. My best one was about 15 seconds faster than I thought I could do it this time. It was nice to have that pressure off of me since I knew my calf was almost better but not totally better. Instead, I just decided to set a new idea of what time I would like to be under. The goal for everyone in class was to be under 2:30 (my PR is about 1:45), so I decided that I wanted to be under 2:15. And I accomplished that with some time to spare so I was very happy with my 500 meter row attempt. Eventually I’ll get back to where I can PR again and it will be awesome when I can beat my best time. But I’m glad I just beat the mini-goal that I had set for myself.

The treadmill work was 2 blocks and I did go with the treadmill. The workout was a strength workout which means inclines, but I just kept my inclines to my normal ones I use for push and all out paces. The first block was decreasing push paces and the second block was increasing push paces. Considering how I was feeling on Monday, I was just glad that I wasn’t feeling really any pain in my calf. I occasionally had a little soreness, but I also wondered if that pain could be do to me always putting a little bit more on my left side since it is my right hip that hurts. I took breaks when I needed to, but it wasn’t anything worse than what I normally do.

The floor was one long block with 5 different exercises and a row. We had deadlifts, low rows on the straps, goblet lateral lunges, plank crunches, and bicycle crunches. For the deadlifts and lunges I went with heavier weights than I normally do. I figured it was a strength day and I should be working on going heavier. It was a bit tough for the lunges, but for the deadlifts it didn’t feel that different from what I usually feel with the weights I usually use. I do need to work on using the heavier weights more often and I’m glad that I did it this time. After the exercises we had a 250 meter row. I was a bit lazy with the row each time I did it and I was a bit slower than we were supposed to be doing the row in. But I figured that was my rest time during the floor block and once I was done with the row I tried to jump right back into the exercises instead of taking a quick break then.

Friday’s workout was an endurance, strength, and power day and it was also a Capture The Flag workout. The first half of class was a regular class with the treadmill work and floor work. On the treadmill it was push paces followed by base paces and in the end there was a push to all out pace. I was at my normal treadmill speed and inclines because my calf was feeling pretty much completely healed that morning! I was struggling a bit with hip issues and I didn’t sleep enough the night before, but I would rather have those problems since I’m used to them than the calf issue.

For the Capture The Flag workout, we were all in teams of 2. I started on the floor/treadmill work which included squat twists with a medicine ball, double crunches, and push ups. And then there was a sprint on the treadmill. Then I tagged my partner and she did the floor/treadmill work while I just focused on rowing for distance. The goal was to get the rower distance as high as possible and I really wanted to make sure I was being an equal teammate and doing at least my share of the rowing work. Fortunately, we were pretty equal as far as rowing ability and the time it took us to complete the floor/treadmill work. And when we were done with Capture The Flag, I think we had a pretty good distance on the rower! I would have loved to be at 5,000 meters, but in my head my goal was to just be at least at 4,500 meters which we did!

Saturday was a Tornado workout. I’m used to these for my 3 group workouts, but to have one for a 2 group workout was fun. It was the first Tornado at the Culver City location so they were trying to keep things a bit simple. We had 5 rounds around the room. The first round was 1 minute, the second round 2 minutes, the third round 4 minutes, the fourth round 2 minutes, and the last round was 1 minute. On the treadmill, things were pretty much the same for every round with a push to all out pace. I stuck with walking and had my normal speed and inclines.

On the rowers, we just did timed rows for each block. The 4 minute timed row was really tough and that surprised me since I know I’ve done longer rows than 4 minutes. But it might have been the combination of the longish row plus all the other work I had done before that. And on the floor, we had all Bosu work. Most of the rounds were timed Bosu work like doing burpees, plank jacks to pop jacks, and plank work. It wasn’t that easy to do a lot of the exercises on the Bosu and I ended up doing many of them on the floor instead. But to me it’s more important to just keep working than to give up because I found things too hard.

Overall, I’m pretty proud of myself for this past week of workouts. I had a lot of times where I could have just not tried as hard because I felt not 100%. But I was so motivated to keep going and I’m glad that I did. The only thing that wasn’t super great this past week was the mileage I got in each class. When we had Capture the Flag and the Tornado workout, I wasn’t on the treadmill for as long as I usually am in class. It’s not horrible that I didn’t get as much mileage in each workout because that just meant I was on the rower more, but considering this is a monthly challenge for me I really was hoping to have a ton of treadmill miles. But hopefully this week will make up for it!

1500 Posts (or This Really Is Just A Part Of My Life)

While I do have my blog anniversary marked in my calendar, I really don’t think too much about blog milestones much anymore. I actually missed acknowledging my 1,000th post because I didn’t think about it. And the only reason why I knew this would be my 1,500th post is because 2 weeks ago someone asked me how many blog posts I’ve done so far. I looked up the number and realized this milestone was coming up. While I knew I had written a bunch of posts since my last milestone post, I honestly had no clue that I was about to get to another milestone.

If I hadn’t been asked about it, I could have gone several months without checking to see how many posts I’ve done. When I started, it was such a big deal when I realized how many posts I had done because it was proof of me following through with a goal to keep this blog. But it’s become so normal for me now that I don’t really know what a milestone really means for me.

On the days I don’t write a blog post (either I don’t need one for the next day or I’m blogging in advance and don’t need to write), it almost feels weird and that something is missing in my life. I’m so used to having the time most days to reflect on a specific event or subject that when I don’t have that moment I miss it. I almost crave the time I take to write my posts. I don’t crave it enough to try to blog every single day (5 days a week is enough), but it really has become almost a part of my self-care work. It would be nice if other aspects of my life could feel so needed to me like meal planning, cooking, or stretching. But for now, I can be happy that blogging feels so natural and normal.

But even though in a way having a milestone like this doesn’t feel like a big deal because this blog is just a part of my life, it is a big deal and I should recognize that. I have several blogger friends who either just didn’t like blogging or didn’t feel like they could keep up with it. Even friends of mine who were much more successful than I am have decided it wasn’t worth it. Maybe they felt like the money they got wasn’t worth it, but I find this so worth it even though I don’t make money from here (I do have ads and affiliate links, but I’ve made under $100 over the entire lifetime of my blog).

I have had people ask me how long I’m going to keep blogging. For me, I really can’t see myself stopping. I can imagine in the future maybe I won’t be blogging every day (I had that thought last year when I was going to have surgery), but I don’t see an end point yet. Maybe in the future I’ll be done with doing this, but this blog isn’t necessarily about a journey that will have a conclusion. This is the journey of my life and there have been lots of twists and turns that I never imagined when I started this. Obviously I never thought I’d have liver tumors and that took my blog in a new direction. I also never thought I’d be blogging about dating (partially because that felt too personal and partially because I didn’t have much to say), but I’ve written lots of posts about that too. And I’m sure that there will be so many more posts about things in the future that I can’t imagine right now.

It’s funny to think about how worried I was to be a good blogger when I started when in reality I just needed to be consistent, true to myself, and honest. I’m not the most interesting person and I know there are plenty of boring posts on here, but that’s the truth of my life. And even if I feel like I don’t have anything interesting in my life, I’ve got 1,500 posts on here saying otherwise. And while I know that not all 1,500 posts have been the most interesting ones, they are proof of the life that I’m living and that I am making progress in many aspects of my life.

Enjoying More Food and Wine Festival (or Enjoying A Hot Day At Disneyland)

The last time I was at Disneyland, it was during the beginning of the Food and Wine Festival. I got the pass to be able to try different foods at the festival cheaper than they would be on their own because I figured I’d be going at least another time or two before the festival ended. But I forgot about spring break and how long that would block my pass from being good. So since the festival was ending this week my friends and I knew we needed to get to Disneyland. It had been pretty typical spring weather recently, but of course the day we planned on going it ended up being almost as hot as it gets in the summer. But that wasn’t going to stop us from having fun!

I had a few tickets left on my food pass and Dani and Michelle got a pass to split between the two of them. It ended up working pretty great for us each to get to try a few things. When we got to the park, we started with getting some lunch. I had the pork roast which had coleslaw on it and it was really flavorful!

And because it was so hot out, I also got the orange vanilla float. I haven’t had soda in several years so it felt a bit weird having soda in this. But it wasn’t really like drinking soda (more like an ice cream shake). It really was the perfect thing to have to try to feel more comfortable in the heat.

Later in the day I also had the tacos that I had the last time but totally forgot to take photos of it! It was still as good as the last time I had it.

Because of the heat, we had a pretty lazy day. When we got to the park, we had our food first and then started to do some rides. While we were at the California Adventure side we did Toy Story Mania, The Little Mermaid, Soarin’ Around The World, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout.

But we took our time getting from one ride to another. When we were going between The Little Mermaid and Soarin’, we walked through the path behind Grizzly River Run which we usually don’t do. It’s such a nice area back there and we really enjoyed spending a few minutes by the waterfall because the mist from it was cooling us down.

We also took advantage of the Photopass photographers. We found one by the Hyperion Theater that didn’t really have a line so we decided to go for it. The photographer was really fun and was helping us get some cute photos. And she also set it up so we could have a magical photo (where they add things into the photo to make it special) and I think our magical photo with the balloons was my favorite out of all the ones we got.

When we headed over to the Disneyland side, we took our time getting over to our first ride which was Space Mountain.

The ride didn’t break down so we didn’t get to be on it with the lights on, but I am hoping for that to happen now every time I’m on it since it was so cool when it happened! After that ride we were all starting to feel a bit tired so we ended our day at Disneyland with a quick ride on Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters.

I would have loved to have stayed later, but I think the heat really took it out of me. Even though I knew it was going to be a hot day, it really got to me and I probably should have prepared better. I also ended up being sunburnt even though I had sunscreen on and wore a hat. But the tiredness and sunburn was totally worth it because I always have a pretty amazing day when I’m at Disneyland.

It’s getting closer to when our passes are blacked out for the summer so I’m hoping my friends and I make it once or twice before we can’t go for a while. But being at the parks in the heat reminded me of why I don’t mind my pass not being good for the summer. While there are ways to cool down, it does get uncomfortable for me being that warm and I always have a risk of getting sunburned. But maybe for the next time that I’m there it will be a bit cooler so I can enjoy the last few times in the park before I can’t go back until August.

SaveSave