An Unexpected Day Off (or Enjoying Some Free Time)

Posted on March 7, 2023 | Comments Off on An Unexpected Day Off (or Enjoying Some Free Time)

I’ve been pretty lucky with my day job situation for quite a bit of time. Things haven’t always been perfect, but they have been better than what many of my friends have dealt with. Even losing my job during the beginning of the pandemic isn’t the worst thing since so many of my friends who kept their jobs had to be around people. That wouldn’t have been my situation, but losing my job at that time led me to the job that I’m doing full-time now. And when that job came back and things started to get better, they worked with me so I could work limited hours and make it work with my new job. And I do feel like my efforts and contributions are appreciated at both my jobs.

I have a few more positive things to say about my main job, but that’s mainly because I have benefits that my part-time job doesn’t have. I get paid holidays, which is something that a lot of jobs don’t provide. And while I don’t have health insurance, I do get extra money once a month to help with the cost of insurance. It doesn’t cover it in full, but it’s significantly better than getting no help at all. And I think because of the type of work I do at my full-time job, I get a lot more feedback and feel a bit more important to keep the company going.

And I know that job appreciates us too from a lot of things that they have done for us. The most recent thing we got was an extra day off last week for employee appreciation day. I didn’t know I had this day off until the week before when some of my meetings were getting moved around. Because it was on a Friday, I still had to work my part-time job, but it gave me a lot of extra free time that I wasn’t expecting and I took advantage of that.

I did allow myself to sleep in a bit, but since I get up so early almost every day, sleeping in isn’t really that late. I think I was still up before 7am. But it was nice to not have to rush to get out of bed to get to my workout or to log in for work. So I enjoyed the morning and took my time getting things done. But I couldn’t be too lazy because I had an appointment that morning.

As soon as I found out about having the day off, I messaged my friend about getting my hair done. I was going to message her soon anyway, but I figured I’d have to go one day after work in the evening. But since I had the day off, I asked if she had any appointments that would work around my other job and she had something in the morning so it was perfect! It was nice not going in after being tired from working and other things going on and just getting to relax while getting my hair back to how I like it to look.

I did have to work for 2 hours in the afternoon for my other job, but I was much more relaxed working than normal since I wasn’t doubled up for my work and I didn’t have any stress from my main job affecting me. And I was done with work by 3pm so I had a lot of free time in the afternoon.

I didn’t do much else with my day, just spent time reading and then watching a bit of tv before going to bed. I also received a very nice card and generous gift card from my main job, so I did do some exploring online to figure out what I want to use the gift card on. I haven’t decided yet, but I’m sure I’ll find something cool.

It really was a nice and chill day off that I didn’t plan on having. I did get a few things done that I needed to do, but it was just nice feeling like I had the ability to relax a bit more during my day. Normally, I feel pretty rushed from 5 in the morning until about 6 in the evening. And even though I had a day off the week before, I will always appreciate any paid time off that I can have.

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Default ThumbnailWork Begets Work (Old Bosses Possible New Jobs) Default ThumbnailMaking Up A Schedule (or What To Do With My New Free Time) Default ThumbnailBack To Back Job Changes (or Unexpected Good News) Default ThumbnailSeeing How To Make My New Schedule Work (or I Have A Better Idea Of My Free Time Now) Default ThumbnailGearing Up To Wind Down (or I Think I’ll Need These Days Off) Default ThumbnailEarly Days (or 2 Weeks Of Long Shifts)

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Picking Up My Effort (or Glad This Week Wasn’t As Bad As It Could Have Been)

Posted on March 6, 2023 | Comments Off on Picking Up My Effort (or Glad This Week Wasn’t As Bad As It Could Have Been)

Before this past week of workouts, I was worried that it might be a bad week. I knew my pain and nausea might kick in during the week, but I was also hopeful that it wouldn’t be as bad as I know it can be. It’s not exactly something I can predict, I just know when the likely time is for it to happen.

Monday was a tough day for me for nausea, but it was somewhat manageable. I just tried to do what I always do with taking breaks when I needed them to make sure I let the nausea pass.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block was rounds of a push pace or a base pace for 1 minute each with a 30-second all-out at the end. The second block was rounds of a 30-second push pace with an incline followed by a 90-second base pace without an incline and another 30-second all-out at the end. The incline/resistance level wasn’t too high, but I still tried to keep it above what I normally use for my all-out to make it a bit more challenging.

On the rower, each block was a row and a medicine ball exercise. The first block was a 200-meter row and a good morning with the medicine ball. And the second block was a 30-second row and calf raises with a raised medicine ball. The calf raises were supposed to be single-leg and sometimes I do try to do those, but I knew my balance was not up for it so I did them as regular calf raises instead.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks that each had 3 exercises. We had single-arm high rows, shoulder presses to stands, and squats in the first block. And we had single-arm chest presses, deadlifts, and pullovers in the second block. I did split up the shoulder presses to stands into 2 movements, but other than that I was able to do a pretty good job with all the floor work and used some good weights.

I was expecting to still have nausea on Tuesday, but I was doing a lot better so that was a nice surprise for me. I know how much I have to take advantage of the days I feel good when I’m expecting not to be ok, so I tried my best not to go too easy on myself.

For cardio, we had one long block. We started with a 30-second push pace and a 30-second base pace. We continued the pattern of the push and base pace matching, but each time they were increased by 15 seconds. We ended with a 75-second push pace and a 75-second base pace before having a 30-second all-out to end the block. I didn’t change up my resistance levels from what I normally use, but I did pay more attention to how fast I was pedaling so I could try to increase it just a little bit more than what I usually do.

On the rower, for the first 3 minutes, we matched cardio with the push and base paces. Then we had stroke drills with medicine ball work for the rest of the block. We had 20 strokes on the rower and then squats with front presses and lunges. The first 3 minutes were tough since my endurance on the rower isn’t my strong spot, but I did ok. And for the stroke drills, I really made sure I took my time since that’s the best way to maximize distance for those.

And on the floor, it was another long block but there were 2 mini-blocks in it. The first mini-block was all mini-band work. We had torso rotations, scissor kick crunches, and toe taps. I did change up the order so that I did all the toe taps at one time since I was a bit worried about being face down during exercises, but it was ok. And the second mini-block had skier swings, lunges, single-arm snatches, and standing wood choppers. I didn’t go too heavy with these weights, but I never do so it was pretty much my normal ability.

Wednesday was also a pretty ok day for me. I was surprised I didn’t have nausea in the morning since I really expected it after Monday, but I wasn’t going to complain too much. Especially since this was right after I decided my monthly challenge was going to be all about making improvements in my workouts.

For cardio and the rower, we had an interesting switch format. Every block was 4 minutes long and if you were on cardio, you did the first and last block on cardio and the middle block on the rower. And if you were on the rower, the first and last blocks were on the rower and the middle block was on cardio. So we were switching every 4 minutes. Every block on cardio was 3 rounds of a 1-minute all-out with a 30-second recovery in between. And every block on the rower was a 3-minute push pace with a 1-minute all-out. I did increase my all-out resistance level for cardio and it was a lot harder than my usual level, but also a good challenge. And on the rower, I tried to not take breaks but I did need to take a few.

And on the floor, we had a lot of Bosu work but I had to modify some of it to make it work for me. We had lunges (which I did off of the Bosu), kneeling tricep extensions, crunches, kneeling single-arm bicep curls, push-ups (which were also off of the Bosu), single-arm chest presses, and hip bridges. It was a lot of work, but also another good challenge. I wanted to try heavier weights, but for most of the weights I use, going heavier is a 5lb difference which is a bit more than I’m ready for. But I did try each weighted exercise with the heavier weight before just using the weights I normally do just in case I was able to do it.

And my surprise continued on Thursday when again I didn’t have nausea. I really felt lucky that I only had one day of nausea, but I also know that I might have a lot more this week. But I enjoyed having a much better week than I planned.

For cardio, we had 4 blocks. Each block started between our base and push pace and then went to a push pace, push to an all-out pace, and ended with an all-out pace. In the first block, we didn’t have any inclines, and in each block after that, we increased the inclines but the times for each interval decreased. I did try to use higher resistance levels than normal. So for my first base to push pace, I used my normal push pace. And that meant my all-out level was 1 higher than I normally use when we had no incline work. And each block everything went 1 level higher which was a big challenge by the last block.

On the rower, we started with a 500-meter row. Then we had lunges and deadlifts with shoulder presses using a medicine ball. We continued the pattern of the row and exercises and did 2 rounds of a 250-meter row next. We were supposed to do 3 rounds of a 125-meter row at the end, but I only made it through 2 rounds before we were done on the rower.

And on the floor, we had 1 long block. We had step-ups to knee raises, shoulder presses, step-downs, reverse fly with weights, bear planks, and double crunches. I did a few modifications on the floor such as lowering the bench so I could do the step-ups and step-downs, but I was able to do them with the lower bench. I also skipped the bear planks because I was struggling a lot with my balance once I got to those. But I did use a heavier weight than normal for my double crunches which I was very happy with.

I’m so glad that this past week went a lot better than I thought it would. I was able to have some really good workouts and start working on my monthly challenge toward the end of the week. This week might be a tough one for me or I might be surprised again. But either way, I’m going to keep going and hopefully I can find more ways I can still work on improving things.

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An Evening Of Taxes (or Not Quite As Prepared As I Had Hoped)

Posted on March 3, 2023 | Comments Off on An Evening Of Taxes (or Not Quite As Prepared As I Had Hoped)

I got my taxes done this past week. I know that there is a lot of time before they are due, especially now with the extension for CA, but I like to get them done as quickly as I can. The main reason I like doing them early is so I don’t have to be worried or stressed about how much I might owe for a long time. But also, the tax person I go to discounts her rates if you do them early. I missed the deadline to get the biggest discount, but I still saved money doing them now instead of waiting a few more weeks.

My taxes haven’t been simple for a long time, but I’ve gotten used to what I need to track and keep receipts for so it helps me stay organized throughout the year. It used to take me a lot longer to prepare for my tax appointment, but now I can usually get my packet completed in under an hour. It’s nice that all the little things I do over the year add up to saving me as much time as they did. I did notice that I didn’t have as many deductions as I used to have, but I wasn’t as worried about that since those really can vary from year to year. I also knew that in the past, I was only working 1099 jobs and in 2022 I also had a W2 job. So the estimated taxes I paid might have been more than needed since I also had taxes taken out of my paycheck. There isn’t much I can do when preparing my packet that will change what I did with my deductions or estimated payments for 2022, so I just tried to make sure I put down everything I needed to and was hoping for the best.

I’ve had a few years where I really overpaid my estimated taxes and got a nice amount back when I had my taxes done. And I’ve had other years where I’ve owed since things didn’t quite work out how I expected them to. I just know that I try my best to stay organized and pay attention to making sure I do all the things I have been told to do in order to make my appointments as easy as possible.

My tax appointment this year was another virtual one. I could have gone in person and I really did want to do that, but I would have to drive to the valley and my schedule is busier than it was when I did go in person to get my taxes done. Maybe next year I’ll be able to go there since that does make it a bit more fun. So I sent all the paperwork I needed to send in advance along with my tax packet and then a few days later I had a phone appointment to go over any questions my tax person had and to find out what was going on. There weren’t a lot of questions for me during my phone appointment since things weren’t that complicated this year compared to the past. But there were some surprises.

I had the biggest tax bill I’ve had in a long time. It’s not as bad as what others may have since I did pay quite a bit into my estimated taxes. But I really thought things would have been much better this year. But there were a few things working against me. For my job that takes taxes out of my paycheck, they are not taking out enough and I need to fix that for this year. But the bigger issue was that one of my 1099 jobs changed how some things were classified and that changed how much I owe in taxes. Since my estimated taxes were based on the old classification, I had a lot that I didn’t pre-pay like I normally do.

I was a bit shocked at how much I owed, but I also understand that this is what it’s like for a lot of people. And if I hadn’t done my estimated taxes or kept track of things the way I did, things could be easily been a lot worse. I’m also lucky that I will be able to pay what I owe from money that I had been saving for other things. I might have to delay when I buy some things that I was hoping to get, but obviously paying my taxes is more important and other things can wait.

This year, I’ll be paying more into my estimated taxes and I’m looking into how I can change how much is withheld at my other job, so hopefully, that means in a year I won’t owe as much as I do now. Maybe I’ll have more things I can use as deductions too and that will help, but I can’t guarantee those will happen. So I will just do what I can control and hope that I’ll be as prepared as possible in a year and maybe I’ll have a much more fun outcome when I get my taxes done then.

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Getting Out Of A Doctor Appointment (or I’m Lucky I Was Listened To)

Posted on March 2, 2023 | Comments Off on Getting Out Of A Doctor Appointment (or I’m Lucky I Was Listened To)

Considering all the medical things I deal with and how many recurring doctor appointments I have, I’ve been pretty lucky with having good doctors who listen to me and don’t make assumptions. This isn’t always the case and I’ve had some doctors who aren’t as helpful or won’t believe either my symptoms or my lab results, but I usually can avoid those doctors after they act that way.

In the past, I wasted time trying to get doctors to believe me when things aren’t what they expect. For example, I have low cholesterol, low blood sugar, and normal blood pressure. But because there are assumptions about people who are a certain weight or size, I have had doctors wonder if the results were correct. Or if I’m seeing a new doctor, they look at my past test results and think that they must not be accurate anymore so they make me do all the same things again to prove to them that I am healthy. Things have gotten better over the years, but there are still some doctors who believe that weight is the reason behind any ailment and won’t budge or look into what the cause could potentially be.

I’m always nervous when I’m meeting a new doctor or seeing someone I haven’t seen before. For example, when I went to urgent care recently, everyone there was new to me and they don’t know my history. I know that I will always have to do some of the basic vitals when I go to urgent care, but sometimes because of the situation, they aren’t normal results for me.

When I was in urgent care last month, part of the intake was to do my blood pressure and heart rate. I know that my blood pressure reading can be weird sometimes. It has come back impossibly high, not just high like what a living person could have but high where I should be dead. Those results are obviously not accurate, and I’ve learned things I need to be mindful of when I get my blood pressure taken. One of the biggest things I need to do is make sure my feet are on the ground. I usually can’t touch the ground with my feet when I’m sitting back the way they want me to be, so I need something for my feet otherwise I know the results won’t be right. And when I was in urgent care, I tried to tell the nurse that so I could get my blood pressure taken correctly. They didn’t have anything I could use, but my results weren’t high so I figured that was the end of that.

Then a week later, I got something in the mail saying I had a doctor’s appointment I didn’t schedule. I called my insurance and found out that it was for me to go to the blood pressure clinic again because of dangerously high blood pressure in urgent care. That didn’t make sense to me since it was in the normal range, so I looked at my online records and realized that there was a typo in my vitals so it looked a lot higher than it was. I asked if I could get that appointment removed because of that error, but they couldn’t do it unless I spoke to a doctor.

So I had another phone appointment this week to discuss what happened. I’m so glad that even though this was a doctor I didn’t know, he listened to what I said and found other things that seemed off about my vitals from that appointment. He said that my blood pressure should have been taken at another time since I was in pain and my heart rate was very high. There were signs that I wouldn’t have normal blood pressure, even if my feet were on the ground, so I shouldn’t have been referred to the blood pressure clinic. I don’t think he really cared that there was a typo in my records because the other information showed him that I was ok. And there is a history of recent blood pressure reads where it is normal so having just one high one with all the other information shouldn’t have triggered the referral.

I was totally prepared to explain a lot about why this seemed wrong, and I was lucky that this doctor already found things that didn’t seem right and I didn’t have to make that much of an effort to get the appointment removed. He did say that I should get my blood pressure done at my next in-person appointment, which I always have to do so it will be done soon enough. And of course, if it comes back high then, I might have to go back to the blood pressure clinic.

It’s nice when I really don’t have to put in as much work as expected to have a doctor hear me. This should be how it always is and I’m fortunate that it’s like this most of the time. It’s only the rare time now that I have to stand up for myself more and I’m glad that it’s become less and less frequent.

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Working On Feeling Better Mentally and Physically (or Picking A Workout Challenge For March)

Posted on March 1, 2023 | Comments Off on Working On Feeling Better Mentally and Physically (or Picking A Workout Challenge For March)

When I set my monthly challenge for February, I had no idea I’d basically be forced into sleeping better in order to get over the cold I caught. I was going to bed earlier and could sleep in because I wasn’t going to my workouts. I think the last time I got that much sleep was when I was out of work and was not getting up too early to work out in the morning.

And getting that much sleep that week proved how much I really needed to work on my sleep schedule. I’m back to getting up as early as I normally do since I’m back to my workouts, so my focus has to be on what time I get to bed. There are some nights when I’m getting to bed a lot earlier than I used to and there are other nights when I’m noticing I’m staying up too late. But even those later nights are still not as bad as they used to be. I’m averaging about an hour more sleep a night, which is a start. I want to get it up a bit higher, but that will take some time. But at least I’ve made a start that I can build off of. This is a work in progress, but it’s the most progress I’ve made on this goal that I’ve had for myself for a long time.

And for this month, I’m doing another health-related challenge and it’s inspired a bit by the time when I was sick. After I took a week off from my workouts, I did notice that I had gotten a bit weaker. This was expected since I had to take time off, but it was frustrating. And since I’ve been back, I’ve been really wanting to build my strength back up. But as I’ve been doing that, I also have wondered if I’ve been stagnant with what I have been doing. So this month, I want to challenge myself to find where I can be stronger and work harder in my workouts.

I know that there are some parts of my workouts that might be easier to build upon than others. I think it will be hardest to have improvements with my rowing, but I know I can still try. But because of some physical restrictions, there is only so much I can do. I’ll see what can happen when I try, but I’m not setting any crazy expectations. But I think I can make some good improvements on the bike and with the floor work. I want to see if I can increase the resistance level on the bike a bit more for some of the workouts and also see if I can pedal faster when I’m using the levels I’ve been using for a while. And on the floor, I know it’s not just as easy as using heavier weights, but I should be more comfortable with testing out the heavier weights to see if it’s possible or if I could do some of the reps with the heavy weights before using my normal ones. This isn’t the most straightforward progress, but they are steps toward improvement and that’s what I need to be ok with doing.

As much as I’d love to see super fast progress and immediately have improvements in my workouts, I think seeing how my sleep improvement went made me remember that any steps of progress are good. So even if I end March with marginal improvements, that will still put me ahead of where I am now. And if I can make small improvements every month or every other month, that will add up over time. All I can do is try and see what happens over the course of this month and hopefully, there will be some changes that I can continue over time so I see some big improvements and changes at the end of the year.

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SAG Awards Time (or I Wish I Had Watched More Movies)

Posted on February 28, 2023 | Comments Off on SAG Awards Time (or I Wish I Had Watched More Movies)

I know that I’m very lucky that I have so many opportunities to see movies, and most of those opportunities are free for me. Things still aren’t exactly the way they were before the pandemic, but there are still free movie screenings at theaters and screening venues, I just haven’t been to one yet. I know that I’ll start going to those again eventually, but I’m still hesitant to go to theaters. But fortunately, I also have the chance to watch things at home when we get screeners for the SAG Awards.

When I first joined SAG-AFTRA, all the screeners we got at home were DVDs. This included TV shows where we would sometimes get an entire season of a show on DVD. There was one year we got a free month of Netflix so we could watch all the Netflix shows directly on the service. And over time, we started to get more and more screeners as either digital downloads or through various online screening services. I liked the digital screeners because they were instantly available for us and we didn’t have to wait on the mail. And once I got an upgraded AppleTV, I was able to watch the digital ones on my tv instead of on my computer.

In the past few years, we were given the option to opt out of physical DVD screeners and just get digital ones. The first year it was offered, I paid attention to what we got as DVDs versus digital options. And everything that was a DVD was digital too, so I opted out of the DVDs since I didn’t need them anymore. I found the online screening services pretty easy to use, so I didn’t see any reason to get DVDs.

Most years, I make a good effort to try to watch everything that is nominated. I don’t usually make it through everything, but I try to get through the majority of them. And this year, I tried to make a plan to figure out how many movies I’d need to watch each week in order to get through all the movies before we had to vote. It pretty much came down to watching 2-3 movies a week, which is a lot but doable. Or at least it seemed doable until I got sick. I couldn’t focus enough to watch an entire movie. I also didn’t feel up to watching anything and just wanted to rest. And after I was feeling better, I had a lot of things I needed to catch up on that were more important than spending a few hours in front of my tv. So by the time we had to vote for the winners, I had only seen a handful of movies and none of the ones that were the front runners. I decided not to vote this year since it didn’t seem fair, but I still planned on enjoying the awards show and seeing what happens.

Previously, the SAG Awards were on cable. But this year was the first year the show partnered with Netflix. In the future, the show will be streamed live on Netflix once they get their live streaming service set up. But this year, it was available on YouTube through the Netflix YouTube channel.

I actually loved this new format. There were no commercial breaks, so the show was shorter than normal. In place of commercials, between awards they had short compilation clips of past winners and past shows. I really liked how that worked out and it felt much more of a celebration of the union as a whole and not just those who won. And I think those who won had a similar feeling as many of the acceptance speeches recognized SAG-AFTRA members who are not household names and are still working hard for their next role. I really felt inspired by so many of those speeches and I have a feeling I’ll be rewatching some of them in the future when I need a pick-me-up.

Even though I don’t have access to the screeners anymore, I hope that I’ll be able to watch several more of the nominated films. I know they’ll be online eventually and I’ll just have to make the effort to find them and watch them. And hopefully, next year I’ll be able to plan watching screeners better or be able to watch more movies over time if I start going to in-person screenings again.

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Still Getting Some Strength Back (or A Pretty Good Workout Week)

Posted on February 27, 2023 | Comments Off on Still Getting Some Strength Back (or A Pretty Good Workout Week)

Coming back to working out after taking a week off the week before was tough, but I noticed improvements in my strength and endurance as that week went on. So I was hoping that this past week would continue to go that way. I knew that getting back some strength would be more complicated, but I wanted to push myself to try to see if I could do most of my workouts with the weights that I’m used to.

Monday’s workout was a bit different for me since I had the day off and could go to the workout later than normal. So I was in a 2 group class instead of a 3 group class and didn’t have as much rowing as I’m used to. But it gave me a lot of time to work on my cardio and weights.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block had 2-minute push paces and 1-minute base paces for the entire block. And the second block had 1-minute push paces and 30-second base paces until the end of the block when we had a 30-second all-out. I did notice it was a bit harder than normal, but I didn’t know if that was endurance issues or just because it was more cardio than I normally do in class.

On the floor, we also had 2 blocks. In the first block, we had single-arm step-downs, push-ups, lunges, and then went to the rower for a 15-stroke push row. I don’t always do step-downs, but not only did I lower the bench but I did use the weight like we were supposed to. That was really pushing me and I was so proud that I tried. The weight was one of the lightest ones, but it was still better than doing it without weight. The second block was timed with cardio. First, we did 3 rounds of having one minute to do 12 hip-hinge swings and 24 mountain climbers. If there was any leftover time we could rest. And then we had 30 seconds to do bicycle crunches. After 3 rounds, we did the same pattern again for 3 rounds with a minute to do push presses with weights and hop overs (which I did as squats) and then 30 seconds to do plank punches. And in the end, we had another 90 seconds of work and we could choose which option we wanted to do. It was a lot of work and I only had a few seconds to rest each time, but it was another good challenge.

I was back to my normal schedule on Tuesday, and that workout was a switch class so we moved between each block. Switches and tornados are rare, but they add some extra challenge to the workout since you have to work extra hard when you are working to make up for the time you take switching during the class. We had 2 blocks for each section of the room and the first block was a bit longer than the second one.

The first cardio block had 1-minute base pace intervals at an incline and 1-minute base paces without an incline. The inclines went up each time and I started at my push pace resistance level on the bike and went up from there. The second block had 30-second intervals at an incline but we did all-outs this time. And we had 30-second recoveries between each one. I started with the resistance level one higher than I did for the first block plus I tried to pedal faster.

For the rower, the first block started with a 100-meter row and then we had 12 shuffles after the row. Each time we went back to the rower, it increased by 50 meters. The second block started with a 250-meter row and we had in and out steps after the row. And the row decreased by 50 meters each time. I didn’t get that far in the second block, but I did my best and I tried to keep my rowing consistent with the wattage each time so I didn’t burn out.

The first floor block started with the first 2 exercises and we added another exercise each time. I only made it through 4 exercises so I did lunges, high rows with weights, squats, and hip bridges. For the second block, we started with all 5 exercises and took away an exercise each time. So I also had plank toe taps along with the exercises in the first block. I did try to go heavy with my weights for the high rows and hip bridges, but I ended up going between what I normally use and one set of weights lighter.

Wednesday was a tough day for me because of not sleeping well the night before, but I continued to try to see if I could be close to what I know I can normally do. I really wanted to take advantage of this week because I know it’s one of my good weeks and I’ll regret not trying hard when I have a bad week.

For cardio, we had 3 blocks, and blocks 1 and 3 were the same. We had rounds of 45-second push paces and 45-second base paces with a 30-second all-out at the end. In the second block, we had rounds of a 30-second all-out with a 45-second recovery and I really tried to limit the breaks I took during that block since there wasn’t a ton of time we were working.

On the rower, for blocks 1 and 3 we were timed with cardio so we had the same push rows and base rows. I did struggle a bit in the third block because I was getting tired and needed to take a break during some of the base rows, but I tried to get back to rowing as quickly as possible to get in as many meters as I could. In the second block, we were off of the rowers so we did exercises and were timed with cardio. We had 30 seconds to do squats and 45 seconds to do lunges. The lunges were really tough for me, but I did my best to balance myself so it wouldn’t be harder than it needed to be.

And on the floor, we had one long block split into 3 mini-blocks. For each mini-block, we did 2 rounds before moving on to the next one. We had seated low rows with weights and single-arm squats, chest presses with weights and single-arm deadlifts, and chest presses and high rows on the straps. I actually was able to get through all the rounds with the mini-blocks so I then started to work on the exercises as a single block. And for the last 30 seconds, we got to pick any of the exercises to do for our finisher and I decided to do chest presses on the straps since I don’t do them that often.

Thursday’s workout was a tornado class, so we had 3 blocks in each section of the room and we switched between every block. It was very odd to have a switch workout and a tornado workout in the same week, but I just did my best. Every block for the entire workout was 3 1/2 minutes long so we had to work hard to maximize every minute. And each of the 3 blocks for each section had a different focus between endurance, strength, and power.

The first cardio had 2 rounds of a 1-minute push pace and a 30-second all-out with a 30-second recovery between them. The second block had 30-second intervals and the incline or resistance level went up by 1 every interval for 90 seconds and then we had a 30-second recovery before doing another 90-second hill. And the last block had 30-second intervals with a base pace, a push pace, and an all-out with recovery before repeating that pattern again.

On the rower, the first and third blocks matched with cardio so we had the same intervals and I really tried to be mindful of the wattage on the rower to increase for my push and all-out rows. For the second block, we did the same 30-second intervals but we tried to stay within specific strokes per minute rates for each interval. I was going a bit slower than the intervals we were supposed to do, but the increases were the same amounts as what we were told so I figured that worked well for me.

And for the first and second floor blocks, we had 2 exercises for each. In the first floor block, we had rollouts and squats to high rows with the straps. And in the second block, we had lunges and plank low rows. For the last block, we only had single-arm neutral thrusters until the last 30 seconds when we had high knees as our finisher. I really wanted to use heavy weights for the weights, but my arms were feeling a bit weak and I knew that proper form was more important than heavy weights.

Considering how I felt the week before (or even the week before that when I was sick), I was very happy with how this past week of workouts went. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping to do, but it was close and I felt like I made some really good attempts to do what I know I normally can do. Of course, I’m tough on myself and wish I could have done better, but I know that I didn’t go easy on myself and that when I’m having another bad week I will look back at this week as a really good one. And I’m hoping to continue to make improvements and maybe be even better than before in the next week or so.

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Default ThumbnailJust A Normal And Good Workout Week (or Using My Workouts To Get Out My Stress) Default ThumbnailLast Regular Workout Week Of The Year (or I’m Almost To My Workout Goal) Default ThumbnailAn Almost Normal Workout Week (or Happy To Be Able To Push Myself) Default ThumbnailMost Of My Workout Week (or Some Improvements and Some New Struggles) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Getting Back To My Normal (or It Doesn’t Take Long To Lose Strength) Default ThumbnailAnother Good Workout Week (or Another Week With A PR)

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A Long Short Week (or Ready For The Weekend)

Posted on February 24, 2023 | Comments Off on A Long Short Week (or Ready For The Weekend)

It seems like when I have an extra day off of work because of a holiday, that somehow makes the week seem longer. I don’t know if that is because I usually use that extra time to get more things done than I normally would or if I just feel off because I mix up what day it is. But it seems to really hit me hard and I feel like I need to recover more from a short week than a long week.

I know that I am also still probably used to having Mondays off from when I had my old job, but I should be used to this schedule by now. And when I get a Monday off now, I get to have 2 days without work instead of just 1. It doesn’t always feel like I just have 1 day off a week since I only work 3 hours on Saturdays, but I still have to wake up early in order to work. I just get to have extra time to be lazy or do other things after work.

I know that this short week also was busy with a lot of things. Over the weekend, I drove to and from Santa Barbara. I have done that drive a bunch, but it’s still at least 3 hours of driving in a day. Maybe I had more endurance for driving when I used to commute to work, but now it seems like it’s a decent drive. I do keep myself entertained by making sure I have good podcasts to listen to, but it’s still a good chunk of time. I also had my parents here and even though I don’t have to necessarily entertain them, I still try to be a good host when they are here even if we are just meeting for dinner and doing work around my house like we did this time. And hanging up things on my walls and doing all the house projects on Monday made that day seem pretty busy and not a normal day off.

I’m glad it’s Friday even though I still have work tomorrow. But I’m ready to have a bunch of hours when I can relax and just get things back in order. I still am catching up on housework from when I was sick, so I want to get that done. I also have a few more things to put away after all the projects we did earlier in the week. But I also want to make sure I take time to rest and relax since it will be Monday morning before I know it.

I originally had some plans for this weekend, but they were canceled due to the big storm we are supposed to have. I’m not upset about not having plans since I probably shouldn’t have made them in the first place. I would prefer to not be out in the rain unless I really have to. And if bad weather is what I needed to remind me that I should take it easy this weekend, then I guess that’s not a bad thing.

Hopefully, I can really take some time to get things and myself back to normal before Monday and I have to be back to a busy work week. And if I don’t get as much done but I get more time to relax, then I’ll consider that a good thing too. As much as I know I need to get some things done in my place this weekend, the bigger focus should be resting so I can be back to my full energy soon. And nothing that is on my list of things to do this weekend can’t wait until later, so I won’t allow myself to stress about what I need to do if that’s going to prevent me from resting.

And even though next week will be a full work week and I could easily be more exhausted by the end of the week, hopefully taking the time this weekend to rest will have me ready to go and I won’t be as tired as I have been this week.

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Default ThumbnailShort Weeks Can Feel Really Long (or I’m Glad It’s Almost The Weekend) Default ThumbnailHaving Another Lazy Weekend (or Trying Not To Feel Like I Missed Out) Default ThumbnailLack Of Plans (or A Lazy Weekend) Default ThumbnailShort Weeks Feel Extra Stressful (or I’m Almost Through This Week) Default ThumbnailTime For A Short Christmas Post (or I Hope You Have A Great Holiday Weekend) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Weekend For Me (or Lazy Days Are Surprisingly Busy)

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Getting Some Custom Artwork (or Finishing Up More Projects At My Place)

Posted on February 23, 2023 | Comments Off on Getting Some Custom Artwork (or Finishing Up More Projects At My Place)

After my parents were in Santa Barbara, they came to LA for a few days. Sometimes when they come to LA, they are here longer, but this time we had only a few things we wanted to accomplish and we had to work around my work schedule. But we lucked out and the Monday they were here happened to be a holiday, so I had the day off work. So we were able to do a lot in a short amount of time.

Every time my parents are visiting me, I always have a list of projects that I need help on. This has happened at every place I’ve lived, but I think the projects have become bigger now that I own a place. But this time, most of the projects I had ahead of time were pretty small things. I had worked on building a tv stand, but couldn’t get a few of the steps done so I needed my dad’s help to finish it. I also had built a shelving unit for my bathroom and needed help hanging it up and making sure it was secure. And now that I know where most of my furniture is going to be, we worked on making a few things a bit more secure for earthquake safety.

But the biggest project we had to work on was something that I didn’t have until my parents got here. I have a very long wall in my living room behind my couch and I looked online for a few months to find the perfect thing to put there. I found something I liked, but it was too expensive. But I showed it to my dad since it was made of wood and I knew he was learning woodworking. He showed it to his neighbor, who is his woodworking teacher, and they decided that it wouldn’t be the easiest project but it was doable. So my dad was going to make something similar to what I saw online, but more customized for my house.

I had seen progress pictures over the past 6 months of the different stages of the artwork in process. And when I was in Portland we worked on the color design since they needed to stain the wood. The one that I saw online was a single piece, but because of the size of the wall, we knew doing a triptych would probably look cooler. And once the artwork was here and we were able to hang it up, I know that was the right choice.

It doesn’t cover the entire length of the wall, so I might add some photos or something to the sides to make it more of a gallery wall. But it is substantial and really a statement piece. The colors are similar to what I have in my living room, but also a bit bolder so it adds a nice touch. A lot of the things I own are more neutrals and I knew I needed some color. The teal in the artwork really stands out in a great way.

I don’t know if the photos really show off how cool this piece is, but you can see a lot of the texture from this close-up photo.

Most of the visit with my parents was focused on doing all these projects, and I think it was worth it to do that. My place still isn’t fully decorated or complete, but it’s feeling more like it’s not something still being worked on. And the things I don’t have yet aren’t things I urgently need so I’m ok with waiting a bit longer to buy them. I just have wanted to make my place feel like home and every time I get a few new things or work on projects like this, it feels more like it’s mine. I also think the renovation helped it feel like that right away since I designed a lot, but the furniture and artwork helped so much.

I’m glad we were able to get so much done on the day I had off of work since the next day I was busy pretty much until dinnertime. But my parents came over after I was done with work and we went out to dinner. It might have been faster than most of their visits here, but we had some very specific things we wanted to accomplish and we were able to get them done. And even though I have a few other little projects to still work on, those are things that I either need to hire someone to do because we can’t do them or they are very small that I can do at a later date.

I’m not sure when my parents will be in LA next. Possibly at some point this summer or maybe in the fall. But I’ll see them again in a little over a month in Santa Barbara and I’m hoping that maybe I can finally make it back to Tahoe this summer! But whenever they come back to the condo, I’m sure I’ll have more projects on my list for us to work on and we’ll try to be as efficient as we were this time.

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Default ThumbnailStarting To Move In (or Taking The Roadrunner To The Condo) Default ThumbnailA New Reason To Do Big Cleaning Projects (or Putting Other Projects On Hold For Now) Default ThumbnailA Few More Projects At My New Place (or These Might Be The Last Little Projects I Do For A While) Default ThumbnailThe Projects Might Never End (or I Will Always Be Doing New Things) Default ThumbnailStill Doing More House Projects (or Just Trying To Find Busy Work) Default ThumbnailA Busy Family Weekend (or Continuing To Set Up My Home)

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A Santa Barbara Birthday (or Happy 2nd Birthday Presley!)

Posted on February 22, 2023 | 1 comment

This past weekend was my niece Presley’s 2nd birthday. I was happy her birthday fell on the weekend because I was able to drive up for the day to celebrate with everyone. I wasn’t able to do that for her 1st birthday, but I still was able to go up the next day to be a part of a mini-celebration. But I was excited that I could be at her birthday party this time.

It was a small birthday party. The only non-family people there was another family that has 2 little boys around the same ages as my niece and nephew. But I think a bigger party might have been overwhelming for my niece, so a small party was perfect. And it was a really nice afternoon.

For most of the party, all 4 kids were busy playing with all the different toys my niece and nephew have. They have a few different little motorized toys, like garbage trucks and bulldozers. And they are still young enough that they weren’t turning them into bumper cars or anything. But what I think was one of the biggest hits was actually a gift I got my niece and nephew for Hanukkah this past year. I got them a mini-bounce house that was set up in the backyard. It was the perfect size for all the kids to play on it and they all kept going down the slide into the grass.

I’m so glad that my niece and nephew loved the bounce house since it can be tough to pick out good gifts for kids. But I had a good feeling that would be a hit and it was nice to see that it was!

Of course, since it was a birthday party, there were presents and cake (but cupcakes since it was a small party).

Opening all the presents was a bit overwhelming for Presley, so she opened most of them while I was there. But she did open the gift I got her, which was a little flower-building kit, while I was there and she did start playing with it right away. So I think that gift was another hit! I know that she has a lot of toys already, but I wanted to find something fun for her. I’ll probably try to find non-toy presents in the future, but it was fun to find something cute this time.

After a couple of hours, it was naptime for all the kids. So the other family headed home so their kids could nap and then my brother and sister-in-law worked on getting my niece and nephew down for their naps. Both kids were probably over-exhausted and were fighting a nap, but they went down after a bit of a fight. And when they were asleep, that was time for me to head out.

I could have stayed and hung out with my parents for a few hours, but I was going to see them again in a few days when they got to LA, so there really wasn’t a discussion or plan for me to stay in Santa Barbara through the afternoon. And I had things at home that I wanted to get done, so I was fine making the drive home so I could have the afternoon and evening to get things checked off of my errands list.

My nephew’s birthday is only about 6 weeks away, but since his birthday is on a weekday I’m not sure if I’ll make it to his party. I’ll just have to wait and see what day his party is planned for. I did give him his birthday present early since I didn’t want to have to ship it (and he wouldn’t really know the difference between getting it now or later). If I don’t make it to that party, I’m sure I’ll make it to Santa Barbara another time in the future. And I’m so glad that I was able to make it to Presley’s birthday party and have a nice family afternoon with everyone!

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Default ThumbnailCelebrating My Niece’s Birthday (or Another Santa Barbara Day) Default ThumbnailA Very Fast Trip To Santa Barbara (or Getting To Celebrate My Nephew’s Birthday A Little) Default ThumbnailA Big Family Day! (or A Birthday Party and Meeting Presley) Default ThumbnailI’m An Aunt Again! (or Welcome To The World Presley!) Default ThumbnailA Santa Barbara Afternoon (or Celebrating My Future Nephew!) Default ThumbnailA Little More Time In Santa Barbara (or Hanging Out With My Sister-In-Law)

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