Tag Archives: babysitting

Feeling Refreshed (or Looking Good While Babysitting)

Posted on June 3, 2015 | Comments Off on Feeling Refreshed (or Looking Good While Babysitting)

With so much going on lately, some of my regular “maintenance” things have been forgotten. I usually get my hair done pretty regularly but with everything keeping me busy I just kept putting off doing it. I’ve had some people make some comments about my hair not looking its best, so I realized that I needed to stop procrastinating and finally get my hair done.

I finally made an appointment with my friend who does my hair this past weekend and since I would be over there anyway I agreed to babysit as well. I’ve been watching her kids for forever so they are usually pretty good for me. And since it was going to pretty much just dinner, watch a movie, and then put the kids to bed; I knew it would be a pretty easy evening.

But before babysitting, I got my hair cut and colored. I’ve been getting it dyed red for a very long time now. I’d like to switch it up a little bit, but that also means getting new headshots. So we have to keep my hair in pretty much the same color family. But my friend was able to make it a bit more copper than it has been in the past, so while it’s still similar it’s a nice subtle change for me.

Fresh Hair

I love when my hair is freshly dyed and looking so nice! If I could afford to get my hair dyed as soon as my roots are starting to show, I would do so. But for now, I’m usually getting it done every 3 months (I’m hoping to change that to every other month soon).

I always think it’s pretty funny that when I have my hair looking the best that I usually spend that night babysitting. But that’s how it goes when you babysit your hairstylist’s kids.

The babysitting job was relatively easy. Since the kids know me so well they sometimes try to pull an attitude with me, but nothing that bad (nothing compared to some families whose kids have hit me). Plus, when they pull an attitude with me my friend trusts me enough to handle it and call them out. So I don’t feel like I have to put up with her kids lying to me and arguing with me about things (usually about dumb things like how they claim they are allowed 4 different desserts).

But besides the kids trying to trick me into extra desserts, they were super well-behaved and went to bed without too much fighting. And once the kids were asleep, I spent the rest of the time there reading my book.

While I love being super social and busy, it’s also super nice to take care of myself and have time to read (and in an air-conditioned house!). While I didn’t get to take advantage of my awesome looking hair that night, it was fine with me.

At least I finally got my hair done and my roots and split ends taken care of and nobody will say that my hair is looking a little scraggly!

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Default ThumbnailGetting A New Look (or Two Attempts To Dye My Hair) Default ThumbnailCoconut Oil Hair Mask (or Trying A Simple DIY Beauty Trick) Default ThumbnailBabysitting=New Vacuum (or I’ve Got $0.49 To Spare) Default ThumbnailDoing Some Beautification (or Feeling Better From The Outside In) Default ThumbnailComedy in Babysitting (or Surviving An Afternoon With A Crying 2 Year Old) Default ThumbnailLoving Air Conditioning (or A Bonus To Babysitting And Working)

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Posted in Beauty, Fun Stuff

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Sometimes It’s Not About Me (or Not Freaking Out)

Posted on October 23, 2014 | 1 comment

This past Tuesday, I was supposed to have an in-person interview for a babysitting job with the mom who didn’t want to hire me for a previous job because she could not read my entire background check.

This in-person interview was discussed during a phone interview I had with her last week. I had requested that she send me a formal interview request through UrbanSitter (the babysitting site I’m registered on) so that I would have all of her information and the request would block off my calendar so other families don’t request me for the same time.

I didn’t think too much more about it because the mom promised to put the request in.

Then the weekend came and I heard nothing from her. I sent her a message on UrbanSitter mentioning that she had said she wanted to do an in-person interview but I had not received the request yet. I let her know that I was keeping that time open to her and not accepting jobs with other families.

I still heard nothing back from her.

I started to freak out. What did I do wrong? Did the mom read my previous post and didn’t like what I said (although I don’t think that I made her sound bad)?

I really started going back in my head every encounter I had with this mom (which was pretty much 2 phone calls and a few messages through UrbanSitter) and couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong that she was no longer interested in interviewing me for this other position she needed filled (basically a driver for her daughter who is a child actor).

Finally on Tuesday, I realized that I was not going to hear from this mom through the UrbanSitter app. She might not get alerts that there are messages waiting for her like I do. So I looked up her phone number from our phone interview request on the app and called her and left her a voicemail. This already made me nervous because I don’t like sending messages to parents outside the app without previous discussing that.

About 30 seconds after hanging up the phone, I got a text message from the mom. She forgot that she had said she wanted to do an in-person interview that day and was out of town on business. She asked if we could reschedule when she was back in town.

I sent the mom a text back saying that I would be happy to reschedule and it wasn’t a problem that she forgot.

I felt so stupid for worrying about this. I did nothing wrong so why had I been so worried? But this is a common issue for me. I’ve had this with all of my day jobs. Whenever I’ve been called in to speak with my boss, my first instinct is that I did something wrong and I’m about to be fired. This is probably because I’ve had so many horrible day jobs in the past.

But I’m trying to think positively about my day jobs. I know that I’m doing great work and that my bosses know that I’m working as hard as I can. But sadly, that little negative part of my brain keeps acting up. I just need to learn how to make it quiet.

 

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Having My Patience Tested (or Taking Deep Breaths)

Posted on October 17, 2014 | Comments Off on Having My Patience Tested (or Taking Deep Breaths)

Lately, it’s felt like my patience has been tested all the time.

This mainly is work related, but my personal life has had its moments too.

At work, my main day job is working for the box office job I have. Even at my old box office job I dealt with a lot of angry people who wanted certain seats that aren’t available or want to attend a show on a date that isn’t happening. But since they knew that we wired at the theater, I think people were a bit nicer because they knew that we might eventually meet them.

At the new box office job, people pretty much know that they will not see us. There are always a couple of customers each week who are threatening me on the phone about suing me or having me arrested. What prompts this is usually either unavailable tickets or not having all the answers and having to pass on a message to the particular location that they are going to attend. Most of the customers are nice, but when you get a really angry one, it sticks out in your head.

Thankfully, I can use the chat feature to chat with my co-workers in other locations. We help each other out when we can and if we need a moment to vent, we are there for each other as well. This also has been extremely helpful when a customer contacts us multiple times hoping to get a different answer from a different person.

I’ve also noticed my patience being tested regarding babysitting jobs. First of all, many parents put out a job request to a dozen or so sitters. And whoever responds back first gets the job. So I keep seeing jobs getting cancelled on me because I’m not fast enough to respond (usually I respond within 10 minutes but there are some people who are very fast).

I’m also hearing from multiple parents that they need to see my background check before they can hire me. I’ve passed the background check that the service I use has and it says so on my online profile. But parents want to read it all before they consider me. So I contacted the background check company and they are mailing me a hard copy of the background check. My plan is to scan it in to my computer so I can email it out if necessary (after blacking out my address and social security number).

And in my personal life, it’s not too bad, but all of it adding up has gotten to me a bit. When I moved into my house 4.5 years ago, my landlord promised to re-do my kitchen. He would have done it before I moved in, but I didn’t want to have to wait an extra month. I never really heard back from my landlord on when he would fix my kitchen, but since he wasn’t raising my rent, I stayed quiet.

Now that my rent is raised every year, I want things that were promised to me to be done. Finally last week, the handyman came to my house and took all the measurements for my new kitchen counter. It was supposed to be done by Wednesday of this week.

On Tuesday, the handyman told me that the shop screwed up cutting the counter and that the new one won’t be ready for another week or so.

I shouldn’t let this bother me, but it did. I’m still getting my new kitchen counters (and refusing the clean my old ones since they are about to be trashed). I just need to be ok with things not being done when promised.

All of this has been a big lesson in patience. I’ve always considered myself a patient person, but realizing how this has all tested me has proved that there is room for improvement for me.

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Missing Out To Make Money (or Realizing When I’m Over-scheduled)

Posted on October 14, 2014 | Comments Off on Missing Out To Make Money (or Realizing When I’m Over-scheduled)

This past Saturday I had a really full day planned. And sadly, I wasn’t able to get everything done that I wanted to.

First I had my day job. Saturdays are 8am-11am (even when I’m working my normal hours). Then I had a girls empowerment event that I won tickets for right after that.

It was going to be tight for me to make it to the event after work. The check in for the event started at 10:30am and went until 11:30am. And even if I left my house the second my clock said 11am, it would be at least 30 minutes for me to drive there and to park.

But I was willing to be late because that’s the only other thing I had scheduled for my day.

Except that I forgot to change my availability on UrbanSitter and got a job request for Saturday evening for babysitting. I spoke with that mom on the phone and it turns out that they live pretty much across the street from me.

So as much as I wanted to go to the event, I would have arrived late and would have had to leave early to make it to the babysitting job. So it just didn’t work out for me to go.

I was a little disappointed because I really was looking forward to the event, but I had to focus on working money-making jobs.

And I’m glad that I did. The family that I babysat for had 1 kid and I was his first babysitter outside of family members. And he was a very sweet boy who listened really well. The job went really easily and the family told me in person (and wrote in a review about me on UrbanSitter) that they will be using me again as a babysitter in the future.

That’s important to me. I need to find work wherever I can. And babysitting for date nights and other occasional times really is a great way for me to help supplement my income (and it really needs to be supplemented right now). And the fact that this family is just a walk across the street is amazing! I haven’t had a babysitting job I could walk to since high school.

I’m working on not having a “fear of missing out” feeling or attitude, but it’s hard not to feel that way a little. But it’s my own fault for not adjusting my availability for babysitting. And honestly, it probably worked out for the best this way.

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Babysitting=New Vacuum (or I’ve Got $0.49 To Spare)

Posted on September 30, 2014 | 2 comments

I’ve been doing some babysitting over the past few weeks. The last two Saturday evenings I’ve had new families to sit for and this past Sunday I had an interview with another new family (although I’m not sure I’ll get that job because it seems like their schedule and my schedule won’t work out).

I’ve been doing babysitting since middle school and while I didn’t do a ton of it right after college, I’ve been getting more into it lately.

I joined an online babysitting service (kind of like online dating but for finding babysitters and families) and I paid to have a premium profile on there because that includes a background check.

I’ve been getting contacted by families ever since I upgraded my profile, but often they are just asking if I am available even though my calendar on the system says that I’m not.

The family I sat for this past Saturday evening was a new family that lived not too far away (always a bonus). They had 2 boys and they were only awake half of the time that I was there (another bonus). And I was there for 8 hours, so I made a decent amount of money.

The next day, I had a plan to go to Bed Bath and Beyond. I still needed to replace my vacuum that died in my water heater flood. I had been doing a lot of research because I wanted a good vacuum but I don’t have a lot of money to spend on one.

I ended up finding a Shark vacuum that got almost all 5 star reviews on Amazon and it was available at Bed Bath and Beyond (thank goodness for all the 20% off coupons I’ve been hoarding)!

I got there and found it right away.

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I had only brought one 20% off coupon with me so I wasn’t going to shop around any more. When I went to the register, I was trying to figure out if the money I made the night before would cover the vacuum or if I’d have to pay a little more.

I got up to the register and she rung up the vacuum and my coupon and when the total came up, I laughed.

It was exactly $0.49 less than I made the night before. I have to admit that I feel like it was fate to buy that vacuum at that price so I wouldn’t have to put the vacuum on my credit card and have it contribute to my debt.

I happily paid almost all of my babysitting money to the cashier and took my new vacuum home.

And my quick review of the vacuum is that it is amazing!! I love it! My old vacuum was a very fancy one, but it was super heavy to move around (you could break a sweat while vacuuming). This one moves around super easily and I like that it is a canister vacuum so I don’t have to buy bags for it. Although it was shocking how much dirt it picked up (maybe my old vacuum wasn’t doing a good job anymore?).

I’m glad that I’m getting more families to babysit for. I enjoy the work and when I’m doing “date night” babysitting, it pretty much never is a conflict with other jobs or auditions so it fits into my schedule perfectly! I just hope that I get a few more families so I can stay busy!

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Saving, Shopping, Work

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Yet Another Birthday Outing (or Enjoying Benihana!)

Posted on August 22, 2014 | Comments Off on Yet Another Birthday Outing (or Enjoying Benihana!)

Last night was yet another birthday deal. It’s technically not as good of a deal as Truxton’s, but it’s pretty amazing.

If you are a part of the birthday club at Benihana (I think you just have to sign up with an email address), you get $30 to spend in your birthday month!

I haven’t always taken advantage of this birthday deal. The last time I did was a few years ago with my friend Erin (who does my hair) and her kids (who I babysit). Her daughter was old enough to enjoy it but her son was only a few months old, so he spent dinner sleeping in his stroller.

I decided that I wanted to do the Benihana deal again this year, so I asked Erin if she and the kids wanted to come with me. Her daughter, O, was super excited because she remembered it from a few years ago. Her son, K, was a bit hesitant at first. But as soon as I showed him a video of the onion volcano, he was sold on the idea!

It happened to work out nicely that we all had yesterday evening free (well, Erin’s husband couldn’t make it). We went to the Benihana in Encino since that’s pretty much half way between Erin’s house and my house.

Erin and the kids got there before I did, and when I walked in the door, I had a very nice greeting from O and K. K was so excited to see me, which was a nice treat because he usually doesn’t like when I come over to the house (he thinks that always means that his parents are leaving and I’m babysitting). And O was happy to see me as always.

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We lucked out at the table we were seated at. Everyone else was very entertained by the kids and the funny things they kept saying. K was very excited to see eggs being scrambled for the fried rice and kept going on and on about scrambled eggs for a while.

Dinner was very yummy. With my $30 I was able to get a strawberry lemonade and filet mignon (and all the sides that you usually get at Benihana).

Fortunately, everything that I had (including all the sides) were already in My Fitness Pal so I was able to keep on top of my calorie count for the day (I only went a little bit over).

After dinner, they brought out ice cream for the kids as well as for me (the birthday deal includes it).

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I had some of the ice cream, but didn’t take the leftovers home (like O and K did with their ice cream).

Overall, it was an awesome birthday adventure. I’m glad that Erin and her kids had a fun time. And anytime I get to hang out with them is wonderful to me.

I’ve possibly got one more birthday adventure before the month is up, but my calendar is starting to get full again! If I don’t get it in, that’s ok. I’ve definitely taking advantage of the birthday deals this month!

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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Loving Air Conditioning (or A Bonus To Babysitting And Working)

Posted on May 5, 2014 | Comments Off on Loving Air Conditioning (or A Bonus To Babysitting And Working)

So, on Friday I complained about the heat. I know I probably sounded whiney (even in text form), but I was honestly miserable. On Friday night, I got my pjs soaked before going to bed so when my fan blew over them I cooled down (my bedroom was in the high 80s when I went to bed).

Fortunately, this weekend was much better.

First of all, on Saturday I went to spin class. Somehow, the steamy studio still felt cooler than my house. But not only that, I got in a good workout and it really made me feel better. I hadn’t been to spin for about a week, and I really did miss it. It’s feeling more and more like a place I want to be all the time (and yes, I have applied for a job there).

The only thing that frustrated me at spin was after class when I checked out the new shirts that were for sale. Each month, SoulCycle does a new collection of workout clothes. The larges tend to sell out super quickly so I normally can’t find a tank top in my size. I figured since the month had just started, I should be able to find one. But nope, all the larges were sold out in 2 days. I might wait for them to restock in the studio because I’d rather try it on first before buying it, so buying it off their website isn’t really the best option for me.

Then, on Saturday evening, my friend Erin asked me to babysit. I’m always happy to babysit her kids so I was excited to say yes. And when I’m going over there to babysit, I always ask Erin if I can do laundry at her house. It saves me money and I always bring my own detergent so I don’t take too much advantage of her. And this Saturday, besides getting to do free laundry, there was another bonus to babysitting! Erin’s house has central air conditioning!! It was so great being able to relax in a nice cool house.

Babysitting was relatively easy. Erin’s daughter and I get along super great. We watched a movie and she tried multiple hair styles on me. Erin’s daughter recently broke her leg and has a cast from foot to hip, but she’s doing awesome! And Erin’s son isn’t the biggest fan of mine (he knows that usually when I come over that means that his mom and dad are leaving), but he was pretty easy to watch as well. He just chilled and watched his own tv show and went to bed. Easy peasy.

While the weather did finally start to cool down on Sunday, I had another opportunity to enjoy air conditioning yesterday. I worked a 4 hour box office shift. It was a pretty standard box office shift so nothing too stressful. And this might be my last shift there for a while. After the season ends this week, there won’t really be any evening or weekend shifts for me to work. So I might not have too much work until the new season starts in the fall. But I’m not trying to stress out about that (yet).

Overall, even though I technically worked both days this weekend, just the air conditioning alone made it totally worth it!

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Comedy in Babysitting (or Surviving An Afternoon With A Crying 2 Year Old)

Posted on March 21, 2013 | Comments Off on Comedy in Babysitting (or Surviving An Afternoon With A Crying 2 Year Old)

Yesterday, I was babysitting for a friend of mine, and the afternoon was something crazy. I was watching her 2-year-old (who I’ve watched since he was born), and he was full of drama!

Right when my friend was getting ready to leave, her son jumped into his stroller. He wanted to go for a walk, which was fine with me since it would distract him from his mom leaving and he might take a nap in the stroller.

First of all, I do want to talk about the stroller. I’m not a mom, so I’m not a stroller expert, but my friend had a Bob stroller, and that thing was amazing! Super easy to push and the handle was at a good level for me. I know that those are supposed to be expensive strollers, but that thing was great!

So I’m pushing the stroller out the door with my friend’s son, and all of a sudden he realizes that his mom isn’t walking with him. He starts screaming “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” at the top of his lungs and I just kept going. My friend drove right by where I was walking and she encouraged me to keep going (I think she also thought he’d fall asleep quickly).

Well, he didn’t.

I pushed him around for about 20 minutes with him screaming every second. Other people in the neighborhood were starting to look at me like I was a kidnapper or something! Finally I decided that he wasn’t going to fall asleep and I headed back to my friend’s house.

The kid was so excited to get back home, because he thought his mom would be in the house. And once he searched everywhere and realized she wasn’t there, he had a nice crying temper tantrum.

He was shrieking and crying and flinging himself across the room. Occasionally, he would lie on the ground with his arms crossed in front of his head and sigh really loudly. Then he’d look at me and see if I would react. When I didn’t, the tears came again.

Eventually, he fell asleep on the couch and stayed asleep until my friend got home.

Honestly, the whole thing was pretty funny. I just feel horrible letting the kid cry it out (but that’s what I need to do). I’ll be back there babysitting again tonight, so I’m hoping to not have a repeat performance from yesterday.

But you know what makes babysitting totally worth it? When the kid, completely unprompted, yells out “Bye bye Jen!” as I’m leaving.

Totally cute.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

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Trying to Not Be Defensive (or Accepting Myself)

Posted on December 12, 2012 | Comments Off on Trying to Not Be Defensive (or Accepting Myself)

I made some cute new actor business cards. On the front, I’ve got two of my favorite headshots.

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On the back I’ve got thumbnails or two other headshots and my contact information. I put my phone number, email, twitter handle, website, and I included this blog as well.

I normally give out these cards to actors or other industry people who I meet. When they find out that I have a blog, they are pretty excited about it and want to hear more. And I’m usually really excited to talk about it because they are creative people and this is one of my creative sides.

Occasionally I’ll give a card out to someone random. I had a friend of a friend ask for it because she might use me as a babysitter in the future. These are the only cards I carry with me, so I gave her one.

She was commenting on my photo and flipped the card over. She noticed the URL for the blog, and asked me what it is. I was instantly embarrassed and apologized for not having another card with me. But my friend who was right there spoke up and talked about my blog and how she likes to read it (which I still find hard to believe sometimes). And her friend then started talking about how much she loves blogs.

I don’t know what I was defensive and not being as open about the blog to a non-industry person as I am to an industry person. It didn’t have to do with her being a stranger, because I’ve talked about my blog with complete strangers I’ve met at Women In Film.

I’m trying to have more pride in what I’ve accomplished with this blog. I don’t know what made me be so embarrassed at that moment.

This blog is as much a part of me as my acting career or anything else. When I talk about how awesome other aspects of my life are, I need to remember to start including this.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

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I Wish I Was 4 Again (or Where Did My Confidence Go?)

Posted on August 27, 2012 | Comments Off on I Wish I Was 4 Again (or Where Did My Confidence Go?)

On Saturday after work, I headed over to my friend Erin’s house. Erin started out as my hairstylist back in 2006 and we quickly became friends.

When I don’t have enough money for her to do my hair, she’ll do it free as a favor. And when she needs a babysitter for her 2 kids, I’ll help her out for free too.

On Saturday, she was going to do my hair and then I was going to watch her kids so she and her husband could have a date night. After my hair was done, I started playing with her kids (who I will refer to as O and K to protect their privacy).

I’ve been watching her daughter O since she was 1 (she’s 4 now) and I’ve been watching her son K since he was a week old (he’s 1 now). I love her kids. They are so much fun and her daughter has the cutest most ridiculous personality. When O was 2 and I was over babysitting, she asked her mom “what beverage do you suggest I have with my movie?”. Seriously?!?!? What kid says that?

On Saturday, O decided to model her new back to school boots for me. I held up my phone to take a picture and instantaneously she went into a crazy pose. Then she posed a couple more times and demanded that I take pictures of those too.

She never worried about looking silly or if that wasn’t the best angle for her. I wish I could be that calm when taking a photo.

Whenever I’m having my photo taken (headshots or casual photos), I’m always thinking about how I’m posed. Is this my best side? Do I look thin? How is my hair? Am I more towards the back so I look skinnier? I once read that if you press your tongue to your teeth when you are smiling, your face looks much thinner. So I always do that.

I wish that I could have the carefree confidence that O has. It’s so freeing and beautiful to watch. I’ll have to act more like her in the future.

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