Tag Archives: birthday

Grandma’s Birthday Dinner (or One Of Our Thanksgiving Traditions)

I’ll do my recap of my Thanksgiving on Monday, but first, I’m going to share with you my Wednesday.

Ever since I can remember, my family has celebrated my grandma’s birthday along with Thanksgiving. For years, we would go out on Friday night to a nice dinner, but recently we’ve switched that to be on Wednesday night.

So after a kind of crazy drive to San Diego (it took me twice as long to get there because of so many car accidents on the road), I went over to my grandparent’s place to meet up with them before dinner.

The dinner was at The Godfather restaurant. We’ve had my grandma’s birthday dinner there in the past, and I like it because my family gets a private room (we kind of need to with so many of us being there including some noisy little kids).

As soon as my cousin’s son Dalton saw me, he came running over. Dalton and I have a special bond. Ever since we met for the first time, we’ve been super close. And I love him just as much as he loves me. Of course, I made sure that he was going to sit right next to me. I don’t get to see him too often, so when I do I want to make sure I get as much time with him as possible.

Dinner was good. The food was as good as I remember it (I’m glad that I forgot to eat breakfast and lunch on Wednesday because there was a ton of food). And the conversation was fun too.

This year is a little weird for me because I’m the only person from my immediate family at Thanksgiving. My brother has missed it before, but my parents have always been there. But with my mom having chemo on Wednesdays, there wasn’t really a way for my parents to drive down (and now with the dog’s cancer it would be difficult to have him here too). As soon as dinner was done, I called my mom to fill her in on what happened, who said what, and if any big family announcements were made (my cousin has announced her engagement and pregnancies at Thanksgiving dinner in the past).

Even though it kind of stinks to stay at a hotel alone, I’m so grateful that I spend my Thanksgiving with my extended family. We have 4 generations at Thanksgiving now and I know that something that a lot of people can’t say. I’m also grateful for the fun Thanksgiving traditions my family has, especially celebrating my grandma’s birthday.

Another Spa Adventure (or A Belated Birthday Celebration)

I mentioned back in June that my friend Kate turned 30. For her birthday, I told her that I would take her to Burke Williams. Somehow, time got away from us and the summer went by without us going to the spa. But now with me unemployed again my schedule was nice and open and we finally went to the spa this past Friday!

We went to the Burke Williams in West Hollywood, which is where I went to the Spa Night Out event earlier this year. And I finally got to get the anti-aging facial that I won at the event!

As soon as we entered these doors, we were in spa paradise.

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I had learned from when I went to the Burke Williams in San Francisco that you want to get to the spa nice and early so you can enjoy all the amenities. Kate and I got to the spa about an hour and a half before our treatments. We first had a tour of the spa (I only saw parts of it at the event and Kate had never been there before). Then it was time for relaxation!

First we went into the hot tub. They had aromatherapy wash cloths next to the hot tub so we both grabbed those and sat back and relaxed. We also spent some time just chatting and catching up (fortunately there weren’t a bunch of people there so we didn’t feel bad talking). After the hot tub we went into the cold mist room. I hated the cold mist room in San Francisco, but in West Hollywood is was exactly what you would expect. There were chairs in there and you just sat back and let the cold mist fall on you. Next we tried the sauna, but I’m not a huge fan of dry heat. We were only in there for a few minutes. And then we went to the steam room. That was nice until the steam machine turned on and it was so loud! We decided to head out of there after that.

We still have plenty of time before our appointments so we did another cycle of the hot tub and cold mist room before walking out to the lounge area to wait to be called.

I’ve had facials before, but never an anti-aging facial (I still think I’m a little young to have to worry about that). But it was really fun. There were the traditional facial things (cleansing, facial massage, extractions, masque, moisturizing), but there were also two different peels. The first peel was very tingling. But I guess that’s how you know it’s working! The second peel didn’t tingle or burn at all. When it was all done, I did look a little red, but nothing too bad (I just looked like I had had a little sun).

It has been a few days and my skin looks amazing! I don’t know if this is something I will do on a regular basis (it’s a little out of my price range right now while I’m working on paying down my credit card debit), but it was a very nice treat!

Thank you Burke Williams for another amazing day! I’m so tempted to get the monthly membership just so I can enjoy the amenities there more often!

Another Birthday Outing (or Seeing My Birthday Twin)

I haven’t been taking advantage of a lot of the birthday freebies this year. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit busy. But there is one birthday freebie that is a tradition that cannot be missed.

My free entrée and dessert at Truxton’s with my birthday twin, Joanna! Joanna and I have enjoyed our $0.00 meal for the last couple of years, so this year was no exception. There is now a Truxton’s in Santa Monica (just down the street from my work), so we went there instead of the one by LAX.

As soon as we sat down, we each got out our free birthday coupon.

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The servers were actually excited that we were celebrating our birthdays and even more excited when they found out we shared a birthday (I was afraid they wouldn’t be happy to wait on a group that had a completely free meal).

Joanna and I each got a burger as our main dish (we had to save room for our desserts!).

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As always, the food was delicious! I had never had a burger in all of my previous Truxton’s adventures and I was glad that it was a good choice.

Joanna and I had actually picked out our desserts before ordering dinner (doesn’t everyone do that?). We always get this crazy banana dessert thing and then we also decided to get a cream cheese brownie.

It was pretty crazy when both desserts were brought over to us.

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We split them pretty evenly, but either of us was able to finish our half. I have to say, the brownie thing is my new favorite dessert! I know that Joanna and I will be ordering that again next year at our birthday outing.

It was seriously so great to have a nice dinner with a friend and catch up (I don’t think we’ve seen each other since Christmas). We chatted a bunch about my brother’s wedding (her brother recently got married), crazy day jobs, and just general life craziness.

Before we knew it, we had been at dinner for a few hours and needed to each head home.

Even though our bill was nothing (literally), we still left a very nice tip.

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I know that people who come in with a freebie meal or Living Social deal get a bad rap because they don’t tip enough (or at all), but I want to make sure that I go above and beyond what the tip should be when a meal is completely free.

With this being the last week of my birthday month, I’m almost out of time to use up my birthday freebies. I still have my $30 at Benihana, but I won’t get to use that one because it’s only good for weekday dinners. Oh well.

At least Joanna and I made sure to do what is one of the most important birthday tradition meals.

Another Birthday Celebration (or A Pie Date!)

I’ve mentioned last year how much I love birthday freebies. I print out all the freebies I get emailed to me as soon as I get them and I really do try to use a couple (I have yet to ever use the free ice cream at Baskin Robbins though).

One of the freebies that I always look forward to is the free pie at Marie Callenders. It’s a tradition for me to go with my friend Emily for free birthday pie (or pie to celebrate any other special occasion).

There is a fancy Callenders Grill in the Mid-Wilshire area in the same building as the SAG-AFTRA office. We pretty much always go to pie at this one so we can multi-task (we have a friend who works for the SAG Foundation so we try to visit him after pie).

As anyone who enjoys meals at Marie Callenders knows, all meals start with their super yummy cornbread!

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Emily and I both ordered the chicken mac and cheese (my photos of it came out really badly).

And then it was time for the main event (at least for us). Pie!

We always get 2 pieces of pie and then we each have half. We also always get the chocolate satin pie. We jokingly call it chocolate baby pie because we think it tastes like chocolate pie and chocolate mousse had a baby (it’s seriously that good!). We get something different for the second piece of pie.

This time, we got cream cheese pie along with the chocolate satin one.

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They were seriously sooooo good! And yes, I did track all of my calories for the meal (this ended up being my only meal that day so I actually managed to stay under my calorie goal).

I know that this entire meal is a huge splurge, but since we usually only do it twice a year, I figure that’s ok. Plus, how could I turn down free pie?!?

Birthday Evening (or What Happened After 4pm)

So, the adventures of my 30th birthday continue.

After getting my hair done, I went home to get dressed for my party at Bodega Wine Bar. I had rented a cute sparkly top from Gwynnie Bee and I was super excited to wear it! The only problem was, the top was now a little too big on me (guess I have been losing a bit of weight). So I ended up wearing a sweater on top to cover up the too-big arm holes. But I think I looked pretty cute.

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The actual party was pretty chill, which is exactly how I wanted it. My friend Rayshell came over to my house early (since she works very close to where I live), so we hung out for a bit before heading over to the bar.

When we got to Bodega, we saw the reserved sign right away.

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The area we got was right next to the bar (we had a waitress so that didn’t matter too much) and right by a window looking out onto the street (that will come into play a bit later).

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Over the course of the evening, about 15 people made it out to celebrate with me. But it was nice that everyone wasn’t there at once so I actually had a chance to chat with everyone who made it.

As I mentioned before, Rayshell was there.

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So were my friends Kate and Beth.

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And my friend Jennifer who was married earlier this year (her husband came too!).

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As well as a bunch of other people (too many pictures to include everyone on here!).

I ended up drinking Prosecco the entire evening (it is one of my favorite things), but our waitress also brought over some celebratory shots for the group to enjoy as well (one was a Soju pineapple mint thing and I don’t remember what the other was). We also got some food for the table.

While the entire evening was fun, one of the funniest things that happened was when one of my co-workers tried to come by. I guess that she forgot to grab her ID with her when she came, so the bouncer wouldn’t let her in. As she was leaving, she noticed me in the window and I guess either she was waving or pointing at me (my back was to the window, so I only heard from my friends that someone was trying to get my attention). I saw her, walked over to the bouncer, and we finally convinced him to let her in without an ID. I was getting a good laugh from that.

Eventually, the evening came to a close (it was pretty close to midnight and I had to work the next morning).

I’m usually not the sort of person who has birthday parties. I normally just do a bunch of little events. Those seem easier to organize and are less stressful. But I have to say that this party was so much fun! I didn’t feel stressed at all (thanks Bodega for making things easy on us!) and I got to see a bunch of friends!

To everyone who said happy birthday to me (in person, on Facebook, on twitter, via email, on the phone), thank you! I had an amazing birthday and you were all a part of it!

Now, I get to move on with my life as a 30-something!

Happy Birthday to Me! (or Part 1)

A lot of things (and a lot of pictures) happened over my birthday, so I’m splitting this into 2 posts. This is pretty much what happened before 4pm on my birthday.

The day started off with happy birthday phone calls from various family members. One of my favorite phone calls to get is from my cousin Stephanie. Her oldest son, Dalton, sings happy birthday to me each year. It’s a tradition that I totally look forward to. This year, we FaceTimed so it was extra special.

The call started with a lovely video chat with my cousin’s youngest son, Hudson (who I will get to meet in real life for the first time at Thanksgiving).

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Then a very sleepy Dalton and his sister Annabelle came to the phone to sing to me.

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(I love being able to take screenshots of video chat!!!)

After those festivities, it was time for me to head over to SoulCycle for a spin class! This class was with Ben B., who taught the very first class that I went to. I actually hadn’t been to his class since that first one (he doesn’t teach with I can normally go), and it was really fun! He’s so high energy and upbeat.

When I was putting on my heart rate monitor for class, I noticed that even that was celebrating my birthday with me!

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During the stretch part at the end of class, one of the front desk people came into the room with a brownie with a candle in it. The entire spin class sang happy birthday to me! It was awesome!

Something else awesome about the class was a group that was in there. Remember last week when I was talking about how “The Biggest Loser” is one of my guilty pleasure but their workouts are a bit unrealistic? Well, it turns out that some of the contestants in the upcoming season of “The Biggest Loser” were in that spin class! I didn’t see any cameras so I have no idea if they will show it on tv. But I did get to see who some of the new contestants are (and no, I didn’t see Ruben Studdard). I didn’t take any pictures of the contestants since there were production people nearby and I didn’t want to get in trouble, but as soon as the new contestants are announced, I’m excited to see who it was that I saw in class! I guess that some of the workouts that they do are realistic since it’s something that I do pretty much every week!

After spin class, I got home and saw these flowers from my parents on my doorstep.

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After showering and getting dressed, I headed out to the one pampering thing I decided to do on my birthday. I got a blowout from DryBar. I had never been before, but I figured why not try it out.

It’s super nice inside. I loved the pop of yellow throughout the salon.

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They have a menu of styles that you can choose from. I chose the Cosmo-Tai since it seemed pretty fun (and not something I could do on my own).

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It also reminded me a bunch of this headshot of mine that I love!

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The stylist I got was very nice. She and I chatted a bit and then she got to work.

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While she was working on my hair, it didn’t really look at all like the style that I wanted. But I didn’t say anything because I’ve learned that you can’t judge a hairstyle by the process, you have to wait for it to be done.

Once it was done, it looked nothing like the picture in the menu. I asked her to fix it a couple of times, but I realized that it wasn’t going to be what I thought. It was a cute style, but I really wanted what I saw in the photo.

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With my cute hairstyle, I headed home and started to get ready for my birthday party. But those photos will have to wait for part 2 coming tomorrow!

Dirty Thirty (or A Look Back At My 20s)

Holy moly, I’m thirty now! This is crazy! I remember growing up and thinking that by thirty I would have my own tv show, be married, and probably already have a kid or two.

Yeah, none of that has happened yet.

But instead of looking back at what didn’t happen in my 20s, I wanted to take a look back at the accomplishments I did have. So here are the important (to me) highlights of my 20s.

I graduated from LMU. I actually was able to graduate in 3 1/2 years because I took some summer school classes and did independent study. I think the fact that I graduated early is something to still be proud of.

I had a “real” job. In 2006, I had a job doing radio sales coordination. It was a salaried job and was a standard 9-5 thing. I hated it. I was miserable a lot because I couldn’t do any acting stuff. But at the time it was the best thing for me because I was working there when I had my hip surgery, so I made money while I was recovering. I was planning on quitting and went to tell my boss that, but he let me know that they were going to lay me off within a month or two, so I stuck it out so I could get the unemployment.

I’ve had dozens of day jobs. I’ve worked everything from movie studio tour guide to dog walk. From personal organizer to substitute teacher. From data entry to transcription. From babysitting to volunteer coordinator. I’ve seriously worked pretty much all types of jobs except retail or being a waitress. Technically right now, I only have my one job, but I still do other random jobs on the side to help out.

I’ve gotten an agent and have gone out on amazing auditions. I’m still not quite where I’d like to be in my acting career, but I’m enjoying the journey. I’ve gone out for small one line (or even one word) parts, and I’ve gone out for the one of the main characters in a new tv show. I’m just waiting for that perfect part for me, but I know it’s coming. And I love that I have such a supportive team working with me.

I’ve found a workout that I love. This is huge for me. In the past, workouts have been just something annoying that I have to do. I’ve had personal trainers before because if I didn’t have that appointment to go to, I probably would have skipped the gym. But now I’ve found something that I actually look forward to doing (I’m even going to a class today to start 30 off right!).

I’ve started this blog and have become a much more honest person with myself and with others. This really is a huge thing for me. My whole life I’ve been pretty secretive about the things I find shameful about myself. But doing that really only makes it worse. By putting it all out there, it’s no longer something to be ashamed of but instead something to learn from and get over. The personal growth that I’ve had since starting this has been incredible (it’s almost better than going to therapy). And the support that I’ve gotten from people who I’ve known for years or who I’ve never met has been truly a gift.

Well, there are a couple of highlights of what I’ve done in past decade. Today, I’m starting off my 30s in an awesome way. I have the day off (because I’m working all weekend this weekend) so I’m going to spin class and then having a fun gathering at Bodega in Santa Monica. Whether or not we’ve met before, if you are local to LA, feel free to come by my party at Bodega. The more the merrier and I want to ring in 30 with as many awesome people as possible!

And since I don’t have a photo (yet) of me celebrating 30, here’s a cute photo of me from my 1st birthday!

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Life Updates (or Some Of What’s Going On)

Today, I’ve decided to update you all on a couple of little things going on in my life.

First of all, the most recent car accident I’ve had. I haven’t gotten my car fixed, or even gotten an estimate. I’m hoping to do that sometime in the next few weeks. I haven’t decided if I’m going to fix it at all. It doesn’t look horrible, and right now I don’t have the money for the deductible (I could get it together in time, I just don’t know if that’s a priority for me right now).

Also, I’ve finally decided what I’m going to wear to my brother’s wedding. I’m nowhere near the weight loss goal I had for myself, but that’s ok. The wedding is in Hawaii, and it’s black tie optional. I don’t want to wear a full length dress, so I’m going to wear the same dress that I wore to my friend Marie’s wedding last year in Texas. The dress is fancy and I think the color is tropical. Here’s a little picture of it.

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I still need to figure out what I’m wearing for the rehearsal dinner and need to go out and buy another bathing suit (I only have 1 right now), but I’ve got some time to get those done. At least the most important outfit for the trip is figured out.

I also wrote about how I have a black thumb a while back. I’ve been trying really hard to not kill my plants this time. I think I’ve succeeded in not killing my plants (yet).

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I sent this photo to my dad, and he thinks that it looks like the plants are thriving. Hopefully they will still look this good when he comes to visit me in the fall.

And finally, a long overdue update. I said last year that I was thinking of getting rid of cable. I kept my cable but tried to only watch my shows through Hulu, Netflix, and the internet. And while it worked for many of my shows, it just wasn’t a good solution for them all. In order for me to do my research, it would get to be pretty difficult to not have cable and a DVR.

But I am trying to expand my shows to be things that don’t air on traditional TV. I had yesterday off (there was an awards show filming at my work and it wasn’t safe for us to be there), and I watched all 13 episodes of “Orange Is The New Black”, which is a Netflix original series. If you haven’t watched this show yet, start now! It’s amazing! It might be one of the best shows on tv (and it’s pretty much an all female cast which is amazing and pretty much unheard of).

So that’s what has been going on in my life. I’m feeling pretty reflective as I’m coming to the last week of my 20’s. I’ve been looking back at some photos and just thinking about how much I changed over the last decade. And how so much will change again for me in this next decade. I know I’m probably sounding very sappy, but big birthdays will do that to a person. And when I turned 20, I had no idea that I would be in the place that I am now. So my imagination has been going wild thinking of the possibilities that could be when I’m looking back at my 30’s ten years from now.

Almost The End Of A Decade For Me (or The Birthday Countdown Has Begun)

My 30th birthday is in less than 2 weeks! I’m so excited to be turning 30 (and I say that with no sarcasm at all)!

You may recall how much I enjoyed my birthday last year. I had a bunch of little celebrations, which is how I’ve spent many of my past birthdays. It’s just easier to organize a couple of friends at a time and spread out the birthday fun.

This year will be a little different. I will still be doing some of my smaller birthday celebrations (like my free meals at Truxton’s, Benihana, and Marie Callendar’s), but I’m planning a big 30th birthday celebration too!

I figure you only turn 30 once (technically, I guess that is true with any age), so I might as well make this a party to remember!

I thought about a couple of places where I would like to have a party, but I kept thinking about how fun it would be at Bodega Wine Bar. I really love it there, and the food and drinks aren’t too horribly expensive.

When I looked at their reservation information, there was something that made me realize I might need a backup plan. If you have a reservation on a Friday or Saturday (my birthday happens to fall on a Friday this year), you must have a minimum bar charge on one tab. That’s pretty tough to do when most of my friends will be dropping in for part of the evening and will want to be able to pay for their own drinks on their own credit cards.

So I came up with a few backup locations before I called Bodega to see about having the minimum charge rule dropped (it can’t hurt to ask, right?).

I spoke with the manager, Charity, and I have to say that she was so incredibly nice! I was prepared to have to convince her to drop the minimum. But after I explained that it was my 30th birthday and how much I love the bar, it was all taken care of!

So now I get to look forward to an amazing birthday party in 11 more days! I think I have an outfit picked out (something I rented from Gwynnie Bee) and I’m most likely having the day after my birthday off at my day job (since we have to work a long shift on Sundays when we normally have a day off).

All in all, I think this plan is coming together very nicely and will be the perfect way to say goodbye to my 20’s and hello to my 30’s!

Happy Birthday Kate! (or Yay For My Friend Of 21 Years!)

Today is my best friend Kate’s 30th birthday! First of all, happy birthday to you, Kate! As I’ve done for a few other birthdays, I’ve decided to do some of my favorite photos of my 21 year friendship with Kate (yes, we became friends when we were 9).

I don’t have a ton of pictures from before college on my computer, but I do have one from my sweet 16. For my 16th birthday, my mom allowed me to invite a couple of friends to drive down to southern California so we could go to Catalina! It was amazing! I invited Kate, another high school friend Jackie, and my cousin Leah.

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When it was time to go to college, I was coming down here to LA (I went to Loyola Marymount) and Kate moved to Minnesota. But since I was starting school before Kate, she agreed to drive down with me to LA. She and I were in my car, and my parents were in theirs (and they had most of my stuff since I had a little car then). It was one of our first “grownup” adventures.

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Until last year, Kate and I had not lived in the same city since high school. But she came down to LA to visit (her sister also lives here).

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And I traveled to see her as well. I went once to Minnesota (where it was seriously the coldest I’ve ever experienced), but I visited her in Seattle more. Since we’ve been friends for so long, we both know that we are dorks. And on one visit to Seattle, we discovered that Kate had an old CD-ROM (remember those?) of Oregon Trail. So of course we put it in her laptop and played a couple of games.

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It’s been really exciting to have Kate living in the same city as me now. Of course, she and I have had a lot of happy hour adventures together. And I’ve mentioned it before, but Kate is my 5K buddy. And we’ve agreed to virtually cheer each other on when we can’t do the same races (I know she’ll be cheering me on while working during my race on Sunday).

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So Kate, thank you for being such an awesome friend to me! You have been there for me through thick and thin (literally) and have supported me through every step! You are like a sister to me. And I’m so grateful that you are willing to listen to my rants every once in a while.

Cheers to you on turning 30! I’m looking forward to celebrating your birthday at the spa soon (I’m sure I’ll be writing a blog post about that in the future). And to all you readers, thanks for letting me use a blog post to celebrate my best friend.

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