Tag Archives: blogging

“The Wisdom Of Walt” (or Time To Win An Amazing Book!)

Posted on September 17, 2015 | 18 comments

I’ve covered almost everything from the Entertainment New Media Network Conference in my past two posts. But I did skip talking about one of the speakers. And it’s not because I didn’t enjoy it. It’s because it was my favorite speaker of the entire event!

Jeffrey A. Barnes is a professor, an author, and a Disney fanatic. And as a fellow Disney fan, I was super excited to hear what he was going to talk about.

Without giving away a ton of Jeffrey’s story, he had always dreamed about writing a book about Walt Disney and Disneyland. Then he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He put off having surgery for a while because he was teaching a college class on Disneyland (where was that class when I was in school?!?). After having the tumor removed, he had mentioned that he had the life regret of never writing his book. His wife told him that he still had plenty of life to live and encouraged him to write the book he always wanted to.

The book “The Wisdom Of Walt” was written as both a story about the history of Disneyland as well as leadership and self-help through the lessons that Walt Disney went through while building his park.

When Jeffrey was speaking at ENMNCon, he talked about how we needed to be the hero in our own stories. Every story needs a hero who is willing to fail, willing to act, and willing to dream. And to get your dreams accomplished nobody can be that hero except for you.

His talk really connected with me. I try not to be the victim in my story, but sometimes that’s tough. I need to focus as much as possible on being my own hero and making sure that my dreams are my priorities.

Obviously as soon as the conference was done, I bought “The Wisdom of Walt”. To say that I’m devouring the book is an understatement! I’m putting off watching my favorite TV shows to read more and more of the book! I’m getting close to the end of it and I’m already planning on re-reading it because I know that there is so much to absorb in the book.

I love the history of Disneyland parts. I do know a lot of Disney history but I’m still learning new things. And I love the lessons that are in each chapter. The book is such a great mix of learning Disney history and leadership skills with fun facts about the parks.

Why am I sharing this all with you? Because Jeffrey A. Barnes is super amazing and is giving away a copy of “The Wisdom Of Walt” on my blog! Not only is he giving away a copy, the winner will have their copy signed and personalized!

All you have to do is enter at the bottom of this post. There are a bunch of ways to enter including commenting on here, following me on twitter/Facebook/Instagram, and tweeting out the contest (you can do that every day and earn extra entries!). The contest goes until midnight on Thursday September 24th so you have lots of time to enter and earn extra entries!

And if you don’t want to enter (or if you enter but don’t win), Jeffrey has decided to give all readers of Finding My Inner Bombshell $5 off his book if you order it through his website! All the books ordered through his website will be signed (just not personalized) and if you enter the code “blog” in the notes, you will get a $5 refund after purchase! If you would prefer the Kindle version, you can get that on Amazon (but no discount and obviously it won’t be signed).

Good luck to everyone who enters! And I hope that even if you don’t win, you get this book because it is truly amazing!

Please make sure you enter through the Rafflecopter below even if you just enter by writing a comment. I will be selecting the winner randomly from the Rafflecopter entries on Friday the 26th!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

18 Comments

Posted in Celebrations, Food, Shopping

Tagged author, blogging, books, contest, Disney, Disneyland

The Rest Of ENMNCon (or Learning How To Improve My Blog)

Posted on September 16, 2015 | 4 comments

While going to KOA and having an adventure day was fun, the main point of ENMNCon was to learn about blogging and how to make the best blog you can. When I won my tickets, that was the part that I was most excited about. While I have been blogging for a couple of years now, I still consider myself a newbie blogger. There are so many things that I don’t know how to do (or don’t know that I should do) and I want to learn as much as I can!

I’ve already talked about the first session that we had while we had lunch at KOA. The other session that we had on Thursday was in the evening at the PJ party we had at Dave & Busters at Hollywood and Highland. I’ve only been to a Dave & Busters once (I think) and I didn’t have time to check this one out too much, but I have it on my list of things I want to do around LA!

At the PJ party, Genevieve Goings (from Choo Choo Soul) taught us how to do a 5 minute face. I’m totally not a makeup person (I really wish I was!), but the instructions that she gave were pretty simple so I think I might be able to manage it! We also got some really great stuff from Pur Makeup!

The next day was a pretty full day of sessions. We were at the Hard Rock Cafe at CityWalk and I was there so early that CityWalk was basically empty (I’ve never seen it like that before!).

It was so nice of the Hard Rock to open up early just for our group! We had the entire upstairs to us and it was nice and quiet so we could hear all the speakers.

I learned so much that day! We heard from some people who work with affiliate marketing. I haven’t really ever done that before but I think it might be something great to add to here. I’d love to be able to share with you all products and businesses that I love and think you would all love too!

We also heard from some bloggers who have gone the next step with their blog. One woman has sold her blog (don’t worry, I don’t plan on selling Finding My Inner Bombshell any time soon!), another has created her own conference and has worked with legislatures, and the last one has written a book!

We also learned even more about travel blogging (I really need to look more into that!) and finally there was an expo where we got to meet with some vendors who want to work with us bloggers! I think I’m going to have some great things to share with you all very soon about some of these vendors!

The last day of ENMNCon was at the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood and Highland (where I was for the Hard Rock 5K event last year). I didn’t get a ton of pictures because I was so busy with my note taking! There’s one speaker we had that I’m going to be sharing with you tomorrow (you don’t want to miss it because I’ve got something special for you all!), but everyone who spoke was awesome! My friends Leah and Helenna were there as part of one panel so I got a quick photo with them between sessions.

After all the sessions were done, there was a tour with Starline of filming locations. I ended up missing that part, but I heard from my fellow attendees that it was amazing!

But even though I missed the last activity of the conference, my afternoon wasn’t spent sitting around doing nothing. First, I hung out at Hard Rock Cafe with some new and not-so-new friends. We had drinks and dessert (and maybe over-ordered desserts) and discussed our blogs and things that we learned over the past few days.

I also got to hang out with my new blogging buddy Jana at the host hotel. We hung out at the pool and planned to have an epic adventure the next time she comes to LA!

Overall, I’d say that my first blogging conference experience was a huge success! I learned so much and made a ton of new friends! I don’t know how many conferences I could afford to attend (especially if they aren’t local) and right now my job isn’t the most flexible one. But hopefully I will be able to do more and more of these in the near future and continue on working on bringing you all the best Finding My Inner Bombshell that I can!

Thank you again so much to the Entertainment New Media Network (especially Erica and Margaret) for putting this all together! Thanks Ventura Ranch KOA, Dave & Busters Hollywood, Hard Rock Cafe CityWalk, and Hard Rock Cafe Hollywood for hosting us! And thanks to all the sponsors who helped to make sure that we all had the most amazing time those days!

4 Comments

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged blogging, event, Hollywood, Los Angeles

Ventura Ranch KOA (or Maybe I Am The Camping Type)

Posted on September 15, 2015 | 7 comments

A little while ago, I won tickets to the ENMN Conference through my friend Mindy who blogs at Budget Fairy Tale. I was so excited for a couple of reasons. First, I feel like I never win anything! And second, this was going to be my first ever blogger conference!

Fortunately, this conference was going to be in LA, so I didn’t have to make any travel or hotel arrangements. I knew I’d be driving a bit around town, but I’m used to that. But to have my first blogger conference to be where I live made things much less stressful for me.

The first day of the conference was actually going to be off-site. We were going to take a bus about 90 minutes outside of LA to Ventura Ranch KOA. We were going to have some time to explore there, have some lunch, and have our first session. At first I was pretty nervous about this being the first event. It was going to be very hot out there (and I don’t do well in the heat) and I’m not really an outdoorsy person. But I wasn’t going to miss it so this past Thursday morning, I was at the meeting place at 7am to get on the bus!

I only knew a few people at the conference before it and the bus was pretty big, so I ended up sitting alone for the ride. I listened to what the conference founder, Erica, had to say and spent a lot of the ride checking out the view.

As soon as we got to KOA, I knew that this wasn’t going to be what I had expected.

Our first stop was the pool to learn a little about KOA and the Ventura Ranch KOA.

KOA is all over the US. There are some locations that are mainly for people who want to camp in a tent or in their RV and then there are some locations (like Ventura Ranch) that have much nicer and less rustic accommodation options if you are looking for those. This location in particular has the RV or tent options, but you can also stay in a teepee, a glamour tent, or a cabin (which has bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and my new favorite thing a/c). There are also a ton of activities that everyone in your family can take part in there. There’s the pool (they are working on adding a huge water slide right now!), a climbing wall, crafts, and a zip line. But the first activity that KOA wanted us to see was the jumping pillow.

The jumping pillow was so much fun! It’s like a giant trampoline that is filled with air and you can bounce really really high! Toward the center you are off the ground quite a bit so I had a bit of trouble staying standing. But then I discovered (like my friends in the picture) that the best thing is to sit down while everyone bounces around you!

After that fun (and it was like a workout too!), we toured one of the teepees they have at Ventura Ranch.

It was really nice inside and pretty spacious too! It’s hard to tell in the picture but there was more than enough room for 4 of us to be standing in there. The teepees are all on raised decks so you don’t have to sleep on the ground. While there aren’t bathrooms inside, the bathrooms are pretty close by.

After that quick tour, they asked to see which of us wanted to go zip lining. I have zip lined a few times in the past, but it’s been years (or decades) since I’ve done it. I decided that this was the perfect time to do it again!

There were two sets of zip lines we could do. The first (pictured above) was a less scary zip line because there wasn’t really a drop off at the end of the platform, just a slanted drop. I was one of the last ones to go down this, but it was amazing! I wish I could have done it again.

After the first zip line, there was a second one that went farther and had a real drop off at the end of the platform. It wasn’t really that scary on the zip line, but I turned around during the ride and ended up coming in for the landing backwards so I couldn’t see when I was going to stop! Even with that small amount of scariness, all of us who chose to go on the zip lines had so much fun!

While we were zip lining, others in the group were checking out the Glamour Tent option at KOA. I sadly didn’t get to see the inside of those, but from the picture on their website they look pretty amazing!

After zip lining, I was able to check out some of the cabins that are available at KOA. I think that these look amazing and I’d love to stay in one!

These cabins are seriously incredible! They are even nicer (and probably bigger) than my house! They are decorated really well and they made as many of the walls windows as they could. Why wouldn’t you if this was the view from the kitchen?

After touring the cabins, a couple of us went back down to the pool to cool down a bit (it was pretty hot out) before heading back to where the nice cabins are for some lunch and our first session.

We got to learn a lot about travel blogging and how to approach different PR people to help you with your posts. I don’t really do travel blogging so this was very informative to me. I took a lot of notes and hopefully I’ll have some great travel posts to share on here in the future.

After lunch, it was time to head back on the bus to try to beat the LA traffic back to the host hotel (where the bus got us). The ride back was pretty quiet since a lot of people took naps. We did a lot of activity in a little amount of time, so we were pretty exhausted.

I never thought that I’d have fun at a campground, but obviously I’ve been going to wrong types of campgrounds. I’m already thinking about going to KOA for a fun weekend sometime soon. We are lucky here in LA because our KOA is open year-round (some of the locations where it gets cold and snowy are only open seasonally). Maybe I can organize my friends for a weekend adventure. I know that they would all love the zip line and pool and it would be fun to camp (in a cabin) and have s’mores by the fire.

Thank you so much Ventura Ranch KOA for hosting us for the day! You’ve converted this non-camper into someone who is dreaming of going camping soon!

7 Comments

Posted in Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged adventure, blogging, Los Angeles, outdoors

3 Years Down (or Where I Started)

Posted on July 16, 2015 | Comments Off

3 years ago today was the first post ever on Finding My Inner Bombshell. The last line in that post was about how I didn’t know where my journey would be going, but it was going to go somewhere.

And in the past 3 years it definitely has gone places.

Am I where I expected to be in 3 years after writing that first post? No way. I honestly thought that by putting myself out there everything thing would be fixed. I know that that sounds stupid, but I really believed it. I really thought that that first post was the start of my new life. And while that was true, it’s not true in the way that I expected it to.

I thought that somehow my weight loss would finally happen and I wouldn’t have to deal with any weight gain. I thought that I would figure out how to live within my means and pay off my credit card debt. I honestly thought that within 3 years all my debt would be completely gone.

None of that has come true.

But what has happened is I have become more accepting of myself. I don’t beat myself up as often as I used to. I still do that from time to time and I do share that on here. But when I become open with the world, many other people opened up to me. I realized that I’m not alone in this battle and journey. And by knowing I’m not alone, I know that everyone has slip ups and moments where they aren’t their best.

I’m still in shock that I’ve been doing this for 3 years (and almost 800 posts!)! I’ve said this before, but I never had an idea of how long I’d be able to keep this up. Sometimes it is tough to find things to write about every day. And I’m sure that eventually there will be a day that I don’t post. But I’m doing my very best to stay consistent with this as it does hold me somewhat accountable for my actions.

When I started this blog, a friend of mine had encouraged me to start a blog because she made decent money off of her blog. She thought that this would be a great day job for me and that I might be able to support myself on my blog income. In no way is that true. While I have had a handful of sponsored posts where I’ve gotten cool things, I haven’t made cash money off of this blog. And shockingly, I’m totally ok with that.

As I’ve blogged, while it would have been nice to make money, it’s become less and less important. I’ve found that having a voice and allowing others to feel comfortable to share their voices has been the best thing to come out of this blog. Maybe one day I’ll make a couple of dollars on here, but I really haven’t worried too much about trying to do that.

So I’ve talked about where I thought 3 years ago where I’d be today. Now to look toward the future. Where will I be in 3 years from now?

I’m hoping that I will still be blogging in 3 more years. I’d like to still be blogging 5 days a week, but I don’t want to stress out about that. Who knows where I’ll be in 3 years. I’ve seen other bloggers decrease their blogging when major life events happen (like getting married and having kids). Maybe something big like that will have happened for me in 3 years?

While I hope to be at a steady and healthy weight in 3 years, I have no idea if that will happen. I’d love to be at a “normal” weight and it is possible to lose my excess weight within 3 years. But I don’t know if that is in the cards for me. No matter my weight, in 3 years I want to be in a place where I am more comfortable with my body and appearance than I am right now.

And I’d love to have all my credit card debt gone in 3 years. I crunched the numbers and it may be possible. It won’t be easy at all. But there’s a small chance that it can be gone in 3 years. And even if it isn’t gone, it would be nice to have it at a much smaller number than where it is right now.

It’s so crazy to think that I’ve been blogging for almost 10% of my life! I love that I have this documentation of my life. When I was a teenager I kept diaries. I have them safe in my house right now. I did put them in waterproof sealed bags so I can’t look at them without breaking the seal. But I did go through them before sealing them and loved that I had all of that saved to re-read again. This is the same thing. It’s digital and public (so a bit more censored than my diaries), but it still allows me to reflect back and be proud of what I’ve done.

Here’s to the next 3 years of Finding My Inner Bombshell!

Comments Off on 3 Years Down (or Where I Started)

Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged anniversary, blogging, debt, weight loss

Ms. In The Biz Anniversary Party (or Having Fun In A Photo Booth)

Posted on May 8, 2015 | Comments Off

Ms. In The Biz is now 2 years old! I’m honored that I’ve been able to be a part of the blog since day 1 (technically before day 1 since I worked on the site before it launched)! I’ve been able to write a lot about my experience as an actress and because of the other writers on the site, I’ve learned so much! It’s also created such a wonderfully supportive community not just for women but for anyone passionate about the entertainment industry.

So of course there had to be a party to celebrate the 2nd anniversary!

The party was held at Fork in West Hollywood, which wasn’t too far of a drive for me. I knew that there wasn’t a red carpet, so I didn’t dress as nice as I have for other events. But I still wanted to look cute. I think I managed to put together a fun outfit for the night.

I wore heels for the first time in a while since I knew I could valet my car right in front of the door and since it was a restaurant there would be places for me to sit down. While it did feel weird to wear heels again, I have to admit that they do make an outfit look better. I just wish they didn’t hurt me as much.

I knew that I was only going to be able to be at the party for a little bit because I had a phone call I had to make at 9pm, so I got to the party on the early side. There weren’t a ton of people there when I got there, but it was ok because the upstairs space (where I hung out) wasn’t huge. So it didn’t feel packed or crowded (I prefer that).

The Headshot Truck was there doing photos. But they were more photo booth style photos with props. Much more relaxing than red carpet photos. I definitely took advantage of that and got some fun photos done.

It was a fun set up and they had a giant computer screen right next to the wall where we posed so we could see the photos right after they were taken (and could check out the photos that everyone else took).

Since Fork is a restaurant so many of the party guests were hanging out at tables and getting dinner and drinks. I had some dinner before going but I hung out with a friend while she had something to eat. It was nice to just spend time catching up with a friend on life, auditions, and other craziness going on in our worlds.

Before I knew it, I had to head out. I didn’t want to be at a loud party or in my car when I had to be on that phone call. I wish I was able to stay later, but I had a great time while I was there.

It’s such a great milestone that Ms. In The Biz has been going for 2 years. I think that the site has been gaining legitimacy since day one and I think that we have become a very trusted site for features about women in the entertainment industry. And I’m so honored that I’ve been allowed to be a part of it for the entire time.

Comments Off on Ms. In The Biz Anniversary Party (or Having Fun In A Photo Booth)

Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, anniversary, blogging, Ms In The Biz, party

What I Plan To Do This Year (or 2015 Goals)

Posted on January 1, 2015 | 5 comments

Now that I’ve reflected back on my 2014 goals and how well I accomplished them, I really thought hard about what I want my 2015 goals to be. I think I’ve got a good list going for this year and I’m excited to see how well I get them done over the next year.

My first goal is workout related. I want to get 175 workouts done in 2015. That’s pretty much 3-4 workouts every week of the year. I’m not allowing myself workout vacation time (even though my dad did suggest it). I’m sure a majority of the 175 workouts will be at Orangetheory. I have every intention of going at least 3 times a week (and trying to add in a 4th day every other week). But I’m also going to include any 5Ks that I chose to do this year as well as other fitness classes (SoulCycle and maybe trying yoga again). I will also consider including hiking, but I don’t think I’ll have a lot of hiking days except when I get to Tahoe in the summer.

My next goal is a food goal. I want to have home cooked dinners at least 4 times a week. Since I started bulk cooking, I’ve been eating something home cooked most weeknights. I usually prepare food for 4 nights and then on weekends I’m out. And many times on Tuesdays or Thursdays (when I don’t workout after my day job) I don’t necessarily eat dinner. I’ll have a big late breakfast (since my shift doesn’t start until 10am) and then have another bigger meal around 4 or 5pm. Both of those meals are home cooked, but I don’t know if it counts as dinner. So I’m saying home cooked dinners 4 nights a week. If I do more than that, all the better for me.

Next is a day job goal. I want to be down to 2 main day jobs (not counting babysitting or running the film festival). Right now, I have 1 main day job and 6 sporadic jobs. I don’t make enough each week (to the point that I’m still collecting unemployment to make up for the fact that I don’t make enough to not be eligible anymore) and this needs to end. I’m enjoying my box office from home job and if I made enough doing that job I’d be so happy. But I don’t think that will be a reality even with the raise we are supposed to get this year. And while I love being able to make some extra money babysitting, I don’t see that as something that will make enough to make up for what I’m lacking. So I need to find one more steady day job that has regular hours to help me make enough to pay all my bills comfortably. There is a chance to make the film festival another main day job, but there is no guarantee with that.

And I’ve made this a goal in the past, but I really want to get into an improv class this year. I think that now that I feel secure with my day job and have a steady schedule with it, I will be able to pick out a class time that will work for me. I’m working on saving up the money for the class right now.

Again, another repeat goal from last year, but I’d like to travel again this year. I have a trip to Napa planned in 2 months and I’m really looking forward to that. And there is a possibility of another New York trip in the fall this year. I don’t know if I’ll have any other trips (besides visiting my parents or grandparents) but 2 trips in one year sounds wonderful to me!

And my final goal which is a goal every year is to keep blogging. Not just on here, but on other sites as well. I freelance on two blogs and I’ve written a few guest posts on other sites. I had no idea when I started this blog how important and therapeutic writing would become for me. It’s an amazing journal of the past few years of my life and I love going back and reading some of my old posts to remind me how far I’ve come. And I can’t wait to track 2015 the same way.

So those are my main goals for 2015. And in a year, I’ll let you all know how I did with them.

5 Comments

Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Travel, Weight Loss, Work

Tagged 2015, 5K, acting, blogging, bulk cooking, goals, job, Orangetheory, resolutions, travel

Reflecting Back On 2014 (or How I Did With My Goals)

Posted on December 31, 2014 | 1 comment

I can’t believe that 2014 is ending! It really seems like it was just a month or two ago that I was posting my goals for this year.

I just want to take some time and reflect on my year and the goals that I had set out for myself.

I really felt like 2014 was a rebuilding year for me and my family. While 2013 did have some great moments, there were also a lot of sad and stressful ones. I think of 2013 as the year that Ross and Krystle got married, that my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and my family lost two dogs. While we did technically adopt Tucker right before New Year’s Eve last year, I think of 2014 as the year he joined our family.

In 2014, so many positives happened for my family. Adopting Tucker was a big one, but the biggest was my mom being declared cancer-free. Knowing that she is ok (even though we all knew that she would be in the beginning) really has taken so much stress out of my life. I know that there are still some stressful times ahead with making sure that she stays cancer-free (and now I have annual mammograms to worry about too), but knowing that it’s all good right now just makes me so happy.

This was also a rebuilding year for me as far as my health goes. I have finally connected with a workout in a way that I had hoped for. And very recently I’ve been getting my food in a better place too. This isn’t to say that I don’t have days where I seriously struggle, but I’m taking more and more steps in the right direction.

So let’s take a look back at my goals from last year and see how I did with them.

My first goal was to continue to do 5Ks. I did 3 this year. And while that is much less than the year prior, I’m ok with that. I don’t love doing 5Ks as much as I want to, but the few races that I did do are ones that I look forward to a lot. I also got a new PR which I am very excited about!

My next goal was to make spin a regular habit. This did not happen. I stopped going to SoulCycle a while ago because I have replaced it with Orangetheory. I’m planning on going back next year every so often to spin, but I really wanted to focus on Orangetheory during the second half of this year. But since I did make exercise a regular habit, I’m declaring this goal as a partial success.

Next on my list was to track my food/exercise better. I’m still using MyFitnessPal to track my food every day. I’m much happier tracking it when I’m making smart choices. And as far as tracking my exercise, I think I’m doing pretty great at that too. It makes it easy to track my exercise in MyFitnessPal when Orangetheory tells me exactly how many calories I’m burning in each workout.

The next goal I had set was to get into an improv class. I failed to do this goal. I had every intention of getting started at UCB this year. I even purchased the book that all students are required to read. But I think the lack of stability with my job got to me. When I thought I knew when a class would fit into my schedule I would lose my job and everything changed. I’m feeling pretty stable with my current day job, but I’m still looking for something else to help me make enough each month. Once that stability is set, I think I can look into class again.

Next was pay down my debt and not add more. While I did pay down some of the debt, it was impossible to not add more this year. With some expenses having to be put on a credit card, there was no way to not add to it. But when I did have those expenses, I tried to pay off exactly what I spent by the time the bill came around.

Then I had the goal of going on another vacation. While I did go to visit my parents, those don’t seem to feel like vacations to me. They seem like getting to have family time. That’s probably because I’m either visiting them at the house I grew up in or I’m at their place in Tahoe. But I did get to go on a fabulous trip to New York with my sister-in-law this past spring. That trip was amazing and we are planning to try to go to New York again in the coming year.

My final goal for 2014 was to continue blogging. While some days are tough to come up with a topic to write about, I have maintained posting a new post Monday-Friday every week of this year. That’s a lot of posts!

All in all, even though I didn’t complete all of my goals, I think that I did a great job in trying to do them all. I’ll post my goals for 2015 tomorrow.

I hope that you all have an amazing New Year’s Eve tonight! If you chose to drink, please don’t drive. Take a taxi/Uber/Lyft to get home. Or you can call AAA for a Tipsy Tow.

1 Comment

Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Family, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Travel, Weight Loss, Work

Tagged 5K, blogging, breast cancer, cancer, debt, goals, New Years, Orangetheory, recap, resolutions, vacation

Happy Hour and Happiness (or I’m On Another Blog Now)

Posted on September 26, 2014 | 4 comments

After working my at-home job yesterday, I headed over to the valley to meet my friend Rayshell for Happy Hour. I hadn’t seen Rayshell since my birthday party and we both had a lot of catching up to do.

It was a super fun happy hour. We were able to get drinks and food for $5 each. And of course, I had a Dirty Shirley.

Sometimes the stress of working and trying to find more work makes me forget to go out and have fun with my friends. And this was the perfect chance to have a relaxing Happy Hour with an awesome friend.

We were catching up on my new job and Rayshell’s current job when my phone alerted me that someone @replied me on twitter. I glanced at my phone and saw that casting director Marci Liroff had included me in a tweet.

A little backstory.

Last month, Marci sent me an email asking about my tips and tricks for preparing for the fall tv season. I was more than happy to share my advice as well and send her the links to all the posts that I’ve written about the subject.

Marci thanked me and told me that she was working on an article for Backstage on the topic and asked what she could share of my advice. I told her that she could share everything that she wanted to. I feel like sharing my knowledge won’t hurt my career, so why not?

The article hadn’t gone up by the time the fall tv season started, so I thought maybe she changed her mind on the article. But at Happy Hour yesterday, that tweet was Marci sharing that the article had gone live and that it included advice (or as she put it “golden nuggets”) from me!

Of course, as soon as I saw that, I had to look at the article on my phone (Rayshell wanted to see it to).

And it’s awesome.

A lot of my advice in the article is stuff that I’ve shared on here before. But by having it in Backstage, the advice is reaching much bigger audience than I get here.

I was so excited to be a part of this article and honored and a little surprised that I was the only actor who Marci used for advice. I really feel like this means that I am doing the right things when it comes to research. And all this research will eventually lead to a great acting job for me.

I just have to be patient and be grateful that my advice is respected in this industry.

4 Comments

Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, blogging, casting director, friends, happy hour

Happy Birthday To FMIB! (or 2 Years And Finally Taking Myself Seriously As A Writer)

Posted on July 16, 2014 | 4 comments

Today marks 2 years since I started blogging on here! I still can’t believe that I’ve been able to keep this up for so long. Even though there are plenty of days where I struggle thinking of what to post on here, I still have posted now every weekday for 2 entire years!

I really should stop being shocked at myself for being so consistent. And I’m also really working on taking myself seriously as a writer.

And that’s important to do now because I lost my one day job with steady hours.

So I’m down to 6 day jobs, but none of those have guaranteed hours. And some of them won’t have hours available to me until the end of August or beginning of September.

Since I haven’t been able to save any money lately (and I’m only able to make the minimum payments on my credit card), I’m desperately looking for new days jobs now.

I started applying for the usual types of jobs like receptionist/assistant/data entry type of work. But then some people encouraged me to pursue writing jobs. They said that I am a writer (I’m working on believing that myself). I have over 500 posts on here to prove that as well as over a year of monthly posts on two other blogs.

So I spent some time creating a new resume highlighting my writing experience (there really isn’t much yet) and started to apply for various blogging and copy writing jobs. I probably applied for about 50 or 60 jobs, but I have heard back from one already. They wanted to know my blogging background and I had to answer a dozen questions about how I would handle different job situations.

I’m so glad that when I responded, I could say proudly that I had been writing on here for about 2 years (I applied for the jobs earlier this week so my 2 year mark hadn’t hit yet and I wanted to be totally honest). I also was able to provide multiple writing samples about various subjects.

While the job hunt is getting me down a bit, I’m going to spend today in a celebratory mood. 2 years is a huge milestone! I should allow myself to be happy and proud!

And I know that there are a bunch of you who have been supporting and following me through the entire 2 year life of this blog so far and I have to say thank you! Every day I’m still amazed that there are people reading this and responding about things that are going on in my life! And if you are new to following me, thanks for all the support you’ve already given to me and I hope that my next 2 years on here will bring more fun posts to share with you all!

4 Comments

Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Work

Tagged anniversary, birthday, blogging, job, writer

500 Posts! (or A Reason To Celebrate!)

Posted on June 13, 2014 | 6 comments

Today’s post is about a lot of good things that have happened lately.

First of all, like the title of this post says, this is my 500th post on Finding My Inner Bombshell! That’s so bonkers to me! I write 5 days a week so that means I’ve been writing for 100 weeks. So yes, that also means that my 2 year anniversary of the blog is coming up soon as well.

I’m still in shock how this blog really has become an important part of my life. When I started, I hoped I’d be able to keep it going. Now when I’m not writing on the weekends, I feel like something is missing. I’ve made new friends because of the blog and I’ve become closer to old friends because of my honesty here. It’s just awesome.

The next part of my awesome news is that my mom got her BRCA test results back and she doesn’t have the gene mutation! When my mom texted me with the news, I cried in relief. This is a weight lifted off my shoulders (and I’m sure the rest of my family feels this way). When I talked to my mom that day, she said that getting these results have allowed her to relax and she can go on and enjoy life. And for me, it means that while I still have a higher risk of getting breast cancer in my life because my mom had it, it’s not nearly as high of a risk if I had had the gene mutation.

I’m still going to be monitored much closer and I’ve already talked with my gynecologist about setting up a mammogram appointment after I see her (I’m sure I’ll be writing about that appointment when it happens because I’m still crazy nervous about it).

The third, and technically, final good news is that I’m finally starting to get back on track with losing weight. I’ve lost about 10% of what I had gained recently. It’s not a lot, but it’s totally a start. I’m working on my eating and I’ve been working out again. My journey is still going to be a long one, but I’m happy to be moving in the right direction again.

And in other celebratory things (but not technically good news), today is my friend Kate’s birthday! I’ll be seeing her next week, so we’ll get to celebrate her birthday then, but I wanted to acknowledge how amazing of a friend she is. She was the first person I talked to when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. She kept the news a secret for a while until my mom was ready to go public with the news. And she was there to listen to me whenever I was freaking out or having a tough time. Not many friends would or could do that and I’m so insanely grateful that she was willing to be there for me.

So to recap: yay for 500 posts, yay for my mom not having the BRCA gene, yay for me losing some weight, and happy birthday to Kate!

I love how my life has become so wonderful and positive!

6 Comments

Posted in Celebrations, Family, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged anniversary, birthday, blogging, breast cancer, cancer, mom, weight loss, workout

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