Tag Archives: busy

This Is Another Quick Post (or I’m Tired, Burned Out, And Still Blogging)

Posted on August 2, 2019 | Comments Off on This Is Another Quick Post (or I’m Tired, Burned Out, And Still Blogging)

Sorry that this going to be a super quick post. I have a few things I want to write about, but I honestly don’t have the time right now to blog. I am in the middle of doing multiple election-related projects and those are taking up a lot of my time. It’s exhausting and there are a few things that have to be done in a more roundabout way than I would have liked, but it’s still awesome and I love it. Plus, I am learning so much with both union politics/policies as well as random skill sets. It’s a crash course in lots of different things and it’s a lot.

There’s no question that I’m running on empty right now. I just finished a project for the slate that ended up being a bit more time consuming than we expected but it was worth it in the end. And we learned a lot of lessons from how we got in done in how we can accomplish the same thing next time a lot easier next election cycle. A lot of it has to do with how we prepare different files or how we share things between those of us that create different social media posts or graphics. While this type of work has been done in past election cycles, we are taking things to a new level and it’s amazing to be one of the leaders taking that on.

But because of all that work, I haven’t had time to sit down and so my blogging like I normally do. Most of my blogs this week were prepped before the week started. I hadn’t planned this one out earlier and was hoping something during the week would inspire me. And there was something that did, but I never had the time to sit down and write. I am writing this very late Thursday night when I honestly should be sleeping. I debated about not having a post go out today or having one go out late, but I would rather just get something up than to miss it. This is my commitment to myself and I want to honor it.

And like I’ve said before on here, I take pride in being honest and truthful when I’m not having the best moments. While this time of stress and burnout isn’t necessarily putting me in a bad place, it is causing me to have a hard time with some of the things I want to do. I am stressing out when I try to plan how to I can fit everything into my day. I just want to sit on my couch and nap or watch tv. I will get to do that soon (hopefully tonight), but there wasn’t time for me to do that or to have the time to write the post I wanted to before this post was going to go up.

I know that my schedule will continue to be crazy throughout the month as the election season continues. I’m going to try to work on getting posts ready to go when I do have breaks in my week or over the weekend if I have some downtime. The downtime is limited, but I need to just work hard at taking advantage of it when I can. But for now, I just have to keep pushing along and know that I’m working hard for things that I care very deeply about and hope that it pays off in the end. And that will make all the exhaustion worth it.

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Default ThumbnailHappy Thanksgiving (or Just A Super Quick Post) Default ThumbnailFeeling Weird About Blogging Other Stuff (or Posting Silly Posts Just Feels Wrong) Default ThumbnailJust A Quick Christmas Hello! (or Back To Normal Blogging Tomorrow) Default ThumbnailA Quick Post (or I Really Hope I’m Not Getting Sick) Default ThumbnailSorry For A Quick Post (or Going Through A Tough Day) Default ThumbnailHappy Thanksgiving! (or Just A Quick Post)

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Wishing For A Vacation (or Finding My Own Time Off)

Posted on July 26, 2019 | Comments Off on Wishing For A Vacation (or Finding My Own Time Off)

I wrote about how I hit burnout recently. I’m getting much better from that low point and I’m glad I’m not feeling how I did when I wrote that post. Weirdly, it’s good that right now I’m experiencing nausea because it forces me to slow down and do a lot of nothing. It’s not really a great break from things since I’m feeling awful, but it does allow me to relax a little bit. And I’ve been trying to take advantage of the downtime that I’m being forced to have.

Since I’m only working one job right now, I do tend to have free time between customers. I’ve been enjoying watching shows that I have been meaning to catch up on or playing lots of random games on my phone. Anything that is a distraction from work has been nice when sometimes I only have 2 or 3 customers to help over a 7-hour shift. I do need another job, but I needed to give myself a break and enjoy a little bit of time that isn’t as crazy as it has been.

And I have been thinking about why I’ve been needing this break and I think I have thought of something. For so much of my life, there have been set breaks in my schedule. When I was in school, there were school breaks in the summer and for different holidays. When I was working at the Broad Stage, we had a little break in the off season. And most people who work full-time jobs get time off so they take vacations or take time off occasionally. But I don’t really have any of that now. Each week is the same as the week before and there isn’t much change for me in the day to day work that I do. Time blends a lot and I don’t have a big event or break to look forward to.

I have been able to take the occasional weekend away and I’m so grateful for those. But it’s been a long time since I’ve had a significant time off of work. And even longer since I’ve had a big trip. I know both of those ideas aren’t a reality for me right now because I can’t afford a trip nor can I afford to be unpaid to take time off. I just have to find my time off in other ways and that’s what I guess I’ve been trying to do with watching shows between my customers.

I wish I could do more with the fake time off I have, but I’m tied to my computer. I guess I could work from somewhere else because I have done that, but there’s nowhere else I really could work from right now that wouldn’t make things a bigger issue. I just have to find how to maximize what I can and it is limited. But at least it’s something and I don’t have to be stuck somewhere miserable every day or have a job that doesn’t allow for any breaks. I’m very lucky with the job I have even if I don’t get time off or vacation time (we basically only get Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Days off).

I know that I’m complaining about things that are not that bad and that many people have it much worse than I do. I think my opinion is a bit skewed because of the lives a lot of my friends live. Many of them make 4 or 5 times what I make and they get paid time off, so they have the ability to travel and I am a bit jealous. I know that if I decided to give up on acting I could probably find a job that pays me significantly more and I could do the same. Right now, acting is still more important than money and travel although I do hope that one day I can have all of it. I am aware of the choice that I made and while right now it’s not making me completely happy it is still making me happier than I would be without acting in my life.

I think that all the random time off stuff I’ve been doing at home has played a bit part in helping me feel more like me as quickly as it has been happening. I have been allowing myself to be selfish and that has allowed me to have some more fun in my life when I probably should be doing more serious things. But sometimes I need that break and it has to be while I’m working since I don’t have a vacation or a complete break from my work.

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Making Busy Days Busier (or I Guess I Like To Maximize Only Certain Days)

Posted on July 11, 2019 | Comments Off on Making Busy Days Busier (or I Guess I Like To Maximize Only Certain Days)

I wrote about how I did pretty much nothing on the 4th of July. It was an awesome lazy day and I was so happy to not have any plans and not worry about having to be anywhere at any particular time. I do love my lazy days when they come in the middle of a few busy days which is exactly what happened with the 4th. At least this means I’m finding some balance in my schedule and not letting too much time pass with a crazy schedule or nothing to do.

And I had one of the crazy busy days on the 5th. It wasn’t the busiest day I’ve had, but I really did pack things in. I had my workout and then work like normal. Then right after work, I went to a movie with a friend (we saw “Toy Story 4” and it was really cute). I went home after the movie which wasn’t too late so at least I didn’t have to worry about not having any time at home. But I did giggle a bit over the weekend when I didn’t have much scheduled at all because I could have seen the movie on a day that I had nothing else instead of packing things into one day. But it was fine and worked out nicely. Plus, I like having things right after I’m done with work to split up my day. I used to have my workouts, but now I have early workouts so I don’t have that separation.

This weekend seems like it might end up similarly to last week. I don’t really have much planned on Saturday and then on Sunday, I’m overbooked. The things for Sunday aren’t necessarily things I planned or scheduled so I wasn’t in control of when they would be happening. I might try to push myself to try to make it to everything, but I know that it will be ok if I can’t. There is only 1 thing that I have to make it to and it’s something I really want to go to as well. The other things are things I want to go to, but it just depends on how I feel that day and how my schedule works out.

I’m trying not to overthink or stress about how my schedule is going. Maybe for some people,  it would be better to have things more even throughout the week. But I feel like I’ve learned enough about myself to know that it doesn’t seem to work for me. It almost makes it seem more stressful when it’s not always changing. I know, it’s weird. But I’m weird. Maybe it has to do with when I have to get dressed to be presentable and when I can wear lounge clothes. If I have nothing to do, I usually am in clothes that are more comfortable but not something I would wear in public. If I have little things every day, I don’t get to wear my most comfortable outfits. So if the days are split, there are days I can wear junk clothes and days that are in normal clothes.

It might be nice to have things spread out, but I think that makes me feel either like I’m always busy or always without things to do. I think having the really busy days and the nothing days being their own days is helping me a lot. I haven’t felt the way I have before with wondering how I can find a better balance. I know that the days aren’t necessarily balanced right now, but for some reason, they feel that way to me. And I do want to work on trying to figure out how to continue doing this type of schedule when I can. I’m not always in control of my schedule and can make sure this happens, but I can try my best. When I have things that are not required to be on a certain day, I can work on scheduling it on a busy day for me as long as there will be time for it. I do need to be a bit more selfish about making my schedule work for me and not just working for others.

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Just A Normal Weekend For Me (or Lazy Days Are Surprisingly Busy)

Posted on May 29, 2019 | Comments Off on Just A Normal Weekend For Me (or Lazy Days Are Surprisingly Busy)

Many people had a 3 day weekend this past weekend. But whenever there is a holiday on a Monday, it doesn’t really affect my schedule. Since I work Tuesday-Saturday, I just have my normal time off. I used to mind this a lot more than I do now. The only thing that bugs me about having holidays that happen on a day that I typically have off is that it isn’t easy for me to do my errands. I like to get things done on Mondays since most people work that day. When others have that day off, it makes stores more crowded than I am used to them to be. That’s a minor inconvenience, but considering how many holidays fall on a Monday it is something that I deal with often enough.

A lot of people did something for Memorial Day weekend. I thought about trying to do something, but the weekend was when my nausea really kicked in so I decided it was best for me to focus on myself and trying to make myself feel better. I’m still looking for the miracle combination of things that will make my nausea either not be as severe or go away completely. I’ve tried so many things and while I haven’t figured it out yet I still stay optimistic. There are still lots of things I haven’t tried, although some of them are more expensive so I’m going through the cheap stuff first.

Even though this past weekend was supposed to be easy, it ended up being a very busy weekend for me. I’ve been doing a lot of work with the union election and that doesn’t take time off for holidays. I still feel so lucky that I get to be so involved and that others have been happy with my work so far. But I still want things to be better and I spent time over the weekend working hard at that. We also have figured out better ways to communicate as a group so I had a lot of messages from others asking questions or putting in requests for things they are looking for.

I also spent a lot of time just catching up on things that I have been slacking on lately. I’ve been working on organizing and cleaning my house for a while and this is a much bigger project that I thought it would be when I started. But I’m glad I have gone bigger because I think when I’m finally done it will be so worth it. I have been slowly going through the things in my house and discovering things I forgot about or things that I know now that I don’t need. I’ve been making donation piles as well as trash piles and it has been so nice to see things not feel as cluttered.

Along the same lines as organizing, I also had to catch up on a lot of deep cleaning that I know I haven’t done. I wanted to be able to hire a cleaning service for a one-time cleaning to do a big deep clean, but that’s just not in my budget and I can’t keep putting things off until I feel like I have a clean slate. I have been going around my house to see what cleaning supplies I have (I keep some in my kitchen and some in my bathroom) and found a few things I was lacking and some things that I needed to throw out. I’m still working on organizing everything and taking an inventory, but it’s also in a much better place than it was before. I also noticed that I no longer had a mop (I don’t remember getting rid of the old one, but I also don’t remember the last time I had one), so I made a quick run to the store to get one and spent part of my Sunday mopping my entire house.

And of course, I did take some time for myself to relax and be lazy, but it really ended up being a minority of the time I had over the weekend. I probably should have done more laziness because my body was really feeling like I needed it by Tuesday, but I was also grateful I got so much done. So on Tuesday, I made it feel a bit more like the weekend. I still had to work just like normal, but I made no plans for the evening so I could do a lot of the laziness I forgot to do over the weekend.

I know that before I know it, I will be saying that I feel like there is nothing happening in my life and that I need more to do. But for now, I’m definitely in a phase of life where my lazy days are busier than my busy days can be when things are slower.

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Not Wanting To Wait Until The New Year (or Managing The Crazy Times)

Posted on December 21, 2017 | Comments Off on Not Wanting To Wait Until The New Year (or Managing The Crazy Times)

My schedule has been crazy for a while. Part of it is my fault with planning a lot to do, but I think that the holidays are always a crazy time. I keep saying that things will be normal again on this date or that date but then something else comes up that changes that entire plan.

For a long time, I said my schedule would be fine once the 300th episode party for the podcast would be done. But then I had more parties to go to (even if I didn’t end up going to all of them) and then family things to help with and that seemed to stress me out. I think also not having any extra time off for the holidays is throwing me off because it won’t feel like I have a break. I just have my regular work schedule happening and my next day off work for a holiday isn’t until the 4th of July (too many holidays happen on a Monday which is already my day off work). So it feels like I’m in something that just keeps going and going without a break to have a sense of having time to catch up. I still have 2 days off a week, but usually for holidays I get at least one extra day or one regular day becomes a half day. Not so much this year.

With all this craziness, I’m lucky that my fitness schedule isn’t too affected. Next week and the week after will be a bit weird, but I will still get in my workouts one way or another. I know that this is something to be proud of because for so long I would consider this craziness an excuse to take a break and not work out. But instead, I’m almost annoyed when I can’t get in as many workout as I want to because of holiday schedules. And while in the past my food plan might have gotten out of control too, it isn’t as bad as it has been in the past. It’s not great, but I know it could be so much worse. But since I know it could be better I want to work on that. And it’s just far too easy to say that I’ll work on it when I know things are normal again.

I don’t want to get into the mindset of waiting to fix things that aren’t going the way I want them to be. That’s the problem of waiting until Monday, next month, or next year. And with it being near the end of the year it is really easy to think that I’ll just fix it on January 1st. But I know if I wait to do that, it won’t happen. It’s far too easy to procrastinate and get myself deeper and deeper into whatever hold I’m digging myself into.

And if I keep telling myself that I’ll wait until it gets normal, I know that won’t ever happen either. There may be a small break of time where things seem very routine and easy for me, but I know that it’s not all the time and when it happens it is very brief. More often than not, my life is crazy with times of insane stress of too much stuff and then insane stress that I’m not doing enough. And I want to work on being better prepared for those times.

As much as I want to say that my life will be normal again after the holidays, I know that there’s no way that it will be true. I’ve got a trip planned with my mom and sister-in-law in February, I’ve got the busy season at my day job, it’s almost pilot season for acting and I’m hoping to have some more auditions, and I’m guessing that my dating life is going to continue to be crazy for a while. All of those things have a good chance of stressing me out and making it feel like my life isn’t normal.

Maybe I just have to think of all the craziness in my life as the normal times and when things are easy for me those are the crazy and weird times? I don’t know. But I do know that the more I’ve had to work through times like this (and it happens a lot because I know I blog about it a lot) the better I get at managing it. This is one of the first times that it’s really seemed much easier for me and I don’t feel like I’ve had a huge setback when dealing with the stress. I’ve had minor setbacks, but they are much smaller than they have been in the past. So I think they are also easier to bounce back from.

I know that each time I write about this I say how I should be happy that I’m seeing progress and acknowledging that I have to work on these things is major progress. It doesn’t always feel like that when you are in the crazy times, but I think that I’m finally starting to believe it.

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Posted in Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

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Over-scheduled and Bored (or Why Can’t I Find A Happy Medium)

Posted on September 8, 2017 | 1 comment

Lately it has seemed like my schedule has had some serious ups and downs. I’ve had days where I’ve had absolutely nothing planned (or nothing planned beyond having to work that day) and then I’ve had days that were so over-scheduled that I was stressed out about how I would manage to do it all without running late. It’s so crazy to me that one day I could be sitting at home bored out of my mind and the next day I could be gone for almost 16 hours from the time I leave my house for the first thing planned until I get home from the last thing planned.

I do like to be busy. First, that gives me something to blog about. If I just sat at home every day after work, this would become a very boring blog. I’d still have some personal and emotional things to write about (like this post), but there would be no adventures. And I also know that when I’m busy I either don’t have the desire to binge or I don’t have the time to. Sometimes when I’m super busy I do still have a binge eating episode, but those are not as often as they are in my normal life.

I know that I can’t depend on my schedule to get me into recovery or to eliminate binges, but it’s almost like a fantasy in my mind that I would love to have come true. I know that there have been things that have happened in my past that have put me in a temporary state of recovery, but when that ended my eating disorder was back. I know that recovery isn’t just being too busy to have an eating disorder because your eating disorder will find a way to become a priority in your schedule again. But I feel good knowing that at least right now in my life, my eating disorder has to work around my schedule and that I’m not cancelling plans to have being episodes.

In an ideal world, I would be able to handle being busy enough most of the time that bingeing doesn’t happen that often, that would get me to recovery, and it would stick even if my schedule got less busy in the future. But I don’t live in an ideal world and being busy most of the week isn’t good for my mental health. I occasionally have mini-breakdowns where I have gotten too overwhelmed by everything and just need to have a day at home where I do nothing. Of course, those days never happen to fall on days that already had nothing scheduled on them. But I try to be flexible with my schedule to allow myself to have a mental health day when I need it.

And I have been trying to find a good happy medium between having too much and having too little to do. I don’t know what that happy medium looks like yet. I thought I had gotten there a few weeks ago, and then I had a moment where I freaked out because I had so many unread emails and tasks I needed to check off. I’ve been trying to make daily checklists to get things done, but on both busy and lazy days sometimes I’m not able to get those done. And then those things that needed to get done just pile up and continue to overwhelm me.

I think that part of the overwhelming feeling is that only some of my schedule is in my control. Many things have to be done at the time they are scheduled (like work) and I can’t get around that. I have to plan my other things around it and sometimes 2 non-flexible things are up against each other and I either have to prioritize and say no to something to ask someone to move their schedule around. I hate asking others to adjust to my schedule because I don’t want to feel like I’m inconveniencing someone. But sometimes I need to have the courage to do that or to say no to something that I know would be at a time that wouldn’t be best for me.

I’m really working on planning out my days better so that on both over-scheduled and lazy days are productive and as stress-free as possible. I’m trying to take travel time in consideration when planning things so that I feel confident that I can make it from one thing to another. And I’m continuing to try to work on figuring out how much stuff in one week is too much and how little is too little. It’s a weird balancing act to try to figure out, but I know that as long as I’m working on it that I will get there eventually.

 

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It’s Like I’m Back At The Beginning (or Muscle Memory Is Weird)

Posted on August 4, 2017 | Comments Off on It’s Like I’m Back At The Beginning (or Muscle Memory Is Weird)

I started my new temporary gig for my old job this week. It’s kind of weird doing this job but I’m so grateful for it. It is commission only so there’s no guarantee that I will make money, but I’m hopeful that I’ll make some sales and it will be extra money that can be used for paying down my debt.

I’m so lucky that this is yet another job that I can do from home. I think originally this was supposed to be something I did from the office, but because I’m working so few hours each day and I’m doing split shifts it wouldn’t make sense if I had to commute back and forth twice a day. But to know that they are letting me work from home is a sign that they remember me from when I worked before and that they trust me.

Even though I’m not going into the office, it’s so crazy how much this reminds me of my old job. I worked for this company when I started this blog. It’s almost creepy how much this job is like my old one. There are plenty of differences and it’s nice being able to work from home, but it still feels so much the same. And it’s crazy to think that it’s been quite a few years since I had worked there and that’s where I was when I started this. I’m not the same person I was back then, but it still has a weird deja vu quality to it and I’m trying to remind myself I’m not the same.

When I started the job, it took a few calls to get back into the groove of making telesales calls. This is different from what I was trying to sell before (back then it was memberships and tickets and now it’s tickets to a one night only gala) and I’m not as familiar with the theater as I was when I worked there before. I don’t need to know about the season since I’m only working for this gala, but I probably should be doing some research so I’m not totally uninformed. And it is still a bit nerve-racking because I haven’t made a sale yet. But I’m sure I will and once I make a sale I’ll feel so much better about this all.

But the weirdest thing for me is how quickly everything came back to me. I haven’t worked in telesales in several years yet I seem to remember everything. We used to code our leads based on if we got a hold of them or what they said. We had different abbreviations and ways of sorting things so we could stay on top of everything. That was necessarily since there were 5 of us making calls and we didn’t want to call someone back who already said they weren’t interested.

But I’m working on my own and can code and organize things however I want. But even from the very first call, it was an automatic response to code my lead the way I used to. I didn’t even think about it before doing it. It was like my body was on autopilot and I didn’t have to do anything to remember. And I even remembered all the various codes we used (I had to use 5 of them on my first day back).

I know that I remember so much from past jobs, but it’s never been like this. I remember so much from when I was a tour guide at WB, but I couldn’t give a tour again. I just remember lots of random facts and stories. I’ve even gotten a bit lost and turned around on the lot when I’ve been there more recently even though that never would have happened when I worked there. And I still remember lots of weird stuff from when I worked in credit card disputes, but I couldn’t probably win a dispute if I tried from the corporate side now (I can still win probably from the customer side).

But to have everything come back to me immediately was just mind-boggling to me. I even texted my old boss to tell him how I was doing this work again and how everything came back to me without me needing to think about anything. He said that muscle memory is a weird thing and I agree. But then I also joked that this information has been taking up space in my brain that could probably be used for more important stuff.

Since this job is only about 6 weeks, I’m probably not going to try to change anything. It’s nice that I don’t have to worry too much about remembering how to do anything and there’s no reason for me to try to do things differently. When I was doing this before, I made lots of sales. All I can hope for is to do the same with this so that I can make enough money to balance out that I will not be getting hourly pay (which was an option for half of the commission rate). It’s only the first week and I can’t be too worried since I know that sometimes it takes time to get the ball rolling on sales.

Even though it feels like it was years ago, I probably need to still remember that I won’t be able to be back to where I was at the end of my time with that job at the beginning of this job. I need to build up my momentum and soon enough it will feel even more like old times.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

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Time Is Flying By (or How Is Summer Already Halfway Over?)

Posted on July 14, 2017 | Comments Off on Time Is Flying By (or How Is Summer Already Halfway Over?)

It seems like I’ve been super busy and not busy at all lately. I go through times where I’m on the go for days on end followed by days where I have nothing to do. I’d like to be able to spread out the stuff I do more, but I know that’s not always realistic.

But this week has been a bit slow and I finally have gotten on top of some tasks I’ve been putting off. And one of those tasks has been to get through my emails that I haven’t taken action on yet. I’m usually really on top of my emails, but things have been distracting me and I haven’t been taking care of things the way that I normally do. I’ve been trying to delete stuff I know I won’t have time for or have passed, but I’ve realized that a lot of stuff that I wanted to go to have already happened.

I don’t know how it’s already the middle of July. It hasn’t really felt like summer yet (although it’s been hot enough to need my a/c so that proves it’s summer). And it probably hasn’t felt like summer because I really haven’t done many of the things I usually do during the summer. I’ve been going to movie screenings (which is a big summer thing for me) and I haven’t been able to get to Disneyland since my pass is blacked out for the summer, but there’s so much that hasn’t happened yet this summer that I figured I would be doing.

I haven’t gotten to the beach at all. I don’t go to the beach every summer, but whenever I do make it there I’m always so happy and enjoy it. And it would be so easy just to get stuff in my car and go to the beach. It’s so close and doesn’t take much effort. But somehow I just haven’t made it there and I really should try to figure out when I’m going to set aside some time for it.

And the biggest thing that I was surprised I haven’t done yet or at least made a plan for is going to the Hollywood Bowl. I’ve looked at the schedule before and found some things that I really wanted to go to, but I never asked around to see who else wanted to go with me and buy some tickets. There’s no good reason why I haven’t done this yet and now the summer is half over I really need to get planning or I might not make it to the Bowl at all this season.

It’s not that I haven’t had other things taking up my time this summer. I’ve had my Pantages tickets and work keeping me busy. And work was extra busy because one of my day jobs was allowing me to almost double the number of hours I worked. That extra money really helped out with some expenses this summer and it was worth not doing as much fun stuff in order to make more money.

And I think that I might still be in a bit of the mindset that I don’t want to make plans too far in advance because I’m still afraid that I will need surgery. That’s the reason I didn’t make plans for the summer to begin with. I didn’t want to have plans and then have to cancel them because I was still recovering from surgery. I know that I usually recover really well, but I didn’t want to set myself up for failure. And when the surgery got cancelled I didn’t make the effort to make the plans that I was putting off.

I know my next MRI won’t be until September or October so there’s no reason not to make plans this summer. But I guess I’m still a bit paranoid that something will happen and I’m putting stuff off when I don’t need to. It’s funny how this surgery has kind of altered how I’m scheduling things even when there is no current surgery plan. This is one of the reasons I was uneasy about not needing the surgery when I planned. Now the idea of it is hanging over my head and I feel very uncertain and hesitant to do much.

I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my summer, but I totally haven’t been taking advantage of it. Hopefully I can make the second half of summer much more exciting and interesting than the first half and I can try to get as much of my favorite summer stuff in! It’s just a matter of finding the time and money (and hopefully the friends who want to come with me) to do it!

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More Running! (or Gaining Endurance)

Posted on September 19, 2016 | Comments Off on More Running! (or Gaining Endurance)

This past week of workouts really made me happy. My biggest issue lately has been my endurance. I can do some running, but I question how much I can really do in a row. I still feel like I get tired easily and I know that if it is my plan to run/walk my next 5K race, I have to get stronger and gain more endurance.

I did do another non-Orangetheory run this week and for that run I went for 20 minutes, so I did prove to myself that I have a bit more endurance than before. But that was toward the end of my week so I think that my Orangetheory workout really helped to make that run/walk as great as it was for me.

Monday’s workout was a power day. I think power days are my favorites because they are designed as close to what a regular run/walk feels to me. They tend to be a lot of all out runs with walking in between. And this workout wasn’t that different. We had 10 all out runs in the class. I ran for each of them, and while I wasn’t doing my fastest speed I was still happy that I ran for those 10 minutes. We also had a 2 minute push pace, and even though I know I can run for 2 minutes I didn’t want to push myself too much so I ran for 1 minute and then walked for the other. That felt comfortable but challenging so I think I made the right decision with that.

On the floor on Monday, we had sprint rows for each block. The sprint rows were  100 meters, 150 meters, and 200 meters so they were always under 1 minute on the rower. In between the rows we had mainly upper body work (which was nice after all the running). I was pushing myself again with the 20 pound weights and even used a light weight for the weighted sit-ups instead of doing them without a weight. I didn’t want to feel so tired that I was in pain later that day (since I went to Universal), but I did find a great balance between going hard in the workout and not overdoing it.

Wednesday was an endurance day. Ironically, even though my endurance is what I need to work on, endurance days aren’t my best run/walk days. We have very long push pace segments that I can’t always run in full. I want to push myself, but I don’t want to go so hard that I can’t finish the treadmill workout. I tried to keep things the same as usual. For the long push paces, I ran for a minute and then walked the rest. For the all outs, I ran the entire thing (several times at 6 miles an hour). We had a progressive push which basically means that you bump your speed up every minute, but since it was longer than I knew I could run I did it as a power walker with increasing my incline each minute. And since we didn’t switch between blocks, I got a pretty great distance on the treadmill when we were ready to switch to the floor.

treadmill

It used to be a goal for me to get to 1.75 miles during the treadmill segment when we don’t switch between blocks. Now I’d love to see it if I could make it to 2 miles within those 30 minutes. I know that at my current average mile speed it’s possible, so I’m glad I have that goal to strive for now.

My last workout of the week was on Friday (I need to get some 4 workout weeks in, but I’m struggling to find the weekend time for that). It was another power day but this time we did switch between blocks. It was a smaller class than usual, but that meant that we all worked as one group which is a nice change of pace. Again, we had 10 all outs to do between all 3 treadmill blocks. I ran all of those and I tried to be at 6 miles an hour for each (sometimes I could only do 5.5 miles an hour). A friend of mine who usually isn’t in class with me was there on Friday and he started to yell at me that I should go faster. So for one of the all outs I managed to be at 6.3 miles an hour.

We also had some longer push paces during the treadmill and I stuck with my 1 minute run/1 minute walk for that. When I started to run again, I set a lot of goals for myself about how long I could run at a time. The quarter mile one is the longest I’ve done so far. By now, I really thought I could run for 5 minutes non-stop. And honestly, if I tried and had no other running to do I could very possibly do it. But I’m realizing that being able to run/walk for a long period of time is more important to me right now than running without walking breaks. It’s tough to let go of some goals that I’ve set for myself, but I think I’ll be doing a lot of reevaluation after my next race and seeing what happens then.

The Friday floor work reminded me a lot of Monday. Again we had sprint rows for 2 of the floor blocks. And almost all of the floor work was body weight stuff like lunges, burpees, and ab work. It’s nice to do body weight stuff since I can always do those at home (I don’t own weights at my house yet). And for our 3rd floor block we had a 4.5 minute core blast. This included plank jacks, palms to elbows (which I really hate) and static ab work. My abs were so tired by the end of the core blast and I was happy that I made it through the class without a ton of modifications.

This month is quickly coming to an end and I’m realizing that I’m probably not going to make it to as many workouts as I was hoping to. There are some chances to do 4 workouts weeks this week and next depending on how things go (and doing those may eliminate the runs I’ve been doing on my own). My weekends are getting really busy now and that doesn’t allow for the workouts to be added in like I want. But I know that even if I’m going 3 times a week, that’s so much better than I’ve done any time before Orangetheory so I can’t be too upset with myself.

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A Busy Summer (or Realizing I Have A Lot To Look Forward Too)

Posted on June 24, 2016 | Comments Off on A Busy Summer (or Realizing I Have A Lot To Look Forward Too)

While summer is definitely here now (I’m so grateful for my a/c because it’s been pretty hot here in LA lately!), I haven’t really thought too much about my summer plans. Summer doesn’t really mean as much now as it did as a kid, but I still think of it as the time I want to make some really fun plans and try to get out and do summer things like go to the beach or hang out with my friends at a BBQ.

I’ve been adding things to my calendar as I hear about them (or get tickets to them as it is the case with the Hollywood Bowl), but I haven’t really thought that I had a ton of stuff planned yet. In fact, I was thinking that I needed to look into more things that I want to do. It just didn’t seem like I had a lot planned out and I figured I would have lots of gaps in my calendar that I would want to fill up.

Then I looked at my calendar.

For the next 6 weeks, I don’t have a free weekend. Each weekend is booked with some pretty cool things. Sometimes I’m going to a show. Some days I have a party I’m going to. There are a couple of meals with friends already on my schedule. I’ve got my short film shoot one weekend. I’m going to a blogging conference one weekend (although my time there is going to end up being very limited so I won’t get to experience it all). And I’m going back east for a weekend for a family reunion (some of the family there I haven’t seen in 16 years!). Then of course there are some weekends that are already booked with work (not counting my usual Saturday morning shifts).

It’s a lot of stuff to do and that’s just getting me to August! In August, I’ve got my birthday to figure out and I’ll be going to San Diego to celebrate with my parents for their anniversary and my birthday. But that month is relatively clear for now but I know there are a couple of shows at the Hollywood Bowl that I’m hoping to go to that I haven’t gotten my tickets for yet.

I think I’ve really set myself up for a great summer. I will be extremely busy and I’m sure at times I might get a bit overwhelmed at my schedule, but I’m happy that I’ve got so much to look forward to instead of feeling like the summer weekends are going to drag on.

Of course, after the beginning of September my calendar pretty much only has my work and workouts scheduled (plus my season ticket dates for the upcoming season at Pantages) so I know I’ll need to plan some fun things for the fall too. I’m already working on one trip I’m hoping to take in October (thanks to some airline credits I have to use up before the end of the year) and of course I have Thanksgiving in the fall too.

I feel like this is the first summer that I’ve really been looking forward to in a while. Summers lost some of their specialness after I was out of school and working meant there wasn’t a big chunk of time off (unless I was unemployed). In the past, it was just time that I was going to keep working and I knew I’d have to deal with the heat in creative ways. Now, I’ve set myself up to have as much fun as I can while still working 3-4 day jobs. I don’t think I could have done it any better.

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