Tag Archives: busy

Just A Fun Dinner Out (or Remembering To Have Fun)

Posted on June 14, 2016 | 1 comment

Last week, I met up with my friend Camber for dinner. I know Camber through my WIF mentoring group, and we’ve hung out a couple of times outside of the group meetings. I’m still so incredibly grateful how my mentoring group has continued to meet even though we don’t see our mentors anymore. And many of them I also hang out with outside of the group meetings, so I’m just grateful to have more awesome friends in my life.

Camber and I went to dinner at a place in Marina del Rey right on the beach that I used to go to when I was in college. I was joking with her that we live so close to the beach and I rarely take advantage of it, so we had a beach dinner! It was not a beach type evening at all (we are in June Gloom right now), but it was still nice to be by the water and to smell the salt in the air.

Camber and I are actually talking about working on a documentary together. I can’t say too many details because we are super early in the process, but it’s really exciting to have another project in my life that I’m super excited about and that helps me feel creative. I’m not huge on being behind the camera, but if it’s something I feel passionate about I am fine doing so. I’m really hoping that we can make this documentary happen and of course I will post on here any updates in the project I can.

Even though we discussed the documentary over dinner, most of our dinner was just a fun hangout. We were both updating each other on our lives (which I know we’ll do again when we have our next mentoring meeting) and sharing random stories with each other. It’s was just a fun night out.

Being at that dinner made me remember that I do need to have more fun with my friends sometimes. It’s great when I go on adventures like to the Hollywood Bowl or Disneyland, but just getting together for a nice dinner and talking is awesome too. I get caught up at times trying to go do something fun or crazy with my friends. Yes, I do that sometimes because it makes for a good blog post. But also I do that because sometimes I forget the simple hangouts that I used to do and feel like I need to make everything an event.

Of course, saying that know I know I’ve got a couple of “event” hangouts with friends coming up. But I think that this dinner made me realize that even on the evenings when I’m working, I can still try to meet up with a friend for dinner or a drink just to catch up with them in person. I feel like I know what everyone is up to because of posts online, but I do need to make more of an effort to see people in person too.

I’m just glad I’m more aware of how I really should be focusing on my free time and not thinking that I don’t have time to see my friends. I know I have time, I just haven’t been utilizing it properly and hopefully I can make hanging out with my friends a more common occurrence.

1 Comment

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged busy, dinner, friends, scheduling

Staying Super Busy (or Another Job)

Posted on June 10, 2016 | 1 comment

I’ve been super busy with work lately. I’ve got my regular box office job which hasn’t really changed since I started there almost 2 years ago. But because I will be out-of-town for a weekend in July, I’ve been working extra hours to make up what I will be missing (that way my pay doesn’t get docked). I’ve been so grateful for that job since I got it, even though it doesn’t have the most flexible hours. I’ve also been busy with my data entry job. I actually just got some more hours with that job and a new process that I’ve been helping with. It’s nice to have variety with that job since it can feel very repetitive researching events and entering them into the system.

Between those two jobs, I’m working 43 hours a week (not counting the extra hours I’m working now with the box office job to make up for July hours). I’ve also got my random box office job on occasional weekends and babysitting. So in a single week, I can easily be closer to 60 hours in a week. It’s great, because I do need the money and I know that I’m so lucky to have any work right now. But of course, I had to add another gig in as well.

I’m now working very part-time (4 hours a week) for a friend of mine doing some assistant/producer work. It’s not hard work, but since she is so busy she doesn’t have the time to do it. Again, the extra money is nice and I know that this can lead to more work so I’m super grateful for it. Plus, working for a friend is pretty fun and I know that we work well together. This job is only going to be for the next 6 weeks, but any extra work is helpful in getting my bills paid and saving up for my new computer (which sadly doesn’t look like it will be released until the winter). Since I know it can lead to more work, I’m totally fine with temporary work. Technically my data entry job was temporary since I was only going to be able to have a 2 year contract, but now I’ve got more hours than ever and it looks like I might get that 3rd year contract. So if I have to start at 4 hours a week to end up with a regular gig, I’m fine with that.

Only my box office jobs and babysitting have set hours. Everything else is on my own schedule and I don’t want to seem like I’m slacking because I set my own hours and there are no quotas I have to reach each day. With my data entry job, I think I’ve got a great line of communication with my boss and she’s been telling me how everyone has been happy with my work. And I doubt I’d be getting additional hours and possibly a contract extension if they didn’t think I was meeting or exceeding what they expected of me. And since the other job is with a friend, I know she’ll call me out if she isn’t happy with things and we have already had multiple texts back and forth just making sure we are on the same page with everything.

With all these jobs, I’m getting tougher on myself with my time management. I used to think that time management was one of my strong points, but as my time as gotten more crazy and less structured I’ve realized how much more work I’ve had to put into planning things out. I’m a little OCD with things (I’ve always been like that with organization) so my calendar is color-coded and I’m using the alerts and reminder apps a lot so I remember to send invoices or other work related tasks that are time sensitive. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to view my schedule because I love the monthly view on the calendar app on my computer, but some days I have so many things scheduled that I cannot view all my plans unless I go into weekly or daily view (I’d love any tips from other people with this issue on what works!).

Besides all my jobs, I also have my career (acting) and my writing (both on here and where I freelance) to schedule so I’ve been focusing on making sure I meet all my deadlines for those too. So far, I haven’t run into issues, but I’ve seen where issues could have happened so I’m working on setting myself up so those issues don’t ever become an issue.

I know that most people work just as crazy or crazier hours than I do. A lot of people work 60-70 hours a week every week. I’m lucky that when I have a 60 hour week or have to work 3 jobs in 1 day that those are rarities and not the norm. I probably keep taking on all of these jobs because I’m finally getting to a better place financially and I remember when I wasn’t working or working enough and how much of a struggle everything was. I don’t want to get to that place again and the best way to stay employed is to have as many jobs as I can. I know that jobs can go without warning and I really want to be as prepared for that possibility as possible.

1 Comment

Posted in Saving, Work

Tagged busy, job, money, scheduling, time management

Missing Out On Some Fun (or Flexible Time Management)

Posted on May 12, 2016 | Comments Off

This week has been a pretty crazy busy week for me. I’ve been very busy with the day jobs, including learning how to do a new task for my research job. I now have 4 extra hours a week plus a new aspect of my job that takes up 50% of my hours. I’ve done some phone training, but we’ve also had a bunch of technical issues and it’s required so many phone calls and emails back and forth (I’m so grateful that my boss is chill about all this).

I’m very happy to have the new tasks and the additional hours because the extra money helps and I want to make sure that this day job continues beyond when my contract ends in October. But learning new things and trying to balance the hours split between the two jobs for one job has been a bit much. I’m finally starting to get into a good groove with the new work and things are much more normal, but that definitely affected the beginning of my week.

And the beginning of this week was supposed to be pretty packed with social events. But because of the stress I was dealing with from the job, I had to make the decision not to go to them.

I’m not too happy about missing the events. Both of them were actor events. And I know I’m been slacking a bit with my acting career lately. I need to make more of an effort to make my career a priority. But that’s not easy when the money-making jobs need to happen too. I thought I had figured out a good balance, but all the technical issues really made me have to reorganize my time and figure out what things had to be sacrificed. And sadly, the free acting related things had to be sacrificed over the money-making jobs.

Time management isn’t usually my weakness, but I’ve realized that flexible time management is. I get my schedule set for the week (or day), but I don’t allow for issues to come up. I have to get from one thing to another really quickly at times, and if there is a delay it can affect multiple things at once. The delay isn’t usually traffic (I typically give myself double the time I’m expecting it to take to get somewhere), but something in my life that stops me in my tracks and requires my attention before I can move on. Sometimes, these things aren’t avoidable like health issues (panic or gallbladder attacks can easily ruin an entire day). But I need to be aware of other issues that might need extra time and to build that into my day at some point.

I am glad I stayed home to work on the things I had to do, but I can’t help but feel that there may have been another way for me to deal with them and still make it to the events that I want to go to. I’ve been looking at my upcoming calendar and the fun events I have planned. I want to make sure that I can add in some flexible time in there to help make sure that I can do whatever needs to be done without missing out on the events.

I think the reason why this has never really been an issue for me before is that I’ve never been as busy as I’ve been lately. I miss the days where I only had 1 day job and that was it. It was super easy to schedule around that because my hours were pretty set and nothing would change. While my box office job hours don’t change (unless they need me to cover for someone or I have to make up hours), my research hours can be at any time. I try to do them around the same time as the box office job, but sometimes they have to be done late at night. I try to keep things as stable as possible, but life happens and since my job isn’t restricted to certain hours I can’t say that if I miss work at a certain time that I get to skip it. I have to find the time to make it up.

I can’t go back in time to fix the scheduling issues so that I could attend the events that I wanted to go to. All I can do is learn from the mistakes that I made (or the issues that I experienced) and try to make things better for me for the future. Hopefully, I can find a great way to balance out life and work and I can make acting events a priority in my life again.

Comments Off on Missing Out On Some Fun (or Flexible Time Management)

Posted in Acting, Tough Stuff, Work

Tagged acting, busy, event, job, scheduling, work

Back To Normal (or Catching Up On Life)

Posted on April 15, 2016 | Comments Off

Even though I was only gone to Santa Barbara for a couple of days, when I got back to LA it felt like I had been gone for a lot longer. I’ve done other weekend getaways before, but for some reason it felt like this one was different. I’m glad I was out-of-town as long as I was (I had time to relax and see my family), but I’m also happy to be home.

The first thing I had to catch up on was work. I did miss work on Saturday last week (which was fine because I had worked extra hours not too long ago to cover for a co-worker), so I had to see what had happened while I was gone and if there was anything weird that I needed to know about. I ended up logging into my work email on a day off to see what went on while I wasn’t working and I looked at some of the issues that my co-workers had to make sure I was ready for any customers with the same issues. It didn’t take too long, but since my brain was in vacation mode a bit it seemed to take longer.

Also, in my other day job, I’m getting more hours soon. I can’t start the new hours until I have some training (and they might have to set me up with some work computer stuff), but since I know that it’s coming up I want to make sure I’m prepared. I’m trying to do as much as I can now with my current responsibilities because I know that when I get my extra hours my time needs to be split between my current work and the new work that I’m being trained on. I need to figure out a good time management system to split up my hours and I’m trying to look at that now before I have the extra responsibility to deal with.

I’ve also been busy working on the short film my friend wrote for us to star in. We have our director and our director got us a great producer. We’ve had a couple of phone meetings to work on budget and other things and we are all hopeful that things will be ready to go at the end of May when we are hoping to shoot. Even though I’ve produced a documentary before, working on a narrative (scripted) film is very different and there are things to think about that I didn’t have to worry about with the documentary. Fortunately, everyone else is much more experienced than I am so they can help guide me to what I need to help with. It’s a little overwhelming, but I’m so excited to be working on this project and seeing what ends up happening with it after it is done.

Besides all of that work plus the usual stuff that I have to do every week (errands can get annoying and time-consuming!), I’ve been running around like crazy and I’m finally starting to feel caught up on life. I have some really fun adventures coming up over the next few weeks and I don’t want to have to stress about not having a ton of free time to catch up on other things. It seems like I have weeks where everything is overbooked and crazy and then weeks where I’ve got nothing to do. I wish the weeks would be a bit more mixed up, but I’m dealing with the craziness (and lack of sleep) just fine for now and I know soon enough I’ll be wishing I had more stuff to do.

Comments Off on Back To Normal (or Catching Up On Life)

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

Tagged acting, busy, film, job, scheduling, vacation, work

Relaxation (or Taking Some Time To Myself)

Posted on April 7, 2016 | Comments Off

I’ve been busy with a lot of things lately. Between work, workouts, acting, and other stuff I feel like my days are getting filled up really quickly. This is awesome and I’m so happy about it, but sometimes I realize that I need to take a step back and relax for a bit. I’m finally getting better at realizing when my body feels like it’s getting to a breaking point, so when I started to feel like that at the beginning of this week I took some time to myself. I’m glad that I didn’t get to the point where I got exhausted and needed a few days to get back to my usual self. This time, I really only spent 2 afternoons being selfish and doing things for myself and I feel back to normal already.

I ended up canceling plans that I had made this Monday to do some stuff that I needed to do but had been putting off. Even though my plans were more fun, getting stuff crossed off my to-do list is really nice too! None of the things on my to-do list were urgent, so I had been putting them off for a while. I think knowing that I should be doing something but not was causing a bit of stress in my life. So getting those done relived some stress and made the rest of the things I needed to get done not feel as overwhelming.

I’ve also rediscovered my love for the library. I used to use the library all the time. My original e-reader was a Sony because at the time that was the only one that could get library e-books. But then I almost forgot about the library and I let my library card expire (did you know they could do that?). So a few weeks ago, I went down to the local library branch to get a new library card so I could start enjoying library books again. I’ve checked out a bunch of stuff lately. It’s so easy to get library books on my Kindle (much easier than my old e-reader) so I’ve gotten a ton of new books lately.

I feel so silly that I haven’t used the library lately, but now I’m back and obsessed! After running the errands I had to run on Monday, my afternoon and evening were spent reading and that was such a perfect way to spend the day. I still have books that I buy, but I’m so glad that the library is pretty well stocked with e-books so I can curb that spending habit. I know I’ve spent a lot of money on books (I love them so much!) and if I could limit my book spending just to the books I love so much and know I’ll be reading over and over again, that will help me budget better. I still can’t get over how this wasn’t something I thought of sooner, but at least know I’m on the right track to reducing my spending habits without reducing my reading material.

I also spent time getting ready for my upcoming trip for Rayshell’s wedding. I had already gotten a dress to wear and some cute and comfortable shoes. But I realized that if I was wearing open toed shoes at a nice event my feet probably should look nice. So on Tuesday after work, I went to my favorite pedicure place and splurged on a pedicure. My last pedicure was last spring, so I think that I had deserved to get another one. And I found the perfect color to put on my toes for a wedding!

Pedicure

I’ve still got a couple of other things that I need to do before this weekend, but there’s nothing that feels so big that it will be tough to complete. I want to be able to enjoy my weekend (which includes the wedding and a 5K race) and not have to stress about things at home or things that need to be done. Most of the things on my to-do list now are ideas that I’d like to work on (like reorganizing my desk and cleaning out my workout clothes drawer), but they won’t affect me if they don’t happen this week or month. I would like to work on checking things off more often so they don’t build up like they have. That’s just something else I need to work on in my self-improvement so I can maybe start treating these relaxation days and rewards for getting stuff done!

Comments Off on Relaxation (or Taking Some Time To Myself)

Posted in Beauty, Fun Stuff, Shopping, Tough Stuff

Tagged 5K, beauty, busy, pedicure, scheduling, shopping, stress, wedding

Staying Calm In The Crazy (or Is This Month Over Yet?)

Posted on February 23, 2016 | Comments Off

In my effort to do more fun adventures this year, I may have overdone things lately. There are a bunch of things back to back in my schedule and it’s starting to stress me out a bit. But I know my schedule calms down soon so I’m just trying to focus on getting through things.

My schedule craziness has a lot of factors in it. I’m currently doing the Orangetheory Weight Loss Challenge. While the weight loss challenge isn’t too crazy, one of the requirements made my schedule a bit weird lately. You have to do 3 workouts a week, but the weeks are from Friday-Thursday. So when I did a workout on a Thursday instead of a Friday recently, I had to make up an extra workout on a day that I don’t usually go on. While that alone didn’t make my schedule crazy, it did eliminate a free afternoon that I’m used to having and that threw things off a bit.

I’ve also just spent the weekend out-of-town. I went to Sacramento with my mom and my aunt (recap to come tomorrow) and being out-of-town for about 2 1/2 days changed when I would have time to do things about in my life. I had to rearrange when I could do errands that I typically do on the weekends. I had to figure out a new time to clean, do laundry, and do grocery shopping. With most of my afternoons the week leading up to the trip busy with workouts, I had to figure out when I had little breaks in my day (typically before 9am) when I could do things. It’s not horrible to have to schedule like this, but when things are a bit different they can be stressful for me and make me feel a bit too anxious.

I’m also going out-of-town this weekend. This time it will be to San Diego for Rayshell’s bachelorette party. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while, but again it’s requiring me to do some crazy scheduling. The party is from Friday evening until Sunday. Fortunately, I got that Saturday off of work so I could drive late on Friday night (after my workout) or early on Saturday morning without having to worry about working until 11am. And while some people will be hanging out there for a good chunk of Sunday morning, I will need to be back in LA by noon on Sunday because it’s Oscar Sunday! I made a really simple costume for the party so I don’t need much time to get ready, but I still need to get back to LA, get ready for the party, and I’d like to do laundry then too. I have the option of driving back late on Saturday night and I’m still debating about doing that. I think I might not know what I want to do until I do it.

Besides those two weekend trips (which I hadn’t planned to be back to back but are), I’ve got some other fun adventures in the next few weeks. I’m going to see my WIF mentees soon, I’ve got another bonus show at the Pantages that I just got tickets for, and some of my friends and I are trying to figure out a time to go whale watching together.

These are all super fun things coming up. And I’d love it if I could get used to schedules like this. I think it could be really good for me to have more social time and less alone time at home. I love my alone time to read or watch TV, but I might do better with less of that. I’m already alone most of the day working at home, so making my afternoons, evenings, and weekends more social helps to balance things out. I think that I might have jumped into making myself busier with both feet instead of easing into it and I’m a bit overwhelmed right now.

Despite my stress, I’m really excited about every event I’ve got in the next few weeks. I do plan out my blog posts and I love that my upcoming schedule is pretty full with fun posts and less boring ones (like this one). I hope that you enjoy reading about all of my upcoming adventures and hopefully these next few weeks for me go by without too much more stress added to it.

Comments Off on Staying Calm In The Crazy (or Is This Month Over Yet?)

Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Travel

Tagged adventure, busy, family, friends, scheduling, stress, travel

Seeing Friends In Random Places (or Unscheduled Hangouts)

Posted on February 9, 2016 | Comments Off

I haven’t been so great with scheduling friend hang outs lately. I’m seeing my friends at the gym, at events, or at pre-scheduled things a bunch. But I’ve been slacking on the random get-togethers recently. I know a part of it is due to my crazy schedule (which seems to only get crazier through this month), but there is still plenty of time that I could see my friends and I don’t.

I was feeling a bit down about this over the weekend when I had 2 very random friend run-ins that really made my day! And both of the random run-ins were with women I’m in my mentoring group with. We just scheduled our next mentee meeting to be later this month, but to see people out and about was really great.

First, on Saturday I made a trip to Trader Joes (which I usually don’t do on Saturdays due to everyone else being there that day). I was getting my reusable bag from the backseat of my car when I looked up and saw fellow mentee Janice! I was totally in shock! I knew that she lived near me (she loves that the meetings are at my house because it’s super easy for her to get to), but we’ve never run into each other in the neighborhood.

I rolled down my window and found out she just arrived at the store too, so we said we’d try to do our shopping together. Of course, with all the people inside and us getting distracted by our conversation we didn’t do too well with our shopping. So we stood off to the side and did some quick catch up chatting and then split up since she had a short list and I had a ton of groceries to get. But it was still so awesome to get to see her even for those few minutes.

Then on Sunday I had to work. It was interesting working at a theater show when everyone else would be watching football (or the commercials), but we actually had close to a sold-out crowd and I think everyone with a ticket showed up! Plenty of people made jokes about how we should have the game going in the lobby, but nobody seemed upset to have to watch the game recorded so they could be at the show.

While I was busy doing my will-call work, I heard my name called and thought maybe it was someone I was working with needing me to help with something. But then I saw my friend and fellow mentee Jane at my will-call table! A friend of hers had gotten tickets for the show and she at forgotten that I told her before that sometimes I work there at the shows.

Again, it was awesome to get to see her and we had a bit more time to catch up since by the time she got to my work I was almost done passing out all the will-call tickets. We also had some time to chat during intermission and after the show was done. Since I had seen Jane more recently, we didn’t have as much to catch up on as I did with Janice. But there was still plenty to talk about. I know I’ll see her when we have our next group meeting, but I’m hoping she and I can make plans before then too.

It’s so funny how down I was feeling about not seeing a bunch of friends before the weekend started and then I saw 2 of my friends so randomly. It really did make me feel better about myself and make me realize that even if I don’t see people that often, it doesn’t mean that we aren’t friends or don’t want to be friends. Everyone is so busy these days and it’s really easy to go weeks or months without seeing someone (or you feel like you’ve seen them recently because you connect on social media and not in person). But it’s ok if that happens because if you are true friends with someone, you can go a while without seeing them and then just pick things up where you left off the last time you saw them.

Comments Off on Seeing Friends In Random Places (or Unscheduled Hangouts)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged busy, friends, hangout, scheduling

A Bit Over-Scheduled (or Starting To Stress Out)

Posted on November 17, 2015 | 1 comment

For the past few weeks, my schedule has been pretty crazy. Every weekend is filled with something (sometimes something fun and sometimes lots of working at some of the day jobs). A few weeks ago, I realized that my next day off without having something on my schedule like work, class, or hosting an out-of-town friend would be Thanksgiving. I’m not used to not having a day every so often to just relax and do what I want to do. Right now, every day has something important and on a specific schedule. And that freaked me out a bit.

Now that my Thanksgiving trip is about a week away, I’m still extremely busy and I’m starting to worry about how I will get everything done before I head down to San Diego to be with my family.

I have to work while I’m in San Diego (I work the day before and the day after Thanksgiving) so I need to make sure I pack all of my work stuff. That ends up being very last minute because I will be driving down to San Diego right after a work shift next week. So I need to wait to pack everything I need until I’m logged out of my shift. But I’m starting to work on a work related packing list so I don’t forget anything.

I also have a few food things I need to make and bring down to Thanksgiving. I won’t have time to make them until after my class on Monday next week (that alone is stressing me out), but I’m starting on my shopping lists now and I’m hoping that I can get the ingredients this week so everything is ready for me to go Monday afternoon.

I also have gifts for a couple of people. I have a Hanukkah gift for my mom (I’ll write about that next week because it’s an awesome gift that I think you all might love), a Hanukkah gift for Ross and Krystle, and a birthday gift for my Dad (he got his Hanukkah gift back in April because I knew he’d want it as soon as possible). I’ve also got face paint for my cousin’s kids (it’s tradition) and I’m still thinking about bringing something else to maybe help decorate the house. Fortunately, all the gifts are all wrapped and in a bag with the face paint. It’s ready to go in my car but again it’s something else to have to remember to pack.

And of course, I have to start thinking about what clothes I want to bring with me. I’ll be doing another Thanksgiving morning workout with some of my family so there’s that checklist too (can you tell that I’m checklist obsessed right now?).

With all that I have to do plus lots of work do to for my day jobs, I know that when Thanksgiving day comes and I have the day off to spend with my family I will be very grateful. I’m trying not to get overwhelmed by everything I have to do, but that’s just who I am. The checklists are helping me because I can see exactly what I’m planning on bringing and when I’m packing up my car and I make sure that I don’t forget anything.

I am very happy that I can drive to Thanksgiving and don’t have to worry about flying because I can bring a lot more stuff and it’s easier to pack my car with several random small bags instead of trying to make sure everything fits into airline regulations. At least that’s one thing I don’t have to stress about.

1 Comment

Posted in Celebrations, Family, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Travel

Tagged busy, driving, family, San Diego, scheduling, stress, Thanksgiving, travel

A Friend Weekend (or Getting Up Early and Not Doing Much)

Posted on November 11, 2015 | 1 comment

Since my friend Kate was going to do the Hard Rock Cafe 5K with me, she came down for the weekend to hang out (she lives in Northern CA now) and spent some time with me. I hadn’t seen Kate in a while, so I was excited for some weekend catching up and hopefully some fun too. But even though she was coming into town for the weekend, since she was coming in later on Friday and leaving early on Sunday we only had about a day and a half to hang out. And we had a race to do so it was going to be an interesting mix of craziness and relaxing.

Kate got to LA on Friday afternoon after I was done with work. So I got her at LAX and we went to an early dinner at Lyfe Kitchen since we knew we were getting up early the next morning. It was a fun dinner and we got to catch up on all the crazy and random stuff that has been happening lately (we’ve both had some tough times lately). After that dinner, we went to my house and went to bed pretty quickly.

On race day, we were up at 4:30am and then had the race at 7am. After the race, we had breakfast at Hard Rock Cafe and then went back to my house. We spent some time relaxing and then went out on a fun and random shopping adventure. Neither of us bought anything, but it was fun hanging out how we used to in high school.

After our shopping adventure, we headed to another early dinner. This time, we went to Bottle Rock for some wine and yummy food. I love going to Bottle Rock because there is always great wine and the food has never disappointed me. Plus, it’s not loud or too crazy on weekends so you can relax there and not worry about people being obnoxious next to you.

We both got wine flights and of course I got 3 different sparkling wines.

I drank most of my tastes (they were all so yummy!) and we got a bunch of different things to split between us to eat. We tried a bunch of food and got some dessert (we burned off some calories by doing the race that morning and we had both skipped lunch). But since we had been up for so long that day, we didn’t stay out too late that night.

The next morning, Kate had a flight back home. But before her flight we went to iHop near LAX to have breakfast. It was another good meal and again it was fun getting to just talk.

I’ve missed having Kate in LA and it was nice to have her back here for the weekend. Even though we didn’t go do a ton of stuff (and there were so many things that I thought we could go and do), it was a great visit. We both have said how it’s nice to be such good friends that it’s ok if we don’t do much or if we have a quiet hang out.

Kate will be back in LA next month and I’m hoping I’ll get to see her again then (she’s coming into town to see a different friend and I am working a lot the weekend she’ll be here). But even if I don’t get to see her on that trip, I’m glad that we had this fun and chill weekend this past weekend to hang out and do our best on our 5K.

1 Comment

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged 5K, busy, friends, lazy, trip, vacation, weekend, wine

A Busy Halloween (or Dressing As A Box Office Employee)

Posted on November 3, 2015 | 1 comment

I love having fun on Halloween, and I had been looking forward to the party that my friends throw for months! I knew I’d have to work on Halloween morning from 8-11 for my at home box office job, but I then found out that I would need to be working at my other random box office job not only on Halloween but the next day as well. So my plans for doing a fun costume ended because I knew that I’d be working a lot that day and wouldn’t want to change after work before going to the party. And I knew that my time at the party would be limited since I’d have to work the next day (and even though the clocks “fell back” I needed to get up early in the morning).

My jobs went pretty easily. The first job was a bit busy with everyone hoping to get into the sold out Halloween shows, but since we cannot add seats to shows all my customer calls were pretty fast. The second box office job was a bit crazier since it was a sold out show and we had to make sure that everyone sat in their assigned seats, but overall it went pretty smoothly.

I don’t have to dress fancy for the random box office job, just nice casual. So that evening I was wearing jeans, a nice top, and some boots. And I had a headband with cat ears on it that I added to my outfit when I got to Chris and Marie’s house.

Not the most creative outfit, but I joked to everyone that my outfit was “box office employee” and everyone understood that I was coming straight from work.

Marie and Chris really outdid themselves this year with the party. The house and backyard were themed to Jurassic Park. They had lots of dinosaur themed things around including cardboard dinosaurs stalking the party.

They even made a jeep with a t-rex chasing in the background. They made sure that the side mirrors had a picture of a t-rex in them too!

Of course, I had to take advantage of that amazing photo opportunity to have a great party picture!

Even without being in a decent costume, I still had a great time on Halloween. Getting to hang out with my friends is always fun and I loved seeing all the creative costumes everyone came up with (I didn’t stay for the costume contest so I don’t have pictures of the winners). Even though this is a very competitive group with costumes, nobody judges anyone for showing up without a costume. So even though I felt bad for my lack of costume, nobody really cared.

I don’t have a ton of stories about the Halloween party because it really was just a fun hangout with everyone. Some of the people at these parties are people I only see at the parties so I tried to make sure I take the time to catch up and socialize with them. And since I had to leave before it got too late (because I was tired, had to work the next morning, and I wanted to get on the road before too many people thought about driving drunk), I didn’t do much more than hang out.

The next great party that should be at Chris and Marie’s will be the New Years Eve party (unless a scheduling issue comes up and they can’t have that party). And after that will be the Oscars party where I know I want to have an amazing costume. But even though those parties are a few months away, I have the awesome photos from Halloween to look at and make me smile until then.

1 Comment

Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged busy, friends, Halloween, job, party, work

Tag Archives: busy

Just A Fun Dinner Out (or Remembering To Have Fun)

Like this:

Staying Super Busy (or Another Job)

Like this:

Missing Out On Some Fun (or Flexible Time Management)

Like this:

Back To Normal (or Catching Up On Life)

Like this:

Relaxation (or Taking Some Time To Myself)

Like this:

Staying Calm In The Crazy (or Is This Month Over Yet?)

Like this:

Seeing Friends In Random Places (or Unscheduled Hangouts)

Like this:

A Bit Over-Scheduled (or Starting To Stress Out)

Like this:

A Friend Weekend (or Getting Up Early and Not Doing Much)

Like this:

A Busy Halloween (or Dressing As A Box Office Employee)

Like this:

Follow me on Twitter

Like Me On Facebook

Follow Me On Instagram

thejenlevin

Recent Posts

Archives

Tag Archives: busy

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Connect With Me!

Subscribe To Finding My Inner Bombshell!

Follow me on Twitter

Follow Me On Instagram

thejenlevin

Recent Posts

Archives