Tag Archives: friends

A Special Birthday For A Special Friend (or Celebrating A “College” Friend)

Posted on July 30, 2019 | Comments Off

I’ve written about my amazing friend Marie on here so many times. She is the one who hosts the parties I usually go to for the Oscars, Halloween, New Year’s Eve, and the 4th of July. There have also been so many random parties that she has hosted over the years, plus her wedding and bachelorette party! I’ve had so many adventures with Marie over the years, so when she was celebrating her birthday this past weekend, I knew I had to be there.

It wasn’t a huge gathering, but every single person who was there loves Marie as much as I do and we all consider each other family. It’s the most incredible group of people and I am always so grateful to be considered to be a part of them.

I think the reason I feel so grateful to be a part of this group is because of my history with this group and how I became friends with them. I met Marie and most of this group 17 years ago. I just joined an improv group and was taking classes and doing shows. I wasn’t the youngest person in the group, but I was close to the youngest. And I seemed to be the youngest out of the group that I was hanging out with. Most of the people in the group I would hang out with after class or shows were in their late 20s or their 30s, and I was still a teenager. This did occasionally cause issues when we were trying to hang out in a bar at night, but besides that, I was never looked down at or was considered something like the annoying little sibling.

Of course, I looked up to everyone like they were my older siblings. And I looked up to them even more because they treated me like one of their peers. Having that respect really made me feel special and like an adult. I think that was part of the reason I didn’t get along with people at my college too much. I was used to being in an adult world and I wasn’t related to my fellow students as much. In the last 2 years of college, I hung out with my improv friends more than the students in my classes. So I started to joke that these friends were my real college friends even though they all finished school quite a while ago. I even used my improv friends as the actors in different projects I had in class so they felt like a real part of my college experience.

If I had only been friends with everyone while I was in college, that would have been special enough. I was about a decade younger than most of the group and that was unique. But the fact that we’ve maintained this friendship for 17 years is just amazing. In a little over a year, I will have been friends with this group for half of my life. There aren’t that many people that I’ve known for half my life, and this is a big group! Again, it’s so special to me and I appreciate it all the time.

Marie’s birthday party was a very fun and relaxing hangout. It was a potluck and there was a ton of food! Everyone was hanging out and having fun celebrating Marie. It was hot out, but their backyard has shade and there was a bit of a breeze there. I don’t love the heat, but I was managing it the best I could with drinking lots of water and staying out of the sun as much as I could.

And of course, there was a birthday cake. Our friend Mandi, who also made a cake for Chris and Marie’s wedding, made an amazing cake for Marie’s birthday. It had 2 different cakes, a lemon cake and a chocolate peanut butter cake. And it was decorated with things all about Marie and things that we love about her.

After enjoying some cake, I started to get a bit exhausted (a combination of lack of sleep, a long day, and the heat), so I made my way around to say my goodbyes to my friends there. But I took my time talking with Marie because I really wanted her to know how much I love her and appreciate her friendship.

She is the glue that holds this friendship group together. I know that she is the one responsible for making this group as strong as we are and making sure we are as connected as we are. We can all turn to her when we need something and she is always there for us. I only can hope that we do the same for her, but honestly, I don’t know if I do even a fraction. To have a friend like Marie is one of the biggest gifts and I don’t know how to even express how lucky I am (which is one reason why I’m writing this post).

I have so much to be grateful for with this group of friends, and the center of this group is Marie. Everything that I have with this group is because of her and I am so lucky. I think I can speak for the entire group when I say that we feel this way and that every time we get to hang out with Marie we feel more and more grateful for this friendship. I know that every time I see the group I feel like I have a boost in my life that I didn’t know I needed. It’s the best feeling and I only hope that everyone has someone in their life that makes them feel that way.

I love that Marie and I have been friends for almost half my life. That means that almost half my life has been blessed by her friendship and awesomeness. That’s amazing. There’s a bit of time before we will have been friends for half of her life, but hopefully, when we get there I will be able to make her feel as lucky as I feel.

Marie, I know you are reading this, so I just wanted to say again how much I love you and am so grateful for you and everything that you do for the Mammoth Lodge group. We are all so lucky to have you as the center of the group and I don’t know how we could ever repay what you have done for us to you. Happy Birthday and I can’t wait to keep celebrating birthday, holidays, Oscars, and randomness with you!

Comments Off on A Special Birthday For A Special Friend (or Celebrating A “College” Friend)

Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged birthday, birthday party, friends, party

Wrong Turns Lead To Good Things (or A Random Run-In)

Posted on June 20, 2019 | Comments Off

It’s probably good and bad that I have so many things that are routine in my life. Sometimes that means I’m on auto-pilot and that can lead to repeating a mistake or not being aware when I should. But it also helps to be efficient when you know the routine and what to do in what order. I’m in a routine with grocery shopping which is something I’m trying to stop. This isn’t necessarily referring to foods I eat when I have binges, but my day to day normal food. I know which aisles in which grocery stores the things I want are.

Breaking this routine is a hard thing to do because I’m not super inspired by food or cooking right now. So it’s easy to get the few things I know that will work for my meals and just get out. When I have the time to be a bit more methodical in the grocery store, I take advantage of that and try to break out of my rut and find new things. And that’s something I was able to do earlier this week.

I was at the store looking for a few things that I normally don’t get. It wasn’t anything fancy or weird, just some condiments that I wanted to add to some of my regular food to give me some variety. I had no clue where to find those things in the store so I was wandering up and down every aisle. And while I was lost and looking for the last few things on my list, I heard a familiar voice saying my name.

It was one of the women in my mentoring group! We’ve actually run into each other at the grocery store before. Our group has been lucky and most of us live very close to each other. But there’s only been one member of the group that I seem to run into at the store. I think we live closest to each other so that does explain it. But it’s always still a surprise and so fun when we run into each other like that. We usually get to do some catching up and it always makes my day better.

This time, I was even happier to see her randomly because her husband recently went through a major health incident. He needed surgery and was in the hosptial for a while. I knew about this because she emailed our group, but I had been hesitating to email her back because I didn’t know if her husband was still improving or if things had taken a turn. I was hopeful he was continuing to heal, but I was scared to email something if it was going to upset her. And then I felt guilty for not emailing. It was an unnecessary thought cycle and I didn’t know how to get out of it. But seeing her at the grocery store allowed me to apologize as well as know that she and her husband are ok.

And that’s exactly what happened. It obviously was a very stressful time for her, but she has been handling it so well. And her husband has been making strides in his recovery that even surprises his medical team. The situation was not something I would hope anyone would go through, but they are having the best case scenario of a bad situation.

I also got to hear some of the little updates about other things in her life. But I joked that she should wait to tell me some of those until we have our next brunch as a group. But the little things I did hear are all amazing things and I love that she is continuing to progress with her project and that things are working out so well for her. She has been working on this project for years and I love that it is all coming together. It gives me hope that all the hard work that I’m doing will pay off in a similar way.

I would have loved to spend all afternoon catching up, but I did have to finish my grocery shopping. I had frozen things in my basket and I was still on the hunt for the things I needed. Turned out those things were only 1 aisle away. But I’m so glad I didn’t find it sooner because I probably wouldn’t have run into my friend and had that awesome and unexpected moment in my day.

Sometimes, I think even if you don’t realize it at the moment, you end up going exactly where you are supposed to be. And this random grocery run-in was the perfect example of that.

Comments Off on Wrong Turns Lead To Good Things (or A Random Run-In)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged friends

A Random Brunch With A Friend (or So Many Pancakes)

Posted on June 5, 2019 | Comments Off

I’m aware that I am pretty set in my ways with so many aspects of my life. I have my favorite foods, my favorite stores, and my routines for getting things done. It’s not a bad thing to have routines and patterns, but it can sometimes be hard to break out of that when you are so used to it. Breaking away from the norm is one of the things that I get from doing my monthly challenges. Sometimes it is hard to change. But other times all it takes is a friend reaching out and me deciding to go along.

I was doing some errands this past Sunday when I saw some texts from a group text I’m in with some of my Orangetheory friends. One person in the group was craving pancakes from a particular restaurant and wanted to see if any of us wanted to go. It was a restaurant that I hadn’t been to before and I’m not usually a big fan of pancakes. But I was getting frustrated with my errands so I said I’d go just to give me a reason to stop going crazy with what I was trying to do. She gave me the information for the restaurant and I was there pretty quickly. And I lucked out with finding parking in their parking lot so I took that all as a good sign.

We went to A-Frame in Culver City which is a Hawaiian restaurant. But one of the things they are known for is their all-you-can-eat pancakes on the weekends. They have a few different varieties of pancakes that you can choose from. You get one variety at a time and they come in stacks of 2 pancakes. So they aren’t crazy huge, but they are still filling. Since this was my first time there, I wanted to try a few different types but I also didn’t want to be overstuffed.

I started with the standard buttermilk pancakes and got the fried chicken with it (you can get fried chicken with any of the types if you’d like). Next I had the banana macadamia nut ones without chicken. And I got the sweet red bean ones with chicken as my last plate. And they were all really delicious! They were light and fluffy and very flavorful. I think my favorite was the banana macadamia nut ones because they tasted like banana bread. And even though I don’t really like fried chicken, I enjoyed the chicken too! They weren’t greasy which made me happy. And they chicken was so good with the maple syrup too!

I wasn’t able to finish all 3 of my plates (I was super impressed that my friend was able to!) but I definitely got my money’s worth. Good food and good value are important to me when going out to eat, but the most important thing I think is having good company. And it was so much fun to have brunch with my friend when we rarely get to hang out outside of our workouts. She is also an actor so we were talking a lot of industry related stuff, but we also talked about lots of random things. It was the perfect thing on Sunday when I was really feeling down about my errands not going the way I hoped they would go.

We both had things we needed to get to that afternoon and we also were both very full after all the pancakes, so we didn’t hang around too late. And I felt a food coma coming on after eating something that I usually don’t eat. It was still worth it even though I was dragging on a bit for the rest of the day. This isn’t a brunch treat I will do that often, so I’m glad I took the time to enjoy it.

And I was so glad that my friend invited me out to somewhere new. I don’t know if I would have gone there if a friend didn’t specifically invite me out there. I’ve been trying to make brunch plans with a few friend (brunch seems to be a time of day many people can meet up) and I seem to always suggest the same place because it is where I like to get brunch and I don’t know a lot of other places. But this random brunch at A-Frame really made me realize that I do need to make an effort to either look into new places or have more friends suggest where to go. Because I never know when I will go somewhere I have never heard of and discover that it’s amazing and that I want to go back!

Comments Off on A Random Brunch With A Friend (or So Many Pancakes)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged brunch, food, friends

A Week Of Mayhem (or 2 Perspectives On A Crazy Week)

Posted on May 27, 2019 | 2 comments

This post is going to be a little different from my usual workout recap, but it’s for an awesome reason. First, this past week of workouts was Mayhem Week, which is similar to Hell Week. All of the workouts were extra hard and if you completed 4 out of the 6 workouts you got a hat. I was totally excited to get the hat, but even more excited when my friend Andrew asked me if I wanted to collaborate again. He and I worked together in the beginning of the year when we discussed our Orangetheory goals for the year. This time, he was planning on doing all 6 days of Mayhem and a vlog for each day. He asked me to be a guest on one vlog, and since he was going to do all 6 workouts I asked if he could do some recaps for me!

So this post is all quick recaps of the workouts from both of us. Andrew (which will be the italics text) has something to say every day. I had a lot of rest days (which I will discuss at the end of this post) so I don’t have as much to say. But before I get into our recaps, Andrew wanted to share a little bit about his plan:

This year was my second All Out Mayhem at Orangetheory (kind of strange to write that) and, unlike last year, I decided to go beyond the minimum amount of classes to ‘complete’ the challenge and aim for all SIX days…

Those six days came and went and since I’m still alive, I thought I would give a quick review of each class (written RevRun-style, soaking in a tub of Epsom salt).

Sunday (Unrest)

Me: Rest Day

Andrew: To Paraphrase Maya Angelo, “people won’t remember what you said or did, but how you made them feel”. That’s me with this workout. I don’t remember what the format was exactly, but I do remember during it I began to question my plan of doing this 5 more days in a row…

Monday (Bedlam)

Me: This was the day that I appeared on Andrew’s vlog, so you can see a little bit about my experience on there. I was happy to have a 3 group class because we didn’t have nearly as many all outs as the 2 group class. I had to go a bit lower on my resistance level on the bike because all of the all outs were at inclines/high resistance levels, but even going lower than normal made it hard for me. I didn’t get as far on the rower as I would have but I still had a great time with this workout and felt amazing after completing it!

Andrew: This was the day with the 20 (Yes, TWENTY) All Outs on the treadmill. While it did have a “sticker shock” effect upon hearing it presented by your coach, it really wasn’t that bad -Although I might have preferred to start my Monday morning with the 3G version (only 12 All Outs). Spoiler: in hindsight this day ended up being my favorite.

Tuesday (Epocalypse)

Me: Rest Day

Andrew: This is when my body started to get a little mad at me. With this being my 3rd day in a row, my legs and arms really started to hurt. After class, I actually had to foam roll the backs of my arms (you can laugh) to relieve the pain.

Wednesday (Commotion)

Me: This workout was a bit weird for me because the rower at my station wasn’t working. So instead of having 15 minutes at each section of the room, I had 30 minutes on the bike and 15 minutes on the floor. But it turned out that the rowing blocks actually were almost no rowing but instead 30 seconds of rowing and then we finished the block with sumo squats and tricep extensions. The floor was all squats, sit-ups, and push ups. Everything was very repetitive and I was so glad to have work after my workout so I could sit and be lazy.

Andrew: I hated this one. Moving on.

Thursday (Disturbance)

Me: Rest Day

Andrew: At this point in the week, my body was giving up. I powered through however and made modifications to both the floor and the tread blocks to not make matters worse for my lower legs & feet (I threw the burpees away).

Friday (Pandemonium)

Me: This was the first workout of the week that I had my horrible nausea. I am so glad it started toward the end of the week because I honestly was expecting it all week. We had a ton of squats in this workout and they were unfortunately making me nauseous (which I don’t think has ever happened with squats before), but I just took my time and did them at my own pace. The floor was all upper body and went much better than I thought I could do with how I was feeling.

Andrew: I remember telling the staff at the front desk before that I was jealous they got to sit there while I had to go workout (I swear I like Orangetheory y’all, I’m just dramatic lol). By the end of class I decided I had put in way too much hard work & dedication to end the week with a less than average effort. So I spent the last 30 seconds at a 10.2 on the treadmill -super high for me!

Overall, I’m really proud of myself for sticking with my goal of going all 6 days. The point of Mayhem for me was to get myself back on track with my consistency and I think it truly worked.

*drains tub*

As you can see, I only did 3 days of Mayhem. I don’t know what I was thinking but I thought it ended on Saturday so my Saturday workout would have been the 4th day. I only realized my mistake when I was in class on Friday so it was too late to do anything about it. I had a moment of real disappointment and feeling mad at myself, but I got that thought out of my head quickly. I still did 3 days of Mayhem and 4 workouts that week since I did still go on Saturday. That’s not something that everyone can do.

And what Andrew did with doing all 6 workouts is even more incredible! I’m so lucky to have friends like him who inspire me to do more and work harder. Hopefully I will be able to do better with the planning for Hell Week and Mayhem next year.

Make sure you go to Andrew’s channel to subscribe so you can see all of his vlogs about his fitness journey! And you can see my appearance regarding Monday’s workout below!

2 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged challenge, fitness, friends, Mayhem Week, Orangetheory, workout

Adult Conversations and Feeling Like A Kid (or A Very Busy Saturday)

Posted on May 21, 2019 | Comments Off

This past Saturday was quite a day. I had my usual things like work and my workout, but it also ended up being an overwhelming day. Everything that made the day overwhelming were things that were last minute, so I had no way to prepare for them. Fortunately, I ended the day on a positive note when I didn’t think that was possible earlier in the day.

The overwhelming stuff started with having a very difficult conversation with someone in my life. I’m not trying to be vague, but I do want to protect who they are since this is something that isn’t completely resolved. But this person is someone who I thought cared about me (and I cared about them) and they hurt me. They actually hurt me about a year ago and this conversation was something we have needed to have since then. I was ready to discuss it right away, but they kept putting it off.

I knew that I might have to be ok with not having the discussion I wanted and trying to let things go, but it was not easy to do that. Fortunately, they agreed finally that we needed to be adults and talk things out instead of just ignoring them. And part of this talk included being very open and vulnerable with each other and asking and answering questions. It was hard, it wasn’t easy to hear some of the things they had to say, but it needed to be done and I’m glad we did it.

We talked things out for several hours before I had to leave and while things are not settled yet they are in a much better place. I cried leaving because so much of the stress and hurt I have had for the past year was finally being released and it was such a good feeling. I don’t think things will ever be the way they were with this person again, but we are going to hopefully work toward getting close to that (I am happy to work toward that, I don’t know if they will be as willing). This felt like such an adult and mature moment for me because there were so many ways we could have skipped what we discussed and it probably would have been easier in the moment. But in the long run, having this talk will be for the better.

I was emotionally spent after that talk and when I got home I was ready to just sit on my couch and do nothing. But I also didn’t want to have the rest of my evening consumed with thinking about it. I called my friend Dani to decompress from things and to talk things out. And while we were talking we both agreed we should go out and do something but didn’t know what to do.

We ended up deciding to go and see the Avengers movie (which I hadn’t seen yet) and there was a screening of it at the theater near me an hour after we decided that’s what we were going to do. And this worked out even better because Dani just moved to an apartment near my house! It’s not that common to have friends that live walking distance from me. It almost feels like it did in high school when all my friends were super close.

Even though we are walking distance from each other, it was late and I didn’t want to walk alone. So I drove to pick up Dani and got a chance to see her new place. Then we went to the movie and after I drove her home so she didn’t have to walk alone.

Avengers was an awesome movie, the only thing was it is a long movie and we went to a late screening. I knew it was long and people warned me to not drink too much water before so I wouldn’t have to leave for the bathroom. Maybe it’s because I cried earlier in the day, but I had the opposite problem. I was so thirsty during the movie and had to leave to get more water. That also gave me a break from sitting so I could stretch. But overall, I loved the movie and it was such a beautiful conclusion for many of those characters.

By the time I got home, it was really late and I was ready for bed. I was still a bit drained from earlier in the day, but I was doing so much better than I was before the movie. I ended the day seeing a great movie with an awesome friend and it took my mind off of other things that happened. And even though this issue with the other person in my life probably will be something I have to worry about again in the future, I really haven’t had to think about it much since Saturday.

Being an adult and having a tough conversation with someone in your life isn’t easy. I know I have skipped doing it many times that I should have gone for it. I have let things sit when I wasn’t ok with them and I have gotten to a point in my life where I don’t want to tolerate that. But at least I have other people in my life who like to act silly just like I do who can turn around a day when I need it.

Comments Off on Adult Conversations and Feeling Like A Kid (or A Very Busy Saturday)

Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged friends, hurt

An Unexpected Musical (or Seeing A Show At A Different Theater)

Posted on April 23, 2019 | 1 comment

Because I have my season tickets to the Pantages, I don’t usually look at what shows are happening at other theaters around LA. I know that from time to time I have looked at other seasons and sometimes I do buy tickets for a show if I really want to see it, but that’s pretty rare. It’s not that I don’t like other theaters, but I usually don’t have the money to buy more tickets and when I see shows I want to see it’s often at the end of the run and there are no more seats left. I could be more proactive about seeing what other shows I want to see, but it’s not a huge priority for me right now (if I had all the money I needed to see everything, I think it would be different).

But I do love seeing shows at other theaters when I get the chance to do so. And over the weekend a friend of mine posted online that they had an extra ticket to “Falsettos” at the Ahmanson and they wanted to know if anyone was interested in going. I replied and asked how much the ticket was, and they said that it would be free for me if I wanted to join them! Of course I said yes! I lucked out because the show was on Easter Sunday so a lot of people couldn’t go. But I had no plans so I was excited to have another show to get to see.

I knew nothing about “Falsettos” when I said I’d like the extra ticket. To me, I’m always down to see any musical because you never know what you will like. And I had seen a few friends post about going to see it earlier in the week and everyone was raving about it and encouraging others to go. But once I found out I’d be going, I decided to do a little bit of research on the show so I would have a little bit of an idea about what I was going to see.

I tried to avoid too much information about the plot because I didn’t want things to be spoiled for me. But fortunately there was a lot of information about the creation of the show so I was able to look at that more than plot information. I thought it sounded really interesting that this show was actually created from 3 different 1 act shows. The first act of the current show was based on the second 1 act play and the second act of the current show was based on the third 1 act play. It was a different way to create a show, but it sounded really fun and from the things I read online people enjoyed how each act of the show was a bit different. Even though I knew nothing about the show and I had no clue I was going to see it, I was so ready to see it when Sunday came!

My friends who had the tickets met me at the theater. Since it was a holiday and a weekend, I was able to get to downtown very quickly. I parked in their parking lot because it was just easier to pay the $9 to do that than to search all over downtown for a spot that might be ok to use. I let my friends know when I got there and waited for them by the will call booths.

They got there closer to the start time of the show (which is what we had agreed to) and we had a few minutes to chat and catch up before going inside to head to our seats. I’ve only been to the Ahmanson a few times so I am not as familiar with the seating there as I am with other theaters. But all the times I’ve been there the seats have been good no matter where we were sitting. This time, we were toward the back of the orchestra section near the side. But even the back of the orchestra is pretty close to the stage so we were able to see the actors just fine.

I don’t want to give away a ton about the plot since I think sometimes it’s better to go in knowing very little (and if you really want to know all of the plot you can find it other places online), but the main plot of the show involves a divorced couple, their child, and their new partners. The show does not have dialogue outside of the songs but the songs are clear and easy to follow. The plot isn’t too complicated so that helped with being able to follow it as well.

My quick review of the show is that it was really great! There were some incredible songs and the performances were awesome. I think all of us in the group preferred the second act to the first, which was surprising. There are a lot of times that I feel the second act of a musical goes too quickly to have a conclusion of everything that has happened so far. And when a second act is like that, I usually prefer the first act. But considering that both acts are based off of different 1 act shows it makes it make a bit more sense. And even though I preferred the second act, that doesn’t mean the first act was bad. There was one song I didn’t love, but it was still enjoyable.

I thanked my friends for inviting me to the show and I’m so glad I got to check out a new show. I wish I could do it more often (and that’s why I do my season tickets for the Pantages) and every time I get to see something extra it really is special. And getting to see another show at the Ahmanson was awesome as well since I rarely go there. Maybe one day I’ll have season tickets for there as well and then my life will be even more filled with musicals!

1 Comment

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged friends, musical, show, theater

Feeling Understood (or The Relief Of Shared Problems)

Posted on April 5, 2019 | Comments Off

There are a lot of problems I write about on here that I know other people struggle with. So many things can feel like you are the only one dealing with it, but when you talk about it with a friend you discover they have the same worries. It’s always such an amazing feeling when you discover you aren’t alone and it makes you feel so much better about how you are handling it.

I’ve been very lucky that I have this blog because I have had so many people reach out to me after I write a post saying they have been experiencing the same thing. I don’t always write posts so that other people won’t feel alone, but I have noticed that I have been doing it from time to time. I have a platform to help someone discover that they are not the only person in the world experiencing something and I want to make sure I take advantage of that.

But even though I am open about a lot of problems on here, I’m not always as open when talking with my friends. This isn’t me trying to hide anything about me, I just don’t always think about talking about them. Many times getting them out in a blog post is enough for me and I don’t feel the same need to connect with someone else going through the same thing in person. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it is how things are for me.

The problem is that I know that not all my friends read my blog, and that’s fine with me. I know not everyone reads blogs or they feel like they don’t need to read it. I don’t mind because I don’t expect people to feel like they need to read this. I’m still sometimes surprised that I get readers (although I am so insanely grateful for everyone who does read these posts)! But because some of my friends don’t read what I write, they don’t know some of the struggles I have and they might be battling the same thing and think they are alone.

And that’s exactly what happened earlier this week. I was talking to a friend and they were telling me how they were struggling with the balance of being social with taking time to recharge. This is a recurring battle for me too! I over-schedule myself and then when I take the time to focus on myself I feel like I’m neglecting my friendships and I crave social interaction. It’s a balance that I will probably always struggle to figure out and I wish that it was easier. Or I wish that being social was my way to recharge and get back to myself.

When my friend was telling me their struggles, I told them I battled the same thing. I could see the relief on their face that I understood what they were going through and it wasn’t a crazy issue. I wish I had better advice to give to them other than the few things I’ve been trying to figure out the balance. It’s such a personal thing to work through and what works for me is not necessarily going to work for anyone else. And I still don’t know what works for me so I’m even more useless with giving advice.

But even without advice to give, I think having shared problems was a big help for my friend. They felt like I understood what they were going through and that it’s ok to struggle with it. Sometimes all you need is to not feel alone to feel a bit better. And now that they know that I have the same problems maybe they will feel ok using me as a sounding board when they need to talk things out or just want to rant to someone who understands. Being there for a friend is something I want to do more often, but it’s not something I can necessarily control. I can control that they know they can come to me if they need help, but I can’t make someone do that.

And even though I have known for a while that I was not alone in the struggle of finding the balance of self-care/being selfish and being social, it was still a relief for me to know I have another friend going through the same thing. If I need someone to talk to, I have someone else to reach out to that will understand exactly what I’m experiencing. And having a friend who understands my problems is so powerful in helping me when I’m struggling.

Comments Off on Feeling Understood (or The Relief Of Shared Problems)

Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged friends, mental health, scheduling, struggle

Enjoying A Mini-Splurge (or Sometimes The Best Plans Are The Simplest Plans)

Posted on March 27, 2019 | Comments Off

I’ve struggled with the balance of scheduling enough fun for myself and making sure I don’t get over-scheduled and overwhelmed. It’s a hard balance to find and I know that it will be something that I have to probably work on for my entire life. I usually have a run of going way too much and need to take time to be home alone for a while. Then after I’ve been avoiding plans I feel like my life is too boring and need to go out and do things. I go back and forth all the time and wish it was easy to find the perfect middle ground.

One way that I know I can find a middle ground and balance is to have really simple and easy plans with friends. When I see my friends it doesn’t always have to be an elaborate event or something that requires a lot of planning. Just going and getting a quick dinner or something with a friend can do so much good for my mental health.

This week, I had one of those simple but fun plans with a friend. Mondays are my day off of work and I don’t always plan something fun. Sometimes it ends up being my day to catch up on things I need to do to be ready for my week. But a friend and I decided that we should go to a movie when she was done with work, so I had plenty of time to do what I needed to do and go to a movie. We really didn’t end up making the plans until about an hour before the movie started, but it was so easy to figure out when we could go and just do it.

I rarely pay to see movies because of the screenings I have access to, but I hadn’t gotten a screening invite to see “Captain Marvel” and I really wanted to see it. I was more than willing to pay to see it, plus I like to support with my money when I can and I want to support female led films. My friend has the AMC annual pass for movies, so we went to the AMC theater that was closest to us. I let her organize the tickets since I don’t know how the movie pass things work. So I just paid her cash for my ticket after she ordered it.

The tickets were more expensive than I thought, but I figured it was because I rarely pay for tickets and I probably forgot how much it was to go to a movie. We got some popcorn (another treat since the screenings I go to don’t allow you to have food) and went to the theater.

Turns out, the reason the tickets were expensive was because we were in the fancy theater at that AMC. The seats were larger than normal and had a few different reclining options. And there were fewer seats than a normal theater so there was extra leg room in each row. It felt much more like a nice screening room than a regular movie theater. Yes, we could have gone to a cheaper movie if we had realized we were going to a time in one of the nicer theaters, but it didn’t matter too much. Since I don’t go to movies at AMC often, it’s nice to do something special when I do.

Before the movie started, my friend and I both kept saying how this felt so luxurious. It wasn’t a huge splurge, but it really felt like it. We were already excited to see the movie, but getting to see it in a nice reclined chair with large armrests was going to make it that much better!

And “Captain Marvel” didn’t disappoint! I loved the movie and the message that it had. It was a very empowering movie and I’m so glad that we had another female superhero movie out there. It’s not that common to see that and I think they need to make more of them. And not only was the message good, I think it was one of the best soundtracks for a superhero film I’ve seen! The music was from when I was in middle school, so I knew all of the songs. I’m not a big music person, so for me to know the songs is pretty rare.

My friend and I didn’t do anything after the movie. We talked about maybe getting dinner, but we ended up not doing it. But that didn’t matter. Just going out to a movie felt so out of my normal routine and special and it was exactly the type of casual friend hang out that I need to do more of. It required almost no planning or organizing, but it was just as fun as some of the more elaborate things I organize. Plus, I got to see an amazing movie that I’ve been wanting to see!

Comments Off on Enjoying A Mini-Splurge (or Sometimes The Best Plans Are The Simplest Plans)

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged friends, fun, movies

Forgetting To Document Some Things (or Focusing On Being In The Now)

Posted on March 21, 2019 | Comments Off

With all the technology we have available to us, it’s so easy to document things that we experience. We can take photos and videos of everything we see to share or remember them by. And since we aren’t restricted by using up film we can take photos of things that we don’t care about that much or take dozens of photos to make sure we get the right image. And of course, there are endless ways we can share those photos too.

I’m totally someone who can be obsessed with getting the right photos. My friends know when we go to Wood & Vine that they can’t take a bite until I get the perfect picture to share on here. They know that sometimes I’ll ask them to move their cup or something else on the table so I get the perfect shot. I think they find it a bit funny, but I’m grateful they indulge me in doing it. And I take photos of so much in my life. Sometimes it’s for adding to a post on here and sometimes it’s just for me. I like having something to refer to when I want to remember something. If I don’t have the photo, it’s easy for me to forget the details.

But there are more and more articles coming out lately about how we are living our lives through our phones or cameras. We aren’t experiencing what’s in front of us because we want to have the perfect Instagram photo to share later. I know I’ve done this with a few things in the past and I’m embarrassed how my memories are about me watching through my phone while getting a photo and not just experience what happened. While I love the photos to refer to later, they aren’t the most important thing for me.

I haven’t necessarily been making an effort to take fewer photos or to not experience things through my phone, but this week I had 2 things that I usually would document with lots of photos that I actually have no photos for at all.

First, I had my hair done this week. Getting my hair done isn’t a huge experience, but it had been too long since the last time. If I had the money, I would get my hair done every 6-8 weeks. Because of my financial situation now, I have to keep stretching it out longer and longer. This time wasn’t as bad as it was just under 4 months since the last time I had my hair done, but it was definitely needed. My hair was looking scraggily and my color was looking faded and my grays were taking over. I usually love taking a before and after photo to see how much of a difference a fresh haircut and color could make.

I didn’t think at all about doing a before photo. I actually didn’t realize I didn’t take one until the day after my hair was done when I was thinking about if I took an after photo. That’s when I thought about how I didn’t have a before photo so there’s no need for an after one to show off the difference. I like sharing the before and after photos and I know my friend who does my hair likes to share them to promote her business, but I just didn’t think about doing it this time. I’m sure I’ll do it next time, but it was nice to see that I didn’t even consider doing one this time.

I also went to a NextGen Performers mixer earlier this week. The mixers are so much fun because they are just a time to gather and hang out. They always have food for us and people are just talking and not worried about too much. It’s basically like a party with my friends. I have noticed that lately I’m not recognizing as many people at these mixers, but I still have a lot of friends there and I always try to spend time with them catching up.

I don’t always take photos of those events (I take more photos at the informative events since I take photos of the slides to save the information I want to have), but I do get photos with my friends from time to time there. Since sometimes it’s the only time I get to see certain friends for a while, it’s nice to have a photo together. This mixer was just like many of the others that I had attended, except I never thought about taking photos of the event or with my friends. I wasn’t always focused on the mixer, but documenting it wasn’t something that came to me. Even with knowing I’d want to probably blog about it, I didn’t have the thought I should get a photo for the post.

I’m sure there will still be so many times in my life that I live through a phone or a camera, but it is something I will probably be more conscious about. I need to remember that I don’t have to have proof of everything I have done and that sometimes it’s better to not have those photos but to instead have memories of things that might not be able to be captured in a photo or video.

Comments Off on Forgetting To Document Some Things (or Focusing On Being In The Now)

Posted in Acting, Beauty, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, beauty, friends, hair, mixer, photos, SAG-AFTRA

Another Dinner And A Show Night (or Classic Musicals And Yummy Food)

Posted on March 20, 2019 | 2 comments

As I’ve mentioned a few times before, the current season at the Pantages has a lot of classic musicals. Most of them I have seen before, but I always love seeing a musical again. But there are a few shows this season that I haven’t seen and sometimes I get a bit nervous about seeing something new if I’m not totally sure I will like it. And the most recent show we saw was “Cats”, and it was one that I was a bit hesitant about.

But before I get to the show, I have to talk about our incredible dinner! We went to Wood & Vine again because it really is our favorite pre-show dinner place. Usually when we go, the manager is there and he likes to make sure we get to try some of his favorite menu items. This time, he was out-of-town so we knew we wouldn’t have his guidance on the food. But the last time we were there, we got to meet the new chef and he and I have become friends on social media. So I reached out to him online to ask if there were any new menu items he thought we should try, and he gave us a few things that he recommended for us and said he would stop by our table at some point to say hello.

The first thing that was recommended was to get the charred romaine salad.

This was the perfect thing to start with and it was nice and light and it didn’t fill us up too much. When we were finishing up the salad, the chef came over to chat with us before the entrees were brought over and it was really nice to get to catch up. He had to rush away when there was something he had to tend to in the kitchen, but it was when our food was served so we turned our focus to eating some delicious things!

We got the shrimp and grits, halibut, and pork shanks. We had the pork shanks before and they were just as good as we remembered them. The shrimp and grits were a bit spicy, but not too spicy for me. And the halibut might be my new favorite! It was so light and flavorful and I loved the spinach cous cous that it was served with.

We weren’t sure if we wanted to order dessert, but because they spoil us so much at Wood & Vine they said they wanted to give us one of the desserts. We have had a few things on the dessert menu in the past, and while they are things we love we decided to go with something new. So we ordered the whiskey cake.

I have never had whiskey cake before and I was worried it would be too filling, but it was another lighter option. We didn’t eat a ton of it because the chef came over again to chat with us a bit more and we had to rush out of there to get across the street to the theater. But the bites I had were so good!

As always, we had the best dinner at Wood & Vine and we really appreciate how much they spoil us there! And it was so much fun having time to chat with the chef before the show because he had already seen it and he was sharing his review with us.

I know that “Cats” is a classic and it seems like everyone has seen it. But I had never seen it before. I was familiar with the song “Memory” and I knew the show was actually about cats (and it wasn’t something deeper than that). And I found out during dinner that the show was not that plot heavy so I was prepared for that. But none of us in the group had seen the show before and we were all a bit hesitant about it.

I will never say that I hate a show, but this show was not one of my favorites. It had nothing to do with the performers. They were amazing and the dancing was incredible. If it was a dance show, I might have liked it a bit more. But I spent so much of the first act trying to understand what was happening. I didn’t know until intermission that all the songs except for “Memory” are the text from poems by T.S. Eliot. Once I found that out things were making a bit more sense for me, but it was still a weird show. I like more plot driven shows and I think even though I knew there wasn’t a heavy plot I kept looking for a deeper meaning or to understand something that wasn’t there.

I was glad that my friends had the same feelings as I did about the show because I really spent a lot of time during the first act wondering if I was just completely missing the point. I think we all were trying to look too much into things and we should have just been sitting back and relaxing. And we were all able to laugh at ourselves a bit after the show for how hard we were trying to figure things out when there was nothing to figure out.

But besides over thinking the show and being a bit confused, it was still a fun night out. And I am glad I can check off another classic musical off of the lists of shows I’ve never seen! And of course, I love any night I get to spend with my friends and have an amazing dinner!

2 Comments

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged dinner, friends, Hollywood, musical, Pantages Theater, theater

Tag Archives: friends

A Special Birthday For A Special Friend (or Celebrating A “College” Friend)

Like this:

Wrong Turns Lead To Good Things (or A Random Run-In)

Like this:

A Random Brunch With A Friend (or So Many Pancakes)

Like this:

A Week Of Mayhem (or 2 Perspectives On A Crazy Week)

Like this:

Adult Conversations and Feeling Like A Kid (or A Very Busy Saturday)

Like this:

An Unexpected Musical (or Seeing A Show At A Different Theater)

Like this:

Feeling Understood (or The Relief Of Shared Problems)

Like this:

Enjoying A Mini-Splurge (or Sometimes The Best Plans Are The Simplest Plans)

Like this:

Forgetting To Document Some Things (or Focusing On Being In The Now)

Like this:

Another Dinner And A Show Night (or Classic Musicals And Yummy Food)

Like this:

Follow me on Twitter

Like Me On Facebook

Follow Me On Instagram

thejenlevin

Recent Posts

Archives

Tag Archives: friends

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