Tag Archives: friends

Working On My Friendships (or Things Are Better In My 30’s)

Posted on February 9, 2018 | Comments Off on Working On My Friendships (or Things Are Better In My 30’s)

I’ve had a couple of friends turn 30 in the past few months. For so many people, 30 is a milestone and makes them freak out a bit. Maybe they aren’t where they want to be in life or they wonder what happened. I did have some ideas in my head of where I wanted to be when I turned 30, but my life was so different from what I was expecting that it didn’t really bug me that I wasn’t there. For me, turning 30 was pretty fun. I wasn’t too worried about the age and I’m still not that worried. I think age really is just a number and it doesn’t have to mean more than that. And whenever a friend is turning 30 and they are worried, I always tell them that so far my 30’s have been so much better than my 20’s.

My 30’s could be better for so many reasons. When I turned 20 I was still in college and not totally happy with things. I didn’t love college and I ended up graduating early so I could be done faster. I enjoyed learning, but I always felt like a bit of an outsider there. And even after college ended, I still had that outsider feeling. And part of this could be related to feeling uneasy with the friends that I had. They never made me feel like an outsider, but I always felt like I had to work harder at the friendship than they did and that they didn’t view me as close of a friend as I viewed them.

Those friendships ended very abruptly and it was a bit traumatic at the time, but reflecting back at it I know it was for the best. I was holding myself back with those friends and when I had to go out and find new friends I was just myself and didn’t worry too much about it. I don’t have a tough time making new friends, but it’s tough to make new friends who are more friends than acquaintances. And it took me time to learn that the new friends I was making easily weren’t necessarily long-term friends.

But lately, I’ve been able to strengthen a lot of my friendships. I think it was just due to random timing, but it’s nice to know that my friendships with people who I really care about are stronger now and I feel more confidence with having them as my friends. Even though I haven’t been hiding or diminishing myself with my friends, when my friendships are stronger I feel so much more free and that helps me discover who I am in a way. It’s so weird to need to have strong friendships to figure out myself, but I think because of some of the negative things that have been said to me in the past I need to see how others see me to see myself in a more truthful light.

I also think that there was a bit of just letting go and not caring when I turned 30. While I do still want to be liked by others, I also understand now that I can’t necessarily control what others think of me. If I am being my real self, they might love me or hate me. But I shouldn’t have to change myself to make others like me. For so long I really did just want everyone to like me. And when someone was mean to me I tried to see what I did wrong so I could fix it. That’s what happened when my best friend from college ended our friendship. I reflected back on what could have happened and tried to ask around to find out how I could make things better again. But in the end, I have no clue what I did and there was no way for me to fix it. It took me a while to get over it, but now I understand that whatever did happen was something that she felt and nothing I could have done would have changed it.

Today happens to be my half birthday. In 6 months I’ll be 35. That age doesn’t scare me (even though one person who recently turned 30 told me that she doesn’t feel old because you aren’t old until you are 35). What I’ve been able to accomplish and create in the first 4 1/2 years of my 30’s easily surpass what I did in the 10 years of my 20’s. And I’ve still got half of my 30’s to go, so I can’t even start to imagine what I’ll be able to get done by the time I’m 40.

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Finally Back At Disneyland (or Enjoying An Average Day At The Parks)

Posted on January 31, 2018 | Comments Off on Finally Back At Disneyland (or Enjoying An Average Day At The Parks)

I finally made it back to Disneyland this week! It had been a while since I was there because of the holiday blackout and then being busy on my days off. I really had missed being at Disneyland and I was so happy to be back there! The only odd thing was that it was pretty hot that day (it would have been hot even if it was in the summer), but we didn’t let that bring us down.

We got to the parks a bit later than we normally would, so we headed straight to California Adventure to get some lunch first. They are celebrating the Lunar New Year right now in that park and have some fun and new food offerings. I got the sticky rice with pork and a sugar cane shrimp skewer. They were both pretty good and the perfect lunch before going on some rides!

After enjoying our lunch, we headed over to Guardians of the Galaxy to ride it. This is still one of my favorite rides and we always have a great time on it. While we didn’t plan on how to pose for our photos, I think we still got a pretty funny one!

Since it was hot out, we decided to go into some air conditioning next. We went to the Animation Academy to do some drawing where it listed the character we were drawing as “artist choice”. It ended up being Dante from “Coco” which I haven’t seen yet. So we were all a bit confused on what the finished product would look like until we were done. Mine looks a bit weird, but I think all of our photos look enough like the character.

We thought about if there were any other rides we wanted to go on at California Adventure, but we decided to head over to the Disneyland side for the rest of our day. And our first stop was Space Mountain where we tried to recreate our poses from the Guardian ride for this photo.

Then we headed toward Fantasyland to check out the Mickey and the Magical Map show. I had never seen this show completely through so I was excited to check it out. It was really cute and the performers were really good. We all had grabbed some snacks before the show and enjoyed a break in the shade while watching the show.

Last year, my friend Michelle and I had a year-long battle on Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters. We kept track of our scores whenever we rode it together over the entire year. This year the battle is going to be Michelle, Dani, and me and we are not going to just do the total score for the year (I only won last year because I had one really amazing game), but instead the average for the entire year. I’m glad we made that decision because on the first game Michelle and I both had laser guns that didn’t seem to work and Dani had the best game! It was so good that she ended up in 4th place for the entire day at Disneyland!

By this time, it had gotten dark and we have all discovered how much better it is to ride the Jungle Cruise at nighttime. It’s still silly, but it looks more interesting in the dark than it does when it’s light out. And the skipper we had this time had some pretty funny jokes that we hadn’t heard before. I love that they are getting more creative with the jokes and I hear new material more often.

Even though we were all a bit tired (and it still felt warm outside), we weren’t quite ready to end our Disney day. We went over to Indiana Jones to ride that because it had been a while since we had been on it and we ended our day with some Dole Whips and watching the show in the Enchanted Tiki Room.

While there was nothing too exceptional about this Disney day (except Dani and her crazy high score on Buzz Lightyear), it was still an amazing day. I just love getting to spend time with my friends at Disneyland and I love that we don’t have to make it into an event each time we are there. We can relax, take our time, and ride or not ride whatever we want. There is no stress to make it a special day and I realize how privileged I am to have that. I know that not everyone can have an average day at Disneyland and I love that that’s exactly what I had this week.

My pass is up for renewal in 2 weeks and I’ll be renewing it again for sure. It is not a cheap thing, but it’s so worth it to me. I would want to go to the parks as often as I do if I didn’t have a pass, and that would be so expensive. I easily get my money’s worth with my pass and it saves me so much money. I’ve been trying to budget for it all year and I think I should be fine with getting it. But if not, I will figure out a way to make it affordable for me.

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Surprising A Friend Headed To Broadway (or I Have More Motivation To Plan My NYC Trip)

Posted on January 30, 2018 | Comments Off on Surprising A Friend Headed To Broadway (or I Have More Motivation To Plan My NYC Trip)

I’m sure there are some people who get jealous when their friends have amazing accomplishments, but I’m not one of them. I love to get to celebrate people’s successes and it makes me more motivated to create successes myself! My friend Matt got a job as an understudy on Broadway and he’s about to move to New York! I’m so excited for him and I know he’s going to do amazing in NYC. And to celebrate the move and his job, Matt’s wife Carolina organized a surprise party for him!

I love surprise parties, but I haven’t had the chance to be at that many. So I was super excited to get to be at this one and I knew it would be a great party. We were all supposed to arrive at the party about 30 minutes before Matt and Carolina were going to arrive. I got there a bit earlier and was able to help with some of the set up. There were some really fun decorations to celebrate Matt and his job on Broadway and I helped with filling in some letters on the giant chalkboard.

Right before Matt and Carolina arrived, we were warned so we could get into place. We were all near the gate they would be walking in and we were crouched down so he wouldn’t see our heads peeking over the fence.  It was pretty funny waiting for the gate to open because we were all waiting toward one gate and then I guess the plan changed for them to walk in another gate. One of the hosts was singing and talking loudly so we would get that they would be coming in a different gate and we all turned around and repositioned ourselves.

The story Carolina told Matt about why there were coming over to the house where the party was being held was that they were dropping off a table there. So when we all surprised Matt, he was carrying a table inside. 

Surprising Matt from Jen Levin on Vimeo.

He had no clue this party was happening and it was so great to see how surprised he was! Carolina worked so hard to make this party happen and I am so happy that it went off exactly how she wanted it to be. I was just so excited to see how happy Matt was that we were all gathered to celebrate him!

There were a bunch of people I knew at the party so I spent a lot of time chatting with them. We were all catching each other up on life and other random things and we all did get a chance to talk to Matt a bit. But there were a lot of people there who wanted to talk to him and none of us wanted to dominate his time.

I know we are all going to miss Matt when he’s in New York. He’s one of the leaders of Union Working and his leadership at the meetings will be missed. But maybe he’ll have the opportunity to start a chapter of the group in NYC while he is there!

My sister-in-law and I have been talking about doing another NYC trip soon and we both know we need to do it! And now that I’ll have another friend living there it’s extra motivation to plan the trip! There’s no guarantee that when we do plan our trip that Matt will be performing (as the understudy he won’t necessarily know what nights he performs in advance), but it would be amazing if the timing worked out so we could see him in the show! But even if that doesn’t work out, I know it will be great to get to see him and Carolina again.

I wanted to stay at the party longer, but I was only able to stay a few hours because I had to get home for some work and errands (being a responsible adult stinks sometimes). But before I left, I needed a photo with Matt! And of course, other friends joined in because as actors we can’t resist a camera.

Congrats again Matt on your amazing gig in NYC! I know that everyone is so excited for you and can’t wait to see what other accomplishments you’ll have on your NYC adventure!

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Doubling Up On Friend Time (or It Feels Like We Just Saw Each Other)

Posted on January 25, 2018 | Comments Off on Doubling Up On Friend Time (or It Feels Like We Just Saw Each Other)

I’m always so grateful when I have friends who are still in my life even if I haven’t seen them in a while. I wrote about a friend like this recently, but I got to experience more of that this week.

After doing the drop-off at My Friend’s Place, I went to meet a friend for a late lunch. This friend is someone who was in UCB classes with me and I don’t think I had seen her since our last class. But we stayed in touch through social media and this past weekend asked me if I had any free time coming up. She recently had surgery and wanted to meet up. And it worked out so perfectly that I was free after the donation drop-off and that it happened to be in the same neighborhood that she lives in!

We ended up meeting at Mel’s Diner which is always fun. We were spending so much time starting to catch up that we had to stop so we could decide on what food we wanted. We quickly decided so we could get back to our catch up time. The surgery that she had was very similar to the surgery I had on my hip. She didn’t have to have her cartilage removed like I did and her injury was caused by the shape of her hip socket and not bone spurs, but it was pretty much the same issue. And I was shocked by how fantastic she was doing! She was only a few weeks post-op and was already walking around and looking amazing! At that point when I had surgery, I was still on crutches and taking painkillers.

Besides our surgery talk, we also talked about acting. She has been wanting to get back into acting (she took a bit of a break) and I think that it’s a fantastic idea. I remember from when we were in class thinking that she was really talented. And I know that she has taken a lot of great acting classes so I think that she would be ready to go with auditions pretty quickly. She just needs to get some of the business stuff done and she’d be ready to go. It’s always exciting to watch someone talk about a career that they love to do. And when she was telling me about acting I could tell that it was what she is passionate about.

She’s also a Disney person like me! So of course we had to talk about different rides and things that we love in the parks. She has an annual pass so we were saying that when she is more recovered from her surgery and could walk a bit more that we need to have an adventure at the parks. I’m really looking forward to that because I can always use more Disney friends!

And while getting to have this catch up with a friend was awesome, it was a double friend day because of us going to Mel’s. A friend of mine works there and she happened to be working while we were there! It was just luck that it happened that way but I’m so glad it did! I love getting to catch up with her too (even though we do stay in touch over social media, it’s not the same). She is also an actor and we met working on a project together. We occasionally audition for the same parts, but we have slightly different looks so we don’t always see each other at auditions. So getting to catch up even briefly while I was at her work was a nice treat!

My friend and I ended up being at our lunch for a few hours before I needed to head home to do some errands. But getting to see her as well as my other friend really revitalized me. Being around great friends is one of the self-care things that I know I don’t do enough. Sometimes I forget how much it boosts my mental health when I get a few hours to sit down and talk to a friend. And not just talk to anyone, but someone who listens and is able to give great advice. That is something I am so grateful to have in my life and I need to remember to do this more often.

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Making My Friend Try On Wedding Dresses (or I’m So Glad She Found The Perfect Dress!)

Posted on January 18, 2018 | Comments Off on Making My Friend Try On Wedding Dresses (or I’m So Glad She Found The Perfect Dress!)

I’m sure that most single women don’t love when their friends get engaged and share all the wedding planning details. But that’s not me. I love hearing about plans and details and all of that! So every time a friend of mine gets engaged, I usually am always asking what’s happening, what they have picked out, and what they still need to do.

When my friend Jane got engaged, she shared about how she was a bit anxious about looking for a dress and I immediately told her I wanted to go shopping with her. She started shopping back east with her mom and didn’t find anything. And after that experience, I think she was a bit hesitant about trying it again. But because I can be bossy, I told her that we had to go check out dresses. We went to David’s Bridal a week ago without an appointment just to see if they could take a walk-in, but they couldn’t. But that gave us a chance to look around at dresses that she wanted to try and I think she was feeling a bit better about the options that were out there.

She got an appointment for this week and I think we were both pretty excited to check out the dresses we liked and to find out what she would like. She mentioned not being sure about certain silhouettes or wanting a veil, but she knew my job was to encourage her to try on things that she wouldn’t necessarily pick for herself because you never know what you will like.

When we had been there the other day, we picked a big variety of dresses for her to try on. Some were short dresses, some long, some were very simple, some were so heavily beaded that we wondered if it would feel too heavy, and most other options you could think of. There was one short dress that Jane thought could be the one and it happened to be at that store so we made sure it was on the list. And when we went back this week, we looked around a bit more and found a few other options that I thought could be nice.

When the consultant came out to meet us, she decided that we should do 5 dresses at first for Jane. 2 of them were ones that Jane loved, 2 were ones that I loved, and then the consultant picked one out on her own. Then we went back to the changing rooms where she took all of Jane’s measurements and I hung out in the waiting area super excited to see what Jane was going to like!

The first dress that Jane tried on was a fun dress with a high-low hem. It was a very plain dress, but that meant we got to have fun checking out options on how to customize it. She tried different belts, different sleeves, and mesh overlays. We found a combination that Jane really loved and I thought that maybe she would end up with the first dress that she tried on. She looked super happy about the dress and I could tell that some of the stress she felt going into the appointment was quickly gone.

The next dress that she tried on was one that I loved that Jane wasn’t sure about.  It wasn’t right because it was too low-cut and even with making a change to fix that wouldn’t make the dress right for her. But I’m glad she at least tried it on. The third dress was another one that I picked out and it was a gorgeous dress with lace and a longer train. Jane was nervous about a dress with a train, but I told her she needed to just try it. And when she walked out, it was such a magical moment!

She looked incredible in the dress! It fit her perfectly and it was just amazing! It wouldn’t be the dress I would expect her to wear, but it being unexpected made it even more perfect! She also tried a veil on with it and the veil made it complete! I was tearing up a bit because she looked like a bride out of a magazine! I had a good feeling that this would be her dress, but I tried to stay calm because I didn’t want to influence her choice.

The next dress was the short dress that Jane loved. It was a fun dress, but as soon as she had it on she knew it wasn’t right for her wedding. And it wasn’t able to beat the previous dress. And the last dress she tried on was one that the consultant picked that was similar to the dress I loved. And when Jane walked out in that one, I knew she was going to have a tough time picking a dress. It was beautiful and she looked amazing in it. She was so confused on which one to get so she decided to try the one we all loved again to see if she still loved it.

And when she got that dress back on, I knew that it was the dress for her! She was just glowing and couldn’t stop smiling. She looked like a bride and looked like herself which is exactly what you want. She mentioned how it was so funny that I picked her dress and how it wasn’t what she was planning on trying on and how it ended up being exactly what she wanted. I would have been happy with whatever dress she got as long as she loved it, but I feel so special that she got a dress that I picked out!

I don’t want to spoil the surprise of the dress (even though she said I could), so I’m only going to share a little bit of the detail on the train.

I wish I could share more of the dress without giving it away because it is just so amazing! And she looks amazing in it! It was so fun to get to watch her find her perfect dress and she kept saying after she picked it out how painless and easy it all was. I’m glad that that’s the experience she had because I am sure that wedding stuff can be insanely stressful and I wanted this to be fun for her.

I feel so lucky that Jane invited me to go shopping with her and that I got to see what her dress looks like! It was such a fun afternoon with her and I feel so special that I got to be a part of that day!

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More Musicals (or Back To A Fun Routine)

Posted on January 17, 2018 | 2 comments

It’s crazy to think that my last show at the Pantages was 5 months ago! It doesn’t feel like it was that long but I guess it has been almost half a year since I was at a show there. But the new season of shows just started and my group went to the first show of the year for us!

My entire group has renewed our tickets for this season, so it’s me and my 3 friends at the shows (the next season is announced soon and we are all thinking of renewing again). Every time we go to a show, I realize how lucky I am to have friends who go to shows with me. I had so many years of not going to a show because I didn’t want to go alone and now I’ve had a few years of seeing a ton of shows each year!

Going to our shows have become a fun routine for us. We almost always will meet up for dinner before the show and I love that we make it a full night out instead of just going to a show and going home. There are a couple of places we seem to rotate through for dinner before the show. This time, we decided to go to Shake Shack. I’ve discovered that I enjoy Shake Shack a lot more when I don’t have the bun on the burger, so I get my burgers in a lettuce wrap. And I figured after my tough workout a few hours earlier that day, I earned a shake too.

It was a lot of food and I wasn’t able to finish it all, but it was a nice splurge to have. We did realize that it would be much better in the future if we order on the app than wait in line. Even if we used the app right when we got in line, the food would have been ready first from the app. I guess you live and learn.

We took our time eating (plus the line took about 30 minutes) and walked across the street to the Pantages about 15 minutes before the show was going to start. The first show of the season is Aladdin and we are all big Disney fans. Our only concerns were about how close this show would be to the one we used to see at Disneyland. But we also knew the Disneyland show was pretty short compared to this musical and they had different musical numbers.

I really enjoyed this show! I wouldn’t say it’s one of my favorite musicals, but it’s good. There are a lot of classic Aladdin moments that are in the musical, but it’s also its own show. The cast was very talented and the leads were the actors who originated the roles on Broadway. We saw the understudy for Aladdin, but he was very good (I was a bit disappointed not to see the main actor as I was excited to watch him perform).

I think my favorite was the actor who played the Genie. That part is an actor’s dream because you do get to be fun and creative with it a bit. You can change things up with some of the joke and it is such a beloved character. And the actor was so talented and was just a joy to watch! Also, I think he is the funniest character in the show.

And not only were the actors great, we all agreed that the staging and costumes were incredible. The cave of wonders set was probably the best set I’ve ever seen with all the shows I have seen at the Pantages. And the costumes had so many sparkles and we were all mesmerized by them. It’s fun to see a show that is so detailed and elaborate because that’s not always how touring shows are.

It’s so nice to have a full year of musicals coming up. Our next musical isn’t for about 2 months (Aladdin is in LA for a while), but after that we pretty much have something every single month. And with the exception of seeing Cinderella again, every show this season will be a new show for me! And many of them have been shows I’ve been wanting to see. I have a feeling that this is going to be an amazing year of musicals and I’m so happy to get to do this!

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New Year More Brunches (or Awesome Company, Not So Awesome Restaurant Service)

Posted on January 10, 2018 | 1 comment

It’s been a while since I’ve had a brunch hangout with my WIF mentoring group. We’ve been meaning to do one, but with our schedules and the holidays it seemed like we couldn’t find a time that most of us could go. We had to keep putting it off, but we finally found time in January to schedule a brunch so we could have our overdue hangout.

So many of our brunches have been at the same place, but we have been wanting to try a new place. I’m not going to name the place we went to (because I’m not trying to publicly shame them), but we went somewhere new for us that was still pretty close to my house so I was happy about that.

Even though our last brunch was a few months ago, I was pretty limited in what my updates were about. I shared about the SAG-AFTRA convention and how I was getting ready for the upcoming pilot season. And since most of the women in the group are friends with me on Facebook, they have seen some of my random posts about online dating and were asking me about what was happening with that. I used to feel pretty bad about my lack of updates, but I’m more comfortable about it now. I know that I am not in total control of when I will have fun and exciting updates but that when I do everyone in the group will be so excited for me!

But for me, the highlight of our meetings is getting to hear what everyone else has been up to. I think that we all had a bit of a slow time because of the holidays so there weren’t as many updates as normal. But we were all understanding with each other and ended up chatting about more social things than business things.

While our hangout was fun, the brunch part wasn’t as good. We ended up having some pretty bad service. When we arrived, it took a while before we got water (the restaurant maybe had 3 other tables with customers) and then another 30 minutes before we could order. When they brought out the food, they brought everyone’s food but mine at first. I assumed that my food would be coming soon, but after 10 minutes I was still waiting. I told everyone else to start eating, but one of the women in the group got mad and tried to figure out where my food was. Finally they brought it out so we could all eat.

I got the pork belly hash and it was pretty delicious. While we were annoyed by the service, the food was at least pretty good. But the service kept being weird. It took about another 30 minutes from the time they took our empty plates to the time we got our checks. And then I experienced something that was the weirdest service thing.

My bill was about $14 and I put a $20 bill in and expected to get change. I was going to leave some of the change as the tip and when I got my change I took out some money to leave. But then I counted what I had left and it didn’t add up. It took me a minute to realize that the server didn’t take money for the bill. All she did was break my $20 into smaller bills and give it back to me. If I hadn’t noticed that, I would have left only paying a fraction of my bill and not leaving a tip at all. Even with not-so-great service, I still wanted to leave a tip. And if I had underpaid, I would have felt horrible. I’m glad I noticed it before I walked out, but I thought it was so strange.

But even with the odd service issues, the brunch was still a great one. I love getting together with the group and having some time to reflect back on what I’ve done and celebrate everyone else’s victories. I know that the rest of the group feels the same way and it was actually something we talked about at our brunch. We know that most of the mentoring groups don’t meet after their mentoring circle is done or on their own during the year of the mentoring circle. I had that experience in my first group. But with this group, we lucked out because we just clicked. There are 2 members of the original group that don’t participate anymore but a majority of us really do our best to make these brunches.

Even though we missed the last few months of last year, I think we are back on schedule for doing these every other month. We might run into the same problem again at the end of the year with the holidays again, but even if we only meet 4 or 5 times over the year instead of the 6 that we try to that is a lot. And I get so much out of each of these meetings so I will take whatever I can get in a year!

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Default ThumbnailA Casual Brunch (or More Hangout And Less Catchup) Default ThumbnailAnother Business Brunch (or A Delayed Mentoring Circle Meeting) Default ThumbnailBrunch Time (or Keeping Up With Our Group) Default ThumbnailNetworking Brunch (or Having Lots To Share) Default ThumbnailBrunch Celebration (or Everyone Has Awesome News) Default ThumbnailWrapping Up An Awesome Year Of Movies (or Still Loving SAG-AFTRA Film Society)

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Holiday Cheesecake (or Birthday Twins and Twinkle Lights)

Posted on January 9, 2018 | Comments Off on Holiday Cheesecake (or Birthday Twins and Twinkle Lights)

The last few years it has been a tradition for my birthday twin, Joanna, and I to get cheesecake around the holidays. We haven’t always been successful with our timing, but we have been pretty good about at least doing it eventually between our birthday adventures. But this time, I wanted to make sure we were on top of it and I texted Joanna before around Christmas to find out when we could get cheesecake. Somehow, we both ended up being free right before NYE so we made a date for our cheesecake outing.

I was totally looking forward our hangout and then of course it ended up happening right as I was starting to feel my worst. But I wasn’t going to miss this tradition so I took some painkillers and hoped for the best. Fortunately, Joanna is such an amazing friend and understood that I wasn’t feeling so great. So she probably took charge more often in the conversation and I’m so grateful for her for that! We knew that it was going to be crowded and that there would be a wait for a table, but normally when they tell us it will be an hour it’s really just a fraction of that. But this time, we ended up waiting almost 90 minutes for a table. But we were determined to get our cheesecake and figured this just gave us more time to catch up.

We both have been having adventures in online dating so we were sharing stories about that. And she had just been to visit her family so she was updating me on how everyone in her family are doing. It was a pretty chill hangout and catch up but I’m always so grateful that we get to spend this time together. She and I both have weird and sometimes crazy schedules so we don’t get to see each other that often. More often than not, the only times we see each other are for our birthday and for the cheesecake. So we need to maximize each hangout.

Once we finally got a table, we ordered pretty quickly. We’ve both been to Cheesecake Factory enough to know what we want (although the flatbread that Joanna likes was just taken off the menu) and we got to looking at the menu at the cheesecake which was the most important part of the meal to us. I ordered a salad for my dinner and we decided on red velvet and tres leches cheesecake to have. We’ve learned that we can ask the server to split each piece of cheesecake in half, so we each get half of each slice.

Somehow I always have room for dessert even though I was still feeling pretty awful. But I knew I ate too much so we decided to walk around a bit after dinner. All of the Christmas lights were still up at the Grove and it really was beautiful. It was the first time this season that I had seen the lights and I’m glad I didn’t miss my chance to check them out!

We also went to check out the tree, but it’s so big that it’s almost impossible to get a photo of the entire tree!

But we decided that the tree was the perfect background for us to take a photo together!

It wasn’t as crowded by the tree and decorations as it was near dinner, so it was nice to be able to walk around and not feel totally squished. The crowds are the main reason why I rarely go to the Grove, but whenever I go there I’m reminded about how nice it is there and how fun the holiday decorations are. But I think that it will probably be a once a year type of adventure. Plus, most of the stores and restaurants there are places I can go to somewhere else so I’m not always that motivated to drive over there. But it makes a perfect place to meet for our annual cheesecake dinner!

After checking out the decorations, it was time for us to head back to our cars. I really was trying to keep a smile on my face and ignore the pain I was in, but I knew I needed to get home to get some more painkillers in me (I ended up missing a party I was supposed to go to after dinner because I was feeling so horrible). But even though I wasn’t feeling that great, I’m so glad that I went out for cheesecake. It’s an important tradition for us and also it was a nice distraction from how I was feeling!

While I know that Joanna and I have good intentions to try to hang out again before our birthday, I know that there’s a good chance that the next time we will see each other will be for our birthday dinner. But at least we both know that we try to hang out more often and when we do get together we maximize the time that we have!

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Default ThumbnailContinuing The Birthday Celebrations (or A Birthday Twin Adventure) Default ThumbnailCheesecake Dinner (or A Half Birthday Outing) Default ThumbnailVery Belated New Years Cheesecake (or A Birthday Twin Dinner) Default ThumbnailAn Evening Of Cheesecake (or Just A Calm Dinner With My Birthday Twin) Default ThumbnailCheesecake With My Birthday Twin (or Continuing A New Tradition) Default ThumbnailAlmost Free Birthday Dinner (or Spending My Birthday With My Birthday Twin)

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Ringing In 2018 (or Being Festive While Being Lazy On The Couch)

Posted on January 5, 2018 | Comments Off on Ringing In 2018 (or Being Festive While Being Lazy On The Couch)

I had been looking forward to New Year’s Eve for a while. It’s always a great party and I knew that I’d be seeing a bunch of my friends there. And I was hoping for a much easier time getting home after the party compared to the year before (that’s when my car died). Everything seemed to be going my way until the week of New Year’s Eve.

That’s when I started dealing with the nausea and pain from hormones and I started to question if I was even going to make it to the party. I felt so horrible and wasn’t sure if I’d be a good party guest. But then I realized that not going to the party wasn’t going to make me feel better and I wanted to see my friends no matter what. So I took all my medications to try to help me get through the evening and headed to the party.

I did accessorize with my bracelets with my words of 2017 and 2018 on them because it felt like a fun way to celebrate a new year.

When I got to the party, I wasn’t feeling too bad. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to eat anything, but I was able to hang out outside and be social with my friends. It was a smaller party than it has been in the past so it was easier to talk to people and catch up.

But after about an hour, I felt like my medications weren’t working anymore and the pain and nausea were getting to me again. I wasn’t going to leave the party, but I decided to go lay down on a couch in their living room to try to feel better. For a little while, I was by myself in there and that was fine with me. But slowly people started joining me in the living room to hang out and dance. I stayed on the couch being lazy and trying to feel better but it was nice to feel like I was still involved a bit.

Pretty much everyone at the party knew the situation with how I was feeling, so nobody was making a big deal out of me not doing much at the party. And people seemed to be making a bit of an effort to come over to hang out with me since they knew I wasn’t going to be getting up from the couch. And while I was feeling bad most of the time, there were moments that I felt like myself again and I managed to take a fun photo with some of my friends.

I was at the party for a few hours, and for a majority of that time I was on the couch not feeling so great. It was nice to have the distractions of my friends, but it was a bit frustrating to not feel like myself and to not be participating as much as I would have liked. Everyone seemed so happy and at times I worried that I was being a downer and bringing the party down (I know in reality I wasn’t, I just felt that way).

Right before midnight we turned on the tv to watch the ball drop (even though it was technically a 3 hour delay from when it happened in New York). I fortunately was feeling slightly better as midnight approached so I got off the couch and joined everyone to celebrate the new year. Even though I don’t drink that much now, I would have had some of the champagne if I was feeling ok. But I didn’t think mixing pain and anti-nausea meds with even a little bit of alcohol was a smart idea. So I toasted the new year with water instead.

I was happy that I made it to midnight with my friends, but right after I decided it was time to head home and get to bed. The party was going strong when I was leaving, but everyone knows that I like to leave before it gets too late because I don’t want to have to deal with crazy drivers on the road. I was also a bit paranoid that something would happen on my drive back like last year. Fortunately, I got home without any issues and was in bed before 1am.

While this wasn’t the New Year’s Eve that I had been looking forward to, it still ended up being a fun time. I think that just being around my friends is what makes these parties so great for me. The next party will be the Oscar party and I’ve already started to work on my costume for it. I’ve got a fun idea for the costume and I think it shouldn’t be too tough for me to do!

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Default ThumbnailFirst Monthly Challenge Of 2018 (or Time To Be A Bit Selfish) Default ThumbnailCelebrating A Friend’s Birthday (or Not Letting Feeling Gross Stop Me From Being Social) Default ThumbnailNew Year’s Eve In PJs (or I Think This Is Finally My Last NYE Post) Default ThumbnailRinging In The New Year (or Being With My Friends) Default ThumbnailRinging In The New Year (or Fun With Glow Sticks) Default ThumbnailRinging In The New Year (or Starting 2013 On A Great Note)

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Childhood Friend Hangout (or I Don’t Think We Look 18 Years Older)

Posted on December 19, 2017 | 1 comment

I’ve always considered myself lucky that I make friends easily. When I go to a party where I know nobody, somehow I will leave that party with a new friend. But the problem with fast friends like that is that the friendship can be fast too. I’ve had so many instant friends who aren’t really my friends a few months later. That’s fine, but it’s always nice when you have a friend that you’ve known for a long time.

My friend Abby is one of my first friends. We met when we were 2 or 3 years old and even though we weren’t in school together growing up we still saw each other from time to time. Abby is the friend who introduced me to my friend Kate (and it’s weird to think of a 9-year-old introducing other 9 year olds to each other). While we weren’t friends who saw each other every day or every week, we were always friends.

We aren’t 100% sure of this, but we think the last time we saw each other in person was when Abby came to my high school homecoming dance my sophomore year. We went as a group that year and she was a party of it. That would have been when we were 15 and we looked like this.

I don’t exactly know how we stayed in touch during college (social media wasn’t a thing then) but somehow we did. And since social media existed we’ve stayed in touch mainly through Facebook. We’ll message each other from time to time. I got her hooked on Old Navy workout clothes and whenever we see a good sale we’ll let the other know about it. And we’ve said that we wanted to get together but it never worked out (she lives in the Bay Area near where we grew up).

But this past week, she was in Southern California for a work convention and she ended up having a little bit of free time during a dinner break on Saturday evening. So I got into my car and drove down to the Anaheim Convention Center (which is so close to Disneyland but my pass was blacked out) to meet up with her. I was so excited to get to see Abby again and realized that we had gone over half of our lives without seeing each other!

We went to dinner at a restaurant near the convention center (but not too close since all of those were so crowded with convention attendees) and finally got a chance to catch up in person! We both remarked about how amazing it is that our friendship has stood the test of time even though we hadn’t seen each other in 18 years. It takes a really special friendship to accomplish that. And it wasn’t weird at all catching up. I think that being in touch on social media helps so we knew what each other had been up to.

She told me about the house that she and her husband bought earlier this year and caught me up on what her family is up to. I told her more of my crazy online dating stories and other bits of randomness that has been going on in my life. But what was the greatest thing about this dinner was how totally normal this was. It felt like we were catching up after not seeing each other for a few months, not years!

Unfortunately, our dinner was quick because Abby had to get back to the last session of the conference she was attending. But of course, we had to get a photo to prove that we hung out together!

But when I put the last photo I know we were in together with this new one, I really can’t believe that there is an 18 year difference in them! I don’t think I look 18 years older in the photo than the old one and neither does Abby. Maybe I’m not a good judge of how old we look, but it doesn’t look that different to me.

When I dropped Abby off at the convention center again, we told each other that we couldn’t let 18 years go by before we see each other again. I know that we can’t promise that it won’t, but we are both really going to make an effort to make sure that doesn’t happen. But if somehow that does happen, I know that our friendship will last and when we do hang out again that it’s not going to seem like that much time has passed (but seriously Abby, we can’t let 18 years go by!).

I feel so lucky to have amazing friends like Abby in my life. I know that not everyone is as lucky as this and don’t have friends that have known them for over 30 years. While it’s nice to be able to make friends quickly like I can, I am so much more grateful for the lifetime friends (or the new friends who will last a lifetime).

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