Posted onDecember 16, 2021|Comments Off on Having More Virtual Movie Nights (or Still Trying To Be Social)
The movie club group I started has been going for almost 2 years. It’s crazy to think we’ve been doing this for that long. But then again it’s crazy to think we are almost at 2 years of this pandemic. And this movie club group has been something that kept me sane during this entire time. The group started as just movies one day a week. Then it became tv shows one day and movies another day. And over these 2 years, I feel like I’ve gotten to know the group that joins in each week.
We have a pretty small group with only about 20 people, but there’s also a smaller group of us who seem to have really clicked. Even though none of us have met each other in real life, I feel like I know them. And we are always randomly texting each other and filling the others in on our lives. Honestly, they have become really close friends and I think that this would have only happened during a pandemic. All of us lost bits of our lives over the past 2 years, and that’s how we found each other and clicked.
Most of the time, we text about positive or silly things. But we also share things we struggle with. And a lot of us have been struggling lately with feeling a bit down. I think a lot of this has to do with the weather and how short the days are. When I’m done with work, it’s dark. I’m out in the mornings to go to my workout, but I don’t really see much daylight each day since I work all day long. I’m not the only one feeling like this, and so my text group decided that we would add in another movie night for our group.
We already had a 3rd night of watching together with a few of us watching The Bachelor/Bachelorette/Bachelor In Paradise together each week (since it’s so much more fun when you are doing commentary with friends during the episodes). But for the past few weeks, we also have been having one random night with cheesy holiday movies. They typically are the type of movies that are so bad they are good and watching them together makes it more entertaining.
I know that I’m still home alone and looking at a screen, but it’s still time for me to be social each week. I don’t really go out too much. I try to go out when I can, but unless I have something already planned, I find it hard to feel motivated. Once I’m done with work, I don’t really feel like leaving my house. I know this is also a bit of burnout, but I think it’s more about not wanting to go out in the dark and still being hesitant with Covid. So if my social life has to be a screen for a bit longer, I don’t think that’s the worst thing. It’s better to do this than to watch things alone and feel like I’m on my own little planet again. At least this way, I feel like I’m spending time with others and not isolated.
I don’t think this extra movie night will be something we keep up for too long. When the days start to get longer again, hopefully things will be easier for us all to plan outside of our homes. But for now, I’m just grateful that I have a group I can rely on to be there for me virtually as I still try to figure out how to have a life while staying safe during a pandemic.
Posted onDecember 14, 2021|Comments Off on An Unexpected Friend Hangout (or Helping Out And Getting Social Time)
For almost 2 years, I’ve only seen a handful of my friends. There are a bunch of reasons for this, but one of the ones that is the toughest is that so many of my friends have moved away from LA. I know that everyone is moving for good reasons and because they want to, but it’s still tough when my social circle shrinks.
But having friends move away isn’t just something that has been happening during the pandemic. This is something I’ve experienced for a long time. People move away for jobs and opportunities all the time. And while I’m always sad when a friend is leaving, because they are leaving for exciting things I am also always happy for them. And when they come back to LA for a visit, I’m always looking forward to seeing them. I know that I don’t always get to see everyone when they come into town if they are here for work or something else keeping them busy, but I always make time when someone asks if I’ll be free.
And then sometimes situations fall into place that allows me to have a longer unexpected friend hangout like I got last week. My friend Brandi was coming into LA for some work meetings (she’s a writer that is working on the upcoming season of a tv show). I knew she’d be very busy when she was here, so I was waiting for her to reach out to me to let me know if she’d have some free time. And when she did, it was more than just an invitation to meet up for coffee or something quick.
Due to the timing of her meetings and which parts of LA they would be in, she wanted to know if I had space for her to stay with me for a night. She originally asked if I had the extra room at my place available, but that’s in the condo so I’m not there yet. But she said she didn’t mind if it was an air mattress in my living room, so of course I said she could stay with me!
I hadn’t seen Brandi for a few years (even before the pandemic), so I was so happy to have her stay with me so we could have time to catch up and hang out. And I’m so grateful she didn’t mind staying on an air mattress or that I would be leaving for a workout early the next morning (she was able to stay at my place when I was working out, but I was worried I would wake her up as I was leaving). And when she got here, it was a bit late but I was too excited to see her to go to bed on time. I did stay up later than I wanted to, but it was completely worth it!
And the next day, she was around in the morning before her meeting and since she left her luggage here during that meeting, I got to hang out with her more after too! I got to have so much more friend time by helping out and letting her stay with me. And honestly, it didn’t feel like I was doing a favor since I got so much out of it too!
I know I’ve said this so many times over the past 2 years, but having this sleepover/hangout really made me appreciate my friends and friendships so much. I’m so grateful for all the people in my life and I’ve missed so many of them. But it’s so wonderful to see that time doesn’t weaken true friendships. We were able to pick up things just like we had seen each other last week or month. And seeing how my friendships have lasted and stood the test of time makes me feel so lucky to have everyone in my life.
Hopefully the next time Brandi and I get to hang out, we can plan for it a bit more. Or if she needs a place to crash I will be in my new place so there will be an actual room for her. But even if it ends up being the same as it was this time, I will feel so happy I get to spend some time with an awesome friend!
Posted onDecember 8, 2021|Comments Off on “The Band’s Visit” (or A Two Show Weekend)
Going to a show these days is a rare event and feels like a special treat. And to have 2 shows in the same weekend would have been a rarity even before the pandemic! So to have two shows this past weekend was something extraordinary for me!
I didn’t plan to have a show to go to on both Saturday and Sunday, but that’s how my weekend this past weekend ended up going. I had “The Enigmatist” on Saturday and on Sunday I had my musical at the Dolby! This time the show was “The Band’s Visit” and my friend Dani wasn’t able to go with me so my friend Jodi took the extra ticket. I hadn’t seen Jodi since before the pandemic, so I was so excited to see her. And since we hadn’t seen each other in so long, we decided to also go to dinner before the show. And to me, the best (and really only) place for a pre-show dinner is to go to Wood & Vine.
I had been to Wood & Vine once since the pandemic when I was there right after they reopened. But that was just to have dinner and not before a show. And before the last show I went to, I didn’t go to dinner since I went to the show alone. So this was my first dinner and a show night in a long time!
And as always, the food didn’t disappoint at all! We started with the spinach and artichoke dip. And then the manager recommended we have the short ribs and the sea bass, so that’s exactly what we got!
Honestly, I know I say this every time, but the food is just incredible! I’ve never had anything less than spectacular and I wish I could try more things each time. But it’s also so good and I’m always so full when I leave.
But even after being full from dinner, there is always room for dessert. And we were treated to my favorite butterscotch dessert as well as donuts!
We had made our dinner reservations pretty early so we would have time to enjoy the meal and catch up, and I’m glad we did that. It was so nice not to feel super rushed. And because the musicals right now are at the Dolby and not the Pantages, we had to drive to the show (instead of just walking across the street). But it was an easy enough drive and we just parked in the garage there, so before we knew it we were at our seats!
I really didn’t know much about this show and neither did Jodi. The main thing I knew was that it won the Tony for best musical. And we were told to think of it more as a play with songs versus a musical. And I think that was the perfect description. It was a slice of life show. While it didn’t have any crazy or elaborate musical numbers, it was a really beautiful show with a great message. And the cast was so talented.
And just like when I saw “My Fair Lady”, just being in a theater seeing a musical made my day. I know how lucky I am that I get to do this and I have a theater that is doing what they can to keep people safe. Everyone there is vaccinated and required to wear a mask at all times. And they are very strict with those rules, which I appreciate.
The show was a bit shorter than I expected, but it also didn’t have an intermission. And after the show, I drove Jodi back over to where she parked her car since we didn’t want to both have to spend money on parking at the theater.
I think almost any night I get to see a show is an amazing night. But this time, I got to have an awesome dinner and a great show. Plus I got to catch up with a friend in person who I hadn’t seen in 2 years. Honestly, this was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time and it made me feel so grateful for what I have and what I get to do.
Posted onNovember 24, 2021|Comments Off on Having An In-Person Co-Worker For Once (or Work Plus A Friend Hangout)
I’ve worked from home for several years now. I honestly do prefer it because it allows me more free time when I don’t have to worry about a commute. And I know that some people think it’s lonely or that it’s hard to feel like you ever leave work, but I didn’t really have those issues (or at least didn’t until the pandemic). But because I work remote jobs, I really never work with others in the same space. For some of my jobs, I’ve never met my co-workers in person even though we’ve worked together for years!
With my customer service job, I do know some of my co-workers because I knew them socially before I started with this company. But I’ve never worked alongside anyone from that job until this week.
I do feel very lucky that one of the executives at my job (and in a way, one of my bosses) is a friend of mine. We’ve been friends for over a decade and we’ve worked together in union service for quite a while too. And we have joked on calls or in texts when we are talking as friends or as boss and employee, but we have a good way to keep things compartmentalized when needed. And I’m very open and honest with him about work stuff because I don’t have the same fear I’ve had with other bosses at other jobs. So when we were discussing work stuff over the summer, I told him he really needed to sit with me for a day at work because he didn’t understand why the issues I was running into were issues. It took a while to get this coordinated, but this week he was finally able to come over and sit with me for an entire shift.
It was interesting to have someone else sitting with me while I worked because I’m so used to being alone. And I did have to slow down some of my work so I could explain to him the systems and processes I use for different tasks. I also use different websites than what he has access to, so I went over those so we could brainstorm together on how we can make these things more efficient and streamlined.
It wasn’t that crazy or busy of a day, which made it hard to demonstrate what happens when things get very busy. But enough things were happening that he could see what it would be like if they were multiplied and why that may be an issue for us with managing it all. And he was able to see what processes could be automated so we didn’t have to be as hands-on when it didn’t require it.
A lot of the changes and ideas we went over are very big picture ideas, but at least someone higher up than me in the company has seen what I have been talking about and understands why we want things to be changed so we can focus more on what needs to have a priority over getting other things done. And there were some very simple fixes like setting a formula for automatically forwarding specific types of emails so we don’t have to manually do them every day.
Overall, I think it was a big win for work and what I will be able to do with the company moving forward. But equally as big of a win was getting to spend the day with my friend. Even though we have worked together for almost a year now and we text dozens of times a day, it had been almost 2 years since we had seen each other in person. Seeing each other in a Zoom or over text isn’t the same. And while we were focused on work and talking out ideas, we got to also have a little hangout time during the lunch break and before and after work. And just like I’ve said with a lot of other hangouts I’ve had, I don’t know if I knew how much I needed this until it happened. But I needed this social time and ability to connect with a friend in person, and I’m so grateful I got to do it.
I knew that having him sit with me while I work would be a very positive thing for my work, but I’m so glad I had a double win with it also being positive for my social life and mental health!
Posted onNovember 5, 2021|Comments Off on Really Being Grateful (or I’m Lucky To Have Support)
While I am a pretty independent person in a lot of ways, in many ways I need to have support. Sometimes that is emotional support and sometimes that is something concrete like financial support. And even while I’ve had a lot of time being isolated for a while, having support and help has really been essential for me.
I am very lucky that I have a lot of friends that I can reach out to when I need help with something. Not all of my friends are able to help with everything, but I have different friends who can help with different things. Some friends are good for helping me figure out a serious situation. Other friends are good for supporting me when I’m really low and need a boost. I have a lot of friends who are great to turn to when I have something annoying happen with me in the dating world and can either give advice or laugh at the ridiculousness that I encounter. Honestly, my friends keep me sane when I feel like some things are out of control. Most of them don’t live near me, but knowing I could text or call someone at any time is reassuring.
And even if I just need a friend to listen to me while I rant and talk something out, that can make a huge difference when I’m having a tough time. Sometimes I just need to say things out loud and know someone is listening to figure out what I want to do. And I’ve learned since the pandemic that I also sometimes just need a reminder that I’m not on my own planet all alone and there are other people around me even if they aren’t in the exact same space as me. I do prefer to hang out with friends in person, but this time has taught me how to find support in other ways and I know that I wasn’t using those skills before.
But for some of the more concrete support I get, I rely on my parents a lot. And I’m aware that I am coming from a place of privilege and this is not something that everyone has. But I am so grateful for all the support they have given to me lately. With the condo search, while they were not able to look at most places with me, they still helped a lot. My mom made sure she was available on FaceTime if I wanted her to see a place that I was looking at. Once we started to do paperwork, they helped me understand a lot of what I was signing (my realtor helped too, but I also didn’t want to bother him with all of my questions). And now that we are planning potential renovations, my mom is helping me plan what I want to do and interviewing contractors.
Honestly, if I was doing this without my parents’ help, I think it would be impossible. Even taking out the financial aspect of it, I have no clue what I’m doing. I’ve only been a renter and even finding a new rental hasn’t been something I always do alone. But with buying a place, there are a million more things to think about and plan for. And if I didn’t have help from my parents, I can see so many ways things could go wrong or that I could make a mistake. Even planning for things like property taxes isn’t something I fully understood. I knew enough to know they happen, but planning for the timeline for the payments and the options for payment aren’t things I thought about before. There are some things that I know I’m doing in a slightly more complicated way than other friends who have bought property, but there are reasons that this will work out better for me in the long run. So I know I could have done this in an easier way, but it might not have been the best way for me.
For all of the times since March 2020 that I have been upset that I feel so alone and isolated, I don’t know if I appreciated the support that I do have. While most people didn’t have the same type of isolation that I had with no physical contact with other people for months at a time, there are people who had total isolation who didn’t have the support that I was lucky enough to have. And I need to remember how lucky I am. It’s not always easy to remember that when things are so low, but I’m getting back into a better time where I can reflect on the positives that I do have in my life. And when I think about it, the luckier I realize I am.
Posted onNovember 3, 2021|Comments Off on Having To Explain My Costume (or An Almost Normal Halloween)
Last year for Halloween, I only celebrated over Zoom. I did try to have a bit of a costume by making a fun Zoom background, but it really wasn’t the same as seeing my friends. I knew this was how we had to celebrate so we could all be safe, but it was just another reminder of what we were missing out on during the pandemic.
This year, things are a little different but they are still not as safe as they were before. So while I would have loved to be at a big party with all of my friends, I knew again this wouldn’t be possible. Fortunately, I was invited to a small party with a few friends who only had vaccinated people there so I was able to enjoy Halloween with other people again this year.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for my costumes, so I tried to see what would inspire me. Like so many people, I joined TikTok to entertain me this year. And there are a lot of accounts I follow that are just silly. And one of those is Noodle the Dog. Noodle is a 13-year old pug and each day as his owner tries to get him up from bed he will either stand up or collapse back into bed. So the saying is that he either has bones or no bones and that determines what the day will be like. I know it’s silly, but we all just need silly things these days.
So I decided that a fun and silly costume would be to go as a No Bones Day. I wore all black, made a pug mask from a photo online, and emptied out a dog bone container (I had to buy dog bones but I’ll be giving them to my parents’ dog). Not a super fancy or elaborate costume, but I think it did a good job representing things. And I got confirmation of that when I posted it on Instagram and tagged the Noodle account and they shared it on their Instagram too!
I’m aware it’s also a bit creepy since I had a very realistic looking photo for my mask.
When I got to the party, most people had no clue who I was so I had to show them the TikTok account so they could get what I was supposed to be. There were other people there who also had low-key costumes like I did, so I didn’t feel too out of place. And I think the focus for a lot of us was about being around other people and not the costumes. It’s still so rare to get to be around friends, so I am enjoying whatever chances I get. And we did try to make sure things were as safe as they could be. We were all outside and I know everyone was vaccinated. And not going to a big party was probably smart too.
This was much closer to my normal Halloween than what I did last year, but it still wasn’t what I was used to. I remember thinking last year that of course things would be normal again by Halloween. I think it’s still surprising to me that by this Halloween they still aren’t. But as tired as I am about having to always be careful, I do know this is what we need to do to get past this. And maybe by Halloween next year, we will be 100% back to normal and I will be at a crazy costume party surrounded by my friends again.
Posted onOctober 7, 2021|Comments Off on Working In A Social Media Outage (or There Were Some Good Things That Happened)
As probably everyone knows, Facebook and Instagram went down on Monday for a very long time. And considering I work with social media in my day job, it was a really tough day for me. Most of the questions clients had were only able to be answered by saying that we were sorry but we could not look that up at this time as Instagram is currently down. It was a very frustrating day, but I’m glad that the system was back up during my work day so I could get to my work before I was done. And by some miracle, I was able to prep things during the outage enough that I could push through and get almost all my work done by the end of the day. I didn’t get everything done, but everything that had to be done that day was completed.
I know that the issues I had with the outage weren’t as bad as what other people dealt with, but it was a lot of stress when I was already under a lot of stress for other reasons. And in a way, it was good because I figured out some new ways to organize my work. Hopefully I won’t need to use those ideas during an outage in the future, but it is nice that I was able to be creative in the middle of so much frustration.
While work was frustrating during the outage, the other issue I had was not being able to communicate with some of my friends. I have a Facebook message group with some of the women who are in Movie Club with me. We just message each other a lot of random things throughout the day. Sometimes it’s getting support for tough stuff and sometimes we are sending each other TikToks we like or things we find funny. But since it was done through Facebook, we couldn’t message during the outage.
So as soon as I was able to message my group again, I said we should find a way to get off of Facebook to make sure this doesn’t happen again. The only issue is that not everyone in the group lives in the United States. But fortunately, we are all Apple users, so we can use iMessage with no issues with international texting! So we got a regular text group set up and have been using that this week.
I have talked about Movie Club and the women in that group several times before, but I still find it so interesting that I have bonded with people that I have never met in person. But it also somehow makes so much sense. And I feel like where there are tough or negative things going on in the world, that’s when our group comes together. We really bonded at the start of the pandemic when we started Movie Club. That never would have happened without a pandemic. And Movie Club really helped to keep me sane during such a crazy time.
And even though it wasn’t bad messaging through Facebook, an outage got us to exchange real phone numbers so we can text and it’s a bit easier for all of us to do that instead of using Facebook. Somehow, texting makes the friendship that we’ve all created seem more real. And that made me happy during a really crazy day.
It’s nice to know that some good things came out of a social media outage and the frustration I was having that day. And the good things that happened put me in a much better mood when I was able to work again. And I guess I’m more prepared now with how to deal with this if it happens again. But I hope it doesn’t!
Posted onSeptember 22, 2021|Comments Off on Making Condo Hunting More Fun (or Taking Advantage Of Ways To Be Social)
Condo or house hunting can be a really fun thing. I used to go to open houses from time to time just to see what is out there, especially in my neighborhood. I never asked my realtor to show me places I wasn’t serious about, but if there was an open house I felt ok taking a look. And if the seller’s realtor asked me, I was always honest and said I wasn’t seriously looking at the moment but looking at things for the future.
But serious condo hunting is a very different feeling. I think I am feeling a bit more stress than I need to because I feel like there is more of a time crunch than actually exists. But I am seriously looking and it has been a lot so far. In about 2 weeks, I’ve gone to over 10 properties. Some of these were when my parents were in town and we looked at a lot of condos in a single afternoon. Some are condos that my realtor has taken me to on my own. And some have been open houses for places I’m interested in. I have to say, going to open houses alone hasn’t really been that fun for me. It feels like the seller’s realtor is always asking me questions when I just want to look and think about what I feel about the place. And I don’t want to ask to be left alone because that’s rude. But because of my availability and when I can see places, going to open houses seems to be more common for me lately.
But because I’m not really enjoying going to open houses alone and I want to make condo hunting more fun, I decided to reach out to a few of my friends to see if anyone wanted to come with me this past weekend. And my friend Pamela said she’d love to so she joined me for condo hunting on Sunday! Originally I was going to look at 3 places, but I changed my mind on one and the other didn’t have an open house so we only looked at one place together.
And I’m so glad she was with me to look at the condo. It was one of the oddest ones I’ve seen so far. The main entrance opened into the main bedroom and there were no doors on either bedroom. It also had a lot of weird quicks that I think the seller thought were cool. But it just didn’t work and it was not at all what I was looking for. But because of the photos on the listing, I had no clue it was like that. I guess some photos can really hide the less flattering features of a place.
And because I wasn’t alone, I had someone to talk to as we were walking through the place and to give looks to when the seller’s realtor was trying to sell us on features that I didn’t love. It made the experience so much better. Plus, it gave me time to hang out with a friend which is a luxury I don’t do enough these days! And we did luck out when we went to the condo because it was crowded before we got there, but it seemed like everyone was leaving when we arrived. So we didn’t have to be around too many people. Even with wearing masks and having so many people in LA vaccinated, I still try to avoid crowded places as much as possible.
After we looked around the condo, Pamela and I got to hang out outside and catch up. We’ve only seen each other once in person since the pandemic, and that was a really brief moment. This time, we really got to talk and it was so great. I needed some social time and it really let me decompress from stressful things going on in my life.
And now, I have someone willing to come with me to future open houses! I’m so glad that I don’t have to keep going alone now and I have someone else to bounce ideas and thoughts off of as I look at more and more potential places!
Posted onAugust 30, 2021|Comments Off on I Love When Things Remind Me Of The “Before Times” (or Seeing Another Workout Friend)
I’ve been back at Orangetheory for a while now. I’ve said this so often since going back but having something in my life that feels like the before times has been so good for my mental health. Obviously, working out in the studio is also great for my physical health and I work out harder in class than I do at home, but the benefit for my mental health has been amazing. This has been a steady routine for me for so long, and getting it back has helped me when there have been so many uncertain things recently. And for the most part, this past week of workouts was pretty routine and what I have come to expect out of OTF.
Monday’s workout was an endurance day, and it had a lot of tough endurance challenges for us! I think certain elements wouldn’t have been so tough if they were the main challenge of the day, but we had so many of them!
For cardio, we had 2 blocks. Both blocks were rounds of push pace to base pace and ending with an all-out. The base pace was always 1-minute, which didn’t feel too bad at first. But the more we went on, the shorter that minute felt! The push paces were between 2-minutes and 30-seconds and it changed up each time. And the end of both blocks had a 30-second all-out. Because it was an endurance day, I really tried to limit my breaks during cardio. It’s not easy because I need to drink water and sometimes I need to stretch a bit. But I’m getting better about not doing as many breaks when I’m not dealing with nausea.
On the floor, we had one floor block and one rowing block. For the floor block, we had 3 rounds of doing squats to presses, pop jacks, and Spiderman planks. Those were all supposed to be while using the Bosu, but I only used it for the squats to presses. After those 3 rounds, we had pullovers, front raises, and alternating Supermans until the end of the block. For that part, I only had to skip using the Bosu for the front raises. Then, we had a 7 1/2-minute crew row. A crew row is where everyone tries to row together at the same speed and with the same timing. So you are supposed to be very aware of the people on either side of you so you can make sure you are not out of sync. You can take breaks, but you have to be aware when you start back up so you are with the group. The biggest struggle for me with crew rows is that I know I’m a much slower rower than most people. I always find it hard to keep going that fast. But I took breaks when I needed to and then got back with the group as quickly as I could. It was still much faster than I normally would row, but it was a good challenge for me.
Wednesday’s workout was a power day, which was a nice switch from what we did on Monday.
The cardio blocks were all similar with a lot of 1-minute intervals. The first block had a 1-minute push pace, 90-second base pace, 1-minute all-out, and a 1-minute recovery. We did that interval set twice. The second block had a 1-minute push pace, 90-second base pace, and 1-minute all-out. And the last block had 4 rounds of a 1-minute all-out followed by a 1-minute recovery. It was a lot of work and a lot of switching around, but it was really fun to do!
The floor also had 3 blocks. The first block had bench sit-ups to squats, deadlifts, hop overs (which I did as lunges), and lateral lunges. The second block was a mini-band core block with in and out crunches and toe reaches. And the last block had burpees to bicep curls (which I had to split into 2 moves), step-ups (which I did as squats), power sit-ups, and plank low rows. The first and third floor block felt a bit more like endurance work because it felt like we never stopped, but the number of reps we had to do were pretty low so that made it more of a power day.
Friday’s workout was an endurance day, and it was designed to keep the people who worked out on Thursday in mind. Thursday’s workout was the Everest Challenge, so they tried to make it more focused on upper body.
For cardio, we had 3 blocks. In each block, we had 3 rounds of a 90-second push pace. But the base pace between each round decreased with each block. The first block had 75-second base paces, the second block had 1-minute base paces, and the last block had 45-second base paces. The goal was to try to maintain what we did for the push paces each block, even though the base paces were decreasing.
On the floor, we did so much upper body work and my arms felt like noodles! The goal in each block was to do all the exercises before taking a break. In the first block, we had uppercuts, chest flys, and incline chest presses. And we were supposed to use the same weights for the entire thing. The second block was with the straps and we had bicep curls, y raises, and high rows. And the last block was a bit more core-focused with plank jacks and crunches. I really did try to not stop in the middle of the exercises, but for the first and second blocks my arms were getting so tired! I had to lighten the dumbells I was using and step back when using the straps to make it a bit easier on me. But it was crazy to see how even using lighter weights was so tough when you didn’t take a break during the exercises.
Even though most of the workouts this past week reminded me of what things were like before the shutdown, the workout on Saturday was even more like that. Because Saturday’s workout was a special class where you had to bring a friend with you to take class. And the friend I brought with me was one of my workout buddies from before! She and I hadn’t seen each other since things shut down a year and a half ago, so I was thrilled to get to see her and work out together again.
The workout was a strength class and the cardio section had 4 blocks with the same pattern. Every block had a push pace, base pace, base pace on an incline, and an all-out. The base pace and all-out were always 1-minute long. But the push pace and incline work changed. The push pace started at 2-minutes and went down 30-seconds each block and the incline started at 30-seconds and went up 30-seconds each block as well as go down with how high the incline should be. Because of how short each block was, it also felt a bit like a power day, but the hills got tough as they got longer!
On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had bird dog low rows with weights, single-arm lunges to step-ups (I had to do these just as lunges), and double crunches. After 2 rounds of the exercises, we had a 200-meter row and then went back to the exercises. And the second block had lateral goblet lunges, hollow hold chest presses, and plank pull-throughs. And just like in the first floor block, after 2 rounds of the exercises we had a 200-meter row.
Since we were busy working out, I didn’t get to chat with my friend too much during class. But of course, we took some time to catch up after class and we had to get a photo with our coach (who was so excited to see her too)!
This past week of workouts was one of the weeks I wasn’t sure if I’d get my 4 workouts in, but I’m glad I made it work! This week is also like that. As of right now, I am scheduled for 4 workouts, but things are still in the air to see if I can make it to all of them. But if I can’t, I know I’m good for 3 of those workouts. And at least that keeps most of the routine that I love in my week.
Posted onAugust 10, 2021|Comments Off on A Busy Birthday (or I’m Not Sure What I Expected My Birthday To Be Like)
Yesterday was my birthday, and I knew it wasn’t going to be anything too crazy. It was on a Monday, we are still in a pandemic, and I had to work. I figured it would be a bit different from my birthday last year since things are a bit better right now, but I still wasn’t going to be going out and celebrating. At least not on my actual birthday. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to enjoy my birthday however I could.
My day started off with my workout. I’ll do a recap of my birthday workout next week, but it was a good workout.
I don’t think I ever believed that I would be someone who would do a workout at 6:30 am on my birthday, but that’s exactly what I did! I’ve done birthday workouts before and it’s always a nice way to enjoy the day. And this time is was the perfect way to start off my day!
Then I had work for my day job. Monday was the first day I had my new, longer work schedule. It’s not too bad so far, but I know that it might be adjusted if it becomes too much. But at least for kicking it off, it was ok. I had a lot of work I had to get done, but it’s what I’ve been doing before and now I had more time to get all my work done.
And while I was working, I was getting texts and messages from friends and family wishing me a happy birthday. Even though I wasn’t going to see any of them, I still love getting messages from them. And my friend Dani, who moved away from LA a few months ago, messaged me and also asked when I’d be home because something was going to be delivered to my house. I let her know when I had a break and I thought that she was having food or something delivered to my house.
I was so shocked when my doorbell rang, I opened the door, and it was Dani and her new puppy!
I was speechless. All I could say for a few minutes was “oh my god!” and other exclamations like that. She was in LA for some work stuff and decided to not tell me so she could surprise me! And it was the best surprise! I was not expecting to see her or any of my other friends on my birthday and it really made my day! And I’ve missed our hangouts since she moved away, so it was nice to have a little time to hangout and chat before she had to leave and I had to get back to work.
The rest of my birthday was pretty low-key. I worked a few more hours, I did some stuff for my union election, and after work I ordered in some dinner (I figured I should do something nicer for dinner) and watched some tv. Nothing too crazy after work since I didn’t feel like trying to go out to a restaurant or organize anything else. I will have a birthday dinner coming up this weekend, but it didn’t feel right doing much else since things are still not that safe.
Overall, this was a great birthday. I didn’t do a lot, but so much of it made my day feel so special. I didn’t have a plan for what my day would be like, but I wouldn’t have guessed this. But it was exactly what I needed and besides wishing we weren’t in a pandemic, I don’t know if I would have changed a thing. It was the perfect Monday Pandemic Birthday.
So Many Virtual Movie Nights (or Thank Goodness For Technology)
