Tag Archives: holidays

Finishing Up The Last Workout Challenge of 2023 (or Working Around New Issues Again)

Posted on December 18, 2023 | Comments Off on Finishing Up The Last Workout Challenge of 2023 (or Working Around New Issues Again)

This past week of workouts completed the 12 Days of Fitness challenge. I did my normal workout days for this challenge, so I wasn’t going to complete it until the last day. But that was fine with me because I knew I would get it done and I didn’t want to stress too much about trying to change up my schedule. I have to change up my workout schedule for the end of the year, so doing it then is enough for me. I’m really a fan of keeping my routine, so I finished the challenge and earned the blanket on Tuesday.

I didn’t need a blanket, but I like having something as a reward for completing a challenge. I will always do Hell Week to earn my shirt even though I don’t normally wear them. I have done other challenges where I have earned hats and socks even though I don’t use those. If the prize is something I know I won’t use or enjoy, I don’t always sign up since we have to pay for these challenges. But normally, I will do it just to have the bragging rights. And that’s how I feel about earning this blanket!

The workouts for this challenge weren’t extra hard, they were just the top workouts of the year. So it wasn’t as bad as Hell Week is. But I had some extra challenges this past week because of my reaction to the Covid booster shot. I always have strong reactions to vaccines, and this one was no different. I tried to time things out so it wouldn’t affect my workouts as much, so I got my vaccine on Thursday when I would have the most amount of rest days before my next workout. And it was good that I did that because I was feeling pretty awful on Friday and Saturday. But what I didn’t expect was having extremely swollen lymph nodes for a long time.

I’ve had swollen lymph nodes after different vaccines, but this was the worst I’ve ever experienced. For the first few days, I couldn’t fully put my arm down. I actually kept a pillow under that arm over the weekend because it was starting to hurt my shoulder. I didn’t think too much about how this would affect my workouts, but I learned very quickly that having swollen lymph nodes meant that I couldn’t row properly. I had to keep my arms bent in an awkward position to be able to bring the row handle back. I made it work and I’m glad that each day over the week got a bit better and I was a little less swollen. I also had some other side effects I had to deal with in my workouts, like being very fatigued and feeling weak. But those are things that I am more used to dealing with so they were easier to work around.

With all the random issues I had to work with for this past week’s workouts, I just had to go a bit easier on myself than I would have liked to. I have been trying to push myself extra hard when I’m having a good week and this past week should have been one of those good weeks. Unfortunately, it ended up being a bit of a bad week instead, but at least the issues that I had were things that I was able to work with and they didn’t affect me as intensely as the pain and nausea that I work through every month.

Next week should be a normal workout week for me, even if it might be a bit of a bad week toward the end of the week. But at least I should be going in for my workouts on my normal days. Then for the end of the month and year, things will be a little different since I have to work around the holidays. But I’m expecting that I will hit my workout goal for this year by the end of the year and I will be finding a way to work in my traditional holiday workouts so I can end this year and start next year the way that I have for a while.

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Another Week With A Holiday Workout (or Continuing My Own Tradition)

Posted on November 27, 2023 | Comments Off on Another Week With A Holiday Workout (or Continuing My Own Tradition)

Even though I did my family Thanksgiving workout during Fake Thanksgiving, that wasn’t going to stop me from still doing what feels like a tradition with working out on Thanksgiving. It’s nice that it fits in perfectly with what is now my normal workout week, so it didn’t feel like much of a change for me. But I’m still proud of completing 10 years of Thanksgiving Day workouts!

My first 3 workouts of the week were my normal workout time before work. I have been dealing with some extra stress due to a few different things happening in my life, so I haven’t been sleeping or eating well. That affected my workouts and I was having more moments of lightheadedness. I know this is something I deal with from some of the medications I take and having poor sleeping and eating habits makes it worse. I still struggle to force myself to eat when I’m not feeling like it because that’s the mindset I’ve had for so long. But when I skip dinner and then work out the next morning, it’s not a good combination. I am lucky that I can make that feeling go away quickly if I just stop what I’m doing and sit down to take some deep breaths. It’s not ideal, but it’s manageable. And when it’s due to something that is somewhat my fault, I’m glad that I don’t have to totally ruin what I can do in my workout that day.

On Thanksgiving Day, I allowed myself to sleep in a bit and do a later morning workout. It was still a morning class, but it was about 2 hours later than I’m used to. This is the class time I normally do when I’m able to sleep in due to a holiday or a day off of work. If I didn’t have my day job to log into in the morning, I probably would take a class at that time because it’s still early enough to get it done and have the rest of the day, but it allows me to get a little more sleep. The only negative with that class time is that I take my morning medications before going to work out, so I have a few side effects that I sometimes have to work around. It’s worse when I do a later class on a Monday since I do my injection on Mondays and that really affects me. But with my other medications, I have things like elevated heart rate and dropped blood sugar which can make my workout a little harder. But just like having lightheadedness, it’s something I’ve learned to work with and it’s manageable.

But the Thanksgiving Day workout was probably the toughest workout of the week. It was a 2 group class, which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s harder or easier. This time, there was a lot of going from cardio to rowing, so that was an added challenge. I also pushed myself a little too hard on the rower the first time I was on it because I didn’t know what other rowing I had coming up. I still think my rowing is getting stronger, but my last row of the workout was a lot worse than how I started off the block. I don’t believe in the idea that you have to work out in order to “earn” certain foods on holidays, but I do like how I feel when I work out before a celebration like that compared to not working out before. And my workout was early enough that I had some time to be lazy at home before I started cooking dinner.

As much as I would have loved to work out with my family on Thanksgiving Day, I think this workout would have been harder for them than the class we did a few weeks ago. So I think that Fake Thanksgiving was the better workout choice for us.

I’ve got 2 more holidays that I can do some workouts around, but I’m not sure yet if I’ll do a Christmas Eve workout. That’s a day that I usually don’t work out, so I might not go in. But I’ll find a way to make it work for me to work out on New Year’s Eve, even though that is normally a rest day too. That’s one of those traditions I’ve created around Orangetheory that I will go out of my way to make sure it continues.

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Another Fake Thanksgiving (or A Busy Day Without Many Pictures)

Posted on November 22, 2023 | Comments Off on Another Fake Thanksgiving (or A Busy Day Without Many Pictures)

My family did our Fake Thanksgiving 2 weeks ago. I think we will continue the tradition of doing our Thanksgiving early each year since that’s a cheaper time for everyone to travel. It makes it a little harder for some of our schedules, but that’s probably a smaller problem than the crazy cost of traveling during the actual holiday. It can be a bit tough with my work schedule to spend too much time on whatever Fake Thanksgiving we have, but I do my best to make it work. We have been doing it over Veteran’s Day so that at least gives me time off from my one of my jobs. And I just have to take time off from one job on that day.

This year, we had Fake Thanksgiving in Santa Barbara, so it was just a drive for me. I was looking at possibly spending more than just the day there, but with schedules and other things, it was just going to be easier for me to drive up that morning and drive back home that evening after dinner.

There wasn’t much scheduled for the day that I would be up there. I drove up that morning and spent some time with my parents and the dog before my dad and I went to our Orangetheory class. I was hoping we would have a larger group for the workout, but it was just my dad and aunt joining me. I know my brother wanted to join but he couldn’t at the last minute, and my cousin wanted to come but she was recovering from an injury. But it was still a good workout and I’m so happy that tradition continued!

After the workout, I went back to the rental house my parents were staying at so I could shower and get changed for dinner. But as I was getting ready, there was a press conference announced regarding the end of the SAG-AFTRA Strike. I was able to watch while I got ready for dinner, but that also meant I wasn’t really being social with my parents. I think they understood why I wanted to pay attention to that, so hopefully they didn’t mind too much.

Fake Thanksgiving dinner was held at the country club that my brother and sister-in-law belong to, which is where we had it a few years ago. And most of my family was able to be there. We were missing 2 of my cousins and one cousin’s husband, but everyone else was at dinner. It was a little overwhelming since dinner was the only time that I was going to see most of the family, so I didn’t really get to catch up with everyone as much as I would have liked to.

But I was excited to give my niece and nephew their early Hanukkah presents. I got them both really cute toddler digital cameras. I thought it could be fun to see what types of pictures they might take during dinner. I haven’t seen all of those photos yet, but we got to see some of the photos on the screen as they took them. The ones I did see were mostly selfies and crazy close-ups of random things. But I think they will have fun as they learn how to use them.

I wish I had taken more photos with my family while I was there, but I only got one photo during dinner of my place setting. Nothing fancy or anything, but it was all I got when I looked back at what I took that evening.

But a lack of photos also shows that I focused on being with my family and in the moment. I was sitting next to my cousin and she and I spent most of dinner talking and catching up on random things. And she was telling me about a road trip that her family will be doing hopefully next summer which would bring her to LA. I would love for her to see my place and get to see her more than just once a year!

And as dinner was finishing up, I started to talk to some of my family about where Fake Thanksgiving would be held next year. And after talking a bit and thinking about some logistics, it looks like I might be hosting it for the first time ever! I never could have all my family at my place when I lived in my tiny rental. And even though I don’t have a huge place now, I have the space to get a rental table and make it work. My parents came to LA a few days after Fake Thanksgiving and we were talking about me hosting it, I think we all agree it’s totally feasible and that’s what we will be doing in a year! My dad is already sending me articles with Thanksgiving ideas so I’ll be prepared for next year.

For tomorrow on actual Thanksgiving, I’m not sure if I’ll have company over. I was talking to a friend about if they wanted to come for dinner, but we both have agreed that we’ll see how we feel. But I am cooking some of my favorite Thanksgiving things and I’ll be trying a dry brine on a turkey breast that I might use for next year.

And if it’s a low-key Thanksgiving Day, that’s fine with me since I already feel like I got my Thanksgiving celebration during Fake Thanksgiving!

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Not Quite My Traditional Christmas (or Relaxing And Enjoying My Time Off)

Posted on December 27, 2022 | Comments Off on Not Quite My Traditional Christmas (or Relaxing And Enjoying My Time Off)

I rarely get a long break from work, but I was so lucky that I had almost 4 days off for Christmas. I only had to work in the afternoon for 2 hours on Friday, but I had all of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off. And going into the holiday weekend, I didn’t have many plans figured out. I knew I had work on Friday and I’d be going to a workout on Monday, but that’s all I really planned in advance. I didn’t want to make too many plans since I wanted to see how I felt about things, and I knew that if I wanted to do something at the last minute, I probably could figure something out.

It was nice to be able to sleep in later for those 4 days. I still don’t sleep in that late, but even getting the extra hour of sleep made a difference in how I felt. And I know more than ever that I need to work on my sleep schedule because I want to feel like this more often. And since I didn’t have to work until the afternoon on Friday, I enjoyed a nice lazy morning before logging in for work. Being able to do my routine things at a more leisurely pace was a nice change. And even though work was a bit stressful as the last shift before Christmas, it wasn’t too bad. And I think being more relaxed and rested helped me get through some of the craziness.

My normal plan for Christmas is to watch movies (either at home or going out to a movie theater) and ordering in Chinese food. But I had been invited to my friend Erin’s casual Christmas gathering, so I decided to order food on Saturday instead. Ordering on Christmas is usually really busy and crazy, so ordering a day early made it a lot easier to get food. And I still had leftovers so I had some to eat on Christmas Day as well.

On Christmas Day, I went over for a late lunch at Erin’s place. It was a very low-key and relaxed gathering and there weren’t too many people there. It also didn’t feel like a Christmas thing, so it wasn’t as awkward that I don’t celebrate Christmas. It was more like just a regular party where everyone was just enjoying being together and being social. And she made some really great food like lasagna and cheesecake, which was an awesome lunch!

After lunch was done, I went back home and watched some movies on Netflix, so I did still have a little bit of my normal Christmas. But it was a nice change to be around others instead of spending the day alone like I normally do.

And on Monday, I had to work on getting back to a bit of my normal routine so Tuesday wouldn’t be too much of a shock for me after several days of no schedule and nothing needing to be done. I did a lot of things that I usually do on Sundays like getting my house clean and figuring out what I need to plan for during the week. I still had a lot of free time to relax and I spent that time reading since I had downloaded a bunch of books from Kindle Unlimited over the weekend. I think Monday felt the most like a normal weekend day for me, which was probably a good thing.

I do have another odd week coming. The rest of my work week this week is normal since Friday isn’t a holiday and Saturday is a half day at the other job, but Saturdays are already half days so that’s what I’m used to. But I’ll get another Monday off in a week so I’ll have another opportunity to relax before I really have to get back to my normal routine and being busy at work.

But before I get to that craziness, I’m glad I had these past few days to get ready and I’m so happy that I got to mix a bit of my old Christmas tradition with a new plan to have a really amazing holiday weekend.

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A Quick Holiday Post (or I Hope You Are All Up To Fun Things This Weekend)

Posted on December 23, 2022 | Comments Off on A Quick Holiday Post (or I Hope You Are All Up To Fun Things This Weekend)

Even though the holidays don’t start until tomorrow, I know that today is the first day of holiday time off for many people. For me, it’s the first day off from one job, but I still have to work the other. But that is still a break from my usual schedule and craziness. And I’m planning on enjoying that time so this post is going to be something short and quick.

I know that not everyone spends the holidays with their family. I don’t do that since my family doesn’t celebrate Christmas. But I do hope that however you are celebrating the holidays, you are doing what you want to do and are able to have some fun. Even if you have to work for part of this weekend, I hope that there is still some time to relax.

I feel like we all have had a crazy year this year. It’s really been a crazy 3 years if you think about when the pandemic started. And things still aren’t back to what we all consider normal yet. But even with things being not quite normal, there is still a lot for us all to celebrate. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas or any holidays this time of year, since we are coming up on the new year it’s a great time to reflect on what we are all grateful for. I know I complain a lot about different things, but I am so lucky in so many ways. And I appreciate getting to celebrate holidays in ways that make me happy.

So for this weekend, I’m planning on doing a lot of nothing and just enjoying some free time to relax. I will probably order Chinese food for Christmas since that’s my tradition. And while I don’t think I will go out to see a movie in theaters, I probably will watch at least one or two movies during my time off. To me, that’s the perfect way to celebrate this time of year!

So Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate and Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate that. And if you don’t celebrate anything this time of year, I hope you still are enjoying your time doing whatever you get to do this long weekend!

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Gearing Up To Wind Down (or I Think I’ll Need These Days Off)

Posted on December 22, 2022 | Comments Off on Gearing Up To Wind Down (or I Think I’ll Need These Days Off)

Because in the past I didn’t always get holidays off, I am always extra grateful when I get an extra day off. So many holidays are on Mondays and my box office job already has Mondays off. And there have also been a few years where Christmas and New Year’s fell on days I already had off so I didn’t feel like I had any real time off, I only had my normal weekend.

With my social media job, I do get holidays off, so that’s already an added bonus. So the Mondays that are holidays finally feel like a day off since I have time off from my Monday-Friday job. Between the two jobs, I do have slightly different holiday schedules and days off, but most of the days overlap so that helps a bit.

But for the first time in a long time, I feel like I have a real break. It’s not a long break, but it’s more than normal. For my social media job, I have Friday-Monday off, so that’s 2 extra days. And for my box office job, I have Saturday off. I will still need to work on Friday for the box office job, but that’s only 2 hours in the afternoon so that’s not too bad. I might actually work a few extra hours depending on how I feel to bank some extra time off I can use in the future. But I don’t have to decide that in advance.

I’m really looking forward to having all this time off. I don’t have any plans, and that’s ok with me. I just want to have time to rest and relax. And I’m honestly so happy I will have so many days in a row that I can sleep in a bit later because I’m still struggling with getting to bed on time. I am going to work on getting to bed earlier on my days off, but at least this way I’ll have the ability to sleep in a bit if I need to, and hopefully I will feel so much more rested by next week.

Because of all the extra time off, things have been extra crazy at both of my jobs this week. I’ve been getting a lot of stuff done so it’s not waiting for me on Tuesday because I know there will be a lot that comes in over the long weekend. I already know next week will likely be just as crazy because I’ll be catching up plus there is still one more holiday to go. For my box office job, this is one of our busiest times since so many people want to get a gift certificate to give as a holiday gift. At least I know that will calm down a bit next week. And for my social media job, I normally have a lot to do at the end of the month so I’ve been trying to get as much of a head start on that work as possible. But I know that since so many things can’t be done until the start of the new month, a lot will just have to wait and I will have my usual busy beginning of the month.

I know having a crazy week this week will probably make me appreciate my extra days off even more. And I’m fully planning on taking advantage of not having to do much for those days and getting myself ready for whatever craziness happens after the holidays.

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Getting Something Checked Off My End Of The Year List (or Mailing Out Some Holiday Cheer)

Posted on December 21, 2022 | Comments Off on Getting Something Checked Off My End Of The Year List (or Mailing Out Some Holiday Cheer)

Growing up, I remembered my family getting so many holiday cards from friends and family. They were always displayed in the living room and I loved looking at the photos that we got from everyone. Some people also sent letters, but I usually just loved looking at all the cards and photos. And of course, my parents sent out cards too. Even though I don’t live at home, I’m still included in the family holiday card (and they send one to me so I can see what they did).

For most of my 20s, I didn’t really get holiday cards from anyone. I think most people think of them as something you do when you have kids. But once I was in my 30s and started to get a few more cards from friends, I realized that they can come from anyone whether it’s from a family or just someone on their own. So I started to send out cards to others.

As the years have gone on, my holiday card list has gotten longer and I’ve been getting more and more cards from others as well. And I still love looking at the cards and the photos of my friends and their families. And now, I have a nice place in my entryway where I can display all the cards that I’ve gotten from people.

Even though most of the cards that I get from people are photo cards, I’ve never done that myself. I started getting cards that I could buy at the store or online because that’s the easiest way to do this. Then, once my holiday card list got longer, I realized doing postcards was a bit more cost-effective. Plus, since I’m not putting a photo on there, it didn’t feel as weird not having an envelope. And there were some cute postcards that I found online that I could buy, but a few years ago I realized I couldn’t find what I wanted and it would just be easier if I could make something myself.

So for the last few years, I’ve made my own postcards to send out for the holidays. They are nothing fancy and I use a template from Canva so I’m not custom-designing them, but I am able to change things up a bit to make them work for me. For example, last year’s card was not only a holiday card but also had my new address on it so I didn’t have to worry that people might mail things to the wrong place. But this year I didn’t do anything too crazy or fancy, I just did a simple design that I found and changed a bit to fit what I would want to send out.

I had gotten a bit stressed when I realized how soon the end of the year when I hadn’t gotten everything done, but the good thing about sending cards that say Happy New Year is that they can arrive a bit after the 1st and it’s still ok. But even if they were just regular holiday cards, I never mind getting them late so I would assume most of my friends feel the same way.

I got them printed through Vista Print, so it wasn’t too expensive to do that. I think between the printing and the stamps, I spent less than $50 to send them all out. That’s not bad considering how many I send and how happy it makes me to do something silly like this. And it didn’t take that long to do this either. I think the longest parts were waiting for the printed postcards to arrive and the line at the post office when I went to get postcard stamps. But once I had everything I needed, it was pretty quick to put all the postcards together so I could mail them out.

I know how much I appreciate not only getting holiday cards but anything in the mail that isn’t a bill or junk. Having something nice in the mail is a rare treat, so if I can make someone smile a bit by getting a postcard from me, that’s awesome!

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A Very Low-Key Thanksgiving Day (or At Least I Was Only Cooking For Me)

Posted on November 29, 2022 | Comments Off on A Very Low-Key Thanksgiving Day (or At Least I Was Only Cooking For Me)

Because I had Fake Thanksgiving with my family 2 weeks prior, actual Thanksgiving didn’t feel as big of a deal to me. Usually, Thanksgiving is the main holiday my family does, but our Fake Thanksgiving feels pretty much the same as the holiday so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on too much. There are a few differences when you don’t celebrate on the holiday, but they are so minor so I don’t think about it too much.

So since I already had my Thanksgiving, I knew I wasn’t going to do anything too big for Thursday last week. I did have the day off from both of my jobs, so that was nice. I had the day off that Friday from one job, but since I worked a full day for the other it didn’t feel like a break to me. So I decided to try to enjoy my Thursday off as much as I could.

Because I get up so early most days, I struggle to sleep in even when I have the chance to do so. I only slept in about 20 minutes later than normal on Thursday, and I had a few hours before I really had to get out of bed that morning. I was going to go to Orangetheory, but I scheduled a later class to give myself the opportunity to sleep in if I was able to do so. I did wish that I had not scheduled it quite as late as I did because I was just sitting around my house waiting for the class, but it was ok. I didn’t have much else to do that day so I wasn’t in a rush to get home to do anything.

After my workout, I spent the rest of the morning and the beginning of the afternoon really being lazy. I mainly just read my book and rested until it was time for me to start making some food.

I didn’t feel the need to make a lot of Thanksgiving-type foods, but I wanted to make something that felt a bit special for me. So I made my 2 favorite sides that my family has at Thanksgiving. One was the green beans with shallots that I really should make more often because it’s such a simple recipe and the other was a corn casserole that my mom makes that I had never made on my own before. Both recipes are very simple and didn’t take much time to put together. And I didn’t want to make turkey since it’s not my favorite thing to eat, so I decided to make meatloaf because it’s very easy to put together and I knew I would be able to make all 3 dishes in the same time frame to have dinner ready at the same time.

The green beans turned out good, as I expected them to. The corn casserole wasn’t exactly how it should be, but it was still good. It ended up a bit more like a bread than the texture it normally has. That didn’t make it taste bad so I was ok with that. But something weird happened with the meatloaf. I don’t know if an ingredient went bad or if I put something in by mistake, but it was bitter and sour. It was unfortunate because I was hoping to use the leftovers for a few days, but it really was bad and I had to throw it all out. I’m glad that I was the only one who had to taste the mistake I made because I would have been so upset if I ruined dinner for multiple people. And since this was my second Thanksgiving, I was less disappointed than I might have been if I didn’t have my family time a few weeks ago.

And after my dinner, I continued to be lazy that evening. I cleaned up my cooking mess and watched a little bit of tv. But there was nothing else that I needed or wanted to do that evening. It would have been fun to do something with friends, but I was ok being on my own. And because I don’t get that many days off, I just enjoyed having nothing that I had to do that day and just being able to relax. My days off are typically spent doing errands and things to get ready for my week. I’m working on trying to shift that so I’m doing more errands on work days so I really have time off on my days off. But because most places were closed on Thanksgiving, I was forced to take it easy and do nothing. It was a reset that I think I needed before getting back into my regular schedule and some of the craziness that might be coming up.

It might not have been the most traditional Thanksgiving for me, but I think it was the perfect way for me to spend the day. I don’t know if future Thanksgivings will be like this or if my family will eventually switch back to being on regular Thanksgiving. But at least I took advantage of this year and I feel like I did exactly what I should have done on the holiday.

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Fake Thanksgiving Weekend (or A Few Days With My Family)

Posted on November 17, 2022 | Comments Off on Fake Thanksgiving Weekend (or A Few Days With My Family)

This past weekend was my family’s Fake Thanksgiving. As I have mentioned before, this was up in Portland and I was there from Friday until Sunday. I was only able to be there for part of Friday since that was a holiday and I didn’t have work. But it worked out so I was there for dinner on Friday through around lunchtime on Sunday.

After taking the train to meet my parents on Friday, we immediately went to my aunt’s house for a casual dinner. Almost everyone who would be at our Thanksgiving was there for Friday except one cousin who was coming the next day. But it was nice to have a casual dinner with everyone and catch up since I hadn’t seen most of the people there since last year. It was crazy to see how tall my cousin’s kids had gotten since the last time I saw them they were all shorter than me. But one is now taller than me and another will probably be taller than me very soon. I tried to do my best with being social, but I wasn’t feeling great that evening. I know a lot of it was due to the anxiety from flying still affecting me. But being around my family was a good distraction from that feeling.

On Saturday, I had a very chill morning. And it was very clear that my parents’ dog had missed me because he spent his morning leaning against the couch to sit with me (he can’t sit on the furniture, but he can butt up to it and lean).

Then a bit later in the morning, we had our family Orangetheory workout. This was the 9th year we had a Thanksgiving workout (although in 2020 we all did workouts in our homes) and it was only my dad and me this time. Some of my family have been dealing with medical things that prevented them from working out. And since nobody else does Orangetheory regularly, doing just one workout when they have been having medical issues isn’t the smartest choice. But at least my dad and I were able to keep up the tradition!

I went a bit easy in the workout since it was my 5th workout in the week. But we still both had a great time and I love that this tradition helps to make me feel a bit more productive on a day that I know can feel a bit sluggish with all the food.

I’m sure at some point, I will have to make the collage multiple images, but at least for now, we can still put all 9 photos in one to celebrate this tradition.

After the workout, we had a bit of time before we had to head over to my cousin’s house for dinner. I didn’t get a ton of photos during dinner, but that just means that I was focused on enjoying the time with my family. But it was a fun night. I had never seen my cousin’s house before and it was really cool! Their basement has a small basketball court in it and they have added different mats and springy floors so you can bounce around and do gymnastics and stuff like that on there. We all had a lot of fun hanging out in the basement and goofing off.

And when we were all upstairs in the main living area, it was awesome to see different things that were my grandparents’ in my cousin’s house. The dining room table my grandparents had is now my cousin’s. And there were also little things like vases or decor that I recognized. I think pretty much all of us have random things from my grandparents and it’s cool to see how each of us has incorporated them into our homes.

And of course, we had to do a family photo. But with so many of us (including my niece and nephew who are still little), it’s not easy to get one photo where everyone looks good. I got the photos we took and used the photo stickers you can do through iPhone and was able to do that to photoshop people into the photo and make sure we got one where we all looked ok. And the photo above the fireplace was originally of my cousin’s immediate family, and I changed that to be a photo of my grandparents. I think the end result looks pretty good considering I don’t have real Photoshop.

My last day with my family was on Sunday, and I had to be dropped off at the light rail around 1pm in order to get to the airport on time. That morning, I went with my parents to take the dog for a walk and explore the neighborhood we stayed in. And then my friend Dani, who lives in Portland, came over to the rental house to hang out for a bit. Even though we had just seen each other recently when she had to stay at my place, it was nice to have a hangout that was much more chill.

And that’s pretty much it for my Fake Thanksgiving weekend. I got to spend a good amount of time with my family and have a lot of the traditions that our family has had for a while. I think we are going to continue doing Fake Thanksgiving since it is a lot cheaper to travel when it’s not the holiday. And it doesn’t really matter if we celebrate a few weeks early as long as we still get to have our traditions.

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Getting In Some Extra Rest (or Feeling Like It’s A Super Long Holiday Weekend)

Posted on September 6, 2022 | Comments Off on Getting In Some Extra Rest (or Feeling Like It’s A Super Long Holiday Weekend)

My weekends are usually shorter than what most people get. Since I work a half day on Saturdays, I get about a day and a half each weekend without work. I used to have more time when I was mainly working my box office job since I had all of Sunday and Monday off, plus a half day on Saturday. But since I’ve been back to working both jobs, I’ve gotten pretty used to only having Sunday entirely off of work. And besides only having only one day off of work each week, I’m also used to getting up early every day. Before the pandemic, because my workout schedule was a bit different, I usually got up around 7am every day. Now, I get up at 5:45am most days. And since I do that most of the time, I don’t usually sleep in later than that on my days off.

But I’ve been able to enjoy several days sleeping in recently. I didn’t work out on Thursday or Friday, so I got to sleep in until about 7am both those mornings. And since this was a holiday weekend this past weekend, I also got to sleep in a little bit on Monday. I don’t sleep in that late, but it still feels really nice getting up at 6:30 instead of 5:45 in the morning.

To get 5 days of being able to sleep in a little bit later was such a luxury. I’ve been going to bed a bit too late and not getting enough sleep and this allowed me to be much closer to my sleep goals for multiple days in a row. And I really have felt a lot more rested because I’ve been able to do that. And as much as I want to say that this has motivated me to work on getting to bed earlier, I know that I still need to work a lot more on getting that done. I know that I don’t need as much sleep as some other people might, but I also know that I’m getting less sleep than my body wants and I have been feeling the effects of that.

The last time I had the opportunity to sleep in a bit for so many days was when I had the minor surgery on my foot. But that didn’t feel too restful since I was in pain and dealing with healing. And when I was going through that, I still had my full regular work schedule. So this time, it was much better since I wasn’t working each of those days and I really did get to feel like I had some time off.

I didn’t do much with my extra long weekend. I did need the time to do a lot of nothing. I am still trying to get my back to feel better so I’ve been doing a lot of stretching and pain management. I’m not completely better yet, but I’m doing significantly better than I was last week. I feel like the pain is much duller and like a bruise than muscle spasms. And it’s not happening as often so I can move more with less pain. I also did a lot of cleaning that I had been putting off last week since my back was hurting. I usually start to feel uncomfortable when my place starts to feel dirty (even though I know it’s still clean), so being able to take the time to clean and then rest when my back was hurting too much was nice.

I probably could have been more social with my long weekend, especially since I did have the chance to sleep in later so I didn’t have to worry about being out late. But just relaxing at home and not doing much ended up being the perfect way for me to spend a long weekend and get myself ready for another busy work week.

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