Tag Archives: positivity

Focusing On The Happy (or What Will Be Good At Thanksgiving)

Posted on November 19, 2015 | Comments Off

After talking about how stressed out I’m getting about getting everything done before Thanksgiving, I decided to take a step back and focus on the good things that will be happening next week. I think I realized that I need to focus on the good after reflecting on my happiness checklist yesterday. I’ve realized that happiness and good things haven’t been as much of a focus as it should be and I wanted to remedy that.

Obviously, we are all trying to remember that last Thanksgiving was pretty epic and will likely be impossible to top. It wasn’t just that almost the entire family was there at one time, but we had amazing weather and everyone seemed to have a great time. We have the same rental house this year as we did last year, but since my grandpa won’t be there (and a few other family members will be missing due to scheduling issues), it won’t be the same even if we have the amazing weather again.

I’m really excited to see my family. So many family visits lately have been a bit on the sad side, so it will be nice to have a family gathering that should be happier. There are a couple of things that have been planned for Thanksgiving (that I can’t share yet because they are surprises) that may bring a bit of a somber mood, but I think we are all focused on making our family holiday a happy thing.

I’m super excited to give my mom her Hanukkah gift. I’ll be sharing what I got her next week (again, I can’t ruin the surprise), but I think that she’s going to be shocked by what I got and I think she will love it. And I can’t wait to give my dad his birthday present because I think it’s something that he’ll be so happy to have but never would have bought for himself.

I can’t wait to see my cousin’s kids and do some face painting on them. I bought a big face paint kit this year and I think it will be a bit crazy when my cousins and I start painting their faces. We can get more creative than we’ve been in the past, but we can get over the top as well. But I know that when the kids have their faces painted and they are showing the designs off to everyone that the entire family should be smiling. I think everyone has gotten a kick out of this weird tradition that I started by accident.

And of course, I can’t wait to see the dog! It’s been a while since I’ve seen him and he’s gotten so much bigger! I’ll be working with him on a trick or two and my parents have been telling me how much better he’s gotten with his obedience training. The other day Tucker was at the dog park and tore up his skin from a bush. My parents didn’t realize he was hurt at first because he didn’t cry, limp, or show any signs of being injured. But once they saw it they took him to the vet to get it checked out (we might be a bit overly cautious because of what happened with Chaucer). The vet said it needed to be cleaned and stitched up so that was done. And instead of putting Tucker in the cone of shame, the vet recommended putting Tucker in a shirt so he can’t lick at his stitches.

I think he looks so silly and cute at the same time! I don’t know if he will still need to be wearing a shirt next week (his stitches don’t come out until after Thanksgiving), but he will look cute whether he’s clothed or naked. Tucker is officially now our dog with the most scars. And they’ve all been very minor injuries that Tucker doesn’t even notice. That dog either doesn’t have a ton of pain receptors or he is so distracted when he’s playing that he ignores any pain he has. But all his scars have fun stories and he seems to not mind visiting the vet (I don’t know if he loves being in the shirt).

And of course, the food and company are things to look forward to next week. I’ll be in San Diego for about 3 days so I’ll have a lot of time to hang out (even if I do have to work the day before and the day after Thanksgiving). No matter what happens over Thanksgiving, I’m so grateful that I have the chance to spend time with 4 generations of my family and be surrounded by people who I love and who love me. I know that that is a luxury that not everyone has and I need to be grateful that I do have that.

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged family, happiness, holidays, positivity, San Diego, Thanksgiving

Hard Time At The Hard Rock Cafe 5K (or At Least I Looked Awesome!)

Posted on November 10, 2015 | 6 comments

This past Saturday was the Hard Rock Cafe 5K (this year they also had a 10K, but I wasn’t going to do a 10K). It was my 3rd year doing this race and I was really excited to be doing the race again this year. And even more exciting, my friend Kate flew down to LA for the weekend to do the race with me (more about our weekend adventures tomorrow).

I wish I could tell you that I killed it at the race and everything went amazing. But sadly, that wasn’t the case.

I’m not 100% sure what happened, but things seemed weird starting the night before. As I was going to bed, I said to Kate how it didn’t feel like the night before a race. Maybe it’s because someone was sleeping in my living room. Maybe it was because I hadn’t gone to the bib pickup that day to get all my race stuff (Kate and I were going to pick our race things up on Saturday morning).

On race day, I was up at 4:30am and we were out the door by 5:15. Traffic was light so we got to the Hard Rock Cafe nice and early. We got our race stuff, went back down to my car in the parking structure, and got ready. Once it was closer to 6am, we went back up to the street to warm up and make sure we had good spots in the starting area so Kate could avoid the walkers and I could be out-of-the-way for the runners.

And of course, we had to take a pre-race photo together.

Kate went up to the front of the pack after that and I hung back and tried to relax and not stress out about the race. While I was waiting for the race to start, I managed to make a few new friends because of the awesome tank top I was wearing that day (hi Susie!!). The race was supposed to start at 7am, but we ended up starting closer to 7:15am.

Right from the beginning, things didn’t feel right to me. My legs were stiff from waiting so long for the start of the race and I was feeling pain in my shins and calf starting at the half mile mark. As much as I wanted to push myself, I was struggling. I checked out my tracking app on my phone at the 1 mile marker and saw that the first mile was about 30 seconds slower than what my mile time was at my PR.

At that point, I realized it would be pretty impossible to make up that time plus be 30 seconds faster on the next two miles, so I stopped trying to push as hard and decided to just focus on finishing without having to take a break.

Right after that realization, Kate was passing me going back toward the finish line. She was having a tough race as well (but she ended up placing 4th in our division, 7th in women, and 41st in the entire race).

The rest of the race seemed to take a while. I tried to focus on the streets going by and knowing that I will be done with the race soon enough. My race photos are all pretty serious looking since I was so focused.

As I was almost at the finish line, I saw Kate hanging out there waiting for me to finish. She walked next to me for the last minute and we both were sharing how we had pretty bad race days. I crossed the finish line about 90 seconds slower than my PR (I split the different between my time at the Hard Rock Cafe 5K last year and the Hollywood Half 5K in April).

Even though I didn’t PR, I still got my amazing medal!

After the race, Kate and I got breakfast at the Hard Rock Cafe and I got one last photo on the stairs to the Dolby theater to celebrate completing my race.

As soon as I got home, I added my newest medal to my wall (which is starting to look very full now).

Even though the race wasn’t great for me, I did it and I didn’t finish last (which is something that I am terrified of doing one day). I’m so proud of Kate for how well she finished in the race and I’m glad that neither of us really gave up.

While I love my race medal (it’s so sparkly!), my favorite thing from the race was the shirt that I wore! I ordered a tank top from Mighty Petunia after doing a random google search for motivational tank tops. So many motivational tank tops are silly and cheesy, but I love the messages that are on the Mighty Petunia tanks. They are fun and I am already picking out which ones I want next! And I got a ton of compliments on it at the race.

Since I loved my Mighty Petunia tank top so much, Cathy (who is the owner of Mighty Petunia) has given me a promo code to share with all of you! If you buy something from their site, use the promo code “Bombshell” and you’ll get 10% off of your order. And the shirts are so reasonably priced already so the 10% off is just icing on the cake! I hope that you guys will take advantage of the discount and support this great business!

While my race day wasn’t great, I managed to find ways to keep a somewhat positive mindset and was able to focus on the things that made me happy (like my tank top and the medal I got at the finish line). My next 5K is in April and while I’m hoping I’ll PR at that race, I just want to have a more positive race experience and I’ll be happy.

6 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Shopping, Tough Stuff

Tagged 5K, friends, medals, motivation, online shopping, positivity, race, shopping, struggle, walking

Just A Bad Day (or This Time It Wasn’t A Bad Hour)

Posted on August 4, 2015 | 3 comments

I wrote just the other day about my panic/gallbladder attack that made me have a really bad hour in what was otherwise a relatively good day. That wasn’t so bad. But this past Sunday, I just had a bad day. And instead of trying to feel better (and in turn then feeling worse because it wasn’t getting better), I just let the bad day play out.

The bad day actually starting with my sleep. I had a horrible night sleeping. It was a combination of the heat and having some heartburn issues (those are rare) so I kept waking up and staying awake for a long time. Over the course of the night, I think I got about 4 hours of sleep. I usually need between 6-7 to feel rested.

Not only did I have a bad night sleeping, I overslept because I was so tired in the morning that I didn’t hear my multiple alarms going off (or I managed to turn them off in my sleep). I ended up oversleeping about 3 hours so the start of my day ended up being rushed.

If I wasn’t rushing around enough that morning, I had a major delay with my first chore I was trying to get done. I have laundry on-site where I live. We have one washer and one dryer and while they do break down from time to time, it’s usually pretty obvious when they aren’t working (like they don’t turn on). I did my load of laundry and when I got it out of the dryer, the dryer had been turning but there was no heat or warmth. So my clothes were just slightly less wet but they were still cold and wet.

I wasn’t going to waste more money in a broken dryer so I put a note on it for my neighbors to see and threw all my wet clothes in my car and drove to a laundromat that is in a strip mall near my house.

I paid again to dry my clothes but instead of being able to do other things while my clothes dried, I was stuck there watching. I did have a book with me so I did read. But I felt like my time was almost wasted.

The reason I was rushing around so much was because I had to work that evening. I got my clothes dried and dressed into work clothes in time to drive to work. I was prepared for another long shift so I had my book and was looking forward to getting paid for reading (the best thing ever!).

Only to find out that my shift was going to be less than 4 hours instead of 6 hours like I thought it would be. Yes, it was good I wouldn’t have to be there as late. But I really could have used the extra money and if I had known I would be done so early I might have tried to make some plans for the evening.

Then toward the end of my work shift, I felt my necklace slide down my neck. I caught it only to discover that the chain had broken toward the middle.

I couldn’t find a broken link (I’m now thinking that maybe one link totally broke and fell to the floor) and there was no way to put it back on. So I put the chain and the charm in my wallet and continued on with my work shift (although my neck felt naked from then on).

After my shift ended, I went home to end my day. Honestly, this day kind of stunk for me from beginning to end. I know I try to always think positively, but sometimes you just have to realize that you are going to have to suffer through the day and hope that the next day is better (it was). I still tried to get things done even though I felt like the world was against me. And while it wasn’t my most productive day, I still did what I needed to do. I just didn’t get everything done.

I hate having a bad day and not being able to reduce it to a bad hour or bad morning. But I have to know those days do pass and it will be back to normal happy days quickly.

3 Comments

Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged negativity, positivity, work

A Week Of Workout Wins (Or 3 Days Of Awesomeness)

Posted on July 27, 2015 | Comments Off

I might have only had 3 workouts this week (I’m not trying to make 3 workout weeks a habit but my schedule is tough right now), but I really had 3 amazing workouts. And it wasn’t just what I got done in the class, it was a bunch of other things too.

To start with my wins in the workout, I did continue to push myself on the treadmill a bit more. I was able to do more on Monday than on Wednesday or Friday because I started the increased dosage of Vyvanse on Wednesday (so I had to be careful with my heart rate). I wasn’t able to push myself with the weights as much as I would have liked, but I did experiment with a heavier weight and heavier medicine ball for a bit. I wasn’t able to do it all with the heavier things, but at least I tried.

Now for the things that totally made my workout week.

On Monday I was hanging out in the lobby waiting for the last class to end so I could go into the room and get my treadmill (I’m particular about what treadmill I use). I noticed that there was a guy who looked familiar in the room, but I couldn’t get a good look at him. But I looked up at the heart rate monitor screen above the treadmills and saw my friend Sean’s name up there! Sean and I worked together at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios years ago and I haven’t seen him in forever!

After his class ended, I went up to him to say hi and he seemed pretty happy to see me too!

He actually was talking to people in the lobby during my class so when my class ended he and I got to catch up for a bit. That really made my day on Monday!

Then on Wednesday I got to Orangetheory and signed in. The manager said that she had something for me. She brought out a box that had old ink cartridges in it! I had mentioned a few weeks ago to the owner that I recycle ink to help pay for my Disneyland pass and he saved their inks for me! That was so awesome and made me feel so special! Now I have another $10 toward my pass (and they said that they would continue to save inks for me).

And finally, on Friday I had a non-scale victory (which I needed because I haven’t had a lot of victories on the scale lately). I’ve gotten all of my workout clothes from Old Navy. They really seem to be the only company that has cute workout clothes in my size (and workout pants that don’t look like diapers on me). I’ve mainly bought workout pants in black so they go with any of the tank tops I own. I’ve gotten a couple of pairs of patterned workout pants but have never looked how they looked on me.

I recently took advantage of a promo code at Old Navy that you could use on clearance clothes. I was able to get workout pants for about $10 each! I got some basic black ones and another pair of patterned ones. And this past Friday, I finally felt comfortable enough to wear them to my workout!

I’m kind of in love with those pants. They were so comfortable and I think they looked really cute too! I’m thinking about trying the other patterned ones that I have and have only worn at home again. Maybe now I can be confident enough to wear them in workouts (which is why I bought them).

I love that this past week of workouts were so positive for me. I haven’t really been in a workout slump but I did hit a bit of a personal slump lately. I working on getting out of that as quickly as possible. Hopefully with my workout being so awesome it can now spread to other things being awesome as well!

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Shopping

Tagged clothes, friends, online shopping, Orangetheory, positivity, workout

Another Therapist Check In (or Showing Off My Happiness Checklist)

Posted on July 23, 2015 | 5 comments

I had another appointment with my therapist this week. Last time I was there, he gave me homework to do over the next 90 days (the number of days between my appointments). I was to make a checklist of 10 things that make me happy and track how many I do each day. The goal wasn’t to do all 10 every day (I don’t think I ever did that), but it was to try to make sure that I at least do some every day.

I did this for 90 days (my appointment ended up being on day 89 so I finished it the day after my appointment). And my checklist looked pretty full.

I brought my (almost) completed checklist with me to my appointment to show my doctor. It was the first thing we discussed and honestly I think he was pretty surprised that I did it. He said that many patients start one and only keep it up for a couple of days and others never actually do it. But I wanted to prove that I’m taking this seriously and I’m not just going to therapy to get medication (although that is what started this process).

He told me to continue my checklist for the next 60 days (again, it’s the length of time between my appointments). I had to make a new checklist and I was allowed to keep any or all of the previously happiness items on the list. I decided to keep all but one of them. I changed shopping/beauty because while that does make me happy, my financial situation prevents me from doing it as often as I’d like. Nothing else on my list is restricted by money so I figured that that one was meant to go. In place of shopping/beauty I put binge free day. It’s a bit controversial that I listed lack of eating disorder symptoms as something that makes me happy, but hopefully my therapist will be ok with this.

After going over my checklist, we discussed how I was doing on Vyvanse. I’ve been very torn about the medication. It has helped a tiny bit (I’d say I’ve had many a 5% improvement) but I don’t want to take something if it isn’t making a significant change in my life. There are side effects that can be dangerous and I want to be in a place where the benefits outweigh the side effects.

My therapist seemed to understand my feelings and how I don’t want to give up on Vyvanse but I don’t know if continuing to take it is the right choice. So we are going to try changing up my dosage to see if that helps. I’m now going to take one pill in the morning and another pill right before lunch time. I just started this yesterday so I have no idea yet how it will really affect me or if it’s going to work a lot better. But I am very hopeful. I have to be since I know that many things can be affected if you are positive or not. So I’m going to remain positive about this and give it the best shot I can.

My therapist said that the best plan is to take the medication and forget about it. I shouldn’t make it the focus of my day (I wonder how he feels about me writing an entire blog post about it?). So if I’m supposed to forget about the medication, I’m going to focus on the happiness checklist and seeing how much I can get checked off in the next 60 days.

5 Comments

Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged binge eating, doctor, eating disorder, happiness, medication, positivity

Feeling So Much Love (or Embarrassed By People Complimenting Me)

Posted on May 15, 2015 | 1 comment

On Monday after my workout, I posted the following photo.

I took it because during my workout I realized that I did a horrible job of taking of my mascara from the night before and thought it was pretty bad that I had mascara smudges and sweat marks on my face. I’m usually much better about removing makeup pre-workout. I was also pretty proud of the workout I had just done, but I’ll share more about that in my Monday post where I recap my workout week.

Right after I shared that picture online, I started to get lot of really sweet comments from friends of mine. Some shared them publicly and some shared them in a private message. But they were all pretty positive and made me feel pretty great.

Then that evening, I shared this photo online.

I was celebrating having my new mattress in my house. It was a crazy morning having it delivered and the first time I got to lay down on the mattress was at bedtime. It felt like a hotel mattress and I felt so spoiled. So that’s why I shared that picture (also to thank my parents and Grandma for letting me have the mattress). I really didn’t think much about it when I posted it.

Again, I got lots of positive comments on the photos.

I love all the love that I got from everyone, but sometimes I feel like a fraud when people tell me that they are inspired by me or how they are so proud with how well I’ve been doing. I question if I deserve that positivity or if I’m not sharing my true self online (I hate when people only share the good of their lives and not the good, bad, and ugly).

I’m still struggling every day with my eating disorder. In fact, I feel like I’m struggling more than before because I feel like the Vyvanse should be doing more than it is. I wonder if I’m doing something wrong that is making the medication not effective for me. I wonder why I can’t have it work for me the way that the drug tests claim that it worked. Because of this, I’m harder on myself every time that I have an episode.

Sometimes I think that I don’t deserve people to be inspired by me or proud of me. People should be looking up to people who have conquered their struggles, not are in the battle with them.

And I’m sure I’m being too hard on myself. I know that I look up to people who are public with their struggles. But I usually look at them as someone who is done with the struggle, not in the middle of it.

But maybe I do need to look at myself the way that others look at me. I should be proud of myself for working out 3-4 times a week (a lot of people don’t do that), for continuing to battle my eating disorder (and not just give into it), and for just trying to do everything I try to do.

I’m going to work on seeing myself the way that my friends do. Using them as the mirror to see myself in and hopefully not being as hard on myself in the future.

1 Comment

Posted in Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged binge eating, eating disorder, friends, photos, positivity, tough

Is Helpfulness Out Of Style? (or Shocking People)

Posted on May 6, 2015 | Comments Off

Over the past few days, I’ve had several friends say to me how nice it was of me to help them. I’ve helped friends with rides, finding cheap airport parking, reconnecting makeup artists to actors, advice on blogging, and shopping finds. It’s not a big deal to me at all. Someone needs something and I know it. So I help them. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve got a bit of downtime between customers at my day job so I can use that free time to research things for people if they don’t have time themselves.

But the way that some of my friends have thanked me have made it seem like they were shocked that I would go out of my way to do something for someone that I wouldn’t get anything out of. And that shocked reaction has stuck with me because it seemed like a no-brainer to help out.

I’ve always tried to be a helpful person. When I moved to LA, there were so many actors who weren’t willing to share any advice with me and said that I needed to find my own way and learn my own lessons. When I started my blog, I had some bloggers say a similar thing to me. It took me by surprise that people didn’t want to help out someone just starting out.

Now, I need to say that these people are in the minority, but what they said and how they refused to help me have stuck out in my mind. Even more so than all the people who were willing to help. But I think in most things in life, the negativity sticks out in your memory a lot more than any amount of positivity.

So when someone needs help with something that I can help with, I don’t question it for a second. I do what I can and hopefully either I or another person can get them what they need.

Why can’t this be the rule instead of the exception? Why are people not willing to help out like they used to? Why do people need to learn their own lessons instead of learning from other’s mistakes (isn’t that what history classes are pretty much all about)?

I’d love it if being helpful could become more common. I’d love it if the next time I help someone, they can just say “thank you” and not be shocked that I am willing to help.

Why is this so difficult for people? As an actor and blogger I guess I could see that people don’t want to help someone who could be considered competition. I just don’t get that. For acting, if a part is meant for me it’s meant for me. It doesn’t matter if my direct competition is there or not. And as a blogger, I doubt that someone would lose out on an advertiser or sponsored post because of me because every blogger has a slightly different story. So maybe I just don’t view my “competition” as competition. One of them is a good friend of mine.

I don’t know how to make this change in the world except to keep being helpful myself. And hopefully others will pass on the helpfulness to others.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, competition, friends, helpful, positivity

Sometimes It’s Not About Me (or Not Freaking Out)

Posted on October 23, 2014 | 1 comment

This past Tuesday, I was supposed to have an in-person interview for a babysitting job with the mom who didn’t want to hire me for a previous job because she could not read my entire background check.

This in-person interview was discussed during a phone interview I had with her last week. I had requested that she send me a formal interview request through UrbanSitter (the babysitting site I’m registered on) so that I would have all of her information and the request would block off my calendar so other families don’t request me for the same time.

I didn’t think too much more about it because the mom promised to put the request in.

Then the weekend came and I heard nothing from her. I sent her a message on UrbanSitter mentioning that she had said she wanted to do an in-person interview but I had not received the request yet. I let her know that I was keeping that time open to her and not accepting jobs with other families.

I still heard nothing back from her.

I started to freak out. What did I do wrong? Did the mom read my previous post and didn’t like what I said (although I don’t think that I made her sound bad)?

I really started going back in my head every encounter I had with this mom (which was pretty much 2 phone calls and a few messages through UrbanSitter) and couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong that she was no longer interested in interviewing me for this other position she needed filled (basically a driver for her daughter who is a child actor).

Finally on Tuesday, I realized that I was not going to hear from this mom through the UrbanSitter app. She might not get alerts that there are messages waiting for her like I do. So I looked up her phone number from our phone interview request on the app and called her and left her a voicemail. This already made me nervous because I don’t like sending messages to parents outside the app without previous discussing that.

About 30 seconds after hanging up the phone, I got a text message from the mom. She forgot that she had said she wanted to do an in-person interview that day and was out of town on business. She asked if we could reschedule when she was back in town.

I sent the mom a text back saying that I would be happy to reschedule and it wasn’t a problem that she forgot.

I felt so stupid for worrying about this. I did nothing wrong so why had I been so worried? But this is a common issue for me. I’ve had this with all of my day jobs. Whenever I’ve been called in to speak with my boss, my first instinct is that I did something wrong and I’m about to be fired. This is probably because I’ve had so many horrible day jobs in the past.

But I’m trying to think positively about my day jobs. I know that I’m doing great work and that my bosses know that I’m working as hard as I can. But sadly, that little negative part of my brain keeps acting up. I just need to learn how to make it quiet.

1 Comment

Posted in Tough Stuff, Work

Tagged babysitting, job, negativity, positivity

An Evening At Urgent Care (or Why Being Polite Is Always Best)

Posted on September 3, 2014 | 1 comment

Yesterday, I had to go to urgent care. Since Friday, I’ve had a sore throat and my ear was hurting. I tried to just wait it out, but since I’ll be seeing my mom and grandparents this weekend, I wanted to get checked out (none of them can afford to get sick right now).

First of all, I’ll let you all know that I’m fine. It’s a virus that caused a little sore on my throat. I just have to wait it out (like I thought). But at least I know now that I won’t get anyone sick this weekend.

I tried to schedule an appointment with my doctor first, but there were no times that wouldn’t cause me to miss work. And since it’s only my second week, I didn’t want to have to ask for time off.

So I took the chance with urgent care. You never know how long it will take, so I went in prepared to be there for several hours and had my Kindle with me.

When I checked it, I had a smile on my face and was polite to the receptionist. I know that she has to deal with sick and annoyed people all day and I figured by being nice I would at least make a little part of her day easier. I did the same thing with the second check in receptionist (who takes the payment for the appointment).

They told me that it might be an hour or so and I was fine with that. I said thank you and went to take a seat in the waiting area.

But before I could get my Kindle out and open, my name was called to go back! I was shocked that they were ready to see me so quickly!

The nurse that I met with was also very nice and friendly. She was happy that I was prepared for my appointment with all my vital information that they need (allergies, prescriptions, general stats). And she also thought it was very nice of me to let her know that my blood pressure has to be taken on the lower portion of my arm (I’m not sure why, but when it’s on my upper arm I either have very high or very low blood pressure).

I was brought back to the room and the nurse let me know that she was going to make sure that I was the next patient that the doctor would see. And no joke, a minute later the doctor walked in!

After the quick exam where the doctor determined that this was a virus and that I didn’t need a prescription, she sent me on my way. My mom had guessed that this was exactly what was wrong with me, so I was happy to have a quick diagnosis (and not needing to wait for a prescription).

As I headed to the parking garage to get my car, I realized that I only arrived there 30 minutes before! I was in and out so quickly!

I know that it wasn’t because urgent care was empty (there were lots of people in line to check in and waiting in the waiting area). And I probably wasn’t the most urgent person for them to see. The only idea that I have is because I was polite and pleasant to deal with. So everyone I encountered at the hospital wanted to help me out and make sure that I didn’t have to be there that long.

I’m happy to be polite around other people. I know how bad it feels when a customer is angry and rude to you (I’ve dealt with that at plenty of jobs). And when you are rude, things only seem to take longer. So I try to go in with a positive mindset and keep calm.

If everyone could work on being a bit more positive and polite when dealing with people, the world would seriously be such a better place.

1 Comment

Posted in Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged doctor, positivity, sick, urgent care

Day Trip To San Diego (or Driving Disasters)

Posted on July 29, 2014 | 3 comments

This past Saturday I went down to San Diego to spend the day with my grandparents. I hadn’t seen them since Thanksgiving, so I was way overdue for a trip down there.

The drive from my house to my grandparents’ place usually takes exactly 2 hours from my door to their door. There’s always a little traffic, but I usually can time out my drives to be when there’s the least traffic.

My drive down was pretty bad. From my house until Disneyland I was going at full speed. Then all of a sudden, traffic was ridiculous. I averaged about 20-30mph for the rest of the drive. It took me 4 hours to get there, and once I did arrive I was pretty exhausted.

As soon as I got to San Diego I picked up my grandpa to take him to the grocery store. That was a very easy and quick errand and we were back to my grandparents’ place within 30 minutes. Then I got to spend some nice quality time with my grandparents just chatting about anything.

We discussed my job situation, Tucker (who my grandparents haven’t met yet), politics, and lots of other random stuff. What I found most interesting was my grandpa talking about his time in WWII and the Korean War. I only learned recently that he was in WWII (it’s not something that’s ever really ever been discussed in my family) and I only learned on Saturday about my grandpa being a part of the Korean War. I know that my grandpa has been working on a book of all of his stories, and I really hope that he gets to finish it. There are so many things about him that I don’t know.

I also got to go to dinner with my grandparents. It was nice, but nothing too fancy. After dinner, it was time for me to drive home.

There was no traffic on the road when I started so I figured I’d be home in 2 hours.

Wrong.

After about 30 minutes of driving, my car chimed and in the dash it had a warning that said something like “Hot Engine Temperature”. I’ve had this warning once before and it went away after a minute of driving a little less aggressively. So I thought it might be the case again. Instead, after a few minutes of driving, the car chimed again and the warning now said “Stop Car Now”.

It’s never a good sign when your car says to stop. I pulled over to the shoulder of the freeway and then my car shut off by itself. The first thing I did was call my parents. I’m not sure what they could have done from a distance, but that’s my reaction when anything bad happens.

My dad told me to tell my car cool down for a minute and then to drive to an exit and get a tow back to LA. Fortunately, when my parents renewed my AAA membership they got me AAA Plus. That allowed me to get up to 100 miles of free towing (my old membership only had 5 miles of free towing).

When I called AAA, the guy who answered the phone knew exactly where I was from my description (it was an abandoned parking lot off of an exit near Camp Pendleton) so he could give the tow truck very clear directions for me.

Then I had to wait about 90 minutes for the truck to arrive. I tried to not be too upset or mad because I didn’t know what was wrong with my car but I was pretty sure I didn’t do anything to cause it. At least I had a nice view from the place I was waiting.

The tow truck finally arrived and I’ll admit that it was a little sad watching my car get put onto the tow bed.

2 hours riding in the tow truck later (which by the way I had the most awesome tow truck driver, Bob), I was home and my car was being unloaded.

I was able to drive my car into my driveway and when I did the warnings had all gone away. But I knew that there was something wrong with my car and I didn’t want to drive it until it was fixed.

Fortunately, I found a repair shop close to my house and open on Sunday! It’s called Fix Car Now and they have a couple of different locations. I took my car in Sunday at 8am and the shop gave me a ride back home so I didn’t have to wait there. At 9am I found out that the water pump cooling system for my hybrid motor (the electric motor, not the gas one) was broken. It’s a known issue for my car so they were able to get parts for it pretty easily.

It took until yesterday for them to finish my car, but I did get my car back and it’s running even better than before. My car had issues over the past few years switching from the gas engine to the electric engine. But now that my car was fixed, it’s switching as quickly as it did when I got it!

The lesson in all of this for me was to stay focused on positives and being grateful even when things seem to suck. I’ve owned my car since 2008 (I got it used) and besides having a dead battery once (the normal battery, not the hybrid one), this is the first problem I’ve ever had with this car. And since I’m not working yet, my parents were willing to help me the cost of this repair. And while I was sitting in the tow truck really mad about everything, I tried to find a really good positive about this situation. The one I came up with was technically the tow ride was saving me gas money since I didn’t drive my car home.

Even in the worst circumstances there’s always something positive you can focus on. Even if it’s something small or stupid, that’s what I need to think about and not all the negative things.

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Posted in Family, Tough Stuff, Travel

Tagged car, grandparents, gratitude, positivity, San Diego

Tag Archives: positivity

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