Tag Archives: prepared

Some Dri-Tri Prep Workouts (or Trading One Ailment For Another)

Posted on April 1, 2019 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts were interesting for me. I was finally getting over my bronchitis, but I also started dealing with nausea. It was really annoying timing because the day I was finally feeling better from one thing was the day that I started being nauseous. It was also an interesting week because the workouts were designed to help us get ready for the Dri-Tri. At the beginning of the week, I was on the waitlist for the Dri-Tri, but by Friday I knew I was officially in. I was hoping to get in so I did do my workouts with the assumption that I was prepping for it.

Monday’s workout was the class that was very clearly prep for the Dri-Tri. We had a workout with endurance, strength, and power and the endurance portion of the class was a 2000 meter row benchmark. This is the same distance that we have as the row for the Dri-Tri. While it is a benchmark, we don’t do it that often so I was happy that I had it as a part of my workout so I could have an idea of what I’d be able to do.

I knew I wouldn’t get a personal best with the row because of how I was feeling. I also know that my endurance is still lower than it’s been before so I have to work up to that again. But I still wanted to set a goal time in my head. I would have loved to have been under 9 minutes, but I knew that would be pushing myself too much. I wanted to push myself a little, but also not hurt myself or make it so that rowing throughout the week would be painful. So I went with just wanting to be able to do the row in under 9 1/2 minutes. That’s still better than many of my 2000 meter rows and it seemed like a good number to have in my head.

I was pretty steady with my rowing. I didn’t change up the speed for a majority of the row. I was just going and trying to not push too hard since that is the downfall for longer rows. I kept checking in with my time and my distance and saw I was right about what I would need to be to get to my goal time. But I also knew at the halfway mark that I’m often slower for the second half than the first half and if I wanted to hit my goal I would need to push it at the end. So when I got to the last 200 meters, I just went hard and I made it under my goal!

The cardio work was decreasing distance runs. We were doing our own tracking and timing. For the bike, it started at 2 trips and then we had a minute to recover. Each round went down by .4 with a recovery after. I was trying my best to track my distance each time, but sometimes I got a bit distracted. I always went the full 2 trips if I forgot what distance I started at. I figured overdoing it was better than under-doing it.

And on the floor, we had a mix of Bosu work and weight work. On the Bosu, we had back extensions and running men. For weights we had squats to overhead presses and tricep work. We also had bicycle crunches. I was going heavy for my tricep work and medium heavy for the overhead presses. Even though I was going from being on the ground to standing up over and over, my nausea wasn’t kicking in during that the way I was expecting it to. That was a nice surprise and allowed me to do more rounds on the floor than I thought I would be able to do.

Wednesday’s workout was a strength based class, and it ended up being special because I realized it was my 50th class of 2019! I’m ahead of my goal for my workouts this year and that’s exactly where I want to be. I want to be ahead so that when I do have a week where I can’t do 4 workouts that I already have workouts banked to cover that.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks that had a similar format. We started with doing a distance run/bike and we were supposed to go to a recovery once we hit that distance. I was having a really bad nausea day, so I never hit the distance by the time we were moving on. But that just meant I skipped the recovery time which was fine since I wasn’t pedaling too hard. After the distance each block, we had incline work. We increased the incline/resistance level every 30 seconds and it ended with an all out pace. The way the resistance levels worked for me, I increased the level every 30 seconds and 1 level higher than the hill was my all out level which worked out nicely.

On the rower, we had 2 similar blocks. We started with a 2 minute timed row. After the row we had lunges with rotations for the first block and regular lunges for the second block. Then we did half the distance we got on the 2 minute row with more lunges. And we ended with cutting the distance in half again. I never made it to the lunges after the 3rd row, but I was happy with how I was doing with the rower for all my distances.

And the floor was 1 long block with almost all weighted exercises. For weighted exercises we had kneeling low rows, sitting shoulder presses to stands, hip hinge reverse flies, and double crunches. We also had low rows on the straps. Because of the nausea I was dealing with, I had to go a bit lighter on the weights. I was able to go a bit heavy on the double crunches since I was laying on my back, but the other exercises were bringing my nausea out a bit.

Friday was my last regular workout of the week and the first workout I had were I knew for sure I’d be doing the Dri-Tri. I went easy on myself because of the nausea and because I knew I’d have a hard day the next day. I’m glad I knew to go easy because I would have hated it if I worked hard and was sore and then found out I got off the wait list for the Dri-Tri.

The cardio was 2 blocks with hill climbs. Each block started with a 90 second hill where the incline/resistance level increased every 30 seconds. We had a base pace with no incline work before a 90 second push pace without incline. Both blocks ended with a push pace and an all out pace. I was using my new resistance levels for all the work and the hill work was around the levels I use for my push and all out paces.

On the rower, the first block was timed rows with lunges between each row. We had a 90 second row, 60 second row, and 30 second row. The second block was distance rows with lunges between. The rows were 400 meters, 200 meters, and 100 meters. I did pretty well with how far I got with the timed rows and how quickly I could do the distance rows. But I struggled a lot with the lunges. For the second block, I decided to do squats instead. It can get tough for me to step over the rower to have the space for the lunges and I can do squats just standing over the rower.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks as well. The first block had sit-ups to sumo squats, goblet squats, and bicep curls. I had to separate the sit-ups and sumo squats because it’s very difficult for me to do them as a single move. But because I split them, I could go heavier with the weight I used. And the second block was push-ups, squats, and side plank rotations. The second block was a bit harder for me in terms of my nausea, but it wasn’t as bad as it was on Wednesday.

After my 3 workouts for the week, I did feel as prepared as I could be for the Dri-Tri. I am always a little nervous before doing it and I’ve got a little extra nerves this time because I’ve never had to do the Dri-Tri while getting over a cold and dealing with nausea. But I know I did a lot of work during my workouts to be in the best place I could be going into it. My expectations were lower than other times and I was curious to see what would happen. And I’ll be writing about how it went a little later this week!

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged challenge, dri-tri, fitness, Orangetheory, prepared, workout

Dri-Tri Prep Workouts (or The Beginning Of My Workout Week)

Posted on September 24, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts consisted of 3 regular workouts and the Dri-Tri. My experience of the Dri-Tri is going to be in a different post (I feel like it always deserves its own post), so this is just about my first 3 workouts of the week.

Monday’s workout was a weird one for me. I got to the workout feeling really good and doing my warm-up on the treadmill since I wasn’t feeling nauseous anymore. I was fine during the warm-up but as soon as I added incline to do the first push pace, the nausea returned. I was really disappointed in this because this workout was a power day and it was going to be a great day to work on running (which I wanted to do to prepare for the Dri-Tri), but I couldn’t keep going on the treadmill feeling like that and switched to the bike.

With the exception of the first push pace in the first block, all of the blocks on the cardio side were about doing all out paces and walking recoveries. Each block had the same pattern with the all out pace being the same amount of time and the walking recovery increasing by 15 seconds each time. Each block had 4 all out paces and 3 recoveries and the all out paces were 1 minute, 45 seconds, and 30 seconds. Since I was feeling frustrated on the bike, I decided to push myself more than normal. I did my normal all out resistance for the 1 minute block. For the 45 second block I did 2 levels higher which I rarely use. And for the 30 second block I went another 2 levels higher which I usually only use if there is supposed to be a high incline on the treadmill for hill work. It wasn’t easy, but it made me feel better about being on the bike.

On the floor, we ended each block with an all out on the rower to go along with the last all out that the people on the treadmill were doing. But before that row, we had regular exercises to do. The first block was clean to press with weights and goblet squats. I went really heavy with my weight for the goblet squats and my legs were really feeling that the next day (probably the work with high resistance on the bike also made my legs sore). The second block was squats to high rows with weights and running man. And the last block was plank leg raises and double crunches. And with all the rowing all outs, I tried to get my rowing to be the best form possible while going quickly and with a lot of strength coming from my legs. Our rowers were set to MPH instead of wattage and I was able to get the MPH higher each time I was on the rower.

Wednesday’s workout was an endurance based run/row and I was a bit nervous about it. My legs were still feeling a bit sore from Monday’s workout (clearly I overdid it a lot) and I didn’t know how I would feel on the treadmill. But somehow, it really felt like we weren’t on the treadmill much at all.

We had 3 blocks of the run/row and it was kind of like we created our own plan. In the first block, we had a 2 1/2 minute row for distance. We had to remember what the distance was and after that we had a recovery row for about a minute. Then we were in the next block. For the second block, we had to row the same distance we got in our 2 1/2 minute row, but the goal was to complete it faster. I managed to take a few seconds off of my row which made me happy. When the row was done, we went to the treadmill and went until the block ended (which was about 4 1/2 minutes for me). I was power walking slightly slower than I normally do because my legs were sore. But it also felt good to be on the treadmill to try to stretch them out a bit. When that block ended, we had to remember the distance on the treadmill. And for the last block, we had to do the distance we got on the treadmill again and then go to the rower to do the distance we did in the first block. And if there was any time left after that, we had to hold a static squat. I finished with about 15 seconds left so I got to do a little bit of squat work before switching to the floor.

The floor also had 3 blocks and in all 3 blocks we had blast-off push-ups. These are push-ups that start with you leaning back like you are getting ready to spring and them push forward to be in a plank to do a push-up. They were not easy to do and they were actually making me feel a bit queasy. It was a different feeling than my hormonal nausea which was interesting to experience in a workout. So I had to be careful with where I was focusing my eyes during these push-ups. In the first block we also had skier swings with weights. The second block we also had uppercuts with weights and triceps with weights. And in the last block we also had weighted squat swings and bicycle crunches. I wasn’t going too heavy on my weights, especially on the squat work because I was sore. But I think because I was sore it felt like I was working harder than I really was, but that’s ok. I also was feeling a bit less sore after the workout than I was when I started.

Friday was my last workout before the Dri-Tri. I was debating if I should go a bit easier on myself so I didn’t get too sore or feel tired the next day, but when I saw it was a power workout I decided not to do that. I was still being a bit cautious and not going too hard, but I also wanted to test myself. I haven’t had a lot of time on the treadmill lately and I haven’t been able to do a lot of running. But with the Dri-Tri I really wanted to try to do some running intervals. So this workout was my last chance to test them out.

It was a 3 group workout so I was on the treadmill for about 15 minutes. We had 3 blocks and they all had a push pace, a base pace, a push pace, and an all out pace. Some of the push paces were a bit longer and over a minute and normally I would try to run those. But since I hadn’t been doing much running at all I decided to limit my running to 30 seconds at a time with the exception of the all out paces which were 45 seconds. While I would love my running intervals to be better and to know at the Dri-Tri I could do better than my last 5K, I’m not there yet. I was already thinking my run intervals for the next day would probably only be able to be 30 or 45 seconds, so limiting my running during the workout was a good prep day for what it would feel like. It wasn’t easy, but I felt a bit more optimistic that it would be possible to do intervals for the Dri-Tri as long as the rowing and floor work don’t burn me out.

Next I was on the rower where we had sprint row intervals. In between the rowing in the first and last block we had squats and in between the rowing in the second block we had lunges. The rowing was all short so a lot of people were pushing themselves to see how fast they could go. I decided to use that time to work on making sure my form is good and that I can stay steady with a pace. I still went a bit faster than I would have liked to, but all my rowing times were under the goal time which is always good. And on the floor we also had 3 blocks. We had lunges, push-ups, single arm chest presses, single arm reverse flys, hopovers, and bicep curls. I wasn’t using the heaviest weights for the weighted work because I didn’t want to be too sore on Saturday. But I still worked hard.

After those 3 workouts, I was cautiously optimistic about my Dri-Tri. I knew that I had done the best I could to be ready for it, but I also knew that there was so much more that I would have liked to do. I would have liked to have more long rowing challenges to test my endurance. I would have liked to be better with my running so I could feel confident that I could do run/walk intervals on the treadmill. And I would have liked to have just felt better about things going into it. There was still a bit of uncertainty on how well I would do, but I had to just keep telling myself that even if I am significantly slower than I ever have been, I will still be able to finish it.

And tomorrow I’ll share about how it went and whether or not I was able to reach any of the goals I had in my head.

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Tagged dri-tri, fitness, Orangetheory, prepared, progress, strong, workout

Observing The Local Board Meeting (or The Beginning Of My Second Term As A Delegate)

Posted on September 21, 2017 | 1 comment

After being elected as a SAG-AFTRA delegate, there’s only a short period of time before the National Convention. So it seems like every day I get more information and more emails and it can feel a bit overwhelming. Fortunately for me, this is my second time doing this so I feel much more prepared than I did 2 years ago. I’ve been trying to stay on top of emails and getting registered for things as they come up. But when all delegates were invited to observe the local board meeting which would include information on the convention after, I RSVPed right away.

I did this same thing 2 years ago but at that time I felt a bit uncertain about everything. I wasn’t sure if I was doing all that I needed to do and was nervous that I was already behind on things. This time, I went into the meeting knowing that I’m already registered for the convention, I know what dates it will be, where it will be, and ready to have the convention here because I know how much I loved it last time.

There was a dinner before the meeting, but I had a dentist appointment before and didn’t know if I’d feel up for having dinner (the dentist was fine and so normal that I’m not blogging about it). When I arrived at SAG-AFTRA, most people were still eating dinner so I headed to the boardroom to get a seat on the observer side. I was able to check in pretty quickly and got my name tag which made me feel pretty official.

The first part of the meeting was the official local board meeting. Since I am not a member of the local board, I was only there as an observer and wasn’t able to participate in much. But I still was able to learn a lot about things like the local committees, upcoming events, and what issues are of concern to the board. There were a few things being debated and many people had questions so it was interesting to be able to sit back and watch. It also made me hopeful that in the future I can observe more local board meetings because it is a great way to get informed on issues and be more involved.

After the board meeting was done, there was a quick break and then we got started on the discussion about the convention. It was almost like a mini-orientation on what to expect and what the schedule would be like. It was also a bit interactive with some fun quiz questions we could answer on our phones and the results would be up on the screen. Of course, we all had fun with those and answered with silly responses just to be entertaining.

It seems like the convention will be very similar to what it was like 2 years ago. We will be voting the same way we did before but we will have more amendments to our union constitution to vote on than last time. So as soon as those amendments are announced I’m going to take some time to take a good look at them all. I do take this seriously and I want to represent the LA actors to best of my ability.

This orientation is really the only time we have to officially get ready for the convention. Fortunately, I have many friends who are elected to higher positions in the union that I can go to if I have questions about things before the convention starts. And I do have the advantage this year of knowing what I’m in for and what I do need to prepare for. Last time, there were some things I over prepared for and some things I under prepared for. And because I will also be working my day job while at the convention (the benefits of working day jobs from my computer), I do need to be prepared.

It’s so crazy to think that in 2 weeks the convention will be starting, but I’m so excited. I’ve been looking forward to this since the convention ended 2 years ago and I can’t believe it’s already here again! I know that the next 2 weeks will fly by and soon I’ll be saying that I can’t wait for the next convention in 2 more years!

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Posted in Acting

Tagged acting, meeting, prepared, SAG-AFTRA, union

A Shorter Workout Week (or Doing Some 5K Prep)

Posted on April 10, 2017 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts was a 3 workout week, but that was for a good reason. I had the Hollywood Half 5K on Saturday so I couldn’t do a Friday or Saturday workout this week. I don’t do workouts the day before a race so I did a Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday workout and it seemed like each of these workouts were designed to help me get ready for the race.

Monday’s workout was an endurance day with a 5K challenge. The idea was to be on the treadmill for 23 minutes and get as close to a 5K as possible. I know there is no way I could do a 5K that fast, but I knew I would be able to get at least 1/2 of a 5K. There were intervals that were given to us, but I didn’t follow that guide. Instead, I stuck with 2 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking intervals since that was what I wanted to do at the race. I’m getting more comfortable with that interval set and it made me feel more confident about the upcoming race after knowing I could do that for 23 minutes. I did 1.616 miles, which isn’t the best I’ve done, but it felt good and that’s what was most important to me.

For the second half of class, each block started with a 1 minute row sprint. In the past, I know I’ve been able to row 300 meters in a minute but I just can’t seem to get back to that. This time, I did 233, 260, and 280 meters. Those aren’t bad at all, but I’m still working on breaking that 300 meter mark again. After those sprint rows, each block was 2 moves that were timed by the coach. Each thing was 45 seconds and we switched back and forth between each move. It was interesting to not have count my reps for any moves in the entire class and I could just work on my form and making sure I was doing everything right.

Wednesday’s class was a strength day and I figured that would be perfect since I wanted to get ready for the hills at the 5K. I tried to run at 3% for the first push pace, but I could only do that for a minute. It was really frustrating that I couldn’t do more and I was starting to feel nervous about the race, but I didn’t let it get to me. I ended up running all the all out paces which were on a flat incline but walked all my push paces at 8-10% incline. I told myself that I was still training for the hills even if I wasn’t running them.

The floor work was mainly arm work that day. We did rows with the weights, biceps on the straps, and triceps with weights. But the last block had an interesting row challenge. We were trying to do 100 meters with as few pulls of the rower as we could. That meant leaning back as far as we could on the rower and pausing while at the back. It seemed easy when it was explained to us, but it was actually very tough. The first attempt I did was 12 pulls of the rower, but I eventually made my way down to 7 pulls of the rower. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get under 7 pulls, but that was one of the lower numbers of the day so I was very happy with myself.

Thursday was my last pre-5K workout and it was a power and strength day which was kind of the perfect combination for me. We had push to all out paces on inclines plus stand alone all outs on inclines. I ended up walking the longer push paces but I did run all the all outs. And I even was able to run for 30 seconds at 9% incline! I have looked up the incline of the big since this workout and it claims to be about 3.5% incline, but it really feels more like that 9% run that I did! Either way, doing some running on inclines really made me feel prepared for whatever Saturday’s race was going to bring.

For the floor work, it was a lot more upper body and core work than anything else. I was grateful for that because I was starting to feel a bit nervous that my legs would be overworked in the workout and I would struggle at the race. So not focusing on lower body work helped me mentally feel ok. We did also have some rowing in the first block with a 500 and 400 meter row. I have been wanting to get my 500 meter row under 2 minutes, and I did it in 2:00.2. I’m so close, but just not there yet. But I think I’ll be there soon enough!

For a pre-5K workout week, I think this was pretty ideal. It challenged me but it also helped me build confidence going into the race. My last 5K was so spectacular that I was worried that this one might be a bit of a let down. I wasn’t trying to get my hopes up with getting a PR since there are the hills, but I also know that I’m running more than before. But this workout helped me focus back on the work and not as much on the results and that’s exactly what I needed.

And coming up tomorrow, my race recap of the Hollywood Half 5K!

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Tagged 5K, fitness, Orangetheory, prepared, running, workout

It’s Taxes Time (or Seeing My Hard Work Pay Off)

Posted on March 7, 2017 | 1 comment

I don’t think that anyone is excited to do their taxes and owe money. Because of my jobs, I know I will owe money each year. None of my jobs take my taxes out for me, and even though I do my estimated payments like I need to they are usually not enough to cover what I owe. I know this is the situation I’m in so I am as prepared as possible for tax time. I save all my work related receipts (and there are a ton of them) and I save money out of every paycheck to use at tax time. But even with that, I’m always nervous that the news is going to be bad when I get my taxes done.

I went to Daphne at Chuck Sloan and Associates again and I’m so glad I did! First of all, everyone at Chuck Sloan understands actor and creative type taxes and the unique situations we are all in. They aren’t scared by dozens of jobs and the forms and all the weird deductions we need to do. And they understand how stressful tax time can be for us all. But I’m so happy that I have Daphne doing my taxes because she’s extra awesome! We bonded the last time she did my taxes over Disneyland and since I was going to Disneyland after doing my taxes with her I knew we’d talk about that.

Last year, Daphne showed me the worst case scenario with my taxes before she put in all my deductions so that I would feel better about how much I had saved up. I had asked her to do that for me again and once again it was less than what I had saved for my taxes. That’s always a huge relief because I know that no matter what I will have enough money to pay what I owe. But since now I’m feeling more comfortable with that, it was all about how well I tracked my work spending and tracked my deductions.

I like to think that I’m a pretty organized person and that I did a good job tracking expenses in 2016. Since I had my taxes done by Daphne once already, I knew what I should be aware of and what can be deducted. There are so many accountants that let you deduct things that aren’t totally on the up and up, so I’m glad Daphne is very careful in her work and tells me when things look weird (like how I accidentally tracked buying my new computer twice). I’m sure that there is more that I can deduct, but I’m still learning how to do the best that I can.

And even though I thought I had done all my tracking without missing things, there were a few things that I totally forgot about and I’m so glad we went over any other expenses I might have had in the year. I forgot that I got a new phone (which I do have to use for acting and my research job) and for some reason I never tracked the money that I spent to produce “Single Parent Date Night”. This is another reason I love having Daphne do my taxes. She knew to ask about these sort of things just in case I didn’t remember to track them on my paperwork (I’m sure anyone at Chuck Sloan would do the same since they know to look for these things).

In the end, I owed less than half of what I had saved for my taxes. This is so much better than I ever could have imagined! The money left over is going to be saved for another trip to New York that my sister-in-law and I are hoping to take next year. I still have more time to save more money, but I think what I have left over from my taxes savings should be able to cover pretty much the entire trip! I was only hoping that I would have about half of what I needed for that trip leftover so having this much is a big surprise to me and it making me relax a bit about how I will be able to afford that trip.

I’ve already written my checks to the IRS and sent them off so I’m now totally done with doing my 2016 taxes. It’s nice to get them done early enough so there isn’t a huge rush to do them at the last minute. And I’ve already started planning on what I can do this year to make the taxes easier next year. I will be paying more in estimated taxes, so that will help how much I owe. But I also now will be tracking my expenses even better because I learned where I was slacking last year that caused me to miss out on some potential deductions.

While it was nice in the past to be very uninvolved in my taxes, that’s not a luxury I can afford anymore. I know that with my current jobs that I will always owe money at the end of the year and I like being able to sit down with Daphne and go over everything so I understand why I owe what I do. I can see what deductions took off what and where I could have done better. I guess being more involved with all of this is just something that is required when you want to be more responsible and acting more like an adult.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Saving, Tough Stuff

Tagged finances, money, organization, prepared, savings, taxes

Upgrading My Self-Tape Set Up (or 2 Auditions In 30 Minutes)

Posted on June 10, 2015 | Comments Off

I’ve done self-taping in the past, but I’ve always kind of figured out last-minute how to set things up at my house. I’ve used a towel or blanket as my backdrop and just had a friend come and run the camera for me. Most of the time, casting directors understand that when you self-tape, it’s not going to look as nice as when you go into a casting office so it’s ok if it’s not perfect.

But this week I had 2 different self-tape auditions that I needed to do so I decided that this was the time to take things a bit more seriously.

First step was getting a nice backdrop for my auditions. I knew that I wanted a blue backdrop (it’s a nice flattering color) and I figured getting a king sized sheet would be the easiest way to do it. So I headed to Bed Bath & Beyond (with a 20% off coupon) and went hunting for the cheapest blue sheet I could find.

I’ll admit that it wasn’t as easy as I thought to find just a flat sheet and not a sheet set. I looked at curtains as well, but those were pretty pricey and weren’t that wide. But I ended up finding the perfect king flat sheet and got that (and saved my receipt since this is a tax write-off).

My two auditions were pretty different. One was for a web series and had 4 different scenes each with a line or two. I submitted for that role through Actors Access (an online casting service) and instead of getting an audition request they sent me a self-tape request.

The second audition was for the ABC Diversity Showcase. This was similar to the NBC Showcase I self-taped for last year. This time, they had a couple of different scene options online and we could do whatever scene we felt best represented us.

I put a request online to my friends to see who would be able to help me self-tape, and my friend (and fellow mentee) Melissa was happy to help. She had just done her audition for the ABC Showcase as well and had a nice camera that we could use.

I ended up wearing the same outfit for both auditions (I didn’t plan on that but it ended up working out that way) and I think my outfit looked great against my new backdrop.

Melissa helped me with the web series audition first. We did 2 different takes and I was very happy with the second one.

The ABC Diversity Showcase audition took a few more takes. First, we did the introduction part of the audition. I had to say my first name, hometown, and answer one of the questions they posted on the website (I answered what superpower I’d like to have).

Then we moved on to the audition. As much as I tried to be memorized, having 2 totally different auditions in the same day threw me a bit. I wasn’t totally memorized, but I was pretty close. The audition was about 4 pages long and we went through it quite a few times. Many times, I didn’t get through the entire scene before I decided to stop. I think we only made it through the entire scene twice before I felt good about it.

We managed to knock out 2 auditions in just under 30 minutes. My brain was working overtime and as soon as we finished I relaxed and was able to think about what I just did. I was still feeling happy about my auditions so we decided that we were done.

Melissa took the memory card home with her and she emailed me the edited auditions pretty soon after we finished recording. And I was able to email both of my auditions to the respective casting directors that evening.

I’m pretty happy with the new backdrop I bought for self-taping auditions. It will be much nicer to use than a towel or blanket. And hopefully I’ll have more self-tape auditions in the future. They are becoming more common since you could even use your phone to record an audition. I will still use my regular camera or have a friend use their nicer camera for any auditions I have to do on my own. It’s nicer than an iPhone and I’d rather try to have things look as nice as possible without going crazy.

But having things more ready for self-taping (and having friends who are willing and able to help) are great steps toward being prepared for having more and more auditions come my way!

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Shopping

Tagged acting, audition, prepared, self-tape, Women in Film

Upgrading My Kitchen (or Time To Organize)

Posted on December 12, 2014 | Comments Off

After my day of bulk cooking, I realized that I don’t have some things that I can really use in the kitchen. And I have a lot of things that I definitely don’t need (or are expired and I never noticed it).

So on Monday (my day off from my main day job), I set out to remedy this problem. The first thing I did was go through all of my cabinets and throw out any things that had expired. I had a lot of oils, sauces, and dry goods that I don’t use that often and many of them had expiration dates of a year or 2 ago! While some of it I know I will be replacing, many things in my cabinet were things that I bought for just one recipe and never used it again. That’s such a waste of money (and cabinet space for me). I’m really going to work on only restocking things that are more than one-time-use items.

My next clean out was my storage containers. As pretty much everyone does, I had a ton of storage containers that didn’t really go together. I had a lot of lids without containers and visa versa. And while I do like the “disposable” storage containers you can get at the store, I wanted to make sure that if I was going to bulk cook that I had good quality containers.

I got rid of many of the disposable ones (since I pretty much never use them) and saved all of my Snapware. I have the plastic Snapware that I got a long time ago and have always liked how they sealed so tightly.

My last clean out stage in my kitchen was to move things around to be in more convenient places for me. Until this week, I stored several pans in my oven because I didn’t know where else to put them. I almost always remembered to take them out before heating my oven, but on the occasions that I didn’t, it was always a pain to lift super hot pans out of my oven and find a place to store them (usually on the top of my stove). After moving some pantry items around and having more space since I got rid of expired things, I found a new home for those pans.

Then, it was time to add a few things to my kitchen to make sure I’m prepared to bulk cook again.

The first was to get more storage containers. I didn’t have that many to begin with and I wanted to get some more Snapware since I know I like those containers. I know many people don’t like plastic containers, but since I do not plan to microwave in them I figured that they would be ok. I looked online for prices and found that Costco had a great deal on them. So I headed over there and ended up arriving even before the store opened (am I the only one who didn’t know Costco didn’t open until 10am?).

I found exactly what I wanted pretty quickly.

I also was looking to get a second cutting board for my house. I only had one and during the bulk cooking I had to wash and dry it multiple times. It’s not the easiest thing to wash and it was slowing me down a lot. But while I was looking at cutting boards, I found something pretty awesome.

This bamboo cutting board has a groove cut out in the middle to place different liners in. There are 7 different ones to be used for different food products. While I might not always use the meat liner for meat, this basically gives me 7 cutting boards to use when I’m cooking!

While I got rid of more things than I added in my kitchen, I think that I am now more prepared to do more cooking at home. I’m made my tiny kitchen space as efficient as I can be and I’m looking forward to seeing what other things I can cook and store in my bulk cooking.

It’s so weird. I’ve never enjoyed cooking that much. I’ve tried to force myself to like it because my mom is an awesome cook and I see what can be created at home. But it never really clicked with me. I don’t want to say that I’m been completely transformed, but I’ve never felt this way about cooking or meal planning before. I’m excited to see where my food journey goes next!

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Shopping, Weight Loss

Tagged bulk cooking, cooking, meal planning, organization, prepared, shopping

The New TV Season (or Starting My Research Early This Year)

Posted on May 10, 2013 | 1 comment

It’s upfronts time!

For those of you that don’t know what the upfronts are, it’s the time that the tv networks reveal their fall tv schedules to advertisers (and the public). This is when you know what new tv shows will be on the air in the fall and what old shows will have another season.

Sometimes, the new tv shows or old tv show renewals are announced earlier, but everything is revealed at the upfronts. All the networks will be revealing their schedules next week (here’s a schedule and guide to the networks).

Why does this matter to me? Because this is when my preparation for my fall tv research begins!

I’ve previously talked about how I watch everything on tv to know what shows might be good ones for me to target. Normally, I start doing my tv research then. The only thing I did after the upfronts was send the casting directors of the new tv shows a quick congratulations note.

But this year, I’ve decided to do things a bit different.

There are a bunch of websites with information on the new tv shows (I like TVLine for the summary and IMDb for the production information). I’m going to start my notes right away. I can figure out who the casting directors are for the new shows and which ones I have a relationship with (good information for my agents to know). I can get most of my notes done early so when the tv shows premier in the fall, I can focus on watching the shows and understanding the tone and plot points.

Also, once the networks announce the new tv shows, they typically release a 3-5 minute trailer with highlights of the show. I’m going to take notes on those so I have something in case I get an audition for a show before it premieres (it’s happened before).

I think these are all positive steps forward that I’m making with my acting career. It might seem a bit overkill when I don’t get a ton of auditions compared to some of my friends (which I don’t mind since most of my auditions are for series regulars or guest stars), but when I do get that chance with that audition, I want to go into the room the best and most prepared that I can be!

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, career, prepared, TV, upfronts

Setting Myself Up To Win (or More Preparation)

Posted on April 24, 2013 | Comments Off

I do a lot of things to try to make my life easier. When I have late shifts at work, I try to get some extra sleep (because I really do function better on more than 5 hours a night). I know that when I don’t remember to prepare a lunch or a dinner one day, I can always find something at Subway or some salad places near my house. And I try to get things done on my day off so I don’t have to try to squeeze them in before or after an 8 hour work day.

But just because these things are easier doesn’t mean that they are good for me. I’m trying to look at things now as better options, not easier options.

One thing that I’ve been able to do is figure out when I can fit in spin class into my work schedule. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have a shift that starts at noon. In the past, I used the late start to catch up on sleep. On Monday nights, there are times that I don’t get home until 10pm and then I still need to have dinner and get work done. But now I’m making going to an 8:30am spin class a priority. I know that this won’t happen every Tuesday/Thursday (yet), but I’m working towards it.

Also, I’m trying (again) to be better at having food prepared so I don’t have to think about what I’m going to do for lunch or dinner. I’ll admit that this week I haven’t been good. I’m going out-of-town this weekend and didn’t want to go to the grocery store if I didn’t have to before my trip. But no matter what I eat, I am tracking all my calories on my app on my phone. I’m holding myself accountable for my good and bad choices.

Finally, I’m allowing myself to make mistakes. I really am an all or nothing sort of person. I didn’t want to start this blog until I knew I could maintain doing it 5 days a week (there’s no way to get yourself ready for that). So when I’ve had slip ups in the past, I’ve allowed myself then to continue slipping up until a determined date/time that I was going to “start over”. There’s no starting over in this now, just continuing on. I’m not letting a speed bump stop me completely.

I’m hoping with this new mindset not only will I be moving towards my goals a bit faster, but I’m hoping that I will not feel so over worked and stressed about being at my day job 6 days a week. I need to allow myself time to have a life and do things that are good for me and I enjoy. I didn’t allow myself that freedom last year.

Of course, I could completely change my mind about all of this next month, but I’m giving it a shot for now.

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Posted in Fitness, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss, Work

Tagged goals, job, plan, prepared, priority, Spinning, work

Trip Prep (or Guess I’ll Find Out Who Reads My Blog Soon)

Posted on November 20, 2012 | Comments Off

It’s almost time for my Thanksgiving trip! Thanksgiving is a big holiday for my mom’s side of the family. We all get together every year. It rotates whose house it’s at, and this year it’s at my parents’ place.

I’ve been busy getting all my clothes and stuff ready for the trip (Thanksgiving is casual but we also have a fancy dinner for my grandma’s birthday another night). I’m also helping out my mom a bit by doing the place cards, so I’m bringing those in my suitcase. And I also have Hanukkah presents for my mom, dad, brother and his fiancée (it’s cheaper than shipping it all to them).

There will be 15 members of my family over 4 generations at Thanksgiving this year. I personally thinks that’s awesome and I feel lucky that we are all able to gather every year.

I’m so excited to see my relatives. My cousin is expecting her 3rd baby and we are going to find out the gender tomorrow! My cousin’s son and I have a super special bond and I can’t wait to see him and hear all about his adventures in school. And there’s one aunt that I’m super close to (we speak every week), and I’m happy to see her in person to discuss all of our favorite TV shows.

But I’m also a little nervous this year. I know that there are some of my relatives who read this because they’ve mentioned something to me. But then there are other relatives who I have no idea if they’ve read any posts or even know that I have this blog. I have revealed things on here that I’ve never discussed with my family, and I really don’t necessarily want it brought up at dinner.

Obviously, all of my family has known for years that I have a problem with my weight, but I don’t think anyone really knew that I have an eating disorder (and have been through some treatment for it). And I can guarantee that nobody in my family outside of my parents knew that I had any credit card debit.

I don’t want Thanksgiving to be any different this year know that I’ve made this information about my life public. I’m hoping that either we will casually discuss this blog or it doesn’t come up at all.

Just want dinner to be filled with our old traditions. Which include someone making a big announcement at dinner (it’s usually my cousin announcing she’s pregnant but I wonder what it will be this year), watching a kid’s movie at some point (this year, it’s “The Brave Little Toaster”), and something making us laugh so hard that we cry.

All of us (minus my cousin John) at Thanksgiving last year.

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged holidays, nervous, prepared, Thanksgiving

Tag Archives: prepared

Some Dri-Tri Prep Workouts (or Trading One Ailment For Another)

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Dri-Tri Prep Workouts (or The Beginning Of My Workout Week)

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Observing The Local Board Meeting (or The Beginning Of My Second Term As A Delegate)

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A Shorter Workout Week (or Doing Some 5K Prep)

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It’s Taxes Time (or Seeing My Hard Work Pay Off)

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Upgrading My Self-Tape Set Up (or 2 Auditions In 30 Minutes)

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Upgrading My Kitchen (or Time To Organize)

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The New TV Season (or Starting My Research Early This Year)

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Setting Myself Up To Win (or More Preparation)

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Trip Prep (or Guess I’ll Find Out Who Reads My Blog Soon)

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