Tag Archives: presents

Some Secret Santa Fun (or More Virtual Social Time)

Posted on December 21, 2021 | Comments Off on Some Secret Santa Fun (or More Virtual Social Time)

As I’ve mentioned on here a few times before, I have a group of friends that I met through a FB group that I watch movies and tv shows with over TeleParty. And from that group, a smaller group of us have become close and have a text group between us. We share a lot of random things in that text group, but we share serious things too. And because we are pretty much always talking over text on a daily basis, we have gotten very close. It’s still crazy how close we have gotten even though none of us have met in person yet, but I think a lot of people have experienced that over the past two years.

We’ve done Secret Santas within the FB group we are in before, but this year we decided to do one just within our group. We used a website to set it all up so it figured out who we would give gifts to and it allowed us to put wish lists on there too. I had a bit of a hard time figuring out what to put on my wish list, but I took my time and thought about some things I would normally buy for myself and some things that I might not get for myself. I don’t normally put practical things on a wish list, but it made sense this time.

Because of delays with the post office, we set this all up in November with the idea that we would have a few weeks to get things shipped to each other. And to open gifts, we set up a Zoom hangout.

We’ve been on Zoom together as a group, but only a handful of times over the past 2 years. And it had been a while since we had been on Zoom together, so it was nice to see each other’s faces and hear everyone’s voices. Texting is good for handling a lot of communication, but hearing and seeing people makes it feel more real.

We ended up being on Zoom together for about 3 hours. Most of that time was us being silly and sharing random stories or updates from our lives. There are 3 of us getting ready to move, so that was a part of the chat. But I think all of us craved this social time since most of us are still pretty isolated. All of us are aware of how the pandemic is having a surge so we are all being careful with how much we go out and do things. So having our time on Zoom was a much-needed break from being alone.

And of course, we had to open our gifts together! For the person I got to give gifts to, I sent them 3 things on their list and 1 random thing that I thought would be funny. And I think most of us had that idea because most of us got some things we put on our lists and one or two little things that we didn’t have on our list.

For me, I got 2 things from my list and 1 extra. I got new workout gloves (which I need and hadn’t had a chance to buy myself) and a ring that I saw online that I liked that is a pretty basic ring. And the person who got me my gifts also painted me a little cute square canvas that I know I will put somewhere in my office space when I move to the condo.

I don’t think any of us expected to be on our Zoom for so long, but I’m so glad we got to have this time together. We’ve been trying to plan a group trip somewhere for almost a year, but we keep having to put it off because of the pandemic. We do still hope that we can have a group trip soon so we can finally meet in real life, but we just have to wait until it’s a bit safer. But at least we got to give each other gifts and spend some virtual time together that wasn’t just texting.

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Default ThumbnailAnd Another Virtual Party (or A Secret Santa Hangout) Default ThumbnailHaving Fun Doing Gift Shopping (or Keeping Secret Santa To My Budget) Default ThumbnailHaving More Virtual Movie Nights (or Still Trying To Be Social) Default ThumbnailStill Celebrating Halloween (or A Virtual Costume To Go With A Virtual Party) Default ThumbnailFinding A Social Life Where I Can (or Virtual Parties and Distance Hangouts) Default ThumbnailMaking Condo Hunting More Fun (or Taking Advantage Of Ways To Be Social)

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And Another Virtual Party (or A Secret Santa Hangout)

Posted on December 23, 2020 | Comments Off on And Another Virtual Party (or A Secret Santa Hangout)

In past years, this was the time that it seemed like there were dozens of holiday parties to go to. This year, this is the time that there are dozens of virtual parties to go to. The benefit of virtual parties is that you don’t have to worry about driving from one location to another. You might get tired of sitting at your computer, but you can party hop a lot easier when they are virtual. I’ve been pretty lucky with the timing of virtual parties and they haven’t really been overlapping, but it has been keeping me busy.

In the past week, I think I’ve had 4 virtual parties. That’s not a ton, but it’s been more virtual hangout time than I normally do. But they have all been really fun parties. And one of them was a gift-opening party for one of my Secret Santa groups.

Not everyone who participated in our Secret Santa exchange was on our Zoom hangout, but we had a good-sized group. And most of the time we were on Zoom, we weren’t doing any Secret Santa stuff. We were being silly, sharing stories, and just having a nice time being social. This group is a Facebook group that I only know virtually. We’ve had other Zoom hangouts, but we’ve never met in person. And some of the people who were at the Secret Santa party were new to a Zoom hangout. It was so nice to be able to put voices to the profiles I’ve seen online.

I was a little late to this hangout because of work, but I only missed a little bit. But it was really nice to have it after work because it broke up my day. Even though I was still at my computer, it felt like a clear end time to work and start time for having fun. That’s something I’ve been missing a lot since the pandemic started. I used to try to run errands or something after work to have a clean break from work time. Now, I know I could go for a walk or something but I really don’t have a lot of opportunities to do much else.

It was so nice to have a nice just being social and having fun. And of course, we opened our presents while we were together on Zoom. The person I bought gifts for was on the Zoom, so I was able to see how happy she was with what I got her (I got her something she specifically said she wanted plus a few other things that I thought she might like). She seemed very excited to get the thing she asked for, and that made me really happy too.

My Secret Santa was not on the Zoom hangout, but I understood that not everyone could be there. But she got me some really amazing things! I got a candle that has my favorite scents, some nice hand cream, face masks, and chocolate!

I loved it! Nothing was extravagant, but they felt like special things since they weren’t things I usually buy for myself. And any presents I get from someone always feels special. Even though my Secret Santa doesn’t know me in real life, she picked out some really great things for me and I could tell that she paid attention to the forms we filled out with what we like.

Our virtual hangout ended up lasting several hours because we were all just enjoying talking to each other. I know we should try to do them more often, but it’s tough. We all have different schedules and I know many of us have Zoom fatigue. But this was such a nice time and so relaxing compared to many other things we all have to do on Zoom these days. We’ve all joked that when the pandemic is done, we will have to travel somewhere to all meet in real life. But for now, meeting up virtually is what we can do. And if I’m being honest, if we weren’t in a pandemic, I don’t think we would have done this. So making a lot of new friends is one good thing to come out of this really hard year.

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Finishing Holiday Shopping Before Halloween (or Thank Goodness For Internet Bookmarks)

Posted on October 30, 2020 | Comments Off on Finishing Holiday Shopping Before Halloween (or Thank Goodness For Internet Bookmarks)

I take so much pride in getting people awesome gifts. I know the best gifts don’t have to cost a ton of money, and this year that’s more important than ever. I don’t have much extra money to spend (I’m still spending more than I should, but I’m working on it). But I still wanted to get Hanukkah presents for my family like I do every year. And I really like to make sure that I find presents that they will really like and might be things they wouldn’t think of getting for themselves.

Because I find presents that they might not think of on their own, I do tend to get a lot of random things for people. But they are random things that I truly think that they will love. I don’t know how long I have felt this way about gifts, but I know it’s been a long time. I know it goes back at least until I was a teenager. Back then, I would start planning out gifts maybe a month or so in advance. I know that’s more in advance than some people do, but for me, it didn’t feel like enough time. So I started planning better.

I know what gifts I will have to buy every year. I know when birthdays are happening and I know I do Hanukkah presents with my family at Thanksgiving. So planning it out is a pretty set schedule. I do still occasionally have a time crunch with figuring out gifts, but more often I am considering a few options when it’s close to the time I will be shopping. I always am seeing things online in various lists or looking through catalogs that have different types of gifts. And no matter what time of year it is, whenever I see something that I think would be right for someone, I save it in a bookmark in my web browser. I actually need to be a bit more organized with that because it’s just a single bookmark folder called “Gift Ideas” and I should organize it by person. But I have a few dozen things I’ve seen over time that I like as possible gifts for the people in my life.

I don’t always shop from the list. Sometimes I like to do some extra shopping to see if there is something else that inspires me. For example, this year for Hanukkah I got one gift for my parents and one gift for my brother and sister-in-law (Rory already got his gift early). The gift for my parents was something I saw on a list online about a year ago and I knew it would be something they could use. It’s not a big gift and it feels a bit silly, but it’s something I know they will use a lot and they wouldn’t have thought of for themselves (sorry to be vague, but my parents sometimes read this blog and I’m not spoiling their gift). But for my brother and sister-in-law, I wasn’t feeling too enthusiastic about the things I had previously saved as bookmarks for them. So I did a bit of online shopping and had a discussion with my mom about some potential gifts. And I think I figured out the perfect thing for them!

I’ll be seeing my family soon and that’s when I’ll be bringing everyone’s gifts. We are doing Thanksgiving as a small family unit before Thanksgiving this year. So exchanging gifts will be earlier too. I’m not totally sure if everyone else is planning on doing gifts then, but they all know that I will be doing it. It saves me a bit of money to not have to ship gifts later, and if I can save money doing something easy then I’m going to do it. And fortunately, I already have everyone’s gifts at my house. I just need to wrap them (since I’m not flying anywhere I can use wrapping paper again) and then bring them with me in a little over a week when I see everyone.

It’s a bit crazy that I’m done with all my holiday shopping before Halloween happened, but it’s also nice. I don’t want to stress over presents and knowing that they are done is a little bit of calm in my life right now. And that also means I can start looking at potential gifts for next year now so I’ll be ready in a year when I’ll be doing my holiday shopping again.

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Spreading Some Holiday Cheer (or Finding Cheaper Ways To Make People Smile)

Posted on December 20, 2018 | Comments Off on Spreading Some Holiday Cheer (or Finding Cheaper Ways To Make People Smile)

With it being the holiday season, so many people do things to try to make others smile. I love seeing the happiness and cheer this time of year and I try to participate however I can. If money wasn’t an issue, I would do so much for friends and strangers alike. That’s not the case for me so I do have to find out how to do things for less money.

I don’t have to worry about buying too many presents which does help with spending. I really only get presents for my immediate family and I already did those gifts. I work hard on those gifts and try to find the best things that I can afford. Fortunately, the gifts I’ve done the past few years have been less expensive than they appear to be so that helps. And since I get one gift for my parents and one gift for my brother and sister-in-law, that helps too. I don’t have to worry about getting 4 presents and can focus on 2 really good ones.

The only other gift I had to do this year was for the Reddit Secret Santa. I’ve done a few of these Reddit gift exchanges before and they have always been fun. Again, I would love to spend way more money than the suggested amount to get everything the person I got matched with asked for. But I have to read into what they want and really try to find the best thing that I can afford. This year, the person I got mentioned how they wanted to learn more about the science of cooking and they love popcorn. So I found a great book all about cooking and why things happen with different preparations as well as some fancy popcorn salt. The person I matched with posted online about how they loved the gifts and they fit exactly what they were looking for. So even though I couldn’t spend a ton of money, I got them something they liked and appreciated.

My presents from my Reddit Secret Santa have been coming in a few different boxes. There is still one more box coming and I don’t know what is in it, but I’ve gotten 2 presents so far. Just like the person I matched with, in my profile I mentioned I love popcorn and my Secret Santa got me a variety of gourmet microwave popcorn flavors! I also mentioned I like historical fiction books and they got me a box set of books that are about female pirates. I have no idea what the last box will contain, but I’m excited to see what they got me since these gifts have been so cool so far!

Another holiday thing that I’ve done the past few years is to do holiday cards. I don’t do anything with my photo since it seems weird to do that when I don’t have my own family (or a pet), so I can buy just regular cards in a store or online. For a few years, I did cards with envelopes and those were easy enough to do. But to save money as my holiday card list has grown, I did postcards last year and am doing the same this year. Postcard stamps are about half the cost of regular stamps so that is a pretty significant savings for me. And since the cards are always pretty simple ones, it’s not a big deal for me to do postcards instead of cards in envelopes.

I’ve been a bit slow with getting my postcards out this year. Normally I have them out toward the beginning of the month, but this time I’m still working on finishing them. I’m hoping to get them to the post office by tomorrow, but I’m not sure if I’ll make that deadline. But it’s ok if they arrive after Christmas since they aren’t specific to any holiday. And I know that since most people don’t get things in the mail, it will make them happy even if they arrive in January. No matter when they get them, it will be something special and not just boring bills in their mailbox.

I’m also starting to get holiday cards from my friends which makes me so happy too. I do get a lot of joy out of doing things for other people, but I also enjoy getting things myself. I always feel special that someone has included me in their holiday card list and I love seeing the fun cards that people send out. A lot of my friends that send cards have kids so it’s also a nice treat to get to see what pictures of their kids that they have on the cards.

It hasn’t been the easiest holiday season for me due to stress and worries, but I’m glad that it hasn’t stopped me from still finding ways to celebrate the holidays and to do special things. I know I don’t do a lot, but it’s something and I’m glad that the people who get things from me appreciate even the little things I can do.

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Finding The Perfect Gifts (or A Gift A Year In The Making)

Posted on November 28, 2018 | 1 comment

I wrote recently about how excited I was to bring my family’s Hanukkah gifts to Thanksgiving. I love giving gifts and working on figuring out the perfect gift to get people. I don’t do a ton of gifts for the holidays, but I do get something for my parents, my brother, and sister-in-law. And I usually do one gift for my parents and one gift for my brother and sister-in-law for a few reasons. First, I do have to consider how much money I have to spend on gifts. But also, I love getting something that is more of a group gift for Hanukkah because I do something more personal for birthdays.

I take a lot of pride in finding the perfect gift for people and I have a tab on my web browser just for gift ideas. I know that I have to get gifts each year so when I see something that is perfect I save it because I know I’ll eventually buy it for someone. And the Hanukkah gifts I gave this year were something I found a year ago at Thanksgiving last year. And it’s been crazy to keep it a secret for a year because I was so excited about it!

I saw on social media that someone I follow got a custom pet portrait done and thought it was so cute! I looked at a couple of different companies online and they all seemed to be out of my budget. I was disappointed by that but determined to keep looking to see if I could figure out a way to make it happen. I ended up finding a company that was a bit out of my budget, but they usually had sales so I saved the link and was planning on ordering them in September.

I had a setback with the ordering because I placed my order and then the company wasn’t getting back to me. I was supposed to hear from them within 72 hours and gave them over a week before I reached out to them. They weren’t responding to emails or private messages on social media and I was so upset. I disputed the charges and got the money back, but then had to search again for a company to help me out (I finally heard from the original company and they said there was a glitch that caused them not to get my order or messages).

I contacted several stores on Etsy and found ZK Portraits. While the portraits I wanted to have done weren’t exactly what they usually do, they were willing to work with me and we started emailing back and forth so they could find out what I wanted. And they were even cheaper than the original company that I was going to go with!

I knew that for my brother and sister-in-law that I wanted a portrait of their cat as a doctor. But for my parents, I was on the fence with a few ideas. I knew I wanted something that was about Tahoe but I couldn’t decide if I wanted Tucker as a skier, hiker, or kayaker. As much as I wanted to keep this a surprise for my parents, I knew I needed help so I asked my dad for advice. He told me that having Tucker as a skier was the best one and he was so excited that I was going to be doing these portraits. I know that he probably would have loved to have been surprised, but I think he also enjoyed being in on the gift planning too.

Within a week of ordering the portraits, I got the proofs via email to approve. And I couldn’t have asked for anything more amazing than these!

I was smiling so much when I saw these and emailed the artist back to say they were perfect! I was getting the portraits as high-resolution digital images so I had to figure out how I wanted to present them. There are so many options for artwork like these and I didn’t know if they would want them on canvas, metal, acrylic, or photo paper nor did I know what size they would want them. So I had them printed out as 8×10 photos and figured I’d give them the full size image after they opened the gifts so they could do something different if they wanted to.

Sometimes my family does all of our gifts at the same time, but this time we ended up doing them each day. I gave my family their gifts on Wednesday even though they were going to do their gifts the next day. I just couldn’t wait any longer!

My mom opened theirs first (my dad already had seen a preview so he let her open it) and I wish I took a video of her reaction! She was so excited and shocked and was laughing so hard about how amazing the portrait was. She never would have thought of doing something like that herself and loved that I got them a portrait. My brother and sister-in-law started to ask questions about it and I told them they needed to open their present first. That clued them in that I got them something similar and I think they loved that I got a portrait of their cat like a doctor. My brother posted it on the Instagram they created for their cat right away.

The next day I got an Amazon gift card from my brother and sister-in-law and my parents got me a nice down jacket and a beanie that has a hole in the top so I can wear it when I have my hair in a ponytail or top knot! Both gifts will be put to good use (I actually wore the hat when I flew home since it was cold out) and I loved them! I’m still picking out what fun things I want to get on Amazon with the gift card since I don’t want to just use it on something boring like vitamins or printer paper.

It’s almost a joke in my family now that I always try to top the gifts I’ve done in the past, but it’s true. I really want to find the perfect thing and when I find them months before I’m going to give them that just gives me so much time to build up anticipation on how the recipient will react to it. And I’ve actually found something that I might do as Hanukkah gifts for next year, but I don’t think I can top the pet portraits for a while. It really was the perfect gift and I’m so glad they were a big hit!

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Unexpected Birthday Present (or I Love Having Technology That Works!)

Posted on August 22, 2017 | Comments Off on Unexpected Birthday Present (or I Love Having Technology That Works!)

I was not planning on asking for anything for my birthday from my parents this year. They helped me get my car at the beginning of the year so I didn’t feel right asking for anything else. I still feel a bit guilty about my new car, but I know that they are happy to help me out. But there was no way I was going to tell my parents I wanted something for my birthday.

I usually get a check from my grandma for my birthday, so I was thinking about what I wanted to use it for (she prefers that I get something fun with it and not use it to pay bills). I was talking with my dad before my birthday and mentioned how my iPad was pretty much dead at that point. It was taking hours for it to turn on and for me to open an app could take close to 30 minutes. And that day, I couldn’t get it to turn on no matter what I did. I didn’t think my iPad was going to be usable anymore.

The iPad I had was about 5 years old, which is a pretty long time for a piece of technology. I used to use it much more often, but over the past 2 years I used it less because it was getting so slow and several apps that I like to use wouldn’t work anymore. But I didn’t want to get a new one because at that time I knew I’d spending a lot on a new laptop and technically my old one still worked.

I’m aware that this is totally a first world problem. I don’t need an iPad, but I like having it and it is something I do work on. But I think I also knew it wasn’t a necessity to get a new one so when my old one pretty much died on me I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get a new one for my birthday. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it would be the perfect thing to use my birthday check toward.

This call with my dad was just one of our usual phone calls and the iPad thing just happened to come up. And he agreed that getting one for my birthday would be a great thing to use my check for. I didn’t think much more about that conversation after we hung up. But then the next morning, I got an email from my dad with the subject “Birthday Surprise”. And my dad wrote that he and my mom had discussed it after he got off the phone with me and they wanted to get me my iPad for my birthday!

I was totally not expecting this and I even called my parents to tell them that I didn’t tell my dad about my old one dying to try to get them to buy me one. I kept asking if they were sure they wanted to get it for me because I was considering my car my birthday present (and I’m totally considering it my Hanukkah present for this year too). But my mom said that they wanted to do that for me and I couldn’t express how grateful I was for it!

I was originally going to get the new one before my birthday, but there were a few delays in me getting it. But the delays worked out well because I was able to make a decision on which one I wanted to get (after getting input from a friend who works for Apple and from my parents) and I realized that they had a back to school special for their educational discount (which I get for being a substitute teacher). Not only would I get the normal discount, which is about $20 off, I would get a free pair of wireless Beats headphones! So this past week, I headed over to the Apple Store near me to buy my new iPad!

It was a pretty fast purchase since I knew exactly what I wanted to get. I just had to decide on what color I wanted (I went with gray to match my laptop). And I’ve spent the past few days making sure I get everything set up on it before I try to erase all the data off of my old one (if I can get it to turn back on again). Just like with my laptop, it’s a crazy difference between the old one and the new one. Things are working again, I can get work done so much faster, and I know that it is going to make me more productive.

If I could figure out how to do all of my day job work from my iPad, I’d do that when I go out-of-town. But for right now, that’s not possible due to the phone calls I have to do for my box office job. But I think I might actually be able to run everything else from it which is a nice idea. The iPad can use a keyboard so if I figure out how to do it all (or if I don’t have to take phone calls for my box office job), I think it will be pretty easy to work with it and I think that will be a nice feature for me when I get to travel again.

This present was so unexpected but beyond appreciated. I am so grateful to my parents for wanting to get me this because they easily could have just gotten me nothing for my birthday which is exactly what I was expecting. And I love that now whenever I use my iPad I’m going to think about this awesome birthday this year and how amazing my parents are!

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My First “Real” Run (or Testing Out My Birthday Present)

Posted on September 9, 2016 | 2 comments

While I’ve been doing bits of running for a few months at Orangetheory, that’s the only place I’ve been running since I started again. It feels safe to run on the treadmill. Nobody at Orangetheory is judging what I can or can’t do. Nobody cares if I’m dripping sweat. Nobody (except my coach) is even really paying attention to me. I’m able to feel safe in trying things and pushing myself to new limits.

But I’m aware that running on a treadmill is very different from running outside. And if I really do want to run/walk my 5K in November I have to start getting used to being outside and not being dependent on a treadmill to control my speed or intervals. I did a bunch of research last month about running outside and different apps for intervals to see what I could do to help me in this journey. And when I talked to my “running guru” (who is my best friend) she recommended looking into running watches.

I’ve had workout watches in the past. They always seemed to be too complicated to figure out how to do what I want to do. None of them had GPS on them so I could pretty much just time things and not know my pace or distance (unless I was doing a race and then I knew the distance). But the more I looked into running watches, the more it seemed to make sense. So when my parents asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I told them I wanted a running watch. And I found last year’s model (it still seems like one of the better models) without the heart rate monitor option for a pretty decent price!

While I had gotten the watch about 3 weeks ago, yesterday was the first day I was able to test it out. I’ve been working on getting my sleep schedule back on track, so I’m finally waking up again at 7am each day. And yesterday I had a free morning before I started work at 10am, so I figured I had to stop making excuses for myself and get my butt outside to do a run/walk.

There is a path not too far from my house that has no traffic on it. You can technically run all the way to the beach, but then you will encounter some crosswalks that you have to get through. But I figured I could just go back and forth on one section between two crosswalks and then I wouldn’t have to worry about traffic, getting stopped at a red light waiting to cross, and if I got really tired I’d be close enough to my house.

Before going out, I set my watch to do intervals of 1 minute each. I actually ended up setting it up a bit incorrectly, but the error was in how many intervals I wanted total and not the timing so it worked out ok for me. And I had read the instructions for the watch and it seemed pretty easy to start and stop the timer so I wasn’t too worried about how this would all work.

As soon as I got to the path, I started the watch and started running. Because I hadn’t run outside before, I had no clue if I was going quickly or slowly. But I was going and it felt pretty good so I was happy with it. The first interval ended quickly and I was glad that running for that minute outside didn’t feel too bad or that different from being on the treadmill. I know that my walking was slower than I’m used to, but again, this run was all about trying it out and not trying to work on speed or anything.

I did 6 sets of the run/walk intervals (so 6 minutes of running and 6 minutes of walking) when I was starting to feel pretty tired. I’m used to being able to stop to drink some water or wipe away sweat and I really wasn’t doing that this time. It was starting to get a bit hot out and one of the directions I was running was into the sun. After one more interval, I was heading back toward my street and I was feeling a bit too tired to run (and I didn’t want to risk hurting myself by doing sloppy running). So I spend the rest of the way walking back and cooling down a bit.

Once I got to the end of the path by the crosswalk, I stopped the watch so I could see what I had done. I’m sure there is a way to see my pace or distance on the watch while I’m moving, but it was only showing me the intervals so I didn’t know how far I had gone and I honestly was feeling pretty clueless about it. It felt like I was not going that far, but I knew I was out there for 17 minutes so I figured I’d be close to a mile at least. I was pretty happy when I finally saw the result.

garmin

I would have loved to have gone farther, but I also have to remember that I’m trying to ease my way into running outside. The downfall in the past for me have been doing too much too fast. If I can only do a mile at a time for the next few weeks, that’s ok. Eventually my endurance is going to be better and I can go farther and run/walk longer.

Once I got back home, I was checking out more stats from my workout. A lot of things don’t make sense to me yet (I don’t really get the cadence stuff), but there was one screen that I totally got and was super happy to see.

my-mile

This is not a mile PR for me, but the fact that I was under a 15 minute mile when I didn’t have a treadmill telling me my speed or distance is awesome! My big goal for my next race is to average under 15 minute miles, so this made me so happy! Again, the endurance thing is my main concern now, but I know I can work on that.

I feel like this was a very successful first run/walk outside. I’d love to be able to do 1 outside workout a week and hopefully I can make that happen. It is a bit intimidating running outside where people can see me (and judge me), but I need to not worry or focus on that. I know that I’ve made massive improvements in my running over these past few months and that’s the most important thing.

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Default ThumbnailBirthday Workouts (or Just Having A Good Week Of Workouts) Default ThumbnailUpping My Game (or Getting Serious About Running) Default ThumbnailExtra Running Time (or Figuring Out What I Can Do) Default ThumbnailA Birthday Present For Me And My House (or Thank You Mom And Dad!) Default ThumbnailUnexpected Birthday Present (or I Love Having Technology That Works!) Default ThumbnailChristmas Hangout With My Birthday Twin (or Witnessing A Real-Life Romantic Comedy)

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Grandpa Bears (or Our Thanksgiving Surprise)

Posted on November 27, 2015 | Comments Off on Grandpa Bears (or Our Thanksgiving Surprise)

When my grandpa passed away, my grandma immediately wanted us to remove his things from their apartment. I totally understood why she wanted us to do that and most of his things were either easy enough to get rid of or someone was going to take to their house (like his computer so we could get all important things off of it). But when we were in his closet, we weren’t 100% what we wanted to do with all of his clothes.

Some of the things we set aside for various family members to keep, but most of it was going to be donated to a charity. While I liked the idea of donating his clothes, I thought it might be nice to keep some of it for us to remember him by. My grandpa had some epic and colorful sweaters and didn’t want to donate those.

Grandpa Sweaters

Then I remembered seeing on a website at some point that people turn baby clothes into bears to have as keepsakes from when their kids were little. I figured if you could do that with baby clothes, we could do that with my grandpa’s clothes too. My mom and dad decided to help with the plan, and only my Aunt Cindy and Uncle Steve knew about it as well.

So I did some searching online and found several people who make memory bears. But the person who made the ones that looked best to me and my mom was Paula of Paula’s Bears. She totally understood that we had multiple sweaters and wanted to create mix and match patchwork bears. So everyone would have the same sweaters on their bear, but all the bears would look a little different. I also had some of my grandpa’s ties and Paula said we could use those for the hands and feet.

Paula was undertaking a big project for us, but fortunately we got her the sweaters and ties in April and we didn’t need the bears back until October. I had asked Paula if she could take pictures of the bears as they were being worked on because I knew we’d all love to see the process of making them.

Sweater PatternBuilding The Sweater

She cut each sweater into a bear and then mixed and matched the pieces. So each bear had a part of every sweater on it. Some had the same sweater in the same spot, but they were all a bit different.

Bear

Bears

Every time I got an update from Paula, I passed it on to my parents and we were all shocked and amazed at how the bears looked. We had no idea how they would look when they were in bear form, but Paula did such a great job making them all look perfect.

The bears were shipped to my parents house (my mom added various fraternity pins, boy scout things, and my grandpa’s dog tags to each bear to make them even more unique) and when they got the bears out of the box and lined up, we joked that we created a bear army.

Bear Army

We made enough bears for one for each single person or one for a couple to share (as an example, I get a bear but my parents will share a bear). I know that I will treasure this bear for forever and I hope that the rest of the family feels the same way about them.

Having Paula make these bears for us is such a nice way to remember someone by that doesn’t feel morbid or weird to keep in your house. I’m not totally sure where my bear will live in my house, but I know I’ll find the perfect spot for him.

If any of you are looking to have a memory or keepsake bear made, I highly recommend using Paula for them. She took so much care in making sure each bear was perfect and those touches really made all the difference. I know that tomorrow is Small Business Saturday and I really encourage you all to participate in that. Small businesses are sometimes just someone working out of their home and they can make the item you are buying even more special.

I know that having Paula was the perfect person to make these bears for my family and I’m so happy that I found her online. I know that for any future projects similar to the bears, I will be going back to her immediately. I’ve been wanting to tell you all about Paula and the bears for months, but I had to keep it a secret so that we could surprise the family. I’m glad that I can finally share her with you now!

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Scripted Jewelry (or My Mom’s Hanukkah Present)

Posted on November 25, 2015 | Comments Off on Scripted Jewelry (or My Mom’s Hanukkah Present)

I take a lot of pride in the fact that I’m pretty good at giving gifts to people. I listen to what people say off-hand throughout the year and use that as inspiration for birthday and holiday gifts. And most of the time, the gift is a hit!

Most of my awesome gifts have been things I’ve gotten my dad. He’s much easier to shop for, so I can figure out something he’ll love pretty quickly. In the past, I’ve gotten him an iPod, a gym bag (that has a lifetime warranty and he’s had replaced twice since), a ski bag, and a chair made out of old skis. This year for Hanukkah, my dad got TRX straps from me, but I gave them to him back in April since I figured he’d want them.

My mom is much tougher to shop for. She always says that she doesn’t need anything and even when my dad does spy work for me we sometimes can’t figure out what to get her. I had an idea for a gift that didn’t end up panning out, so I was stuck a bit ago with no idea what to get my mom.

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, I got her and I matching bracelets with the word “positivity” on them. We both have loved them, but since they are made with an elastic they have stretched out. I’ve gotten us replacements before, but I was thinking that maybe a stronger piece of jewelry would be the right Hanukkah gift.

I did lots of random searches and couldn’t find what I wanted. But I had stumbled across the ScriptedJewelry page on Etsy and realized that this could be the perfect gift. I decided to make my mom a piece of jewelry for her to remember my grandpa by.

I did need a lot of help with this project. I actually don’t have any handwriting of my grandpa’s in my house. Everything I got from him was typed or my grandma wrote it. So I initially asked my dad for help, but he wasn’t able to find any handwriting samples either. I asked my Aunt Cindy and Uncle Steve for help next, and they found a letter that my grandpa typed to them on their honeymoon, but he signed it “Dad” at the bottom. So that was perfect to start with!

I realized that I would have to get my mom involved because we knew that she had old letters of my grandpa. So I lied to her and said that I wanted to do something for Thanksgiving and needed some of my grandpa’s old letters. I’m glad she didn’t ask me too many questions about it because I have no idea what I would have told her. But she had a couple of letters that my grandpa wrote his parents during WWII and she scanned those in and sent them to me. At the bottom of one letter, he had signed it “all my love, Bob”, so I was going to take the “all my love,” part of it.

I had reached out to the woman behind ScriptedJewelry, Caroline, and she said that they could combine the two handwriting samples and make something really beautiful for my mom. Of course, I had to figure out what type of jewelry to make for her. So I told my mom that I was working on her Hanukkah present and that she was not allowed to ask me questions but had to answer questions from me. I managed to find out that she would want a teardrop necklace in gold.

A couple of weeks later, the necklace was at my house and I’m so amazed by how wonderful it looks!

Necklace

You can really see how the handwriting matches the necklace in this picture that Caroline took for me (it’s so much better than my iPhone photos!).

Necklace with Handwriting

As I’m writing this, I haven’t given my mom the necklace yet. But by the time you are reading this, she has gotten it and hopefully she loves it!

The cutoff for Christmas present for ScriptedJewelry is December 1st, so I know that it might be too late for some of you to order from her for Christmas. But I highly encourage you all to make something to remember a loved one by. She can also turn artwork from kids into jewelry if you don’t want something with handwriting on it.

I’m so lucky that my random searching online led me to ScriptedJewelry and that I was able to have my family help me in making what should be one of the best gifts I’ve gotten for my mom ever.

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Out Of The Heat (or Finally Getting A/C!)

Posted on September 10, 2015 | 7 comments

I’ve been complaining about the heat in my house since my very first summer here. Because my house is so old, the insulation is pretty bad. So when it gets hot in LA, the heat gets trapped inside even if it cools down outside in the evening. There have been plenty of nights where it’s over 90 degrees inside my bedroom when I was going to bed.

I have never really lived in a place with a/c (my last apartment had it but it was facing a wall in the kitchen so it was useless). And I wanted to get some sort of a/c for my house. But there were issues from the beginning. Until recently, my house had fuses and there wasn’t enough power to run an a/c. Then when I got circuits, I was told that I would have to still watch how much power I used because there is still very little power in my place.

Next was the issue of trying to find a portable a/c unit that wasn’t a swamp cooler (because it does get too humid in LA to use one) and didn’t use a ton of power. Once I found that, then it was the issue of finding one that wasn’t insanely expensive. I never found anything that seemed right to me so I never got a portable a/c unit.

I was talking to my landlord last month and we were making small talk about the heat. I mentioned the lack of a/c and he said that because of my house set up I was pretty limited in my options. I said how I really wanted to put a window unit in my dining room, and he said that it couldn’t block the communal driveway (my dining room looks onto the driveway and there is about a foot of room between my wall and the driveway path). With that new restriction, I started to do some research again.

I actually found a low profile window a/c that doesn’t stick out that far and is energy-efficient so it doesn’t go over the power limit I have in my house! And since I hadn’t asked for anything for my birthday from my parents, they agreed to buy it for me!

Once I knew it was on its way, I had to figure out how I’d install it. Fortunately, the directions were available online so my dad and I both researched them. And when I was at brunch with my friend Jane a week ago, I mentioned the new a/c unit and she said that she had installed one before! So she agreed to help me out when it was here!

This past Sunday was installation day. Prior to that, I had made a trip to Home Depot because my dad discovered some fine print in the directions that would require me to drill a piece of wood onto my window sill. And my dad and I had multiple FaceTime calls so he could look at what I was doing.

FaceTime Help

It was actually pretty funny when we were on FaceTime trying to figure this all out.

On Sunday, there were dozens of phone calls/FaceTime calls to my dad while Jane and I were working and then we also had to make another Home Depot run. But after a couple of attempts (and thanks to my power drill and saw that my dad got me years ago), we were able to install it!

New A:C

I’m sure this sounds silly, but even in the couple of days that I’ve had it this a/c unit has made a huge difference in my life! I got it installed just in time for another heat wave in LA and I’m finally getting to work in my house in reasonable temperatures.

Cooler House

I’m still super nervous about how much more expensive my power bill will be, but there was a little guide on the a/c unit that said if you ran the until 8 hours a day for 3 months it would only cost an extra $48 a year. Hopefully that’s true.

I’m so glad that my parents were generous enough to get me this a/c unit. I’m so happy that I was able to install it and that Jane was willing to help me (and we did this in the heat since the a/c wasn’t in yet!). And I’m so excited that I will not feel as sick inside my house during a heat wave and feel trapped since I have to work in my house.

Hopefully when I eventually move one day this a/c unit is as easy to uninstall as it was to install. This thing is totally coming with me wherever I go!

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Default ThumbnailHating The Heat (or Again, My Body Is Lying) Default ThumbnailDealing With Heat And Humidity (or I’m Very Lucky The Pandemic Didn’t Happen A Few Years Ago) Default ThumbnailFaceTime Repair (or Baby Steps To Prepare Me For Home Ownership) Default ThumbnailHeat Wave In LA (or Another Post About The Heat) Default ThumbnailFinally Spinning Again (or It’s Been A Long Time To Be Sick) Default ThumbnailFinally Going To Staples Center (or VIP Status)

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