Tag Archives: travel

A Speedy Friend Visit (or Making The Most Of 24 Hours)

Posted on February 16, 2016 | 1 comment

When my friend Kate stayed with me the last time, she mentioned that she might be coming to town in February to watch the Olympic marathon trials. I set the date aside in my calendar and was really excited when Kate told me that she had booked her flights and that she wanted to stay at my place again. But because of her work and the varying costs of flights, Kate was only able to be here for 24 hours (almost exactly). So I was planning out how to make this the most awesome 24 hour visit ever!

Kate got here on Friday afternoon (which is why I couldn’t work out on Friday). I picked her up at LAX and I was super excited to see her. I miss having her live in LA, so even when her visits are super speedy it makes me so happy to have her in the same city as me. It’s funny that it’s such a big deal because since we graduated high school, we’ve lived in the same city for a very limited time. But since she moved to LA briefly I am even more excited when she comes back!

I had gotten an email from the SAG-AFTRA Film Society earlier that week that there was going to be a screening of “Hail, Caesar!” at the DGA that evening. So I asked Kate if she wanted to go to that and she did. It was actually her first time going to a screening with me (for some reason we could never coordinate schedules with the screening schedules when she lived here). But this time it worked out pretty nicely so as soon as I had picked Kate up we headed over to the DGA.

Since the screening wasn’t until 6:30, we had some time to grab dinner before the movie. We walked across the street to The Counter (I love that place!) for burgers and some catch up time. Kate filled me in on her work and her cats and I filled her in on the craziness of everything and my workouts. We had to eat pretty quickly to make it to the screening, but it worked out fine.

I really enjoyed “Hail, Caesar!”! It was really funny and even though some of the jokes were very much about the entertainment industry, I think that enough of the movie isn’t insider stuff that everyone should be able to enjoy it. I was laughing quite a bit through the movie and I think that the entire cast was amazing!

After the screening, Kate and I walked over to the West Hollywood Orangetheory location. I don’t work out at that location, but I wanted to show it to Kate because there is a Orangetheory near where she lives and she’s thinking about checking it out. Even though the studio was closed, the manager (who I’ve met several times and he knows me) was there and he let us in. I showed Kate the various equipment inside and I chatted with the manager about the crazy workout from Thursday (where there was 22 minutes on the floor straight). We didn’t want to keep him there too long after hours, so Kate and I headed out and headed back to my house.

The next day was the main event that Kate came to town for: the Olympic trials. I’ll share more about this tomorrow but Kate went early in the morning and I was able to join her there after I was done with work. Even though I missed most of it, I got to see a little bit.

After we were done watching the racers, we headed over to my side of town to get some lunch at one of my favorite places, Lyfe Kitchen. Even though they have so many good things on their menu, I tend to get the same things each time. I love their BBQ chicken flatbread but instead of fries (since I had some the night before), I got a side of steam veggies with my food.

Lyfe Kitchen

After lunch we only had a little bit of time left before Kate needed to be back at LAX for her flight home, so we were trying to figure out what to do. We finally decided on doing a bit of random searching in the car for new wine bars. My favorite local wine bar, Bottle Rock, closed down right after the last time I was there so I was on the search for a new place. I knew that any new place I found wouldn’t be walking distance like Bottle Rock was, but I still wanted to see what other places were out there.

I had randomly seen a wine bar driving around a few weeks ago, so we headed over there first. Sadly, the place wasn’t open yet for the day. But we were able to see a menu online and it looked promising. After checking out that place, we did a search on Google Maps for other wine bars in the area and we set off on an adventure! We ended up checking out 2 other wine bars (one that looked good and one that didn’t) and then it was time to go to LAX.

Considering that this was all done in 24 hours, I think we succeeded in maximizing the limited time that Kate had in town. She kept saying that this wasn’t really a friend visit since she was coming here for the Olympic trials, but I lucked out because she was staying at my house. So I wanted to make sure that Kate had a fun time in LA and didn’t just feel like she was flying in, sleeping at my house, watching the Olympic trials, and flying out.

I’m just glad that Kate was just as up for going on as many adventures as we could like I was.

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Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged adventure, friends, Los Angeles, marathon, SAG-AFTRA, screening, travel

My 2016 Goals (or I’ve Got Some Big Ideas This Year)

Posted on January 1, 2016 | 2 comments

Happy New Year! I hope that you all got to spend New Years Eve last night with people you love and had a great time (and hopefully not feeling it too much today)! As I’ve done the past few years, I’m sharing what my goals are for this year and what I hope to accomplish.

First is my big workout goal. I want to do 180 workouts in 2016. It’s only 5 more workouts this year than I did last year, but I wanted to make the goal not too much of a stretch. I’d love to pass this goal and do closer to 190, but I also know that life can get in the way and I don’t want to stress out about reaching my goal like I did in 2015. I think it’s very doable and I’ll be tracking my workouts using the same app I did last year (it made this very easy for me). So hopefully in a year I’ll be telling you all how I got this done!

My next goal is to have a new PR for my 5K. This one is going to be difficult for me because I’m still dealing with calf pain, but I think that maybe I can do it. Right now, I have 2 5Ks that I’m planning on doing (the same ones as last year) but I might add another one in there. So there aren’t a ton of opportunities to get a PR, but I will have a ton of time on the treadmill at Orangetheory to work on my speed training. I still have an ultimate PR goal for my 5K (15 minute miles) so I can feel comfortable doing a Disney race, but I know that this goal is very possibly a few years away.

Next on the list is a money goal. Or more like money goals (but I’m combining it into one goal). I want to get my debt down farther, budget better, and even maybe start having more savings than just what I’m saving for my taxes (as a 1099 employee, I will probably owe a lot in taxes). This is not an easy goal. Money is tight and while I wouldn’t say that I have a spending problem, it’s hard to not spend like some of my friends do at times. And those friends sometimes make 4 or 5 times what I make. I’ve been using You Need A Budget for a budgeting app and I think I’ve gotten budgeting close to what I want it to be. However, YNAB just launched a new version and it’s a subscription payment model. I can still use the old version and not have to spend money on the app, but I’m also looking into new apps to use because I don’t want to spend $50/year on a budgeting app when that money could go to something better. I do have an amount in mind as far as reducing my debt goes, but that’s something that I’m going to keep to myself for now.

Next is a fun one. I want to travel more and find more ways to spend time with my friends. While I’m ok with saying no to going to parties and things, I like going on adventures and fun outings. So I want to work on figuring out adventures to go on with my friends so that we can have more fun. And for traveling, I’ve got one trip planned for February with my mom and I’m hoping to do a trip with my sister-in-law in March or April. So that’s a step in the right direction.

I’d also like to do another acting class this year. I think it will probably be the next level at UCB, but I’m open to acting classes that fit into my schedule and my budget. While it’s important for me to keep working on my acting skills, I want to be in another class for other reasons. It’s great meeting new actors, it makes me happy because I get an opportunity to act, and I feel like I’m making progress in my career even if I’m not auditioning. So I feel like this is important for me to do and I feel pretty confident that I’ll be able to get this done.

And finally, I want to be either in recovery from my eating disorder or on my way to recovery. I’m starting to look at my eating disorder as something to research and educate myself on instead of an emotional thing. I’ve been doing reading, listening to podcasts, and using apps for my eating disorder over the past week and I’ve already felt a difference. It’s still a battle that I lose sometimes, but I’m feeling much better about how I’m approaching things this time. And hopefully in a year I will be posting that I’m either in recovery or I’m getting very close to recovery. That would be such a wonderful thing I could accomplish in this year and if it happens I know that it will change my life.

So that’s it for my goals for this year! I think that I’ve got some good plans in mind. And while they won’t be easy to get done, they are not completely out of my reach. I’d love to hear some of the goals that you have for the coming year and hopefully we can keep each other on track!

Happy 2016!

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Saving, Tough Stuff, Travel

Tagged 2016, 5K, acting, binge eating, eating disorder, friends, goals, New Years, Orangetheory, plan, resolutions, travel, UCB, workout

Full Thanksgiving Trip (or Being With My Family In San Diego)

Posted on December 1, 2015 | 4 comments

My Thanksgiving trip to San Diego was from Tuesday until Friday last week. I had to work on Wednesday and Friday, but since I work from home I was able to bring all my stuff with me to San Diego and worked from the place we were staying (I did the same thing last year).

Those few days in San Diego were pretty packed, but it was a great family visit. I was nervous how it would be without my grandpa there, but it wasn’t as weird as I expected.

Tuesday I drove down to San Diego (it took 4 hours) and arrived there to have some dinner and spend a bit of time with my parents, aunts and uncle, and grandma. We really didn’t do too much that evening (I was pretty exhausted), but it was good to be around my family.

Wednesday I started with a short work shift. I worked in the kitchen so I had my family hanging out with me. It wasn’t a horribly busy shift so I’m glad that I worked in the kitchen and not in my room. That afternoon my mom, aunt, uncle, and grandma had some errands to run. So I spent a lot of time relaxing at the house and hanging out with my dad and aunt.

Wednesday evening was my grandma’s birthday dinner. We used to do this on Friday after Thanksgiving, but a couple of years ago we moved it to Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I think it’s better that way. We had a private room for the family, so it was nice that we didn’t have to worry about being too loud or my grandma being distracted by a lot of noise. While my grandma isn’t as involved in the conversations as she’s been in the past, she had a nice birthday dinner and it makes me happy to see her so happy.

Thursday starting with the workout at Orangetheory. After we got back from the workout, we helped set up the dining room for dinner (we did this in our gross gym clothes so we didn’t get our nice clothes dirty). The dining room has a gorgeous view and even though we weren’t able to see it at dinner, it was very nice to look at during the day.

I did a last minute grocery store run for my mom after that (who would have guessed that grocery stores would be out of green beans?!?) and then helped my parents get the bears set up to give out to the family before dinner. We put all the bears on a couch and covered them with a sheet so nobody would see them before the presentation. Of course with our sick sense of humor we thought that we made it look like we were hiding a dead body and my dad added some shoes and a hat to the pile to make it look even sillier.

My cousin Stephie and her kids arrived after that and my cousin Adam was able to take a Thanksgiving day flight to arrive in time to help carve the turkey (we’ve named him the official family turkey carver).

We had a pretty nice spread for dinner and the evening went really well with no awkwardness with my grandpa not being there.

I didn’t end up using the face paint on my cousin’s kids (they took the face paint home so it won’t go to waste). It was a bit weird not doing that tradition, but the evening was pretty full. And after dinner was done, I went to see the final Hunger Games movie with my cousin and her husband (that’s been our tradition for the past few years).

The next day, my grandpa’s ashes were being scattered at sea. The entire family was going on a boat, but I was not able to get the day off of work so I stayed back with the dog. I’m a bit sad that I wasn’t able to spend time with the family, but I’ve gotten seasick in the past so it was probably for the best.

I had fun with the dog at the house and took lots of silly photos of him. This is him trying to help me work.

After my family returned from the boat, I had enough time to get some leftovers for dinner and then I packed up my car to head back to LA.

I’m so lucky that I got to spend as much time with my family as I did. I know that not everybody gets the time off from work or have the ability to travel. I might not have had the time off of work, but I have the luxury of bringing my work with me and since San Diego isn’t a huge drive it’s not a big trip for me.

We are planning on going back down to San Diego to the same place again next year for Thanksgiving. It’s a great house that fits the family nicely and the set up is pretty ideal for a big family meal. I know I’ll be back in San Diego before next November, but I’m glad that I have next Thanksgiving to look forward to as well.

4 Comments

Posted in Celebrations, Family, Food, Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged dinner, family, San Diego, Thanksgiving, travel

A Bit Over-Scheduled (or Starting To Stress Out)

Posted on November 17, 2015 | 1 comment

For the past few weeks, my schedule has been pretty crazy. Every weekend is filled with something (sometimes something fun and sometimes lots of working at some of the day jobs). A few weeks ago, I realized that my next day off without having something on my schedule like work, class, or hosting an out-of-town friend would be Thanksgiving. I’m not used to not having a day every so often to just relax and do what I want to do. Right now, every day has something important and on a specific schedule. And that freaked me out a bit.

Now that my Thanksgiving trip is about a week away, I’m still extremely busy and I’m starting to worry about how I will get everything done before I head down to San Diego to be with my family.

I have to work while I’m in San Diego (I work the day before and the day after Thanksgiving) so I need to make sure I pack all of my work stuff. That ends up being very last minute because I will be driving down to San Diego right after a work shift next week. So I need to wait to pack everything I need until I’m logged out of my shift. But I’m starting to work on a work related packing list so I don’t forget anything.

I also have a few food things I need to make and bring down to Thanksgiving. I won’t have time to make them until after my class on Monday next week (that alone is stressing me out), but I’m starting on my shopping lists now and I’m hoping that I can get the ingredients this week so everything is ready for me to go Monday afternoon.

I also have gifts for a couple of people. I have a Hanukkah gift for my mom (I’ll write about that next week because it’s an awesome gift that I think you all might love), a Hanukkah gift for Ross and Krystle, and a birthday gift for my Dad (he got his Hanukkah gift back in April because I knew he’d want it as soon as possible). I’ve also got face paint for my cousin’s kids (it’s tradition) and I’m still thinking about bringing something else to maybe help decorate the house. Fortunately, all the gifts are all wrapped and in a bag with the face paint. It’s ready to go in my car but again it’s something else to have to remember to pack.

And of course, I have to start thinking about what clothes I want to bring with me. I’ll be doing another Thanksgiving morning workout with some of my family so there’s that checklist too (can you tell that I’m checklist obsessed right now?).

With all that I have to do plus lots of work do to for my day jobs, I know that when Thanksgiving day comes and I have the day off to spend with my family I will be very grateful. I’m trying not to get overwhelmed by everything I have to do, but that’s just who I am. The checklists are helping me because I can see exactly what I’m planning on bringing and when I’m packing up my car and I make sure that I don’t forget anything.

I am very happy that I can drive to Thanksgiving and don’t have to worry about flying because I can bring a lot more stuff and it’s easier to pack my car with several random small bags instead of trying to make sure everything fits into airline regulations. At least that’s one thing I don’t have to stress about.

1 Comment

Posted in Celebrations, Family, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Travel

Tagged busy, driving, family, San Diego, scheduling, stress, Thanksgiving, travel

How Is This Year Almost Over? (or Doing A Check In On My Goals)

Posted on October 28, 2015 | 1 comment

I was on the phone with a friend the other day and it came up that this year is over in 2 months. I know I say this every year but it’s crazy how fast the year is going by! It feels like my birthday was just a few weeks ago!

I’m not the type of person to do quarterly check ins with my goals (so many friends are trying to get me to do this and I’m thinking about maybe doing it next year), but with 2 months left I did want to see how I’m doing with what I set as goals for this year.

My first goal was to do 175 workouts at Orangetheory this year. Not counting the workout I’ll be doing today, I’m at 142 workouts. I’m very much on track to hit my goal, but I need to get back to 4 workouts a week soon so I make sure that I get there. But it’s very possible and I’m really happy with myself that I’ve gotten this close so far.

My next goal was having at least 4 home cooked dinners a week. This one I’m not doing so great with. If you could microwaved dinners as home cooked (I don’t), then I’m doing amazing. But I’ve really gotten out of my cooking trend that I was in for so long and I’m struggling to get back in to. A lot of that has to do with working one of my jobs on the weekends when I used to do meal prepping or knowing that I won’t be at home many nights a week. This is a scheduling issue that I’m always working on and I know that I need to make it a better priority in life.

Next on my list was getting down to 2 main day jobs. This one I actually did! I now have my box office from home job (which I’ve been at for over a year) as one of those main jobs and my data entry job with my old boss as my other main day job. I also have my sporadic jobs (babysitting, the film festival, my weekend box office job with an old boss), but I’m definitely down to 2 main day jobs. I have to admit that I’m shocked that I accomplished this one since it was the hardest one in my mind. I’m now looking at some other day jobs with more flexibility (my main box office job isn’t as flexible as I’d like it to be), but I’m very happy for now with the 2 main jobs I have and I’m super grateful to have them both.

Getting into an improv class was checked off the list last week when I started at UCB and I’ll be doing those classes for 6 more weeks. Again, I’m super shocked that I got this done because I’ve been wanting to do it for a while and haven’t had the chance or money to do so.

I haven’t been able to travel a lot this year. I’ve gone to San Diego a bunch and I went to Napa earlier in the year, but I was really hoping to do another New York trip this fall. There were schedule and financial issues with doing that trip, but it’s looking like it might be in the works for 2016.

And my final goal (as it always has been) was to keep blogging. I’ve had people ask me how long I can keep up blogging 5 days a week every week and I’m happy that I haven’t quit doing that yet. There may come a day in the future that I miss a day or that I decide to go down in the number of posts a week. But I’m still happy with my schedule as it is and it seems that you all like reading my posts too.

So that’s my almost the end of the year check in with my 2015 goals. They aren’t all done yet, but I’m making huge steps and progress so far and I feel like on December 31st I will be looking back and realizing that I got most or all of my goals accomplished for the year.

1 Comment

Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged cooking, goals, improv, job, Orangetheory, progress, travel, UCB

10 Years Later (or A Good Memory and A Bad Memory)

Posted on October 23, 2015 | Comments Off

10 years ago, I was visiting my cousin Adam and his girlfriend Keri in Portland for the weekend. It was a pretty amazing weekend. It was the first time visiting my cousin on my own without other family there and we went out and did so much fun stuff! I really felt like it was a real “adult” trip.

The highlight of my weekend in Portland was going out on Adam’s sailboat. I remember that there was pretty much no wind that day so we were more motoring than sailing, but I still got to go out on the boat and check out the work that he had done on it. Even with not really getting to sail, I loved being on the water.

After saying goodbye to Adam and Keri at the Portland airport, I went to my gate and waited for my flight (I think this was still in the time where you had to line up for Southwest to have a good spot in the A group). I was sitting by the gate and when it was time for me to get up and get on the plane, I tried to stand and immediately had a shooting pain and collapsed on the ground.

To this day, I have no idea how I got onto the plane, through LAX, and home. I’m sure I was a little out of it due to the pain. I just remember waking up the next morning and not being able to put weight on my right leg. Of course, my first reaction was to call my mom. And since I had awesome health insurance then, she told me to make an appointment and see a doctor to figure out what happened.

At first, I was diagnosed with a torn quad muscle (knowing what a torn calf feels like now, I finally understand why I was diagnosed with that at first). After a few weeks of the pain, I saw another doctor and got the same diagnosis again but was also told to go to physical therapy 2-3 times a week to help my recovery (at the time, my insurance covered all appointments in full so I was fine doing that). I was getting ultrasound therapy for a few months with very little improvement. My pain started to change into a locking sensation in my hip.

After sharing that information with my physical therapist, he got me a referral to the surgeon who ended up being my first hip surgeon and properly diagnosing me after months of believing that it was a muscle tear.

9 months from collapsing in the airport I had my hip surgery. The journey with my hip issues has been going ever since.

It’s so crazy to think that it has been 10 years since I fell in the airport. It feels like yesterday and a million years ago at the same time. But instead of focusing on that somewhat annoying anniversary, I’m focusing on the fun that I had on that trip. I had the best time with Adam and Keri that weekend and I think that that was the trip that really built my friendship with Keri. I saw her in person so few times from the time I met her until she passed away. So each of those in-person memories is so precious to me.

Even though that trip 10 years ago ended on a pretty sucky note, everything else leading up to it was so amazing and my only regret is that I don’t have more pictures from that weekend.

Comments Off on 10 Years Later (or A Good Memory and A Bad Memory)

Posted in Family, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Travel

Tagged family, hip, hip issues, travel

Goodbye Grandpa (or Remembering A Full Life)

Posted on April 7, 2015 | 7 comments

Early on Thursday morning, my grandpa passed away.

As you are reading this, I’m in San Diego spending time with my family. Our focus is on my grandma and making sure that she is ok and that everything that needs to be taken care of is done.

But I wanted to share with you all how badass my grandpa was. He and I had a complicated relationship, but he loved me and I loved him. And he really did live so much in his 92 years (he would have turned 93 next month).

I don’t know a ton about my grandpa’s childhood. I know that he wrote down his history and his family history on his computer somewhere, and I hope that we are able to locate that document. I really want to have that myself so I can remember where he came from and what happened when he was young.

My grandpa was not someone who talked about the past a lot. In fact, I had no idea that he was in Germany in WWII fighting the Nazis until he was talking about it maybe 5 years ago.

When he and my grandma got married they first lived in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

They lived there for a while (my mom, aunt, and uncle were all born there) before moving to LA.

I’ve been to their houses in LA before, but sadly I don’t have any photos of that on my computer. But they lived in the valley and had some really cool houses.

While they lived in LA, they lived it up! My grandpa got a boat and he, my grandma, my mom, my aunt, and my uncle sailed on it a lot. I’ve heard so many stories from their time on the boat, especially when they were in Catalina. My favorite story is actually one about my mom when she was hit in the face with a flying fish one evening in Catalina. But I think my entire family thinks that story is pretty awesome.

He also loved to fly. He flew a small plane that was just big enough for the family.

They flew all over the US on lots of different trips. They would fly to Louisiana to go back to visit family and my mom, aunt, and uncle got to travel the US by plane quite a bit. I think that if he could have flown that plane for the rest of his life, he would have.

Once my grandpa retired, they moved down to San Diego. But even in retirement, my grandpa never slowed down. He designed the backyard and swimming pool at their house, and I don’t think that anyone could have done it better. And they had the best orange trees and the orange juice was freshly squeezed every visit.

I think if I had to pick one of his favorite things to do, it would be to travel. My grandparents always seemed to go on these epic trips, both within the US and internationally. My grandpa traveled to all 7 continents (even Antarctica!) and inspired me to hope to do the same in my lifetime.

Sometimes my parents, my brother, and I was lucky enough to get to join my grandparents on the trips they did. One of the most epic trips that we did as a big extended family was to go to Africa together.

This trip was for my grandparents’ 50th anniversary. All 3 generations (this was way before my cousin had her kids) of the family were there to experience the safari together. Besides my grandparents’ anniversary we also celebrated my parents’ 15th anniversary, my cousin’s 15th birthday, and my 14th birthday while we were in Africa. That was definitely one of the best birthdays that I ever had. My grandpa really wanted all of us to go to Africa together because he had loved it there when he and my grandma went before and he wanted to make sure that we could all experience it as well.

But more than traveling, he loved my grandma.

Last September they celebrated their 67th anniversary and they seemed in as much love as ever.

Last Thanksgiving, almost everyone in my family was able to be together (only one cousin wasn’t able to make it). We took a family photo after dinner and I’m so glad that we were able to get one more (almost) full family photo.

While I am sad that my grandpa passed away, I can only admire how full of a life he lived. He really maximized every day that he had and I don’t think that he had any regrets of things that he wasn’t able to do (except maybe to keep flying a plane later in life).

I will always remember my grandpa as the one who got me to drink martinis (and I got him hooked on blue cheese stuffed olives), who loved to email dirty jokes to the entire family, and the one who gave me my love of traveling.

Thank you Grandpa for everything that you did for our family and for loving us all as much as you did. I know that there will be a hole in our family now that can’t be filled. But we will all try to live life to the fullest to honor how you lived your life.

Robert Joseph Fry (May 29, 1922-April 2, 2015)

7 Comments

Posted in Family, Tough Stuff

Tagged death, grandparents, obituary, travel

What I Plan To Do This Year (or 2015 Goals)

Posted on January 1, 2015 | 5 comments

Now that I’ve reflected back on my 2014 goals and how well I accomplished them, I really thought hard about what I want my 2015 goals to be. I think I’ve got a good list going for this year and I’m excited to see how well I get them done over the next year.

My first goal is workout related. I want to get 175 workouts done in 2015. That’s pretty much 3-4 workouts every week of the year. I’m not allowing myself workout vacation time (even though my dad did suggest it). I’m sure a majority of the 175 workouts will be at Orangetheory. I have every intention of going at least 3 times a week (and trying to add in a 4th day every other week). But I’m also going to include any 5Ks that I chose to do this year as well as other fitness classes (SoulCycle and maybe trying yoga again). I will also consider including hiking, but I don’t think I’ll have a lot of hiking days except when I get to Tahoe in the summer.

My next goal is a food goal. I want to have home cooked dinners at least 4 times a week. Since I started bulk cooking, I’ve been eating something home cooked most weeknights. I usually prepare food for 4 nights and then on weekends I’m out. And many times on Tuesdays or Thursdays (when I don’t workout after my day job) I don’t necessarily eat dinner. I’ll have a big late breakfast (since my shift doesn’t start until 10am) and then have another bigger meal around 4 or 5pm. Both of those meals are home cooked, but I don’t know if it counts as dinner. So I’m saying home cooked dinners 4 nights a week. If I do more than that, all the better for me.

Next is a day job goal. I want to be down to 2 main day jobs (not counting babysitting or running the film festival). Right now, I have 1 main day job and 6 sporadic jobs. I don’t make enough each week (to the point that I’m still collecting unemployment to make up for the fact that I don’t make enough to not be eligible anymore) and this needs to end. I’m enjoying my box office from home job and if I made enough doing that job I’d be so happy. But I don’t think that will be a reality even with the raise we are supposed to get this year. And while I love being able to make some extra money babysitting, I don’t see that as something that will make enough to make up for what I’m lacking. So I need to find one more steady day job that has regular hours to help me make enough to pay all my bills comfortably. There is a chance to make the film festival another main day job, but there is no guarantee with that.

And I’ve made this a goal in the past, but I really want to get into an improv class this year. I think that now that I feel secure with my day job and have a steady schedule with it, I will be able to pick out a class time that will work for me. I’m working on saving up the money for the class right now.

Again, another repeat goal from last year, but I’d like to travel again this year. I have a trip to Napa planned in 2 months and I’m really looking forward to that. And there is a possibility of another New York trip in the fall this year. I don’t know if I’ll have any other trips (besides visiting my parents or grandparents) but 2 trips in one year sounds wonderful to me!

And my final goal which is a goal every year is to keep blogging. Not just on here, but on other sites as well. I freelance on two blogs and I’ve written a few guest posts on other sites. I had no idea when I started this blog how important and therapeutic writing would become for me. It’s an amazing journal of the past few years of my life and I love going back and reading some of my old posts to remind me how far I’ve come. And I can’t wait to track 2015 the same way.

So those are my main goals for 2015. And in a year, I’ll let you all know how I did with them.

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Travel, Weight Loss, Work

Tagged 2015, 5K, acting, blogging, bulk cooking, goals, job, Orangetheory, resolutions, travel

Day 2 Part 1 Of NYC (or Trying To Get Used To The Cold)

Posted on March 24, 2014 | Comments Off

Krystle and I had decided that the first part of our second day in New York was going to be our touristy day. We had purchased tickets for one of those hop on hop off buses and figured that we could combine that plus using the subway to get around the city and maximize the day.

We started by heading by subway to Union Square to have breakfast at Chocolate By The Bald Man (yes, they have breakfast there and not just desserts).

I had an egg scramble and it came with a sugar biscuit and a dish of melted chocolate on the side. I used the biscuit to dip in the chocolate and it was amazing!

After breakfast we crossed the street where the hop on hop off bus had a stop. We only waited a minute or two before we saw the bus headed our way. While it was a pretty sunny day, it was in the low 40’s and very windy, so we were pretty cold.

But despite the cold, we got seats on the top of the bus so we could have the best views.

We were in awe over all the amazing architecture around the city. While Los Angeles and San Francisco (where Krystle and my brother live) have good-looking buildings, the ones in New York are very different. We spent a lot of the time on the bus just enjoying the view.

We got off the bus near where the 9/11 Memorial and the new Freedom Tower are located. We didn’t know that you needed tickets to see the 9/11 Memorial, but we were lucky enough that they still had same day tickets (and that the ticket time was only about an hour later). We waited around for our time at the memorial at a nearby store and once we could go in, we got through all the security checkpoints pretty quickly (it’s similar to what you go through at the airport).

The last time I was in New York, it was August of 2000. I went to visit the World Trade Centers (somewhere I have a picture of me standing between the two buildings). This was the first time I was in the city with the towers being gone. It was different. But I think that the memorial is beautiful and that it was done so well and tastefully.

And the new Freedom Tower looks amazing as well.

We walked around the memorial for a little bit and then headed over the subway. We got the subway over to the Empire State Building, where we got tickets to go up to the 86th floor observation deck (there’s a higher observation deck but it was almost $20 more per person to go up there).

Up at the observation deck, we took lots of pictures. I got a picture of the view of each side of the building.

And of course we took selfies at each side as well.

Since it was such a nice day, we also had an amazing view of the Statue of Liberty.

After the Empire State Building, we hopped back on the bus to go on some more of the tour. We planned to take it back to the hotel, where we would get the subway to our next adventure of the day: getting blowouts at DryBar.

But that story is going to have to wait until tomorrow’s post.

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Posted in Family, Food, Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged 9/11, New York, tour, travel

Trip Prep (or How The Earthquake Made Me Super Productive)

Posted on March 19, 2014 | Comments Off

On Monday and Tuesday this week, I knew I had to do all of my prep work for my NYC trip. I was leaving on the red-eye on Tuesday so I knew I had most of that day to get things done, but I didn’t want to leave everything to the last-minute.

My plan was to wake up on Monday and do most of my trip packing. On a daily basis, my alarm is set for 7am (yes, even while I’m unemployed). On Monday, I woke up at 6:24am (I know the exact time because I looked at my phone) and was mad because I wanted to go back to sleep and get in that last half hour. But a minute after I woke up, a 4.4 earthquake hit Los Angeles.

While a 4.4 isn’t too big of an earthquake, when it starts, you have no idea how big it will get. The first jolt was pretty big and the rumbling was very loud. Turns out, the epicenter was pretty close to me.

As soon as the shaking stopped, I got out of bed and went over to my living room to watch the news. I also got on my computer and sent a quick email to my parents to let them know that I was ok (I didn’t want them to see it on their news and not have heard from me). Since it was a smaller quake, there really wasn’t a lot of damage. In my house, one wineglass broke. That’s it.

After watching the news for a bit to see that it wasn’t a big quake somewhere and that everything was ok, I decided to start my day (I forgot to turn off my alarm and it went off a few minutes after I turned off the news).

I got all my packing done. It was tough because I’m only bringing a carry on and the weather is supposed to be highs in the mid 50’s and lows in the 20’s. That’s a lot of variety. But fortunately, I got some travel storage bags so I could make my sweaters and bulky jacket take up less room in my suitcase. I managed to get everything in there that I needed to bring.

On Tuesday, I kept my schedule pretty open so I could try to prevent some stress about flying. All I really did was go over to my friend Erin’s house because she was going to blow out and style my hair for me.

Other than that, I tried to stay calm and get ready for my red-eye flight that night.

I’ll admit that I’m writing this post before my flight, so I’ll have to share my experience with that on another post.

Next time, I’ll be writing from NYC!

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged flying, New York, packing, red eye, suitcase, travel

Tag Archives: travel

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