Tag Archives: weekend

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

Posted on September 6, 2022 | Comments Off

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged holidays, labor day, weekend

Really Having A Lazy Weekend (or I Guess Sometimes Bad Days Can Be Helpful)

Posted on August 30, 2022 | Comments Off

My weekends have been busy but not busy since I moved. I’m usually doing something for my new place over the weekend. I might be organizing things, trying to unpack things that I have still in boxes, cleaning, or doing some shopping for things that I still want. Because I work Monday-Saturday, my weekends are more like a day and a half off each week, so I don’t always have all the time to do what I want to do. But sometimes it also feels like I don’t do much each weekend since I don’t see a lot of results from my work. It’s weird to feel like I’m so busy and I don’t have time, yet it seems like I didn’t do much when I’m preparing for another work week.

I don’t feel like I’ve had a really lazy weekend recently because of all the random busy work I’ve been doing, but this past weekend I was forced into having a lazy weekend. I was really feeling nauseous and in a lot of pain over the weekend so a lot of the things I wanted to get done were put off. I had a full list of errands that I wanted to run, but I had to limit it just to getting groceries for the coming week and everything else will just have to be done at another time.

So for my time after work on Saturday and most of Sunday, I was laying around my house. I did make it out to the grocery store on Sunday, but that’s the only thing I worried about doing. The rest of the time, I only did things I felt like doing and wanted to do. That really felt like a luxury and I think I needed this reset weekend. Most of the time, I was either in bed or on my couch reading. I got through multiple books this weekend which was really fun. I now have Kindle Unlimited, so my to be read list continues to grow and I got to work through some of the books I’ve been wanting to read. I watched a little tv, but I’ve been noticing that I’m not watching as much tv as I used to, especially when there aren’t new shows to be watching. I don’t usually watch reruns, and I don’t watch a lot of tv just randomly. I tend to watch things that I planned on watching or already recorded on my DVR.

Because of how I was feeling, it wasn’t the most relaxing weekend. I did have to deal with all the symptoms I was feeling and I tried to make sure I was taking care of myself. And there was plenty of time that I was just laying down with my eyes closed and waiting to let the nausea or the pain pass. But I was lucky and the bad moments really weren’t that much of my weekend and I was able to just enjoy the time I spent being lazy at home. And even with how I was feeling some of the time, it did feel like a bit of a reset weekend. And that’s not something I feel like I have really done in a while.

I have done resets for part of my weekend. Most weekends, my Sundays are all about getting ready for the week and getting groceries, doing laundry, and cleaning. But doing all the things I need to do to get ready for my week can feel tiring and like I never had a break. Because I really didn’t do much this past weekend (including not doing my usual Sunday cleaning), I got to have a bit of a mental reset instead of just getting my house and things reset for the week. And that almost felt like a bit of a splurge.

I know having a mental reset like this isn’t something I can do every weekend. I just don’t have enough time in my limited time off each week to take this much time to things that aren’t productive. But I think that I really needed this time this past weekend. I feel a lot better going into this week than I have for a while. I’m not necessarily feeling physically better, but I know that will come soon. But at least feeling bad physically allowed me to feel a bit better mentally.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Health

Tagged lazy, self-care, weekend

Gaining Back A Bit Of My Weekend (I’ve Really Needed This Extra Time)

Posted on May 10, 2022 | Comments Off

For about a year, I’ve had only 1 weekend day that felt like a day off. I work on Saturday mornings. Once Orangetheory reopened I was going to my workouts after I was done with work. And after my workouts, I had my Movie Club group. So my Saturdays were busy from 8 am until about 6 or 7 pm. Even though I could do something after I was done with Movie Club, I rarely did since I was normally exhausted by that point in my day. So I only really had Sundays off since I work Monday-Saturday.

And for a while, I don’t think this was a huge issue for me. It was a lot, but it was ok. I didn’t feel like I was missing out on too much since I’m still not really going out too much. And it was a nice routine to have. But slowly I’ve been starting to get my Saturdays back again.

First, my Movie Club group decided to move our movies from Saturdays to Fridays. More people were making plans for Saturdays so they wanted to switch the night so they didn’t have to miss the movie. I don’t mind this and we just watch the movies right after I’m done with work (I’m one of the only people on the west coast, so it’s much later for everyone else). We haven’t been watching the movies every week, which is also ok. I know that we still watch them pretty often, but if we miss a week or two it’s ok. Plus, we still have the tv show that we watch on Wednesdays.

And I haven’t been working out on Saturdays lately either. I’ve been toying with having my workouts just on weekdays for a while and I’ve been testing out the idea. And last month, I knew I needed every Saturday I could get to work on the move. So I never worked out on a Saturday in April. And I’ve been continuing that idea this month. I think I might start just planning for weekday-only workouts and if I need to do one on a Saturday I can do that. For example, this week I will be working out on Saturday for a few reasons. But having the time after work free and not spent working out and then showering and getting dressed after working out has worked to my advantage.

Besides all the work I’ve been doing with moving, there have been other tasks I’ve been trying to get done and I’m glad I don’t have to make them all happen on Sundays. For example, I went to Costco the other day to get some things I wanted/needed for the condo. I know going on a weekend can be crazy, but at least going on Saturday when I didn’t have anything I had to rush to afterward allowed me as much time as I needed there. And I got a lot of good things, including some things that weren’t on my list but I was happy to get much cheaper than if I bought them elsewhere.

And I’ve been working on getting stuff unpacked and organized a lot on Saturdays. Sundays are usually spent cleaning and getting ready for the week (plus relaxing a bit), so doing some of the more annoying tasks on Saturdays helps to get them out of the way. As I’ve said before, unpacking and organizing will be something I work on for a while for a few reasons. But just seeing some progress makes me feel better about my space and less embarrassed when people come by.

Hopefully, soon I will have some more fun things I do with my extra time on Saturdays. It’s been tough to plan fun things in my life since the move really dominated my life for longer than I want to admit. And I’m still hesitant because of the pandemic. But I’m reevaluating what I consider to be acceptable risks so I can hopefully go out and do more things. And if I keep my Saturdays less busy with some of the regular things I’ve been doing before, it at least allows for the potential for more fun things to be added into my schedule as I have the opportunity.

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Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged scheduling, weekend

A Very Low-Key Holiday Weekend (or Enjoying A Real 3 Day Weekend)

Posted on December 28, 2021 | Comments Off

For me to have a 3 day weekend is extremely rare. Because I work Monday-Saturday between my 2 main jobs, if a holiday is on a weekend I get to have 2 days off. And if a holiday is on a Monday (which so many of them are), then I also get to have 2 days off instead of just 1. But to have 3 days off is something that just doesn’t happen much for me. But for Christmas, that’s what I got!

Both of my jobs had Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as holidays, so I had Friday-Sunday off work. It was a nice break that I really needed after having a crazy few months recently. And for the most part, I didn’t do much over those 3 days. But I think that’s exactly what my body and mind needed.

On Friday I did have my workout in the morning which was fun. And then that afternoon a friend of mine came over to the condo because I wanted to start marking out some of my furniture and planning how I want to set things up. I still have time before I am moving in, but it’s easy to plan out now when there is nothing there and I’m not worried about messing up new floors or walls. And there are a few new things I want to get for the condo, but I needed to figure out how much space I would have. Just taping out my current furniture helped me so much and I’m starting to look more at things I want to get (although I will be waiting until I move in for most new things since I want to see what I really need).

And on Christmas Day, I really did a lot of nothing. I didn’t set an alarm so I was able to sleep in a little bit. I spent a lot of time reading and watching things on Netflix I wanted to catch up on. And I ordered Chinese food since that’s one of my Christmas traditions. I didn’t technically watch a movie that day, but I think binge-watching shows on Netflix should count as a movie in a way.

And on Sunday, it was another somewhat lazy day but I was also getting things ready for my week the way I normally do on Sundays. I did some cleaning, laundry, and planned out my week a bit. I’m working almost every day this week, but I’m working half days so I have a bit more free time than I normally do during the week. But between things with the pandemic getting worse and the bad weather we are having in LA, I’m not sure I’ll be doing a lot this week either.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s is always a bit of an odd one even in normal times. I’ll try to go out and do things when I can, but I also want to spend this week getting myself ready for 2022 and all the good things that I know will be coming my way in the new year!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged christmas, holidays, weekend

Memorial Day Weekend (or Not Really Doing Much)

Posted on May 30, 2018 | Comments Off

This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend and I really didn’t do that much. I did have my show at the Bowl (which was awesome!), but beyond that I didn’t make plans. When there is a 3 day weekend where the day off is Monday, I really don’t have extra time off. My normal day off is Monday so when everyone else has that day off as well it just makes stores more crowded for me. It’s a weird feeling when so many people ask what I will be doing with my day off and I just have to explain that I don’t really have a day off even though I do. It’s just not an extra day off.

In the past, I’ve usually had a party over the weekend since other people were enjoying having a 3 day weekend. This year, my friends who normally host a party had other things they had to do so they couldn’t host. I was a bit disappointment about that because I love their parties and getting to see all my friends, but of course I understood that they just didn’t have the time (and it is a big time commitment for them to always host the parties). I thought about trying to organize something at my house, but I just wasn’t feeling too motivated to do it. I also have such a small house that it can be tough to have too many people over.

I’ll also admit that in the past I didn’t really think too much about the idea of “celebrating” Memorial Day. I just thought of both Memorial Day and Veterans Day as days to thank those who have fought for our freedom and to recognize their service. But more people have been posting lately about the difference with the two days and what they mean. Memorial Day is about remembering those in the military who died while fighting for this country. The idea of celebrating about people who have died is a weird feeling. I know that people say we should be enjoying the freedom we have to do what we want and that is what those people died for, but it’s still a weird idea.

So between not having a party to go to and my feelings about what it means to celebrate this day, I really didn’t feel like doing much. This was a bit of an odd choice since I was just saying how sick of being home and doing nothing I was. When you are stuck at home sick and not able to do anything it can feel so boring. But when you choose to stay home and not do much that can feel amazing. And I was in the mindset that I just didn’t want to do much and that was fine with me.

Monday was also just a day to do all the things I normally would do on a Monday. I had a workout, I had errands to do, and I had to get stuff done to get ready for the week. I didn’t want to take that time doing things that I wasn’t really feeling like doing when I knew that it would affect how my week went. I did end up having a casual coffee date on Monday, but I also made sure that I didn’t neglect all the other things I needed to do.

Even with all my friends who were excited to have an extra day off work, it seemed like a lot of people were in the same mindset as I was. So many people were saying how they were just spending the day at home catching up on whatever they needed or wanted to catch up on. So I wasn’t alone in my feeling that this past weekend wasn’t really one to make a ton of plans or do try to do as much as you could. In a weird way, it helped me feel less alone being alone at home knowing that so many other people I know were doing the same thing.

Even with my weird feelings about celebrating this past weekend, I do agree that it is kind of the unofficial kickoff to summer. I haven’t made that many plans for this summer and I’m starting to try to think about what I’d like to do and start planning more. I know how quickly the summer will go by and before I know it it will be my birthday and the summer will feel like it’s almost over. So I do want to take some time soon to work on making some plans and coming up with ideas for what would be fun.

Sorry if this post is a weird one or a bit depressing. As I’ve written about on here recently, things have been a bit weird for me. I’m working on getting things back to my normal but it hasn’t been as easy as I had hoped. And I think my mixed feelings on the weekend really didn’t help me much get into a better mood or mental viewpoint. But I’m hoping to be back there soon.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged holidays, weekend

Lack Of Plans (or A Lazy Weekend)

Posted on March 16, 2016 | 1 comment

Before this past weekend started, I had so many things scheduled to do. I had several hangouts scheduled with friends (some which were also going out to eat hangouts), meeting with people who I’m thinking about working on projects with, and doing the regular weekend chores like laundry and getting groceries. While I wasn’t over booking myself, I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed with everything that I was going to get done Saturday-Monday (I consider Monday part of my weekend since my days off are Sunday and Monday).

Then slowly, my plans started to get cancelled. If you are one of my friends I was supposed to meet with, don’t feel bad at all. Honestly, as my schedule got more and more open I started to relax. I don’t know why the plans were stressing me out, but clearly I needed a weekend to myself.

Saturday ended up being the only day that seemed busy. I had my usual work schedule and then as soon as I was done at 11am I got into my car and headed to my friend Erin’s house. Erin cut and colored my hair (I really needed it since it hadn’t been done since before Thanksgiving!) and I felt nice and refreshed. I originally was going to watch her kids so she and her husband could have a date night, but Erin was getting over the flu so she wasn’t going out that night. But she did have some errands to run so I watched her kids for about an hour so she could do some kid-free shopping.

Usually when I’m watching her kids, it’s late so we just do dinner, watch a movie, and the kids go to bed. But since this was the afternoon we decided to do some fun activities. Erin’s daughter is super into science experiments, so we decided to do a search on YouTube for kid science things. I had no clue there were so many videos on easy to do science projects! We did a couple of projects (some successfully and some not-so-successfully) and before we knew it Erin was home again and I headed back home.

Even though I was babysitting and driving back and forth to Erin’s house, it really didn’t feel like I was doing much. During my drive I listen to my podcasts and babysitting Erin’s kids is usually pretty easy (and they were so into those videos online that they didn’t even care that I was there).

After leaving Erin’s house, I headed back home and got some of my errands done and then just relaxed at home. And that’s pretty much how I spent Sunday too. I did the chores I needed to do, but most of the time I was just being lazy at home doing very little stuff. I did a lot of reading and watched a movie at home, but that’s not really that productive.

Monday (the end of my weekend) was a bit busier with a workout, a drive down to Anaheim to do some shopping, and I had plans that evening. But it still felt like I was being selfish by doing only what I wanted to do.

Even though my weekends aren’t too busy, it felt nice to have a really lazy weekend. I got to decompress a bit and get things in order the way I wanted to. I worked on some organizing work that I had been meaning to do and didn’t worry about how long I was spending on them. It really was the perfect way to spend the time after plans were cancelled.

I do need to remember to schedule time for myself from time to time. I think I feel like I do that because I work from home and spend many evenings at home after my workouts. But when I’m working my focus is on work and after my workouts I’m usually showering, eating dinner, and then spend a little time getting ready for the next day before going to bed. So that time isn’t always spent doing what I want to do. I think if I had one day a month where I had nothing I had to do and could just spend it being focused on me, that would be perfect.

Of course, I need to schedule that day into my calendar otherwise I wouldn’t remember to do it.

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Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged scheduling, weekend

Girls Weekend (or Hanging Out With My Mom And Aunt)

Posted on February 24, 2016 | 2 comments

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, I think you know that I’m pretty close to my mom and to my Aunt Cindy. I love getting to hang out with them and we had a really great girls weekend 3 years ago when they came to LA to hang out with me for a few days. And this past weekend we got to have another amazing weekend hangout!

After dealing with a bunch of flight delays for my trip with my mom and sister-in-law last year, I got some credit to use on Southwest for a future trip. I thought maybe I’d use it for a trip to Tahoe or something else, but I realized that the one year mark of getting that credit was coming up and I was going to lose the credit. So my mom and I decided that we would go to Sacramento (I flew she drove) where my Aunt Cindy lives to hang out with her! I haven’t really spent a ton of time in the Sacramento area except when I’m there for Thanksgiving. But then I’m usually hanging out at my aunt and uncle’s house and not really exploring the area too much. So I was super excited for this trip!

I flew out after work on Saturday. This was my first time flying while taking Vyvanse and I was so nervous that I would have a horrible panic attack on the plane. But I’m happy to share that just like at the dentist, I did surprisingly well on the plane! I even got to enjoy the view a bit. It was awesome seeing snow out the window since we’ve been dealing with such a horrible drought the past few years.

Snow From The Sky

Once I landed, my mom picked me up and we went to check into our hotel. All we did there was drop off our bags and then we headed straight to my aunt and uncle’s house. It was so awesome to be there again, it had been several years since we had Thanksgiving there. My uncle was spending time with a friend of his while my mom and I were there, so we all went out to dinner to work on planning out our next day. Dinner was fun (we went out for Chinese food), but I was excited for our full day the next day.

On Sunday, my aunt came over to our hotel and we were off on our adventure. Our first stop was the Folsom Zoo. My aunt is a volunteer there so she led us on an amazing tour!

Folsom Zoo

I know some people don’t love zoos and I’ve had some thoughts about them after seeing the movie “Blackfish”. But the Folsom Zoo is actually an animal sanctuary. The animals there were illegal pets, animals that were hurt and couldn’t go back into the wild, or donated after someone could no longer care for them. They don’t buy or sell animals and they don’t have a breeding program to increase their animal population. So I had no concerns with seeing the animals there.

We saw a ton of different animals at the zoo including monkeys, bears, tigers, wolves, horses, pigs, snakes, birds, and chickens.

Monkeys Bear Chicken

The animal we saw the most were peacocks. They were all over the zoo and since they technically aren’t zoo animals, they run free all over the property.

Peacock

The zoo is pretty small, so we were there for about an hour before heading out to our next adventure: the Folsom Prison Museum.

This might seem like a weird adventure to go on (especially since it’s located right next to the prison), but it was a really good little museum. The man working there was a guard at the prison and he had a lot of interesting stories to share. We got to see a video about how the prison was built and the architectural history behind it. The museum also had some artifacts from the early days of the prison and a section dedicated to Johnny Cash.

We had a minor moment of panic when we were inside the museum and heard a siren go off, but it was a signal that it was noon and not anything scary. As we left we saw people heading into the prison for visiting hours, but it was cool to see it after learning so much about its construction.

Folsom Prison

Our next stop was downtown Folsom. We got a quick lunch at a pizza place and then walked a few blocks to the old Folsom Powerhouse. The Powerhouse is a state historic park and there was a very nice museum that we walked through first that explained the history of the powerhouse and the history of having electrical power in the state.

After the museum we headed down a short path to see the old powerhouse.

Folsom Powerhouse

There was a really knowledgeable guide inside the powerhouse who told us all about how it worked, showed us some historic pictures, and even showed us a beaver that was living under the powerhouse that you could see through a grate in the floor. We were also able to walk down to the lower powerhouse (it’s not always open). While walking around, we were so grateful that we lucked out on the weather and it was a gorgeous day!

Gorgeous Day

Our next stop was supposed to be the Folsom Museum, but they were closing early that day and we only had a few minutes to walk quickly through everything before they closed.

Since we weren’t spending time at the Folsom Museum, we decided to do some walking around and checking out the stores. My mom found something really cool to get my grandma for Mother’s Day and I found something that I’m going to give Rayshell for her wedding (I can’t post it on here yet because I know she reads my blog!). There was also a store that had some really cool decorative things made out of old silverware. I really liked them, but they were a bit pricy. I have no idea if I could do it myself, but I think if I found some awesome cheap silverware I might try it.

Crafty

After all that walking around and exploring, we headed back to the hotel to rest a little bit and then headed out for a quick casual dinner to end our girls weekend. It was a super full day and I had a great time, but I wish that I had a bit more time to spend with my aunt. But overall, it was an awesome Sacramento adventure.

On Monday, my mom and I were originally going to try to go to the Walt Disney Museum (my brother and sister-in-law gave me tickets for Hanukkah), but timing things out with rush hours and my flight home (which was out of San Jose) wasn’t going to work out. So we just drove straight to Saratoga so I could hang out with my dog and my dad.

We didn’t do anything too fancy when I was hanging out in Saratoga. I hadn’t been home in 2 years (since the first time I met Tucker), so there were a bunch of cool new things my parents wanted to show me in the house. We also took Tucker to the dog park (his favorite place!) and for a couple of walks. He’s gotten bigger since I saw him at Thanksgiving and he’s calmed down a bit too!

Tucker

Before I knew it, it was time to go to the airport to fly back home. I had another relatively calm flight and was home in time to get a good night sleep to get ready for the week.

I really had the best weekend with my mom and aunt. We’ve joked that in 3 years we’ll have to figure out another adventure to do together, but I really hope that we are able to do something together as a group sooner than that. We do such fun adventures/trips together and I can’t wait to see what we plan on doing next!

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Posted in Family, Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged adventure, California, dog, family, mom, travel, trip, weekend

A Friend Weekend (or Getting Up Early and Not Doing Much)

Posted on November 11, 2015 | 1 comment

Since my friend Kate was going to do the Hard Rock Cafe 5K with me, she came down for the weekend to hang out (she lives in Northern CA now) and spent some time with me. I hadn’t seen Kate in a while, so I was excited for some weekend catching up and hopefully some fun too. But even though she was coming into town for the weekend, since she was coming in later on Friday and leaving early on Sunday we only had about a day and a half to hang out. And we had a race to do so it was going to be an interesting mix of craziness and relaxing.

Kate got to LA on Friday afternoon after I was done with work. So I got her at LAX and we went to an early dinner at Lyfe Kitchen since we knew we were getting up early the next morning. It was a fun dinner and we got to catch up on all the crazy and random stuff that has been happening lately (we’ve both had some tough times lately). After that dinner, we went to my house and went to bed pretty quickly.

On race day, we were up at 4:30am and then had the race at 7am. After the race, we had breakfast at Hard Rock Cafe and then went back to my house. We spent some time relaxing and then went out on a fun and random shopping adventure. Neither of us bought anything, but it was fun hanging out how we used to in high school.

After our shopping adventure, we headed to another early dinner. This time, we went to Bottle Rock for some wine and yummy food. I love going to Bottle Rock because there is always great wine and the food has never disappointed me. Plus, it’s not loud or too crazy on weekends so you can relax there and not worry about people being obnoxious next to you.

We both got wine flights and of course I got 3 different sparkling wines.

I drank most of my tastes (they were all so yummy!) and we got a bunch of different things to split between us to eat. We tried a bunch of food and got some dessert (we burned off some calories by doing the race that morning and we had both skipped lunch). But since we had been up for so long that day, we didn’t stay out too late that night.

The next morning, Kate had a flight back home. But before her flight we went to iHop near LAX to have breakfast. It was another good meal and again it was fun getting to just talk.

I’ve missed having Kate in LA and it was nice to have her back here for the weekend. Even though we didn’t go do a ton of stuff (and there were so many things that I thought we could go and do), it was a great visit. We both have said how it’s nice to be such good friends that it’s ok if we don’t do much or if we have a quiet hang out.

Kate will be back in LA next month and I’m hoping I’ll get to see her again then (she’s coming into town to see a different friend and I am working a lot the weekend she’ll be here). But even if I don’t get to see her on that trip, I’m glad that we had this fun and chill weekend this past weekend to hang out and do our best on our 5K.

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Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged 5K, busy, friends, lazy, trip, vacation, weekend, wine

Another Festival Done! (or My Weekend With The Beverly Hills Shorts Festival)

Posted on March 10, 2015 | 1 comment

This past weekend was the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival. It was my second year as co-director of the festival. It’s still a little scary to me that I’m in charge of running a film festival, but I know that I can do it.

Our festival was going to be held at the same location as last year. That made me happy because I know the venue well and at the last festival we didn’t really have any technical issues.

On Friday, we had our opening night party. That is a good way to ease into the festival. It’s a fun party and everyone seems to have a good and relaxing time. I tried to figure out what to wear as a film festival director, and I think I came up with a good outfit.

My job at the party is really to be the hostess for the event. I tried to have fun while I had some amazing volunteers who helped to put together programs and check in our filmmakers. And as I went around the room, it seemed like everyone was having a great time.

The next day was the first day of screenings. When I got to the venue, I had to take a picture of their sign promoting our festival.

We screening in the ballroom again. The employees there were able to set up the chairs, couches, and bar stools in a way that it was almost like stadium seating.

On the first day of screenings, it went pretty smoothly. We had some issues with sound because of the noise in the other areas of the venue, but nothing too horrible.

Sunday was our second day of screenings we had our biggest glitch. One of the movies playing was sticking and freezing. While inside I was freaking out, I had to remain calm and handle the situation. I had the employees pause the DVD and I walked in front of the audience to apologize for the technical issues. Then I let them know that we had a backup DVD for that particular film (many of our films didn’t send us a backup so I’m glad this one did) and that we could start the movie over from the backup or to just go back to where we paused it.

Once we got the backup DVD in, things seemed to work better. While I probably looked fine on the outside, I was holding in tears inside. I just want the festival to run smoothly and have all the filmmakers happy. But when I talked to some of the audience later, they all said that they appreciated me coming out to speak about the technical issues and that it was fine. The filmmakers for that particular film didn’t attend, so that probably made things a little easier for me.

We have 7 screenings over the weekend (4 on Saturday and 3 on Sunday). And it pretty much all ran the way that I wanted it to. We also had our awards ceremony on Sunday. And while I don’t love speaking on a microphone in front of a crowd, I love giving out awards!

Before I knew it, the weekend was done and all the filmmakers were thanking me for putting on such a fun festival! I’m still coming down from the adrenaline rush of the festival (and lack of sleep over the weekend). But I had so much fun being co-director again!

I am hoping that the other co-directors can come out to the festival next year because it is way more fun being there with them. But now with 2 festivals under my belt, I feel pretty confident that I can do it again!

And now, I’m going to work on catching up on my sleep!

1 Comment

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

Tagged Beverly Hills, film, film festival, stress, weekend

Weekend Catchup (or Getting In My Dog Fix)

Posted on May 28, 2014 | Comments Off

First of all, a quick update on the job situation. That one shift I was scheduled for next week was cancelled as they were overstaffed. When I asked if there was another shift I could work, they said that since I was unavailable one day next week and that was the only day they could fit me in, there were no more shifts available to me. When the shows start back up again in September there will be evening and weekend shifts for me, but I need something to get me through the summer.

Ok, moving on from that unpleasantness.

This past weekend I got to do some dog sitting. My only dog sitting client right now is my friend Erin (who does my hair). But that’s nice because her dog Auto is an easy dog to watch.

As soon as I got to Erin’s house Auto was so excited to see me! He had spent the day by himself (don’t worry, he has access to go outside to go to the bathroom, he was just lonely) and he was so happy to have a buddy in his house. He’s got some problem with his leg, so he is limping right now. But that didn’t stop him from trying to tackle me to the ground so he could attack me with love (keep in mind that this is a dog that probably weighs about 15 pounds).

Since I was going to spend the night there dog sitting, I made myself comfortable on the couch. Erin has Amazon Prime and Netflix so I settled in for a night of watching movies with Auto. And he got comfortable right away.

When I took that picture, he was both snoring and farting on me at the same time. Clearly, he loves me.

One of the best things about dog sitting is just being able to hang out with an awesome dog. I haven’t seen Tucker in a few months (although I will get to see him in a few weeks!) so I really miss being around a dog. And as long as I live in my current place, I can’t have a dog of my own. So dog sitting helps me get in my dog fix.

It was an easy weekend job. Although Auto feels like when I’m there he always has to be touching a part of my body (not through my clothing). So while I slept on the couch, he was by my feet touching my toes with his front paws.

But I don’t mind that. When I starting dog sitting him he used to sleep on my stomach and try to use it as a trampoline. A dog holding onto my feet isn’t bad at all.

Comments Off on Weekend Catchup (or Getting In My Dog Fix)

Posted in Fun Stuff, Work

Tagged dog, weekend, work

Tag Archives: weekend

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

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Really Having A Lazy Weekend (or I Guess Sometimes Bad Days Can Be Helpful)

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Gaining Back A Bit Of My Weekend (I’ve Really Needed This Extra Time)

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A Very Low-Key Holiday Weekend (or Enjoying A Real 3 Day Weekend)

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Memorial Day Weekend (or Not Really Doing Much)

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Lack Of Plans (or A Lazy Weekend)

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Girls Weekend (or Hanging Out With My Mom And Aunt)

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A Friend Weekend (or Getting Up Early and Not Doing Much)

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Another Festival Done! (or My Weekend With The Beverly Hills Shorts Festival)

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