New Years Eve

                                                                                                                        12/31/2015

Naturally, I am reflective this morning. A new year will begin in less than 24 hours.

I’m feeling all sorts of things. Anxiety, excitement, sadness, happiness.

I want a lot of things for next year, but right now I think my biggest focus is health. I want to be healthier.

This isn’t to say I haven’t made great strides in the last year, I have. I have come a long way to eating better and working out more. And I really want to continue that. In fact, I want to do even better. I want to try to minimize my sugar consumption even more. I want to try and work out on a semi regular basis. And I really want to get 2” off my waist. Partially for narcissist reasons – but really, because I want to hit the bare minimum for keeping me out of the danger zone for diseases. I don’t want to do what my parents did. And I need to take better care of myself if that’s what I want to do.

I’ve been more emotional as of recent, which is extremely annoying since I can’t fully explain why. It could be the holidays, it could be PMS (which I am never a fan of using as an excuse), it could be me consuming more sugar that I have been used to and it throwing my system out of wack. Or it could just be all of that combined.

I just know I’m worried about some things. I’m worried about my health, I’m worried about M’s health, I’m worried about the entire months of March and April and finding a place to live - while I star in a show. In fact, I’m totally freaked out about it. And the part I am THE MOST scared about? Finding the right place. When will I have time to look? Will I be able to find a place M and I can afford and be happy in?

Naturally I had another dream last night about the old house. Walking around the neighborhood and trying to look / sneak in. it’s interesting how I always seem to know in my dreams someone else lives there. But I’m always trying to go back in regardless. Man I miss that house. And I’m angry we don’t have it anymore.

I don’t want to move. I like our house. But I know we won’t have a choice short of a miracle. And I know I have a lot of stuff. Stuff I still am trying to get rid of and sort through. Stuff that will need storing. And I know M is not happy about that. But sadly he is stuck with me, and that’s part of my baggage. I’ve gotten better, but there is still progress to be made.

I’m scared of the future. But I always am. So I gotta focus on preparing. Doing what I can to get ready and just really really hope for the best.

I want to enjoy this weekend. I intentionally took off Monday so I could focus on relaxing and playing all weekend long. I need it and deserve it. I’ve gotten better this year. I’ve been in 2 shows, I’ve worked steadily (and even got a raise!), I’ve passed my notary exam,  I’ve started walk running and been even better about what I eat. I deserve a reward.

So I need to stop focusing on what will be happening in 3 months. I can’t do much about it anyway, and I know I will spend extra moments in January working on getting rid of stuff and getting ready. As well as working on lines for the play. In fact, I feel like that is what the focus of the first half of the year will be.

Ok so – Good job! Party and celebrate the close of 2015! Stop thinking about doom and gloom. Be positive, your life is pretty awesome right now. No future thinking this weekend! Only NOW! YEAH! And go play with your new toys!!!! J

November Thoughts

So, I feel the need to vent some of my thoughts and concerns that are constantly in my head at the moment. The kinds of thoughts and concerns I don’t want to vent to everyone, so ironically I will do it here on my blog.

Why here? Where theoretically the entire world can see it? Well, the entire world won’t see it first of all - since no one really reads my blog. And because in many ways this has become my journal. At least my way to keep track of some months passing (although I missed October sadly because of how busy I was with Bullshot. Update to come for that.) , and if nothing else, it is for me to reflect on later.

So recently I got cast in Barefoot in the park. Wait a minute let me re-says this. I GOT CAST AS THE LEAD IN BAREFOOT IN THE PARK. This made me smile and make silly noises on the way home from callbacks. (yes, after callbacks. They finished callbacks and posted a piece of paper with the names on it right there!!)

August is here

I can’t really explain it, but I’ve not been in the best of moods lately.

Well, I suppose I can guess as to the many reasons why I feel this way right now, but I can’t pin down exactly what it is that seems to be under my skin. I need to be counting my blessings, not be disgruntled about other things.

For one (and this is a reason I hate using, but the reality is it does affect my hormones, which are a part of what affects one’s emotions.) my Lady time started recently. So my guess is, it has my emotions swinging about. I view this as just an amplifier. Making all the emotions I have normally, more crazy.

I’m working hard on losing weight. Genuinely hard. I have cut out sugar, except from fruit. I don’t even put juice in my smoothies anymore. Not that I consumed sugar all the time, but still. This is not an easy thing to do by any means from someone who loves sugar as much as I do. And I’m sure I am going through sugar withdrawal. It’s really hard to resist that piece of cake, or those chocolate covered samples of whatever at the store. But I have been. It feels like forever, but I think it’s only been about 2 weeks.

I’m working out more which is good, but also tiring. And whenever I’m not on track the whole time, I kinda beat myself up pretty hard about it. Likewise I am beating myself up about being as overweight as I am, and that my belly is not getting smaller. I just think to get my belly the way I want, I may have to work at this for 3 years or so, really hard. M put that thought in my head, and I don’t think he’s wrong.

I’ve been a little grumpy with people lately. M’s son got a little of that the other day. I felt bad about it later. It came out differently than I meant it to. And honestly I’m such a nice person normally, that it was very out of character. I’m still feeling bad about it.

Yesterday – August 2^nd- was the anniversary of my father’s passing. Which of course brings up all kinds of feelings. Anger, sadness, etc. I thought about how I still have 3 of his suits in my closet that I can’t bring myself to get rid of. How I have clothing in M’s closet I can’t seem to get rid of.

It also brought up the condo I wanted to buy so badly, and how even with a big down payment, I still could not buy it without having a job that paid $20 an hour. Which I STILL don’t have. And how that means I will never be able to buy a place in the bay area. I let go of so much letting go of that house. Never being able to have a home of my own, never raising a family there, probably never having children, and more than likely, never getting married. It’s a lot to embrace when it’s what you wanted from such a young age.

And missing my dad just got to me Sunday morning and I ended up crying in the kitchen. M hugged me, and when my other housemate came downstairs (we will call him Jar since his name starts with an M as well) he came up from behind and hugged as well, which was very touching and sweet. Not a typical occurrence in our home. But so nice that it happened.

I still feel kind of disgruntled. I spent waaaay too much money on candles last night. More than I had planned honestly. But I was buying gifts (which granted took up maybe about a quarter of the cost of it all, but still. I should not be spending so much money on candles. Despite my love of them. And despite the fact that I am running lower on certain ones. I really just wanted to refill for seasons other than Christmas and the fall, which is what the majority of them are.

I should have done things with M sooner in the day and did not. I just feel like I failed all over the place this weekend. I think the bottom line is – I’m more disappointed in myself for not being better. For not making more money. For not being thinner and healthier. For not being stronger. I need to sell more things on the side and make more money.

My anxiety seems to be taking a roller coaster approach to life right now as well. I can’t fully explain why, but I seem to be so worried about everything. I’m pretty over this sensation. But it just seems to keep going.

I suppose part of the lesson in all of this is I need to forgive myself more. I don’t know though, I’m pretty annoyed I felt the need to spend so much money and that I haven’t been as nice as I should be, and that I haven’t lost more weight by now.

I will say though, I’m glad I have not spent time escaping into food like I would normally. Mostly sweets. It’s good I’m holding back on that. I did have a hamburger though, and that was nice and tasty. No mayo or ketchup. Just burger, tomato, bun. I’m trying to be low fat as well, and have almost no carbs, but this I just kind of needed.

I’m hoping for a better week this week. We start rehearsals for bullshot, and I am looking forward to that. It should be a lot of fun. I just want to get my lines down ASAP. I suppose I’m putting needless pressure on myself. Nothing is on fire. I need to stop freaking out about every little thing right now.

Birthday 2015

So my birthday came after a lot of activity in my home just before. I was ready to just mellow out and have a proper vacation from all the insanity that is the 4^th of July for my family. I mean, that holiday is as big as thanksgiving for us. Huge holiday.

Which is the only disadvantage of my birthday being when it is. It comes right after a big holiday. Which when I was younger wasn’t a big deal, but now it’s more of a hassle simply because I need to entertain guests for so long before my birthday and it wears me out in a big way.

So the Monday before, I was worn out, but actually worked. My body was still sore from the 4^th of July. But Monday night I spent the evening cleaning up. I just didn’t want a messy kitchen or messy room or messy living room bugging me on my birthday. I wanted all house chores settled and taken care of before I celebrated my birthday. So I stayed up past midnight cleaning and organizing.

On my actual birthday I took the day off. And I was able to relax by myself at home, which was awesome. I got pizza from Zorbas (small pesto & pineapple) and got myself a smoothie from Jamba.

M woke me up early (when he left for work) and he gave me an IPad for my birthday (he also gave me a huge chunk of money to help pay for my trip to Colorado. Which was very kind) which was pretty awesome. I played with it some. Downloaded a bunch of games onto it, but I also watched “So I married an Axe Murderer” while eating pizza and just relaxing. Plus I got some Hagen-daas ice cream to enjoy as well (chocolate and peanut butter thank you very much. SO GOOD!) . I played “Gat outta Hell” on my Xbox some and had a fire going in the fireplace and well as candles lit in the house. It was really nice me time.

I also got assorted gift cards from my brother and his wife and family (along with see’s candy), my aunt and uncle, and a very long time family friend.

I started Back to the future. Then M got back from work and we hung out some. Then I started to get ready to go to dinner with him and the boys. I got dressed up some and we all went to the Fog City Diner for dinner. M and I took BART to meet them there and we were running a little behind so we took a rickshaw bike ride from BART to the restaurant. And we were there with plenty of time. Thanks to M who paid for it.

The food was quite tasty and we ended up getting 4 glasses (because they were pretty cool looking. $15 for a pair. No too bad.) And once again, M footed the bill. Which was very sweet of him. We then went home and I opened the gifts from the boys (a purple Chrome Xbox 360 controller and some candles that have a ring hidden in them! Super cool. I loved it!! Along with some purple stoneware little bowls, and a book on CD.). So sweet of them to gift me.

And then I was super tuckered out and ready for bed.

Friday (the 10^th) I had a party planned for myself. Pizza and Pajamas themed. I didn’t have a huge crowd invited, but big enough. (about 12 or so were invited? 10 came.) I picked up a few prizes for playing Let’s make a deal again (like last year) and I worked on Dianna trivia (which was no easy feat coming up with 60 multiple choice questions. Which each included a bonus question. All about me.). I also pre-ordered a cake for myself from Mazetti’s bakery with purple whipped cream frosting, chocolate cake (which had chocolate chips in it) and chocolate mousse insides. I just didn’t want to bake my own cake, and was willing the foot the bill this time around. 

I cleaned up from my birthday and vacuumed and brought up needed props in preparation for the party.

The first few guests arrived and we waited for a few more in order to start the first game. The pizza lady got a little confused about where to deliver the pizza but eventually figured it out. I then let people Know we could play the game and eat pizza! (I ordered 4 pizzas. 3 XL’s and 1 large. Pesto & Pineapple (which went over real well, because hello it’s the best) , Pepperoni, Hawaiian, and Supreme in Zorba’s version. This was a lot of pizza. And I asked If I could get 3- 2 liters of soda for free with the order. Thankfully they said yes, and then soda was covered as well!)

The game was Japan World Cup 3. Which if you don’t know what it is, well, you should watch it on you tube. It’s bizarre. It’s a bunch of strange horses racing. I had everyone pick a card and that was what horse they rooted for. Pretty awesome actually. It was great for those in the group who didn’t want to play lots of games. All they had to do was watch and cheer. And with each winning horse, we played let’s make a deal with the winner. Lots of fun. Went over well.

I had fun prizes from -  $5 gift certificates to places, Candy from Trader Joes, to gag gifts from the $1 store like “tea with the queen”( kids tea set) and “new glasses”(slinky eyeball glasses). I think it went over well.

Then we moved the game to play Dianna Trivia which we broke into teams. The Bearded Bards, Barrel Horse (a reference to Japan World Cup 3), And Purple Spackle Bots. I loved the names they came up with! So fun!

We played that for a while and then took a break to have cake and open presents. But for the winning team, they got to play let’s make a deal yet again. One last time.

Then we had cake and did presents. I actually told people to just bring their lovely selves and not worry about gifts, but regardless, gifts happened. I got Snake Oil (a pretty cool card game like apples to apples except you have to sell the product combination), A nice bottle of Olive oil and a strainer for a frying pan (because you’ll LOVE it!), a GC for Amazon, Candy in purple mason jars with a GC to Target. It was pretty awesome.

Some stayed after for a while. We had a cool group that stayed around pretty late going over the rest of the trivia cards and hanging out. And then eventually it ended up just A and I hanging out till 2 am! She spent the night in order to go to bed bath and beyond in the morning.

All in all I think it was a great success. I had a good time. A fun group was there and a really fun way to celebrate my (37^th… whoa) birthday. J It was some work to put together, but worth it for all parties sakes. What a great group I had to Party with.

I’m sharing the candy & pizza love at work. I did eat a lot of the left over cake though….. soooo tasty! And I’m fairly pleased with the results of the day and weekend. Sadly now back to normal un-birthday life….

4th of July 2015

While this post says it’s about July 4^th, in reality it’s about the week leading up to July 4^th and such. There has been a lot going on.

So my niece came out for her usual niece week on Monday June 29^th. I picked her up after work in the city from the cal train station. She was arriving mega bus, which was pretty late (about an hour and a half I believe) which kind of screwed a lot of things up. We grabbed a burrito there and came home afterward.

Day 2 I went to work and afterward we had dinner at the Japanese restaurant Akagi in San Bruno. I know she does not get a lot of Japanese food so it was nice. Then went home and watched Lt. Robin Crusoe.

Day 3 was when the real adventures began. I took some vacation time and we went to Pier 39 / Fisherman’s wharf for the day. The original plan was to go to Alcatraz but when I looked a month before we would go, tickets were already sold out for the week. No joke. And they were sold out through august. So no Alcatraz.

We did however go to San Francisco’s “The Dungeon” which I got for the local discounted rate of $16 a person. It’s little performances by live in actors in little spaces about San Francisco’s history. I got to be a Narc at one point, and I was Sweaty Betty– a drunken lady who stripped her clothing off on top of a bar while dancing. They had a little booklet of pictures at the end for $60! WOAH! But I did get one of the pictures for $10. Why not.

We then had lunch at Bubba Gump’s (since I had never been, and she likes seafood.) I probably will never do that again since I was not very impressed with my meal. Not as tasty as I had hoped. It’s fine, it just cost a lot only to be disappointed food wise. The atmosphere was nice though.

Then we found out that for only $10 more, we could go to Madame Tussauds wax museum! Which has replaced SF’s old wax museum. And in many ways this one is cooler. Simply because you can actually walk around and touch the figures! How crazy is that? We took lots of pictures. I’m sad it had no house of horrors though like the old one….

We walked around pier 39 a little, looking at the magic shop and the chocolate shop. Walked to Ghirardelli square and got a hot fudge Sunday to split. Which was super good by the way. Walked around there and looked at a few art galleries and by then my feet were more than ready to go home.

We walked back to the car and headed out. We then went to Chevy’s for dinner since my niece had never heard of them, let alone eaten there!

Day 4 was also a big day. We started off by taking BART and taking a free tour of SF’s City Hall. They just celebrated their 100^th anniversary. And it was very interesting to learn about.

After that we went to Straw to have lunch. It’s a carnival atmosphere eatery. It was pretty tasty actually. We got the popcorn cauliflower and She got the chicken and waffles sandwich (it said Monte Cristo, but really it was a chicken and waffles sandwich) while I got the Cajun chicken alfredo. Also good but could not finish because of how creamy and spicy it was.

We then hopped onto BART and headed to Union Square to get on a cable car to go to the cable car museum. It was a little over an hour wait to get on, but we did. The cable Car museum was free however. Loud, but interesting. Learned how they were almost gone for good, but people voted to keep them. They had an interesting video playing about how they worked (dated 1984!)

Then we walked over to the Chinese history museum (also free that day) and that was very interesting as well. Particularly the racism at the 1915 world’s fair exhibit. They had pictures that were talking about opium dens in Chinatown in the city, and they fought against it saying that wasn’t all there was to Chinatown. They just changed the title, but kept the exhibit (at the world fair).

Then we walked around Chinatown a bit. Tried to find the fortune cookie factory but no luck. Then we walked down the street with all the lanterns on it and eventually wound up at the arch at the end (which is pretty famous, although it has only been there since the 70’s), where we met up with M.

He walked with us to BART where we traveled to Urban Putt. A mini-golf course located in the city inside a little building. Pretty neat-o. Lots of creative holes. Dia De Los Muretos, an Earthquake one, musical ones, lots of creative things they did with the golf balls. Pretty cool.

From there we walked to Limon. A Peruvian restaurant located just a couple blocks away. The food was quite tasty. We three enjoyed it very much.

Then went back home to relax (and get a $40 ticket from BART for parking in the wrong spot. I didn’t think I had, but I guess I did. Pretty annoying.).

Day 5 we were supposed to go to the Winchester Mystery House, but I was super worn out. My feet were killing me and I just couldn’t walk anymore. And if I didn’t I just didn’t see how I could play volleyball on the 4^th. Consequently it because a rest day. We went to Red Robin for lunch, but that was as exciting as it got. Then Paul and Joseph came into town for the 4^th of July festivities.

For the 4^th of July I purchased some arm bands (really calf sleeves) to wear while playing volleyball. I just get so banged up on the 4^th I wanted to try and somewhat save my arms this year.

So the festivities were typical with playing volley ball for probably 5 hours or so. Maybe 6? Long long time. Then afterward, my brother and his 2 kids went with me to Pacifica to light the fireworks I had picked up earlier that week (I spent like $100…. Should not have… but did). That was fun. Then went home to bed.

They stayed in Sunday to hang out. They slept in some and we played Gloom as well as Disney Scene it. We went out to lunch /  breakfast at Denny’s, and then had Dinner at Chevy’s since my nephew had never been before. This just seemed crazy to me since I have known them to be there for so long and they are a chain.

Anyway It was nice but I was extremely worn out and almost sad I didn’t have the Monday off. Just for resting purposes. My body was so stupidly sore it was hard to move. So much jumping and hitting the volley ball with my arms. They were better though than when I did not use them (the arm guards). Still hurt but not as much. Honestly it was my legs and knees that super hurt. It was painful to walk.

And that’s the basic rundown of niece week and 4^th of July this year. I will get to my birthday in a separate post.