By Jen Levin on Jul 12, 2019 08:00 am
We are in the middle of SAG-AFTRA elections and it’s been a very exciting and stressful time for me. I love getting to be more involved with the elections and I’m still so honored that the members who are in charge of my slate believe in me enough to run the social media. It’s hard to stay on top of some things and we have some crazy deadlines, but it’s still more fun than stress when I balance it all out. And I’m looking forward to things that I have planned for our social media after the election season is done too!
I knew that I’d be running for delegate again this election. If I get elected it will be my 3rd term as a delegate and I hope that I do win my spot again. I have loved going to the National Convention and getting to play a role in shaping our union and representing my fellow actors. I know that it’s not a guarantee that I will be elected so I am working on making sure I don’t slack off with my campaigning efforts. And I don’t just want to be elected alone, I want to make sure that my slate is elected too.
I love being a part of a slate. I know that not everyone loves the idea of slates (which are like political parties), but for me, it’s something I enjoy. I love the support of having a team working with me for the election season and having people I can turn to when I need help or have questions. And I get to watch how others lead and learn as well. It’s been a great educational tool for me and I still look up to so many people in my slate and can’t believe I get to work with them.
When you are a part of a slate, you have enough candidates for the positions that will be filled. I know realistically that we won’t win every spot, but you want to have the same number running so that you have the most potential to win positions and you don’t want to split votes if you have too many people running for something. That’s the same with national politics too. Each party only has 1 candidate because you don’t want your party to be split voting for 2 people. So when you want to run with a slate, you do have to plan out what you can run for.
The last election, I expressed interest in running for a local board position as well as a delegate. But there wasn’t an opening for me. That didn’t upset me or make me feel unmotivated. I understand the politics side of these elections and know why that decision was made. And I was determined to ask again in the future and I did just that this election season. Because I am more involved in the slate this year, I knew early on that it wasn’t clear just yet if there would be a spot for me to run for local board. I was told to just hold on and they would let me know one way or another as soon as they could.
When the deadline for submitting a petition was getting close, I figured all the spots were filled and I would be running as a delegate. Just like last time, I wasn’t upset or sad. I was determined to do the best I could and help my slate get elected and then in 2 years I’d try again.
But then I got a surprise when I got the email that there was a spot for me to run for a local board position! I immediately filled out my petition and got my signatures so I could run because I didn’t want to miss the deadline. Thankfully because of how quickly those on my slate are with signing petitions, I had the required number within an hour or so! After getting my statement and photo submitted, everything was approved and I am 0fficially running for both a delegate and local board seat for SAG-AFTRA with Unite For Strength!
I hope that I win both the seats I am running for. I want to be able to do more than I have been able to do before. I am so motivated to help my fellow members and to be a source of information when others have questions about what is going on. And I know that I can still do this if I’m not elected, but I can do so much more if I am.
And I love the candidates we have running on our slate this time. Gabrielle Carteris has been doing an amazing job as our national president and she has accomplished so much so far. She is running for re-election and I can’t wait to see what she can do with the next term. And for the national secretary/treasurer spot we have Camryn Manheim. She has been an incredible advocate for members before and she wants to continue doing that and to help make our union the strongest it can be. And for the national board, local board, and delegate spots we have such a diverse group of candidates. We represent every category, age group, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and career level. I know one of the things Unite For Strength takes pride in is how diverse we are, and our candidates show just that.
Election season will be over soon, so I won’t be writing about this too much. But I will be sharing things as they happen because I do want to make sure any SAG-AFTRA members reading this can stay informed. And hopefully, when every ballot is counted, there will be lots of reasons for me to celebrate. But I can’t think ahead just yet. For now, I just want to make sure that all members who are eligible to vote do so. If you have questions about the election, my slate, or anything else; please feel free to ask me. I’m here to help however I can and hopefully, I will win my seats so I can do that even more over the next 2 years.
The post More Election Fun For Me (or I’m Running For 2 Things) appeared first on Finding My Inner Bombshell.
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By Jen Levin on Jul 11, 2019 08:00 am
I wrote about how I did pretty much nothing on the 4th of July. It was an awesome lazy day and I was so happy to not have any plans and not worry about having to be anywhere at any particular time. I do love my lazy days when they come in the middle of a few busy days which is exactly what happened with the 4th. At least this means I’m finding some balance in my schedule and not letting too much time pass with a crazy schedule or nothing to do.
And I had one of the crazy busy days on the 5th. It wasn’t the busiest day I’ve had, but I really did pack things in. I had my workout and then work like normal. Then right after work, I went to a movie with a friend (we saw “Toy Story 4” and it was really cute). I went home after the movie which wasn’t too late so at least I didn’t have to worry about not having any time at home. But I did giggle a bit over the weekend when I didn’t have much scheduled at all because I could have seen the movie on a day that I had nothing else instead of packing things into one day. But it was fine and worked out nicely. Plus, I like having things right after I’m done with work to split up my day. I used to have my workouts, but now I have early workouts so I don’t have that separation.
This weekend seems like it might end up similarly to last week. I don’t really have much planned on Saturday and then on Sunday, I’m overbooked. The things for Sunday aren’t necessarily things I planned or scheduled so I wasn’t in control of when they would be happening. I might try to push myself to try to make it to everything, but I know that it will be ok if I can’t. There is only 1 thing that I have to make it to and it’s something I really want to go to as well. The other things are things I want to go to, but it just depends on how I feel that day and how my schedule works out.
I’m trying not to overthink or stress about how my schedule is going. Maybe for some people, it would be better to have things more even throughout the week. But I feel like I’ve learned enough about myself to know that it doesn’t seem to work for me. It almost makes it seem more stressful when it’s not always changing. I know, it’s weird. But I’m weird. Maybe it has to do with when I have to get dressed to be presentable and when I can wear lounge clothes. If I have nothing to do, I usually am in clothes that are more comfortable but not something I would wear in public. If I have little things every day, I don’t get to wear my most comfortable outfits. So if the days are split, there are days I can wear junk clothes and days that are in normal clothes.
It might be nice to have things spread out, but I think that makes me feel either like I’m always busy or always without things to do. I think having the really busy days and the nothing days being their own days is helping me a lot. I haven’t felt the way I have before with wondering how I can find a better balance. I know that the days aren’t necessarily balanced right now, but for some reason, they feel that way to me. And I do want to work on trying to figure out how to continue doing this type of schedule when I can. I’m not always in control of my schedule and can make sure this happens, but I can try my best. When I have things that are not required to be on a certain day, I can work on scheduling it on a busy day for me as long as there will be time for it. I do need to be a bit more selfish about making my schedule work for me and not just working for others.
The post Making Busy Days Busier (or I Guess I Like To Maximize Only Certain Days) appeared first on Finding My Inner Bombshell.
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By Jen Levin on Jul 10, 2019 08:00 am
I’ve written about my hip surgery on here plenty of times. And I’ve written about the anniversary of my surgery as well. I know it’s something that happens every year, but it still always amazes me when another year passes and I haven’t run into the issues that I am worried about. Before I had my surgery, I knew that I would eventually need a total hip replacement on the hip that was operated on. I didn’t find out until after my surgery that I would likely need the same 2 surgeries on my other hip. I knew that my surgeon wanted to try to wait until I was at least 40 before I had a replacement, but I don’t think he was too optimisic about that. And I was told that I would need the first surgery on my other hip within a few years.
Every surgery anniversary I had I was so happy that I hadn’t needed any other surgeries yet. I was extremely cautious with what I did for a long time becuase I was scared I would do something that would make me need the surgery sooner. I don’t know if it’s because of how careful I’ve been or just luck that has kept my hips in the condition they are in, but whatever it is I’m grateful for it. I don’t want to have any more surgeries. I know that the chance of no more surgeries is extremely unlikely, but I’ve been beating the odds with so many things lately so maybe my hips will be the same.
I have beaten the odds in many ways already with my hips. I was told there were several things that I might not be able to do again, or at least not until I have a hip replacement. I have been most proud of regaining my flexibility after the surgery. It’s still not exactly how it was before, but it’s so close that I think I’m probably the only one who could notice the difference. And I’ve worked on my flexibilty more over the years so many I’ll regain that last little bit one day. The other things I have done that my surgeon didn’t think I could do aren’t as important to me as my flexibility, but it always makes me happy when I know I am doing something that I was told I couldn’t.
I do still have to be careful with a few things because I am at a higher risk for a hip fracture than most people. So anything with a high risk of falling like skiing or skating are really off-limits for me. I could push myself to do them and just try to be careful, but it’s not worth it to me to try. As much as I miss skiing, it’s not worth risking a fracture. There are a few other things that are high fall risks that I have debated about doing, but so far I’ve been avoiding those because I know they are riskier than the other chances I’ve taken with my hips.
This past Sunday marked 13 years since I’ve had my hip surgery. I have easily surpassed the expectations of my surgeon regarding when I’d need my next surgery as well as what I can do. 13 years of beating the odds is pretty amazing. I don’t know if when I had my surgery if I thought about how my life would 13 years later. I probably thought I would have limited movement like I did right before and right after my surgery. But in so many ways, I’m able to do more physically now than I could before the cartilage tear. I know there is no way I thought that would happen.
I do have some issues that didn’t exist for me before the tear happened. I have pain that never existed for me before. The pain is much better than it was right before surgery, but it’s still pain that I deal with every single day. And sometimes the pain is almost as bad as it was before surgery and I struggle to move and walk. Fortunately, that pain isn’t that often and normally it’s much duller and less intense pain that I have each day. And I’m starting to notice signs that the cartilage in my other hip might be starting to tear. I’m not going to worry about it until I have a lot of pain because it’s not easier for a surgeon to operate on me now versus once it’s torn. And the damage is already bad enough that there’s not much they could do to save the cartilage like I was hoping would be possible. When the pain gets frequent and intense in my other hip, I’ll look into my options more. But for now, I know my best option is to wait unless there is a reason I want to have surgery sooner.
As much as I hope that the next surgery will be 13 years away, I know that realistically that it will be sooner. But that isn’t going to stop me from continuing to surpass expectations and do everything I can even though I was told I might not be able to do so. And maybe having that attitude will help me get as many more years in before that next surgery. But every year that passes gives me more hope for what can happen after the next surgery. I had no clue I’d be doing this well 13 years later. I have no way of imagining what will be 13 years after the next surgery.
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By Jen Levin on Jul 09, 2019 08:00 am
For the past several years, I’ve gone to the same 4th of July party that my friends throw. I usually make drunk fruit, have a lot of fun with my friends, spend the day just hanging out, and watching some fireworks. I love having a casual 4th of July celebration and don’t feel like I need to have some crazy adventure that day, especially when it’s in the middle of the week so I have to work early the next day.
This year, my friends didn’t have a party. They have a puppy that is still young and timid and they didn’t know how she would react to the fireworks. I completely understand this and I think everyone wanted them to be able to stay home and keep a close watch on their dog since so many dogs freak out and run off because of the noise. While I did miss having the party that I love going to each year, I’m glad they were able to keep their puppy safe. I think everyone felt the same way.
But since I didn’t have my usual party to go to, I had to figure out what else I wanted to do that day. I wasn’t feeling too motivated to make plans and a lot of my friends felt the same way. We talked about maybe trying to figure out a way to watch fireworks somewhere, but nothing was really planned and we all said we’d check in the day of to see what we felt like doing.
The morning of the 4th I tried to take advantage of having a day off and sleep in. But because I am so used to my sleep schedule I wasn’t able to sleep in too much. I think I maybe slept 20 minutes later than normal, but I did stay in bed much longer and had a lazy morning reading and relaxing. Then I decided to take advantage of having nothing to do all day and work on a big cleaning of my house.
I was in the middle of cleaning my bathroom when suddenly the room felt like it was spinning. I have a history of vertigo and just thought I was having an episode. I thought maybe the smells from the cleaning supplies triggered it or I was dealing with low blood sugar. Then I noticed the things hanging on hooks in my bathroom were swaying back and forth and realized we were having an earthquake! I sat down on the edge of my bathtub to wait for it to stop since I didn’t want to run through my house to get under a table while things might be falling. It was a very large earthquake, but far from my house so it wasn’t too strong where I live. But it was still a scary moment since we never know when an earthquake will start easy and then get bigger. We actually had a larger earthquake on the 5th which made me worry too.
After the earthquake, I had to do a little unexpected cleaning because a few things did fall over. My DVD collection tipped over so I had to reorganize that (and it made me start to think about getting rid of the DVDs) but that was the only issue after the earthquake. So once I cleaned that up I went back to my regular cleaning like vacuuming and mopping. I know, I’m so interesting and fun spending my day off and a holiday cleaning.
Once the cleaning was done, I decided to see if any of my friends ended up making a plan to do anything that night. We were all in the same mindset with not feeling motivated to go out and do something. I don’t know if it was because of the earthquake, the weird weather we’ve been having, or we all were just tired. But nobody (including myself) really felt like trying to make a plan just to see fireworks. I’m glad we were all in agreement so nobody felt like they had to do something and we all just spent the evening on our own.
I did some more reading and watched a bunch of random tv. I tried to get to bed at a reasonable time since I had an early morning the next day but I still ended up going to sleep a bit later than I would have wanted to. Plus, there were illegal fireworks going off in my neighborhood throughout the night keeping me awake. There were so many illegal fireworks that I doubt the police could really enforce the law. It was annoying, especially when they were still shooting them off after midnight. I think it ended around 1:30 am when I finally got to sleep.
I’m sure that I could have gone out and had a fun 4th of July, but I had a perfectly fine day off at home doing boring things. I didn’t feel like I missed out on anything even though I do love getting to see my friends at parties. I am in a place in my life where I can be happy being a bit of a hermit and doing what is the responsible thing to do over the fun thing to do. Plus, I did get a lot of stuff done around my house that I needed to do and I didn’t have to worry about it over the weekend, so that was a win for me. But maybe next year, the party I usually go to will happen and then I’ll have easy plans that don’t require me to do much organizing and planning to take advantage of them.
The post Not My Typically 4th Of July (or Taking Advantage Of A Day Off) appeared first on Finding My Inner Bombshell.
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By Jen Levin on Jul 08, 2019 08:00 am
I had debated about changing up my workouts this past week. I do like to work out on holidays when I can, and fortunately, that usually works well with my normal schedule. But with the 4th of July being on a Thursday, I couldn’t figure out what to change up to add that workout in (and I didn’t want to have 4 workout days in a row). So I kept my usual 4 workout schedule and it was a good variety of classes.
Monday’s workout was a partner workout for Canada Day. We were all in groups of 3 and technically everyone had the potential to be the pacer. Whoever finished their work first was the one who started the rotation, and the group I was in seemed to be very equally paced and most of the time we all finished around the same time.
There were two blocks for the partner part of the workout plus a third block that wasn’t partnered. For the first partner one, the person on the treadmill worked on .4 miles (for me on the bike, it was 1.6), the rower had 4 rounds of 100 meter rows with squat jacks, and the person on the floor had 1 round of exercises (pop jacks, hip bridges, v-ups, and plank jacks). Even if you didn’t finish when one of your partners was done, you switched. For the second partner block, the treadmill person had 4 rounds of .1 miles and squat jacks (I had .4 on the bike), the rower had an 800-meter row, and the floor person had the same exercises but the reps were cut in half and you had to do 2 rounds. We switched often enough to not get too tired, but not too quickly that I didn’t feel like I was getting my workout in.
And for the last block that wasn’t partnered, we had 3 1/2 minutes at each section of the room. The treadmill/bike had 4 rounds of 30 second all outs with 30 seconds of recovery in between. The rower was the same pattern but we could either use the recovery time to rest or just row very lightly. And on the floor, we had the same exercises as the partner workout but the reps were down to 6.
Wednesday’s workout was a power day and it was a great class for me. Everything was fast and powerful and I love how those types of workouts make me feel. I feel invincible and like I’m flying and it’s a feeling I try to find other places in my life. But it seems like they really only happen the way I like them to in power based workouts.
For cardio, we had 2 blocks. Both blocks started with a 90-second push pace. Then we had a walking recovery in both blocks. For the first block, we then had a push to an all out pace before another recovery and for the second block, we had a base pace to an all out. The 90-second interval was the longest one we had and everything else was so quick. I was using my usual resistance levels on the bike even though they were short intervals. When the resistance is higher, I’m not able to pedal as fast. And as I’ve mentioned before I’m playing with the idea of having different resistance levels for push and all outs based on the workout. So for this one, I was a bit lighter on the resistance to help myself fly on the bike.
On the rower, we had 1 long block that had 200-meter rows and medicine ball work. We started with 1 round of a 200-meter row and then the exercises. Then we did 2 rounds of the row before the exercises. And the pattern continued with adding more rounds of the 200-meter row before the exercises. We were supposed to be doing lunges with medicine ball twists for the exercise, but I changed them to be squats with medicine ball twists.
And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was single arm clean to press using weights, push-ups, sit-ups to squats, and bicycle crunches. I did split up the sit-up to squats to be separate moves since I can’t usually do them together, but other than that I was able to do everything normally. And in the second block, we had ground to press with weights, triceps on the straps, and straight leg lifts. The straight leg lifts were a bit tough for my hip, so I changed them to leg raises which are still a challenge for me. But at least it’s a challenge I know I can do and not a challenge I spend a ton of time trying to do and not getting it done.
Friday’s workout was a struggle for me. I didn’t sleep well the night before (not because I was out late, I just had a rough night of trying to sleep) and both my hips were hurting. I knew I would need to be easy on myself to not do any more damage to my hips, but fortunately, most of the things I had to modify were easy enough to figure out a good alternative.
We had 2 blocks at each section of the room and for cardio and the rower we had a similar plan. The first block was the workout in one order and the second block was doing it in reverse. For cardio, we had rounds of push to base pace (30-second intervals, 45-second intervals, and 1-minute intervals) with a 90-second distance challenge at the end. For the first block, we started at 30 seconds and ended at 1 minute with the distance challenge after. The second block started with 1 minute and went down with the distance challenge at the end. I was using my normal push paces and did the distance challenges at the level between my base and push. I had to take lots of breaks for my hips, but I got it done.
The first block on the rower had a 150-meter row, 300-meter row, and 450-meter row with squat twists using a medicine ball between the rows. The second block started at the 450-meter row and went down. I took so many breaks on the rower. I think my hips were just not happy with how I have to sit on the rower and they kept feeling like they were going to lock up and occasionally I had the nerve pain that I don’t get that often. It did scare me a bit how much it hurt, but I took it easy and fortunately it wasn’t hurting me the entire time.
And on the floor the first block had bear steps, y raises on the straps, and plank rows using weights. I tried the bear steps but my hips were not ok with them at all. The option we were given to do instead were bicycle crunches so I did those and was just careful with how far I straightened my legs. I also did the plank work on my knees instead of toes because I wasn’t feeling stable. The second block was supposed to be all ab dolly work, but I modified a lot. We were supposed to do hamstring curls, knee tucks, and roll outs. I always replace hamstring curls with hip bridges so that wasn’t too odd for me. I did the roll outs on the straps instead of the ab dolly. And I tried to do the knee tucks but my body just wasn’t working how I wanted it to. So I did a few reps of those before just doing the other 2 exercises until the block was done.
Saturday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it was a tough day! It felt like we were doing work with no breaks and it really pushed me as well.
For cardio, we started with a 4 minute distance challenge. Then we were supposed to do rounds of half the distance from that challenge and 10 squats. I was able to get in 2 1/2 rounds of the half distance and squats before time was done. It was really hard to get in and out of the bike, but I still was happy that I was using that instead of the treadmill.
On the rower, we started with 4 rounds of 100-meter rows with 10 medicine ball squats. Then we started a really challenging row block. First, we had a 500-meter row with 30 seconds to recover after. Then we went down to 400 meters with the same recovery. This pattern continued until the block ended. 30 seconds of recovery isn’t much, especially when you are trying to get out of the foot straps to drink some water. I know a lot of my recovery times were a bit longer, but I did manage to do each row without stopping which I think made up for it.
And on the floor, we had one long block. We had 6 exercises, but it worked 3 major muscle groups with back to back exercises working the same muscles. We had high rows and pull-ups on the straps to work the back muscles, sumo squats and single arm snatches with weights to work the legs, and bicycles and situps to work the core. It was hard to do 2 exercises that worked the same thing back to back and I was taking breaks a bit more often than normal. But I also know that needing to take those breaks could be a sign of working harder and not me being weak.
Overall, it was a great workout week. I didn’t mind missing a workout on the 4th of July when I did get a lot of great classes in with my normal schedule. Hopefully this week will be similar and I’ll have another week that makes me feel amazing!
The post Keeping Things Normal For A Holiday Week (or Steady With My Workouts) appeared first on Finding My Inner Bombshell.
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