Waitressing With A Fitbit

I treated myself this week to a FitBit Surge and I am in love. Seriously, I talk about it all the time and I am constantly checking my activity. I love it. It was a tough decision but I am very happy with my choice.

One of the main reasons I wanted a fitness tracker that could monitor heart rate etc. is because on top of my new marketing gig I am still waitressing. I was always interested to see how much activity I did in a day and how my heart rate was affected. I can now say that I just finished my first full day shirt with it and I am no longer surprised that I have had put on a little weight since starting my day job.

While working today I took about 13,300 steps, traveled about 9.5km and burned around 2,100 calories. That does not include my activity before and after work (so far). It is very fair to say when you wait tables you work your butt off, no wonder mine is a little bigger now that I sit on it all day! I still go to the gym everyday, but before I would work 6 out of 7 days of the week at the restaurant and go to the gym 6 days of the week.

I am so excited to take my Fitbit on adventure, Monday we leave for California. I really wish I would have had it for our Disneyworld trip… we may just have to pop in a quick visit to Disneyland to see our park Fitbit stats!

I bought myself a little treat today:) #fitfam #fitness #treatyoself

A photo posted by Kate Bruce (@kategbruce) on Feb 23, 2015 at 6:32pm PST

My First Radio Ad as an Outsider

Over the past few months this blog has shifted from being a place for me to showcase my on-air work in radio and musings from my daily life to a place for me to post my thoughts whenever I can. Many of my previous posts that were work related celebrated work that I had done, a lesson learned as part of my job, cool things that I got to do as part of my awesome job or rants that started as a short 45 second radio break.

I’m going to try to continue posting here about the things that impact my life. I don’t think I’ll be blogging about the jerks at table 61 who did not tip, but I will be blogging about things I learn or find challenging about my new career path in marketing. I’ll continue to post my random workout thoughts, because I believe being health conscious is a very important part of my life and when things are working out (no pun intended) in that area of my life everything else falls into place.

Even though this is no longer a blog that focuses on my life as a “radio personality” today’s blog is featuring a little piece of work that I did for radio for my marketing job. I am the Marketing Coordinator of Valley Credit Union here in the Annapolis Valley and one of my tasks for our RRSP/Investment Season Campaign was to write and voice our radio ad. This took our radio advertising in a new direction that people around the office really seem to enjoy. It challenged me because my wisdom teeth are slowly breaking through my gums and I had not realized that I was having trouble annunciating until I heard my first run through. Yikes, it was bad!

Writing and voicing this ad really forced me to get out of my radio comfort zone and experience advertising from the other side of the table.

I have been thinking a lot about retirement these days (I guess it comes with the job) and I have
decided what I would like to do about 30 years from now. I think I would make a fabulous "Fairy Godmother". I would love to cruise around Disney Parks hanging out with kids, adults and super fans. I think it could quite possibly be the best job to do during retirement.

Are you going to cut loose from the work world when you retire or are you already planning to have a side job? I'm so worried that I will be bored with all the free time that comes with retirement and I have a fear of being old and cold so I think that being "Fairy Godmother" is the perfect fit!

Here is the ad, I hope you like it!

San Diego Part Two: Letting Our Disneyside Out!

This a very fitting 200th post, a celebration of sorts in blog form! 

Yesterday we let our Disneyside out.

Yes, we got our Disney freak-on in Anaheim. Kevin’s parents gave us the amazing gift of passes to the parks for the day and my parents paid for our night at Disneyland’s Paradise Pier Hotel. I’m not going to sugarcoat this; it was probably the most expensive 24 hours of my life.

Was it worth it? Ah, hell yes! 


We checked into the hotel, made our character breakie reservations and then were on to Downtown Disney.

Lets just be clear right now, there have been a lot of white lies in the past couple of days. Not the dangerous kind, the saving money kind. The worst part is that cashiers are total enablers; during our trip to the USS Midway they convinced us that we were students.

At Disneyland they assumed we were celebrating something, Kevin said my birthday was coming up and BOOM they gave me the birthday pin. EVERYONE in the park said “Happy Birthday” to me for the next 36 hours. They gave Kevin an “I’m celebrating” button as well, which he is with his recent military news, but he refused to wear it. Princess Aurora even sent me down a “Happy Birthday” signed photo; it is embarrassing how happy this made me.

Downtown Disney is the perfect place to have a date night. We did a quick trip down, checked

 everything out and made our dinner reservations and then did something ultra-American we try to do every time we go to the States… we went to Walmart.

 

I’m kind of kidding here, but it is different. Going to Walmart and McDonald’s is something we do every time we cross the border; it is like they are on steroids in America when you compare them with their Canadian siblings.

Also, I find it super entertaining. Everything is so cheap and so large. We even managed to find old Ed Hardy clothes at the Walmart we visited in Anaheim, I’m not sure if someone was just embarrassed to be wearing Ed Hardy and ditched what they were wearing for Walmart duds or if they are really selling it. Regardless, American Walmart is a fun and cheap excursion.

Date night at Downtown Disney was great. We had our favourites at Rainforest Café (I totally hid that damn birthday button so that no one would sing to me). After our trip to the jungle we went to ESPN Zone and played the most advanced sports arcade games.

I was a little disappointed that they no longer have the hockey shoot-out hockey game, but they have all kinds of new games since we last visited.

Kevin set the daily record for the hardest pitch at the pitch cage. He got a free game for his impressive pitching and then broke his own record… twice. He struck out A-Rod!

I was not so good at any of the games, but was kind of addicted to the Quarter Back passing drill and the putting station.

Next we were onto Disney’s California Adventure and then Disneyland in the morning. We got up and did some character dining at the hotel and were greeted by Mickey and then Minnie, Pluto, Stitch and Daisy joined us. At this point cost had gone out the window, considering we had paid so much to stay the one night at the hotel. The breakfast was decent, the same as the character dining inside Disneyland at the Plaza but not worth it if you are going for the food. I learned long ago that with Disney your not paying for top-notch whatever, you are paying for the experience. When you get character dining out of the way you do not need to worry so much about lines for character experiences when you get in the park. More on this craziness later…

We arrived for our extra hour of magic in the park at 9am.  We were excited that it was an extra hour in California Adventure rather than in Disneyland because we had done that one our first trip in 2011, this gave us time to get everything in (including the new Car’s Land) in California Adventure.

We were really excited about Car’s Land; Radiator Springs was being built when we last visited. Unfortunately, during our magic hour nothing was open yet. The racer cars already had a 30-minute line and were not yet operational (remember, the park has not officially opened yet) and the fast pass machines were not open. This was the only ting we didn’t get to do during our whirlwind day at Disney.

We dominated both parks all day. We started at 9am and did not sit down more than 10 minutes, not even to eat (note: we are both paying for it today). Our day at Disney had a rough start though, one of the first rides we went on was Grizzly River Run. The last time we visited the park it was the last ride we went on, it had been closed our entire trip but we managed to get one run in. This time we got to experience it in the light. 

We have both learned a valuable lesson about me on rides; I am a total jerk. I duck whenever water is involved and hold on to whatever is near (hands, shoulders etc.) for dear life when on roller coasters. As we spun down this (what I call) flume style ride I saw that we were going to catch water from behind, so of course I ducked into Kevin so he would absorb all the water (again, I am a jerk) and BOOM fist in the face. Kevin totally (accidentally) punched me in the face. Giving me a wonky eye all day. 

Now, I am a huge fan of everything Disney. Walt Disney is in my list of heroes, but every time I visit Disneyland I am blown away by people who take it to the next level, I’m not sure how they have the ability to spend so much of their paychecks on the paraphernalia in the parks (let alone how they find mates to procreate with, that also blows my mind).

For me, I am not sure what will happen when I actually get to Disneyworld. I am a little disappointed by the amount of characters out in the park at Disneyland. We got in line to start waiting for a meeting with Merinda, it was half an hour and after two minutes we ditched. If you think that is bad the line for Elsa and Anna from Frozen was never under two hours while we were there. That is just straight crazy.

Our perfect day in the park was highlighted by a trip to Car’s Land to ride the new tire bumper cars. We were waiting in line when a two year old little girl with hair as white as mine was when I was a kid started talking to me. She was adorable and so smart! Unlike 90% of the kids in the park she was not in a stroller and she was forming full sentences. We were so unimpressed when we saw a kid about seven or eight in the hotel elevator point to the poster on the wall and ask her mother, “What dat says” (what was worse was no one seemed phased by her not being able to read or talk at all). This kid was a small blond blessing, faith in humanity restored.

Kevin started calling the little girl “Little Kate”. We boarded the ride and learned the controls for this new cool contraption; it is essentially like bumped cars without having anything but your body to steer. As soon as the ride started going Kevin made it clear he wanted to hunt down “Little Kate” and bump the crap out of her. I could offer little resistance if I wanted our tire to travel anywhere. Next thing you know we see “Little Kate”, her face lights up as she waves (I of course wave back) and then BOOM!

Our favourite food in the park, pomme frites! 

Unfortunately our day did not last too much longer at Disneyland. I think I may have hit my peak for ride tolerance, everything seemed darker and bumpier than it did last time. The entire day was spent fighting headaches and bouncing from rollercoaster/intense rides to less intense/story rides. Yup, I am turning into a big baby. After about nine hours in the parks we had enough. This was mostly my call, I felt sick the entire room home after our trip on Goofy’s Sky School rollercoaster. The entire ride home I had to fight the pukes.

With that being said, it was still an incredible day. I’m not sure what was wrong with me; I think I was just not ready for all the carby foods combined with the rides.  I am quite sad that we did not get to see World of Color (my favourite part of a day at California Adventure), but next time!

The gross sickness even interrupted something I absolutely love doing, driving down the highway listening to the radio! When we finally arrived back in La Jolla after the most expensive 36 hours of my life, nothing was open for food so we went to bed hungry. I was not impressed! There were not any real low-carb options open after 9pm!

PS. Subway does not count, it is absolute garbage… there is a sub in the States that has Fritos in it! Healthy my ass…

We sure are not going hungry tonight! We just had amazing veal chops with roasted cauliflower and sweet potatoes; and wine of course (hence the sass on the Subway rant).

My next Kate’s California Adventure blog will talk about Balboa Park and misty surf days in La Jolla!

Adulting With Kate: An Unexpected Stop Over

I set really high expectations for pretty much everything in life. I personally think it all stems from learning

how to read those stupid classroom signs with inspirational quotes on them. I may have taken them to heart a little too much.

It is kind of strange. I had never really thought about it until right now. When I was a child I thought I would be a world travelling professional (specifically a lawyer or a journalist) that would not have to settle down and still manage to wrangle my four or five kids into bed every night after a lovely homemade supper. I have grown out of that fantasy, the one where I was a serious adult with very serious career and demanding personal life. That being said I do take my career very seriously, I absolutely am in love with my job and my adventure working in radio so far, but I still expect to take the world by storm some day when I have gotten the practice and developed the patience it takes to be a real adult. I love my career tract enough to let my personal life suffer a bit, moving across the country away from any friends and family I have ever had to start my career off working independently was a choice I made and that until recently had not really bothered me.

The real adult part is the struggle. Sometimes I set the bar so high on my expectations that I end up a little heartbroken when they don’t work out the way I see them in my head. I am a very visual person and have always embraced visualizing and willing myself to win. I was the kid who always cried on Christmas Day when the magic had worn off and the sugar had set in (and DisneyWorld was still not in the card for the upcoming year). My parents were thrilled when I became able to drive myself to hockey games, I never thought I had played very well and usually was a huge ball of nerves before and after every game. 

I could continue this list of setting relatively high bars to hurdle and uber competitiveness mashed with a side of temper flare ups but I think two examples is enough. I never really was a very whimsical child, I obsessed over music and sports until I went to university and then went on to obsess about getting out of university on time and onto something I would enjoy a lot more. If you haven’t read my previous blogs I was not the best student at university, I freely admit it.

I have always been super passionate about the things I have become involved in, from cutting carbs to travelling there are things that are always on my mind. My attention span may dwindle, but the passion never really has been drained. Let’s just say I can be a little intense.

But, as being part of an adult today’s lesson is that I need to stop reading those damn quotes and taking them so seriously. It is amazing to have aspirations, huge plans, and incredible dreams and to live the fantasy but at some point you have got to get your head out of the clouds and take a breath. Yes, shoot for the stars, but be okay with an extended stopover flight. Sometimes that is what life is, life is a massive journey full of experiences that won’t wait for you to experience them yourself sometimes. These situations thrust themselves on you and though they may not be welcome, or what you expected they are a reality that should be greeted with warmth or at least curiosity.

Sidenote: When I was twenty-one I did end up going to Disneyland (I know it’s not quite Disneyworld) with my boyfriend and I must say it was a trip beyond all of my expectations, even though everyone had informed me after a lifetime of dreaming of a Disney vacation that I would be disappointed, I was not. 

When I Have a Bad Day

I am having a bad day.

My bad days rarely come around. Usually when they strike it starts first thing in the morning and is constant stream of crappy happenings until bedtime. Today is one of those days.

Normally, I have very strict rules for my bad days.

1. Shut up about your bad day. Nobody wants to hear about it. Don’t tweet or blog about it, seriously there are bigger problems than whatever is going on with your lame excuse for a bad day. Give it up and get over it. You better not make a Facebook post about it, you whimp.
2. Don’t eat everything in sight. Tomorrow your bad day will be over and you’ll fee like crap if you eat whatever. The only thing worse than your bad day today is being bloated and nasty (mean) because you ate crappy food all day yesterday because you were having a bad day. Give it up, show a little self control and eat a salad and a burger. Have an iced coffee and maybe a piece of dark chocolate dipped in almond butter, you will feel better.
3. If you watch Sons of Anarchy, Breaking Bad or any TV show or movie that deals with crime and bad-assedness you will start a hard as ---- complex in your mind and it will make you want to smoke (gross). Sit and look at pictures of puppies, YouTube videos of people falling or watch Katherine Hiegl movies--- you are soft and malleable (like a teddy bear). Do not forget this or you will start acting like a thug and people will be intimidated by you for the wrong reasons. You are a nice girl, who has never gotten in a real fight and orange would not look good on you.
4. No one should know you are having a bad day. You have not mentioned, so how could they know? 

I’m not crazy. I just polished off the first season of ‘Orange is the New Black’ and I am really into ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Sons of Anarchy’ starts up again tonight. Combine all these bad ass TV shows and a Kate Bruce bad mood and you’ve got a wicked complex. I remember watching the movie ‘Thirteen’ when I was sixteen and having a bad day and having the worst complex afterwards.

Clearly, I have broken all of those rules today... 

So until its quitting time I am spending my time focusing on these things:

And most of all:

Because not only am I having an Eeyore like day, I am super super lame.