Employees

Wishing all our of employees, residents, clients, and friends a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. We are grateful for each and every BLVD partner for their contributions to our communities and our culture. We hope your holiday is full of delicious food, great big hugs, and cozy tables. . All of our offices and communities will be closed on Thursday, Nov. 23, and most will also be closed on Friday, Nov. 24. Please contact your community leasing office's emergency line for an urgent matters during the holiday.

Thanks everyone for joining us last week for Mindful Movement! We've collected some of #TeamBLVD’s favorite activities & movement resources for you. Next time you are looking for some joyful, mindful movement, check out this list below! - Join a community kickball or softball league. - Take your dog on a long walk. - Sign up for an online yoga or qi gong class. - Go hiking. - Rent a bike or electric scooter and explore your city. - Move at home with workouts on YouTube or fitness app. - Go window shopping with your grandkids. - Visit your community pool. No matter how you practice #MindfulMovement, remember this great quote: “Being mindful in your moments allows you to participate in the full benefits of the experience. Movement routines and activities are more than just physical when done mindfully, they allow the mind to focus, engage and be present. The breath supports the movements, your attention helps you feel and appreciate the subtitles of actions. Moving mindfully is easily the best and most effective way to get the most out of your physical activity.” - @michaeljameswong

We've introduced the idea of joyful movement this week, and now want to highlight today how movement can actually become part of your meditation practice. "Mindful Movement" refers to engaging in different exercises while placing all of your attention (or as much as you can) on the movements of your body and breathing. For example, you could take a moment to notice the weight of your body on your feet or the position of your back when you’re sitting down. The chances are that you usually overlook these aspects of your physical well-being. By drawing your attention to them, you can gain a moment of stillness and relaxation. There are also specific movement techniques that are intended to be mental activities just as much as physical activities. Coming from the Eastern world, these traditional techniques can be powerful tools to strengthen your mind-body connection. These activities include Qi Gong, Tai Chi, and yoga*. Qi Gong is a centuries-old system of coordinated body-posture and movement, breathing, and meditation used for the purposes of health, spirituality, and martial-arts training with ancient Chinese roots. Qi Gong is fairly adaptable to different physical ability levels and has different movement patterns to focus on specific goals, like opening up the lungs. Tai Chi is also a Chinese martial art with a focused set of movements; while it does have meditative and health benefits, though, it is considered to be a martial arts practice that actually incorporates Qi Gong. Yoga is the most well known of these three practices, originating in India, and actually has a much wider variety of practices and goals than many think. Many religions and philosophies have incorporated yoga philosophies into their practices. However you choose to mindfully move, doing it with focus and intention is vital. What kind of mindful movement do you want to start incorporating into your routines?

Yesterday, we talked about making a list of the kinds of joyful movement you really enjoyed and setting aside time to actually engage in that movement. Today, we want to encourage you to get your kids involved! If you have children, you know the importance of getting them moving, especially as the school year winds down and they spend more time at home. It's likely no surprise to learn that in general, children need to move much more than adults. Achieving this much movement can seem daunting for many parents. But just as you did yesterday, have your kids make a list of all the ways they enjoy moving. Think of dancing, climbing trees, or building forts. Have them consider games like tag or Simon Says. Ask them about sports they want to learn more about and practice playing catch or dribbling. You can these use this list to schedule and suggest activities when they get bored or restless. Consider also joining them in these activities - a lot of really joyful movement happens when we participate in activities we loved as children. If you don't have kids, make this list for yourself and try some of these childhood games. Blanket forts, rollerblading, and inventing silly dance moves are acceptable activities at any age! Fun Fact: Did you know that kids' energy level peaks at age 7? Kids under this age need even more movement.

Let's talk today about joyful movement. Joyful movement is not just about moving your body for the sake of physical health. It’s about moving your body in ways that feel good, make you happy, and bring deep, soulful satisfaction. Today, we want you make a list of movement that you really enjoy. This can be a surprisingly difficult task, as a lot of the time we engage in movement because we think we should, or because we want to change the shape our body - but today we challenge you to think of movement you would do even if you didn't have to and even if it wouldn't change your body. Maybe it is a form of traditional exercise like running, weight lifting, swimming, dancing, or bicycling. Or maybe it's woodworking, rock climbing, gardening, deep cleaning your home, or jumping on the trampoline with your kids. Get creative. Make a list of the ways you like moving your body...and (you saw this coming) schedule a time this week to do it! When we start to move our bodies in ways that we enjoy, we get the physical AND mental benefits of moving. Movement is an incredibly powerful stress reliever and an amazing way of connecting your mind and body; but if you're movement is accompanied by worry, rules, or shame, it can actually cause more stress. When we ask you to schedule time to move, it should feel like you've been given permission to do something you love rather than a command to do something you'd rather not do; so if feels like a command, consider that you may not actually enjoy that kind of movement. It may also take time for movement at all to become joyful. If you couldn't think of anything to add to the list, that's okay! Pick something that you used to love doing as a child, or start by simple going on a walk. Mindful movement is a practice, just like mindful meals and mindful meditation. Let us know what kind of joyful movement you love in the comments! We'd really love to hear from you.

Welcome to Week 3 of Mindfulness Month! This week, we will focusing on Mindful Movement. To us, this means offering more information about some of the movement meditations from last week, but also talk about having some fun in the ways that we move. We know that movement can be a sensitive topic for a lot of people and we want to start off the week by acknowledging that this can be challenging. Perhaps movement is hard because of a physical injury or disability. Perhaps the word "exercise" brings up feelings of guilt and shame. Perhaps your to-do list is so long that adding anything requiring energy feels overwhelming. There are so many reasons that regular, mindful movement is hard to accomplish. We hope that by giving you a few tools, you will find ways that movement can help to reduce stress and shame, create more energy, and give freedom to engage in non-traditional movement that can adapt to any ability level. Be kind to yourself this week and let's have some fun!

Week 2, Day 4 of our Mindfulness Month is all about Art Meditation! As many artists can attest, creating can be an excellent form of meditation! But you need to be an artist to access the benefits. Try establishing a mindful drawing practice. There is an excellent primer available at journalsmarter.com/meditative-drawing that includes 6 methods of mindful drawing. However, as we have learned, almost any art form can be meditative if you approach the activity with the intent to focus, breathe, and draw your attention inward. Remember, too, that mindfulness is all about observing yourself without judgment – and this includes your art! Art can seem daunting for a lot of people, but there is a lot of power in learning to connect with the artist within (every has one, we promise)! There is even a whole branch of therapy built around the science of creativity. But…sometimes picking up a pen and staring a white sheet of paper can feel overwhelming if that isn’t a regular practice for you. Try using a coloring book or printed coloring page instead to get yourself started. There’s a good reason adult coloring books have come back into popularity, as they allow you to create, focus, and process emotion in a different way.

Movement Meditation 101: If the idea of sitting in a dark room with your eyes closed sounds intimidating or boring, try movement meditation. Yoga is the most well-known form of movement meditation in the US, but any gentle movement can be meditative if you want it to be - gardening, tai chi, and even dance are excellent candidates. The simplest form of movement meditation, though, is simply walking (read about the benefits of walking at the link in our bio). We found an introduction to a walking meditation from UC Berkeley - give it a shot today at your lunch break; it only takes 10 minutes to get started. Link in bio! Bonus: Movement is a natural stress reducer, too, so Movement Meditation looks like an excellent technique if you need some extra relief (and who doesn’t need this nowadays?!) Benefits of Walking: https://www.verywellfit.com/walking-for-your-mind-and-spirit-3432871 Walking Meditation: https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/walking_meditation #mindfulnessmonth #mentalhealthawarenessmonth #mentalhealth #workplacewellness #meditation #walking #walkingmeditation

Mindfulness Meditation 101: Curious how to begin a meditation practice? Here’s a simple meditation from mindful.org to get you started! 1) Take a seat. Find a place to sit that feels calm and quiet to you. Make sure to silence any devices (or better yet, put them in a different room). 2) Set a time limit. If you’re just beginning, it can help to choose a short time, such as 5 or 10 minutes. 3) Notice your body. You can sit in a chair with your feet on the floor, you can sit loosely cross-legged, you can kneel—all are fine. Just make sure you are stable and in a position you can stay in for a while. 4) Feel your breath. Follow the sensation of your breath as it goes in and as it goes out. 5) Notice when your mind has wandered. Inevitably, your attention will leave the breath and wander to other places. When you get around to noticing that your mind has wandered—in a few seconds, a minute, five minutes—simply return your attention to the breath. 6) Be kind to your wandering mind. Don’t judge yourself or obsess over the content of the thoughts you find yourself lost in. Just come back. 7) Close with kindness. When you’re ready, gently lift your gaze (if your eyes are closed, open them). Take a moment and notice any sounds in the environment. Notice how your body feels right now. Notice your thoughts and emotions. That’s it! That’s the whole practice. You go away, you come back, and you try to do it as kindly as possible. As you grow in your practice, you can begin to experiment with sounds like music or nature, smells like essentials oils or candles, and even light and temperature. Find what allows you to relax and focus. You can also begin to use meditation as spiritual practice, no matter your faith tradition. Many use their meditation time for focused prayer and to reflect on holy writings or mantras.

This week, we are focusing on Mindful Meditation. The word meditation has broadened recently to include a variety of practices, from traditional meditation to meditative movement to artistic expression, and is proven to be a beneficial practice to improve mental health. For many, though, meditation can be hard to start due to 3 big objections: I DON’T HAVE TIME. Good news – meditation doesn’t have to take hours! It might be the first 5 minutes of your morning tea, 20 minutes while your child is in a Zoom class, or an entire Saturday morning spent in meditation and creative practice. Taking time for Mindful Meditation regularly can work wonders for stress, anxiety, or other overwhelming feelings, and building it into your regular daily schedule can make a long-term difference in your mental health. As with most new practices, intention scheduling makes all the difference. Looking at your week ahead, schedule out some time to have a little bit of stillness and silence. I DON’T KNOW HOW. More good news – it’s easier than you think! “Meditation isn’t about becoming a different person, a new person, or even a better person. It’s about training in awareness and getting a healthy sense of perspective. You’re not trying to turn off your thoughts or feelings.”* Tons of resources have become available as mindfulness and meditation have become part of the mainstream. There are apps, YouTube channels, podcasts, audiobooks, and online classes – many of which are free. Most meditation resources also include a great list of ways to get started, from how to hold your body, what to do if you get restless or bored, and how to handle the emotions that meditation can bring up. I’M JUST NOT INTERESTED. At the risk of sounding like your mom, how do you know if haven’t tried it? Meditation, like everything, requires practice. And remember, meditation doesn’t just have to mean sitting in a dark room with your eyes closed. Mindful Meditation can include physical activity, art, and writing. Finding a way to meditate daily is proven to decrease stress, increase resilience and contentment, and improves your ability to focus. Now who doesn’t want that? *quote from headspace.com

Week 1 of Mindfulness Month in the books! Thanks to all who participated on our company Teams platform, and to our social media friends. We hope you spent a little bit of time this week pausing while you were cooking or eating, and found a little relief from stress! Check out some recipes sourced from BLVD's employees to prepare this weekend and make your own mindful meal. Recipe creators tagged in each photo, and direct links in comments or more easily accessed from this post on our Facebook page.

Mindful Meals Day 3: Eating is a great natural stress reliever! However, many of us have a complicated relationship with food. As you practice mindful meals, it can be helpful to practice indfulness with eating by bringing awareness to our hunger signals and our emotions. Swipe through all of the photos to learn a meditation, adapted from bodypositive.com, that can help you bring awareness and pleasure to eating. #MindfulMeals Tip: Some of these practices may seem silly, boring, or impractical at first glance, but science is really sure that mindfulness actually works! Taking some time out of your day to pay attention to how you are feeling is vital to your mental health, and tying these practices to a daily activity like eating can help remind us to practice mindfulness. Commit to trying just one of these things for a week. You might be surprised what you learn about yourself!

Mindful Meals Day 2: On a stressful day, it can seem like cooking is just one more thing to do before you can finall yrelax. But when cooking is approached with mindfulness, it can actually become a source of stress relief. "See with your eyes, smell with your nose, taste with your tongue" feels like obvious cooking advice, right? But we can easily become distracted when cooking with so many other things and forget to give our mindful attention to the act of simply preparing a meal. Set aside 1 night this week to mindfully cook (or if that feels to tough, try doing this while making your coffee in the morning or tossing a salad for lunch). Select a favorite recipe or invent something new. Practice seeing, smelling, and tasting the food as you go. Give your full attention to the task. Don't be afraid if boredom arises; just redirect your thoughts back to cooking. Take time to notice what you haven't noticed the before, like the size of a salt grain, smell of soy sauce, or the taste of a raw vegetable you normally eat cooked. Get curious, and enjoy to creative act of cooking. #MindfulMeals Resource: Check out Headspace's 5 minute video to help you prepare for mindful cooking: www.headspace.com/mindfulness/mindful-cooking

#MindfulMay Day 1 of Mindful Meals Week: What is Mindful Eating? Simply put, mindful eating is about developing an awareness of your body, it's hunger cues, and the kind of food that makes it feel good. We often choose what to eat based on convenience, eat quickly in front of screens, or on an irregular schedule. When we do this, it increases the chances that we're choosing that doesn't make us feel good, eating too much or too little, and we could even be interrupting our sleep cycles. Tip of the Day: While mindful eating is a practice that takes, well, practice, a good place to start is with slowing down while eating. Try eating one snack or meal each day more slowly and without multitasking. Tae the time to eat something you love and make sure to enjoy slowly and on purpose.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and we want to take this opportunity to give everyone in the BLVD community (employees, residents, vendor partners, and friends!) some tools this month to improve their own mental & emotional wellbeing. Every day for the next 4 weeks, we will be sharing a new tip, tool, or resource to improve their skill at mindfulness. Employees will also have the added benefit of being able to share their own mindful practices and through participation be entered to win some prizes! So what exactly is "mindfulness"? According to Illinois State University, "Mindfulness is maintaining awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surroundings....mindfulness has it's roots in Buddhist meditation, [and] it is now widely accepted as a stress management technique due to the many positive effects it has on the mind and body". We know that everyone can benefit from more mindfulness and better mental health, and we're excited to share more mindful practices with you over the coming weeks. A little preview of what's coming: Week 1: Mindful Meals Week 2: Mindful Meditation Week 3: Mindful Movement Week 4: Mindful Motivation Looking forward to a great Mindful May!

Looking for a job in property management? Mark your calendars for April 26, 2023 for the BLVD Residential Hiring Fair in Roseville, CA! . We are growing fast and looking to meet qualified candidates from all specialties. We are also always looking for talented people to train to become management experts. Come and learn more about BLVD and what your career could become! . Stay tuned here for more information.

BLVD is committed to developing our people into thoughtful, capable problem solvers. We are actively interested in the professional and personal growth of our employees by offering appropriate training, varied career paths, and opportunities for advancement and recognition. We also know that property management can be a demanding industry, which is why BLVD work as a champion for their employees. . Join us at the BLVD Residential Hiring Fair on April 26. Stay tuned for more information!

Interested in joining the BLVD team? You can check out our available jobs right now...OR....mark your calendar for our BLVD RESIDENTIAL HIRING FAIR on APRIL 26! . Follow along here; more info is coming soon!

BLVD manages over 11,000 apartments; odds are, one of the is perfect home for you! Check out our current availability now by visiting our website. #movingday #sacramentorealestate #bayarearealestate #arizonarealestate #propertymanager #propertymanagement

BLVD is growing fast and is looking for skilled managers, techs, and supervisors to join our team across the Bay Area and Sacramento. Check out website to apply today, or visit us directly on Indeed! #propertymanagement #propertymanagementjobs #nowhiring #PropertyManagementJob #communitymanager #maintenance #maintenancetech

BLVD Residential is a privately held multifamily property management firm located in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, Arizona, and Nevada. We are a regionally focused firm providing our clients with exceptional results through proven market driven operating strategies carried out by talented, experienced professionals. . Founded in 1967, it was purchased by Bob Talbott and Scott Mencaccy, our current CEO and President respectively, in 2011. BLVD then acquired the Sacramento-based firm DJA Properties in 2022. . Today, BLVD manages 150 properties consisting of approximately 11,000 units in Northern California, Nevada, and Arizona. We manage properties as large as 417 units and as small as 4 units. We are active in the Greater Bay Area, San Francisco, Marin & Sonoma counties, Sacramento, Central Valley, Monterey, Arizona, and Reno, NV.