I’m still best friends with the first girl I met while I was in college. She was on my floor Freshman year while I lived in the dorms and we would watch movies together and play board games. Finally, we found a free weekend where she could drive to the Cities so we could hang out. I wanted to talk about all the fun things we were able to do.

Friday:

I took my friend to Black Panther at the movie theater by my house. It was her first time seeing it while I had seen it a week prior with the boyfriend. She hasn’t been impressed by Marvel movies lately, but she thoroughly enjoyed this one. My favorite character is Shuri because she’s the head of the science department and uses technology to attempt to take down Kilmonger. Besides seeing Black Panther, I took her to a really good pizza place called Pizza Luce. She ended up ordering Mac & Cheese, but I indulged in many slices of pizza with no shame.

Saturday:

Unfortunately, my job requires me to work most Saturdays from 7 AM – 1 PM. I actually don’t mind it all that much because I’m constantly busy so the shift goes by fast. However, it sucks when I have actual plans on Saturday. My boyfriend entertained my friend until I drove home. We got lunch and I showed her one of my favorite comic shops in the cities Source Comics & Games. I’m pretty sure I wrote a blog post about this shop, but I’m too lazy to search for the link to the post.

Besides comic book shopping, we attended this event at Tin Whiskers Brewing Company in St. Paul, MN. They were hosting a comic book night with local artists tabling and displaying their work. I was walking around with my 10 oz. IPA sipping on a beer and browsing through art. I ended up buying a really cool piece by Chance Wyatt with the Flash running on a lake with his reflection showing the Reverse Flash. We were going to go to a Harry Potter-themed acoustic show, but the place where it was held was lighting an incense my friend was allergic to. By this time we drove back to my house and watched a movie and I passed out because I was exhausted from being up so early.

Sunday:

I had always wanted to try a Waffle Bar in the Twin Cities area because we wanted breakfast, but my friend doesn’t eat eggs. The Coffee & Waffle Bar was pretty good, I ended up ordering a strawberry cheesecake waffle with a cup of black coffee. I could honestly eat breakfast food all day because breakfast is my favorite meal. I also thought that if Leslie Knope ever visited Minneapolis, she would want to eat here.

I’m always happy showing my friends around Minneapolis / St. Paul. I love where I live and even though winter really sucks, I like this area. Next weekend we are hosting another friend as well, so I have to think of other things to do. It’s fun being a tourist in your own city! 🙂

Unlike February, I won’t be traveling at all for the month of March. I need that downtime because traveling whether it’s flying somewhere or driving is expensive. March and April will be money-saving months to prepare for a road trip to Boston with my family in May. Since I’m sticking in my area throughout the next two months, I will be having some friends come to stay with us from my college town. It will be nice to see them since it’s been a couple months since we had good quality time together. Let’s recap the month of February.

Set a budget for Planet Comicon SUCCESS 🙂

I was most worried about this goal because I can easily spend more than what I had previously said I would. I spent $40 less than I had originally anticipated! It helped that I spent most of my Saturday waiting in line for photos and autographs so that meant I didn’t end up wandering around browsing other artists or it would have been game over.

Work at Steamship at least once per month. FAIL 

Normally I end up working one shift a month, but nobody posted wanting a shift taken so I didn’t end up working. It works out for the best because I am working 40+ hours a week at my full-time job and maybe I do want my free time to be able to re-watch season #1 of Jessica Jones.

Play D&D at least once this month. FAIL

My biggest problem with being able to play DnD is finding a group that’s local. I’m a part of one Facebook page, but they usually meet at a game store thirty minutes away and that’s hard to get to on a day of the week. I do want to play DnD more often, but I haven’t found the right group yet.

Read one book & one comic book this month. Success / Fail. 

I did read more comics than books which is my usual. I can read comics a lot faster than books. I read books on my lunch break, but I usually don’t get a full chapter in. Currently, I’m reading Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by Alexander Freed. It’s the story adaptation of the movie. When I finish it, I will post a review because Rogue One is my all-time favorite Star Wars movie.

Now onto the goals for the spring month of March:

Increase my Roth IRA deposit from $50 to $100

If you haven’t opened up your own retirement fund, you definitely should. I don’t rely on my employer to save for retirement and I like that I control how much I can put in. Now that I have been working for several months, it’s time to get serious about saving for retirement. I need to contact my Thrivent agent to tell them to bump up my Roth.

Move at least $100 from each paycheck to Savings

I usually always do this with every paycheck. In addition to this, any leftover amount of my previous paycheck also gets moved to savings.

Watch Season #2 of Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones is my favorite “superhero” from The Defenders. I admire everything she has gone through and she is such a complex character. I hope to see more appearances with Luke Cage and see more of a budding romance again in season #2. I also want to learn more about her past and what happened to her that gave her these incredible powers. Also to see Patsy Walker kick ass too. All the women in this show are really interesting characters.

Catch up on my Comics Pile

I am reading through a new comic I bought called Manhunter from DC Comics, but I have a pile of comics to read including Paper Girls Volume #3, Saga Volume #2, and Moonstruck issues #3-#5. I need to sit down on a Sunday with some coffee and take a couple hours to read my comics.

Unlock all the Achievements in LEGO Marvel Superheroes

This game has been my guilty pleasure. I have been trying to 100% the game to unlock all the extra achievements. It’s taken me a while because I’m not able to play video games all that often anymore. I find this game a nice & fun distraction from the stress of my ordinary life.

That’s all I got! This month there are a lot more financial goals than last month, but they’re still important which is why I included them. I’m looking forward to the Spring weather Minneapolis hopefully has to offer.

After writing my Planet Comicon blog post, I wanted to write a brief summary of the Air B&B we stayed at. Prior to my Kansas City trip, I had never used Air B&B before. My friend used it once while she was in Paris and had a great experience with it. She booked our Air B&B for our trip which was rather cheap. Thursday night at 11:30 PM we drove up to our lodging, and we were honestly disappointed.

The Air B&B was in the middle of a construction/train station area. We were seven minutes outside the city, although we still felt unsafe. Me and my friend debated for a good fifteen minutes on whether or not to get a hotel instead because that’s the vibe we were getting from this place.

After parking, we walked inside the building. The hallway was extremely long and our room was at the end of it. There was plenty of lighting in the hallway which helped tried to make it feel more “homey”. Me and my friend still felt the inside was creepy and the creaking of the floor didn’t help either. Thankfully I was sharing this room with my friend, but if I was alone I would be scared.

As we walked into our room, it did remind me of the pictures we saw online. The room had an urban feel to it and the bathroom doors were coated in a picture of downtown Kansas City which I thought was kinda cool. The floors, however, were extremely dirty. I had socks on and when I took my socks off, they were black. I’m not expecting five-star service, but I had hoped the place would have been cleaned before we got there.

Our Air B&B offered free WiFi, but it was really slow WiFi. I guess if you are going to pay to have WiFi for your guests, I would assume it would have been somewhat decent.

I will say I am glad we stayed here because it was close to Kansas City so the Uber rides we took were incredibly cheap. I wish we would have done more research when booking the Air B&B because I wouldn’t have stayed there if I had known previously the area where it was located.

Overall, I wouldn’t mind using Air B&B again or I would use a hotel. I want to emphasize how important it is to do your research on where you stay. Type in the address and look at pictures of the outside. Read the detailed reviews especially the negative ones to know what you’re getting into when you pay for the place. My friend did end up leaving a negative review of the place which I completely agreed with. I would love to hear about your experiences with Air B&B in the comments section. Maybe you have had a more positive experience than I had.

I’m officially back from my blogging hiatus due to my trip to Planet Comicon & lots of work. I have never been to a “bigger” comic convention; most of my cons have been local and no more than 6,000 people attend. Planet Comicon has about 15,000-16,000 on average. Once I got back from Planet Comicon, I had to spend time processing this weekend because guess what? Not only did I meet Jason Momoa, but I also met Matthew Lewis aka. Neville Longbottom. I’m still in shock this happened. I was telling a coworker about meeting Matthew Lewis and I was still red in the face and laughing nervously. Anyway, this post is to gush to you all about how awesome my weekend was and how I’m already planning my next “bigger” convention.

Arriving in Kansas City, me and my friend picked up our passes on Friday for Saturday. I’m glad we did because the line on Saturday to pick up tickets was really long. Immediately entering the convention hall on Saturday I was in awe over all the people. Walking around was difficult as there were huge groups of people walking at different speeds. There were so many creators tabling, artists sketching, and multiple props to take pictures with. It was slightly intimidating.

The first place me and my friend stopped at was the celebrity booth to find Jason Momoa. His line was packed with cosplayers, families, and other con-goers. Me and my friend exchanged nervous glances about whether or not we would actually get the autograph we paid for because that’s how long the line was. While walking around the celebrity booth, we noticed Matthew Lewis doing signings. We both spontaneously decided to wait in his line for an autograph.

To purchase Matthew Lewis’s autograph, we waited for 2 1/2 hours. We were getting antsy because we weren’t moving and I was slightly dehydrated from all the standing. Finally, his line started to move and I was suddenly standing a couple feet from him. I started blushing due to being nervous. Anyway, he said my name and asked me how I was and I told him to draw me a Deathly Hallows symbol on my picture of Neville. After receiving my autograph, my hands were shaking and my heart was practically about to explode from my chest. I’m so happy we waited in line for him.

After Matthew Lewis, we took a break by getting some lunch and walking around the floor. There’s so much shopping you could do! I wish I had purchased a day pass on Sunday so I could have looked at all the comics, books, and art creators were selling. Once we got back to the convention, we waited in line for a photo with Matthew Lewis.

Originally, I didn’t want to buy a celebrity photo because I was afraid of the photo looking awkward. I was surprised by the fact that the photo looks really professional. The photo line moved pretty quickly and we were done within 15 minutes. Plus Matthew Lewis put his arms around us and made it look pretty casual. AHHH Matthew Lewis put his arm around me, I won’t forget that. ❤

Me and my friend were about to give up on Jason Momoa’s autograph (even though we paid for it, but the line was ridiculously long) when we noticed the line was considerably shorter. We walked up to a lady with a volunteer shirt on who told us to move in the line. We were given mean glances by those waiting in line for an autograph who didn’t pre-purchase it like we did. I wasn’t as nervous with Jason Momoa as I was with Matthew Lewis. I wanted to briefly describe what I said to Jason Momoa while he signed my Aquaman print:

Me: *nervously giggling* I’m so excited about the solo Aquaman movie.

Jason: *pauses* “Hellll yeahhhh. Here take a girl scout cookie.” (He did have thin mints at his table for fans).

Jason gave me his seal of approval for the Aquaman movie with two words. I’m pumped to see it in theaters.

After Jason Momoa, me and my friend were exhausted, so we called an Uber and changed out of our Hogwarts Student cosplays, and had a beer with food. Overall it was one of the best conventions I attended. Usually, I attend smaller conventions, but this one was a nice change of pace. I’m not sure how I would feel attending NYCC or San Diego because I was overwhelmed by the hordes of people all around me. In general, I’m open to attending larger conventions because Planet Comicon was great. Plus I can now say I met Aquaman and Neville Longbottom in real life.

I don’t usually talk about fitness on this blog, but I did graduate from Winona State University with a B.S. in Exercise Science. I’m also certified as a Personal Trainer by the ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine). In the middle of January, I was contacted by a personal trainer at the gym I workout at because I had won three free personal training sessions. These sessions kicked my butt. Today I used the last session of my three free sessions and I decided to hire a virtual coach and unlimited access to group personal training. I wanted to talk about why this was a great decision for me.

This personal trainer taught me how much I wasn’t challenging myself. The workouts he had me do made my body feel more fatigued than I had ever felt on my own. After the workout, I would come home genuinely shaky because my muscles had been pushed to a new level. I realized with my own training, I was stalling out. I did movements I was familiar with which led to my body getting used to my routine. Workouts are meant to challenge the body, that’s how our body adapts and gets stronger.

My biggest challenge with getting to the gym is accountability. Two days a week I work about 12 hours shifts. I get home from work, cook dinner and I’m physically exhausted. I sit on the couch and end up falling asleep early. Instead, I would rather be held accountable to go to the gym and get a workout in. Hiring a trainer allows me to have accountability meaning I’m more likely to go to my gym.

Finally, hiring a trainer helps me be organized in the gym. Some days I walk into the gym and ask myself “What am I going to do today?”. With my trainer, she will write workouts for me and when I walk into the gym, I will know what I will be doing for about 45 minutes. This helps me be more organized and concise during my exercise.

I am more motivated than I have ever been before. I am hoping to tone my muscles (drop my body fat percentage) so my muscles can be visibly seen on my arms, legs, etc. I have also been using MyFitnessPal again to track what I’m eating. I’m not too focused on calories, but moreso to track what types of meals, snacks etc that I eat throughout the day. I have been rejuvenated and I’m ready to go kick some serious ass in the gym.

I decided to take a break from goal setting in the month of January. I don’t like setting “New Year’s Resolutions” because often whatever goal I set, I abandon within a month anyway. Now that January is over and done with, I wanted to talk about my month of February with a new set of goals waiting to be met.

Set a budget for Planet Comicon

I always spend too much money at conventions because I love to buy new comics, art, and more. I haven’t decided how much spending money I will actually bring, but I’m going to set a budget for sure. Usually, I bring cash with me so once I spend whatever I have in cash, I’m done. This seems to work for me at most conventions, but I think I’m planning on bringing at least $80. I did look at the exhibitor listing before the convention and Tee Turtle is one of them and I love their t-shirts so honestly, this is going to be tough for me.

Work at Steamship at least once per month.

Steamship Coffee & Tea is the coffee shop I work at in Minneapolis. I’m not on the schedule every week, so I take shifts whenever I can. My goal is to work there at least once per month. I’m their emergency barista in case someone needs time off or is too sick to come to work. I like it because I can set my own hours and choose shifts that work for me. Did I also mention my coffee shop is in the same space as Universe Games? I can stock up on my board game needs while earning money making lattes.

Play D&D at least once this month.

I’m a part of an all-female DnD group on Facebook and I haven’t once gone to a role-playing session. I usually justify it because I have to meal prep on Sunday or go to the gym. I need to cut out the excuses and just go for a couple hours because I know I would have fun.

Read one book & one comic book this month.

I still have Paper Girls Volume #3, Saga Volume #2 and Madame Xanadu to read along with a pile of books. I want to set the bar low for this one because I do end up getting busy in between work. I have been better at reading before bed and I bring a book to read on my lunch break. There’s so much to read and so little time to do it.

Happy February everyone! Happy Valentine’s Day and Galentine’s Day and whatever else happens in this month.