Free Comic Book Day

 I do apologize for the EXTREME lateness of this post (it's a whole week late), but I've just been so busy lately that I haven't had time to sit down and just work on my blog. I'm going to have to remedy that this summer, and get a nice stack of draft posts built up so that I have something to publish when the going gets rough during my JUNIOR year of college. 

Anyway -- FREE COMIC BOOKS! I'd never been into comic books before I started dating my current boyfriend - I owned a few Scooby Doo ones, and I enjoyed reading Betty and Veronica, but I wasn't into the whole Marvel-vs-DC war thing. But when Matt mentioned our comic shop (Legion) was doing free comic book day, I jumped on the chance for an outing with him. My sister tagged along, too, and I really hope she had fun, despite Matt's incessant yammering.

We got there about 30 minutes early, just to be sure there would be comics when we got there. They didn't open until 11:00, and we got there around 10:30. You never know with Birmingham traffic and all if you'll make it to your destination on time. 

One of our friends from Montevallo, Miles, was there, so we had him to talk to while we waited for the doors to open. The owner's kid was also running around inside the store, pressing his nose to the glass and taunting everyone with the comics that we were waiting for.

Once 11:00 hit, the owner's wife stepped out and gave us a few simple rules: No being rude, only one of each comic per person, and show your comics to the cashier to check out. Easy enough. So we all filed inside, one-by-one, and went down the table, collecting the comics that we wanted to read. 

I got a huge stack of them, but I didn't get all of them. Next year, I'm going to pick up one of every comic, even if they don't interest me, because maybe someday they'll be worth something. I did get some cool ones, though, most notably a hardcover comic anthology called Mouse Guard. It seems to have been really popular - someone came in about half an hour after Legion opened asking if they had any more. (Sorry, buddy, but if you want the whole collection on Free Comic Book Day, you'd better get to the comic shop early!)

Next year, I'm going to ask my friend Hunter to come with me. I'm sure he'd have fun. I think he's been to Legion a few times, but he doesn't have a box there. I picked up a few comics just for him, like the Kaboom comic, the Megaman X/Sonic comic, and the Power Rangers comic. He didn't get to go this year because he was working, so I wanted to give him something special.

After we finished up at Legion, Matt, Sarah, and I went over to the Brookwood Mall and shopped a bit. I had some Hot Cash to use at Hot Topic, and Sarah got a record from Coconuts on our way out of the Summit. We had a great afternoon, and got back home by 3:00 that evening. 

Have you ever been to Free Comic Book Day? Are you going next year?

Six Months!

Last Tuesday marked six months since Matt and I started dating, and it's been the most wonderful six months that I've ever lived through. So, to celebrate (despite the bad weather), we went out to the mall and ate at Five Guys and then we went to Build-a-Bear.

I've never been to Build-a-Bear before, because we didn't have any around us when I was growing up. Then, when we moved here, I was "too old" to do one, and they were "too expensive" for my parents to buy me one.

But when I mentioned to Matt that I'd never been, he picked up on the hint and took me to Build-a-Bear for our six-month anniversary. It was awesome! The ladies that helped us were really, really nice, too. 

They made us do the Bear Ceremony, too, even though we're both in college. It was awesome!

What we did was, we went in and looked at the outfits and the animals. We told each other our top three picks in the animals department, then I went outside while he built my animal. Once he was done, we switched, and I made him one. Then we took our boxes and went to the Food Court, where we could look at what we had made.

Matt made me a bunny in a Captain American costume with a tutu from the Hello Kitty collection. It was absolutely adorable. I've named her Peggy. 

I made Matt a monkey in a Superman outfit with Aviators. He loved it. (I also got him a little Lego Joker keychain, and he absolutely loved that as well.) 

We then got the lady who helped Matt to take our picture with our animals. I haven't slept a night without Peggy since.

After we got our animals, we walked around the mall, and I was able to get the new Bravely Default 3DS game at GameStop. We looked in Spencer's, and then we went home. We even got home before the bad weather hit. 

It was a wonderful day :) I'm sorry I've been so late in posting this, but Finals took over my life last week, and this has been my first day to actually sit down and blog (even though I'm supposed to be cleaning my room at this moment). Look forward to the year-end wrap-up, and then my experiences at Free Comic Book Day coming up in the next few days, okay? 

It's My Nineteenth Birthday!

And it was one of the most miserable days I've ever experienced.

Okay, okay. So it wasn't all that bad, all things considered. (There was one thing that was/is completely my fault, because I allow myself to think and remember.)

My mom yelled at me to get up at 9:21. (I had my alarm set for 9:30.) 

I took a shower, got dressed, and went downstairs for breakfast. The muffins looked a little weird, so I asked Mom what happened. She just snapped at me and said that she'd used the wrong bag and had had to add a second bag to the muffins. I didn't mean to make her snap.

I finished breakfast, dried my hair, did my makeup, and my sister and I set out for the Brookwood Mall.

We went to Earthbound first, and spent about forty minutes in there, just looking at everything. If you've never been to an Earthbound store, you're missing out. You need to find one and go to it immediately. (You're welcome.)

I bought two necklaces - one zodiac gemstone one (it's a tiger's eye, for Leo, my zodiac sign) and one white claw-looking one that's a gemstone, too. 

Then we headed over to Hot Topic. I had a $5 off a $30 purchase coupon, so I was feeling good. I picked out a Loki shirt, two pairs of earrings, and a Catwoman keychain. I debated over a Doctor Who belt, several Doctor Who shirts, and a couple of Doctor Who buttons, but in the end, I stayed within my budget. (I still spent $39.) I couldn't use my coupon because, even though it's not in the fine print, you can't use it on the promotional "buy one, get one 50% off" items. WHICH IS EVERYTHING IN THE STORE. SO THAT BIRTHDAY COUPON WAS USELESS. UGH.

We then went to the food court and had Charley's Subs for lunch. (The sample guy caught us on the way to the bathroom, and we liked what we tried so much that we bought it.) I put my Weeping Angel earrings in my ears (I had my sister take a picture), and then I went and got my free Pretzel Bites from Pretzelmaker. They give out birthday coupons!

 This is the shirt that I got from Hot Topic! It says "Mischief" in the lower-right corner, but you can't really see it in this picture (bad lighting).

 My Weeping Angel earrings! Aren't they just awesome?

 My TARDIS earrings! I'm seriously contemplating getting a second piercing so I can wear both the TARDIS and the Angels at the same time! How cool would that be?

 My Catwoman keychain! It's so adorable!

 The Tiger Eye necklace.

 The other necklace!

What's left of our pretzel bites after we got into the car! (That's my sister taking the picture, y'all. I was driving! :3)

After that, we went to TreeTop. I wanted to play a game of Laser Tag and see my friend Thomas. He was working Laser Tag, but Tom sent him home early so he got to play with Sarah and me (along with Alan, my other friend).

We were gonna play Go Karts, but they got rained out :/ Unfortunate. (But hey - I have free GoKart rides whenever I want, so it's not that bad.)

Got home, took Sarah to band camp, and then I sat down and played Animal Crossing: New Leaf for a bit. (The birthday stuff on there is great!)

We had ravioli for supper (yummm) and then we had cake. 

Mom and Dad fought over how Mom was lighting the candles, though, so that was upsetting... I'm not smiling quite as big in these pictures as I was in the ones last year.

And throughout the cake part, I was miserable, because I kept remembering last year, and how happy it was with Charlie by my side (as well as the amazing kiss he gave me under the meteor shower on the bridge outside afterwards).

Then Mom told me that, since I had asked for the cowgirl boots for my birthday, she would no longer be giving me the present that she had bought me "some months earlier," like she'd told me a few weeks ago. (She later took this statement back, and told me that she'd give me this present with my boots, if they arrive tomorrow.)

Dad didn't get me anything, although later he did go into his room and come out with a calligraphy set that he had taken from my great aunt's house when we cleaned it out a few months ago. (I guess that'll be fun?) Last year he gave me a necklace...and the charm's turned on it.

Mom & I went to pick up Sarah later, and Sarah was extremely late coming out, so Mom got ticked at her and they yelled all the way back.

Plus, my period started like five days early, so I've been PMS-y all week and especially bad today. 

I guess the day itself's been all right. It's been intermittent showers and whatnot. I did see the end of a rainbow in our cul-de-sac; no pots of gold, unfortunately. 

Now I've just got to stop thinking about Charlie, and about how last year was going at this time. (Let's just say that it was an amazing night, and I will never, ever forget it.)

Have a great day, y'all.

Shopping with Sarah

Sometimes, all I want to do is just get out and walk around a store. It doesn't really matter what store, so long as there are things to look at. I probably won't buy very much, but I just like shopping. (Is that so bad?) Guess I'm more of a girly-girl than I thought I was. 

Anyway, on Monday, my sister and I went shopping on a spur-of-the-moment thing. We left for the Brookwood Mall at 2:00 (we'd both gotten up late), and spent two hours there before heading to the Summit mall (it's all outdoors) to Barnes & Noble.

I like going to Brookwood, even though it's so far away, because it's the only place nearby that has a Hot Topic and an Earthbound. (If you haven't visited those stores, you owe it to yourself to do so. Now.)

We tried on sunglasses in Earthbound, along with several Mardi Gras masks. I really should've bought the sunglasses I have on in this picture - they were only $3. (I'm the one on the right, if you can't tell.)

We may have had too much fun at Earthbound - we maybe spent around a half hour in there. I ended up buying some bath salts -- I haven't taken a bath in years, and I think I'd like to take a relaxing one some day soon. I need something relaxing, yo!

I bought this cool Hetalia keychain in Hot Topic (they had no shirts that I wanted, and the dress I was interested in was too low-cut for my taste).

We walked around Claire's (I contemplated getting a second piercing), and then we browsed Books-a-Million before heading back to my car.

We puttered away to the Summit (there was some serious traffic) and went to Barnes & Noble. We headed straight to the café section.

You can get Cheesecake Factory cheesecake at B&N for about half the price of a slice at the restaurant. And who's going to pass up THAT deal?!

The cashier/barista-lady didn't seem pleased with us, so we got away from the register as quickly as possible and sat down in the café area to eat our cheesecake. We were both disappointed that we couldn't have the whole thing - but we were already running late, and we would be eating barbeque sandwiches at home soon. 

After eating half our cheesecake (it was almost supper time, after all), I went searching for a specific book - the Sherlock Holmes B&N edition.

It's over 1,000 pages, has gilded edges, and it's got beautiful endpapers. What more can you ask for from a book such as this? (It was $20, but I'm not complaining.) I also own a Grimm's Fairy Tales book in this sort of collection. They're so gorgeous.

I also ended up getting a Hobbit tote-bag. I'm still not sure what I'm going to use it for, but it was on sale - 30% off. Who's going to argue with that? There was also a Hunger Games bag, and supposedly a Harry Potter bag (but that one was sold out). I'm now going to use this bag as my Travel Bag. I'll put my books and stuff in it whenever we travel. It's also the perfect size to take to the pool!




So, that's what I did on Monday. I think it went rather well, and I ended up spending less than $40, I think. ($28 for the book/bag, $12 for the cheesecake, $4 for the bath salts... Yeah. About $34. My sister bought the keychain because I bought her a slice of cheesecake/some water.)

Retail Therapy

I realize there are a lot of girls out there who are going through a breakup right now. And I'm not going to tell you how you should attempt to get over this breakup, and I'm not going to tell you why you should get over this breakup and move on. (I haven't figured that out for myself yet, to be perfectly honest.) 

What I am going to tell you is what I did today, while attempting to figure out why a certain someone chose to be a coward and break up with me in a letter instead of doing it face to face.

What did I do today, you ask?

Retail therapy.

I know, I know. "You're wasting money to get just a little bit of a high, just so you can *attempt* to get over this guy? That's so...petty." 

Please, hear me out.

I've been saving 99% of my paychecks for the past five weeks, so that I could afford to go to South Carolina. I've been living on $20 a week for five weeks. (At the end of the week, any money that I still had left over went into my bank.) Today, though, I finally got my chance to spend some of the money that I've been making, spend it on me. (Although that trip to SC was really more for me than it was for him...)

I received $155.83 in my last paycheck. After putting up $50.02 (I had to make it an even number in my savings account), I was left with $105.81 to spend at my leisure today. And I'll have to admit, it felt nice spending that money. I was spoiling me. And I realized something: Charlie never really spent any money on me. Sure, he bought me books for my birthday, and one for Christmas, but he didn't get me anything for Valentine's Day (his letter got "lost" in the mail; I wonder if he ever even sent one) or for our one-year anniversary (which was a really big deal, seriously). 

So I spent my money on myself today. Would you care to see what I bought? :)

Earrings from Claire's - $7.63.

Okamiden from GameStop - $19.61.

Pink(?) maxidress from Wet Seal - $16.58.

Blue maxidress from Wet Seal - $16.58.

Cat flats from Traffic - $21.80

I also got a pair of "seamless" undies from Victoria's Secret ($15.81), to wear under my new dresses. (No, you're not getting a picture of those. Pervert.)

So, what was the total amount I spent today? $98.01. And let me tell you, it felt good.

Later, I went to this HUGE used-stuff store, called 2nd & Charles. I wish we'd known how BIG it was beforehand, otherwise we would've been able to spend more time there. As it was, I only got to spend about 20 minutes looking around for stuff. I did manage to find ONE book that I wanted, though, which was better than nothing :) We're hoping to go back on Monday when we take my car to the shop.

So, while I'm saying it probably wasn't wise of me to blow nearly my entire paycheck in one go, I am saying that it helped a bit. Sure, these are hollow, material things, but for just a few moments, I was able to get my mind off of Charlie for a few short hours. It was nice just shopping with my mother whilst my sister wandered in another part of the mall with her friend. (She was spending her birthday money.) 

Now, I just need to find a denim vest to go with those maxi dresses.

Gosh, I love the smell of new clothes.