Hello all! As we dive into the heart of summer, I figure it’s time for a bit of an update on how I’m spending my time these days! Who is the enigma that used to be “Kristina Horner, Chief of the Unicorn Warriors”? The more time passes, the less I feel the need to project my life onto the Internet, so forgive me for extreme periods of quiet in between updates. If I’m being honest, the bulk of my time has been spent working at Mixer, writing a book and doing yardwork. But here are some recent standout experiences you might be interested in.

Cool experiences I’ve had:

As I’m sure is no secret, I love things like escape rooms and immersive theater. Most recently, I had the good fortune of getting to try out an experience called The Confidence Game put on by Cat & Canary. It was unlike anything I’ve ever done before, sort of a blend of an escape room and live immersive theater. Joe and I called up our friends Tara and Alexander — because when it comes to both experimental theater and breaking the law, they’re the first people we’d go to.

The Confidence Game puts you at the heart of the story. The experience happens in real bars, parks and hotels in the city, where you meet up with a hustler who enlists you to take part in a tricky diamond heist. From there you’re expected to negotiate, pickpocket and straight up lie your way through the story, interacting with talented actors who will make you remember why you aren’t a criminal in real life. That shit’s scary, man.

I’m gonna be honest, parts of this were terrifying for me. Not terrifying in the “I fear my life is in danger” way, but in the “my friends are really good at improv and I’m better with a paper and pen and time to think” kind of way. However, when we had to split up into the “thieves” and the “hustlers”, I of course was nominated for the negotiating team. I would probably have made a better pick-pocket in hindsight, but I like to challenge myself, so Alexander and I set out to negotiate “no less than $50,000” for the diamonds with an actor, while Tara and Joe got to do the sneaking around.

My favorite part of the night was when Alexander and I were intercepted by the Feds (another actor), who tried very hard to get us to sell out the guy who put us up to the job. I think my “acting” skills really shone here, when my only response was to keep asking Alexander where the cameras were, as I was “sure we were being punk’d on our anniversary night out”. We told the guy we were just two country folk in town to celebrate, and had no idea what he was talking about.

Overall we had an amazing time, got to live out some criminal fantasies and ultimately played through the experience in the manner that involved none of our party ending up being ‘arrested’. All things considered, a pretty successful night. While this experience was part of a soft launch for the company, they should be bringing it back a bit later in the year, so keep an eye out! Cat & Canary also create custom experiences for special events, so if you can convince your work team to do something like this, or want to plan an epic surprise party… keep them in mind!

Games I’ve been playing:

Well, obviously…. Wizards Unite. I’m a Professor, and loving the experience of playing in the wizarding world like it’s my real world. But despite all the cool new features, and the fact that a bunch of my friends are finally interested in playing an expansive AR app game, it just doesn’t compare to my one-true-love, Pokémon Go. I’m still deep in that game, because — obviously — I need to be the very best.

I also recently played Scythe for the first time, then played two more games shortly after. I really do like crunchy euro-style games, but sometimes I look at a table like this and I’m like… yeah. Maybe I’ll do something else today.

But I powered through the learning process with this one, and I’m so glad I did! So far I’ve played three different factions and had varying success with each of them, and have plans to start the campaign version soon.

Homeowner things I’ve learned:

Homeownership is an adventure, guys. It’s something new every day, I’m finding. Here are the things I’ve learned just since moving in in April. It’s hard work but I am having a blast and I can’t wait to keep learning forever.

• How to install drywall screw anchors, an electric drill, impact driver, hedge trimmers, a weed whacker, lawn mower and our new grill
• How to identify way more plants than I used to be able to, and also how to weed/trim/prune a lot of them (and which ones are weeds)
• How to grow tomatoes, mint, rosemary, strawberries, blueberries and cucumbers (sort of, there’s a lot of guesswork here but nothing has died yet)
• That there are all sorts of amazing products that make life easier like simple hose attachment switchers, table cloth clips, hose water timers, and all sorts of other magical things I have yet to buy at the hardware store (I love finding solutions to problems I didn’t even know I would have! People are brilliant!)

Projects I’ve been working on:

The biggest project is my book. I’m STILL working on my Renaissance Faire book, but I am really hoping this current draft is the last one. Fingers crossed, y’all. That said, I won’t have anything to share for a hot minute, but I hope I can start pitching it to agents…. sometime soon.

I’ve also kept this mostly under wraps for now, but I am working with my friend Liz Leo on podcast that we should be launching very soon. I believe we’re aiming for the start of August for a go-live date, so keep an eye out. Signing up for my mailing list or just following my social channels are the best way to keep up to date with any exciting news like new podcasts.

I’m also doing a wardrobe challenge right now on Instagram called #wearitalljuly, where you must wear through your entire wardrobe before you can do any repeats. This is part of an effort I am doing to minimize how many clothes I have, so wish me luck and follow along!

That’s it for me, folks! Feel free to send encouraging words about the writing process, or just say hello on Instagram and Twitter! Until next time… stay motivated, and stay cute.

Something about me that’s always been true is that I am, without a doubt, a dreamer. I’m always thinking ahead to the future, making plans, setting goals, and feeling more inspired than I have time to be. I’ve got an extensive bucket list I’m always adding to, I’m always juggling about three too many project ideas, and there never seems to be enough time in the day to do everything. That’s why, now that I am in my thirties, I decided to take a step back and make myself a nice little top-ten list of the most important things I want to accomplish in this life time. That way, next time I am feeling overwhelmed, I can use this as the razor by which I evaluate how I am spending my time. Does what I am doing bubble up into one of these buckets?

I’m always looking for good ways to really focus in on what’s important to me, because time is our biggest non-renewable resource. So here’s where I’m at, in terms of what I want to do with this one glorious life I have:

1. Publish a book (the traditional way!)

This is always the top of every list for me. It’s something I totally have within my power to make a priority, but it’s one that gets pushed down by other things that might feel more immediate, more flashy, or just plain easier. I need to buckle down and just get something ready enough to go for it. You only get one debut novel, yes — but after that, I feel like the biggest obstacle is taken care of. There’s something scary about “your first book”. I want to conquer this fear to pave the way for my second, third, and twenty-fourth book.

2. Celebrate a 50^th wedding anniversary 

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here, since we haven’t even celebrated our first wedding anniversary — but this is something that matters a lot to me. I want to make my marriage a priority and work on it every single day, and never take it for granted. I want to be in love for a very, very long time. I want to be adorable little wrinkly old people who know each other better than anyone else in the world. I want to have one big massive joint 80^th birthday and 50^th wedding anniversary party because all three will happen within 6 months of each other. I just know we’ll get there.

3. Give birth to a child

I’m not making any strong goals about number of children or anything like that — I just want to make sure I experience natural birth at least once in my life. I’ll be honest, the whole idea is a little terrifying to me, but I am fascinated by the idea that my body was built with the ability to make the choice to do this. That my body already knows how to do this. The fact that I could make a little human is incredible, and I’m starting to feel it in my bones that I’m meant to do so. I’m not quite ready… but someday. 

4. Visit all seven continents

I just feel like this planet is too beautiful not to try to see as much of it as I possibly can. So far I’ve been to Europe and Asia on top of the obvious North America. Hoping to go to Australia later this year, but that leaves Africa and South America. And I’m not ruling out Antarctica. There’s a cruise that leaves from Ushuaia, Argentina (the southernmost city in the world) and takes you up close and personal with some penguins. Someday, I’m going to be on it. I’ve also never gotten over that time I got second place in a contest to win a trip to Antarctica, so amends must be made.

5. Live somewhere else for at least a year

Sometimes I lament the fact that I grew up in what I fiercely believe is the best city, because I never saw myself as a person who would live in the same place all her life. I guess I moved from the suburbs to the city when I turned 20, but ultimately that wasn’t really a paradigm-shifting move. I love Seattle. I love how liberal it is. I love how tech-driven and nerdy it is. I love how much there is to do, how many of my friends live here, and how green it is. I love that we care about recycling, and not using plastic shopping bags, and how temperate the weather is most days. I want to raise my family here. Because of all of this, I would love the chance to live somewhere else — just for a little while — to have a completely different experience.

6. Start my own business

For four years I was a freelancer, and I made plenty of money — but that felt like “getting by”. What I’m talking about is dreaming up a concept, putting together my business plan, and launching something. I have a lot of different ideas swimming around in my head, and someday I just have to take the leap. I haven’t had a lot of extra time or funds lately for an extensive side-hustle (particularly while planning a wedding and then searching for a new job), but once I get a bit more settled at my new job, some of these back burner ideas might get more love. I just want to keep making things. 

7. Own a home

This is something that I’ve been thinking a lot more about, especially as Seattle has taken its spot as the third most expensive city (in the US) to own a home in. It beat out New York City and Los Angeles, which… I’m going to be honest, sometimes keeps me awake at night. Anyway — despite all that — I still wanna do it! I want to feel like a little plot of land in this big wide world is mine. I want to paint walls without asking for permission. I want to live through a messy remodel. I want to have a tiny little garden, and have to learn how to unclog a drain, and have a place to put a couple boxes of Christmas decorations. I want a place my future kids will be excited to come home to when they’re grown up because they have so many fond memories of the place. I want a place that really feels like “home”, because we made it that way.

8. Voice a character in an animated show or radio drama

Okay this is the only thing on the list that’s a little silly, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I have dreams of being cast in a cartoon web show, or some sort of radio drama, or just writing and performing my own narrative podcast. I’ve done a good amount of acting, and plenty of singing — but I’ve never just straight up done voice acting. I’d love to help bring a character to life. It just sounds fun. It’s my one frivolous selfish goal on this list and I just think about it all the time. 

9. Create something wild just because I want to

This is a bit vague, and possibly could be tied in with many of the goals above (#6 and #8 in particular) but someday I just want to invest in something outrageous just because I can. I’m talking like rent a summer camp and make it a writing retreat space for adults. Buy a house and turn it into an Airbnb that looks like Hogwarts. Turn a whole wall of my house into a 1:12 scale dollhouse and fill it with miniatures. Put on some kind of crazy performance in an abandoned space and sell tickets. Fill my yard with rubber ducks. I don’t know, man. I want to be like that guy in Seattle who turned his house into Diagon Alley for a few months and then let people come look at it. I can’t afford to do any of this stuff now, but someday. Someday I want to make something really outrageous just because it sounds fun.

10. Live a life without regrets

This one is obviously a bit more conceptual, but I’m really hoping the end result of #1-9 in this list is that I ultimately achieve #10. I am a person prone to stress and anxiety. I want to do a lot of things. I cannot do all the things. So my biggest goal is to be intentional about how I spend my time, to create things that matter, to love deeply, and to share my life with people who make it richer and vice versa. I want to look back on my life and know I spent my time in ways that bettered the world, or fulfilled me personally, or at least made other people smile. I want to learn to be happy about the things I choose, instead of always wishing there was more time for “something else”. 

So that’s my list! My thirties have already held some of the biggest adventures of my life yet, and I’m so excited to try to tackle more things on this list. Which of my goals are yours as well? What other life goals do you have for yourself? I’d love to hear from you in the comments! 

I’ve always loved ghosts. When I was in about middle school, I discovered this show called “Real Scary Stories”, which was a show where (if I remember correctly) each episode would discuss the history of a known haunted location and then would let locals share their own stories about weird things that had happened there. I looked it up while researching for this blog post and apparently the show only ran from 2000-2001, which is a real shame.

Watching ‘Real Scary Stories’ was the first time I had really thought about haunted places existing in real life, and being able to personally visit such haunted places. This was especially made clear when one episode happened to take place at a hotel relatively near to where I grew up. Manresa Castle is located in Port Townsend, Washington (about 2 hours away including a ferry ride), and I was so excited by the idea of this place that I begged my parents to take me there.

This is not a blog post about how my parents didn’t take me there, even though they ended up staying at the castle themselves at least twice between then and this past weekend. Mom and Dad, I would not throw you under the bus like that. This is instead a blog post about how when, nearly twenty years later, my mom suggested we take a family trip to Port Townsend, little twelve-year-old ghost hunting Kristina burst from within and insisted we stay at the castle.

And finally – finally – it happened.

On Saturday (after copious amounts of wine-tasting with my parents) we arrived at Manresa Castle. It’s a full-fledged castle, it’s old and creepy, and I was super ready to get my spook on.

The first order of business was exploring. We hadn’t thought to request either of the known haunted rooms (drat!), but we sure as heck were going to go find them. We wandered the hallways, discovered a creepy old laundry shoot (a maid told me it was still in use), and found both the room where a girl apparently jumped from a window when she found out her love was lost at sea (Room 306) and the room right beneath the spot where a Monk allegedly hung himself (Room 302). We even snuck out an open door we found that led to a very sketchy fire escape.

And after a thorough investigation, I deduced that the place was scary because it was old, and creaky, and because we wanted it to be scary – but ultimately we couldn’t find anything that made it scarier than any other creaky old building. Even with the weird carpet. Even with the dusty sitting room. I had been hoping for weird sensations or noises, or things moving on their own, but you just can’t make that stuff happen on command. You can’t summon a weird experience just because you drove two hours and rode a ferry, or because you’ve waited for it for nearly twenty years, or because they charge $200 a night for a room.

It’s a beautiful castle, don’t get me wrong. It’s excellently renovated, each room is uniquely layed out and decorated, and it’s always a delight to stay in a place rich with history. but it didn’t make the hairs on the back of my neck rise. It didn’t make my skin tingle. I wasn’t afraid to be alone in the bathroom brushing my teeth, and no floating apparition woke me up in the middle of the night demanding I pay some sort of blood debt. It was sort of a letdown.

However, that evening after my family had dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant called Lanza’s Ristorante, we gathered at a fountain in town to meet our tour guide for a rousing evening of Twisted History. Let me preface this by saying – if it’s not already abundantly clear by this blog post – I love ghost stories. But even more so, I love learning about the dark history of towns, the seedy underbelly of their society, the unexplained horrors of the past. Whenever I visit a new place and have time to spare, I look for ghost tours, or some kind of underground to explore, or anything that will show the darker side of history. I’m fascinated by it. And Port Townsend is apparently one of the top 20 most haunted cities in the country.

I had no idea! I just knew they had a castle!

The tour was amazing. We learned about how Port Townsend is called the “City of Dreams” because of the early view that it would become the largest harbor on the west coast of the US. We learned about how that dream died when the depression hit, and the Northern Pacific railroad didn’t end up connecting Port Townsend to the ports on the eastern side of Puget Sound. You’ve probably not heard of Port Townsend if you’re not from around here, but have you heard of Tacoma? Or a little place called Seattle?

We also learned about the boom of the 1870s to 1890s, when the dream was still alive. We learned about the impressive and horrifying shanghai-ing racket, the brothels, the drinking. We learned about some particularly shady men notorious for the ways they behaved in town (looking at you Captain Tibbels and Mr. Waterman), and a lot of people whose solution to their problems was to burn down the buildings of the people they didn’t like. We learned about a woman whose throat was slit for trying to shut down prostitution. We learned about a young girl who was accidentally shot in a duel between her own father and her lover. We learned about a woman who was burned alive because she owned a hotel after her husband died and the opposing male hotel owners in town didn’t want to compete with a woman.

Port Townsend has the most colorful history, full of tragic and unexplained stories. Nearly every story we heard was darker and more interesting than those of Manresa Castle, which led me to question how that’s the one that makes it into the ghost anthologies. Manresa Castle was built by Charles Eisenbeis, one of the only well-known men in Port Townsend who doesn’t have a laundry list of horrible things he did to build his wealth. Along the tour, I found at least two other hotels way creepier than the Manresa, one of which I’m dying to stay at next time and one I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole (respectively).

Suffice to say, the trip was exceptionally fun and interesting, even more so than I could have prepared myself for. I arrived in Port Townsend with very Manresa Castle specific dreams, but I left with an expanded love for the whole city. Everyone I met and talked to was delightful. The food was delicious. The shop owners kind. The man who loves and collects brass bowls enthralled us with his story for nearly an hour. The town was packed with more history than I ever could have hoped for, and with the weekend being so quick, it left me with many more things I want to come back and discover on a future trip.

I’ve even got a few of my own story ideas spinning around in my head, dying to get out. Can you imagine renting a creepy little room in a brothel turned hotel to write a ghost story? I have shivers, thinking about it.

So thank you, Real Scary Stories. Your show may have only run for two years, but the episode on Manresa Castle was a great pathway into a town I have completely fallen in love with, and granted me more ghost stories than I know what to do with.

Despite having a full time job right now, I’ve spent much of the last month out of town. First I spent 1 week in NYC for BEA (a personal trip) and then another week in LA for E3 (work). And of course, a natural side effect of this is watching everything I’m doing online just sort of dissolve around my feet while I’m traveling. I used to be so good at it, guys. I used to be so good at filming everything, blogging on the go, tweeting my adventures nonstop – but now that I’m a little older (I think it has to do with being older? maybe not), I really appreciate that personal time and it’s so nice to just… detach a little bit.

But now, I am making an active effort to jumpstart everything back up for summer. It’s interesting though – when I’m busy, when I’m really aware of how much time I have to accomplish my personal hobbies and goals… two things happen.

1. I usually tend to get MORE done. There’s no time to lie around trying to figure out what to do. When you have 1 hour in the morning before work and something like five hours when you get home (not including nights when you have plans), that time gets used to its absolute best ability.

2. When there isn’t enough time to do everything, it really becomes clear which of those things are the most important and which can be put on the back burner. This is another thing I am trying to keep track of.

So what does this mean? I’m not really sure yet! I will be blogging and making videos all summer, but I am going to try to cut down to only the content I really want to make. I’ll also be making some costumes, reading, hosting a reading event or two, and maybe doing a live show here and there.

I’ll also be spending a lot of time outside. I want to spend at least 2-3 days a week at the lake I live by. I want to do less talking about reading and more actual reading (though I’ve already read 43 books this year so this clearly isn’t my biggest issue). I want to spend more time working on my writing. Going on more walks. More runs. I want to clean out my room and downsize my belongings. I want to make some clothes. Go camping. Dye my hair.

In immediate life news, I bought a new car. This was my first major adult purchase and it’s still a little scary, but I got a great deal on it, and it’s so cute.

It’s a Mini Cooper Countryman in “brilliant copper”, though the salesman really sold me on it when he called the color “root beer”. Also there’s this hidden mickey on the dash:

I’ll be at VidCon, PAX Prime and Faerieworlds this summer. There might be a few other events that pop up but those are the big ones, and I am so, so excited for all of them.

It’s interesting – I’m doing entirely too much every day (like usual) but I’ve also been trying to slow down, read, spend time outdoors and relax lately. Nothing like scheduling in that relaxation time, but I’m trying to get better.

What are you trying to focus on this summer? I’d love to hear about it.

So, 99% of my life, I would consider myself someone who really couldn’t care less about football. I don’t care about players stats, I don’t care who’s fumbled the ball, I don’t care what team we’re up against this weekend. My dad considers this one of his shortcomings as a father: not managing to pass his love of football on to his eldest child.

But, in that final 1% of my life, when our home team makes it all the way to the Superbowl, giving my city something to get excited about in the midst of dreary February… I can get a little like this:

I feel bad for the people who continue to hate sports even when they give us something to celebrate about. Seattle hasn’t had a major championship win since 1979 – That’s before myself or any of my friends were even born. The Mariners are an embarrassment, we don’t even HAVE the Sonics anymore, and the last time the Seahawks went to the Superbowl we were totally stomped. The past few months (and especially these last few weeks since the Playoffs) have filled Seattle with camaraderie, sportsmanship, team spirit and best of all hope.

I’ve seen more 12th Man flags, more buildings shining blue and green lights, and people walking around jerseys than people in wizard garb at a Harry Potter con. You can help but get involved. It’s infectious.

I might not really care about the game itself, but I can appreciate an exciting event when I see one, and more so an excuse to throw a good party. Which is exactly what my friends and I (and most of the city of Seattle) did yesterday.

We came up with all sorts of silly traditions, such as taking jello shots at kickoff (and then again after halftime) – Justin ended up eating the final 1/3 of a cake he began eating during the Playoffs game, David wore a football helmet during the offensive plays and everyone pretty much sat in the same seats we sat in two weeks ago – there was obviously some sort of good luck vibe going on so we couldn’t mess any of it up.

I know a lot of the country thought yesterdays game was boring, and I understand that. Winning by a landslide is not nearly as thrilling of TV as an evenly matched, down to the wire game. But please just imagine what it felt like for a Seattleite, watching one amazing play after another and just feeling totally awesome about our city. The perpetual underdogs, rising up for a freaking amazing win. I am so proud to be from Seattle right now, I’m proud to have experienced this crazy event, and I am so happy for my friends and family (especially my Dad) who spend so much more time being invested in this team.

Today marks my retreat back to being a non-sports fan, but I enjoyed it while it was happening. I’m happy this made so many people in my city so happy.

This post is a bit past due, but better late than never, right? Last week one day, two my roommates and I myself decided to play hooky and head down to our local water park. It’s a good forty minutes away, so it can be really easy to go a whole summer without making it down there. But with how busy we’ve all been with Job Hunters (and how little I’ve been allowed in the sun to keep continuity for the season) I think it’s really important to make time for spontaneous trips to really appreciate beautiful summer weather.

I spent most of the day in my bikini, but before that, here’s what I was wearing. Fun bright yellow shorts from Target that I rarely find reason to wear, a blue tourist tank I bought on my family trip to Puerto Vallarta back in February, and brand new right-out-of-the-box sandals from Modcloth.

We spent the day lounging in beach chairs, playing in the wave pool and alternating between all of the best water slides. I brought my GoPro along as well, which was altogether too much fun for a video nerd like myself. There really isn’t much more to say about the day, aside from wanting to reiterate how important summer sunshine outings are, especially when shared with friends. This was the most relaxing and fun day I’d had in a long time, and appreciated Eia and Justin coming along with me so, so much.

Note: This post may contain affiliate or referral links.

 

Four days of PAX was a whole new experience – but it was nice to have that final day to make sure we saw everything. I opted for a comfy outfit for this final day; I’d been saving this fantastic Power Rangers dress for last for that very reason. Paired with a simple pair of black leggings, sensible black sneakers and the same Threadless cardigan from the day before, I was good to go (go power rangers)!

I was a little preoccupied the whole day because I finally had the good sense to bring my DS and collect Street Passes. I had never experienced the magic of Street Passing at a video game convention before, and I have to say, it sort of changed everything. Maybe it was annoying that I was multi-tasking with Warrior’s Way while doing everything else that day, but on the other hand, my army is now 30,000+ strong after a single day. So… no regrets.

We spent a good portion of the day hitting up raffles (tried again to win hardware at the MSI booth, then Liz and I succeeded at winning a GIANT Magic the Gathering card at the MtG raffle, which was hilarious and awesome albeit awkward to carry around the rest of the con) checking out a fun board game called Dungeon Run, and then painting another miniature over at Reaper. It was a nice, calming way to end the con.

In an attempt to prioritize games and fun on Monday, my group somehow ended up forgetting to eat for most of the day – so the last thing we did was GORGE ourselves on Mexican food over at Pacific Place mall. Let me tell you… enchiladas have never tasted as good as they do after four straight days of conventioning. I could have eaten chips and salsa all night if the restaurant had let me.

I have a huge list of games I wrote down over the course of PAX that I’ll be checking out in the near future… I’m thinking tomorrow’s blog post might go through that list. Let me know if that would be interesting!

Note: This post may contain affiliate or referral links.

 

Yesterday was the first day of PAX PRIME and I couldn’t be more excited. On my first day I wandered the Expo Hall, signed up for raffles, purchased a few things from the We Love Fine booth that I’m sure you’ll see popping up in future Outfit of the Day posts, demo-ed games, stopped by a variety show at the Triple Door and ended the night with a hilarious nerdy improv show! It was an amazing first day – and although my feet already hurt, I can’t wait to get back down there and do it all again today.

For the first day, I decided to go casual. I wore a super fun Adventure Time shirt I got from TeeFury a while back, and my brand new blue striped shorts from ModCloth. For the record, I got two compliments on those shorts from strangers, and one crazy bus lady who told me to “wear clothes over my underwear next time”. I’m going to say all press is good press on that one…?

Lastly I threw on my old but reliable Steve Madden boots, grabbed my standard convention bag with the emoticon face on the side and strapped my PAX badges onto a My Little Pony lanyard. I felt awesome – and was never once uncomfortable. I plan to dress up for some of the other days, but shorts and a t-shirt was a solid choice for Day 1.

How do you accessorize a plain t-shirt? I’m curious about your tips – because I usually struggle to find ways to make the embarrassing amount of nerdy tees I own work beyond night shirts. Let me know in the comments!

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This weekend is PAX Prime here in Seattle, and I couldn’t be more excited. It’s our largest Geek Convention of the year here in Seattle, and I’m scrambling to figure out which panels and parties to go to, how much money I’m allowed to spend in the Expo Hall, and most importantly.. what to wear!!

PAX is one of those conventions where I’m never usually on any panels or working it, so I get to just wander and be a fan and enjoy myself. It’s relaxing, strangely, not locking myself into any large plans and just getting to meander freely amidst the hustle and bustle. Something about calmness in the middle of chaos. I don’t know.

That being said; yesterday I poured over the schedule and picked out the events/panels/etc. that looked exciting that I am going to try to be at. I figured I would post it here for you in case you’re interested in any of the same things!

Friday:
Game Show Night: Jeopardy 8pm (Kraken Theatre)
Improv Initiative Strikes Again 9:30 (Unicorn Theatre)

Saturday:
Everything We Know is Sexist: Now What? 10:30am (Wolfman Theatre)
I Love You and Have Your Name Tattooed on My Leg: Brand Personalization vs. Advertisement  2pm (Pegasus Theatre)
Turning Geek Passion into Profit 2:30pm (Serpent Theatre)
You Game Like a Girl: Tales of Trolls & White Knights 7:30pm (Kraken Theatre)
AppJunkies Live: The Worst Apps Ever Made! 10pm (Raven Theatre)

And of course, the Magic the Gathering Hero’s Path Challenge/Party that evening at 7pm

Sunday:
PAX Prime Girls Meetup 10am (Diller Room, 1224 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98101)
Late Night Dub Fight 10pm (Serpent Theatre)

Monday: 
It’s Not Too Dangerous To Go Alone: Finding the Bravery to Do it Yourself 10am (Raven Theatre)
Gender Diversity in Games: Where Are All the Believable Female Characters? 2pm (Pegasus Theatre)

At some point (probably Sunday afternoon) Joe and I will be bringing a copy or two of Jetpack Unicorn to PAX to play with fans, if people are interested. Keep an eye on my Twitter/Facebook for details about that meet up! Also keep an eye out for my Outfit of the Day posts… I’ll be dressing my convention best all weekend and I can’t wait to share those outfits with you!

I am so pumped for this weekend – are you attending PAX? If so, are there any cool panels or events that I am missing out on? Let me know in the comments!

This past weekend, my parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary! Back in the day (in 1988!) their wedding color was a light teal blue. So, they encouraged guests of their party to dress accordingly:

I wore a light blue vintage dress I got at Buffalo Exchange about a year ago, strappy silver sandals from Target and some fun summer jewelry.

Funny story: I had to leave the set of Job Hunters on a huge shoot day to get to this party, which is why my hair ended up in fishtail braids. Spoilers… this is a Season 2 Avery hairdo. Our costume and makeup team also had a heyday dressing me for my party, even though that’s obviously not in their job description. Chunky blue circle earrings and fat white bracelet were courtesy of Markie the costumer, and Mallory our makeup girl removed my false eyelashes and “normalized” my makeup a bit before leaving. They did a fab job! I wish I had people to dress me every day!

My family also looked adorable — and can we talk about how fantastic that cake is? My mom was positively glowing that day, and she totally deserved it. I am so happy and proud of my parents for achieving such an amazing milestone together, and I was so glad to celebrate the momentous occasion on a gorgeous day like the one we had. My family is the best. 🙂