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Sunday Stats

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Sunday Stats
*Since my family first got an NES, I’ve had a controller in my hands. Exploring new worlds, meeting new characters and experiencing stories… in some ways, I’ve just connected better with the world through games. However, it’s also very important to me to be present in my life, to improve myself, to go out and MEET the people I’ve connected with online and to expand my knowledge. I spend hours in games; how do I level myself up?

In this weekly series, I’ll chronicle how I’ve improved my “stats” with completely arbitrary scoring.*

+2 Intelligence – How did I make myself a little smarter? What did I learn?
There is nothing to do in Red Hook on a Monday.
Guitar lesson 1: Ouch. (Also A and C)
Guitar lesson 2: Better! I learned the first half of a scale.
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+4 Charisma – How was I less awkward or more beautiful?
NEW SUMMER WARDROBE! On Saturday post-brunch Glux and I went shopping! I got fresh work pants, new jeans and some summer tops for work as well as several new underthings 🤫

+5 Strength – New workouts, breakthroughs, challenges.
This deserves a +5! One of the elevators in my office building is being replaced, leaving hundreds of people to fight for space on ONE slow, rickety old elevator. The lines in the morning and around lunch are usually well out the front door! So I’ve been taking the stairs. Up NINE (9!) flights twice a day minimum. My ass looks incredible!

-3 Defense – Where did I consciously avoid or deflect negative energy?
For some reason, I’ve been attracting hostility ever since my weekend in Philly. Beggars and emotionally unstable strangers have been yelling at me everywhere I go. Sometimes it gets very aggressive and I’m afraid of being attacked. It’s super weird. Hopefully it ends soon.

+4 Luck – Something good that happened this week
On Wednesday, I thoughtlessly grabbed a birthday card and envelope at the Astor Place CVS. The next morning, I scratched my name and a quick note inside. When I picked up the envelope to stuff the card in, I discovered this unique photo by Fred Cray. Apparently he’s been hiding photos all over the world since 2008. I love how this city always surprises me with art!

ANDANDAND my man from Penn State Football Mr. Saquon Barkley was chosen in the #2 overall pick to play for my NEW YORK GIANTS! As I watched the news break on twitter I literally jumped up and down screaming until I collapsed on the floor crying. Ridiculous? Maybe. But I am SO happy for Saquon AND the Giants. He is going to be so much fun to watch as he advances in his career. Well deserved. After I peeled myself off the floor, I immediately pre-ordered his Giants gear. WE ARE!!!!

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-2 Wealth – How did I save towards my goals?
Despite a load of birthday money coming in, I find that the older I get the more gift money becomes a reliance vs a fun thing. I had to book travel to my brother’s wedding, flights and hotel for E3, buy new clothes for the season AND enjoy an amazing beer brunch at Coney Island Brewery.

I mean check out this freaking brunch and beer release!
Coney Island Cinnamon Toast Brunch and Can Release April 2018

How did you level up this week?

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Sunday Stats – 🎉Birthday Edition🎉

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Sunday Stats.jpg

*Since my family first got an NES, I’ve had a controller in my hands. Exploring new worlds, meeting new characters and experiencing stories… in some ways, I’ve just connected better with the world through games. However, it’s also very important to me to be present in my life, to improve myself, to go out and MEET the people I’ve connected with online and to expand my knowledge. I spend hours in games; how do I level myself up?

In this weekly series, I’ll chronicle how I’ve improved my “stats” with completely arbitrary scoring.*

LEVEL UP

TODAY is my birthday! I’ve officially hit level 34. In addition to my #Rebirthday tasks, I get:

Defense bonus – Now gives less fucks than ever before
Charisma incentive – treat yoself to a wardrobe refresh
Wealth check – birthday money + make sure that 401k is on track

And now back to our weekly programming.

+2 Intelligence – How did I make myself a little smarter? What did I learn?
I learned some valuable home improvement skills! Check out the before and after shots of the bathroom door a rover client destroyed. I’m ready for my own HGTV show!

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+2 Charisma – How was I less awkward or more beautiful?
My family came up on Saturday so I had a lot of housekeeping to do. I made some repairs, threw out a ton of shit and really cleansed my tiny space. Additionally, I has a breakfast spread waiting for them when they arrived like Carney Fucking Homemaker of the Year. Look at me go!

+5 Strength – New workouts, breakthroughs, challenges.
I made it to the gym on Tuesday for a crushing workout, but next week I need to put in 4 days. It’s getting slightly less wintery out in NYC so I’ve been talking Muldoon for longer and longer walks again.

+2 Defense – Where did I consciously avoid or deflect negative energy?
I adorned my Passion Planner/Bullet Journal with an adorable enamel pin I found at The Strand. It’s a little fountain pen that says “mightier” in script – as in the pen is mightier than the sword. It’s a reminder that yes, words are powerful and this book is filled with power. But it’s also a mantra – I am mightier than I know. I am mightier than my thoughts.

+4 Luck – Something good that happened this week
On Wednesday, Spotify sponsored an extension of the David Bowie Is exhibit currently on display at the Brooklyn Museum. They decked out the Bleeker Street/ Broadway-Lafayette subway station (Bowie’s neighborhood stop) with photos, quotes and artwork from the Starman’s life. Some pieces have a Spotify code you can scan to hear his music. As part of the exhibit they made some limited edition metrocards available. There were 5 different Bowie metrocards and people were lining up for them. I managed to get one of the LAST full sets available before they ran out of Young Bowie!

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ALSO- I scored an industry pass to E3 in June! Glux got a gamer pass and we’re making a girls trip out of our geeky week in LA.

+2 Wealth – How did I save towards my goals?
I got a TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR TIP from my Rover client. That’ll go a long way to replacing the toilet seat his sweet but destructive pup ate.

How did you level up this week?

 

Sunday Stats

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Sunday Stats

Since my family first got an NES, I’ve had a controller in my hands. Exploring new worlds, meeting new characters and experiencing stories… in some ways, I’ve just connected better with the world through games. However, it’s also very important to me to be present in my life, to improve myself, to go out and MEET the people I’ve connected with online and to expand my knowledge. I spend hours in games; how do I level myself up?

In this weekly series, I’ll chronicle how I’ve improved my “stats” with completely arbitrary scoring.*

+2 Intelligence – How did I make myself a little smarter? What did I learn?
I’ve been expanding my DnD knowledge by listening to The Adventure Zone podcast. It’s helping me learn the language and understand the breadth of gameplay possibilities. Last week, I created a tiefling rogue called Alaria for a one-shot game. This week we start our first full campaign.
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-1 Charisma – How was I less awkward or more beautiful?
Every morning while making my coffee at work, I somehow drop a paper strip from the sugar packet into my cup. Despite the fact that I don’t (think) I’m tearing it open completely because I don’t use all the sugar, I pour my creamer in to discover a floating triangle of paper. I have to awkwardly fish it out in front of anyone who happens to be in the kitchen. This has happened every day this week. 🤦🏻‍♀️

+5 Strength – New workouts, breakthroughs, challenges.
Yesterday I ran the Hot Chocolate 15k in Philly with my sister. This was my 5th 15k and my 4th Hot Chocolate in Philly. I was really unprepared for it and hadn’t trained at all, but it was a great motivator to get my ass back into shape. I earned TWO medals – my finisher chocolate AND a retroactive 3rd year medal!

+2 Defense – Where did I consciously avoid or deflect negative energy?
My mom, my sister and I started a gratitude group text. Each morning we text each other something we’re grateful for to start our days on a positive note. I love this because they both wake up much earlier than I do so I get to wake up to a string of positivity and the knowledge that the people I love most are happy.

+3 Luck – Something good that happened this week
I got a super sweet surprise package from my longest-standing friend. Liz sent me a Rebel Tarot deck of oracle cards that don’t give a flying fuck about my feelings. I love it because this is exactly the kind of thing we would have had in high school when we first started exploring our witchiness. Answers with attitude.

+1 Wealth – How did I save towards my goals?
Quarterly update: I’m a little bit ahead of my 2018 savings goal! It feels really good to stick to this and not fall behind for once. I’m thinking about breaking this goal into pieces and shoving that money into my high yield savings or Stash. Otherwise it’s just sitting in this goal not doing anything. BUT it’ll feel so satisfying to see that 5k mark hit all at once and then move a chunk of money into savings.
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How did you level up this week?

Sunday Stats

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Sunday Stats

Since my family first got an NES, I’ve had a controller in my hands. Exploring new worlds, meeting new characters and experiencing stories… in some ways, I’ve just connected better with the world through games. However, it’s also very important to me to be present in my life, to improve myself, to go out and MEET the people I’ve connected with online and to expand my knowledge. I spend hours in games; how do I level myself up?

In this weekly series, I’ll chronicle how I’ve improved my “stats” with completely arbitrary scoring.*

+2 Intelligence – How did I make myself a little smarter? What did I learn?
Hard to follow last week’s brain-fest at Think 2018, but I did start learning how to play DnD. Glux and I met up at The Uncommons where Steven (our DM) helped us pick out our first set of dice! I chose a black and gold set to match my character’s gold eyes and shadowy nature. She’s a tiefling rogue named Alaria and you can read her story here. Aren’t my dice pretty? That’s a natural 20 by the way😜

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+1 Charisma – How was I less awkward or more beautiful?
We all know how bad I am at wearing jewelry, but I got this gold and hematite bracelet in Vegas and I’ve worn it every single day! I love the way the natural layers with the tech of my watch. I guess gold and black are kind of my colors lately (see dice 👆🏻)
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-5 Strength – New workouts, breakthroughs, challenges.
I have no excuses. It was a bad week for workouts. I have a 15k run next weekend and I am horribly under prepared.

+2 Defense – Where did I consciously avoid or deflect negative energy?
I cleansed the apartment with palo santo to boot the negative energy that tends to build up in the storm cloud over Ryan’s head. We didn’t fight for a whole 4 days after that! Maybe I should just keep some burning all the time? *hits Amazon for incense*

+1 Luck – Something good that happened this week
I won the TodayTix lottery for Jerry Springer – The Opera. It was an absolutely hysterical trek back into the 90s! You should go just to hear Tiffany Mann sing. Incredible. It was about 30 minutes too long, and I could have done without Jerry’s entire storyline. If it was just a few hilarious show segments, that would have been perfect. But the storyline made it an opera. Anyway. I loved it.
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+1 Wealth – How did I save towards my goals?
My savings are still on track, but I could do a lot better. I’m thinking of going back into no-spend mode for this, the month of my birth. What could be a better gift to myself than more money?

How did you level up this week?

Sunday Stats

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Sunday Stats

*Since my family first got an NES, I’ve had a controller in my hands. Exploring new worlds, meeting new characters and experiencing stories… in some ways, I’ve just connected better with the world through games. However, it’s also very important to me to be present in my life, to improve myself, to go out and MEET the people I’ve connected with online and to expand my knowledge. I spend hours in games; how do I level myself up?

In this weekly series, I’ll chronicle how I’ve improved my “stats” with completely arbitrary scoring.*

+3 Intelligence – How did I make myself a little smarter? What did I learn?
I’m making myself smarter by sharing my knowledge and exercising my skills more through a few gigs on Fiverr. You can have a custom haiku written for you for just $5 by an award-winning MFA poet. OR I’ll read your tarot cards!

+1 Charisma – How was I less awkward or more beautiful?
I made sure I got at least 8 hours of sleep every night this week. I looked and felt so much more refreshed! The extra two hours of sleep a night also made me a little more pleasant to interact with.

-2 Strength – New workouts, breakthroughs, challenges.
I got to the gym this week, but then had a pretty rough Thursday. I spent the day in ER with abdominal cramps so severe I could barely breathe. Long story short, I’m ok and it was nothing serious. Just some fun lady bits drama to keep an eye on. Definitely taking good care of myself and feeling better.

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+4 Defense – Where did I consciously avoid or deflect negative energy?
I chose my charity to support this year! Notice the new widget on the top right of my homepage? I’ve joined the Extra Life fundraising community to help my local children’s hospital. Inspired by my day in the ER, seeing a lot of hurt or sick kids and worried parents holding it together like a miracle of modern psyche, It’s a ways off until my 24 hour Game Marathon on November 3rd, but I wanted to open up donations early. For the timeframe, I’ve set a pretty modest goal of $1,000. Hopefully I can raise that number before Game Day.

Alison Heller Extra Life Donation

Look for this logo and click to donate!

+3 Luck – Something good that happened this week
Why does every show for the year go on sale in February? I have no idea. But this week, I scored seats for the Smashing Pumpkins. Hopefully I can add a couple of Bush shows to the roster as well.

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+5 Wealth – How did I save towards my goals?
I have a HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT: I got back my Federal tax return and paid off my student loan! That’s $150 a month I can now put toward getting my other debts paid off. There are few greater feelings than the weight of a debt lifting off your bank account.

It’s also the last Sunday of #NoSpendFeb and I have learned a ton this month. I cracked down, saved over $1000 this month (thanks in part to my tax return, but also to some budgeting acrobatics.) I’ll have a full report on the results of this amazing experiment on Friday. I’m stoked to share!

Sunday Stats

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Sunday Stats

*Since my family first got an NES, I’ve had a controller in my hands. Exploring new worlds, meeting new characters and experiencing stories… in some ways, I’ve just connected better with the world through games. However, it’s also very important to me to be present in my life, to improve myself, to go out and MEET the people I’ve connected with online and to expand my knowledge. I spend hours in games; how do I level myself up?

In this weekly series, I’ll chronicle how I’ve improved my “stats” with completely arbitrary scoring.*

+3 Intelligence – How did I make myself a little smarter? What did I learn?
On Monday night, I took a hand lettering class at Craft Jam. Since I’ve been diligently working on my planner/bullet journal, I wanted to learn some new skills to turn my doodles into something slightly more artistic. The class was filled with a bunch of kick ass creative women and for 2 hours we learned some of the basics of lettering design. Such a blast! Can’t wait to take the full 3 sessions course in the future.

+1 Charisma – How was I less awkward or more beautiful?
I got a free sample of L’Oreal Elvive leave in conditioner from Influenster. I’ve never used a leave in conditioner. Curly hair is super temperamental and any change to my routine, products or the weather can send my hair into revolt. But I tried it out on a day when I had 0 plans in case of disaster. The results have honestly been pretty great. My hair is SO much more hydrated and incredibly soft. Curls are always thirsty so they’re definitely appreciating this new treat.

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+4 Strength – New workouts, breakthroughs, challenges.
This week I faced a FEAR – I recorded a video! I’ve never been comfortable on video. As part of my new role at work, I need to position myself as a thought leader. While I can eloquently write stories and create presentations, giving a presentation is another beast. But I recorded a video presentation where I walk through some strategies I developed around impending changes to Facebook. And people are loving it!

-2 Defense – Where did I consciously avoid or deflect negative energy?
There was a lot of funky energy this week. In Inception, when your subconscious starts to realize the dream isn’t real, the people in the dream start to get a little unfriendly, giving nasty looks and sometimes getting hostile. That’s what this week felt like. People who are usually friendly were standoffish, Ryan and I fought a lot over stupid shit just to hear ourselves yell (he shockingly handled it WAY better than I did). But you know what they say – If you keep running into assholes, you’re probably the asshole.  I put up some walls and heightened expectations for other people, so of course I felt a funky energy. I was the one attracting it!

+5 Luck – Something good that happened this week
Lots of great things happened this week. My best friends got me sweet valentine’s treats- Glux got me a chocolate cupcake from Sprinkles and Tony got me a box of decadent, heart shaped chocolates 😋 AND I got my lease renewal from the landlord with the most anticipated news of any New Yorker’s year: “what’s my unjustified rent increase?” IT’S ZERO, BABY!

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-2 Wealth – How did I save towards my goals?
#NoSpendFeb didn’t go so great this week. I hit my savings goals, but I went a little overboard celebrating Valentine’s Day with fancy shots. Celebrating friends is always worth it though. Especially when you get to give her her first blowjob. Then I spent $300 on Depeche Mode tickets because seeing the biggest band in the new wave movement of the 80s and 90s ir a once in a lifetime thing. Then Muldoon had his annual physical at the vet on Friday, which included blood work, stool work, nails, ears and teeth, and his bordetella vaccine. That ran me $398 😱 I mean, when you have a dog though, taking care of him becomes a necessary expense. And it’s only a once-a-year kind of expenditure. I’d do anything to keep him happy and healthy.

This weekend, I kept things very very low key to make up for that spending. I should also be getting my tax return soon to bolster my savings and pay down my debts. Hopefully next Sunday I’ll have the exciting update I’m waiting to break!

Sunday Stats

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Sunday Stats

*Since my family first got an NES, I’ve had a controller in my hands. Exploring new worlds, meeting new characters and experiencing stories… in some ways, I’ve just connected better with the world through games. However, it’s also very important to me to be present in my life, to improve myself, to go out and MEET the people I’ve connected with online and to expand my knowledge. I spend hours in games; how do I level myself up?

In this weekly series, I’ll chronicle how I’ve improved my “stats” with completely arbitrary scoring.*

-1 Intelligence – How did I make myself a little smarter? What did I learn?
Tequila is a bad idea. This was a lesson I learned the hard way. Oof.

+3 Charisma – How was I less awkward or more beautiful?
In this month’s Goddess Provisions box, I got this new highlighter. It’s like wearing liquid crystals on your eyelids. The photo barely does it justice. It’s so subtly bright and amplifying. I’m not a huge makeup wearer so I love simple things I can apply quickly to give myself a confident glow.

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+1 Strength – New workouts, breakthroughs, challenges.
I beat my max wattage in Spin on Tuesday! This week was a good step towards getting into a regular schedule. Changing the sound of my alarm DEFINITELY helped a lot!

+1 Defense – Where did I consciously avoid or deflect negative energy?
There’s a special card in Oliver Hibert’s Secret Arcana that has no defined meaning. The idea is that if you meditate with this card, sleep with it under your pillow, whisper sweet nothings to it and take it to a grand ball, it will reveal its meaning to you and only you. And it’s not to be shared. I started investing a lot of spiritual energy into this card this week. It hasn’t revealed itself yet, but I can’t wait until it does!

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+5 Luck – Something good that happened this week
I reached peak father-daughter relationship! My pride is swelling out of my chest. My dad is re-branding his company and working on a new logo. There were 3 choices. He and all of his C-Suite just could not decide. The engineer uttered the words every designer dreads: “Just combine the two designs!”  Then, my dad asked for MY opinion! He didn’t tell me which one he was leaning toward. I sat with the three designs for a night, making notes and listening to the stories in each design- much like reading tarot cards. One design carried so much symbolism and reflected the values and products of the company incredibly brightly. I shot my dad and email with how I interpreted that logo as well as what the other ones said to me and why they were inferior choices. Not only did Dad agree, he shared my email with his whole team! The email I got from him afterwards (below) will forever be saved in my inbox! I’m so honored that he included me in such an important process and piece of his business. I feel like he finally respects me as a marketer and values my input on important matters. I could not be more thrilled!

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+5 Wealth – How did I save towards my goals?
This was the first full week of #NoSpendFeb and I did REALLY well! I’ve actually already learned a TON about my spending habits and view of money. I’ll share a full report after this experiment ends next month. In the meantime, I highly encourage you to join me! This week I only spent $37.42 on non-essentials. Unbelievable!