It’s February and thus time for another schedule of a potentially Perfect Day in Marion County.

Per my 2019 New Year’s Resolution, the goal is to help you plan and set a budget for a perfect day in Marion each month.

Our aim for each Perfect Day is to rest, be healthy and have all the fun. This Perfect Day, as you’ll soon read, is quintessential millennial. In other words, it’s all about new experiences, local shopping, and vintage coolness!

My Perfect Day in Marion is Saturday, Feb. 23.

My Perfect Day will start with one of the most important meals of the day, breakfast at the local diner. Most local to me is The Broken Egg, but local diners – you know, the really local diners – always have the best food. Marion County has a few local diners, so go to whichever one is closest to you:

For the East Siders, that’s Mom’s Place.

For the Fairviewers, Fairview Diner is the obvious choice.

For anyone on West Side, McAteer’s is your place.

For all the Rivesvillians, Cafe Diem has the goods.

For the Manningtonians, head over to Baby B’s.

For the Pleasant Valleyites, D.J.’s 50’s & 60’s Diner is the place to go.

No matter your locale, these are all delicious breakfast options because, as I said, they’re legit local.

The weather has been a bit topsy turvy lately – you know intermittently snowy, rainy and summer – so I’m planning to start my day at The Challenge Center for a Reebok Cycle class! This could make for a good selfie… And by good, I mean sweaty. Afterward, it wouldn’t hurt to stop by their juice bar for a post-workout snack.

After that snack and a quick shower, I’ll need lunch. Good thing there’s an Ice Bowl and Chili Cook-Off in town that day. So I’ll just pop over to Morris Park, try all the chilies, finally get rid of all my pennies voting for the best recipes all the while cheering for random disc golfers (because I’ll have no idea what’s going on #sports).

Once my belly is full and my pennies depleted (for a good cause), Pricketts Fort is the next stop on the list for super vintage goods. By super vintage, I mean 18th-century vintage; it’s the Firearms and Accoutrements Show. My main hope is to find Indian quilt work because that just sounds beautiful and cozy. I think the actual purpose of the event is to show and sell, you know, weaponry like rifles, gunpowder horns, knives, and tomahawks. But they told me there’s Indian quilt work, so I’m going anyway.

So far so good budget-wise, I think. And I’ll be sure to keep my millennial self in check at the next stop, which is more vintage shopping! I’m in *desperate* need of vintage decor, but I might shop around some, too. The place to do that is Arts & Antiques Marketplace with their vintage signs, vintage dresses, vintage furniture and all the millennial merchandise I could want.

So this Perfect Day was spent in and out, having necessary local fun, but the end of this Perfect Day will be spent inside. Take your wonderful finds from the Firearms Show and Marketplace, and enjoy your redone space.

What would you add to make February 23rd YOUR perfect day?