Happy new year!

This holiday, I've been busy going out every day because my cousin is visiting from Nebraska. Well, he's from Thailand and is going to school in Nebraska, if that makes any differences. We've never met him before, but I have to say that he's my favorite of my cousins! He's so much like myself and my brother as opposed to all our other cousins to whom I cannot relate. I am sad that he's leaving us already this coming Monday! He and his friend arrived Christmas day and I've been busy doing all sorts of things since then. This past Christmas was great, just another quiet day for the most part.

On top of other things,  my parents completely surprised me with a new laptop, which I am using to type up this blog entry :) His name is Tyreke Tyrone Toblerone - or Ty for short. I have to admit, I'm still not exactly used to this laptop yet with its different keyboard, touchpad, and most of all, Windows 8. I do have a Surface tablet, so I had some experience with it, but I really did not think it would be the same on a pc! For now, my old laptop is still functional - it was just dying in so many physical ways (though it has a new 1 TB harddrive just installed earlier this spring!). So I have two working computers :) 

I am not the type to stick to New Years' resolutions, so I never really bother with them. But this year, I want to do a little 365 project once again. I felt so accomplished when I did the pic-a-day challenge back in 2012. This year, it'll be a bit different, though. With all the negativity I've found in my life, I decided I would do a happiness project. Every night before bed, I'm going to write down a little blessing or happy thought from that day. On the bad days, I can go back to my pile of notes and pull things out to see that 1. there is always something to be thankful for, and 2. both big and small things are capable of making me feel happy. And although joy is completely different from happiness, I think this little thing will help me change my outlook.

My first entry involved this photo I took while hiking in Muir Woods:

There is so much beauty in nature. And I never realized it, but each individual petal of a clover looks like a heart! And in the field of green, all clovers with just one leaf were yellow and stood out like crazy! I just felt so giddy when I saw these all over the woods!

And today, I got my Minifee Luka after months of waiting :) I was scared that his skintone would be a bit too dark (after looking at others' pictures of tan minifees), but I think it is such a gorgeous color! I am so glad I was able to get a tan order in at the last second :) I am still waiting on his eyes to arrive. I also have NO boys clothes at all, haha. Poor thing! Now I really have to put aside money to get his faceup done! :X I also got his sleeping head, so that's a lot of $$$! Sorry for the super horrid after-dark iphone photo!

I hope I can share more moments here as the year progresses! For now, I wish you all a very happy new year!