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!

Double Yuukis

Earlier this month, I bought a silvery-gray wig off of eBay for Yuuki, thinking I might as well start looking for one now that she's here. The white wig she's been wearing has been a temporary fix, but I've been too lazy and/or broke to find her a permanent wig. This one arrived today, but it was ridiculously thin at the top. I was going to contact the seller to get a refund, but it seemed like too much work for my $25 back (shipping would have been to China and I didn't wanna deal with that). So I'm going to try to make this work.

The first thing I noticed, however, was not the thinness, but the length of the wig. Looking at the auction/listing, it looked like the wig would just fall below her knees. Well. I was pleasantly surprised that it is long enough to be dragging on the floor. JUST like Pullip Yuuki's was! Seriously, Pullip Yuuki was wearing an SD wig, and it even touched the floor on my old SDs :'P That thing was MASSIVE.

I have been wanting to take a picture of my minifee with Pullip Yuuki for a while now, but have been too lazy to get her down from my bookcase. I thought since minifee Yuuki's wig came in, it was a good time to do it! Seeing them together like this, they are so different! But the character is really coming alive in my heart once again, and I'm so happy to have them both here with me.

Since we're on the topic, my novel for NaNoWriMo is at about 45k words right now. Well, missing pieces here and there, just like it was in 2009. But I'm making such good progress with it. I thought I'd come alive again when minifee Yuuki arrived, and having her in front of me is just so motivating. Once Ryo comes in (I'm expecting him to come in January. He was a last minute tan skin order through DDE.) - that'll be great! And I know I'm gonna want to make a doll version of all my OCs, just because that's how my brain worked in the past, haha. Soon, I'll have to find a YoSD for Reinor, another minifee for Xyrnne ... Not too much money is flowing in right now, though, unfortunately :'P I'll have to stick with having Yuuki and Ryo for now and make the best of it!

Arrival - High Priestess Yuuki

I got an email notification from Denver Doll earlier this week, and it showed that Miyu would be here by Thursday, woo! But then a problem came to mind - I do Kids Club on Thursday afternoons! What if the truck decided to come by while I was out?! I had opted for signature delivery because I don't trust my neighborhood anymore. But, I also really dislike UPS, and whenever I'd missed a package from them, it had been a horrible experience. Anyways, I found that I could ask them to hold it for me there, and I picked it up first thing this morning! 

What caught my eye immediately is this gorgeous illustration of Celine ;A; I can't wait to get her next! Haha, because I have SO much money lying around. I opened up the box and saw Miyu and my heart melted! She is so adorable! :) 

 

Had to rush downstairs really quickly to pry her eyes out of Sophie (my Minifee Dark Elf Soo), haha! Just adore these eyes, but not sure if she is going to be using them continuously or just when she's in her full out priestess mode. (Think Avatar state from A:TLA.)

She is the first Minifee I have gotten to stand on her own! The M-line body is a dream come true for me. It poses so well! I need to take more dynamic shots when I have the time, but for now, I'm really just so happy that she can stand on her own, lol! 

There was one teeny tiny problem I came across for now - the WINGS I got for her have magnets already installed. Her body also already has magnets in the shoulders ... Can you see where this is going? They were not compatible :( So I'm going to have to somehow take the magnets out of the wings and replace them the correct way so she can actually wear them! Some more glamour shots below - (She is way beautiful!!)

And some silly outtakes! Loki was next to me the whole time I was opening the boxes, hehe! He's no cat, so he was totally in our business! 

 

These are NOT the best pictures - they're all grainy and such! But I was just so excited that I didn't care how overcast it was :'P