Nightmares in a bottle

Ryo got some pants! We received a pretty nice package of clothes from Alice's Collections a while back, and I love them all. I have to say, I will definitely be buying from her again. She was amazing with communication, and was quick to replace and item that she could not supply. I just need more money, hehe. And the boy needs a faceup, too ... Still working on that. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! :D I actually have no plans on Friday, and I haven't been able to find anyone to have lunch with, either, lol! I must admit, I love Valentine's Day because it's a chance to show people that you love them. And even though there are people who say that we don't need an established holiday to do so, sometimes we get caught up in our work, school, business that we forget to show that appreciation.

Ryo came here over a month ago, but still has no faceup or pants, teehee! I do have a few shirts for him, but I can't take any shots of him above his waist! Or straight into his face either, lol. Would be nice to be able to get his faceup soon, since I do actually have pants being made for him right now. And below is a photo of Yuuki's two familiars Xyrnne and Xrethal in their creature forms. Definitely need to get Xyrnne's faceup done as well. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have ordered fullset Rin and instead focused on my current plans. Oops! Well, Rin is supposed to play the humanoid form of Xyrnne. Now I just need to find a corresponding Xrethal :)

I've been so busy with trying to study that I've lost focus these past couple of nights. I've been feeling a little bit disheartened by my results in both the verbal and quantitative (math) portions, and I haven't even touched essays yet. *sigh* I will still obviously take the test and all. And next, I have to figure out what schools I'm actually going to apply to, who to ask for recommendations, and how to start on my personal statement! It's a lot to think of, but I know graduate school is something I want to do now. I just have to *get there*.

To relax, I made some chocolate-dipped pretzels. I was supposed to make these for Christmas, but got too busy with the crazy work schedule. Sophie said they look like giant pocky, haha! :) 

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!

Lovely Queen Elsa

My Disney Store exclusive Anna and Elsa dolls arrived yesterday!

Number 1492/2500

I absolutely love Elsa! Ice has always been my element, so when Disney announced the release of Frozen, I was over the moon excited! I was able to get both the limited Elsa and Anna dolls through the online orders! Luck was definitely on my side :) I am so in love with this lovely lady ♥ For those of you who haven't watched Frozen yet, I urge you to go! If I could take everyone with me to see it again, I would!

I need to take pictures of Anna as well. Probably not til next week. I need more light! :X

Priestess Yuuki :)

A while back, Brii agreed to let me adopt her sleeping Miyu head :D I'm one step closer to having the Priestess in Minifee form. I don't pick up my Pullips at all anymore. Actually, I should probably sell the lot. I am so in love with her already! I need to start getting more etsy sales or something so I can save up for her because a job doesn't seem likely in my near future x-x Sadly. Ahh, she is just so lovely!! 

I have been having such a hard year already /: But! My birthday AND graduation are coming up! I probably won't have a huge celebration for either, and presents are sparse, but it's still exciting!

Lady Bee, why are you so pretty??

I have fallen in love with her (: I hope I can raise some funds to get her soon! I also saw Kid Delf Nana a couple days ago and I'm getting so antsy about getting new *bigger* dolls. I love my Latis still, but all the negativity that comes to mind when I hear Latidoll has turned me off from really paying attention to others' dolls and mine as much any more.

Since the start of this year, I've been looking at MSDs a lot more. Even though I never really play with my Minifees (they're just so hard for me to pose because they're so tall), I still love them just the same. Maybe if I get to spend more time with them, I'll get over my fear of getting more MSDs. I still am debating using MNF Miyu or not as the priestess .. I guess she's close enough. No other doll has struck me as the priestess as Miyu. She's just such a recognizable mold and I see so many pictures of her, so I'm wondering if that's the reason why I think she would match the priestess.

Aladdin LYs Arrive!

After waiting months for them to ship, Lati started sending Aladdin orders in January .. Then I had to wait til MARCH for them to send mine! :( And there are still people waiting for theirs to even ship! Lati's service has gone down A LOT recently. They seem so unorganized these days. Darlene and Brii and other people had told me that it would be worth all this waiting when the dolls finally come home, and they were right ^__^ I think Lati did a great job on these dolls. I hope I can dress them out of character as well, though their stock outfits are so beautiful that I don't know when they'll ever step out of them, hehe!

I was also one of the first 27 to order, so I got a free head! I was expecting to get a Christmas elf, which would have been okay (since they're free!), but ever since Neko-chan mentioned her unicorn, I was crossing my fingers for a unicorn! Lo and behold - I got H.K. unicorn Ruki *__* Dream come true!! I'm unsure if he/she will be keeping this faceup, but right now, I'm just super excited about those cute ears!

Anyways, I'm really happy with this release. They both photograph beautifully, and I've always had trouble with the light tan dolls ^^; Even Aspen, my tinman Lea, doesn't get a lot of playing time because of her irregular skin tone. I guess I'm just a NS-loving girl after all! Both outfits are really nice this time around. Cookie's is just gorgeous! I don't know if I'll ever take it off, hehe!

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One last unrelated thing - I hate going on the DoA thread these days. There are so many people who just keep asking the same question that was answered just one page ago. If they could just read, then we could save like 10 pages per thread of repetitive questions! I also find that new members who have started posting on the thread have been very judgmental or harsh about other members' comments recently. Plus all the negative talk about Lati has made me really want to stay away from the thread lest I start feeling the same way about them, too :P I definitely do dislike Lati's business practices, but I still will buy from them after all. I haven't been on there much, even though I used to frequent DoA all the time /: I miss how it used to be - full of beautiful pictures and excitement around new releases!

Updates!

Wow, I haven't written here in a long time xD I guess I've been too busy with biotech lab. How is my senior year ending on a sad note -x-; I keep going up and down on how I feel about this lab. I guess my teacher just isn't the nicest guy in the world, and he makes it hard to talk to him sometimes. Oh well - gotta live with what I have, right? At least I'm lucky enough to be able to do the Biotechnology minor at all.

And I got to register for my classes quite a bit earlier than most seniors because I have SO MANY UNITS. Got all the classes I wanted, and that means I don't have class on Mondays (: Woo!

I AM excited, however, about using my recently deposited tax return to work on getting a Minifee version of Priestess Yuuki! Finally!

I am going to order her sometime in the next week. I just have to figure out if I want to go through Fairyland or Denver Doll. I just finished a transaction with DDE for a Littlefee Pong that they had in stock, and I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in their service /:

I have bought from them before (various wigs, outfits, even my first Minifee body). This time, I had to pester them twice about adding signature delivery, and I only got one reply out of the three emails I sent. After paying for signature confirmation, Pong arrived at my doorstep today while no one was home! They forgot to add the signature option :( I had even explained to Shannon that it was important as there have been lots of thefts recently (not when I first ordered Pong, or else I would have asked for signature delivery right from the start). Ugh. It's a good thing my mom came home early enough. If the thieves had seen our empty driveway and that big box just lying there, I'm sure they would've been tempted!

typing away in class ..

I had a crazy mail day Friday of last week, and I'm guessing I'm getting more stuff in the mail todayyyy! Scylla - my new factory Blythe pictured above - was among the new arrivals. She's going to be my sea monster (I mean, her name probably gives it away lol).

I started to sew more this past month after Justin started going out more and more. I feel like it's really different between us now, and my sadness has made me lazy to do things online. He joined a club and the dance crew within that club, plus he has his senior project to work on. He doesn't need to study - he's just one of those smart people =__=; So he goes out 4 times a week and sometimes he leaves at 6PM and doesn't come back at 2AM. So I've been lonely. My closest friends live 40+ minutes away from me so I can't really just hang out with them. That's what sucks about being a commuter student, I guess? Anyways, this should explain my absence from Flickr.

Oh yeah - I started that paragraph saying I started to sew lol. I finally figured out my sewing machine for good. So hopefully after I draft a few patterns, I'll get something going. I can't afford Blythe fashion. I won't buy something more than $15 for myself .. why would I buy a dress that can fit in the palm of my hand for more? ^___^;; So I'll be making attempts at making doll clothes myself. Will also start working on Christmas gifts. I'm thinking about making some hand/pocket warmers? (: Now I just need to find cherry pits!

More arrivals!

All these photos are up on Flickr, but I wanted to have them all together here as well xD As you can see, I got my Wizard of Oz order from Lati finally! Well, I really can't complain. They came earlier than I had expected! I went to pick them up from the post office on Tuesday morning and had to bear with leaving them in the trunk for 10 hours before getting to play with them because of my classes xD

I'm really happy with this release! All the girls I've seen on Flickr are really beautiful as well! I haven't examined their bodies closely, but no complaints so far :D I got a gray skin tinman Lea and with Lami! I couldn't resist those elf ears!

I think I've got their names as well. My Lami is named Circe. I love that name and I've seen it a couple times when looking for good witch names :P And my Lea is named Aspen for the tree that has heart-shaped leaves. I was trying to find a metal-related name for her, but then thought about the tinman's character. Although he didn't have a heart by the time he reconstructed his body from metals, he was still always the most compassionate and considerate of the group. So I started looking for heart-related names and found Aspen :D It works perfectly because the tinman was also a woodsman! I'm soooo cleverrr hahah! 

Late Night Arrival!

I had been expecting my Francoise Ananassa for a while now. She was held up in New York from last Monday to this Monday with a bunch of other Francoises!! Postal nightmare! :P Anyways, I checked the tracking yesterday during class and it showed that a notice had been left. I sort of expected that - I'm never home for the mail, so I always get those slips! )': I don't get home til 8:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so when I get home, the last thing I think about is mail.

I found out when my night time alarm for pills didn't go off that I'd left my phone in my car. (Who else besides me misplaces their phones a lot? I feel like it's been happening to me every week lol! =__=) I went outside at 10:30PM last night to get my phone and decided to check the mail. Lo and behold, there was a big box inside, and within that box, Francoise Ananassa! :D 

She is so cute and tiny! And look - she even fits some Lati Yellow dresses! Most of mine are a bit big for her, but they still work n__n Yay, that means I don't need to invest in a whole new wardrobe haha. 

Sushi hat!

293/366

Have you all seen this wonderful hat by Maggi (Kawaii Kandy)? :D I had this commissioned just a while ago and Maggi did such an amazing job on it! I had asked for a bento/sushi-inspired hat with at least an octopus hot dog! Eventually, I got greedy and asked for the salmon nigiri and tamago as well. The onigiri was a complete surprise to me, hehe! When she sent me pictures of this hat, I was just amazed! I had been having a really bad day, and on top of that, I was getting sick (ugh!). So this hat couldn't have come at a perfect time! I knew it would be perfect for Astrid! ^__^!!

I met a new girl & I'm in love!

I admit that I splurged a while back when I pre-ordered both Slow Nimes and Francoise Ananana-whatever her name is. I was feeling horrible that night, and I guess I'm one of those suckers for retail therapy :P Except mine involves the interwebs + paypal. Two creations that I think I would be so much better without haha (not really!!!). When I explored the threads on BK and posts on Flickr, I discovered that there wasn't so much love for Slow Nimes.

Honestly what drew me to her was her outfit, which was such a nice-looking stock outfit for Blythe (no offense, Takara, but you guys need some more stylists!). But seeing all the negative comments about her face, I felt like I'd made a mistake in pre-ordering her just then x_x;

But then she arrived yesterday after a grueling two-week wait. And honestly, I couldn't be happier with her!

I grabbed the box as soon as the mail person left it just because .. I mean, who wouldn't be excited to get a package, right? I was waiting for my Francoise (still am!) and had expected her to arrive first because of the shipping methods they were sent by. But when I saw the box had come from Otacute, I was a bit disappointed at first .. Until I decided to open her shipper box and saw that face through the plastic window!

Long story short, I had expected to try to sell her but then thought to myself, "No one even likes her! Who would buy her?!?" I'm glad I had a moment of naughtiness and opened her box, because I haven't been this excited about a dolly's arrival in sooooooo long! :D 

She now goes by Olivia. Don't you think she looks like an Olivia? lol :P She has also inspired me to attempt sewing again. I made her a skirt just now! But .. more on that later. I definitely will NOT be showing off my attempts at creating doll clothes for a long time until I get it down lol!