November 23rd, 2011 
Amy Yesterday, I finished making my centerpiece to put on my dining table. Instead of flowers or candles, I’ve made a Piranha Plant from Super Mario Brothers out of perler beads.
I used a reference picture to help guide me with the colors and on there it says it’s 8 bits, but to most people it looks more like 16 bits. To me, it looks 12 bits but to be frank, I can’t tell the data structures based off of perler beads. I just wanted to make something unique and geeky for the house.
November 21st, 2011 Amy It’s been a week since Wiggles have moved in with us and he has definitely gotten used to the house. During his 2nd night, he stopped his whining and actually went to sleep and finally the whole night was peaceful. Now I have to find a way to make my backyard entertaining for him because I think he hates it. It’s small and there’s nothing but dirt back there and he only just goes out there to do his business and then wait at the glass door. If there’s like a playground for dogs or something, please let me know.
Last Saturday, I got a hair cut. It’s shorter than I wanted, but many people who have seen it like it a lot. Here’s what it looks like:
I was at Oregano’s having lunch with my sister in this photo. Anyways, it’ll take time for me to get used to it, but it’s a nice change.
I’m looking forward to having Thanksgiving food this week and playing Star Wars: the Old Republic beta during the weekend! Another thing happening this week is Chris moving into our crazy house. It should be fun having him around. :) The only thing I’m not looking forward to this week is Jury Duty tomorrow, which by the way I got summoned on my birthday. I have to call later today to find out the status and I’m hoping hoping hoping that I’ll get excused. I seriously do not want to go. :( Even if my work still pays me for going to Jury Duty, I’d much rather be at work. Please keep your fingers crossed! >.<
November 14th, 2011 Amy It’s been over a week since Darren and I have moved into the new house, but we’ve accomplished quite a lot. Our home definitely feels more like a home now, especially since we got internet set up on Saturday. As Pi said, you’re officially moved in once you have internet.
Last night we moved Wiggles, my dog, into our home. Since it’s a new and unfamiliar place for him, I was worried that he’s going to urinate or crap around the house. I’m crate-training him again, but it seems that he’s getting in the hang of it. Now my biggest problem with him is his whining. Normally when it’s time for bed, I put him in his crate in the living room and head to my room and he’s always been peaceful when we were living at my parents’ house. But now that we’re in a new place, he’s not used to it and he was whining all. night. long.
I felt bad for Darren and was worried that he couldn’t sleep but he didn’t mind and managed to sleep the whole night through, which was ironic because he’s the one with the sensitive hearing and I’m the one with the hearing impairment. Even without my hearing aid, I still heard Wiggles whining. I know it’ll take at least a couple of days until he’s used to the new place, but those nights are going to be long. Any tips on this issue?
November 9th, 2011 Amy I bought a computer desk last night, finally after visiting my parents. If you remember seeing one of my old blog entries from a little while back, I wrote about looking for a simple L-shaped desk. I finally found one at Office Depot at a pretty good price and what I like about it is the fact that it’s black and really simple-looking. Plus, it’s shiny!
It was a bitch and a half, though trying to load it into my car but getting it out and into the house wasn’t so bad. I’m excited to start assembling it this weekend and finally bring my desktop PC from my parents’ house. Darren and I are also hoping to get the internet setup this weekend as well. Our house is slowly but surely becoming more of a home! We’ll be getting our dining set and our TV stand delivered today as well. We want to give a lot of credits to both of our parents because they’ve been helping us quite a lot and I’m grateful for that.
November 5th, 2011 Amy Finally, the renovations have been completed. Darren and I have already begun to move our stuff into the house. We haven’t moved our bed yet since that’s our plan tomorrow, so for tonight we’ll be spending one more night at our parents’ houses. Before the moving, I took photos of the completed work to do a before and after comparison.
Let’s start the tour with the living room. The paint that was previously on there was a pinkish maroon color, which didn’t look too bad but the light blue color I picked to paint over has really brightened the room and made it seem bigger. I even painted the ceiling the same color as well. And of course as you may notice, I took out the carpet to replace it with wood flooring. I love the wood flooring!
Next is the kitchen, which I love since it’s so open. The paint color previously was a light purple, which was different from the living room. The flooring used to be vinyl and it was dirty and kind of dingy, so we’ve replaced it with tiles, which I love the design of it. Yes, my refrigerator is new and still has plastic stickers and yes I do plan to remove them soon. I’m not that big of a nerd. >.>;
This is the dining space which is connected to the kitchen. I’ve raised the chandelier a little higher since it was too low and people were actually running into it. I also went and bought wooden blinds to put on the window since it was missing one as you may notice on the Before picture.
This is my master bedroom. I would’ve sort of been okay with the sky blue color but there were a lot of white patches that need to be painted over. Plus as mentioned before, the light blue color makes the room look bigger. I had to buy the wood blinds for the window in this room as well.
I love love love the master bathroom. I painted over the walls with the same light blue color and just like the kitchen, the floors used to be vinyl which I’ve replaced with tiles. If you can see through the reflection of the mirror on the Before picture, you can see that the bathtub is next to the entrance and behind the bathtub is the shower. And then of course behind the door is the toilet.
This room is going to be Chris’. The side of the wall on the left used to be a really dark blue color. I had to paint that wall over the stupid dark blue color twice.
I’ll be making this 2nd bedroom my own office space. I hated that green color on the right wall and had to paint over it immediately. I don’t know what the last owners were thinking choosing that color.
The last owners must’ve really liked that tacky green color that they wanted to paint their entire bathroom in this color. As for the flooring, it’s the same situation as the kitchen and the master bathroom.
So that’s all the pictures I have. I can’t wait until I’m fully moved in. There’s so much to do.
October 30th, 2011 Amy It’s been quite an eventful 25th birthday this weekend! My original plan was to work on the house and try to get it done, but due to the fact that I ran out of certain supplies and the rest that I’ve ordered wouldn’t come in until the next day, there was nothing I could do at the moment. Somehow, it felt like a sign that I should not work on my birthday. Instead, I hung out with Adam and Emily at Cafe Zope and ate crepes, which I’ve been craving for in a long time. After some costume shopping and having tea, we met up with Darren back at his place, which led to them blind folding me and taking me to Chili’s where I was surprised by friends. :D
Dinner was certainly wonderful and it was great to catch up with some good ol’ friends. :D The next day, my birthday sort of continued. After working on the house, my family treated me out to steak at Outback. It was good times as well!
And I wasn’t the only one who got gifts…
That bear is glued to him.
October 26th, 2011 Amy I’m blogging from work. It’s been a slow and boring day in the office.
Last night’s Google+ chat with Amanda and Chris about Japan was getting me antsy for my own trip there. As mentioned before in my entry from last month, I’ll be going with my pen friend, Alana, in the Spring of 2013 (that’s our goal, at least). It’s a long way from now but that’s ample amount of time for me to save up money, especially after buying a house and all. No vacations for awhile until then. *poutface*
In the meantime, Alana and I have plenty of time to plan out our itinerary for the trip and this website (Japan-Guide.com) has been super helpful. It’s where Alana found out about Kasai Rinkai Park, which is where one of the episodes of Hachimitsu to Clover was taken place. As a geek of that anime, it’s a place I’d like to check out and where I can ride the ferris wheel. It’s like a Trekkie going to see the Enterprise exhibit. Sunny Pages is also really useful for finding good restaurants and other attractions.
Even though I still have awhile to plan, I’ve already came up with several different places I want to visit along with the Kasai Rinkai Park:
This list is only just a start and I’m pretty sure I’ll be adding more places that I want to check out. The trip is probably going to be 2 weeks long, so I have to manage to squeeze all or most of these visits within that time frame. I may have to drink lots of coffee and do some haul assing. Regardless, I’m looking forward to Japan!
October 23rd, 2011 Amy This weekend has been both productive and fun. I spent Friday night hanging out with Emily and Adam and also celebrating Eunice’s birthday at the Cheesecake Factory, which was fun and definitely a break I needed from renovating the house. Last night, Darren and I were also invited by my co-workers to go to the Haunted Corn Maze and that was decently fun as well. I wasn’t too scared but I honestly don’t like getting jumped at, so through the entire maze, I grabbed onto Darren’s arm and I’m pretty sure I’ve turned it purple.
Earlier during the day yesterday and all day today, the time was spent on continuing the wood flooring in the house. Sorry, no pictures this time since I didn’t get a chance to take any, but a lot of progress has been made. We got the the master bedroom and majority of the hallway completed. The hallway was the biggest pain in the ass to do given its shape. It’s not like most hallways where they’re typically rectangular, this one had a slant. Also, I didn’t realize until today how many stupid awkward corners this house has, which are mostly in the den room and one of the bedrooms. I guess they give the house its uniqueness and appeal. Now the only spaces left to do are two bedrooms and three closets and the house should be completed! Everything might be done by Sunday of next week but if not, definitely by the weekend afterwards.
HAAAAGGGHH, I want it to be done already. ><
One more thing, I got a Pinterest account. Follow me on there if you have one, too. :D
October 18th, 2011 Amy Finally, the stage I’ve been looking forward to, installing wood flooring!
Luckily, the place I got this wood flooring from was having a sale on this particular one and I really like it a lot. I immediately bought it because they only had a certain amount in stock left and fortunately, it was enough to cover my house.
Honestly, I’ve underestimated how difficult it is to install. This may take longer to do than I thought only because I have work during the week and the only days I can effectively do it for longer periods of time with sunlight are the weekends. I may not be able to get the house done in time before my birthday, but that’s alright. I’d much rather get it done correctly than rushed. :D
On Saturday, I went to the Copenhagen scratch and dent warehouse with Darren’s mom to look at furniture. I found this couch there and just absolutely fell in love with it.
I’ve been looking everywhere for a good sectional couch and there have been some that are either small or just way too big to fit in my living room. This one is the perfect size and the dark blue color goes really well with the walls of my house. The major plus about this couch is the fact that there is storage on the right end, which is essentially like an ottoman that is attached.
The only downer about this couch is that the cushions are attached to the couch and I can’t remove them. So this means if I needed to clean the fabric, I would have to Lysol it like crazy or something similar. Or I could just buy matching sofa covers. But this isn’t keeping me from wanting the couch. I’m going back to Copenhagen tomorrow after work with Darren to look at it again and if we both definitely like it, we’ll probably even purchase it!
October 12th, 2011 Amy So I’ve recently just joined Polyvore. I’ve actually heard of this website for awhile now, but never thought about joining until now. I like the fact that you can find new fashion trends or create your own and keep up to date with what style is in.
As sort of a test run, I decided to create my own set.
This style is sort of generally what I’m currently wearing right now for the Fall season, except I wish I have those sunglasses and shawl…and boots.
