I Killed My Computer

So I was in the midst of typing up an entry when I accidentally (aka stupidly) removed the power cable to my laptop instead of a USB cable. Really. Really. Dumb. But I figured that, besides losing all my open documents/files/etc, I'd just start it up again and continue with life. Alas, no. It's stuck on the very first start up screen. :/

I'll deal with that later, though. For now, here's what I was going to say the first time around...

Yesterday I headed out to beautiful Balboa Island for a bit. I was feeling pretty cramp-y so no beach - just window shopping and postcard searching (followed by a delicious red pepper flaked White Knight pizza from Ameci's). I ended up finding quite a few cards I liked, to be sent out via Postcrossing! Here are some of my favorites:

Happy Things

Soccer practice always makes me happy. Today we had a good turn out AND we managed to obtain an open net within the first 15 minutes so that was good. Practice itself was a little bit disjointed (everyone's a bit sluggish post-holiday feasts) but still fun. I always enjoy the conversations too. And the fact that we're playing at NIGHT with LIGHTS. Somehow I always have more energy at night (versus Sunday mornings when I'm always tired and it's often super hot >.<).

Other things that make me happy include gifted emulator games, tofu (of all sorts and varieties), sunrises, and Deluxe ice cream (a Kroger brand). It's surprisingly tasty and half the price of all other ice cream brands! I've got Moon Pie and Fun Munch Cookies N Cream in the freezer right now and they're both delicious. I also love their version of Birthday Cake (the flavor that got me into Deluxe in the first place) and Rocky Road.

But enough about ice cream. I think it's time for some Nip/Tuck. Or Donkey Kong Country. :D

Highlights and Lowlights

Since last I've written, I've spent two Wednesdays traveling to different students to give piano lessons. While my students generally come to me, I've made arrangements to travel to my best Irvine-located students because I'm moving. It's not so bad since they're all in relatively the same area. Plus the families are great. One of the best holiday gifts I received this year was from a student's family, and what made it so great was the family picture/card that they included with it! I plan to frame the picture and put it up by my piano (along with my diplomas and awards and what not, which are lying around here somewhere...) once I move. :)

Other highlights include...

Meetings with a designer to fix up the main bathroom in the main part of the new house. I'm excited for the end result! It's going to look GORGEOUSLY modern, yet remain classic and simple.

Finalizing the wall colors (for the most part). See above to get an idea of what we chose. The brick color is for the bathroom(s), the yellow/gold is for the media room, and the darkest color is for the accent wall in our living room. Having grown up in a white house (and later a white apartment), I'm VERY excited to live among color for the next little while.

And losing our second soccer game of the season. Why is this a highlight? Because we we're playing two down with two sick against the best team in the league. Final score was 0-5, which isn't pretty on paper, but IS something to be proud of considering the circumstances. I'm proud at least. And the rest of my team is too. And that proud/happy feeling is something to be thankful for after a competitive soccer game. :)

The lowlight of the week was...

Fred being sick for a few days. He threw up 3 out of 4 meals (he eats twice a day) and I was worried sick that it might be an adult case of Parvo or something. Thankfully, he's back to being his happy, healthy self. This also allowed me to cancel the vet appointment I made for him which, in addition to me being happy about his restored health, makes my hole-y pocket happier too.

Besides a few small shindigs (including Emilie's birthday on Saturday!), the remainder of this week will be dedicated to packing. I really dislike packing/moving. It isn't a fun process. But this move has it's benefits (more on this later) so it should be OK. Plus, no move can be as bad as my last move: packing up 23 years of a life that was never spring cleaned. :/

Hello, New Year

Why, hello.

I started toying with the idea of starting up a new blog a day or so before New Years. I do like writing, and my current Tumblr isn't seeing much action on that front. I guess it's just an easier medium for posting links and pictures and songs and what not. I considered restarting my old blog, but I like that my old blog's end coincides with the conclusion of a pretty major part of my life. So here I am with the new blog: Fluffy White Dog. Why Fluffy White Dog? Because Fred's curled up next to me and he is fluffy and white.

There's the why of this blog.

The what of this blog is really just my personal going-ons. For instance, I spent most of today in Fullerton with my mom picking out colors for her (our) new house, among other things. I like the colors we picked (especially this gorgeous yellow that's going to grace the walls of the media room), but I'm a little apprehensive about how brown everything might get, what with some of the walls being of the brown-family, the floors being hard wood, my brown piano, my mom's brown (more like mahogany) china cabinet, and my mom's surprise purchase of a brown furniture set to go in the living room... which is across from the dining room which will likely house our current brown dining set, near a brown linen cabinet, in the same vicinity of a brown coffee table. Yes. I'm worried. So much so that I'm thinking of calling the painter tomorrow and imploring a quick change to walls that are less brown. Or at least a less coffee-ish brown. Something lighter. Maybe a white baby grand piano would spruce things up a bit. In any case, I guess if we do find that things have gotten too brown in the front half of our house, we can either move things around/get new furniture for the living room, or repaint the walls. No big, right? Right.

Anyway. Before I head off to sleep, I guess I ought to post my resolutions for 2011. I only have two of them:
1) be on time (to EVERYthing, even if it means I have to leave for all my appointments/etc an hour early) and
2) respond promptly to phone calls/messages/e-mails/etc. I recently realized that people are offended when they don't hear back from you in a timely manner. Sorry all. I'll be better this year, promise.