Hello Kitty in Mc Donalds

Just arrived on holidays in France, and what is in Happy Meals? Hello Kitty !!!

The first toy, the yellow top muffin contains stamps, and was average, but the Hello Kitty head is a box containing stickers and stuff, and I see it used as sewing kit or something like that. It's good quality...

There is one toy a week, I'll try to get next weeks as well...

A week at a time...

This week has been so busy, I finally understand how some people can't be on the net for periods of time !

When i woke up on Monday morning, I was eager to plan the whole week, with speaking to the Removers, Sollicitors, put my present house onthe market, etc... My great hopes were smashed down with the sollicitor delaying things. So I was already making plans to sign contracts after the holidays.

To top it up, I got garbage stuck under my car, and I think something is still stuck as my car has that weird burnt smell underneath, and I came back home after work to find my house covered in blackberries.
For once we were able to see who did it, and go to the parents.

So until Wednesday I thought I could concentrate on my demanding job, but in the afternoon everything crumbled on my head at once. The sollicitor was ready and wanted me to come on Thursday, and I had to go to the new house to say what was staying in it, and I had to do an emergency CHAPS to the sollicitor right after work (after a stop at home to get my passport).
Head/neck pains came in because of stress of course.

Thursday happened according to plan, with a bit of stress from my boss in the morning as he asked me stuff that I wasn't supposed to do, but he must have realised he stressed me out as he told me I was doing a great job at lunchtime.
So in the afternoon we when to the sollicitors, and then met the lady selling the house, and I got extra furniture. It was welcome because that house has less built-in cupboard space than where I am now, and they are all pine.

Everything was falling into place, and even the letting agency came to take pictures and put my house on the market yesterday !
Unfortunatly this week was marked by intense headaches, and DBF is still in back pain...
Now we will concentrate on travelling to France and rest....

Redbourn 07

Yesterday we went to the Redbourn Festival to see Feeder play live. As they are recording a new album at the moment, they only played at Loch Lomond (Scotland) and in Redbourn. Small festival, Redbourn had the advantage to be less than an hour drive from home, even with the road works on the M25.

Small festival means no queue for the bathroom, or for food, being able to "set camp" (lay down a blanket and sit on it) close to the stage. Loads of security and police, cleaners collecting garbage frequently, people coming for an afternoon of music in the great outdoor with their families from babies in nappies to grand parents.

As Feeder was headlining, we only arrived at 7pm, and the weather was mild, it even got colder in the evening (I think I got a cold)

I left DBF play with his new go cam for PSP, but the video/sound is a bit crapoholic, so this is the most decent screen capture of the band arriving on scene.

Today we are both very tired as expected...

Snapshot of my mind : pre-move

I'm living in limbus. Not really here anymore, not really there yet. And I can't be bothered. That's DBF's soothing influence.

It's weird to imagine that in a few months my house will not be my house anymore, my drive to work, work itself, will be different. I try to imagine how it will be like in the new place, how my days will be, probably not much different than now, except for the change of scenary.

I don't feel so concerned about my bad neighborhood anymore. Soon all that will go bye bye. And I don't want to imagine the worse about the new neighborhood either.

I tend to make plans as to what I will do, where I will go later, once I moved.

And I try not to think about all the things I'll have to do to be out there, in my "perfect mind picture". All the services to move. Packing/unpacking boxes. Both at home and work.

A brand new world. But not yet....

Harvest Moon Boy and Girl

Yesterday I got the very much anticipated Harvest Moon Boy and Girl just like Lauren did. DBF got me Harvest Moon innocent Life on PSP for my birthday, and I spent 2 weeks playing that game any moment I could.

When I read that the PSP would have a new Harvest Moon game at the E3 convention, I got very excited. So imagine my deception when I started the game and saw the blurry pictures, and that it was mostly Harvest Moon DS, minus the handy rucksac view.

Reading further this morning, it looks like this is actually PS1 games ported to PSP !!!!

I'm used to Nintendo recycling their games from one console to the next (see Mario 64 on DS), but Sony, and especially the PSP usually have original games. Even God of War isn't the original Ps2 game but a new game specific to PSP. So was Harvest Moon Innocent Life.

If in Innocent Life you have an added dimension of saving the island, and a good tutorial, if you are new to Harvest moon and try Boy and Girl, how are you supposed to know what to do? They leave you wandering in the village with no useful indication... Plus the "equip" and "bag" are very small...

I will play it a little more and see if it gets interesting, but I don't have much hope...

The good side to it is that I won't be addicted to the point that I won't stitch anymore ;)

In the morning...

I'm not normally a morning person, but the morning is my favourite part of the day.

I love the tranquility and focus of stitching before work, before breakfast, while sipping on my coffee. There's an air of beginning, you have the whole day in front of you, especially on Saturday morning when you don't have to go to work and so you have the whole day to do whatever.

In the morning, the neighborhood kids haven't invaded the space around my house and transformed it into a noisy playground.

In the morning, the temperature is still ok, if it's going to be a hot day.

I would rather wake up early and nap most of the afternoon, when it's so dull...

In the morning I do my most pleasant stitching, and most productive internet time.

The Simpsons Movie night

Spiderpig, spiderpig
Does whatever a spiderpig does
Can he swing
From a web
No he can't
He's a pig
Look out, here comes spiderpig....

If there was one movie I wanted to see this year, it was this one. I'm a big fan of the Simpsons. And the movie is a big episode, with memorable things like "Spiderpig"....

Now, why is it so funny? Homer makes a pig walk on the ceiling, ink on its paws, singing the above song. Everybody laughs, everybody remembers and sings the song, but... nobody can tell you why they burst into laughs for that more than other gags. This movie has a general consensus amongst people. Everybody wants to see it, the radio mentions it, the film is showns every 20 mins in the cinema... It's like the whole world has become Simpsons mad.

We planned to see the movie on Sunday night, buying the tickets on Saturday, and we did good, as there were so many people in the cinema. We got popcorn and coke for once, and DBF got the donut keyring from the movie. In the lobby we saw the Simpsons statues you can see in the picture.

We ended the evening with a Burger King, where they had talking Simpsons figurines, and DBF had a Krusty.

We will sing the spiderpig song for quite some time...

Hobbycraft in my home town

Moving from town to town is as stressful as you can imagine. Not only do you have to find a place, move your stuff, warn every possible company that you move (and there's always someone left out), but you have to find new habits.

Where to buy groceries, where is the closest post office, etc... As a crafter, an important question was "is there a Local Needlework Shop in my new town?"

Checking in the yellow pages, the outlook was grim. Only a little place in the indoor market, for haberdashery. Of course, it isn't dramatic as the internet is usually my first source of crafts.

Thinking of Hobbycraft, the craft superstore, I often wished there was one close to me. Going to Watford is long and stressful, and we tend to get lost on the way.

Yesterday as I was driving pas a shopping center I noticed that in the shops listed there was Hobbycraft !!!! As soon as I was home I checked and it opens September 1st: just before I move !!!!

Needless to say I'm even mre excited about moving now.... My budget might not be though...

Zendoku, the other sudoku

I discovered sudoku during the big sudoku craze. After seeing a tv show with Carol Vordeman from "Countdown", I thought I would never understand the principle. Then, the following day I bought a sudoku puzzle game, the translation from the original japanese one, and spent the whole day try to figure it out. And the addiction started...

The good thing about sudoku is that it clears my head, and I like to do it in the evening as it makes me sleepy.
I love the paper version better than the electronic ones, as you can scribble around, and carry thee book in your bag without fear of breaking it. So when all the PSP and DS sudoku games came out, I wasn't really interested. But then came Zendoku, or "how do turn a basic puzzle into a wacky different game?"

First, for the purists you can play regular sudoku if you want. But Zendoku decided to spice things up by using pictures instead of numbers. And it needs some getting used to, but in the end it's very fun.

But what's really new is the "battle" mode. You can choose your character, assigned to one of the pictures, and fight against opponents. It's not turning sudoku into a 2 players game, though. You solve the grid, but from time to time you have mini games trying to disorient you, and it's up to you not to loose your track of thought...

My favourite section is the "zen", where you solve sudoku puzzles with the pictures.... It really makes me... zen !

Harvest Moon Innocent life on PSP

Of course, farm simulation isn't my idea if a fun game. And it's hard to get into this game. You can't save until you've gone through all the text and tutorial, but soon you will realise you're addicted to it. You play late into the night. You have to resist playing at breakfast time, and you feel like playing all day at work.

And while you are obsessed with the game, of course, your mind is set on something, other stuff don't really matter, and depression flies away...
So what is it about that game that is so addictive? Not only do you have to grow crops, manage the buying, planting, but you also have to explore the island, and save it from a volcano eruption. So there's a big puzzle/treasure hunt element to the game, talking to the right people at the right time, finding elements in treasure chests, etc...

Being a boy robot, ou also have the challenge to become more and more human by interacting with people, animals, acomplishing quests and learn how to cook.
This game also shows the superiority of the PSP on the DS. I recently bought Harvest Moon DS. Besides the fact that it feels like playing an old SNES game graphically, a newbie can't start to guess what you should do in this game. No tutorial. And no greater purpose than becoming a farmer, getting a wife and such.

Harvest Moon Innocent Life is now a hard to find game in shops, and I'm glad DBF had the idea of giving it to me for my birthday !!! This is an exemple of a PSP game not perceived as a typical PSP game (war, fighting, cars, etc...). If you want good games, you have to look for them...
for thwe moment, i feel I need a break from the game, but it will be interesting to see when I will come back to it.

My PSP

DBF is deep into video games. Video games have been part of my life since I was 10, but it was a superficial thing, something to do with a friend coming home, trying to find fighting combos and the like. Then 2 years ago it seemed that the Nintendo DS would be the console for me, with puzzle games, stylus and kawai characters.

In the meantime, DBF was going on and on about how the PSP was the best thing in the world. And in the begining, the PSP wasn't the console for me. It was all infiltration/war/guys games.
When Tetris DS came out, it was the last straw: it was packed with Mario/Zelda, for no reason, and as I hate Mario... I started to doubt that the DS was the console for me.

So last summer I finally bought a PSP. And I have to say it took me a long time to be addicted to it. But now I play it everyday, as now there are games like Loco Roco, Gurumin or Harvest Moon on it.

It's like having a little friend in your pocket...

The beginning

Things usually start small.

Here I am with DBF yesterday afternoon starting a discussion about all the little things (and big!) I will have to face in order to move, all the things that might go wrong, etc.... And then the discussion turned to focusing on the moment and creating a blog called "Petits Bonheurs".
Litterally, this means "little happinesses".

Of course, I already have a blog and a whole website, so why create yet another blog?
From the begining I try to keep my craft blog dedicated to crafts. I know many people mix craft and life, but I prefer to have them separate. I usually don't read "life posts". For a long time I felt comfortable just blogging about craft, with a bit of real life context, but lately I spent more time playing video games and doing other things than stitching.

This is the real me: a craft addict, who also has other interests. And it's those I want to talk about here. Have a "treasure chest" kind of blog.

Also, it's all about personal therapy. I get frustrated when I'm not in control, and I tend to imagine everything will go wrong, so it leads to dark moods, frustration and depression. So the idea is to find at least one positive thing per day, in order to take life on the bright side.

Of course, that's the intend, we'll see how it turns out. We are swimming in experimental waters here...