crap, they flocked up my tree!

left - trimming the trunk before drilling the hole for the stand;
center - our tree, tagged and waiting for flocking;
right - our flocked up tree

a new container of christmas trees was finally delivered to christmas hawaii yesterday and i got early pickings!  i was looking for a relatively slim and nicely-shaped 7-foot noble fir and i found one!  it was soooooo fresh that the trunk was still icy cold!

i was so excited to pick it up tonight but they flocked up (hahah) my order so i have to go back tomorrow to pick it up :(  i wanted "medium flocking" on the entire tree but they only "lightly flocked the tips" as shown in the photo above :(  the flocking takes a day to dry so i have to go back tomorrow to pick up my tree :( at least it gives me one more day to clean before the tree arrives!

ps - only 25 days until christmas!  

feeling thankful at the hotel

hello there!  hope you had a fabulous thanksgiving filled with lotsa food, fun and family!  we had a wonderful feast (diet starts tomorrow) and the tiramisu enjoyed her first real thanksgiving meal of turkey, stuffing, yams and her ultimate favorite...cranberry sauce!  she's developing quite a palate and pretty much loves food in general, especially fruits and veggies.  that's my girl.

we've been living in our new home, "the hotel," for just over two weeks now.  i fondly call it "the hotel" because it totally feels like one beginning with the fancy water fountains in the porte cochere, immaculate lobby, quiet hallways, taking an elevator to our unit high in the sky, and the fact that there's hardly any ceiling lighting in the unit (money-saving measure on the part of the building contractor) so the unit is kinda dark if we don't turn on all the torchere lamps we ended up purchasing.  i'm still working on accepting the design limitations (challenges?) we have here.  i have all my oil paintings that i want to hang but we only have a few drywall walls so the artwork isn't evenly distributed in the house.  and our furniture layout isn't optimal. and all our walls are off-white.  i have to consciously remind myself that this is temporary and before we know it, we'll be moving again to our new home!  on the plus side, we have a KILLER view (will post pics later this week) and more space than we would be able to get anywhere else in a condo.  and the walkability factor rocks! we are so close to aloha tower, ward center, and ala moana and have been walking everywhere with the kiddies. 

i just looooove this time of the year!  i've been listening to christmas music for a few weeks now and am so happy that the weather has gotten so much colder around here! i've been on the hunt for the perfect noble fir christmas tree and am hoping it arrives in tomorrow's container at Richard Tajiri's Christmas Hawaii lot.  

more tomorrow...ta-ta for now!

70% moved

sorry for the blog absence but i've been overly consumed with packing, moving and unpacking...and frankly, this #(*# is making me bananas.  i'm soooo exhausted and can't wait to go back to a life with less chaos and less clutter!

half of my sectional in its temporary home on the top shelf of the warehouse

the movers came on friday to pick up all the large furniture and deliver it to the new condo.  our moving day just happened to coincide with apec and luckily, we didn't get stuck in any traffic.  anywho, trying to squeeze allllll of our furniture into a space less than half of what we previously had has proved to be a quite a challenge.  i measured everything and made a cute little floor plan...but everything was thrown out the window when half of my sectional wouldn't fit in the elevator (reason #328,231 why condo living sucks donkey balls).  so, we had to pay the movers to take it to storage...except that it wouldn't easily fit through the door/hallway to our second floor storage area...so it's presently sitting high in the sky on a pallet in the warehouse instead.  but, the other part of the sectional is in the condo and let me tell you, it looks extremely lame without it's partner so we'll be taking this piece to storage as well.  yes, a major p.i.t.a.

our new home looks like a tornado hit with boxes and stuff everywhere.  there just isn't time to put things away right now as our main focus is to just get everything out of our house so we can hand over the keys at the end of the week.  we have a few more rooms to go and the garage.  and because we're in a rush, the hubby is pretty much randomly throwing all of our to-be-stored-items into the storage rooms so after we move out and organize our new home, we'll have to organize our storage >.<  it's a vicious cycle and makes me wanna burn all of our belongings already.  i hope that living in a smaller space will force us to get rid of more stuff!!!  

don't laugh but i even managed to pack and move this lovely collection of 26 colorful gelato spoons, 15 roasted chestnut openers and 33 plastic food containers...and then tonight, i put everything in the plastic recycling bin in the building.  yes, i have issues.  

harajuku mochi chocolat

oh-mi-gosh!  pardon me for the extended blog absence!  i've been so exhausted from running around moving, managing the renovations for the new condo, and taking care of some other little surprises ;)

anywho, one of my FFF's (Favorite Friends over Fifty) is in town...uncle bob!  uncle bob is the best -- he always brings me goodies when he's in town.  hehe.  this trip's treat is Harajuku Mochi Chocolat and they're sooooo yummy.  i think he said that there's only one store outside of Japan where you can purchase it and luckily, it's in San Francisco, where he lives!  he gave me a box of strawberry chocolate and chocolate chocolate.  they are both soooo delightful!  i hope i don't eat them all before the weekend's done.  hahaha.