Monday, 21 May 2012

2 Year Anniversary

   It was our 2 year anniversary on the 17th, and though it might not seem that long, Seeg moved over here from the Netherlands not long in to give this relationship a chance, and being plunged into my family like that has been no easy task, so I'm pleased with how well we're doing!
   I want to save a post on how we met and all of that for a more special event than a 2 year anniversary, but instead I'll just update you on Sunday, when we celebrated.

   We live with my parents so that we can take care of my mum while my dad works, and the money we're given for that, along with whatever I make from Etsy, is the only income we have. My parents almost never go on holiday - until last year, it had been 8 years since their last - and we certainly can't afford to go away ourselves, and I'm a little apprehensive of going and staying with his parents in the Netherlands, but it's something that will happen (and thanks to them a weekend in London may be on the cards - I've lived in England all my life but I've only been to London once for a few hours), so my parents going away for a week is the only time we get truly just the two of us. And it's awesome to have that space and freedom.
   Sunday was the first full day we had to ourselves. I'd been preparing a few little gifts for a few days already, making little things, so the first thing I did when he got in the shower was sort out the little boxes I'd put together. I covered them in washi tape and filled them with sweets and little gifts, then attached an origami heart to each one stating something I loved about him - it was difficult. That's not to say I can't think of anything I love about him, but to try to single them out like that and not be cliché is difficult! And what made it harder was that I wanted to leave them in places I knew he'd go throughout the day - for example, we were having duck that night, so I put one of the boxes that read "I love that you can cook" (I can't cook - brownies are all I can do) behind the duck - so I wanted the notes to reflect whatever he was doing.

   He has always been interested in ancient Japan, and has lately been playing a lot of Shogun 2 - he usually tires of PC games quite quickly, the games that last are usually on the xbox, so I'm especially surprised that he's been playing Shogun for a month, at least. Shogun is a war strategy game, but it's a historical one about Japan and clans and such. I've not really sat and watched it, strategy games like that are not my thing, but it gave me a simple idea for some gifts I could try and make.
   I didn't have high hopes for them, I don't tend to get on too well sculpting clay in such a way, but perhaps that's my fault for only really rolling it out and cutting shapes out these days. But I thought I would give them a go.
   You might notice that the black and white mask has nothing to do with Japan. It's a bauta, a male venetian mask. We're both interested in such things - I have about 6 masks of my own - and the bauta is his favourite, so I decided to try it out. It went much easier than I thought, but that night turned out to be a very good clay night, the best I've ever had, I think! Everything I tried to do, worked!
   The other items are a Japanese mask that I will hesitate from naming in case I get it wrong, a poor katana, and a sashimono of the Takeda clan ^^ I'm quite pleased with how it all turned out, though!

   We had a bath later that day, after I put boxes all over the house, so I got to try out some of the new Lush products I bought. Their bubble bars are pretty good - though I've grown used to pouring an entire bottle of bubble bath in because I have so few baths, I prefer showers, but given the price of the bubblebar, I was forced to restrain myself. Well, the bubbles were nice, the water felt so silky soft, but the water turned bright pink. It was freaking awesome. I knew the water would change colour, as it so often does with Lush products, but I didn't expect it to be so bright! When we got bored of it, though, we tried the Dragon Egg bath bomb - I can see why it's a best seller. When it began, it didn't fizz so much as melt into a cream, it was great, and it had little bits of coloured paper soap floating around as dragon scales. But what we didn't know was that the white was only a "shell". Enough of it melted that a great big crack appeared in it that was bright orange. I thought it was just a collection of "scales" until it started to fizz - properly fizz - and before I knew it, half of the white had melted away and revealed the entire inside to be orange - or so I thought. It continued to fizz until the water was a bright orange too (I had run half of the bath again and gotten rid of most of the pink before hand), and then another layer revealed itself, the true core of the bomb - it was golden glitter. It fizzed away but it was made up of mostly just glitter, it was amazing. I never got a picture of it because, well, I was in the bath, but I am certainly getting it again! If you want to see the effects I urge you to buy one for yourself - my skin was so soft afterwards too, and their products are all natural, so it's great even for sensitive skin!
   We did regret the bath afterwards though. The water was too warm and the scents so relaxing that we crashed on the sofa shortly afterwards, unable to move. I think I may have fallen asleep briefly. We have one last bath bomb left, Phoenix Rising - it's purple with golden glitter on it, and a stick of cinnamon, but now I wonder if the interior is as it seems. We're going to save it for another bath, but we're going to do that on a night. So that we can fall asleep afterwards.

   We had a lovely meal together later on, too. Seeg's parents are great and did me a huge favour of sending over some of his favourite chocolate bars (I just couldn't find them anywhere, and they were far too expensive online), and when they came to England last time they brought with them some duck that his uncle had prepared. It was cooked and canned, good until next year, all we had to do was heat it up - well that was entertaining. We figured out how long everything would take to make, got it all going, and just as it was time to put the duck on, we unscrewed the lid - I didn't think it looked very tight - and were greated with a tin seal. It was written in french and it wouldn't fit on any can opener (it was a glass jar, I should have known anyway), but in the end, clever cloggs searches the words up - we had to pierce the lid to get it off. Well, we did that with a scewer. We had made a hole. A lot of pressure had left the jar when we did this, but the lid stayed put. We then resorted to finding my dad's tool box. We stabbed it with a screwdriver a few times. We're a bit mad, I think...but we must have made about 10 holes before my basic science lessons kicked in. I told him to stop, reached out to the tin lid...and lifted it off. The pressure had been released and the lid came off. Just like that. Yeah...
   Anyway, we had a lovely meal of duck, potatoes, gravy and veg - not extravegant, but the duck was delicious. We wanted to get Gü, but Dad couldn't find a chocolate one we had last time they went away, only fruit, so we decided to get it from the corner shop. Or, I did. Seeg reminded me we got it from Sainsburys and I didn't really want to take a 20 minute walk to pick up a pudding, and we certainly didn't have the money to make the trip truly worthwhile, so we went for his favourite Frankie and Benny's dessert, but homemade. I made the brownies while he made dinner, and we bought a tub of Ben and Jerry's to go on it. Best part: plenty of seconds. We didn't have any, though, we'd had more than enough already, but the meal was great.

 His card to me by DoodleLove ♥ My card to him by StoreyShop. His is nicer.

   We watched He's Just Not That Into You afterwards, a film I'd wanted to see for some time, but whenever I'd tried to watch it, I got 10 minutes in and gotten confused by so many famous faces. We gave it a go, though, and while most of it was nice, it got extremely frustrating after a while, I wanted to bang some of these girls' heads against a wall in a hope of knocking some sense into them. It ended well enough, I was particularly pleased with the resolution of Aniston's couple, but I will never watch it again.
  Then came presents! Yes, that was a good bit. I had made Seeg the above four things as well as left notes all day, so he felt bad that he hadn't gone through the same effort I did, but it didn't matter to me at all, we had a great day together and that was all I wanted. I had only bought him two things, though, a Nintendo DS game, and the first season of Bleach on DVD - I'd never seen it, the only animes I'd ever seen were Pokemon and Dragonball Z, but we started watching it (in Japanese with subtitles) and I admit I'm enjoying it, even though I'm not a fan of anime.
   But he got me a documentary I'd wanted for ages, the new Johnny English film (we watched it yesterday afternoon, such a painful movie, but equally as good as the first one, I thought, which makes a change - sequels are rarely as good), the new Sherlock Holmes film (not yet watched, but I'm hoping it'll be as good as the original, fingers crossed - though the story does twine into the original, which they don't usually, so it could be good), and - the best thing - a little baby dragon in a chestnut shell!
   I'd seen it before on Etsy quite recently and fell in love with it - he payed attention :D But the price does not reflect the amazingness of it. The paint work is great and the eye really completes the little thing, and it's securely fixed to the interior of the shell - I'm (somehow) going to fix it to a necklace.

Dragon from FeythCrafts

   It was a marvellous day, and since my parents are away until Saturday, with any luck it'll remain a wonderful week - we even plan to leave the house! Shocking! Though, we also plan to stay in and order a fatty pizza with all the trimmings, but nevermind. I'll just work extra hard with my exercising :D

   How has everyone else been lately? Do share! ♥ And also a last quick note to say that Have You Heard? is still live, and will remain so at least until the deadline, maybe longer if it's doing well.



  1. Oh Kim! This post is absolutely adorable and amazing. Happy 2nd anniversary!!! Everything you made was so precious. Jen and I do that as well, make stuff for one another - I draw and she's amazing with origami and will often make me pretty cranes!

    I too am a shower girl, but Jen? Total bath girl! So I shall totally buy some Lush products for her when I can. (Maybe for her b-day!)

    I've been wanting to play Shogun/Shogun 2 with Jen FOREVER, but we can't find the game. I think we'll try extra hard now!

    Bleach is an AMAZING anime. LOVE LOVE LOVE!

    Your clay products? Brilliant.

    Everything y'all did sounds so cute!!!

    1. You're in America aren't you? My boyfriend's friend moved from the Netherlands to the US last year and I think he had to download it from Amazon, or Steam or something - it cost something like $30 which was odd since in the UK a material copy only cost £5! Weird as hell. Seeg really enjoys it, though I'm not sure he's played Shogun, but he mentioned something about reviews saying that Shogun 2 was a much better game anyways, and it's totally worth trying out! And I watched more Bleach last night and I'm seeeriously being sucked in now! I must buy the next series! This is bad...when I get into a new program I just go all BUY -ALL- THE DVDS!!! *waves a broom around*

  2. Awwwwwww! What a great day :D Happy 2 year anniversary Kim & Seeg! I think you are very blessed to have found each other, most people never find anyone who fit as well as you do :) cute!

    I am so super jealous of your chestnut dragon btw - what a gift! And I'm eyeing up that lush dragon egg too - I ended up skipping that paragraph as I want to get the surprise :B Amazing work on the samurai surprises for Seeg too; your work on that sword is unbelievable! **envy**
    Hooray for celebrating!xx

    1. That bathbomb is seriously worth getting :D Lush are always full of surprises! And thank you, I was so chuffed with how well all of those little things came out, especially the black and white bauta ♥

  3. man, oh, man i sure am jealous!! wish there was a LUSH here but it doesn't seem as though it's ever opening. maybe because baths aren't the favourite here in my end of the world ))):

    what a lovely, lovely anniversary though! SUPER LUCKY GIRL, you are. and i dunno.. i like your card (to him) better. lol.

    1. Lush is the best, and fortunately they ship internationally ^^ And I am lucky ^^ I like the card I got him, too, I like that it's not just a simple...well just a simple flat surface, there's a little more to it, but I love the design on the one he got for me ^^

