Status Quo: Reconstruction - harder than it seems.

Huh, I haven't been updating on this topic for a while now, mainly because I was too tired from work during the week and to busy with the renovation on the week ends... We finally managed to get the bigger rooms to an acceptable state so we could do some cleaning. My boyfriend's dad helped out a lot and together the two of them did all the electrical wiring for our new kitchen. We still have to paint kitchen and hallway now, but other than that, we're done with painting.

I look so ridiculously happy there. 

That's what the other side of the room had looked like two weeks ago, before my parents had come over for one week end to help with the painting.

Bedroom - before

Bedroom - now.
Unfortunately the room is rather tiny and the MALM bed from Ikea is just huge .__. I wanted to have a make up table there too but I fear it won't be possible. The room is really crammed already...

Slowly, veeeery slowly we are approaching something like "livable" conditions in this apartment. I am actually currently sitting in our new "office room", we already spent two nights here but we're still far from finished.
We have tons of cardboard and Styrofoam and plastic foils from packaging, some moving boxes that we haven't unpacked yet because we have no place to store the stuff, some rooms are still quite dusty because there's still work going on, and above all, we have no doors.
Well, we have one bathroom door, which is fortunate, because we threw away all the others in the hope that the carpenter would deliver the new freaking doors in time before the end of August but he didn't. So we only have one door. At least it's the most important one. Still, it's kind of a weird feeling to live entirely door-less right now.

We will spend the week end cleaning up what we can, carrying out all the trash and packaging stuff that's left (some is in the basement right now) and ordering some kitchen equipment. I was thinking about having a little Birthday party at the end of the month, to celebrate our "house warming" too, but I highly doubt we will have the kitchen ready by then. Well, we can eat cold... but I do hope we will have at least those damned doors by then! XD

My birthday is in three weeks and I think for the first time in almost a decade I'm really looking forward to it. My wishlist is also bigger than ever, haha! But first priority is the apartment now, and before I buy new clothes or anything, we still need some furniture, lamps etc. I really wish I could get a make-up table but it seems there will be no space for it :(

I really miss wearing make up at the moment - there is just neither time nor occasion to wear any!  With my job in the lab and the work at home, it's just useless. But I have to do a review and take some photos for it, and I really hope I can get both done this Sunday, because it's been lying around for too long now and I'm feeling more and more guilty ;__; Anyway, I hope I'll get to wear some make up then!

So much for that!
It will get better soon - I have to keep telling that to myself to actually believe it, I really do hope we will finish all this soon and finally be able to relax a bit before university starts in October!

Monthly Random: August

Hello there, visitors of my neglected little blog!
It's really bugging me a lot that I don't get to write anything more often, but at the moment, my whole life is totally crazy and very, very exhausting. But it's time for another "Monthy Random" as August is coming to an end and while I have no big stories to tell I can at least throw in some random pictures taken in the last weeks.

I only wore make up 4 or 5 times this month :'D I feel really bored with my face because of that D:

That internship I started is taking its toll (having insomnia, rashes, cold sores... my body has a very funny way to deal with stress...). I'm working 10h or more every day, while my boyfriend is finishing the apartment renovation. We ordered some furniture and also our kitchen (it ended up being waaay more expensive than we had planned, but YOLO! ... I guess....), and by now all the walls are painted so we're really close to the finishing line! However, for every few steps forward we seem to go one step back again - this time, it was the carpenter who was supposed to craft and deliver our new doors, who told us he  won't be able to deliver everything till the middle of September....

Future bedroom :D The walls are all white, finally! ♥ I love white walls!
(Also: there's actually a decent floor underneath that cardboard cover. Just in case you thought it's cement or something)

Celebrated shark week with style! I got this lovely T-shirt from friends who went to the US during their holidays ♥ I love it so much! Too bad I currently can't find it because this place is a big mess and that 9m² bedroom is bursting with all my clothes and stuff.... ;__; I hope I find it again when we move out!

Went to see "Man of Steel" with my boyfriend and wore some "theme" make-up :D Do you remember my last "super hero inspired"  make up look that I wore to the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises last year? :D
WITH CHRISTIAN BALE, THE TRUE DARK KNIGHT!!!11 for now and ever! of course.

As you can see on the first picture of this entry, I had some fun with Directions hair dye! More photos to follow soon in a separate entry :3

 Spent several hours compiling a gigantic excel file in an attempt to figure out a schedule for the next semester. And of course, all the interesting subjects overlap -__-

At work I sometimes have long waiting times where have literally nothing useful to do. It feels feel awkward to just browse the internet while sitting in the office, even though I guess nobody minds... I used the time to make the schedule, but soon I really didn't have anything useful to do, so I started updating my Wish List with some Lolita items (that I won't be able to afford anytime soon anyway, but I can dream! XD).
On a related topic:  There's actually some pretty big news I haven't told you yet! I was chosen as a model for the fashion show at the Innocent World Tea Party!
I am really excited about it, as I have never been part of a fashion show. I feel extremely honored to be chosen, as I am not a Lolita for very long and also because I didn't really expect anything when I sent my application. I am curious what I will get to wear and how the show will be managed. I also have the coord I wanted to wear more or less completed, I am just not sure if my plans will interfere with the fashion show and if I will have to maybe adapt the styling or something. This is all really exiting and new for me, but I will do my best to not make them regret their choice :)

Talking about challenges. I haven't done ANY sports in the last two months. I feel really bad about it, but I am just too exhausted from work to even move an inch at night when I get home. But on the other hand, I also eat less because I just have no time - so at least I don't gain any weight right now. I swore to myself to take up a pilates routine again once we are settled at our new home!

I've been looking really boring lately, doing mostly boring stuff, so there aren't many pictures to show this time either. Anyhow, in case you wanna know what I'm up to you can always follow my twitter (where I currently rant most of the time :'D sorry!).  One of my favorite things to rant about right now is the public transport that I have to take each day to get to work and back home. It's funny and sad at the same time to rely on these means of transportations. Funny because of the inherent, unwritten rules people in trains and buses follow in order to make as little contact with strangers as possible:

If there is a seat next to a person, but also free double seats, you shall not take the seat next to the person. But if you sit next to a person because there was no other free space, and a free double seat opens up, you shall not go over to that seat without an awkwardly mumbled excuse, as it would be considered rude to the person you sat next to.
You shall not accept the fact that the bus driver is doing his job. You shall comment on his route when you feel like it, and talk audibly in third person about his rudeness for not letting the lady with the gigantic wheeled shopping bag leave that said bag standing in the aisle so that nobody can pass through.

If you leave a bag on the free seat next to you and other people have to keep standing because of that, nobody will ask you to remove it, but you shall burn in the sulfurous fires of hell anyway.
You shall never smile. Unless that lady who is talking on the phone so loudly that the whole bus can hear it suddenly realizes that everyone is following her conversation on her child's ballet course, and starts to talk in this weird, pretended whisper voice that is still perfectly audible for everyone.
Last but not least: If there is rail replacement bus service, it will always be so fucking slow that the express train that started half an hour later will pass you before you reach your destination. Also, if the rail repair work is said to last till 23. Aug, don't expect it to be finished before 1. Sep. When school starts again and the rails are not finished, mayhem shall be unleashed when school kids overrun the rail replacement buses!

Ah, the joys of public transport. That reminds me, I have to get to bed, getting up early to catch the train tomorrow morning.

I wish you a good night an hope you had a nice August! What did you do these last weeks, anything special?

My brother's wedding and other stuff ~

Wohooo finally something that remotely resembles an interesting entry on my blog, hahaha!

So this week end was my brother's wedding - the civil wedding was last week end, and this week end they got married in a church. The bride's family is rather religious, so despite my brother being atheist he agreed to the ceremony. The wedding was rather big with about 150 people and of course the party was great :3 The bride was so beautiful, I wish I could show you pictures of her! Her dress was in an empire-style waist line with a long train, it was offwhite and had two layers, the top layer made of lace and little gemstones. It sounds super kitschy but it was really, really beautiful. I don't think that I would wear such a dress personally but it suited her very well, and I liked it a lot :3 My brother, the groom, looked very handsome as well - with a gray suit and off white waistcoat and tie. Before the wedding he was joking around that he wants to wear a red suit, but the bride wasn't too happy with that idea so he gave in to her wishes, haha!

Unfortunately I have no photos of my outfit :< But I wore a pink floral summer dress with pink high heels, hehe

The ceremony was not at all boring - despite the fact that I haven't set a foot in a church in a while this was a church I knew very well because it was next to my elementary school, which was led by nuns, so of course it was rather religious school and we went to church quite often. So despite the fact that I consider myself an atheist, I have a lot of happy memories connected to that church - and my brother's wedding is just another happy one to add to this list! There were also two musicians who played piano & violin and sang beautifully - a very fitting accompaniment for the ceremony. This reminded me that I was thinking about joining a choir sometime in the future.

Make up: Nothing special, so I only took a quick cell phone snap. And my eyelid shape looks weeeeird D:

The party after the ceremony was held in a restaurant about 20min from the church, and my step dad had rented a pink Cadillac plus driver to take the bride and groom there! Another surprise for them were the 150 white balloons that we let fly as a surprise and as a symbol for good wishes. At the restaurant, friends of them had set up a camera and asked everyone to take a photo with this old fashioned frame. The photos were printed out right away and then they had this "wedding book", which wasn't like the usual books with blank pages but with different questions to fill out on each page, so you would put your photo on a page and fill in the questions ans good wishes based on different topics, such as family, love, happiness etc.
And they played a classic prank on the groom, where they would write the words "Help me!" on the soles of his shoes, so when he kneels down in church everyone can see it, hahaha.

The restaurant itself was beautifully decorated with flowers and little glass bottles filled with M&Ms were used for the name cards - as the couple's initials are M&M this used to be running gag for ages in out families. They also had bottles with bubble liquid on each table so people would occasionally turn the dance floor into a bubble disco! I danced a lot, and after about 13h in high heels I was totally exhausted around 2am. We left quite soon, thinking it was 3am already, as there was this old clock that had stopped at 2:50, hahaha! We later heard that this turned into a running gag for my cousin's boyfriend who got pretty drunk but kept insisting that it's "Not even 3am yet" and they could still party on - even when the sun rose around 5:30am, hehe. I kinda regret a little bit that we went home so early, but I was really exhausted from getting up early and the days before thanks to my internship and out renovation. But we met the next morning for breakfast, many people stayed at the place over night, my boyfriend and me spent the night at his dad's house which was close by. People were so tired and hungover, but still we had a lot of fun :) We then helped out to bring the presents and leftover cake etc. to their place, and my boyfriend and me spent the rest of the day in out apartment, painting the walls, feeling like Cinderella must have felt the day after the great ball, haha.

As for my outfit(s), I don't have any photos, unfortunately :< Just some close ups of my make up.

I spend hours cutting and styling my bangs before the event, haha! I haven't been to the hairdresser in over a year now, and the tips of my hair look a bit ratty. But I can't afford a hairdresser right now, so I'll at least cut my bands by myself. I think I'm slowly starting to get a feeling for it. And I should straighten my bangs more often, I like the way it looks! Too bad it's really difficult to style them when they're so flat...

The other day, for the civil wedding, I tried to curl my hair with paper curls! It was fun to try it but unfortunately it didn't work at all! The photo speaks for itself. It ended up a very curly, super voluminous mess! But it was okay, people around me don't even believe me my hair is "my real hair" anyway, hahah.
I didn't wear much make up to the event because I was asked to be the photographer for the event, and also, I was just kinda lazy and too scared that I might overdo it and stand out too much (as the civil wedding was only a small event with few people, and everyone as more on the casual side).

I'm sorry that I can't take any proper outfit photos right now... We're still staying at my parents' place and they have only one full-body mirror in the whole house and it's in a small room with bad light and an ugly background.... But I promise that once we're set up in our new apartment the photo quality will get better again. I have already checked for remote control programs for my camera, I have a camera stand (but no space for it here) and a beautiful, snow white wall just for the purpose of outfit photos! I also might be able to get a dress form so I can show some coords on it in the future. Mainly I wanna get one for sewing, and my cousin has one that she would be willing to give me. I just don't know if I'll be able to use it for sewing, it depends if the measurements fit or if it's adjustable. But even if it turns out that it doesn't have "my size", I think they're a pretty cool decoration :)

I still have five more weeks of internship to go, and in the meantime also have to finish the renovation... it seems like it will never end, but slowly, slowly we are making progress and I hope we'll be able to move in at the end of the month, even if we won't have a kitchen till the end of September.
Until then, please bear with my crappy cell phone photos and lack of interesting topics to talk about!

But back to the topic of weddings. I was wondering if any of my readers are married already?
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Two of my old high school friends are getting married soon. My brother has been with his girlfriend for 10 years now before they married. Their wedding day is actually their 10th anniversary. My boyfriend and me, we've been together for 7 1/2 years now.... maybe we'll get married for our 10th anniversary as well, haha! To me, marriage is a rather practical thing. If you buy a house together or have kids, it's better to be married for legal reasons I guess. Other than that, there are not many reasons to marry for me, as I don't believe in god. But a wedding, whether in a civil office or a church, is probably one of the most beautiful ceremonies mankind ever invented, and it's a wonderful way to express your love to another person and celebrate it with all other people you care about. It brings two families together, or, like in the case of my brother's wedding, even four families, as we are a patchwork family (my brother is actually my stepbrother, and he has step siblings his mother's side as well). So I guess I will marry some day, but I wanna earn my own money first so I can buy the most fabulously beautiful dress I could imagine, hahaha! 

How about you? Are you married? Do you plan to marry sooner or later in the future? Tell me about it ♥