Restart?

I haven't been doing a great job of updating my blogs lately. I think it is not so much that my life is busier than usual. Rather it is because my computer has become a mess. It's so full of pictures, I have nearly no memory left! I bought an external hard drive ages ago, and I finally have it all formatted (typically for me, that was a process...) and am copying pictures onto it. But me being me, I'm having trouble with the concept of actually *deleting* things. So where other people would go Step 1: Copy files to external drive. Step 2: Erase files from computer. Step 3: Enjoy all your new space! For me, it is a much more labored process. So my computer time is actually tending to be devoted to dealing with that, or to keeping my flickr account organized. Because, as much as I have clearly flooded my computer with photos, I can't. stop. taking. them. ARRGHH!!!
I also realize that I tend to treat flickr as a blog already, so it is hard to know exactly how to make the content here unique. I'm still working on figuring out an answer to that dilemma... In the meantime, here's some slightly repetitive content. ;)

I've been going slightly crazy with taking photos in stores. It's my method of saving money! XD If I photo it, I don't *have* to buy it. So here's my little report on Barbie furniture and clothing at Toys R Us. I did it comics style to make up for the fact that the photos are kind of lousy. Some of the photos are of pages in this little catalog of Barbie items that I grabbed at the store...


(click to make the photo bigger - you'll be brought over to my flickr account...)












This last one is not in comics form because I started editing it in Photoshop before I realized that Comiclife would make more sense to do what I wanted. I ran out of time and energy, however, before I could redo it. But I just wanted to show a (unfortunately bad) picture of Holiday Barbie because I really like her. I am worried I'm going to accidentally become a Barbie collector at this rate. I want to buy her for the dress, but it's like the Sanrio Barbies - the Barbie herself is kind of cool, and I really like the package! For the Sanrio ones, I like the package so much I still haven't ever taken them out of the box to use the clothes... ^^;

I never got around to showing a picture, but I was able to get My Melody Barbie for a really good price. (Now if I could just get the My Melody Pullip too, I'd feel all set...) It's so tempting to leave her in the box, but the clothes are just too adorable to *never* use. The shoes are esp. cute!

July 4 Weekend

Space, the final frontier..., originally uploaded by esmereldes.

If you live in the US, I hope you had a lovely 4th of July! If you live outside the US, I know that a lot of countries had independence celebrations recently, so I hope those were enjoyable too!

We had a 3-day weekend, and I was really looking forward to using it to catch up on things. I was particularly in need of some down time to try to organize all of my various collections. One problem with all this toy collecting is that storing or displaying everything is quite a challenge. It takes up a lot of space, and as I am constantly buying - and trading, if not selling (wish I did more selling.... <.<) - my collection is always in flux. And I'm always disarranging my storage as I move things around to take photos. So it really tends to always leave things messy and disorganized. Add that to a room that doesn't always get the attention that it needs from a busy person, and well, a 3 day weekend to sort it out seems like a real blessing... Unfortunately, I think I needed more like a week! >.< But I got my Hello Kitty stuff largely squared back away, and I threw out some old papers I didn't need, etc. etc. I have a bunch more to do for my long-term display goals, but I guess it's always good to have projects.... Uh, or so I'm telling myself.... ^^;

Anyway, I am afraid I also did some Hello Kitty shopping too! I can't seem to stop lately! It is pure evil that they are selling Hello Kitty stuff at all the craft stores, and also at Target. Those are my most frequent shopping areas! And now I can't buy anything practical without the temptation of seeing Kitty things! Wah! Not to mention the weekly 40% off coupons at A.C. Moore make me feel it is almost criminal if I don't use them to buy *something* Hello Kitty. So I ended up buying a small plushie, a weekly planner, some tiny notebooks (for gifts!), and a dish set. And possibly something else. I've already forgotten... *wince*
(I also bought a Barbie on clearance to steal her clothes. Spoiled rotten pullips!)

This is not part of the dish set that I bought, I bought this two weeks ago:



I love this design! There are other things I've seen with this cooking design, but not many.

Here's the side view:



There's a really cute tray in this design that I just saw on Friday while my friend and I were doing some shopping after our July 4 picnic. I was really tempted by it, but I don't really need a Hello Kitty serving tray. I can sort of get away with saying I "need" a dish, but not really... I ended up leaving it at my dad's apartment. I think I won't be eating with it, I just thought I'd leave it on the bureau as a place to keep earrings and hairclips. I find having a designated "home" for these things really helps keep them from getting lost.

So, overall, I'm feeling a bit guilty and wondering if I should return the dish set I just bought. That also has a plastic bowl, but comes with a matching plate and glass. Plus a spoon and fork. It's made of the same plastic tho, which I know is not that durable. I think I probably can't justify the purchase by saying I 'need' it for anything, but I am really reluctant to return it - it's so cute! I'll take a picture of it soon. And see if my guilty conscience wins, or my Hello Kitty hoarding problem...

UPDATE
Here's a shot of the aforementioned Hello Kitty plates:

I think I plan to return them now. They are awfully cute, but they are clearly for kids and probably not too useful for me overall. And I've been spending money like there's no tomorrow on Kitty things. That has to slow down a bit!

In Search Of...

My Melody Bag, originally uploaded by esmereldes.

Thanks to the influence of Flickr (I won't say good or bad... <.<) I seem to get sent off on shopping 'quests' these days. I'll see something is popular with folks on Flickr, and I'll get curious to see if I can find it locally. Most recently, it has been macarons. But often it is a looser sort of thing. I won't necessarily be going out of my way to find something, but I'll end up wanting to photograph something I see in a store because I know people have been talking about it. For instance, anything with an owl on it. Sanrio items tend to be a little of both. I always want to photograph them (or buy them... ^^;) when I see them, but I will also sometimes go out looking for a specific pattern or character if I read about them.

So, recently, I saw on someone's blog (and I'm sorry, I lost the link. I'll look for it again...) that there was a bunch of My Melody stuff at Wal-Mart. We don't really have those here, but I decided to look in CT where they do (I live too near the city, and I think Wal-Mart hasn't been able to get any property in the city. Makes sense - a big store like that would be really expensive!). I guess I am not lucky tho, because I found nearly nothing. Just this and some little kids' clothes. Ah well.

I used to be one of those wal-mart haters on principle, back when everyone hated wal-mart and starbucks. But I mellowed or something as I got older and decided that was stupid, and I should give it a chance. I gotta admit tho - I never seem to buy anything there! I think I bought some candy once. Meanwhile I may as well just surrender my wallet at the door when I go into Target. I guess I can see whose marketing is aimed most correctly at my demographic. For better or for worse...

I haven't done any side-by-side comparisons of prices, but I think that wal-mart is not any cheaper than Target for the most part. At least not for the things I personally buy - like cereal and contact lens solution - so it's really all a matter of the 'vibe' when you shop there I guess. Wal-mart is deliberately very warehouse-like and I find that depressing. I don't like to shop in the costcos and sam's clubs of the world either, tho in that case, the problem is more that I cannot find a use for 37 pounds of cereal at one time, even if it is cheaper that way. Buying in bulk doesn't do it for me. The stores seem dark and a little dirty to me somehow. Target meanwhile is very bright and has carpeting and reminds me of the caldor's and bradlee's of my youth. I actually work (sort of) in marketing, so I have read about Target's marketing strategies, and I can understand why they work on me, but it doesn't change the fact that I always seem to impulse buy in Target and never in Wal-Mart.

Accidental Blogging Holiday

Falada, originally uploaded by esmereldes.

"Nightfall apologizes for disappearing off the face of the earth recently (at least as far as concerns blogging) and will try to catch up soon. She has to! I'm new here and I want lots of pictures!"