new layout – Imaginary Sunshine

Morning tea and Swedish furniture walk into a bar…

Michelle — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 02:39:11 +0000

Imaginary Sunshine finally has a new theme! It has an absurd amount of layers for what it looks like (24, which seems like a lot to me for how simplistic it looks, but such is life!), I love pretty flowers. It was pointed to me a while ago by K how many of my WordPress themes have nature things being featured (the answer is a lot; you can see small screenshots of all my old themes).

I hung out with the family for most of today. We went out for dim sum (which was delicious – we got some of their new dishes, which is always fun to try). We go to that same restaurant so often, they know us by name now and always wonder where someone is if someone is missing in the family. So it’s a great place to go, love the service and they’re always nice (plus, the restaurant gets a lot of repeat customers). I always love going out for dim sum because it’s always fun to have the carts coming around to the tables. I don’t mind the places that give you a piece of paper to do all of your ordering, but it’s always more fun to get the carts. And the places that I find that have really good food and and really good service, I’ll actually remember by name. If I absolutely hated something about them (either the food was bad/poorly made or just crappy service), I’ll never remember their name except for “We’re not going to that crappy place that served us cold food, are we?” or “We’re not going to that place with that woman who slammed the dishes down in front of us again, right? Because I hated it there.” Places with good food & good service get rewarded. Bad service, bad food and bad establishments in general get a poor rating, in my mind, and do not deserve repeat customers. Luckily I’m not the only one who feels that way, because I’m generally not the one driving so I don’t really get much of a say in where we’re going…

And after that fun time going out for dim sum, we went grocery shopping. Then we had gone to Ikea and I got to listen to everyone squabble and get angry at each other over Expedit bookshelves. Yes, I know, my family argues very important things in life. I got annoyed with the arguing and went off with one of my sisters to look at the stuffed animals, the fun light fixtures (mostly designed for kids’ rooms, I know) and we got frozen yoghurt (which may or may not have been my primary reason for going along to Ikea in the first place…). My sister also bought some meatballs and other sister bought some pricey plasticware for the leak-proof-ness that it possessed (okay, maybe it wasn’t terribly pricey, but it seemed pricy to me!).

Another site that has it’s own customized WordPress theme now is 4alissia.com! I worked on it yesterday and today to get it done. If you hadn’t read my previous post, 4alissia.com is a website that’s dedicated to helping raise funds for Alissia’s medical expenses. Alissia is a 3 year old girl who was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer and had recently underwent a stem cell transplant. All donations and well-wishes and positive thinking makes a huge difference. Even if you can’t donate, just a blog post or a tweet about the website would be greatly appreciated!

Family dinner, lazy Sunday and W.A.S.P. part deux

Michelle — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 05:41:41 +0000

New layout for August (a few days late, but ehhhh, at least it’s not an August layout in September?). Also, there’s a new header and colour scheme up over at Little Miss Sophie.

I spent a couple hours at volunteering today, which was fun. We did trivia questions. I knew none of the sports question, but the one that I did get (that no one else got) was “What is the name of a fish that has both lungs and gills?”. I learned about it in my vertebrate biology class last year (the answer: Lungfish!). Thank you, university, for teaching me something education and almost practical and useful! The rest of the time was pretty okay, just spent some time playing cards and serving cookies to people.

I did a bit more baking today (more cookies) and I started a thread crochet project that I’m currently cursing at (… because it’s thread crochet). I didn’t get any sewing done today, which was rather disappointing as I had planned on doing it. But my parents decided to have company over (my uncle and aunt). My aunt spent the time during dinner gushing about how well behaved my sisters and I are compared to her grandchildren (who are spoiled hellions, to put it as politely as I can manage it).

The last time we went out for dinner with my aunt and uncle, my cousin and my cousin’s kids, they refused to eat something that *they* wanted to get off of the menu and my aunt (their grandmother) was about to fold and just let them order something else (even though no one wanted what had been previously ordered). So my sister intervened and told them that they would have to split the cost of that dish (it was like $5 from each of the three of them) that they had ordered in order to be allowed to get the second dish. They absolutely balked at the idea of having to “actually” pay for food (that they wanted and then changed their minds!) that they weren’t going to eat. So they opted for eating (the entire dish!) so they wouldn’t have to give up their “hard earned cash” (they don’t do chores and get allowance… and they complain about how difficult it is to be a kid these days, really?!).

And on the W.A.S.P. situation (mentioned yesterday)… Not a whole lot has changed. We’ve set out an empty pop bottle (the 2L variety) with a mixture of honey (smells sweet) with dish detergent and some water. There’s already a few wasps inside. They go in for the sweet smell, but end up getting trapped and dying… Yay for insecticide that’s somewhat non-chemical-filled and somewhat natural! So there’s a few wasps floating around because, well, they’re kinda dead… Don’t worry, we’ll make sure they’ll get a proper burial (a la garbage can – with the lid on the bottle).

When I grow up, I want to win the lottery

Michelle — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 08:01:37 +0000

My sister was telling me about how the lottery jackpot in the state that she’s currently living in (California) is like 200+ million dollars, US. But then after taxes, it’s a lot closer to a 100 million dollars. Due to taxes and whatnot. I can only imagine what kind of advertisements I’d see in Canada if they did that as well for lotteries. But here, the winnings being advertised as usually the winnings that you get (unless 3 other people draw the same numbers as you do) because the winnings are taxed prior to you receiving them, and they advertise the post-taxed total only. So she was lamenting about that. And all I could say was “Why are you complaining? Hey, if you happen to win the lottery and you ‘only’ get a hundred million, I will gladly take it off of your hands so that you’re not burdened with it!” I’m a great sister, I realize.

I’d set $5,000 into a Tax-Free Savings Account, set aside the maximum that I could put into an RRSP (can’t remember the percentage of your annual income anymore), set aside $30,000 for future education costs (whoot!) and the rest can be put towards my own place (~$1 million, max), a practical car, my parents (… because I’ll never hear the end of it if I don’t give something to my parents… And then, just to be fair, my sisters – so let’s say $10 million each, if I’m feeling generous). So that’s up to about like… $41,145,000… And since the jackpot’s going to be around $120 million, that’s a lot left over to play around with. I could try the stock market, buy up a lot of real estate, donate to worthy causes, travel around the world (in style), try a few business ventures (and can afford to have them fail). Or buy approximately 11,588,550 domains (well, not counting .nu names) (if I was feeling frivolous). But that’s only if she decided to give me her winnings. Which I doubt she would (but hopefully she’d be generous, like I would be to her, in the event that she wins?) I am an awesome younger sister. I should remind her of that. Oh, and I should remind her of the fact that she loves me very much because there’s only one of me in the whole wide world.

So I hope you all have noticed the new look and colour scheme… I was feeling a bit into the neutral tones (besides the green) since I went and made a somewhat bright and cheery theme for Chelle-Chelle.com for the month of March. I couldn’t resist the fishes. But then I stumbled across the lovely photo that’s gracing your computer monitor right now and I couldn’t resist it either. Since CC.com got the more somber theme last time, I figured it was time for IS.com to get something that was a little on the neutral side (in terms of colour). Changed up the coding a little bit (I’m gesturing to the dotted line right now) and the placement of the comments link. Apparently I’m a fan of the left-alignment? Who would have thought!

I’ve driven my sister absolutely insane for the last 6 hours by listening to the Lily Allen album (It’s Not Me, It’s You) on repeat. I’m a great sister. But hey, at least now I can make a half-decent attempt at singing in a British accent. Plus, you know, it’s nice to be able to hear what people are singing when they’re singing (rather than listening to pop-opera, I kid you not, because my sister thinks that they’re brilliant – even if she can’t know what the words are unless she’s attempting to follow along with the lyrics on the computer screen in front of her).

Questions:
1. If you won exactly $100 million dollars (or whatever currency you’re used to) what would you do with it?
2. What album (or just a few songs) have you been listening to repeat on lately?
3. What kind of mp3 player would you suggest for someone who wants something small (less than 10gb) that has a screen, no internal moving parts (i.e. nothing with a hard drive inside) and something that can be used for running (and won’t be annoying)? Oh, plus it should be either black, silver or red. And a non-Apple product.

Daisies, daisies everywhere…

Michelle — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:45:28 +0000

Well, I’d rather that there be daisies everywhere rather than fog and snow and rain and mist and oh my gosh, the slush. I hate the slush. And getting splashed with slush. And rude people on public transit and weird people who stare at me (when I’m sitting next to them, not across from them, ughh). But umm.. Yeah. Other than that, there’s a new theme up. I was actually going to go for a red, white, pink, lace, hearts and rainbows and all other cheery things that are related to Valentine’s Day (which is happening in twelve days – still haven’t settled on a cookie recipe, I’ll probably end up baking on the Friday before hand, go me!). But then… I remembered that I’m not really into red, white and pink. Or hearts, for that matter. I do like rainbows, but only in moderation and half the time they’re not very spectacularly photographed. Which leaves me with things that I do like. Teddy bears, baked goods and daisies. And since none of my teddies were feeling photogenic today (and trust me, I tried! Poor things, I probably accidentally kicked them in my sleep or something, they were positively sulky-looking in the photos that I took of them) and I couldn’t find any photos of baked goods that I liked, I ‘settled’ (… erm, more like ‘jumped straight to’) on daisies. Which make me happy. Plus it’s green, which makes me even more happy! So it’s just a happy-happy theme all around, eh?

Watch me hate it within a few days. Just watch. Karma will come around and kick my butt or something. In a “You shouldn’t have said that you liked it, damn you!” fashion. I should really stop personifying my cosmic fate like it’s destined since I don’t believe in that crap.

Anyways… How has your Monday been? I attended my classes… Found out that my English lit prof (the one with the lovely, lovely New Zealand accent) is basically a blessing in disguise. By the time the midterm exam rolls around, we will have read several different texts and he’s taking roughly half of them out so we’ll only be getting tested on half of the material that we’ve done. That basically means that I don’t need to reread/study 200+ pages of Old English and Middle English texts. I love him, I swear I do.

My psych prof is MIA this week. Which is basically really bad considering she’s canceled next Monday’s lecture so that we can study for the midterm but the midterm’s on the following Wednesday so as a class, we’re unable to email her questions and whatnot as she’s currently in a remote area of Africa helping a team of psychologists from one of the Ivy League schools do a study (she’s apparently a big name…? I’m not well-versed in modern-day psychologists to know how well-known she is, I’m afraid). Ugh…

My biology lab tomorrow morning has been canceled due to the fact that he doesn’t want us all the wake up super early for no reason if we don’t feel the need to attend. All we need to do is hand in our lab report and study for the quiz the following week. I really have no issues with this at all! More sleep for me! Actually, I’m not really going to be sleeping in tomorrow morning. I’m going to be waking up early and reviewing my psychology notes and probably my chem notes and I’m going to be getting to school ahead of time so that I can get some study time in at the library since I just cannot study in the mornings when my dad’s still home as he just starts talking to me and asks if I’ve eaten anything for breakfast and if I’m going to be eating lunch before I go and if I want to help him with some assorted task or why is television ‘acting up’ again.

Yay, new layouts all around!

Michelle — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:12:38 +0000

… WordPress just ate my entry.

So here’s the shorter, revised entry that holds basically the same information.

Chelle-Chelle.com and AmesRPG.com both got new layouts (ahead of schedule, might I add, as I was planning on getting new layouts and themes up on the 1st) so I decided to put up the new theme here as well. I found out that I’m likely to have plans with the family on the 1st as that’s the day that my sister’s leaving to go back to LA so we’re likely to head out for lunch or something before dropping her off at the airport.

That being said, there’s something else besides a new layout here and that’s Icon Challenges! Icon Challenge #1 is really easy to start things off nicely. Just one 100×100 icon about your favourite television show.

I also talked on the phone with the boyfriend for about an hour today. He made me smile.

Faked optimism at its best.

Michelle — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:42:08 +0000

I just reread all that I wrote last night and realized that I sound like an incredibly ungrateful spoiled brat. Which I’m not. I sincerely hope. So to start things off on a good note today… I pulled out a crochet hook and some yarn and started on my lace shawl that I’m making for myself (my sister made for herself and I’m borrowing her pattern book so I can make one for myself – in a different colour). Also watched some more Planet Earth today. Didn’t curse at all at my sister today. Even though while I was folding laundry, she took it upon herself to go “Ohh, I haven’t seen this shirt yet, is it new?” and then she takes my clothes to go try on. I could have told her that it wasn’t going to fit, in fact I did. But does she listen? No. She’s 5″ taller than me and is not the same size as me, she’s not going to fit my t-shirts or hoodies, I’m sorry she’s not 5’1″ anymore…? But I like my clothing to not be stretched out.

… Right, I wanted to sound positive today. I’m kind of failing at that, I guess?

Chelle-Chelle.com has a new layout – the header image changes whenever you refresh the page (there’s 7 different images in total).

I’ve reread The Little Prince today while I was just huddled in my bed underneath three different blankets because my room’s so cold. It was nice, such a cute book. And no matter how many times I reread it, I still love the story and the little illustrations. I’m going to reread Twilight later because I’m just in the mood for some Edward Cullen. Maybe watch another episode of Planet Earth too.

I still want a holiday from my holiday though, it’d be nice…

Lah de dah ~

Michelle — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:19:23 +0000

2 hours and 41 minutes until NaNoWriMo!

Oh, and there’s a new layout up.

It’s about time

Michelle — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:40:44 +0000

AmesRPG.com – my baby of 2+ years is finally getting into some big-kid clothes and moving up in the world. I’m crazy happy about it, so are all of the wonderful members who roleplay there, I love them all, they’re so great and supportive. Anyways, go check it out. It’s my ‘void of colour’ layout for the game (previous layouts were blue [a lot of blue-themed layouts], tan, purple and… I think that’s about it). So far, I’ve gotten some really great comments from some of the players already. A lot of them love it, some of them went “It’s about freaking time!” – so it’s all really encouraging and a great community of roleplayers (hinthint for anyone who’s reading this and into play-by-post roleplaying games!).

I got my bio lab done today (4 pages… of pure text… no graphs, no tables. Once I added the tables, it was 7 pages). Which is good, since it’s due at 9am on Tuesday morning. I’m about halfway done the the bio notes for my other bio class and I’m going to be rereading Great Expectations tonight and on the bus to school tomorrow morning. Also, I’m dragging along a stack of bio notes that need to be copied over to my notebook to school tomorrow so I have something (remotely) productive to do. If anyone notices that I’m online – please smack me.

New layout

Michelle — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:58:34 +0000

It’s a little overdue so here it is. I’m hoping there’s no issues as I finished the images last night and just fixed the css within the last 15 minutes. And now it’s time for class so… Have a good Friday, everyone! I’ll probably blog more later. Like how I haven’t heard from the boyfriend in over two days. Or how I have a paper due in two weeks that I want to get done within the next forty-eight hours. Or something like that.