This Week in My Happy Planner: Dolce Vita, Books, Crafts & Almost Moved!

This week’s Happy Planner layout is decorated with Miqueka Scrap’s newest collection, Dolce Vita! I actually decorated my August calendar spread with the same stickers because it’s my birth month and it is indeed a sweet life. 

I’m also planning on using this weekly spread for my third project for Miqueka this week, but I want to take nicer photos of it first. So yes, I haven’t written anything on it yet and it is already Wednesday. Hahaha!

In my defense, I have been packing our things, working on projects, and ironing. So. Much. Ironing. Does it ever end?! No, it doesn't. haha.

 I am really looking forward to finally finishing this move so I can rest and actually start enjoying our new home instead of constantly packing, unpacking, driving back and forth, and wondering which apartment has the thing I’m looking for. Haha!

I’m Reading Again!

Anywhooo, I crammed some reading into the past two weeks just so I could finally get back into it. I haven’t been blogging about my books like I used to because the first book I read this month, Daisy Darker, was quite a drag.

I didn’t think I’d finish it within the month, but even though it dragged in some parts, THE ENDING WAS ACTUALLY GOOD!

So good that it made me want to go back through the book just to see if everything actually made sense from the beginning.

SPOILER ALERT!
Do not read beyond this line if you don’t want to be spoiled! Just jump ahead to my Bookmory screenshot. 

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m not really fond of whodunnit books... you know, those murder mysteries where a group of people gets stranded somewhere and suddenly someone dies… and then people keep dying one by one.

That’s basically Daisy Darker.

Daisy’s family starts dying one by one until only Daisy, her sisters, her niece, and a family friend are left.

But long story short…

DAISY WAS ALREADY DEAD.

Her grandmother, who was the first to supposedly “die,” was actually pretending to be dead and was in cahoots with Daisy’s niece, who was behind the killings.

Why?

Because Daisy’s older sisters and their family friend were responsible for Daisy’s death when she was 12 years old! They accidentally hit her with a car and, thinking she was dead, decided not to admit what happened because they didn’t want to ruin their lives. Instead, they threw her off a cliff.

Except Daisy regained consciousness just as they let her go.

And they all saw it.

Daisy died, but her soul continued wandering around as if she were still alive, not realizing that she had already passed away. Her niece could see her, though, and the two would talk and hang out. Eventually, her niece learned what really happened to Daisy and told their grandmother.

And that’s when they started plotting their revenge.

WHAT?!

That’s why I wanted to go back to the beginning and see if all the clues were actually there and if it really made sense that Daisy had been dead the whole time. It reminded me of The Sixth Sense!

It was pretty good, actually. Never mind that it was kinda dragging. Haha!

And now I don’t know why this Happy Planner blog post suddenly turned into a book review. 

Anyway, I guess that’s it for my reading this month: 3 books! Not a lot compared to my previous months, but at least I’m back!

A Few More Al Ahsa Favorites Before We Leave

We’re still slowly checking things off our list of things to do before we officially leave Al Ahsa.

We finally ate at Half Lemon again! There is actually a Half Lemon just about 10 minutes away from our new apartment in Al Khobar, but the Al Ahsa branch was our first milk tea place there, so it will always be a little special to us. 

Then I discovered Fried Mantou! It's like friend bread that's crispy on the outside but oh so soft in the inside. It comes with a dipping sauce which i think is just condensed milk. But it was soooo good! A few days after this, we had take out of the Fried Mantou but it wasn't as good taken home than when you eat it so fresh in the resto.

We also ate at Shrimp Zone, our go-to place for shrimp!

Although… we were already halfway through eating when I remembered I should take photos. Hehe. So here it is, just one of the three things we ordered: Cajun shrimp! We also had creamy lemon shrimp, chicken tenders, and mushroom soup.

Crafting Lately

I am still doing Fuumuui’s Watercolor Month #FuumuuiPaintAnywhere Challenge, and I’m now on Day 13!

And of course, I’m still doing everything Harry Potter. 

Three more days!!!

This project has been a REAL commitment. Haha! But I’m so close to finishing all 16 days now, and I’m really happy that I stuck with it.

Traci Reed Designs

We had a new collection released last Friday called Carefree Days, and I love the colors! It reminds me a little of the Brighter Days collection because it has the same kind of colors I love.

For the release, I finally finished my Traveler’s Notebook memory keeping for Days 4 to 9, the remaining days of our trip in Barcelona!

I actually ended up using three different Traci Reed Designs collections to document that trip. I think that deserves a separate blog post because I have a lot to share about that TN!

Then for my IG Hop project, of course I made my usual…

A pretty mini album. 

What else?

I also had a solo blog post this week where I made a Pouch Journal Cover, and I LOVE LOVE how this one turned out! Traci was happy with it too, which made me even happier.

I posted a reel of it on Instagram this evening and have already gotten a few new follows from it! A little happy crafty win. 

And for this week’s Sweet Steals sale, I made another scrapbook page that will be going into the scrapbook I’m making for my mom.

Read about it here:

Dive On In to Fun with the Poolside Collection!

Bee Happy Crafts

Small win: one month into the BA program and I haven’t been late on a project yet!

Yes, yes, I know, I promised I would start blogging about my Bee Happy projects one by one too. 

But we’re required to make reels, and whenever I’m busy taking videos of my projects, I somehow always forget to take photos for the blog. Haha!

But here are the projects I’ve made that have already been published!

Moving, Moving… and More Moving!

Over the weekend, we made two trips back and forth between Al Ahsa and Al Khobar to move more of our stuff.

On the second trip, our friend Jay joined us, which meant we had an extra car FULL of things. That definitely helped!

The State of My Craft Rooms

And speaking of moving… here’s the current state of my old craft room.

There’s barely anything left in there now! Well, except for my craft table and another table that isn’t in the photo. Seeing it this empty feels so strange after having it filled with all my crafty things for so long.

I also finally had to say goodbye to my boxes of color-sorted cardstock scraps. Ouch. 

I did bring the boxes themselves to the new craft room since they’re collapsible and easy enough to move, but the scraps were surprisingly heavy. At this point, with everything we still have to bring over, I had to decide if they were really worth moving.

Anyway, a lot of that pile was made up of very small scraps that were barely useful anyway.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself. Hahaha!

I guess I’ll just think of it as a fresh start for my cardstock scraps. New craft room, new scrap stash! It still hurt a little to let all those pretty colors go, though. You know how hard it is for a crafter to throw away a perfectly good piece of cardstock because what if I need that exact tiny piece someday?! 

And then there’s the new craft room…

Right now, it’s basically piles of craft supplies on the floor and more craft supplies piled onto the shelves and cabinet. Haha! Definitely not quite the pretty, organized craft room I’m imagining just yet, but we’re getting there.

I washed all the baskets I use to store my stash, and I’ll probably start sorting everything into them today. I’m actually looking forward to finally organizing this room properly because once everything has a home again, I think the new craft room, and the whole apartment, will start feeling much more settled.

For now, though, welcome to my glamorous craft room moving era: empty shelves in Al Ahsa and crafty chaos in Al Khobar. 

I think Lucky is also starting to feel a little more at home in the new apartment. On our second day there, he was already sleeping alone in the master bedroom instead of following me around everywhere.

He also used to jump on the table in our old apartment, and apparently he has decided that the same rule applies in the new one. 

The difference is that our new table is longer and connected to the sink, forming an L-shape. There’s a little corner where the table and sink meet, and I think Lucky has decided that it might be his new favorite spot.

I better think of something to put there before he officially claims it as his own!

On Saturday, I also cooked my first home-cooked meal in the new apartment, tapsilog!

We had to eat it using paper plates, disposable utensils, and paper cups, though. Hehe. We haven’t gotten around to moving the plates yet!

We also had our first visitors last Saturday, and yes, I’m posting a faced photo here again for posterity! These are the little moments I know I’ll be happy to look back on someday.

Then last night, Tuesday, we drove to Al Khobar again because Ton needed to report to the office here on Wednesday.

We’ll drive back to Al Ahsa again Wednesday night, but at least that meant we got to bring another batch of our things with us when we drive back Thursday evening.

We’re almost finished!

It feels like we’ve been living between two homes, two cities, piles of boxes, craft projects, deadlines, and never-ending ironing for weeks now.  But little by little, the new apartment is starting to feel more like our home.

And seeing Lucky settle in, cooking our first meal, welcoming our first visitors, and slowly (literally haha) bringing more of our things over makes it feel a little more real each time.

Very soon, there will be no more back-and-forth trips, no more wondering which apartment our stuff is in.

For now, I’m just happy that despite all the moving craziness, I still managed to craft, watercolor, read three books, meet my deadlines, and document another week in my Happy Planner.

Almost there, Al Khobar.