Happy Monday, my lovely readers! I can’t believe it’s Monday again. The weeks have just been flying by, November will be here before we know it, and I feel like there’s still so much I need to do before the move. It’s time to up my productivity! Luckily I have all of my content planned out for the weeks to come, I just have to film, edit and write everything and make sure it’s all scheduled. I’ve been trying to come up with a moving schedule today so that I know when to do what and to be sure I don’t forget anything. Any tips from experienced movers would be more than welcome! Anyways, let’s take a look at what I was up to last week through my photo diary :)
My brother helped me make a model of our new apartment in SketchUp, including most of the furniture we’re planning to buy. Look how tiny it is, haha! It’s actually even smaller in real life, as we made the kitchen way too long in the model. It’s really nice have such a 3D model of the house though, and to be able to move furniture around digitally before we decide to purchase anything.
Monday was spent at my parents’, as always. I did all of my administrative tasks, answered the emails that came in over the weekend, and wrote my diary. Then I set to cleaning and organising my bedroom here. I still have so much stuff to sort through, and determine what’s going to come to the new apartment, what’s going to stay, and what’s going to be donated or tossed.
After dance class in the evening I headed home to Utrecht. I started reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility on the train. I’ve only read part of the first chapter, but so far it’s been really interesting. I feel like I’m going to learn a lot from this book!
This week’s groceries: corn bread, crisps, soy butter, grapes, cherry tomatoes, fresh sage, potatoes, puff pastry, soy milk, kruidnoten (Sinterklaas cookies, oh yes!), butternut squash, apples, tomato puree, baba ganoush and spicy hummus.
Robbert’s dad gave me a lily bulb last week, and it’s actually growing! I wasn’t expecting it to as I put it in a really shallow layer of dirt, but it seems to be doing well so I’ll have to go out and get more dirt for it soon. Can’t wait to see what the flower will look like when it comes out.
I painted my nails black for the first time in years, and I think I’ve fallen in love with the look. It looks so clean and classy! Or well, in my opinion it does :) What do you think: yay or nay? I’ll definitely be sporting black polish more often.
On Tuesday, the time came to film my first Halloween video of the year. I decided to put on a wig for a change of hair colour, and I arrived at this one. Despite being synthetic, I think this wig is really gorgeous. I wish my real hair was this length and thickness…
I styled the wig in a half-up pony. The wig is really full at the top and front, and pulling that hair back makes it look a bit more natural.
Halloween setup! One thing I haven’t figured out about the new apartment yet is where I’m going to film. I do have a spot where I want to hang my mirror for hair tutorials, but I’ll have to figure out where to film all the makeup/front view bits.
The finished look. A simple but still nice and creepy jack-o’-lantern makeup.
In the evening I made this delicious pumpkin and sage pie for my friends who came over. There’s a recipe up for it, if you’re interested.
We played D&D for a few hours and managed to level up. My dragonborn fighter Tashan is now at level 5! We’ve been playing for a few years but we have three running campaigns and we like to take things nice and slow, so there’s little chance of the game ever ending :)
Next morning Robbert and I spent some time looking at furniture online. Yes, I spend a lot of time looking at furniture online nowadays. I have a decent size IKEA shopping list at the moment, but I’ve also been looking at some other furniture stores. It feels like I’m cheating on IKEA, looking at all these different stores, but I like to know my options, haha! I’ll admit though, I’ve had my eyes on things from other stores a few times, only to decide the IKEA version would be better anyways. Once a fangirl, always a fangirl ;)
The traditional post-Halloween tutorial brush clean. Cleaning makeup brushes is one of my least favourite chores, but singing along to some music makes it much more bearable.
I went over to my parents’ house on Friday evening, and started assembling my costume for the murder mystery dinner that my friends were having on Saturday evening. The hosts set the whole thing in 1828 and me being who I am, I wanted to make my costume as accurate as I could. This was about the best I could do, haha!
The next day my family and I went to the Apenheul, a huge monkey zoo. I really like this place. You can tell that the animals are well taken care of, they have a lot of space, and in a large portion of the park you actually walk among the monkeys (the ones that aren’t dangerous, of course). The weather was lovely and we spent all day there.
On Saturday morning I went over to the scouting as a substitute leader for the little kids. They spent all morning gathering crystals through games and quizzes, and then we made little crowns with them.
In the afternoon, it was time for the costume dinner! Oh my, was this great. The hosts put SO much work and effort into writing the story and all the characters’ backgrounds. Everything came together wonderfully and we did end up solving the murder after many hours, right at the very end. The whole evening was so much fun! I stayed the night, and went back to Utrecht next morning.
When I arrived home I had just enough time to unpack, fold some laundry that I’d left on the drying rack…
edit and upload the zipper braid tutorial…
and do a little bit of knitting, before my dad and brother arrived. I made them dinner and then we all walked over to the city center.
We went to see Wardruna in the evening! The concert was magical as always. The support act, Kaunan, was wonderful as well. A fantastic show! :)
And that was my week. The next couple of weeks I have more empty slots in my calendar so hopefully I’ll be able to get a good amount of work done before the move. Have a wonderful week, everybody!
I’m waiting so badly to see your new apartment and how you decorate it!!!, also, I really feel identified with you, I’ve been with my boyfriend for 4 years now and it has been imposible for us to move together, I think that’s what I wish the most for now but we’ll just have to work a bit harder in the next years so that we can make it a reality.
The new apartment is going to be so cute! I’m glad you can plan in advance.
This is off topic from the post, but last week I met a friend’s friend who is visiting the US from the Netherlands. I asked her if she’d ever been to the Efteling. She got the exact same look you get when you talk about it! It must be a magical place! :)
Hello Lucy,
You make amazing videos and you always make me happy. I am going to get bangs. All of your hairstyles are very unique.
Sketchup looks cool! I am having 2 rooms in my house remodeled, and I need a tool like that to help my husband understand what in the heck I’m doing to these rooms :) Good luck with packing and moving! We’re in our forever home now, but I remember the days of moving every few years. It’s a lot of work, but so exciting to be in a new space.
A few things I always did when moving:
1) I liked labeling my boxes with what was inside, and doing a secondary label of what room I wanted the box to be put in. That way you know exactly where everything is.
2) Other than items you need to access day-to-day, pack everything else up early.
3) Purge as you pack. Packing to move is a great way to get rid of things you don’t need anymore, or don’t want in the new space.
4) Start collecting your moving supplies early: boxes, packing tape, bubble wrap, markers, etc.
5) When you arrive at your new space, a great first thing to do is to set up your bed and make it. That way when you are exhausted from your move, you can crash that night & your bed is all ready to go.
6) Set up all of your utilities (water, electric, etc). in your name as soon as you can.
Thanks for the tips, Mellie! :D
Wow, that really is tiny! How does it compare to your current place in terms of square meters? Of course just being able to live with Robert and not sharing a bath/hallway with strangers probably more makes up for it still being small!
The new apartment is 45m2, plus a 5m2 storage unit downstairs. My studio is 17m2, including the kitchen but without the bathroom and hallway. So the new place is significantly bigger in terms of private space, but I’m not sure it’ll actually feel much bigger. I don’t really mind living in a small space though, especially when we do have separate rooms where we can get away from each other, haha :) I like the cozy den feeling a small space gives!
I definitely underestimated how tiny your current place is then. You just use the space so well it seems bigger! :)
I agree that small spaces can be really nice, it’s a lot less to clean too, and you’re forced to clear the clutter more often