お盆シーズン始める (Bon season has started!)

It's that time of year again on Maui.....Bon Dance season is here.  I missed the first dance of the season.  I was too busy with homework (>_<).

Yesterday I was able to make it to the Puunene Nichiren bon dance.  Seems like recently I've been going to the bon dance less and less.  This year it will be very different.  Since joining the Nakayama Minyo Kai, things have been different.  Because our group helps lead the dances, it is good for our members to show up at the bon dances.

Because I am part of the Minyo Kai, it's hard to get any pictures of the bon dance.  I really wanted to test my new toy that I bought, but I didn't have much of a chance to play around.  I only got these pictures because it was the second time we were dancing this dance.

Two dances done.  Now, 20 more to go.  Plus there are regular classes and bon dance practices to attend.  Like Mel said, "We're gonna be danced out at the end of summer."  But at least we are having fun doing it!

Next week it's Wailuku Jodo (Friday) and Wailuku Shingon (Saturday).  I hope I can make it on Friday.  Saturday I know I can make!

Baking Extravaganza

So it is the holiday season.  Each year, I always decide to bake something to give to my coworkers.  Well this year, I planned WAY in advance.  I wanted to bake a large variety of cookies this year since times are tough.  Homemade cookies can help take worries away for a minute or so.

Since I was baking a large variety of cookies, I had to plan all my baking time.  In the end, I could fit 7 types of cookies into a week.  I know it sounds INSANE.  It's a good thing I like to bake.  Wait, scratch that, LOVE to bake.

The plan is to bake: 

• peanut butter cookies
  
• gingerbread cookies
• choco-shortbread cookies
• choco-chip cookies
• peanut butter blossom cookies
• oatmeal-craisin cookies
• choco-peanut butter cookies
• mini apple crisps 

The list looks pretty intense.  First thing to be made, peanut butter cookies.  Something that is very simple for me.  The secret to making yummy peanut butter cookies is using Reece's creamy peanut butter.  I think more and more people are finding out this secret because I had a hard time finding it since I was running low.  


Instead of making the regular shaped peanut butter cookies where you press the dough with a fork, I use a cookie press.  Best investment.  Of course I chose the Christmas tree as one of the shapes for the peanut butter cookies.  The other kinda looks like a sakura (so Japanese of me).

Here's a picture of batch #1 of my baking extravaganza.


As the peanut butter cookies were cooling down, it was time to start the next batch of cookies.  Something a little more difficult and time consuming, gingerbread cookies.  I don't know about you, but I really like gingerbread cookies now.  When I was in elementary school, I remember not liking gingerbread for some reason.  Maybe I thought it was too spicy.


I don't make gingerbread people, instead I make Hello Kitty gingerbread (what can I say, I'm a fanatic).  This year, I decided to use the smaller Hello Kitty cookie cutter.  This way each person can have more, plus it can fit in the cookie tins that I bought this year.


Here's a picture of batch #2.


It's getting pretty late.  Took a short break from baking; meaning I went to sleep because I had minbu practice the next morning.  So all of Saturday, no baking :(


I had too many things that day.  Minbu practice in the morning, then errands to run, then mini odori practice in the evening.  I didn't get home until 11 PM.


So Sunday was a day of catching up.  First batch to make, choco-shortbread cookies.  This year I decided to play with Ghiradelli baker's chocolate and add them to some of the cookie batches.  The first experiment was with shortbread.  The cookie press I used makes them look like macaroons.  Trying to trick my coworkers, nothing is what it seems.


Next on the list is, choco-chip cookies.  While the shortbread cookies were baking I decided to prep for the choco-chip cookies.  So put together the chocolate chips, pecans, and walnuts (because I didn't have enough pecans).


Doesn't it look yummy ---->


Holy crap, who would have thought it would take half the day to make the entire batch of choco-chip cookies.  Each pair of cookie sheets took an hour to bake o_O


But the results are crispier cookies.  I also put the baker's chocolate into the dough.  So I guess these are choco-choco-chip cookies.


<-----Don't they look yummy.



After the madness of chocolate chip cookies, it was time to take a break.  Hey, people have to eat.  As tempting as it may sound, I didn't eat the cookies.  They are for my coworkers, so I can't have mine until I've packed their cookie tins.


After dinner, it was time for the next batch of cookies, peanut butter blossoms.  A couple of days before I unwrapped two packages of Hershey's Kisses (yay, how fun).  This year I couldn't find the ones that aren't wrapped.  Here's a picture of my hard labor. ---->


Here's a picture of batch #5.


Time to take another break, meaning SLEEP.  People have to work you know.  The house is starting to smell really good.  It's a mixture of all the cookies I've been baking.  So it smells like peanut butter, gingerbread, and chocolate at any given time.


Once I get home from Minyo practice on Monday, I decide that I should try and make some more cookies.  What a big mistake.  It was already after 10.  The first set that I put into the oven were a flop.  They stuck to the pan.  Oh well, I turned it into my granola for my yogurt for the next couple of days.


I knew when that happened, I needed to rest.  I put the rest of the dough into the refrigerator.  I will continue tomorrow.  After work on Tuesday, I had to buy some parchment paper.  How can it be so hard to find something like that.  Apparently Wal-Mart on Maui doesn't stock on parchment paper.  Why?


Time to take another stab at these oatmeal-craisin cookies.  That's right craisin.  I think craisins are much more tastier than raisins.  They are more tart than raisins and have more flavor.  I don't know if my coworkers could tell the difference.  Maybe I'll go ask, if I remember to.


Here's a picture of batch #6. ------>




While the oatmeal-craisin cookies cooled, it was time to prep the next batch of cookies, choco-peanut butter cookies.  I didn't know how these were going to turn out.  I used the last of baker's chocolate.  The dough looked really interesting.  For some reason the chocolate melted into the peanut butter.  The other batches didn't do that.  Maybe it's the peanut butter oil.


For this batch peanut butter cookies, I decided to use the cut-out that looked like a wreath (keeping to the spirit of Christmas).  But it smelled so good.  Chocolate + peanut butter = heaven.




The last thing on the list is mini apple crisps.  It's not a cookie.  I guess you can say it's like a bar.  It's almost like eating dutch apple pie.  I haven't made these before.  My mom makes these all the time during the holidays, so I decided to take a stab at it.  Instead of cutting them into bars, I used a mini-muffin tin to make individual servings.


I think they turned out pretty good, considering it was my first time.



Time to put everything together.  Have to put together 12 tins of cookies o_O

After one week of mayhem, it was time for another week.  That's right, New Year's baking.  Another week of no sleep, here I go!


Since graduating from college, I seem to have more freedom with time and thinking.  That can be a good and bad thing at the same time.  When it comes to things like this, I think I over-think and overdo things.  But it is something that I choose to do.


The list for New Year's:

• furikake mix
• baked manju
• mini an crisps
• tri-color mochi (chichidango)

Of course, I choose to start with the easiest thing I know how to do, furikake mix.  Even though it takes an hour a batch, it's still simple to make.


<-----After two hours of baking here's the end result.


I think Mr. M&M is happy.




After putting away the furikake mix it was time for SLEEP.  Tomorrow I will do another batch, or two.

Next on the list, baked manju.  I didn't wanna bother with making the dough so I called on my good friend to help.  His name Mr. Pillsbury.  It's what Sandra Lee would do.  I was in a time crunch and had to improvise.  It still comes out yummy!  You be the judge.  Doesn't the picture look like baked manju?


Plus I used can koshi-an.  No time to make koshi-an from scratch.  Mums is such a time saver.




Onto the next batch since I'm short on time.  Mini an crisps.  It's very similar to the apple crisps I made just I use koshi-an instead of apple filling.


I think these came out better than the apple crisps.  Or it could be that I love azuki beans.  It's weird that I didn't really care for it when I was little, but now in my 20's I love it.




No time to rest.  Time to start the next batch.  It's my signature Japanese sweet that my coworkers look forward to every year, tri-color mochi (chichidango).  This takes so long because it has to cool overnight.


I accidentally fell asleep while the last batch was baking (oops).  It was only in for an extra couple of minutes.  No big deal.  But I knew I was really tired.  Time to go to work while the mochi cools down.


Here's the result of two hours of baking and 12 hours cooling down. ----->


Time to cut these two up!






Time put everything together.  What's in the box?!?!

Time for another round of baking mochi.  This time it's for family not coworkers.






It cannot be New Year's without some andagi, especially if you're an Okinawan!  I know it's not baked but it's still a Japanese sweet.






Happy New Year everyone!  I finally get to rest from all this baking!  Next time will be Valentine's Day because it is also Chinese New Year.  Now that is going to be an interesting day.

It's Christmas Time!!!

It's December?!?!  Where has the time gone?  It's been a whole month since I last wrote a blog.  Have I been that busy this past month?  I guess so.

Let's see what have I been up to?  I started Japanese minyo dance at the beginning of November and just started minbu practice in December.  I also started my Christmas planning around the beginning of November.  I started to increase my training for GAR (The Great Aloha Run) since it's coming up soon (February).

There were many parties in November.  There was the "Twas the Month Before Christmas Party" that my friends invited me to.  Lots of people thought it was weird when I said that I was cooking for a Christmas party.  There were only a few that understood why it made sense to make it early.  You see, everyone works and has family so they will have their own holiday parties which they would have to attend.  So my friend decided to create Twas the Month Before Christmas.  This way we can all get together and have some Christmas fun.  Like all Hawaii parties, it was potluck.  So I signed up for main dish and brought mochiko chicken.  But, then I got into the holiday spirit and decided to make not one but two desserts.  I made everyone's favorite, tricolor chichidango and andagi (my menu was so Japanese).  To make things even more festive the chichidango was red, white and green; and when you bit into the andagi it was either red, green, or just regular white.

For those you don't know, chichidango is also known as mochi but it really isn't exactly mochi.  Dango is dumplings and chichi is milk.  So it's milk dumplings.  That's not right either.  It's just easier to call it tricolor mochi like everyone does in Hawaii.  Andagi is Okinawan doughnuts.  It's more like doughnut holes by the shape.

After my friend's Christmas party, I was busy planning my Christmas:  what to buy, who to buy for, what to bake, making shopping lists for my baking, etc.  Then Thanksgiving came.  How fun.  Time for more cooking for me.  Well this time I just baked.  Of course I made my tricolor mochi for my family since they don't really know I bake and cook now.  It's a good thing I made dessert because there wasn't much at our Thanksgiving.  My uncle said "We had to cut back somewhere, I'm sorry."  We didn't have a turkey.  My aunty had to make chicken, and my mom made tempura just for me.

Here is a close up of a piece I made for Thanksgiving.  It's supposed to be red, yellow, and orange; autumn colors. 

After Thanksgiving, of course is SHOPPING!  Well almost half my shopping was done by the time Black Friday came about (Yay!).  There was still some shopping to be done.  So I did go shopping on Friday, just not during those hectic 3:00, 4:00 AM hours.  I do want to sleep since I do work on Black Friday.  And I guess it brings us to December.  Time sure does fly.

On December 1st, I decided to bring out the tree (yes, my Christmas tree is fake).  It makes things so much simpler.  I have no way of transporting a real tree to the house.  After couple of hours of struggling with the tree, lights and decorations, the tree was 99% complete.  I still haven't found the tree topper.  Maybe I'll just make one out of ribbon.  Just have to go buy some.  Hopefully there still is some left on the store shelf.  It's amazing how fast things are being bought in places like Wal-mart.  They brought Christmas items the day after Halloween and by Thanksgiving over half the items were sold out.  

Of course, my tree would be decorated all purple.  It's my favorite color.  Does it look like I went overboard with the purple.  I don't think so.  It's not all purple.  There is charcoal and silver ornaments.  I call it my Quest Crew inspired tree (just by coincidence).  It's almost their colors except for the pinkish-purple ornaments here and there.

Now that the Christmas tree has been decorated, it's time to put some presents under that tree.  There goes the theory that Santa is a real being (sorry little kids).  So I decide to wrap my presents.  I'm OCD so things have to be perfect.  Wrapping all my presents to a combined total of 5-6 hours (damn you OCD).  But now my tree is filled with Christmas spirit.  There are decorations and presents.

This past Friday I was able to go to Oahu for an accountants meeting.  This allowed me to find any other presents for people that I could afford to buy for.  At the hotel where the meeting was held, I saw this cute pink Christmas tree that I HAD to take a picture of.  It's decorated with sakura and butterfly ribbons.  I really love Christmas decorations.  Hopefully I get a chance to go around Maui to see all the decorations at residences and at the hotels.

With everyone else stressing with Christmas, I am done with my stressing.  Well actually I am relaxing before the biggest stress of Christmas season...baking.  I am trying to mentally prepare for all the baking I will be doing for almost a week.  So many cookies are going to be baked.  I wonder what the electric bill will look like.  You have to think, Christmas tree lights and lots of baking.

What's on the list for baking?

• Choco-chip cookies
• Peanut butter cookies
• Gingerbread cookies
• Shortbread cookies
• Sugar cookies
• Peanut butter blossoms
• Oatmeal-craisin cookies
• Mini apple squares (apple crisps)

Pictures will come when I'm done baking.  Wouldn't you like to be my coworker.  This is the 2nd year I'm baking cookies for them.


This year I'm just filled with the holiday spirit.  I guess that's what you should do during these hard times.  Think of the positive and not the negative.  Everyone should share the positive of the holidays, togetherness.

Life is too short (Part 2)....

So last month I posted something about realizing that life is too short.  I shouldn't hold grudges for long periods of time.  I shouldn't think about the "what if's" and just do it! (sorry for stealing that from Nike).

Today is Veterans Day.  My 比嘉 おじいさん (Grandpa Higa; my mom's dad) was part of the 442nd.  When I was growing up, I would spend a lot of time with my Grandpa Higa.  A lot of the time he would take me to his 442nd gatherings.  I never really knew what it was.  I just thought of them as my grandpa's friends.

It was only in intermediate school I found out who they really were.  During our history classes there would be little sections about the Japanese-Americans fighting in WWII.  That's when you hear about the 100th Battalion and the 442nd.  I got curious and starting reading whatever books there were about the two.  My grandpa had most of the books that I "borrowed."  It's borrowing since we're family (I still have some of the books).

Anyway, I was 7th grade when my Grandpa Higa passed away.  It was at a 442nd dinner when it all started.  As my grandma and grandpa were about to leave to go home, my grandpa went into cardiac arrest (I think, that's the story my family tells me).  Me, my mom and my dad were at home at the time.  I don't know why I was home that night.  It was a Friday night.  Hmmm.

But anyway, my aunty calls to tell my mom that she NEEDS to get to the emergency room.  So my mom says that I NEED to go with her.  We rush to the emergency room.  Doesn't take too long.  We live 2 minutes away from the hospital.  We get there and are put into the other waiting room of the emergency room.  I didn't know this room existed.  But here we all were, my mom, aunties and uncles sitting and are told that the reverend is coming.  I suddenly go into panic mode, but they tell me that my grandpa is in a coma.  Still, I'm crying.  I think I'm crying the most out of anyone.  I guess I'm the most emotional one in the family (how'd that happen).

It's getting close to midnight, my grandma says that I should go home since there's nothing I can do (How rude!; stole that one from Full House).  Just because I'm in 7th grade.  Well actually the rules say that visitors under 13 are not allowed (good thing I looked older than my age back then).  My mom takes me home, even though I don't want to.

The next day, I am taken to my other grandparents' house.  I want to go see my Grandpa Higa!  But, can't fight my parents, especially my mom.  I have to stay the rest of the weekend upcountry.  I don't mind, usually.  I really like spending time with them.  Just that weekend was not the weekend I wanted to be visiting.  At least my mom is keeping me and my brother in the loop about things.  The doctor says that my grandpa's fever has gone down and my grandpa has responded once but hasn't come out of the coma.

Sunday comes.  It's dinner time, well dinner time at Grandpa and Grandma Nikaido's (5:30 P.M.).  That's when my mom calls and tells my dad that we all need to get to the hospital.  I don't know what to think.  It could be good news (he's up and okay) or it could be bad news (his fever has gone up and he's non-responsive).  We all head down to the hospital.  Worst 30 minutes of my life!

I know I'm not supposed to be up in the regular visiting area, but no one stopped me.  When I see my Grandma Higa, I know what news it is.  My grandpa is dead.  I can see it in her face.  She doesn't even have to tell me, but she does.  I'm just hysterical.  I don't know how long I was crying and holding my grandma in the hallway.  I make my way to his room.  I really don't want to see it, but I am forced into the room by my grandma.  She tells me to say good bye to grandpa.  I just shake my head and start to cry again (OMG I'm tearing up just thinking about it).  I never said good bye.  Even when the morgue came to take him away, I couldn't, I couldn't even watch them roll him away.

Now that it's almost 15 years since that day, I still haven't let my grandpa go.  I haven't said a good bye.  Not even at the funeral or any one of the services we've had since then.  I don't think I could ever let go.  I know I'm in denial.  I have had vivid dreams where he would pick me up from Japanese school (this was when I was 8th grade).  I have had dreams where I would be at my grandparents' house and he was there in his chair.

Since life is too short, shouldn't I move on?  I don't want to, not with my grandpa.  I think a lot of it was anger since I was only 12 years old.  Now, I don't know what it is.  I guess it's just the bond you have with a relative.  I cannot let go.  I think if I let go, I will forget.  I think that's why I have been avoiding visiting his grave-site.  Today was the first time in a LONG time I went to visit.  I even got lost looking for it.

Since I was there, I went to visit my great-grandparents.  I even got lost looking for them.  That's how long I haven't been there.  But I noticed that no one has been to visit either.  Everything is overgrown.  Before my grandma would go almost everyday to keep the gravestones nicely kept.

This is how I got my Japanese name, my grandma's mom.  Now I kinda want to do a family tree.  I don't know much about the Higa side of the family, or the Ouchi side.  When I find the time, maybe I'll work with someone in the family.

Happy Birthday Keani!!!

Today was Keani's 2nd birthday party.  What a day it was!  First off, NEVER go out clubbing till 4 A.M. when you have to go to a kid's birthday party the next morning.  Well, I think you can go clubbing till the wee hours of the morning as long as you don't drink as much as we did.  OMG 3 rum & cokes and 3 jagerbombs = hang over.  I was surprised I wasn't more sick, just dehydrated.

Anyways, enough of my drunken night.  It was a day of partying with little kids.  After less than 4 hours of sleep, I had to get ready for Keani's birthday party.  First I had to wrap his present.  I don't know why I wait till the last minute for things like this.  Plus I am so OCD that it took me 20 minutes to wrap the gift.  Majority of the time was making the bow.  So stupid, he's only 2 and his parents would probably just cut the bow off, but that's how I am. (^_^)

So of course almost everyone is there when I arrive.  Such a sluggish day for me (lol).  At first I thought it was going to be the family, but I forgot that Makana (Keani's older sister) is going to preschool so her friends were invited and so was Jayson's co-workers.  In all there were 15 kids at the party.  Plus a few extra "kids" (Erik, Nelson, Jasmine, etc. lol).

Of course the "kids" are in Erik's room playing on the computer.  Erik is glued to that thing.  He really needs a job!  Being unemployed this long is not good.  He's my age!  I would be thrown out of the house if I didn't have a job.  He's so spoiled that he gets to live rent free.  Free food, free utilities.  All this AND he doesn't have to work.  I guess all my anger is more jealousy (lol, yeah right).

Time for the party to really begin.  Time for the most important part of the party, FOOD! (lol)  So much food that I CANNOT eat.  But what I can eat is musubi and sushi, yay.  That's alright, I was still a little hung over.  The carbs did help a little with that.  After eating, I felt so tired.  While everyone was at the party, I went to Erik's room and just read my book.

After some time had passed, it was time for some games (Yay!).  These games were a little different than most birthday party games.  These were Japanese games.  So the first game was "How well do you know Keani?"  The people with the most wrong had to play the "batsu" game (punishment game).  This batsu game was the wasabi cupcake.  They had to pick a cupcake and the loser would be the one that found the wasabi cupcake.  The next game was putting the 10 recent presidents in order.  The batsu game was find the mini marshmallows.  The "losers" had to find 2 mini marshmallows in a pan of flour with their mouth.

Time for the kids favorite part of the party, CAKE!  The cake consisted of cupcakes, which all the kids were allowed to decorate.  What a bad idea.  Once they decorated the cupcakes, some of them started to eat them.  It was pretty funny, but unproductive.  Kids will be kids.

Now it's time for the birthday boy to see his birthday cake.  Time for some singing.  Yay, for Keani!

The party is winding down.  It's time to clean up.  The birthday boy doesn't want anything to do with the clean up.  Instead, he wants aunty Stacey to play.  So into the house he goes to get all his toys.  What a time for the hang over to resurface.  Who would have thought it can sneak up twice in a day.  I thought I was over the hang over, apparently not.  So as I play, my head is pounding and Keani is making high pitched siren noises.  How fun.  I bear through it though.

I finally get home.  The headache is still there.  It was off to bed.  I wanted to take a short nap, but it ended up being a 3 1/2 hour nap (lol).  What an interesting day for me.

Happy Bday Hello Kitty!!!

So, November 1st was Hello Kitty's birthday. I planned to celebrate it a little differently this year, since it was her 35th birthday (wow, Hello Kitty is older than me).

For a couple of weeks, I planned to bake a cake with the Hello Kitty cake mold that I have. Also, I planned to use the extra batter to make cupcakes out of the Hello Kitty cupcake molds I have. These I would give to my coworkers.
It was my first time using the cake mold. Didn't know which instructions to use to bake the cake. Ended up taking almost an hour to bake. As you can see from the first picture, Hello Kitty has a nice tan to her (lol). I still think it looks cute.

With the cupcakes, I've used them before for chocolate cupcakes but white cake mix is so much different than chocolate cake mix. I have had bad experiences with white cake mix. So I tried my hardest to make this batch work.

After about 2 hours of baking, I had to wait for the cakes to cool down. What to do? I was going to play some HKO (Hello Kitty Online) but for some reason I wasn't that motivated. I think it was more I needed to catch up with all my errands that I didn't do. After I got back home from running errands, it was time for the cake and cupcakes to go into the refrigerator. Poor Hello Kitty, banished into the cold.

I'm not sure how long I left it in the fridge. Must have been 5 hours. Time for some decorations! I stuffed Hello Kitty's face with frosting. Sounds like a mean thing to do, but I didn't want to frost her face (lol).
For the cupcakes I left them in the cold a little longer. I did the same time as the cake. Here's the finished product for my coworkers. (They are so spoiled).
So now, it was time to destroy all my hard work. Yup, that's right, time to eat Hello Kitty (lol). It's so hard to put a slice through all your hard work. I couldn't put it to waste.
So I did it. I cut Hello Kitty (T-T). I have to admit, Hello Kitty tasted really oishi!!!

Little Apple Dolls

So here is another obsession that I have, Little Apple Dolls. I think it was around 2004 when the first series of these dolls came out. I originally missed the first series and purchased the second series when I was shopping at Spencer's (of all places). But being the OCD person that I am, I had to repurchase the second series of the dolls since 1) the boxes were beat up and 2) I was missing one of the dolls in the set. So the picture above is of the first dolls I purchased at Spencer's. Since I bought another set, I could open these.

My friend thought that they were freaky. I really love them. I guess it's because it reminded me of my favorite J-Horror movies (Ju-on and Ringu). I guess I am a strange person to like horror so much. Not too many Japanese girls are into horror or thriller movies, like I am. It takes a lot for me to get grossed out or scared from a horror/slasher movie. (What a weirdo, lol ^_^).

After repurchasing the second series, I realized there was a series before the ones I just purchased. So I had to get those! The only thing was, no one was selling them as a set. I would have had to buy them all separately. I decided to wait to see if there would be a set released. It was a smart move. In a couple of months, Little Apple Dolls started getting a cult following. Soon the first series had a special box set. Yay for me! I finally got my first series set.

I was so obsessed with the dolls that I knew when the next series was going to be released. It's a good thing I had a friend that worked at Hot Topic. I told her to hold an entire set for me. I was so so happy when she agreed to do it.

Soon after the third series was released, exclusive Comic-Con dolls were going to be sold. Grrrr!!! I had no way of getting to the Comic-Con. At the time, I was struggling just to get the other dolls. How am I going to afford to fly to Comic-Con? Good thing there's eBay.

I had a while until the fourth series was to be released, but still I told my friend at Hot Topic to hold the whole set for me. Every week I would go in asking if they got the dolls in. I think she was getting a little irritated with me asking. Obsession can do that to a person.

So in just about two years I collected (hmmm...3 + 4 + 5 + 2 + 1 + 4 = 19?!?!) 19 Little Apple Dolls. OMG, I really didn't count how many I had. Well actually I have 22 since I have the 3 opened dolls. Everything else is still in its box. What OCD and restraint I have. I would take a picture of all of them arranged in order, but that would mean taking them out of the closet where my doll collection is stored. I am too lazy, it's a lot of boxes to fit in a picture.

The only thing that really gets to me is that I don't have the fifth series. I kind of had to make a sacrifice about the fifth series and also the place I pre-ordered the dolls from canceled the shipment. The sacrifice I made was a big one. I had to save money for my Japan trip, so it meant less spending on all my collections, which included Little Apple Dolls T_T. Later on I will blog about my other collections. (I think I will blog about my ultimate obsession last ^_^; but for those that know me, you already know what it is).

So now I have a hole in my collection and haven't found my fifth series. Hopefully I will find it. It is my mission to find those two dolls, then my collection will be complete!