Last week F.B. & I put a down payment on a one bedroom apartment about 10 minutes from where we are staying with my parents. We weren't planning on moving so soon, but circumstances have come up & changed our plans. (Please keep my family in your prayers they are having financial difficulties). We will be getting the keys & moving to our apartment December 9th.

We have a 12 month lease for a 1 bedroom apartment for $650 a month, water included. We will have to pay for the other utilities. The kitchen comes with a fridge, stove, dishwasher. The apartment is 700 square feet. And very roomy, with one big living room/dining area. And one big bedroom. Plus two huge windows in each room. There are 5 closets. 2 big closets and 3 smaller closets. Plus a shower/tub in the bathroom. Each building has it's own community laundry room which you get a key for. And each apartment has it's own entrance door, so the outside looks a little more like a house. Plus they allow smalls animals!

Last year I remember looking at apartments in this area and they wanted $800 just for a studio apartment. 1 bedrooms were $800-900. I think the economy has driven the prices down. Also last year pretty much none of the buildings allowed pets and all the ones we looked at in person & online do allow pets now.

Here's a few quick photos I took the day we took our tour of the apartment complex; (this isn't our unit but it is exact to ours):

Living Room:


Bedroom:

 Kitchen:


We picked up boxes & packing tape yesterday and we got 5 boxes packed up today. Still a lot to pack up though. And we will be renting a U-haul truck on our big moving day. (I think December 10th, since December 9th is when we sign paperwork and get the keys to our apartment around 10am.)

I took a balance transfer from Citibank to get some furniture. We ordered some of the furniture online and I will be picking up the rest of the stuff we need from Walmart. (Dollar Tree & Big Lots, 2nd hand store.) The prices are unbelievable at Walmart though! I thought it might be easier to move with furniture that hasn't been assembled yet, since our apartment is a 2nd floor unit. (We only own bedroom furniture).

Here is the 5 piece dining set we ordered ($129.00):


And our black futon sofa ($299.00):

Fennel passed away Thursday evening a little after I arrived home from work. My poor old man was very very frail, and he had cataracts in both of his eyes so he couldn't see well anymore. The last few days he was with us he had stopped eating his rat food. He only wanted his yogurt peanuts & Ensure. His brother Barley passed away in October. Fennel would have been 2 years old in March.

I adopted Olive in April of this year. She traveled with her sister Fern, all the way from Star's Rat Rescue in South Dakota. Olive was a feisty adventurous rat. About a week ago Olive started having some slight balance issues. She kept tipping over. She was on antibiotics for about a week for treatment of a possible ear infection. She seemed to be getting better and was more active but still having balance issues. She also was losing weight.

Then she took a turn for the worse. I'm pretty sure she had a pituitary tumor, like my rat Spice had years ago. She was very weak the one night when I came from work, she could only hobble a little bit and she would tip over. The next morning she couldn't walk at all. She would lay on her side and move her legs like she wanted to move, but she just couldn't. She stopped eating & drinking. It was so sad because she would lift her head up and stare with her dark eyes and look at you like she wanted to get up and run around, but her body wouldn't cooperate. Olive passed away in the late afternoon yesterday... I only had a very short time with, but I will miss her so much...

Fern & Olive when they lived at SRR

Olive & Fern after arriving from their long journey from SRR

Honey & Olive

Olive the morning before she passed away.

A few months ago I bought my first french coffee press. A lime green Bodum.


Let me tell you... the coffee you brew in a french press is the richest boldest best tasting coffee ever! I go to Starbucks to get a bag of their Pike Place Roast, which they grind for free for a french press. (or any other coffee machine you own.)


I've used drip machines over the years, but the french press brewing method comes closest to tasting like you got your cup of coffee straight from a Starbucks Barista! It's very fresh, rich and bold tasting coffee. I love it! Plus it's an easy/affordable way to get my gourmet coffee fix at home!

And it's so easy to do. You heat some water, while the water is heating you put your scoops of coffee grinds into your french press. Then you pour the hot water directly into the pot with the grinds and you let it sit for about 5 minutes. Then you press down on the plunger of the french press and tada! Fresh hot coffee! The metal screen/strainer keeps any grinds from getting into your cup when you pour.

How do you brew your coffee?

(I got my french press at Target for $19.99 but Amazon.com is also selling the same model for the same price!)



(I do use Amazon Associates, but not because I've made any money- because I haven't! lol! But I like that I can show a picture/link with a product when I'm blogging. Plus I do recommend Amazon.com for their low prices. That or Ebay!)

It's time for another blog giveaway!!!

For my birthday in September my cousin Jessica gave me some Fortune Cookie Soap products. They are AMAZING! She got me cinnamon rolled soap, cupcake bar soap & a cupcake lip balm! They smell amazing! The soaps actually smell like real desserts and the lip balm tastes amazing. And yes! There is an actual fortune in the fortune cookie soap, hehe! (See mine!)

My birthday gifts. :)

What is your favorite dessert? (Mandatory).
For extra entries- (Leave a separate comment for each extra entry).

-Follow my blog on Google Friend Connect. (You can find the 'Followers' link under 'Contents' on the right hand sidebar. If you follow already you automatically get an extra entry if you answer the mandatory question). 

-Follow me on Twitter: @tunaynamahal82 (Include your user name in the comments. If you follow me already you automatically get an extra entry if you answer the mandatory question- just leave your Twitter username in the comments).

-Tweet about this giveaway (One tweet only- multiple tweets will not be vaild- include your link in the comments).

Giveaway Ends: December 5th, 2011. 12AM EST.

Winner will be chosen with Random Number Generator. 

I am not affiliated with Fortune Cookie Soap, I just love their products! 

I ordered a few Mark beauty products from my cousin Jessica's e-boutique last week. My ordered arrived a few days ago. And I wanted share what I ordered!

I ordered a snap to it mini & two Mark Metallic eye shadows in Truffle & Goldi Luxe. They are super shiny. My cousin said they were like MAC eyeshadows and they are very concentrated like the MAC pigments that I use all the time. The snap to it mini is pretty neat it has a magnet in it and you can pick or choose which eye shadows to put into the case. I don't like their eyeshadow applicator all that much. I buy extra Cover Girl eyeshadow applicators. But I think an eyeshadow brush would work nice with these shadows too. 



I also got Glossblossom Ripening Lip Tint. It self adjusts. It turned out to be a nice rosy pink on my lips which is what I usually go for when I buy lip gloss. It's not sticky which is nice and it has a nice scent to it. But the tube is also pretty small, so I'll be sad when I use it up. 


And this! Oh my gosh! I love this scent! The Luxe Lemon Sugar Set! I thought it would be really sweet smelling. It has a nice lemony citrus scent to it, but it also has a grownup kind of cologne smell which is really really nice! (It has jasmine scent too.) I love the body spray the best. The bodywash is nice too, it says you can use it as a shampoo- but you better use a separate conditioner with it. (I have straight fine hair and got tangles when I went to brush after my shower- so I put in a leave in conditioner.) I love the thick body butter. I put it on after I showered. And the purple makeup bag is really big and roomy. I have all my makeup stashed in it right now!


I loved everything I ordered, and there are still a few more things I'd like to order soon. I can definitely recommend the products I ordered!



Hope you all like the new design & layout! ♥

A little Halloween Fun. :-)

Violet

Iris

Daisy

Jasmine

Lily

I pre-ordered an Amazon Kindle Fire a few weeks ago. I've always liked the Kindle, but I said I would never get one until they were color. I like the e-book concept but for something so pricy I want to be able to do more than just read books on it. Amazon store credit offered 6 months with no interest on purchases over $150 so I applied and was approved. Still at $199, it's about half the price of other color e-readers & tablets currently available. Now to wait for the Kindle Fire to be released! (Nov 15th).

The Kindle Fire is going to operate on Android OS. But a few of the articles online have me a bit worried because it seems like we may not have access to the actual Android Market, but have to download apps through the Amazon App Store. The screenshot shows a Facebook App icon, but there's no Facebook App available through the Amazon App Store. So they are either going to be adding more apps before the release of the Kindle Fire, or perhaps Facebook is already built into the Kindle Fire?

I guess we will see...  besides being able to read books, I want to be able to browse the internet, blog, access Facebook, Twitter, etc. I would like to be able to watch Netflix. I love the idea that I could access my online recipes and be able to cook in the kitchen without dragging my laptop downstairs. This is what I want out of the Kindle Fire. Kindle Fire owners will be given a free month trial to Amazon Prime which has unlimited movies & TV shows, but a lot of the shows I watch aren't available yet, but Netflix has them! (Family Ties, Malcolm in the Middle, Bernie Mac, etc).

Owners of the Kindle Fire will have unlimited Amazon Cloud Storage. I started uploading all of my music today. I like that you will have unlimited cloud storage for musics, apps, books, etc. The Kindle Fire will only have 8GB of internal space. (Of course you'll have to have a working wi-fi connection to access your files!) It doesn't really bother me that the Kindle Fire will not have a camera/web cam. I have my phone or camera to take pictures. And I rarely ever Skype.

One of the things I love is that my local library now has an e-book site! So I can check out free books and read them on the Kindle. I've actually started taking out books to read on the Android Kindle App on my phone. It's a bit smaller to read books on my phone; but I'm really enjoying it so I can't wait to read them on the Kindle Fire which has a bigger screen!

I guess it remains to be seen whether the Kindle Fire will live up to my expectations. If not I suppose I can always return it and get a Nook Color. :-p

Edited to add: Amazon released a statement this week (11/11/11) that the Kindle Fire will have access to Netflix, Twitter, Facebook, Pandora apps! :-)

(I do use Amazon Associates, but not because I've made any money- because I haven't! lol! But I like that I can show a picture/link with a product when I'm blogging. Plus I do recommend Amazon.com for their low prices. That or Ebay!)

We officially got our first snowstorm today. In October. In the Fall. 2 days before Halloween! It was supposed to rain all day and turn to snow in the late afternoon but already around 11am it was snowing and sleeting pretty heavy out. It seems to have stopped now, but when I went outside the snow covered the top of my shoes, so I think we got around 2-4 inches. There is definitely 4 inches on my car! The last time it snowed in October in Philadelphia was in 1979! (The month & year my husband was born, hehe!)

F.B. got to carve his first Jack O' Lantern! It's his first ever Halloween in the United States. Halloween is not widely celebrated in the Philippines. He helped me gut the pumpkin and he drew the face for me and I carved it. :-) So... today we had a Snow-Lantern instead of a Jack O' Lantern! Lol!







Happy Halloween Weekend!