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Shari’s Life: Holiday
Category: shari’s life
Shari’s Life: Jurassic Park Pop-Up Shop
On Friday, my sister and I made our first trip to London since 2019! We went to the Natural History Museum where they had a pop-up shop to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the first Jurassic Park movie!
We’re both massive Jurassic Park fans so it was like a dream for us! They had replica gates from the first movie at the entrance and inside a model of Blue as well as a cut-out of the T-Rex ! And of course lots of merch! The merch ranged from t-shirts, toys, books, plushies, keychains, books, posters, license plates and much more! I bought a T-shirt, keychain, license plate and model Quetzalcoatlus. The model was quite pricey at £25 but its very high-quality so I didn’t mind too much!
After this we had a look around the museum but it was so crowded that neither of us felt that comfortable. I never really enjoyed all the crowds before Covid but now I’m hyper aware of them and I just didn’t enjoy it. Apart from this we did have a fun day. The pop-up shop is open until September and I would like to visit again if I can!
Shari’s Life: Thrifting Find!
As you know, I love going thrifting and finding discarded treasures to take home with me! Today I wanted to share one such treasure that I found last weekend!
It is this adorable mouse tree house figurine! I saw it when I first walked into the shop and I just had to pick it up! It was £2 and quite dirty but I cleaned it up pretty well! It is now sitting on the mantle-piece with some of my other figurines. I was so happy with it, that I kept going back to admire it for most of the weekend! It is just so cute and fits the new vibe I am going for in my flat perfectly! And speaking of that I am in the process of sorting through my room again. I will either post some photos here or on my Instagram Rii-san Collectibles!
Let me know if any of you guys go thrifting and if so, what treasures you have found!
Shari’s Life: Writing and Sorting
So here we are, at the end of February already and I am still not entirely sure where January and February all went! However, I am looking forward to warmer weather and spring to come!
I haven’t written as much as I would have liked to this month. I managed 2 chapters of Demon’s Past in total, but I am taking the attitude that every word written is a step closer to finishing so I am not allowing myself to get too frustrated with this. I finished Chapter Twenty-Nine this morning, which is a pivotal chapter in Taku and Thane’s story! I post little snippets of Demon’s Past over on my Instagram account so do please check that out!
With the help from my sister, I was able to have the massive sort out in my flat that I wanted to do and have moved the furniture around in my lounge. It is amazing what a difference a layout change makes. It also feels much more spacious and I even have a slight echo to the room now! I also reorganised the squishmallow invasion so they all have new shelves to live in now. I also got this neat cake stand from Ebay to put the little squishvilles in!
My goal of keeping up with Social Media hasn’t gone much as planned so far but I am hopeful of changing this in the coming weeks! I want to get back to more regular posts on here too! So keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks too!
I hope everyone is having a great weekend!
Shari’s Life: Day in Brighton
Yesterday me, my sister and nephew went to Brighton for the day. We went to the Sea Life Centre first, which we all really enjoy! It is in the original Victorian building so as well as seeing some amazing sea creatures, I got to enjoy the Gothic architecture too! My nephew loved it. He has been a few times before but always gets so excited! We were also able to watch them feeding the turtles and piranhas. As well as sea creatures they had a colony of leaf cutter ants. It was fascinating to watch them carrying leaves about four times the size of them up and down the tube tunnels and into their ant hills. My favourites are always the sea horses though. They are so adorable!
We’re going to try and do at least one outing like this a month with my nephew as he enjoys them so much. He’s been asking to go back to ‘see the Romans’ so next month we will probably do the Roman Palace at Fishbourne. As it gets more to the summer we can also do more out-doorsy attractions again like the Wetlands Trust at Arundel and the Weald and Downland Museum which is a firm favourite with all of us!
After the Sea Life Centre, we got some lunch and went to look round some of the shops. It was very busy so we didn’t linger, but we did visit the Miniso store which I loved! We had been once before but it was before Covid I think! Honestly, I could have spent so much in there but I was very restrained and only bought 3 things! I bought two blind capsule beach dolls that look absolutely adorable! I cannot wait to open them and see who I got! I also bought this lego-ish Fragrance Store model! They also had the fan shop and sandwich bar, which I want to go back and get when we go back to Brighton next month!
My plans for today are to walk down to the Tesco Superstore in a bit to check for the Valentines Day squishmallows. I have been checking for weeks now and they haven’t had them 😦 My sister found a few of the ones we wanted in the Tesco Extra at Fishbourne but we still need to find Leon the Monster so I am hoping today will be the day!
When I get back from there I have some overtime booked for work and then I am going to do some more writing. I really want to hit Chapter 30 of Demon’s Past today if possible! I have also got back into Animal Crossing and hope to finally finish Mallepa 2.0!
I hope you are all having a great weekend!
Shari’s Life: Writing and Social Media
Rather than New Year’s resolutions that I always fail to keep, I set myself a couple of goals for this year. One is to finish and publish Demon’s Past. I feel that this is achievable as I am more than halfway through now. I started writing this novel at least two years ago now and have been reluctant to finish it as I felt when I started that it would be the last book featuring Taku and Thane. The two of them are characters that mean a lot to me and I didn’t want to ‘let them go’ as it were. However, I do feel that there is more scope to continue their story after Demon’s Past, but I will only publish further a continuation if I feel it is as good as the other books featuring them. The Demon’s Blood universe will certainly continue as I have more of Koji’s story to tell as well his relationship with Atsuo.
Another goal is to start Perfect World 4. I believe I can certainly do this too and I have the opening scene all planned out, I just need to put pen to paper as it were. I doubt a draft will be finalised this year, but a start will be something and I am very keen to do this.
My last goal is to maintain a consistent social media presence. I don’t know if anyone else finds this but for me social media is hard. A lot of it is to do with my social anxiety and I’ve never had any negative feedback to what I post, but it is still there. So for me this is out of my comfort zone, but something I am keen to do. I am taking this slowly and am sticking to Instagram mainly for the time being. It is the social media I enjoy the most as I get to show my creative side with designing my posts too. My Instagram page is here if you want to check it out or follow me on that. I am aiming to post a couple of times a week at the moment.
Have you set any goals for the year? If so, I would love to here what they are and how they are coming along!
Shari’s Life: New Year Move Around
After a bit of a hectic December and New Year, it has taken me a few days to get back into the swing of things. I honestly think I need to book an extra week off after Christmas just to have time to sort out! Anyways, I do love a January clear out. I feel it sets the year off right and I have been going through my flat again and donating things I don’t need to charity and generally having a clear up.
One thing I want to do is move all the furniture around. I was looking around my lounge and I think I have found a better way to have everything so my sister and I are going to plan a day to move it all and see what it looks like. I have already moved my desk from my bedroom into my lounge. I found a space for it next to my display cabinet and it fits in so much better there! My room looks better having it moved too and I was also able to move my dresser and the squish collection so they are all in better places too!
I then had a quick move around in the kitchen. I moved Tash’s bowls to a new spot and it is so funny as at mealtimes she keeps rushing back to the old spot and looking confused! But to be fair, I have tried to put them down there a few times too!
Shari’s Life: Live stream, birthday and Christmas Plans!
First of all today, I have some exciting news to share with you all! Briony Rose Smith, author of the Moon Girl series, is going to be reading a couple of chapters of Perfect World on her live stream today! Do please check it out if you can!
It was my birthday yesterday, so me, Sarah and Georgie went into town to have lunch at our favourite tapas restaurant and then did a bit of toy hunting! I was able to pick up a few things as well as 2 birthday squish! We had a look round Tesco and Sainsburys, it was insanely busy and not the most enjoyable experience! We then went to B&M and Home Bargains. We picked up a few table decorations for Christmas! I’m hosting for the first time in my flat this year so we wanted to make it extra special! I also found these Jurassic World Dominion mini blind bags for 99p each! I picked up a few as they will go perfectly with the Jurassic World Dinosaur Garden my friends gave me for my birthday!
It’s my last week at work until the New Year this week. I am only working Monday-Wednesday which is great as I will have some time to get ready for the big day! On Thursday we are taking Georgie to the Weald and Downland Museum for their Father Christmas event. This could go either way – yesterday he was greeted by a Santa in the town and he burst into tears ^^;;
On Friday I am having my pre-Christmas sort out! My flat always descends into chaos in December so I want to make sure it is tidy for Christmas Day! Then on Christmas Eve we are going to Portsmouth for the day to do some shopping (and squish hunting!).
I have also made a list of things I want to achieve over the Christmas break. I want to try and overhaul my website and social media to give it a refreshed look for the New Year. I am also going to set up a dedicated Instagram for my toy hunting and collecting. I will still post some reviews on here, but there is much more that I want to showcase and I feel having its own space would be best!
It is the last week now before the big day! I hope everyone is having fun getting ready for it!
Shari’s Life: Black Friday Squish Haul and getting ready for Christmas!
I can’t remember the last time I wrote a Shari’s Life post! Things have been so super busy, as they always are this time of year! I am amazed at how quickly the end of the year has snuck up! I think I literally have one free day on a weekend now before Christmas Day which is insane!
As is our tradition, me and my sister hit the shops on Black Friday. We were able to get all of our Christmas shopping done and of course some Squishmallow hunting. We went to Portsmouth as it has a lot more variety of shops than closer to where we live, and we were really successful. Most of the squish I got came from Claires. They had this insanely good offer of 50% off plushies and also buy 3 get 3 free! We had so much stuff that we ended up going back to Sarah’s house after we finished in Portsmouth to drop it all off before going out to Chichester to check their Claires. They had the offer too and different squish, so we got 6 more between us! Then on Saturday I went to my local Claires and they had the offer as well and more different ones!
I was also able to pick up some Squishville and the Christmas squad from Tesco! I said I would only buy Cam, Avery and Winston but when I saw the rest I couldn’t resist them! My Claires online order of Micromallows arrived too which was very exciting as I have never opened them before. On my first one I got Janet the Jellyfish which is the one I wanted most of all!
Overall, out of the haul I think my favourites are big Pilar the grasshopper (I have him 5 inch but when I saw the bigger one I couldn’t resist!), Vera the rainbow (I have been after her for so long!), Janet the Jellyfish Micromallow and Mario the dog (I think he’s a German shepherd but I am not sure!).
On Saturday I decided to be super organised and I wrapped all my Christmas presents up and put up my Christmas Tree! Putting up the tree is always a bit of a challenge as it doesn’t come in 3 segments like most artificial trees. Instead, the branches and trunk are separate and I need to put them on individually. They are colour coded but it still takes nearly 2 hours to do and then I have the struggle of putting all the lights on! I left the decorations off until Sunday as Georgie wanted to help with them. I did have to do some rearranging though as he hung them all together where he could reach!
I am really pleased with how it turned out! I do love my tree once it is up but it takes a long time to do!
I have booked to see Violent Night at the cinema on Monday afternoon as I am in town for the dentist so I thought I would do something fun afterwards! I don’t like traditional Christmas movies, but this is definitely not that! I don’t often go to the cinema now. I think the last time I went was to see Jurassic World Dominion!
So I am all ready for Christmas now (food is ordered too!), which is great as it means I can just enjoy the insanely busy build up!
Shari’s Life: What was in the cupboard!
When I wrote my last Shari’s Life post I mentioned that when the handymen came to build my new furniture and put up my shelves, they were also going to solve the mystery of the cupboard that has been painted shut for probably many years!
So they opened it and….nothing inside except for a very old empty bin bag! But what was really interesting is that whoever converted the building into flats had not bothered to do anything with the cupboard, so it had all the original paintwork and Victorian wallpaper! I just think that is amazing and I have decided to leave the cupboard exactly how it is rather than clean it up and put shelves in for storage which was the original plan. I know I ought to make use of the space as in a flat there is never much storage, but I also think preserving things is important too. This could well be the only piece of interior decor left so I am going to preserve it. I might still put things up there, but I certainly won’t change a thing about it.
Shari Sakurai 