Blue Valentine

I don't like romantic movies

There's something about it that makes me uncomfortable.

I guess I don't appreciate being lied to.

I know it is just movie but I honestly can't explain the psychology behind my unreasonable hate.

All I know is that creating the best believable lies is to hide the little lies in the truth.

Maybe I feel like that's what romance movies are doing, deceiving.

I have been searching for romance movies that don't work out.
(what a such twisted mind I have)

So far, I loved "Before Sunrise" which invited me into their beautiful crush and then woke me up from it.

I liked "500 Days of Summer". People can be such drama queens, falling in love with the idea of the person, and often forget that bad crush is like fever that it goes away.

Tonight, I finally found another really good movie.

It's called, "Blue Valentine".

This movie portrays the evolution of the relationship.

________________________________
The inspiration for the film was the divorce of Derek Cianfrance's parents when he was 20. He was so devastated that he wanted to do a film that would help him figure out how a relationship began and ended.
________________________________from IMDB trivia

I liked the movie.

Although it made me sad because I knew that I didn't need this movie to figure out how a relationship began and ended since the age of 10.

This movie was my parents love story with seriously unhappy ending.

My first painting

It was last Friday evening when my friends and I randomly decided to "paint".

We went to the nearby art store to buy few acrylic paints and brushes.

We also went to Trader Joe to get cheap wines and cheeses.

We found one picture on google that we all liked and started to paint away!

It would have been nicer if we had watched at least one video on how to paint before painting. 

I was very lost as it was my very first time painting anything except as a child.

I was happy with my first work although I wished I had used different color for the water.

I found it interesting how all three of us painted very differently even though we were looking at the exactly same picture.

Making the Hollywood style vanity mirror

Making the Hollywood style vanity mirror

  

My room is naturally dark and 

with the bookshelves set next to it to separate the bed area made it even worse.

The cheapest vanity mirror with lights I found was $300.

Not being able to afford it, I decided to make it myself.

It costed me about $80 including the mirror.

I did not have a mirror with frame nor the tool to drill holes around the frame.

So I went with the vanity strips.

There are many you-tube videos out there but

even after watching them I still went through trials and errors.

I think my blog post still has something to contribute.

I hope it helps someone!

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First, I got the frameless mirror from IKEA for $10. It is 24'x24' I believe...

And the white table also from IKEA which was actually a tv stand.

I got two sets of vanity strips for $20 each from Amazon.

There are 3 light vanity strips but I got 4 light strips because they were 24' long which is the same height as my mirror.

Up to 100 watts can go on one socket.

It has to be medium base and G type.

I am only going to use 6 sockets.

I bought 6 Light bulbs that can go on the strips FOR $15 from Amazon.

First, I got 6 of 100 watts, warm white or soft white as pictured. 

However, they were making really annoying noises and got extremely hot. 

So I exchanged them to 25 watts. The noise stopped but they still got really hot.

Besides the color, warm white was too yellow.

The blush still went too strong on my cheeks.

They looked super pretty on the strips though....

So I had to pay a little more to get LED lights. 

They were $19 for six of them from Amazon.

They are much smaller than the previous ones.

The color is white, daylight.

Awesome thing about LED lights is that this one is as bright as 25 Watts

but only uses 3 each which means the 6 of them all together uses 18 w.

These caps come with the strips. 

You will need them to cover the wires later.

I got two extension cords for $6 or 8 from Home Depot.

I also got the dimmer which I ended up using it for something else.

To use dimmer, you need dimmable bulbs.

Now open up the light strips. 

Find these two wires that are already cut.

Pull them off.

You are going to connect the extension cord to the strips so you have the plug for the outlet.

Cut the end.

Cut in the middle just a little bit 

Cut around the rubber be careful not to cut the wire.

Pull it out.

You need to pair up the wires.

Black is hot, hot is smooth.

Feel the extension cord to find which is smooth and 

pair that up with the black from the strip.

Solid side is for the white.

Close the strips and put the light bulbs on.

You can plug it right away or use dimmer if you want. 

The bulbs were round and big really pretty. However because of

the noise, hotness, and the yellow color, I had to return the both 100, 25 w.

This is with the new lights I got.

Daylight, LED.