Stay Home Club

For the past holiday, my highlights were: finishing 8 seasons of Friends (I watched the first two seasons earlier in Bali), watched 8 Harry Potter movies in a week or so (not daily), cleaning my room and finding memorabilia from my primary to high school days, We The Fest 2017 and learning to drive.

People think I am an outgoing person, because I like going out all the time. But to be honest, I'm not all that outgoing. I like staying indoors in front of the TV, watching movies trailers, DIYs, and all kinds of movies or tv series. I like rearranging my things at the room while dancing along to Michael Jackson. I like to finish my work (ugh what a work junkie) on my laptop while sipping Nestea's Thai Iced Tea. Don't get me wrong, I like going out. I like seeing new things, go window-shopping, getting 'coffee' and catching up with my friends, and the definite watch movies in the cinema. I love the last activity best. However, it's just that... being at home beats anything else, when I'm in the right moment and mood.

Quoting Cher from Clueless (1995):

If you're used to going out every Friday/Saturday night, why not try to change things a bit. Stay at home. Find peace and comfort in your own house on a weekend. Like what Jean-Charles de Castelbajac said, Even if I'm alone, I'm a party myself. Here are a few things to do during the weekends at at home:

1. Watch Movies

OK. Nothing beats a Saturday Night like watching movies does. Before deciding a movie to watch, I like to search 'Trailer (year)' on Youtube and watch all the trailers. If anything good comes up, I'd watch it. If nothing good comes up, then I decide a genre to watch and search on Google 'Best Romcom Movies' or 'Best Drama Movies', whatever genre I'm up for. If you're not sure of what to watch, pick a trilogy (or even more) and watch the whole things (ex. The Hunger Games Trilogy, Divergent Trilogy, Narnia, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc.) And if you're no fan of continued movies like that, go watch movies from the late 80's to 90's (ex. When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman, One Fine Day, Clueless, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, etc.) It's so fun to watch old movies and secretly wishing you could live in those days where Hugh Grant and Paul Rudd was young and charming and everything. Since everything is now online, go watch these movies on fmovies, lk21, yesmovies, or 123movies.

2. Clean Up / Rearranging Your Room

I actually feel like Monica Geller as I'm writing this paragraph. Cleaning and rearranging your room shouldn't be a burden. If your mum kept shouting at you to clean up your room, go surprise her by literally cleaning up and rearranging it. Keep piles of papers and old magazines and take it to the recycling centre. Find plastic bags, fold them into small pieces and keep them somewhere for you to reuse when you need it. Put out all your makeup and skincare, clean the trays and put them back. Clean the dust away from your old books, and maybe put some plastic cover on them too. Bored of sleeping in the same bed position for years? Push that bed elsewhere and try a new perspective tonight. Hate the way your walls look? Repaint it, or put up some artwork and posters. The ideas are unlimited. Oh, the secret to actually getting things done, is to put on some dancing music (not EDM, but actual dance music) like Love Never Felt So Good, For Once In My Life, Valerie, This Girl, and much more. It might take more time, but at least it isn't boring and pressuring.

Listed clockwise: Bridget Jones' Diary, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Catching Fire, When Harry Met Sally, and Harry Potter

3. Create

Cook, bake, craft, whatever! Besides sadness, boredom is another great feeling to express your creativity. Once at my cousin's place, we made ourselves brunch and a jug of super cool and hydrating infused water, put out a plaid blanket at the backyard, took plenty of magazines, sunglasses and hats from the room, and finally took pictures with a polaroid. It was merely for the sake of having fun. Baking is also a very fun thing to do at home. If you're not exactly prepared for baking, search for some easy recipes like Banana Bread, Milk Tart, and a whole lot more if you keep your mind open. For no reason, I also like to do my hair and makeup when I'm at home. Go to Pinterest, find hair and makeup inspirations and do it. I see it as practicing my skills. If you feel like singing, make some covers. If you're feeling super crafty, take a look at Rookie's guide to making a zine (or basically Rookie's DIY tagged posts) and a bit more complicated DIYs from The Sorry Girls. Both websites have the best DIYs ever.

4. Get All Wet

If it's sunny all day long, why not create a pool party or just a water-war with your siblings or neighbours? When I was younger, we would take out the plastic pool, fill it with water, and just play around. After finishing our pool partay, we would flip the plastic pool upside down and created a tsunami for the ants (it sounds cruel, and I'm sorry ants). If you have a real pool in your house, lucky you! You get to play with water, and actually go swimming for your health (or to tan. Whatever it is you do with your pool). If you don't own a pool or a plastic pool, go have some fun cleaning the car, doing the dishes, watering the plants or washing the dog. You can have all the water party you want.

Me cleaning my room Source

5. Finishing Your Procrastinated Work

Yup. Feels about right, doesn't it? Open your laptop or your PC, find good lighting, sit comfortably, and work. In between work, take sometime to stretch your body and make yourself some iced drinks. Get back to the chair, and continue your work. My work this month was to design my upcoming 2018 journal (wish me luck!) as well as working on a certification dive the diving club's having. If you're doing a work that doesn't involve hard thinking turn on some study/work-appropriate tunes. If you're going to be thinking hard (ex. mathematics, programming, statistics, accounting, etc.), listen to some classical piano. Helps the brain works smoothly. At least, in my experience.

6. Read a Book

I don't know if you can get more bored at home, but when I do... I read my books. Or sometimes even reread. I usually read my books when I'm waiting for something, but I like to read them at home too. I would sit in front of the turned off TV, and read the book. It's actually nice to be at peace, and actually living in a another dimension as a character in a book.

7. Plan

This is my secret hobby. Planning. And the best kind of planning for me is... itineraries!!! I looooooooove making itineraries, especially to places I know it would take me a long time to visit. It motivates me to actually go to that place and explore each corner. Lately, my greatest itinerary is my Japan Trip. I've given so much effort by researching places to visit, transportations, accommodations and even wifi/sim card!!! I thought making itineraries for a trip in years to come would actually be embarrassing, but I'm actually really proud of this hobby. It motivates me to go to places. Try to make your own itinerary! It doesn't have to be far. If you're thinking of going to Vietnam this New Years, go on your research and have fun finding things out! Have fun thinking of how you're going to get there, where you'll be living and what you're going to eat! 

8. Browse Websites

Whether you'll be viewing Youtube videos all day, window-shopping, looking at DIYs, saving recipes you can't actually make, reading travel blogs, watch TED Talks for inspirations, scrolling through Pinterest and Tumblr, or basically going through the news, browse! Browse, browse, browse! It is so easy to gain information and knowledge, use it! Use the internet wisely to feed your brain with fun, interesting and useful things! My favourite websites to browse: Rookie Mag, NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day, Pottermore, Buzzfeed Quizzes (don't tell me you've never taken one) and Fire & Joy.

PS: For extra, extra, extra fun and happiness, order pizza for all activities listed above.

This post is inspired by RookieMag's How to Be a Happy Homebody.
Things I currently wish I have at my place from Chic & Darling: a, b, c & d.