Wednesday, April 30, 2014

MURPHY'S LAW, a/k/a MY LIFE IN A NUTSHELL

Ahhhh, it's just a never ending thing. I arrived home from work to find....A SHOWER!! They weren't finished, and they were still working until almost 8 p.m. That's dedication. 

We were told that it's the hardest shower installation they've ever done. I'm sure they were surprised by that. I, however, was not. They came back this morning to finish trimming out around it, and I have to say, it looks fantastic, all white and shiny and new. I'm not going to post pics yet because it still looks hideous around the base. We have to do some work with that. Well, by "we", I mean Kevin. And then I have to have the flooring dude come out to see if we should have the floor tile extend up to cover the few inches that need covering or if the subway tile would be better.

Add another couple hundred bucks to the flooring guy! I'll more than likely want to puke when I find out the total for the shower install. They originally estimated $500, but since it was so very difficult, that'll probably double. We've gotten to the point now where we don't even shiv a git. Just effing finish it.

Kev was the first one to take a shower after they left. He came out and the first thing he said was, "We have a problem." OMG. Are you joking??? He then tells me we either have hot water or cold water. No warm. Well, isn't that fantastic! Murphy's Law strikes again.  Luckily he was able to figure it out. Somehow they had managed to put the plumbing on the inside of the shower upside down. Good Lord....who does that??

Friday morning they'll be out to install the air conditioning. I wonder what will go wrong with that.

In the meantime, having Griffin around has been fun. Kev has been taking a beating! Of course, he could always say no when Griff wants to jump on his belly. And I do mean "jump". He runs around him, jumps up and keeps right on moving.
I get the better end of the deal. He wanted me to cuddle when I got home from work.
Tinlee makes out pretty good, too.
He was sitting on my lap watching tv when he grabbed my hand and asked me to show him my nails. So adorable when he said, "Oooo, those are really cute!" Quite the character.

This isn't the mani I was wearing at the time. Who knows, maybe he would have hated this one and called 'em ugly. lol
Julep Shenae, Barielle Date Night, Ninja Polish DRK-C stamp, St. Patrick's Day mani
I'm not sure if I had any kind of a reason for this one. It was back in March so maybe it was a half-assed St. Patrick's Day thing. The light green is Julep Shenae, and the Ninja Polish DRK-C stamp was done with Barielle Date Night.

Unimpressed.

I'm trying to think of something to do with them tonight. Probably something in a sad, gloomy color because Tyler, Bob and Griffin are heading back to Illinois tomorrow.

I hate when that happens.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

VERY BRIGHT!

The giveaway has officially ended, and I have a winner! J. Campbell-Armour is the lucky one! 

I was so excited to go home yesterday because I was dying to see the newly installed shower. But, as is par for the course, I got home to find it exactly as it was at lunchtime.....unfinished. The furnace was completely installed, but the only thing finished on the shower was the base. They came back this morning to finish it.

So then I was excited to go home at noon today to see the newly installed shower. Oddly enough it looks exactly like it did yesterday.....unfinished. The sides of it have now made it as far as the bathroom doorway, though! So now I'm excited to go home at 5 p.m. to see the newly installed shower. I wonder what I'll find then! lol

I woke up to pouring rain today so although the temp is in the heatwave range of 42 degrees, it's freezing out. As irritated as I've been with our weather the past few months, now it's starting to depress me. Between the weather and the next couple of months of never ending mess around the house, my stress level has risen ginormously. It's making me depressed.

My nails certainly aren't depressed. They are bright as bright can be!
American Apparel Poppy, MoYou Sailor 06 stamp
This one is a bit much. As bright as American Apparel Poppy is here in a picture, it's blindingly, shockingly orange in person. I do like the stamp, though....MoYou Sailor 06.

I'm ready for the house revamping to be over and summer to come. Once the house is down, hopefully I'll get back to doing my nails and the blog a bit more regularly again. I feel guilty for not being consistent.

In the meantime, hopefully you aren't giving up on following along with all of the pissing and moaning I'm doing.

And yes, I do want cheese with the whine.

Monday, April 28, 2014

BLUE MOYOU SAILOR

Today I took my last shower in the piece of crap that was in my bathroom. When I went home at lunch, it was in pieces on the deck. Good place for it.

Of course, putting in the new one couldn't go easily. Weird, right? The old shower sat up on a little platform thing which I was hoping to get rid of. Oh, obvi that couldn't happen. The platform is because the plumbing was set up above floor level. Genius. So now I'll have to have the flooring guy come back to give me an estimate to put subway tiles on that. Great. By all means lets add some additional cost.

Then I get a call at work from Kev telling me that the new shower bar can't go in the center of the shower like our old one. That has to be moved about 8 inches to the left or right of center. I was so annoyed I don't even give a shit anymore. Since Tyler is in town right now, I told him to ask her and the two of them could just make an executive decision without me. It'll be fine, but it's still irritating. I sure didn't feel like sending back the $300 shower system it took me 3 days to decide on.

Part of the wall above the back of the shower got damaged when the old one came out, too. So yeah. That's fun. I'm hoping the ceiling guy will fix that when he comes to do all of the ceilings. 

The new furnace is going in today, too, which was unexpected. We didn't think that was happening yet, but I'm not complaining; one more thing out of the way. He can't install central air until it warms up here. So in other words, we might not ever get it. I'm still wearing my winter coat.

Not everything sucks in my world, tho! Over the weekend there was some actual fun. A few weeks back I had told my oldest daughter that lives an hour away that we should have a girls night sleepover with her, me and my 9 year old granddaughter. So Saturday we did that. And as an added bonus, my daughter in Illinois came home to surprise her sister and spend a few days with us.  So not only did I get the girls night, I got Griffin! Those dang grandkids just light up my world, for sure. 

SO fun!!  We ate homemade pizza, made malts, did facials and just did a lot of talking. Even my ex sister-in-law spent the night.  She was texting Toni that she was bored around 11 p.m. so I told her to come out, too. So my ex and his boys drove her out to my house, visited a bit and then left. She crashed on my couch for the night, so I had a houseful of a whole lot of estrogen floating around.

On Thursday after work I stopped and bought paint for the spare bedroom which we weren't even planning on painting. Evidently I am in the mood to paint. So even though I couldn't move the bed or get the polish rack off of the one wall, I spent that evening doing the first coat and a huge chunk of the day doing the second coat. 

I really like it even though I had a huge moment of panic. It's a two-tone paint job because the room has a chair rail. The bottom half is brown, and the top half previously was kind of a celery green.  I decided to stick with a different shade of brown for the bottom and a slightly pink-toned lighter brown for the top half. I finished the first wall in the top color and as I moved on to the next wall, I looked over at the color as it dried and thought I had made one huge-ass mistake in color choice. I kept on going and have decided it looks good. I'll post pics when it's finally done.

After painting I had the whole house to clean, so I was exhausted by the end of the day. I also managed to find a couple of random kitchen drawers I decided to clean out on Saturday morning. Seriously, ADD much?  Between all that work, the slumber party and having Tyler and Griff at the house, I am still pretty wiped out.

I haven't really been doing my nails because they keep getting messed up from doing all that stuff I've been doing, but I still have a mani to show.
Sally Hansen Satin Glam Teal Tulle, Orly Sweet Peacock, MoYou Sailor 04 stamp
I heart this color! It's one of the newer Sally Hansens from their Glam collection, Teal Tulle. I stamped over it with Orly Sweet Peacock using one of my new MoYou plates, Sailor 04. I actually loved this mani even though I can't even remember how long I wore it. The pic has been sitting in my rough drafts file for at least a couple of weeks.

Other than that, I think I wore my last mani for almost a week, which I hate doing. I did reapply my nails early Saturday but they stayed naked until late last night. I'm really a slacker!

Just a reminder, the giveaway ends in a couple of days, so if you haven't entered, you'd better get to it!! 

Monday, April 21, 2014

BEFORE AND AFTER!

Have you forgotten about the giveaway? Don't! It ends next week!

I hope you all had a lovely Easter and got your fill of ham. I know I did. My sis decided to do the cooking and sent me home with plenty of leftovers. Yummers.

I think today I won't complain about anything.

Now that you've picked yourself up off the floor, I'll show you something positive I did this weekend. I got motivated!

As you all know, we're doing stuff around the house. I finally picked out a color for our bedroom. We were sitting around chatting it up about all the work that needs doing, and I got the brilliant idea that we might as well paint the laundry room, too, even though that wasn't really ever part of the plan.  It's a small room, I said. It'll be easy, I said.  It won't take long at all, I said.

Holy shitballs, was I ever wrong! For some reason it didn't occur to me to consider what a difficult room that was going to be. SO damn many places to cut around. Jeebus! There's the doorway into it, the doorway to the porch, the closet door, the furnace door, the water heater door, the electrical box door and all of the tubes and shelves behind the washer/dryer. Between that, having to move the washer and dryer by myself and then squeezing in back of them to paint, it was the most difficult room I have ever painted.  


It took me a ridiculous amount of time to get the first coat done because of all the nooks and crannies and edgework. Then since I was using leftover paint from the kitchen, I ran out of paint. I thought I was so clever on Friday and went to the paint store with the intention of getting a gallon of that paint, 2 gallons of the bedroom paint and swatches to repaint the spare bedroom. Because yes, I have now decided to repaint that room, too, for no apparent reason other than I feel like it.

Got all the way to the paint store and found them closed because of Good Friday. Poopski. Just my luck. So bright and early Saturday morning I went back and got what I needed, headed home and did the second coat.

While that was drying, I took a break and was texting with Kev. I was telling him how hard the room was and said if it needed a third coat, he'd find me hanging by my neck from the garage rafters when he gets home. Lucky for him (and me), two coats took care of it. 

I even took off the grating that is on both sides of the door that are screwed on (tight) so I could clean out the slats. May I say, DISGUSTING! Just a shit-ton of black lint and dust that has accumulated for probably as many years as the house has been there. Now that I've done that once, you can bet it's not something I will neglect in the future. I was completely grossed out.

So here's the before and after. I never have to look at those damn flowered walls again.  Before....yucksville.
And the after....me likey much more.
Personally I think it's a drastic improvement. We keep that door between the kitchen and here closed so we don't have to listen to the furnace so every time I go in there now I do a double-take. 

When I finished that room I would have loved to start painting in the bedroom, but since I'm not a body builder, I don't have the ability to move furniture. A task for a different day, I guess.

I do have a mani to show although it isn't what I'm wearing right now. I actually had a pretty gold on over the weekend, but it was completely destroyed by the time I got done painting. I didn't even take pics of it beforehand. That'll teach me.

So this is one from a few weeks back when I first got my AliExpress plates. 
HIT Mari Moon Cool, AliExpress 12-52 stamp
After doing one coat of black, I did one coat of HITS Mari Moon Cool and continued on with the Sinful Colors Black on Black to do the stamping off the AliExpress 12-52 stamping plate.

As always happens, I forget how much I love those HITS polishes until I use them. I'm amazed by them every time.

It's kind of an odd stamping image, different sized chain links is what I think it's supposed to be. Very "un-me". I tend to like designs that make more sense. I'm trying to make myself use some of the more quirky ones, but it's hard for me to do.

All in all, a decent mani.

Now, since I am back to work 2 1/2 days a week, I guess I'll go do some!

And for the record, all of that convo above about the difficult laundry room painting was not a complaint. I wasn't mad about any of it. Just exhausted....and sore. This old body doesn't appreciate being all pretzeled up to squeeze into small spaces.  lol

Thursday, April 17, 2014

SPRINGTIME WATER MARBLE

Winter storm warnings. Really? I'll refrain from shouting out what I'm thinking inside my head about that.  Kind of a minor self-imposed censorship happening.

Well, the water softener lady came out to the house on Tuesday night. That poor girl had a long-ass day. She did a whole bunch of water testing. Evidently the system isn't working at all. Now I don't even have soft water which at least the old system did. I felt bad for her because she's so upset about it. I told her I'm actually afraid to even do laundry. I had thrown in a couple of crappy towels the other night, and when I looked at the machine while it was running, it basically looked like swamp water. In other words, the water was baby-shit green. So yeah....won't be throwing in any laundry I actually care about.

She's thinking maybe we got a defective unit. She said she's never had that happen before, which of course made me bust out laughing. I think she thought I was crazy until I explained to her that this comes as no surprise to me. It's just the kind of shit that happens to us.

So she filled up some bottles of yellow water and went on her merry way back to Iron Mountain. She was going to call headquarters, yada yada yada and then get back to us.  She called us early yesterday while we were on our way to Madison, and she should be at our house right now. I can't wait to get home to hear the solution.

In light of all the lovely winter weather, I decided at least my nails could be springish. 
Fresh Paint Alex's Lemonade, Essie Naughty Nautical, Sinful Colors Sweet Tooth,, Kleancolor Pastel Pink water marble
After throwing on one coat of white, I used some purdy colors for my water marble.  The yellow is Fresh Paint Alex's Lemonade, the green is Essie Naughty Nautical, the purple is Sinful Colors Sweet Tooth and the last is Kleancolor Pastel Pink.

I liked it enough that I left it on for the past couple of days. It really needed to come off Tuesday night, but I was too lazy. I have a bit of tip wear from all the typing I've been doing so hopefully tonight I will motivate.

I also have some new polishes that should arrive today that I was sent to try. They're from a company by the name of "Motives", and they sell polish as well as other beauty stuff. I'm looking forward to trying them and will be posting my results when I do,

So that'll be fun....nice to have a little something to look forward to!


Monday, April 14, 2014

RUSTIC DREAM

Don't forget to enter the giveaway!

I woke up to a blizzard. Unreal. Not exactly how I want to start the week.

And in my usual habit of having shit luck, I found out today that there are no extensions on unemployment. Leave it to me to finish with my regular 20 weeks of benefits and hit the cutoff when extensions aren't happening. Everybody I've ever known that got unemployment got extensions all the time. Not this gal. Typical.

Also in this same vein of shit luck, we got our water softener system installed on Thursday. I was supposed to come here and write all about how happy I am. Not gonna' happen, at least not yet. Evidently there is some kind of problem because my water is yellow. They also said there may be a "slight" decrease in water pressure. Well, the water pressure is fantastic throughout the entire house.....except in MY shower. It now takes me ten minutes longer to rinse my hair. Super happy about that!

Supposedly they told Kev how to adjust the pressure so he'll try that when he gets home. I also know there is some doohickey thingamabob that you can take out of the inside of a shower head to increase pressure. When the new shower and new shower head go in, I'm going to make damn sure plumber-man does that. Of all the problems in that stupid house, water pressure was never an issue. So yeah, not so thrilled at the moment. I do assume they'll correct the yellow water. If they don't, they can pull the system out and shove it.

I did this mani quite awhile ago.  
CQ Rustic Dream over black, Llarowe LeaLac LLC-B stamp
Quite some time ago one of the peeps in the nail group had shown off this polish, and I immediately fell in love with it. After I did a basecoat of black, I used CQ Rustic Dream which flashes some pretty colors. I'm not even sure what color I would classify this as. A coppery brown that flashes gold maybe? But it also flashes kind of a rosey brown, too. I don't know. It's pretty, and that's good enough for me. 

I didn't want to cover it up so I chose one of the more delicate designs from the LeaLac B plate from Llarowe. Even though I recently got the plates from AliExpress and some MoYou plates, I still wish Llarowe would come out with some more of the LeaLacs. The size of those are still my fave, I think.

Now that I've managed to eat up a few minutes of the day, I guess I'll actually go find something productive to do.

Something that doesn't require using water.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

THE SAGA CONTINUES

Have you entered my giveaway and been sharing it every day? It ends on the 30th so get to it!

On to the continuing house shenanigans.

First of all, you know I was super excited about the new water system. God forbid, that would have panned out as I thought it would.  Kev got a call yesterday, and evidently because our water is so "special", she had forgotten that we need something extra on our system. It has something to do with bacteria in our well water. So that changed the monthly rental fee up another 30 bucks. It also meant that only have of the monthly fee would go towards the purchase and only for the first 3 years. So in 3 years we'd owe $1,700 to completely pay it off. Long story short, we're going to end up paying for it up front or mabes in 3 installments in order to not have to end up paying almost $2,000 more for the system. So much for not having a big expense up front. Gawd!

Now, the bathroom! We went to pick out flooring and decided to go with the same kind of vinyl tiles we have in our kitchen in a white with a light grey marbling in it. It's super pretty, and we love that kitchen tile. Since the bathroom is so small, we're figuring it won't be too pricey. I bring home a sample tile and throw it on the floor in front of the vanity. It's awesome. 

About 8 hours later I decide I should probs put it up against the side of the tub because yes, that disgusting cream colored carpeting also runs up the side of where the tub is.  I wanted to see what the tile would look like when it was right against the fake marbley looking refinish I did on the tub surround last year. And it looks completely hideous. Great. Now what the frick do I have to do.

I start thinking maybe some kind of white subway tile will look good, and subway tile is super cheap. Sounds perf.  The flooring guy came out to the house the next day to do measurements on the bedroom and bathroom. OMG. He wanted to see what was behind that tub carpeting. It's some flimsy shit board that bends if you push on it. In order to tile it, the vanity needs to come out, a solid wood panel has to be applied and then the tile. We're talking 2 days labor just for the side of the tub.

He calls me the next day. A smidge over $700 for that dinky little bathroom floor. And over $600 just for the side of the tub. I wanted to puke.  And there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. It's way too complicated a deal for us to try to do it. Just kill me already. That bathroom is going to be the death of me anyway, so somebody may as well just take me out now.

When we went to pick out wood laminate for the bedroom, we had no idea what to expect. Before we had an employee helping us, we were just looking around, and they were all at least $5 a square foot. Luckily our guy brought us to the back to the sale stuff. They had a clearance laminate that was a higher end that normally was $6.59 a square foot. They were blowing out what they had for $2.39! What's that you say? WE actually found a bargain?? I was starting to think that wasn't even possible for us. Damn floor is still going to cost us $1,200. Whatever. At this point I don't even care anymore. It's going to be gorg when it's done. For those prices it damn well better be.

All we're waiting on now is the estimate to fix the water damaged ceilings which I'm sure will be 3 times more than I think it should be. We're also awaiting an estimate for installing the new shower and for 2 more estimates for the furnace, air conditioning and water heater. Then we can finally get started on all the fun.

I'm calling this mani a fail. It was the first time I used one of my AliExpress stamping plates, and the gold stamp just didn't show up as well as I wanted it to.  
China Glaze Skate Night, China Glaze Mingle With Kringle, AliExpress stamp 12-50
I do like the burgundy, though, China Glaze Skate Night. As for the gold, I should have just gone with my standard fave Essie for it, but instead I went with China Glaze Mingle With Kringle.  Who knows, maybe I chose it because we had a ton of snow so it felt like Christmas.  The AliExpress stamp is 12-50, which is one of their medium sized plates.

Here's a link for these stamping plates. Four big plates for under 20 bucks is a damn steal considering I paid 20 bucks each for my other large design plates.

Nice to know I can get a bargain basement price on something.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

OH, JUST PEACHY

Since this bargain is only good for 35 more hours, I'm tossing this in here! It's a great price at $19.99 for 6 full-size OPI's with a train case. You can get it here!
It's finally acting like spring around here. Kinda' sad that I actually was happy to see a fly. I'm sure there are robins out and about, too, but for me, I get a damn fly. Little pleasures, my friends...little pleasures.

I'm super annoyed the last couple of days. It doesn't seem like I have a reason to be, but I am just in a "mood". I've always been a moody bitch in general, but usually I keep it in check because all in all, I shouldn't really complain about anything. When it comes right down to it, life is good. Unfortunately my attitude at present simply does not see it that way.

Hopefully I'll snap out of it soon. I did just buy a new pair of shoes on 6pm.com, which is one of my all-time fave places to shop. I've gotten so many great deals there on shoes and clothes. I used to check there every day but decided it's too expensive for me to do that because I might just find something. Or eight or ten somethings!!  Poorhouse, here I come!!

Actually, I'm honestly trying to not spend so much right now. With all of the things we want to do with the house, every little dime counts.

We got the estimate from our guy, Tony. Methinks we were aiming too high. No new picture window for this girl! Maybe next year on that. He IS going to put an addition on the garage so the hubs can store the lawn tractor, snowthrower and who knows what else in it. That will free up a lot of room in the garage. The side door on the garage needs a new door and frame, so he'll do that, too.  We also got an estimate from him to put a vinyl railing on the deck. 

Now I'm going to digress just a smidge back to that great water system I said I wanted. We had pretty much ruled it out because it was so expensive. (stay tuned, that sitch coming up in a second). 

We did still decide to buy a new shower since we're going to do the bathroom floor. After searching, I found a couple on the Menard's site, so after picking out flooring at another store, we headed over there. We found one we both like so we snagged that.

Once we finished picking the shower, I suggested we go look at the vinyl deck railings to see what we like. 

That was a very good move!!  First off, I wasn't impressed with the vinyl. It just felt cheap to me. They have these other resin ones that are much nicer.  Of course, they are also more expensive. But while I was wandering I found the resin stuff that looks like wood and comes in planks that goes right over your existing deck. OMG...genius!! So now instead of having to strip the deck and refinish it, Kev is gonna' ask his brother and cousins to come and they'll put that stuff on and a new railing. It's going to be fantabulous!! No upkeep on it at all, doggie nails won't scratch it and has great reviews.  And cheaper in the long run because they'll do it for free. I'm super excited about it.

After we got home while we were looking at color ideas for the deck, the phone rings, and it's the water lady. Kev tells her we're not going to do it because it's too expensive. Then she tells us we can rent to own. Kev hangs up, and I'm all, "wtf...tell her yes right now!" If I had been told that option before, we'd already have that bitch cleaning our water. They're coming Thursday to install it. I'm absolutely giddy with excitement, which I guess shows how non-exciting my life really is.  

So now I've got a new shower sitting in my garage, and I'm going to get two new toilets, too. Suck it, rust.

Enough house stuff; next time I'll talk about the disaster that is my bathroom and the great bedroom flooring we bought. 

On to the nails! It's "peach week" over in Nail Fun and for once I managed to play along. 
China Glaze Sunset Sail, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure So Much Fawn, Ali Express 12-51 stamp
These are two I don't think I've ever used before, China Glaze Sunset Sail, and it's stamped with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure So Much Fawn. The design is from the 12-51 stamping plate I bought from Ali Express.

I know you're all just dying to hear about the bedroom flooring and the latest bathroom fiasco, but you'll just have to wait for another day.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

HOLO GRADIENT

Snowstorm yesterday; sunny and 40 today. I didn't even wear a jacket when I sloshed my way out to the mailbox. Yesterday Kev headed downstate for a weekend with the guys.  It took him 4 hours to get to Mackinac Bridge, and normally that takes just under 2 1/2. He said it was the worst he'd ever driven in, and that's saying a lot considering he drives on crap roads pretty often going to and from Green Bay, WI to the airport.

I would like to show you how cray our seasons can be here.  First up is a pic from yesterday. So this is April 4, 2014.
And this is April 22, 2007. Tank top, shorts, kids playing in the kiddie pool.  If I'm in shorts, that means it is at least 75 degrees out. I'm also tan which means it had been warm for awhile. I've been waiting for a repeat performance of that April weather ever since.
That's my Munchkin Buns sharing a goofy face with his fave gramma. He was almost 8 here.  Here's a normal pic of him.
And I can't forget my other little cutie, 2 year old Peyton.
Seriously, how cute was she!  I just hate that they are growing up so fast. Peyton will be 9 this month, and Treyson will be 15 in June. Gross. I'm not even sure how that happens.
Can I please have that weather soon, please? I'm asking just about as nicely as I can.

I was in a gradient mood the other day. As always, it was hard to choose what colors I wanted. 

Holo!!!  Okay. I know that's not a color, but you get my drift.  
OPI DS Signature, OPI DS Extravagance gradient

OPI DS Signature, OPI DS Extravagance gradient
The lighter tone is OPI DS Signature, and I chose OPI DS Extravagance to do the gradient.

Loving it so much I've had it on since Wednesday. I did consider stamping over it but just couldn't bring myself to do it. It's just too pretty all on its own.  

I love those DS polishes and wish I had ALL of them.  At one point awhile back some stores (I think CVS) were putting some out that evidently they had laying around in their back rooms. I must have been obsessing about them out loud because even Kev was being super nice as he flew around the country and was trying to find them whenever he had the chance. I'd get a random phone call every so often asking if what he found was what I wanted. Such a sweetheart.  He didn't have any luck, but I really appreciated that he tried.

Today I got some new goodies in the mail today from Above the Curve, and I got my monthly Square Hue polishes.  For awhile there I was SO sick of swatching and organizing new polishes. It's been such a long time since I got anything new that I'm actually looking forward to it. Well, by "long time" I mean about a month which is when I got my last Square Hue box.

So off to swatch! Enjoy the weekend! Don't forget to share the contest again....get yourself those extra entries!

Thursday, April 3, 2014

DAMN YOU, CAMERA........IT'S PINK!!!

I cannot believe we are under a winter storm warning. Are you effing kidding me?? Starting midnight tonight we're supposed to get 3 to 8 inches. Even better, it's going to start off as freezing rain and then tomorrow be a combo of rain/snow. Sounds pleasant, right?

Yesterday I was an hour away walking outside with my coat unzipped.  Of course everybody else I saw was without a coat, but get real, people. It was only 40; that's still coat weather.  Gumps.  And now we are back to full-blown winter.  Screw you, Mother Nature.

I've been busy! I've been out of the house 3 days in a row! I don't remember the last time I was gone 3 days in a row.....probably Christmas.  

Today I ran downtown to pick up paint samples for the bedroom. I hate picking out paint. It's so hard to judge what something will look like on the walls. I end up starting at them 89 times and still not being sure what I want. 

Then I ran to a tattoo shop for a consult. I was so excited about maybe getting a tiny hummingbird on the inside of my wrist. They completely dashed any hopes of that. Too small of an area. I'm saddy-pants about it. If I want a photo realistic one it's going to have to be at least a couple of inches. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but I can't figure out where I want something that big. She suggested on the inside of my forearm, so I'm sitting here with a fake one on.  I just can't decide if I want something that bold.  It would be lighter than this because I would probs use a pic of one my actual birds, and they have white tummies and are green.
So now I'm asking for opinions. Will this work, or will I hate it in the long run? I believe it would be less harsh than this because it would look more like an actual photo. 

I'm also wondering I should get it more like one of these. They could put a flower if the head was down so it would be doing more than just sitting .
 Or mabes just a little green pretty girl sitting on a twig.
Turns out the whole tattoo idea is not as simple as originally expected.  Dammit!

Maybe I should just stick to nails. No placement issues there!
Color Club Blushing Rose, MoYou Sailor 07 stamp
Let me say right off, I love this. I wish the pink showed up better in the picture, but you'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you that this Color Club Blushing Rose is a smidge darker than baby pink.  

Then I used one of my brand spankin' new MoYou plates, Sailor 07.  The designs are a decent size so I'm happy I got them, but their designs just fit my thumbnail. As you can see, my placement wasn't so perfect on my ring finger.  I had to really be exacting when I was stamping. I prefer a bit more leeway, but I'll make do.

Have you entered my giveaway yet? You haven't?? Why not???  I really think you should. Make sure you share it, and you can share it every day for more entries. 

Do it.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

IT'S GIVEAWAY TIME!!!!

It's here!! My one year blogiversary. Damn, that year went by fast! I have to say, I have really enjoyed blogging for the past 12 months. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to post every single day like I wanted to, but turns out sometimes I actually do have other stuff to do.  I suppose it really wasn't very realistic to think that could happen.

In any event, welcome to the giveaway post. Hopefully you'll enter. After all, you can't win if you don't. Take it from someone who has done online sweepstaking for 10 years, it's a lot of fun to win....and I have won. A lot over the years.

So here's the prize!
It's a good sized amount of stuff, I think! If I didn't already own these things, I'd be happy to win them. This time around, the sweepstakes is open to US residents only.

So here's what we have here:

 
     1.     Two sets of Dollicious polish (6 bottles)
     2.     Sally Hansen Nail Prisms South Sea Pearl
     3.     CQ Pink Crystal
     4.     An unnamed Color Club - kind of a flakey
     5.     Orly Synchro
     6.     Color Club fine silver glitter
     7.     3 styles of nail foils
     8.     Purple glitter
     9.     A pot of tiny silver diamond rhinestones
   10.     Nail art stones
   11.     A small Elf angled brush
   12.     ArtNails nail art brushes (3)
   13.     Craft scissors - 2 designs

a Rafflecopter giveaway
I hope you like the prizes I've chosen from my stash of duplicate stuff.  I guess if you don't, you won't enter, right?  

Make sure you share the giveaway every day to get those extra entries!

If you're an Instagram follower of mine, keep your eyes peeled for a separate giveaway there....my one year is approaching there, too!!