Thursday, May 29, 2014

GARDENER? NOT SO MUCH.

Minor bitch today. Just a minor one. Why does it take forever to get anything done? Just trying to get workers scheduled to start things at the house is like a second job for Kevin. I feel like I'm constantly asking him to call so-and-so to find out if they ever plan on doing the work we contracted them to do.  As a matter of fact, even though the ship has long since sailed, we're still awaiting an estimate from one of the local companies that came out to check out the a/c and furnace replacement. Seriously? It's been over a month since they were there. It must be nice to be just so damn rich you can just not even bother.

Second minor bitch. Not really minor in my opinion, I guess. We're still waiting for the solution on the water issue. Over the weekend I found the very beginnings of a stain in my brand new toilet. I managed to get rid of it, but I was on the verge of either full-blown panic or a complete throw myself on the floor tantrum. And still, we wait. I'm so effing over it. You had no problem taking our damn money; just do your mother-effing job that you guaranteed you'd do.

Next up, gardening. Just kill me.  Or should I say, just watch me kill the plants. I'll finally be getting them planted, but it appears as though some of them are already failing. I swear I didn't do anything bad to them! My $40 Supertunia is fading fast. I spent some time this morning googling that shit to see what to do. I'm not sure if I learned anything or not. For regular Petunias I learned a lot about deadheading them. One would think the same method would apply to Supertunias, but everywhere I look it says they don't need it. Methinks I'm a-stopping at Shopko on my way home to buy gardening scissors. I'm gonna' deadhead that bitch; can't hurt it more than it already is, I guess.

On a brighter note, the deck has stairs, and it's awesome! Sometimes I forget and still jump off the side. There's no railings yet, but that will probs happen next week, although in my opinion, my pool needs to up first. For some reason Tinlee won't go down the one set of stairs. She's so comical. I did get her to come up that set of stairs before bed last night. I'll call that a win.

Also, my new bird bath came yesterday, and it is adorbs. It's got a solar powered fountain, so I'm excited to go home and see if it works properly. I have visions in my head of my little hummingbird friends frolicking in the fountain. Crossing my fingers on that one, although if it happens, I'm just going to have to put some kind of built in seat at the window by the kitchen sink because I'll never want to stop watching.

For today I figured I would show a mani that shows my green thumb. Apparently this is the only kind of green thumb I will ever be allowed to have.
Color Club Halo Hues Angel Kiss, Barielle Date Night, Llarowe LLC-B stamp
I hadn't used any of the Color Club Halo Hues in quite awhile, and I do love this one, Angel Kiss. For the green stamping I used Barielle Date Night and the Llarowe LLC-B stamp.  I really like those Barielle polishes. They have a nice formula and stamp and water marble well.

Now it's about time to head on out of here. Off to buy the gardening shears and get to cutting. 

Wish me luck.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

WATERCOLORS, STAMPED AND GLITTER, OH MY!

Don't pass out; I don't have a complaint in the world today. Well, unless you count the fact that I'm at work. And that's just a necessary evil I can't seem to weasel out of.

Our weather this weekend was gorgeous!! I really wish the pool was up and ready. Of course, once it goes up, who knows how long it will take to get the water right because of the new water softener. Once I get that straightened out, then I get to wait until the water is warm enough to actually use it. Bring on the sun so my solar rings can do their job.

Since I didn't have the use of my pool this weekend, I did blow up my raft so I could catch some rays on the half-finished deck. Lordie, it was hot out there! I don't usually lay outside without the pool. Now I know why. I was sweating my damn balls off. 

I was pretty shocked I got as pink as I did in a couple of hours. Usually already have my tan on from an unlimited month at the tanning salon before I ever hit the pool, so I never burn. I also hate laying on my stomach so I was red on one side and paper white on the back side. That was ever so attractive.  So yesterday I headed back out there and forced myself to lay on my stomach for an hour. That helped considerably. I am almost matching shades of pink now.

In the evenings I took about 45 minutes to sit out in front of the house to feed the hummingbirds, too. Happily they still seem very willing to come to me to eat. I love that feeling so much!

I was still wearing that make-out mani from the other day, but last night I decided it really was time to take it off. To Julep's credit, that sucker wore like iron, not even a smidge of tip wear.
China Glaze Lemon Fizz, Highlight of the Summer, Essie Play Date, QRS Cruiser, Barielle Pink Quartz, Orly Shine on Crazy Diamond, DRK-A stamp
Another success here....turned out just like it looked in my head. I started off with just one coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. I didn't care if it was perfect or not because I knew I'd be going over it with other stuff.

The other stuff ended up being China Glaze's Lemon Fizz and Highlight of My Summer, Essie Play Date, QRS Cruiser and Barielle Pink Quartz.  I dabbed each of those on with saran wrap. I like doing that because it doesn't matter where anything goes.

After I stamped it with the DRK-A stamp, I decided that it just might need a teensie bit of glitter so I added one coat of Orly Shine on Crazy Diamond.

I should have skipped the glitter. It's fine with it, but I'm thinking I liked it better before it. That'll teach me to overthink. 

Well, truth be told, it probably won't teach me a thing.  Maybe it's the "old dog" syndrome that prevents me from being teachable.


Saturday, May 24, 2014

MADE OUT WITH THIS ONE. TWICE.

It is absolutely gorg outside. Sunny and warm and summer-ish. It feels so good! I went outside to refill a couple of the hummingbird feeders in a sweatshirt and realized that I was way overdressed. I'm just so accustomed to automatically dressing for winter that it hadn't occurred to me that it might actually be over 60 degrees. But it is! 64, to be exact.

I've been waiting for the weekend because I was planning to plant all of the flowers that we bought. The area along the garage needs to be cleared of the "decorative" rocks that are in there. Then the dirt needs to be all dug up and added to with some good stuff. I went to the moving company and got unprinted newspaper so I am ready to plant.

Even though I didn't ask him to, Kev had gone outside before he had to leave for work on Thursday to shovel the top layer into the wheelbarrow so it would be easier for me to get in there and dig.

15 minutes later he came in, sweating like a buffalo, and informed me that it was going to be a LOT more work than we thought. Great.  I still figured I would at least make an attempt today. Right now the plants are just all in their little nursery boxes sitting on top of the rocks. After I watered them, I put on my gardening gloves, grabbed the little shovel and went to work. 

Or tried to. It ain't happening. I'd need a jackhammer to get through that stuff. I'm so saddy-pants that now I can't plant until next week. Then I decided I would take my Supertunia out of the big pot and try again. It's looking a smidge wilty so I broke up the root system a little more, added some more dirt and replanted it. 

Kev also found time to put up the hooks along the garage for my new hummingbird feeders. They are super cute, and I love them. I now have 3 window feeders and 7 hanging feeders up. That's a lot considering I only know of 2 females and 2 males living here. There might be more, but I've seen 2 females eating at the same time and 2 males eating at the same time. Hopefully there are 2 nests with babes coming soon. Of course, there may be more adults but I haven't paid close enough attention to figure it out.

So if those 4 want sugar water, there is no lack of that here. I've yet to see any of them go near the flowers, but they are loving all of the feeders.

For some reason I have also already had to kill 3 hornets in the house. Um....not a fan of those little bastards. I haven't seen a nest anywhere. Usually late in the summer we get a yellow jacket wasp nest under the front porch, but Kev has a plan to prevent that this year.

I did this mani on Thursday night, and I am so in love with it.  I love when something I picture in my mind turns out exactly that way.
Julep Brandt, China Glaze Admire, Butter London Matte Topcoat, Llarowe LeaLac B stamp
I actually did try going with a lighter grey first but didn't like it so much. I'm glad I tested that on just my thumb before painting all ten with the light color. I also was a bit concerned on how the pink flowers would hold up with no topcoat on them, but they are still perfect.

The dark grey is Julep Brandt, and just like always, it went on like a dream. I'm annoyed with what Julep has been offering in the Maven boxes lately, but I do like their formula.
 
I then used the Butter London matte topcoat.....still my fave matte topcoat. For the Llarowe LeaLac B stamp, I used China Glaze Admire.  I've used that for stamping before, and it's amazeballs. I also wanted that to stay shinier, thus the no topcoat.

I may take this off today if I find some nail inspiration. If not, I'm more than happy to look at it for another day.

I wish I had an outdoor chaise lounger. I'd probs throw on a swimsuit and lay out. I need to get my tan on. This is damn near shorts season today, and I wouldn't want to blink and miss all of it.

Instead, since I can't play outside with the flowers, I guess I'll do laundry.

This makes me very sad.


Thursday, May 22, 2014

A MANI....AND SOME UNSOLICITED ADVICE

Here's my unsolicited advice. Take heed. Seriously.

If you ever plan to remodel anything,
              a)   Don't do it
              b)   Run away from home until it's done
              c)   Decide a budget for each room or item
              d)   Add at least $1,000 for each room or item
              e)   Keep plenty of kleenex handy for all of the crying you
                    will be doing

On Monday, the flooring peeps were supposed to start a four day stretch to do the bathroom floor, that stupid subway tiling thing for the side of the tub surround and then the bedroom flooring.

Before any of that could be started, Kevin had to take out our vanity so they could get to one section of the tub.  So on Sunday night, off he went to do remove it. 

OMG. What a complete piece of crap. I could make a better vanity than that thing. Once he took it out, it was painfully obvious that it was never going to go back in. So great; now what were we supposed to do.  Getting a new vanity would mean getting a new countertop for said vanity which would also mean that it would no longer match the tub surround I worked so hard on when I did the vanity countertop last year. 

After much discussion, I said (half jokingly) that we should just rip it all out and get a new tub.  15 minutes and a look at the Menard's website decided that issue.  For what it was going to cost for that stupid subway tile, we could buy a whole new freestanding bathtub.

Decision made. New tub it shall be. Now off to find a black vanity that goes all the way to the floor. Never.Gonna.Happen. At least not at any price we plan on paying.  The flooring guy was not pumped that we had to cancel at the last minute, but it isn't our fault our house is crap.

So out comes the tub that he worked so hard to refinish last year. It's so purdy, too....kind of sad to get rid of it, but whatevs. Then came the difficulty or removing the wood stuff that held the tub. Jeebus. Then we look at the weird-ass plumbing and wonder if that tub will even work. Had a plumber come over, and once again someone says they've never seen anything like it. He was successful, though, so that's a plus. Now I have a bathtub sitting in my living room while we wait for flooring. 

Now on we go to find a new black vanity. Silly me thought this should be a relatively easy task. Wrong again. Since that plumbing is also wonky, we need one that goes all the way to the floor. Good luck on that unless you're willing to spend a gazillion dollars. Kev went to Perk's to see what they have. They'll make us one for $400, which was lovely until you add in the price of a countertop, sink and install.

Like I said, pick a room and add at least $1,000. Every time.

In the midst of all this tomfoolery, Kev is putting the new decking on.  Also, lest I fail to mention it, our water system is STILL wonkified, too. 

I am hoping this weekend the weather will be as nice as they say it's going to be, and I'll attempt to plant my flowers without killing them. Lord knows, this black-thumbed idiot will probs screw that up. I bought a gorgeous supertunia in a hanging basket that I replanted in a big urn for the deck, and it's already looking sickly less than a week later. That's probably a "kiss that 40 bucks goodbye" sitch.

It should go without saying I haven't been doing much with my nails. Here's one from several weeks ago.
Too Cute-icle Enchanted Lagoon, Sinful Colors Black on Black, Llarowe LeaLac LLC-B stamp

Too Cute-icle Enchanted Lagoon, Sinful Colors Black on Black, Llarowe LeaLac LLC-B stamp

Too Cute-icle Enchanted Lagoon, Sinful Colors Black on Black, Llarowe LeaLac LLC-B stamp
Be honest; how gorg is this polish??  It's Too Cute-icle Enchanted Lagoon, and I am completely enchanted by it.  I did leave it on its own for a day before stamping on it with Sinful Colors black and the LeaLac B plate.

Those Too Cute-icle holos are just fantabulous!! I adore them.

My work day is almost over, and we're heading over to Perk's to finalize the vanity and countertop. While I was so looking forward to hunting for the sink of my dreams, I guess we're going with a solid surface undermount.  Color me sorta' saddy-pants on that.

Oh, and if I suddenly disappear, it probably means my laptop got burned up in the fire that "mysteriously" occurred on the outskirts of Escanaba.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

A DIFFERENT KIND OF FOIL

As if I wasn't already wasting a bunch of time with hummingbirds, now it's just become just a plain bird fascination in general. I'm like a crazy person, constantly going to the kitchen to look at the feeders and just standing there. My brain used to constantly thinking about nails; now it's focused on birds.

I'm not a gardener. Whatever the opposite of a gardener is, that would be me. I've never kept a plant alive for more than a month. My mom and sister are great; even my brother is. Evidently they scooped up all of the talent from that area of the gene pool. I got the looks and the brains instead. lol

I did decide, however, that my hummingbirds need flowers. Hopefully it will attract more of them as well as look pretty. I'm going to plant along the side of my garage which is under where my six feeders will be, and I need to plant more stuff along the front of the house. My daughter and hubby planted some a few years ago. And yes, I looked at them a few times so most of it is just dead stuff now.

Kev and I went to the greenhouse yesterday and spent close to $200 on flowers to plant. I even bought a pair of gardening gloves. I also got one huge Supertunia which I replanted in a large pot to put on the deck under my window feeder. The flowers are light and dark purple, and they are beautimous! It's too cold to plant the other stuff yet since.....wait for it....

....we might get snow tonight and tomorrow. Even I can't believe that. I'm calling bullshit. It's mid-May. Enough already!!

Last evening after dinner I was sitting in my recliner, constantly looking to the left at the kitchen feeder and then to the right at the picture window feeders. Quite a few times I'd have one boy on either side of the house. They always feed a lot before it gets dark out. I finally couldn't take it and went out on the deck to hold the feeder. When I first went out there were two flitting around the garage feeder. Then I heard one on my right, and a boy flew up close, then checked out the flowers and then left again without snacking from my feeder. I was freezing so I gave up for the night.

Or so I thought. I went back out about 20 minutes later, and my younger male came up, parked his cuteness and ate for a solid 3 minutes without moving. The wind was cold and my hands were going numb so I finally cleared my throat to get him to leave. It's just too much fun.

Over the years I've heard woodpeckers in the trees but have never actually seen one. I saw this weird big bird on the seed feeder. It was a woodpecker! Of course by the time I grabbed the damn camera he had flown up to the top of the utility pole. All I got was a fuzzy pic of his butt. This morning when I got up I looked out the window and that feeder was swaying like crazy! Lo and behold, the woodpecker was back! And once again that little shit took off before I could snap a picture. Annoying.

While I was making supper I did look out and see this little beauty. I've never seen one before, and I have two of them that are out there all the time now. I'm sure there are females of them out there, too, but as seems to always be the case, the females aren't cute.
How gorgeous is he?? While we immediately thought it was a bluebird, my more knowledgeable Facebook friends told me it's actually an Indigo Bunting. Never heard of it. Love it. He is amazing!

I also have a couple of these cute little chubsters hanging around that I've never seen before, White Crowned Sparrows.
So far I've seen two, and they'll both sit in that cedar forever. I never see them eat although judging from the bellies, they must.

Every day now I'm just expecting to see something I haven't seen before. I'm hoping for some more Cardinals or maybe some Orioles. I've never seen Orioles, but I know they're around here somewhere.

Awhile back I got some free nail foils from the Amazon seller I bought the foil topcoat from. While the application on this kind is nice and topcoat doesn't ruin them, I'm not really a fan. 
Butterfly water decals
I think my issue with these is that you really need to put them over a white polish, and I'm really not a fan of white polish unless I'm using it to marble, gradient or stamp. The flutterbies are cute-ish, tho!

My work day ended at noon. The water softener lady is coming over to once again try to figure out why our system still isn't working properly. I'm so over it. If this goes on much longer, they're going to have to get that thing out of my house. And I know just the place they can move it to, although I'm not sure they'll appreciate my "suggestion".

Before that we'll have to go get Kev's car from the mechanic. His car is having some work done on the brakes. 

You know, because we haven't spent enough money in the past month.

Monday, May 12, 2014

IT'S SUMMER! NOPE....IT'S GONE AGAIN.



God help me, I really hate that damn bedroom color. Just the thought of repainting it makes me cringe. It's just too dark for that room. If it was a brighter room in general, it would have been fine, but this is just not cutting it for me. Kiss another $130 goodbye when I buy 2 more gallons of paint. *sigh*

Friday I was pretty much a slug. I watched a lot of tv and stared at the hummingbird feeders.  That one male was the only one I saw.

On Saturday morning I was very happy when I looked out and saw a female. I wasn't really expecting to see a girl so soon, but I'm certainly not complaining.  A short while after I first saw her, I looked up to find my adult male from last year. I was very happy to see him! This is his third year of hanging at my place. He may have been here before that, but I didn't start my hummingbird fascination until 2012.  I'll be sad when a year comes that he doesn't show up, but I'm glad he managed the trip again this year.
After I spent a couple of hours stalking the hummingbirds, I was a good girl and got motivated. I cleaned the entire house which lately has been dirtier than normal from all of the tomfoolery with the redecorating.   didn't mind it so much because it was sunny and 70 degrees out, and it felt good to have the doors open for the fresh air. I also enjoyed running around barefoot all day.  One day of that is all I got. Summer's over.

After I took a break to eat dinner, I then decided I would do the laundry because I thought wearing clothes to dinner on Mother's Day would be the appropriate way to go.  It was almost dark out as I was doing the last couple of loads, and I couldn't help but notice that every time I went to the kitchen to go into the laundry room, one of my male hummers was at the kitchen window feeder almost every time. I'm so glad they are using that one!

Since he was so persistent and obviously starving, I just couldn't help myself. I just had to go outside and hold that feeder. Poor dogs couldn't figure out why I was on the deck without them, but whatevs. At that moment hummers trumped furbabies.

I didn't bother bringing a chair out. I just grabbed the feeder, stood with my back to the window and tried not to move. I was so hoping that pretty little boy would stop and eat. About five minutes into it I saw movement out of the corner of my right eye and heard that joyous sound of hummingbird wings. I wish I could describe that sound when it's practically on top of you. It's amazing. I really had planned on giving them some time to get used to being at my house again before attempting that, but I'm glad I didn't wait.

I held my breath and in flew one of my females!! I'm not sure if it's the same nosy one from last summer or not, but she sure acts like that one. She didn't land on my finger (yet) but she did eat. Then she took a break from that and flew up right in front of my nose, hovered and stared and then went back to eat some more.

I had one female last summer that made me flinch many times because she was so curious about who/what I was. She would always come in to eat, but she would always take a break and hover by my nose or ear. They are so quick it's a bit freaky when they come in close like that. I usually end up closing my eyes when they get that close.  Then I'm pissed at myself later for not looking when she's that close. I think when I've spent more time with my little friend from the other night I'll probably be able to tell if it's the same one from last year.

Kev gets home today so we'll have to get the other 7 feeders up in the next couple of days. Oddly enough, I haven't seen any of them use the feeder that I put up on the corner of the garage. That one is usually pretty popular. I'd rather have them use the window ones for obvious reasons, but I'm going to give them lots of options; a sugar water buffet, so to speak.

Lately I've been having such a hard time deciding what color polish to wear. Pathetic, I know. Every time I think of a color, I feel like I've just worn it. They need to make more colors!

I don't think I've done a lavender in awhile so the other day I grabbed my all-time fave to do a mani.
I never get tired of China Glaze Agent Lavender. Ever. It's such a perfect color. I used OPI Eurso Euro to stamp with the MoYou Pro 10 plate.  

I love this one. (yes, Martha....another one I like). 
China Glaze Agent Lavender, OPI Eurso Euro, MoYou Pro 10 stamp
I've also been collecting stuff to practice doing acrylic and gel nails. I got myself five practice fingers and a hand. My hairdresser sent me home with all of the acrylic supplies that I need to practice. I did buy some less expensive brushes to use because the ones she gave me cost like 30 bucks a piece, and I don't want to ruin them. 

Last week I then bought a bunch more stuff on eBay, and one of my "extra" daughters is going to come over this weekend and be a guinea pig for me. Hopefully I can manage a decent full set of acrylics on her. I did do a few practice acrylic over tips that turned out pretty decent.  I also already have a professional gel nail system that I bought many years ago that still seems to be useable so at some point I'll practice with that, too.

The goal is to eventually become a nail tech. I can't really see myself going to school for it because our local school doesn't have a nail program. For awhile now my friend has been trying to get the apprenticeship thing going so I can just do that when I'm not working and then eventually take the test to get certified.

When that didn't seem to be panning out and I wasn't working, I started trying to find a school that I could attend, and I just wasn't having any luck at all. Moving to Illinois with my daughter for five months was on the table for a hot minute because I could have gone to tech school, finished in 5 months and just lived with them. I think that course was around $3,000.  Then I found out about a school just over an hour from me that I could have commuted to, but for some reason their tech program is over $6,000.  It was right about that time I discovered I'd be going back to work part-time. So much for going to class five days a week.

Now I'm back to hoping the apprenticeship works out. She doesn't have a tech in her shop right now so when I got my hairs did a few weeks ago, she sent me home with all of her equipment. Now it's just a matter of the state of Michigan getting off their asses so I can get things going. What's even better is if and when I ever get a license, I already have a place to work whatever hours I want.

The beauty of that is I could keep working my part-time here and then do nails. It sounds like a perfect plan.

I'm assuming that means it won't work out.

Friday, May 9, 2014

HEY, MARTHA! I LIKE THIS ONE!

I am officially so sore and tired I could cry. It's gotten so going to work on Monday and Tuesday is my relaxing time. Every time I'm home I seem to be motivated to do something. 

Kev is off for an actual bunch of days in a row, which is awesome. He probably would prefer to be at work at this point, too, because I keep asking him to do stuff around here right along with me.

On Tuesday after work I let him know that on Wednesday I was planning to start painting our bedroom. For him that meant moving the furniture which, for the record is not light. We decided the best way to go would be to move the bed across the room enough for me to fit the ladder, I would do two walls and when those were done, then move the dressers away from the other two walls and I would paint those. This actually turned out to be a pretty decent plan. 

Halfway through the first wall I realized I forgot to take a before pic of the room. Dammit! I've been trying to hard to remember to do that!! I did take a couple with the bed in the middle of the room with a bunch of random crap on top of it. I can probs scrounge up a few pics from times I took pics of the dogs, but I'll worry about it later since I'm not showing any until the floor goes in.

I'm also undecided as to whether or not I like the color. It's so much darker than I thought it was going to be. If I do decide I hate it, I'll end up repainting the damn thing. Ugh. 

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Kev was changing out all of the hardware on the kitchen cabinets. We've been talking about doing that for quite some time now. I have a ton of cabinets....I think the total count for new hinges was 41. Ridiculous to pay several hundred bucks just for new hardware. I also assumed that would be about a 20 minute job for him. What a fool believes. It was a lot of work!!  They look great, but now I want to refinish the kitchen cupboards and make them darker. But I can't let myself think about that right now.

Oh, I'm so excited right now! As I was typing, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. HUMMINGBIRD!!!! My first one of the year!! The males always show up first, and this little guy isn't my adult I've had for a couple of years. I think it's the youngster that was born here last summer. He's longer and more slender than my original male. I've had my window feeders up for a week. If staring at them all week could will them to show up, they would have been here the same day I put them up because I look at the picture window one 100 times a day. I'm constantly paying attention with my peripheral vision, and I noticed immediately even though I was typing. I also decided to go out on the deck last week and put a window feeder in my kitchen window and was wondering if they'd use it. I went outside on the deck a few minutes ago, and he flew right up to eat while I was standing about 6 feet away. LOVE!

I won't get a thing done all weekend now. Housecleaning? Laundry? Unlikely. It's pretty decent outside right now, and I may end up cranking the radio and sitting outside holding a feeder on the deck. Here's my purdy little boy.....I look forward to the rest showing up.
I'm just ridiculously happy right now. Kev is on the road heading downstate for the weekend. He called to talk, and I probably drove him crazy with how excited I was.

I suppose I'll talk nails for a second.
Ulta, China Glaze Unplugged, MoYou Sailor 07 stamp
I did this one the other night, and I liked this one quite a lot. Yes, you read that right, Martha....I like it.  The base is some unnamed Ulta. I have no clue where or when I even got it, but it's old. Like add 15 drops of thinner old. Once I added that, it ended up being a pretty nice polish although I wasn't a huge fan of the brush. For the MoYou Sailor 07 stamp, I used China Glaze Unplugged. That polish stamped really well.

I think that's about it for today. I like the polish colors, I like the stamp, I like the mani.

Now I have hummers to go stalk.

Monday, May 5, 2014

RED MEANS HOT, NERDS.

As I told you in my last post, Kev managed to fix the hot and cold water problem in the new shower. Supposedly.

On Thursday morning I got up for work, and okay, I'll admit it....I was a smidge excited to step into that shiny new shower.  As I always do, I turned the water to hot to let it warm up while I put in my contacts, brushed my hair, yada yada. 

At this point I'm damn near giddy with excitement. I reach in to feel the water. ICE cold. What the what??? I thought it was fixed! So I waited and waited and waited. The water just stayed cold. Oh, fantabulous. Now what the hell happened?

Just for shits and giggles, I turned it to cold. Yup. Hot water. Evidently they mixed up that minor detail when they hooked up the water supply. You know, that thing where you hook the hot up to hot and cold up to cold. Plumber style. 

Oh, wait....they are plumbers. Jeebus H. Doesn't anybody ever get anything right?  I texted Kev to ask if he failed to notice that the hot and cold were backwards. His response, "Well, it depends on how you look at the handle." Um, okay. Every shower with a circular handle I've ever been in has to be turned all the way over to hot. Like where that little red symbol is that indicates hot unless you happen to be colorblind. He had me so confused that I left a note for Tyler to go in my bathroom and call me before heading back to Illinois. I'm sure she thought I was cray-cray. But good daughter that she is, she did as I asked. I asked her to turn the water on to hot and let me know what happens. As I expected, I'm not crazy. It's backwards.

Now, I can learn to live with this even though it's gnawing at the inside of my brain. I can practically feel myself losing brain cells as it eats away in there. I mentioned it to the furnace guy since it was his subcontractors that did that. He also agreed with me and said he would have them come back to fix it.  Two hours later he also decided that it "all depends on how you look at the handle" and said if I really wanted him to, he'd call the guy back or give me 50 bucks off the bill. Since they would have to crawl in through the laundry room wall to do it, I took the damn 50 bucks. 

I'm regretting that now. I may just ask Kev to do it. lol

Meanwhile, the new furnace was just a-humming along nicely. But for some weird reason, every time the new furnace kicks on, every bit of cold air from outside is coming inside through my fireplace. This is not a very good thing at all. I happen to be a smoker, and for the past 12 years, I sit in that fireplace and smoke so that no smoke gets into the actual house. I know that this works well because my mom can't smell smoke. And trust me when I tell you, if my house smelled even the tiniest bit of smoke, she would smell it from her house 10 miles away and then call me up to bitch me out.

So now if I'm in the fireplace and the furnace kicks on, the smoke blows right into the living room. Not cool. As I'm sitting in my recliner across the room that night, pouting about how I'm going to have to learn to speed smoke outside in 20 below weather in the winter, the furnace kicks on, and all I feels is all that cold air blowing into the room. I fail to see the benefit of a new energy efficient furnace if cold air comes in every time it goes on. Doesn't that kind of cancel out the whole energy efficient thing?

On Friday they came out to install the air conditioner. All of that went according to plan, believe it or not. Now we just need the electrician to come out and finish it up. No rush....it's still only in the 40's here.  While they were there, I mentioned the cold air through the fireplace thing because of the new furnace.  The guy looked at me like I had grown a second head and two extra noses.  He said there was no way that was possible.  Um, okay. I guess I was imagining it.  Turns out it was a good thing I mentioned it. He decided to go under the house just to see and noticed it was awfully warm under there. For some reason there was an entire section of duct work that wasn't connected. Once he hooked that back up, the problem was solved. Yay!!

Their bossman came to check out what was done and said he'd be back later to collect his money.  I had cleaned the entire house that morning but hadn't done my floors since they were coming in and out of the house. The laundry room floor was a disaster from all the work they had been doing so before using my steam cleaner, I got down on my hands and knees to clean up the worst of it.

Sweet Jesus....they did a teensie bit of damage to two of my floor tiles. Kill me. Kill me now. It's not major, and only I would notice such a thing. One is a little nick where the color is gone so it's now a white spot. I'd say it's about the size of a nail head. The one that concerns me is the next tile over where there's a weird round raised spot. It almost feels like a nail poking through except there are no nails. I feel like that one could for sure get worse just from people walking over it.

When my guy came to get his money, I mentioned it and showed him. Now, obvi I can't prove they did it or whether it was bathroom guys or furnace guys, but I know that one of them did it. He wanted to know what I thought he could do about it. I just told him I didn't necessarily think there was anything he could do, but he should for sure tell his workers to put down blankets or something to protect people's floors in the future. He gave me another 50 bucks. Even though he said his wife would notice something like that, too, I'm pretty sure he probably thinks I'm a complete raving, nitpicky psycho bitch even though I honestly was super nice about it all.  I do have extra tiles in the garage, so hopefully when they come to do the bathroom flooring, I can have them just replace those 2 tiles.

Like I say, it's always something! Just a non-stop comedy of errors every time we do something.  Whew!! Sorry that was so long, but I'm trying to tell these ever-so-funtastic stories as they relate to each other.

A few weeks ago one of my trouble-making nail friends posted on Facebook that Above the Curve was running a sale on one of their holo polishes. It's a gorgeous deep purple holo from their Doctor Who collection, and it's called The Silence. Since I made the mistake of looking at it, I decided to buy it since I've been such a good girl about not buying polish. And while I was buying that one, I noticed this one, "Slitheen". It is absolutely to.die.for.
Above the Curve Slitheen

Above the Curve Slitheen
 Above the Curve Slitheen
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that is one spectacular green holo. As always, the pics just can't do it justice. I loved it so much I never even did anything else to it. That is a very rare thing for me.  I wore it all by its lonesome for several days and never got tired of looking at it.

I haven't worn the purple one yet, but I have a feeling that will be one I wear all on its own, too. The formula on these polishes is great and even after wearing it for a few days, I had no tip wear at all.

If you don't have any Above the Curve polishes, I can safely say that you should rush right over to check them out on Facebook and then get your buying finger ready to add things to your cart. 

If you can get off of their page without buying more than one, I'll be surprised.