Saturday, April 30, 2016

QUITE THE WEEK

It was a long, weird week. The bossman was on a short vacay and was out of the office on Monday and Tuesday. I went in for a few hours on Monday to do a bunch of odds and ends when I got the call that my first mother-in-law had passed away.

I've known her for over 40 years, and even though her son and I divorced, she was still family in the heart-sense. Knowing how painful the loss is for her entire family, for my girls and for my grandkids is tough. 

On Tuesday I spent some time teaching my replacement some of the ins and outs of the office. Wednesday the bossman was back and we spent the day getting everything caught up from while he was gone. He wandered out the door at about 3 p.m. and never came back. So that made for a pretty underwhelming last day. 

After my "last day" of work was over, I stopped over and spent some time with my ex and then I met up with the hubby, Lisa and Laura for dinner. As is the norm, from there we headed to the casino, where luck was actually on our side and we walked out about $300 ahead. We got back home just as Tyler was pulling in from Illinois. Obviously I'm happy to have her and Zero here but wish she hadn't come because of losing her grandma.

Yesterday was the funeral. Painful on many levels, and I would much appreciate not having to see my grandchildren feel like that ever again. For real. 

After that was over, we headed over to the bar that is owned by my ex and his sister. It was lots of family and friends that had been at the funeral, and they had a whole spread of food set out. I think we got there about 5:30 and by 7:30 this girl needed to go home and sleep. I hadn't eaten, had taken a Vicodin earlier in the day and then drank 3 mixed drinks. At this particular bar, that is actually more like 6 drinks when it comes to alcohol content. I was more than a little toasty. I either needed to drink more to get past the sleepy stage or go home and sleep. I chose to go home and sleep. Kev headed back over there an hour later to hang with the family and watch karaoke and came home with some video of both of the grandkids singing. I'm pretty pissed that I missed out on that. I guess it didn't occur to me that they would be at the bar, too.

I had ordered a couple of LynB Designs polishes that came in the mail on Wednesday. After swatching them, I decided to use the neutral holo as my mani for yesterday.
LynB Designs Defender of the Down Trodden, Mundo de Unas Black, Cooi 026 stamping plate
The picture did not capture the prettiness of this polish very well. It's actually got a lot of holo goodness. I absolutely love the color, so if you're looking for a nice, neutral holo, I will for sure recommend LynB Designs Defender of the Downtrodden.
LynB Designs Defender of the Down Trodden, Mundo de Unas Black, Cooi 026 stamping plate
I tried a couple of different designs with my MdU Black before deciding on this one from the Cooi 026 stamping plate that I got from Ali Express. I bought six of these plates, and they are really nice! And at $1.18 a piece, they were a fantastic deal. I received them pretty quickly, too, less than two weeks. It ended up being a good mani for what I wore to the funeral, which was black leggings with a neutral and black sweater dress. This polish matched the neutral of my sweater perfectly.

Overall, I am very impressed with my first LynB polishes and with those Ali Express plates. 

Today I had a lazy, quiet afternoon. Kev went off golfing, and when he was done, he went and stole Seven so she could come over and play with her brother. Zero was very happy to have her here to play. Tinlee only puts up with him for a certain amount of time and then wants to take a break while Zero would play non-stop for hours. Seven accommodates him.

Quiet went out the window at that point. I'm worn out just from watching them.

Saturday, April 23, 2016

TWO ORANGE MANI'S

Since I'm so lazy about blogging lately, I just accumulate pictures just waiting for me to take the time to write about them. Just to get 'em out there, I guess sometimes I should just post more than one pic.

This first mani I did Thursday night. It ended up being a disappointment, and it came off tonight.
Funky Fingers Pluto 4Ever, MdU Orange, Uber Chic 8-02
The light coral is a pretty color by Funky Fingers, Pluto 4Ever. While I do have a tendency to grab up any coral shade I find, I did get this one specifically because it was supposed to change colors in sunlight. It "should" have gone from this color to a darker color. It did not.

I also had a difficult time finding a good color to stamp with. I tried three different regular polishes before caving and just using Mundo de Unas Orange with the Uber Chic 8-02 plate. 

Frankly, I didn't find this one to be Funky at all. I found it Fugly. And that's why it's gone.

Way back in January I did this orange one that I liked so much better.

Sinful Colors Mardi Gras, Mundo de Unas White, Stampaholic plate 2
It probs didn't hurt that the base is one of my all-time fave corals, Sinful Colors Mardi Gras. And of course, you can never go wrong with MdU White for stamping on top of that color. The design is from the Stampaholic 2 plate.

Tonight I really should have taken the time to soak off my nails because my left thumb came loose, but I was not in the mood. I shoved a bit of nail glue under it to keep it on for another day or two.

Bossman is on vacation until Wednesday which means I don't have to get up early on Monday or Tuesday. So if I stay up too late tomorrow or Monday night to do the reapplication, no biggie. 

Of course, very soon now I won't have to worry about staying up late ANY night since I won't ever have to go in to work early. This coming Wednesday is supposed to be my last day working. 

I say supposed to be because the bossman called me already to ask if I'd work May 9, 10 and 11th because my replacement had already made plans to go out of town before she took the job. So I'm retiring for a week and then going back in for a week.

Figures. I knew I'd never get out of there that easily.

Friday, April 22, 2016

FULL NAIL WATER DECALS

Yesterday I took the hummingbird window feeders out of the closet. I debated whether or not I should hang them yet, but the migration map seems to show the little cuties showing up a little earlier than last year in some places. I decided I'd wash them and made up a batch of nectar for them. 

While that cooled down, I washed the windows and searched around the deck hoping I'd find the suction cup that went missing at the end of last summer. No luck there. Luckily when I bought my mom her first window feeder as a Christmas gift, I bought one for myself, too. I absolutely need to have three window feeders.

It was starting to get dark out when I finally filled them and hung them up. And so begins the obsessive window watching, waiting for my first sighting. One thing about having these feeders, I'm pretty sure I have spectacular peripheral vision. I see every little movement at those windows. I really hope the birds show up sooner than last year.

When I finished up with the pink flower nail foils, I decided to use a set of water decals that I bought many months ago.
Cult El Porto, water decals
I did one coat of Cult El Porto. The white base definitely was necessary to show off the decal colors. I was pretty happy with these decals. I've had them so long that I don't remember what website I bought them from. There was a bit of a learning curve, and I did manage to damage the first decal as I tried to move it around on my left thumb.

After making that mistake, I didn't really have any more problems. I found that as long as I didn't try to slide them around, it was very easy to lift them off to move them if I needed to. That was a good thing because the set came with exactly ten.

When I added topcoat, the excess decal that was hanging off the edge at the tip pretty much melted away, and cleanup around the rest of the nail went very easily using non-acetone.

I'm kind of obsessed with full coverage water decals right now. I'm looking forward to using some of the floral ones that I bought, but I need to wait until they get to me from Ali Express.

I think I left these on for 5 or 6 days, and I have to say they held up pretty well. It's fun to use something like these just to change things up once in awhile. Lately I've been uninspired when it comes to colors for stamping manicures. Having things like decals and foils to play with gives me a little bit of motivation.

What keeps you motivated when it comes to mani ideas? I see so many gorgeous, intricate stamping manicures, but some of them look like they took forever. Back when I first started doing my nails, it wouldn't have bothered me to spend all day doing something on my nails; now I just don't want anything I do to take that long.

I bought the Uber mat and have purchased plates that would be good for doing decals, but they are so involved. I made a half-assed attempt one night awhile back, but as soon as the decal dried, it curled up horribly and was unusable. I haven't tried since. 

Maybe this weekend I'll try again. So if you hear swearing and don't know where it's coming from, it'll probs be me.



Sunday, April 17, 2016

PLAYING WITH FOIL

Oh, yesterday felt so good! Sunny and probably at least 60 degrees out on my deck. Nothing feels better than the first time opening up the screen door and letting the fresh air inside after months of being closed up. It just makes a body feel good to breathe in.

The past week or so I was kind of stumped on stamping ideas. I recently bought a bunch of new nail foils and water decals on Ali Express, so I've been doing some playing with those.

This first mani I left on for a few days. It seemed cuter in the night time light when I did it. I was less pleased with it in broad daylight, but people that saw it seemed to like it.

Before placing the foils, I did a basecoat with Julep Janie.
Julep Janie, Ali Express nail foil
After that was dry and topcoated, I cut up specific sections of the foil pattern. One thing I'm noticing with all of the floral nail foils I bought is the fact that it takes some finagling to actually place them. In order to have any kind of halfway decent look, I did a lot of cutting up into usable pieces. If they were expensive, I'd complain about that, but they were super cheap. I also find that I rarely use any kind of foil more than once.

One nice thing about the floral type foils is the fact that topcoat has no negative effect.

Then Friday night when I was getting ready to do my nails, I thought I'd try this black and silver number.
This one required some slicing and dicing, too. It didn't really apply all that nicely. I was pleasantly surprised that using Seche Vite didn't hurt the silver part of these foils, either. But since I wasn't too happy with the whole look, I only did the one hand, took a pic and then took it off.

After I took it off, I did a stamped mani that I'll show in another post. I really was in the mood to do my nails last night, too, but I really like what I have on so I didn't touch them.

This morning some friends and I headed off to Christmas, Michigan for a slot tournament at the Kewadin Casino. We came home losers, but it was still fun. It was almost 80 degrees there. 

I probably should have just sat my ass in the parking lot and got a tan. It would have cost me less.

Friday, April 15, 2016

SPRINGTIME....FOR REAL THIS TIME!

I do believe spring is finally here for real. Our weather for the next ten days or so is looking pretty good, 50's and even some 60 degree days. It definitely felt like spring while I was cleaning the house yesterday. Of course, it also felt a lot like spring a couple of weeks ago, and then we had a couple of big snowstorms. So who the hell knows. I remember it snowing on May 5, 1979, so anything is possible.

It was sunny and beautiful outside all day. It did take me about an hour longer than usual to clean the house because it seemed like every time I looked out the patio door or kitchen window, there was a cute bird to look at. 

First up was my female Cardinal. She's been hanging around a lot, so she must have a nest nearby again. She took off before I had time to get pics. He hubby was across the driveway in the trees, though, so I did manage to stare at him for a bit and get some pics. 

Next pass through the kitchen and there was a very pretty bright yellow Goldfinch, so I had to stop again to take pics. And lastly, I managed to catch a Red-bellied Woodpecker on the feeder. They are notoriously hard to me to catch in pics because they never seem to hang there for very long. I was very happy this one let me snap a few. So the birds pretty much made my day.

Now I just need my hummingbirds to come back.....I'm counting the days. My first sighting was May 6th last year, so it's getting close!

A couple of weeks ago the nail group decided on purple for the week. As always, my intentions to play along were good. I managed to do this mani but never got around to posting it.
Color Club Sweet Pea, Mundo de Unas Lilac, Uber Chic 8-01
The purple is Color Club Sweet Pea, and I used MdU Lilac with the Uber Chic 8-01 stamping plate.

I wasn't a big fan of this one. It's a nice purple; I just wasn't excited about the design I chose. 

Right now I'm wearing some water decals that I did last Sunday, and they are looking rough. They are going to come off, but I just cannot decide on what I want to do.

Feel free to telepathically send me some fantastic idea.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

FINALLY I LIKE SOMETHING!

For quite awhile now I've just been really over being at work. I've been very lucky to have been working at a job I actually loved most of the time for a boss who, for the most part, is a great guy to work for. For reasons I'm not sure I understand, I'm just no longer finding the enjoyment that I used to in the work.

After many, many months of talking about it with the hubster, I finally bit the bullet yesterday and told him that I will be done at the end of the month. Of course, I also told him I'll still be around if he's in a pinch or needs help with something. Unless he can find somebody with experience, I expect I'll get occasional phone calls for awhile.

It is also a possibility that I will just switch to one day a week. He offered that to me just in case a year from now I decide I'm bored and made a mistake by quitting. At this point I'm undecided if I'll do that or not. Part of me thinks it's a great idea, and part of me is afraid that it just means I'll end up doing exactly as much as I do now but only having one day to do it. That's kind of what my three days a week has been; a five day amount of work that I get done in three.

I'm really hoping this doesn't end up being a mistake. I know I'm going to miss typing all the time, and I will miss the bossman. It would be so much easier to quit if he was a jerk.

So that's the most exciting news in my life right now. The other exciting thing is I actually finally did a mani that I liked after doing several that I hated. Sadly, after wearing it for five days, I am now wearing another one that I hate. It is for sure coming off tonight.

But here's a good one. Yay!
Julep Claire, Cult El Porto, Sinful Colors Blue Crushin, MoYou Pro XL06
I hadn't done any double stamping in a long while, and I really like the colors on this. The light blue base is Julep Claire. I then tried a couple of different things for the stamping. I tried doing white first and then dark blue....hated it. Then I did dark blue and used MdU white on top....hated that. The MdU white just stamped way too bold.

I finally stamped with the MoYou Pro XL06 plate and Sinful Colors Blue Crushin. When that was done, I tried a Sally Hansen white for the stamping, but that was too light. I then used Cult El Porto with the same design as the blue, facing the opposite direction, and I was satisfied with the intensity of the white. It showed up just enough while still allowing the darker blue stamping to show.

The entire time I had this on I was happy with it. When I took it off last night, I was saddy pants over it. I was even more saddy pants when I finished what I replaced it with.

Gawd, it is just butt-friggin'-ugly! I may not even photograph it. That's how bad I think it is.