A QUICK HALLOWEEN NOD

My week so far has been pretty uneventful. I'll call that a good thing. I'm already looking forward to tomorrow because even though it's only Wednesday, that's my Friday. I'm gonna' work and then go home and clean the house. My life is almost too exciting, I know. I will have Seven for the weekend again, so I do have that as an actual plan. I've been missing her so I'm happy she's coming back again.

On Sunday night I went through my stamping plates with spooky images and was uninspired. I'm just not feeling the whole Halloween mani thing this year. Maybe next week I'll feel like doing something.

I did think these witches hats were kind of cute.

I started off by doing a gradient with Sally Hansen Peach of Cake, Revlon Siren and American Apparel Poppy. Even on its own, I kind of liked it, especially after I used my Butter London Matte Topcoat. I really felt like I should do what I planned, though, so I used the witchy hats from the Ali Express 12-50 stamping plate.

I think it's pretty cute, actually. If I don't bother doing anything more elaborate, at least I can say I did one Halloween mani.  

The UPS man at the office liked 'em. And when it comes right down to it, isn't that all that really matters?

I WENT OLD SCHOOL

I'm happy to report that no cooking was involved with my evening. Hubby happily agreed to take me out for dinner. From there my initial plan was to go home and take off that striping tape mani, but our car drove itself to the casino instead of making the turn to go home.

We had fun but came home losers. As usual.

When I was getting ready for work this morning, I looked down at my left hand, and to my horror, a huge chunk of the polish on the right side of my middle finger is gone. How crazy do you think that has been driving me all day?? It's sooooo bad!!! I don't know what I knocked it against, but it sure did some polish damage.

Now I have no choice but to do them tonight. Well, I already knew I had to, but now I can't weasel out of it. I have a doctor's appointment out of town, and obvi I need something impressive, especially since I've never been there before.

This mani from a couple weeks ago was a "just playing around" thing. Back when I first got stamping stuff, the first set I bought was a Bundle Monster set of 25 plates. One of the plates has this flower. Of course, those plates don't fill my finger, but a lot of the XL Bundle Monsters are just larger versions of their original plates. That's why I bought 'em.

I did my light pink with American Apparel Coney Island. When I stamped, I put Loreal Crazy for Chic and Cult Los Feliz in little blobs on the Bundle Monster BM XL05 plate so the colors would kind of smoosh.

While this did work out the way it was supposed to, it was only "meh" for me. I don't think I really care for those flowers as whole-nail coverage. I've used one or two in the past just for accent purposes, but to me this looks juvenile. In fact, the photo at the top of my blog on the far right has this flower from the original plate as a French tip accent.

It's probably why I didn't bother doing both hands. It just looked like a mani for a little kid on a grownup's hand. I bet I would have liked it better if I'd stamped with a really dark color.

I doubt I'll ever know because I probably won't ever use this image on my entire nail again. I may, however, at some point recreate that French tip mani using it as the accent. I still like that little mani. My friend had posted it when I first started doing my nails and kind of challenged me to do it. I was a real beginner then, but I was happy to try. After that she got all hooked on nails, too! LOL

I kind of enjoyed being able to say I was just a beginner at nail art. It gave me a built-in excuse for anything that didn't turn out very well. I'm guessing at 3 years in, I can't use that one anymore.

Now if I mess up, it's straight up incompetence. And that sucks!

NOW THIS IS BRIGHT!!

I'm sure you will all be very relieved that we still get to go to the concert. It got rescheduled to Monday, and luckily I struck a deal with the bossman to work a couple of different days so I can have Monday and Tuesday off. 

Right now I'm fuming. I just went outside, fell down on the ice and put a hole in the knee of my jeans. Of course they are one of my favorite pairs. I'm going to do an iron on patch from the inside. Hopefully they'll not look too bad when I'm finished.

Now my knees and the palms of my hands hurt. (insert self-pity here)

I did this mani the other night. Holy brightness.

This one wasn't so easy. I don't know why I attempt these swirly water marbles. They are a headache. My colors for this one are China Glaze Sneaker Head, American Apparel Poppy, Pure Ice Show Stopper, QRS Love is Blue and Essie The Girls are Out.

I think I had to re-do at least 6 during this process. Sometimes water marbles are no fun.

I'm kind of excited to head home. After waiting for 10 months since getting the estimate to fix all of the ceilings in our house, today was day 2 of the work. By the time I get there, all of them should be smooth. By Friday they should be completely finished. Kiss those hideous popcorn ceilings buh-bye and good riddance.

I was also very excited because I ordered a new ceiling light for my bedroom on Monday and was even more happy because it was going to be delivered today.

Imagine my disappointment when I got a text from Tyler in Illinois. Evidently I forgot to change the shipping address in my account from when I sent her some boots last fall. So she has my new light fixture sitting at her house. I'm not going to pay to ship the dang thing so now I won't get it for probably at least 2 months.

And once again, I hate when I'm stupid.  I think I really should have born a blonde since being fake blonde makes me an airhead.

SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE IT, DAMMIT

Have I mentioned recently that I hate Mondays? If not, let it be known; I hate Mondays.

It was such an uneventful weekend I don't have anything to either whine or woo-hoo about. I'm a boring soul.

I stared at my left hand for two days while pondering what to do about that turquoise mani. Leave it on? Take it off? It actually was starting to get on my nerves that I couldn't decide.

Suddenly yesterday afternoon I decided I was kind of tired of it, so off I went to grab a bunch of polish, striping tape and the new plates I got from Ali Express.

When I ordered them, I was a little concerned about the size of the designs, but I figured I'd give it a shot because they weren't super expensive. They are the round plates that are a little bit bigger than Konad, and a lot of them have designs that fill up 1/4th of the plate. I figured those images would be big enough, and I was right. This is the set, and I chose 12 of the 25.

Pardon the yellow hands, but it's what I apparently have to do in order to show something even resembling the China Glaze Agent Lavender and American Apparel Mount Royal that I used for this one.  The stamp is from the AP 21 plate, although I did see that other sellers have the same plates but with different numbers. Weirdsville.

While I do like the design, I wish I had used different colors.

Actually, what I really wish is that the striping tape mani that I started would have been turning out like it did in my head. I tried a couple of different things and then gave up. Sometimes I just don't have the patience to mess with striping tape. Maybe if I'd started earlier in the day I would have continued on with it. I should know better by now that to do stuff like that I need to play on a Saturday. That way if I get frustrated and only get part way done, I have Sunday to wrap it up.

Honestly, what I really wanted to do was a water marble but didn't want to bore anyone with yet another of those. 

It's still stuck in my head, though, so that might be what you end up seeing at some point this week, possibly tomorrow.

Looking down at my fingers as I type, I really wish I would have stuck with the turquoise. Someday I'll have to do that again, actually do both hands and then actually leave the house with it.

I think a lot of my mani's kind of go to waste now that I only work part-time. Well, other than the fact that I plaster them all over the interwebs.

Nobody appreciates them in real life like my interwebs nail peeps do anyway, which is why I appreciate all of you!

SHOULD'VE LEFT IT ALONE

Happy 23rd! My last bit of baking, the rolls, are sitting on the cupboard rising for the last time before throwing them into the oven. I can't wait. There are few things I like more than homemade buns fresh out of the oven, and they will be my late supper and probably also a late night snack.

The German sour cream twists came out fantastic. I think I've eaten 6 of those, and the peanut blossoms Tyler made are also delish. I've only eaten two of those. So far. The night is young. She also brought me Chex party mix, which I love but refuse to make. Some things are just better if someone else does it. My ex mother-in-law always made it, and luckily Tyler started doing it because I missed out on it for quite a few years now. Yummers.

Zero is ginormous. And adorable. And sweet. He's a stalker, though, and tends to follow me wherever I go. He also likes to suddenly join me in the recliner to wash my face and has no regard whatsoever for the laptop sitting on my legs. 

I have a Christmas plaid stretchy dog collar with bells around it that I put on him earlier. I finally took it off because he's so happy and bouncy that it was ringing way too much. Then I decided I'd pull out the reindeer ears that we never use and torment him with that. 

As you can see, he was thrilled.

Eventually he got them off and just laid across my legs trying to eat them.  I'm done picking on him now.

Last week late one night I decided to do a wreath stamp on my nails.

The light green is American Apparel Office, and I stamped the wreath using the Messy Mansion MM01 plate with Colour Gossip Nature Girl.  As an afterthought, I grabbed Square Hue Joulupukin Pajakyla and a dotting tool and filled in the bows on the wreath.

That part turned out to be a mistake. I just didn't like how they looked, but it wasn't bad enough that I felt like taking them off to start over.

I will say I had a couple of people compliment them while I was out and about, so I'm not considering it a fail. I'm just considering it to be one that I'm not really fond of. Now that I'm looking at it again, I think if I had stamped the wreaths with a super dark green it would have looked better. Hindsight and all that jazz.

I'm really hoping that later tonight I'll be able to do something with my nails. I still have on the one from yesterday's post, and I really don't want it to be my actual Christmas mani.

Now if I could just decide what I want to do, that would be nice.

LOOK!! AN ACTUAL NEW POST!!

I cannot believe the pups are a month old already. The time is just going way too quickly because even though they are a ton of work at this point, it just kills me to think of them leaving. Only two boys don't have their new fur-ever homes yet.

And of course I will share a couple of pics and a hilarious video. Seriously, take the 3 minutes to watch the video. Super cute and funny.

This little blue ribboned boy is going to my daughter. His name is Zero after the dog from Nightmare Before Christmas. He's quite the spoiled baby already.

I got my new Nail It magazine the other day and found out a mani that I had submitted for consideration in the fall/Halloween mani section was used this time around.

I don't even need to tell you which one it is because I'm sure you recognize the hand pose. LOL

They also used the first mani of mine they ever used, a fancy french, on one of their advertising pages for the 4th time. AND someone else mentioned me in a picture of their mani that was inspired by the fancy french. Pretty much made my day!

For the past couple of years I've had the Droid 4 phone which I bought on eBay when my Droid 3 fell into the pool because I'm a genius. It's been on its way out for awhile, but it killed me to have to part with it because it had a slide out full keyboard. As someone who types for a living, I have always been very attached to having a slide out keyboard. Everyone is obvi too cool for that now, so they don't make phones that have that anymore.

It was very difficult for me to choose a new one, but I finally had to suck it up and just have a touch screen keypad. I got the Samsung Galaxy S5 last week. Once my hubby explained and showed my the Swype feature, I completely fell in love with it. The pictures and videos it takes are amazeballs.

So amazeballs, in fact, that it actually shows purples and lavenders as purples and lavenders. Not as some blue-toned nonsense. I took pics of this mani at home with my camera as I normally do, and as usual, the color was a problem. I took this pic at work with the phone, and I was surprised to see that it was actually the correct color.

This mani is actually a fail even though it doesn't look like it. I had done my base with China Glaze Agent Lavender. My plan was to stamp with two different coordinating colors.  After I did that based, I used the LeaLac LLC-A stamp plate and stamped the flowers with both China Glaze Fade into Hue and American Apparel Mount Royal.

As you can see, the lighter stamp under the dark stamp didn't show up. Luckily it still managed to look okay enough that I didn't try to start over.

My time is way too limited at this point in time. I have to try to plan doing anything nail related to times when I'm "hoping" the puppies will be asleep for at least a couple of hours.

This wonderful new phone did do one very, very bad thing that will take me forever to fix.  I was sitting on the deck trying to take hummingbird videos, and my phone told me my memory was too full. Um...excuse me? I just got the damn thing! 

So as I'm looking through the pics on it trying to figure out what, if anything, I'm willing to delete, I come across a Picasa album that appears to have almost my entire catalog of nail pics along with pics of Griffin. That's weird, since I don't even have Picasa on my laptop. So I go through and delete every.single.nail picture and just leave the pics of Griff.

And a little while later I look at the blog, and the pictures are all gone. WTF. Evidently something with the blog is connected to Picasa. How that then made it connected to my phone is beyond me, but now I have to painstakingly go back and try to re-add all of my pictures. Over 200 of them. Just thinking about it again makes me want to throw myself on the floor in a full-on two year old temper tantrum. I have a memory card coming that should be here in a couple of days, and Kev said he'll see if he can fix it, but something tells me it's not going to work. 

 

I really need to soak off my nails and then reapply them. I need to time it out so that they'll need replacing around the 10th or 11th of September, because on September 13th we are leaving for a week for a much needed vacay in Cancun. Of course I want my nails to look good for that!
Puppies are cute, but they have absolutely no regard for anything else I may want to do around here. The only thing I have to keep up with is washing the kitchen floor which is now getting done three to four times a day. I'm really happy right now that I have a steam mop floor cleaner.

AND THEN THERE WERE.....PUPPIES!!!!

I'm already feeling so guilty for not posting much, and now my time will be even more compromised. As much as I love my nails, puppies trump nails. Every time.

I was getting so anxious waiting for Tinlee to have those puppies. Just excited and nervous all at the same time. Worried about the whole process going smoothly, worried about healthy pups and really worried for the Tinster. If anything had happened to her.....I won't even go there.

So on Sunday she was really getting restless so it was high alert time at my house. Between 8 and 9 p.m. it was pretty obvious that things were slowly starting. She just didn't know what to do with herself. Finally it became obvious that the only way she was going to relax at all was if I closed us both up in the whelping box. Now, it is a very nice whelping box, but it really isn't made for a person to stay in. 

And stay in it I did. From 11:00 p.m. Sunday night and pretty much non-stop for the next 24 hours, although I did sleep in the recliner from 3 to 4 a.m. on Sunday night because she managed to fall asleep on the kitchen floor for that long. 

I guess it was around 3:45 on Monday afternoon that her contractions began in earnest. She was really trying but nothing was really happening. Luckily I was chatting on Facebook with Tinlee's breeder so she was talking me through things. At one point I looked closely, and all I saw peeking out was a tail. Not good. Not only was it just a tail, it was a tail with no sac around it. Can you say "panic"?

It was at that point that the breeder told me I would have to reach in and try to pull that puppy out. This did not sound good to me at all, but I knew it had to be done. So I did exactly what she told me, and I could feel the puppy. And all I could think was that there was no way I could do this with these damn nails. 

Luckily my daughter was with me throughout this whole thing, and I just looked over at her and told her she'd have to do it. This was not something she wanted to hear. Sorry, kid....no other option. If that puppy doesn't get the hell out of dodge, we're going to lose it and very possibly the entire litter.

She got right on it. She wiggled around in there trying to find a way to grab that puppy while I massaged Tinlee's spine to bring on contractions, and after not too long a time she got that puppy out at 4:54 p.m. And he came out perfect, all 1 lb, 3 oz of him. My girl is a frickin' hero.

After that things started moving, and she had 2 more within the next hour. Then it was another hour before she had her 4th, and that one was breech, too.  The labor for her was slower because of that, but she came out just fine. And good thing because it was only 8 minutes before the next one came. During the next 2 hours she had 2 more, and then it was another hour before she had #8, another breech little girl, and she was stillborn. Devastating. I rubbed and rubbed and did mouth to mouth, but there just wasn't anything I could do.

So at the end of the night we had 4 boys and 3 girls, all healthy and happy and adorable.

All in all, it was exhausting for all of us. I think I was up for something like 45 hours straight after having about 4 hours sleep the night before it all began, and about 24 of those hours were spent sitting in a box in the living room.  I felt like I was hit by a bus. No, make that a train. 

It was all worth it, though. They are just so sweet and cute I just want to eat them. Tinlee is a great little mommy.  

I am streaming the litter live on Ustream starting pretty early in the morning until quite late at night. They aren't much fun to watch at this point, but in a couple of weeks when their eyes are open and they're playing, it will be great. Actually, a puppycam is where I found Tinlee. :)

So here's a link to my Golden Retriever cam if you'd like to check them out!

Nails will be taking a bit of a back seat for awhile, but I'm sure I'll still manage to do at least a couple of mani's a week.  Here's one I did last week.

The base teal is American Apparel Peacock, and then I stamped using Venique Pearlicious Aqua and the MoYou Sailor XL 04 stamp. I wanted the waves to have a shimmer. That Venique also has a smidge of a color change, too, kind of a pinkish tint when the light hits it. It's kind of cool.

Now I'm off to catch up on some more work. I took off Monday for the puppy birthing, and I took off on Tuesday to recuperate. I needed it. I actually need more time because those silly pups have a tendency to slither off to parts unknown away from their mom, and then they start crying because they can't figure out how to get back.

We're kind of taking turns sleeping in the living room until they can actually be left alone. I took Monday night and was up every hour. Kev has been sweet enough to take the last two nights because I had to work. Tonight I'll let him get a decent night's sleep, and it'll be me getting up every hour.

As far as sleep deprivation, it's kind of like having a real baby. Or seven.

STRIPING TAPE. AND BIRDS, OF COURSE.

It was not too fantastic a weekend. Chilly and rainy for the most part. Yesterday we finally saw sun and temps in the 70's. 'Bout damn time. Too bad it isn't lasting, as mid-week we're supposed to top out in the 50's.  At least my two day weather headache finally left yesterday.

One bright spot of rainy weather is a lot of hummingbird activity so at least I had something fun to watch while I was stuck inside pouting.  Seems to me I was bitching about cold, craptastic weather last June, too. The hummers were very busy during the rain! And they are extra adorbs when it's rainy because they hunker down and get all fluffed up. Check out this little guy. I just love when I manage to catch one with their mouth open.

And here's his date for the weekend. I used a flash on this pic so the color is off a smidge, but she's still cute.

And even though I said I was going to stop being a lookie-loo at the Robin's nest.....

In all fairness, I only looked because the dad flew off as I went to get the mail. And I conveniently had my camera in my hand. Honestly, I was kind of afraid that the third egg wasn't going to hatch because it hadn't hatched when the other two did. So I was actually being very nice by looking.

Daddy, on the other hand, did not think I was being nice. While I was sneaking a peek and a pic, he was swearing at me. Loudly. Then he landed and actually ran towards me as fast as his little spindly legs could go and stopped just a few feet from me. He was bitching at me the entire time. I told him to chill out because I was already leaving. Sheesh. Grumpy old man much?

He's in for a rude awakening because I will be looking again. And again. I'm anxiously awaiting for them to get all their feathers so they'll be cute.

The weather forecast for this past Thursday was rain in the morning with sun and low 60's in the afternoon. Normally a forecast of 60's would mean it'll be around 70 at my house. When I left work at noon, I was fully expecting that I'd get some pool time. Sadly when I did get home it was still cloudy and windy, and that wind was cold!

My solution for that was heading off to the tanning place to at least get some fake sun. I walked out of there 30 minutes later to full sunshine outside. Really??  When I got home I asked Kev if the weather decided to change just because I decided to go tanning, and he said that 5 minutes after I drove off, the sun came out.  It still was no heatwave, but I figured it would be warm laying on the raft. 

Off I went to throw on the bathing suit. Then I spent 20 minutes skimming all of the tree seeds that have been accumulating in the pool. Seriously, I should have an actual tree growing in that pool by now. Onto the raft I go, being very careful to stay dry. My pool thermometer keeps saying the water is 74, but there's no way I'm buying that. Methinks I need a new, more honest version. That water was chilly!

After about an hour and a half, I decided to call it a day because I had to re-shower to go out to dinner. 

And later that night, my lesson was learned. In the form of a bright red face. Evidently it is not a genius move to remove one's makeup for the tanning bed and then lay in the real sun. I so should have sunscreened before hitting that pool.  It started to itch on Friday, so I waited for the peeling to begin. And Saturday it did, but for some reason just on the sides of my face right by my chin.  Cuteness.

Actually, this is the third lesson I've learned this year. The first one I learned was that the coconut oil I've been slathering on before tanning the past couple of years is actually a natural sunscreen. Guess that explains why I didn't get as dark as I usually do.  The second lesson I learned was that if I start my tan in the real sun using tanning lotion, I burn and then peel like a mo-fo. I was so happy to see my legs get tan for the first time ever using the real sun instead of the tanning bed. I was not so happy to then peel from my ankle all the way up to the top of my legs. And not everywhere, just dead center. I guess starting in the tanning bed is still the best way to go for me because I work my way up and don't burn.

Lessons learned. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Apparently you can as long as I'm the old dog.

In the midst of catching up on some tv last night, I grabbed my trusty striping tape to do nails.

I like the Orly Lollipop light pink, but in person it is completely hideous on me which is why I decided to three-tone it using American Apparel Sweetpea and Wet n Wild Through the Grapevine.  Grapevine is one of those polishes I have extras of because I used it in a lot of water marbles back in the day.

A huge problem with it is it doesn't stay on well at all. I think I had tip wear before I went to bed last night, and I hadn't even been doing anything.  So now I'm sitting at work being annoyed by how they look.  

I don't really feel like doing my nails today so who knows what I'll do about it. Maybe I'll just really be lazy and touch up the tips. Blech. I'm simply not in the mood.

That might change once I leave the office. The air conditioning doesn't seem to be working at all, which normally would suit me just fine. It was nice coming into work and not throwing on my sweater to ward off the bone chills. Now that the lights have been on all day and the sun has started to shine directly into my office, it ain't so great. 

I'm still hoping the bossman doesn't notice, though. I'd rather sit here sweating than have to wear that winter sweater.

BYE-BYE BIRDIE! (not the musical)

Yay! My bedroom is back together! Kev and I made quite the team trying to get that done. The furniture is solid oak and pretty heavy, and I was super worried that we would scratch my beautimous new floors. Lifting that stuff isn't possible. We have those little glider things to go under the corners, but I was even afraid of those on the floor.

So this little genius (me!) thought of using blankets under the glider thingamabobs and then sliding the dressers. It took some finagling, but it worked. Then it was just a matter of dusting off the 6 or so inches of dust on everything and putting the drawers back in. It all looks so nice in there. Now if the guy would just finally come and do the ceilings, we would be completely done with that room.

Tinlee seems more comfortable about the bedroom now that the furniture is back in. We have a rubber backed bath rug that we're using right now in combination with the bedspread. She's getting better about it. At least she'll walk on the floor so the bedspread isn't spread out from the bed all the way to the door.

It still amazes me how unconcerned people are about getting jobs done. Our construction guy, Tony, was on the ball, though. As usual. He and his worker showed up and built the add-on to the garage in a day. He was waiting for the doors to come in, and those got put on yesterday. It's going to be so nice moving the big stuff out of the garage and having some extra room in there.

Kev also put our new toilet in our bathroom, so no more potty in the living room. We are classy folk now. I'm seriously in love with that damn toilet. I just think it's awesome. I know, I know; it's just a toilet. But I really, really like it! 

I wasn't going to show anything we've done until it's all finished, but I'm showing the toilet.

Like I said, love it. I'm so glad I took so much time finding the right one. I'm glad I spent the extra 100 bucks for this one. Cuz' it's awesome.   And yes, I fully realize that it's weird to be this excited over a toilet. Don't care.

Today when I went home at lunch, Kevin advised me that one of the baby Robins had fallen from the nest. Now, I don't know much about Robins or when they are ready to leave the nest, but I was in a panic, especially when I found out the poor little guy was just roaming aimlessly around the garage because he couldn't figure out how to get the hell out of there.

He showed me where he was over in the corner by the closed garage door. At first I thought maybe I should try to catch him and put him back in the nest.  I decided against that idea and told Kev to try opening the garage door just a little bit so I could try to get him outside. He managed to open the door a little without disturbing the nest on top of the garage door opener, and I shooed the little guy/girl out the door. It didn't seem able to fly, and it hopped off and went under Kev's car. I guess when we weren't looking, he left there and I assume hopped off into the woods.

So now I was a panic. The poor thing can't fly, so now what? Then, just because I'm not always quite so bright, I climbed up on the ladder to look at the three remaining babies, and another one popped out of the nest! This one flew over onto the deck. I couldn't see it land, but Kev said it kind of hit the house.  Great. Now I'm in a double panic. I walk up to him on the deck, and oh, damn....it's just so frickin' cute! He sat there for a minute and then kind of flew over to the back door steps. And there he sat. That's where he was still sitting when I went back to work.

I figured my first job when I got back to work was to look up what Robins do at this age. I told Kev that if it was still sitting in that same spot in a half hour, to try to get him to move over to the woods.  Meanwhile, throughout this entire 1/2 hour span, the mom and dad are furious. They are bitching at us the entire time we're outside.

When I looked online, I discovered that once they have feathers, they do leave the nest, and mom and dad still take care of them for a few more days before they actually start flying.

Whew! Sigh of relief! I don't have to worry about where they ended up because mom and dad already know and are continuing to feed them. Nature is wondrous.

By the time I got home from work, the other two had also left the nest, so now Kev gets his garage back.  I did snap a few pics of the second babe that left the nest.  I love how he's looking at me with attitude here.

This evening when I headed out to the front yard, the other momma that has a nest in the shrub flew off, so I snuck a peak at that nest. And here's what I found!

I'm guessing by now the third one could very well be hatched, too, but I have to stay away from being a lookie-loo for awhile. 

This is a hurry up mani I did last week. I don't remember why I ended up being in a hurry, but I was. Maybe I waited until too late at night and didn't have the time to put any thought into it.

Not a fail by any stretch of the imagination, but I seem to be doing a lot in oranges lately. At least it feels that way, probably because I have another orange mani in my backup blog post pics.

The base on this one is an American Apparel, but it doesn't have a name on it. I hate when that happens.  I used Square Hue Scorched Summer and, shocker, the MoYou Pro XL 03 stamp. 

Those MoYou's have for sure been my go-to's lately. I have quite a few that I haven't used yet because they are mostly flower patterns. I haven't had the ambition to make leaves green and flowers a flower color so I haven't used them. At some point I'm just going to say screw it and stamp them using one color. 

In other words, I'm lazy.

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!

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.

I THINK THESE ARE PRETTY GOOD....JUST SAYIN'

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally!! I had put out a couple of old catch and release traps that I used to use because of my sneaky little escapee. I had quit using them because I can't see inside and they open way too easily when trying to move them.  But I caught me a mouse around 10:30 last night in one of those different traps I put out. I didn't even hear it snap shut, and he hadn't even eaten the peanut butter so I don't think he was in there for very long.  I checked the trap and saw it was closed, and since I can't see inside of it, I had to pick it up and kind of shake it. They weigh next to nothing so even then I wasn't sure. Finally I set it on the cupboard and put my ear next to it and finally heard movement.

And then I laid the trap in a bowl, snapped a cover on it and handed it to Tyler and said, "go for a ride".  So I'm sure he won't be back. Now I just have to wait and see if any others show up or if this little guy is the Houdini that's been laughing at me for the past three days.  Time will tell.

I ordered a sleep wedge the other day to hopefully let me sleep in bed again and still be able to after surgery on the 13th. They recommend sleeping at a pretty decent incline and actually say to sleep in a recliner, but since I've been failing at sleeping there I was kind of concerned about the next 2 months. Tyler suggested a sleep wedge which had never even crossed my mind. That girl is pretty smart sometimes. I'm looking forward to trying it.

I also finally convinced the damn doctor to give me some pain killers to help me at night. He prescribed me 30 Tylenol with codeine, one or two at bedtime. Hopefully they'll knock my ass OUT.  At this point I've kind of been wondering who I have to sleep with to get a good night's sleep.

Here's the mani I did last night. I decided I had to wear something for Halloween even though nobody will even see it.

My grey here is American Apparel Factory Grey and then I used Konad black with my Messy Mansion plates HD01 and HD04 for the tree and for the gravestones stamps. I was really not having an easy time trying to think of something to do, but I am pretty happy with this look.  

This next mani is my all-time fave Halloween mani I think I've done. I just think it's really striking. 

For my gradient I used Orly LA Sashay and Square Hue Iron Horse. Then I stamped over it using my Bundlemonster BM213 stamp and the Messy Mansion HD01 stamp for the bats. I topped all of that with my fave matte topcoat from Butter London.  I used a dotting tool and went over the bats with Seche Vite to make them shiny so they would stand out more.

I completely stole this idea from Makeup Withdrawal. As soon as I saw it on Pinterest I knew I had to try it. I love the burgundy/black gradient.

And there you have it. Another October come and gone, and now we can sit back and whine about how cold it's getting.

At least that's what I'll be doing. Wouldn't want to break a lifelong tradition.

MY HUBSTER IS GOING TO REPLACE ME

What a pleasant day yesterday! No drama to be found anywhere!! AND I got my first prize from the contest, $50 to spend.  Now I just need to figure out what to order. There are so many things I want. Go figure. Thanks again to The Beauty Clutch!

I left work early today and headed on up to the doctor-man to find out about my shoulder. Basically  he seems to think the rotator cuff is okay, but there is a bunch of fluid built up, and my bones are grinding against each other. Sounds painful because it is painful. Looks like I'll be having surgery, so that's awesome.

He's going to go in arthroscopically and cut off a piece of my bone. Lovely. He also told me if he gets in there and discovers that my rotator cuff actually is messed up, he's going to fix it and that I need to be aware of that possibility ahead of time. He's not sure what he'll find, and he ain't waking me up to get permission. If that happens, that is not good. At all. That's a minimum of 6 weeks in a sling, even while sleeping. Not sure what I'll do if that happens. It's my right shoulder; I'm right-handed; I type for a living and do nails the rest of the time.

I'm screwed.  Cross your fingers for me, please! I don't mind having surgery, but I really need for it to just be the more minor problem. Otherwise my darling hubby might decide it's time to trade me in for a newer model. Poor guy. But that's what he gets for marrying an older woman!

Wednesday night I spent some time doing requested mani's once again. I guess they'll be in Les Nouvelles Esthetiques and Spa magazine as part of a Custom Nail Solutions article. Christmas stuff this time. Nice and early for that, but it was an "urgent" request so I had to have them done the same night. Luckily they wanted a few of my older ones so I actually only had to do two new ones. Not so bad.

Right now I have quite a few blog mani's on backup, which is nice! If I get lazy and don't do my nails, I'll still have something to post. I love when that happens.

The other night I did this one after playing with the Halloween stuff. I like the subtle colors, especially after I had been playing with orange and black for a bit.

I did a gradient using L'oreal Tea and Crumpets and American Apparel Mouse. It blended just the way I wanted it to, really soft and pretty. I wanted to stamp over it with something dainty that wouldn't be super loud on top of the muted colors. I decided to use the pretty scroll pattern from my Llarowe LeaLac A plate. In my attempt to keep it subtle, I planned on using an off-white for stamping, but it didn't show up at all.  I had to go with white for the stamp, but since the pattern has such fine lines it worked out perfectly.

I actually left this on for 2 days. It was one of those that I enjoyed looking at throughout the day.  And we know that doesn't happen all that often.

And now I am off to hopefully take a little snappy-nap. I'm so tired lately because my shoulder just will not let me sleep without waking up during the night.

And hey, it's the weekend!! If I want to be lazy and take naps, it's my prerogative. :)

SOME THANK YOU'S, A BITCH AND SOME JACK-O-LANTERNS

As some of you probs saw, I had entered a contest over on Facebook using my Frankenstein's monster mani. I entered on the last day, and today I found out that I won first place. Obvi I was pretty tickled about that! A big "thank you" to all those who took the time to vote for me, and a big shout out to The Beauty Clutch. I'll get to have some fun spending a gift certificate to their site. More polish for me! Good prices on polish over there; check 'em out and go "like" 'em on Facebook.

Once they posted the winners, of course there had to be someone who popped in on the Facebook page to bitch about the contest. This person didn't enter because; "Most of the entries looked like they were taken off the internet or done in the salon. That is why I did not enter. Maybe enter next contest if it looks like the entries are valid". Oh, really, "Marge"? That's why you didn't enter? Um, okay. I can pretend I'm buying that load of horseshit.

Dem's fightin' words, and the more I've been stewing about this today, the madder it makes me. I immediately pointed out that my nails were done by me and that I thought that remark was insulting. Some other people jumped in to tell her how insulting and wrong her comments were (she made a couple). She's claiming that she and "a group" all thought some of the entries were cheaters because the pics either come up on google images or on Pinterest. Duh.  

Since you are here and obviously already have some knowledge of the nail world, I don't need to tell you how ridiculous her line of "thinking" is. I do find it interesting to note that her Facebook page is one of those that has only 10 friends and everything on it is related to contests. Now, as a person who has been a member of a major sweepstaking site since 2003, I'm well aware that there are people who have a personal FB page and make another one to use just for sweepstakes. I believe this is more than likely the case with this particular account.  And for someone who is obvi soooo very concerned about cheating, maybe she should shut her hypocritical mother-effin' mouth.....having two personal FB accounts is against FB rules. So who's cheating? 

I'm just really angry. There were not a lot of entries in that contest. I know for a fact that the 2nd and 3rd place winners are legit, and there are others that entered that I also know are legit. KNOW it. I actually wasn't thinking I'd even win 1st place since it wasn't just based on votes. There was a crime scene mani hand-done by Nicky Nailslove that I thought was way better than mine. She entered later than I did or I'm thinking she would have kicked my ass.

I don't understand the mindset of people like that. Vent over.

That silly little mani of mine also made it to OK Magazine's online edition in the "Monday Manicure" section along with 6 other Halloween mani's. Now, that I think is pretty cool!  Made for a nice start to my day.

Here's the last of the Halloween mani's I did so far. I might still do some because I have some stamping plates that have some cute stuff on them, but I haven't decided which to use yet.

It's another one I had to do freehand....hate it. Not even sure why I'm posting it. For some reason I feel like I should post my epic fails along with the good stuff. Keeping myself honest, I guess.

Good colors again, tho! Wet n Wild Megalast Club Havana and American Apparel Hassid. As far as oranges go, I think this one really is the truest, orangiest orange I have. Hopefully I'm done using toothpicks for awhile.

Wish me luck for tomorrow; I get to take the afternoon off to drive to the orthopedic doctor to get my MRI results. I don't really know what result I should be hoping for. I just know I need some kind of resolution for this shoulder.

Is it weird that one of my biggest concerns is that I'll need surgery and then won't be able to type or do nails?

IN A HUMMINGBIRD AND MARBLE MOOD

My hummingbird obsession continues, but it was too cold last night to sit outside to try and feed 'em. Warm weather will be here for the next week so I'm planning on spending a lot of time sitting on my folding chair in the front yard planted in front of the picture window. Anyone driving by my house must think I'm either a) grounded, b) in a time out, or c) crazy.  I'll let them come to their own conclusions. It's not like I actually know any of those people.

I went through some of my pics from earlier this season and thought I'd throw in a pic of my male and one of the females.  The pics are taken from my recliner right through the picture window. Not bad!

I did actually force myself to do nails last night even though I fell asleep after work. Thankfully this went fast with no do-overs.

I did 2 coats of Loreal Tea and Crumpets first. I was actually going to use it in the marble, but it wouldn't spread and was stopping the others from spreading. One bad apple....

So I gave up and decided to just marble with two colors, Loreal Brownie Points and American Apparel Mouse. It's kind of a gloomy marble, but it matched my mood.

I'm sorry I've been remiss about posting daily. I guess doing my nails every day during the summer isn't as easy as doing them every day in the winter. Between pool time, work and now hummingbird shenanigans, I just haven't been very motivated to do nails. I hope I can get myself back in the groove soon. I really hate that I'm wearing mani's for 2 or 3 days now.

I'm not even going to promise much over the next few days. I have to enjoy the weather while it gets warm. It's been such a shit summer that I need to soak up every little bit of it I can.

Don't give up on me, though!!

TRIBAL TUTORIAL

Not a perfect weekend, but certainly not terrible.  I at least got a couple hours in the "cool" (as Griffin calls it) on Friday and on Sunday. Other than that I didn't really accomplish a thing. If I was smart, I would have spent the weekend trying to catch up on sleep, but that didn't happen.

I was very excited to find out that my first nail tutorial is in the August issue of Les Nouvelles Esthetiques & Spa magazine. Since that wasn't supposed to happen until September, it was a pretty huge surprise. I haven't received my actual issue yet, but you can see the article here:  Les Nouvelle Esthetiques & Spa Magazine 

They did change a couple of things since I had written it directed toward people wanting to do their nails at home. They hadn't made it clear that I was supposed to be gearing it toward professional nail techs for how they can do things on their clients' nails.

They also added a line about a "smooth brush being impertive", which is not my line.....and it's also not me that incorrectly spelled "imperative" as "impertive".  They're supposed to be fixing that for the online version of the mag, but we'll see.

Now onto the mani. The most time-consuming mani eva! I actually tried doing just my thumb on Saturday night. Decided I could do it so I painted my left hand yellow and went to bed. The next morning I did a couple of more steps on my left hand and painted my right hand yellow.

Always topcoat. Somehow while I was in the pool I managed to screw up all of the nails on my right hand because I hadn't topcoated.  That meant I had to start over completely. Dammit.

It isn't a difficult mani, per se; but it sure took a lot of time. Doing my right hand was terrible! I sure wish I was ambidextrous. Or at least an ambi-turner. (some of you will get that).

So here it is! I don't know if I'll ever do another one, but I like this. And just for the record, I saw this mani somewhere else but don't know who to give credit to because there was no blog link.

 

And here's what I used:  China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, Kleancolor Pastel Teal, American Apparel Hassid, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure White Out, Sinful Colors Island Coral along with striping tape to make that initial "V", a tiny brush for filling in and a dotting tool to make lines.

I'll be wearing this until at least Wednesday. Way too much work to take it off.

Put it this way; this was so much work and took so  long that I don't even want to do my nails.

NEW STAMPING PLATE :)

Is it Friday yet? If not, I'd like to take a nap until it gets here. I'm sooooo tired after the weekend! It's been a long time since I closed down a wedding and then closed down a bar.

The weather was so craptastic the entire weekend. Froze at the outdoor wedding, and then for Griff's birthday party it was cold AND raining. So depressing, and that damp cold just gets into these old crotchety bones so I stay frozen for hours afterwards.

Now that it's Monday and back to work, it's sunny and mid-70's and should be all week. Um, thanks. Sunny and warm doesn't do me a damn bit of good if I'm sitting in my office wearing a sweater.

I left my marbled fingers and toes on for the birthday party yesterday. I really didn't have time to do anything else.  We got home around 9:30 last night when the party ended, so I figured I could at least do something to my nails. I knew I wasn't going to wear sandals today so I didn't even bother painting my toes.

Yup...I was lazy, and I don't care.

The shirt I'm wearing is exactly this color, American Apparel Peacock, and I used the DRK-C stamping plate I just bought from Ninja Polish for the stamp.  I think I may have all of the large stamping plates that have designs big enough to cover my nails. 

I sure wish there were companies that sold smaller plates with fewer designs that were still large enough to cover my big-ass nails. There are so many times I see stamps on people that I just love, but I can't get 'em because they're too stinkin' small. It's very frustrating!

I just took a quick break while I fell asleep on my desk. Nice. I think that might mean I'm overtired or something.  Hopefully when I get home I can stay awake. I have more tv on my dvr than I can even comprehend, and I would like to do my nails again tonight.  I need a couple of regular old boring weeks and weekends to get caught up and back to where I feel normal again. 

Or at least what I consider normal. I have no idea what you consider normal.

I'M GONNA' MAKE OUT WITH THIS

How does it go from 90+ degrees to barely 60 so fast around here? I'm surprised the heat didn't actually kick on last night because it was only 40-some degrees out. Today I'm wearing a sweatshirt and socks. I don't like it.  Next weekend better be nice because we have an outdoor wedding to attend on Saturday, and Griffin's 3rd birthday party is on Sunday and is also outdoors.

Sleeping this weekend has been terrible. I can't even begin to tell you how bizarre my dreams were, but suffice it to say they were so bad I actually had to get out of bed to snap myself out of them. I don't remember having such horrible dreams when I was younger, but the last year or two it has really become an issue. I'd love to know where my brain comes up with some of this stuff. Creepy and scary.

Yesterday I took the foils off and decided I really wanted to do a gradient. They've been one of my fave things, but I've really struggled with doing them to my satisfaction. I asked for some advice from some fellow nail buddies and got some tips.  After a couple of failed attempts on a couple of nails, all of a sudden it just "worked".  Same thing happened with water marbling for me. It's weird, but I really hope this means it will always work for me from now on.

After doing the successful gradient, I pondered what to do next; leave it? Stamp it? Oh, snap....marble it!!  I didn't know if it would turn out how I wanted, but I knew I had lots of time to mess with it. Here's what I ended up with.

Oh Em Gee....I am in love with this mani. Seriously, I think it's one of my all-time favorites.  It was fairly time consuming until I mastered doing the gradient, but I will be happy to wear this for a couple of days.

My base color for this one is American Apparel Cotton. Then I used that along with China Glaze Something Sweet and Julep Joy to do my gradient. I wish I had taken a picture before I marbled, but I just thought of that right this second while typing this. Sometimes my brain stalls. (obviously)

For marbling I grabbed a bottle of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure clear and Square Hue Wartime Romance. I wasn't really sure how using a clear to marble with would work, but it was kinda' cool to do.

 So that's my latest attempt at doing something new. It's def something I look forward to doing again.

Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks!