MOSTLY BRIGHTS

This should be the week. The puppy pen is all cleaned and set up in my living room. I forgot how much I hate that thing in my living room. It sits in the only corner large enough which happens to be right in front of the door. Immediately after they brought it in, I remembered how much I hate not being able to open my front door. Thankfully the plan is to only leave it in that spot for the first couple of weeks. After that we are going to  move it into the dining room so that the pups can run out of it right into the kitchen.

I had a doctor's appointment in Green Bay last Thursday, and on our way home we stopped at the Goodwill store where I found four very nice baby blankets to use in the pen. I had also saved the old quilted couch cover that had ripped on the edge, so on Friday I cut that into four pieces and used my little $10 handheld sewing machine to stitch it up real quick. Not exactly a great looking or expert job, but I don't think the pups will care.

Puppy cam stuff is all configured and ready to go, too. Yesterday Tinlee had an x-ray to give us an idea of how many we can be looking forward to, and it looks like there's 6 pups for sure, very possibly more. In other words, we'll find out when we find out. No cheating allowed. I was surprised at only 6 because she is huge compared to last time. I hope those puppies aren't gigantic. I want this to be as easy as possible for her. 

I've been taking her temp three times a day waiting for the drop so I can officially start Puppy Watch 2016. I'm ready now and won't be  un-stressed until the pups are here. I  lay in bed every night just thinking of things that could go wrong, puppy names, things I may have forgotten.....in other words, sleep is not really happening much. Between my mind not shutting off and hearing Tinlee's every move and panting, tired has been my word of the day for the past week. It's been two years since her first litter; I forgot about the no sleep part of all of this.

With the July 4th holiday last week, I think I only painted my nails one time. Tyler was here with Griffin and Zero, and for whatever reason, Griff slept at our house almost every night that they were here. I don't usually waste time with nails when I have a grandson to play with. 

But I do have some to show you.

I used China Glaze Aquadelic with MdU Cream for this one. I pretty successfully used a clear stamper and the Uber Chic 7-02 plate for the stamp. I'm still struggling with the clear stampers. I think I used the one from FabUrNails for this mani.

This bright orangey-pink is QRS Sunshine Energy. It was actually a much brighter neon in person. I fully intended to stamp on this but simply never got around to it.

I apparently was in a bright mood because after I took off that QRS, I immediately replaced it with this neon from KB Shimmer, Sarong Place, Sarong Time. The design came from my Dana2 stamping plate using Mundo de Unas Black.

Now I'm thinking I'll clean the house. Kev is gone for just today, and then he's around for awhile, and it's always easier for me to clean when I'm here alone even though I do appreciate that he does the vacuuming if he's here. I had him bid to get the days off when Tinlee is due, and luckily he got off all of the days I wanted. Today he is gone to his annual physical in Green Bay and then is off to Madison to meet up with my fave of his pilot friends for a visit.

I've been putting him to work around here getting things ready, so he deserves the break.

SPRING IS SPRINGING

Why does it have to be Sunday already. I'm not ready for Monday and work. Adulting can be so hard.

It was a pretty darn good weekend, though. Friday night we went to a St. Patrick's Day party. Yesterday the girls came over with Seven to watch American Idol and then left Seven her overnight. So lots of fun with good peeps and a great dog.

For the party I didn't feel like doing green again so I decided to just do a saran wrap smoosh.

I used Glitter Gal White Pointer for my base. When that was dry I put dots of the white in random spots on my nails and did the same with dots of China Glaze More to Explore and OPI DS Sapphire. Then I laid saran wrap gently on top of the wet blobs and tapped lightly to spread the colors.

I was pleased with how it turned out. Of course, that was two days ago so I got bored with it. With Seven here I didn't really want to spend much time changing them up, so I just did a quick stamping job on top of it.

I just got the new 8 series from Uber Chic so I used a design from the UC 8-02 plate and Mundo de Unas white. I wasn't sure how well it was going to show up on top of the white nails, but it turned out pretty cute.

It's at least cute enough to get me through tomorrow. Maybe by tomorrow night I'll think of what I want to do next.

The only thing I know for sure is next is placing another Uber Chic order. The 7 series were out of stock when I got this latest batch so I think I'm just going to have to get them, too.

EIGHT RANDOM MANI'S

It's Monday. Monday's suck. The end.

Here are eight pics that have been sitting in my drafts section feeling lonely and neglected. I decided since I'm in a craptastic mood I'd just throw them up here to get them out of the way.

Enjoy. Or not. Whatevs. After each pic I've posted what I used.

Square Hue Gibson Girl, Mundo de Unas Red, Uber Chic UC 4-02 stamp

Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Azure, Essie No Place Like Chrome, Uber Chic Christmas 01

Zoya Avery, Sinful Colors Bare, China Glaze Passion for Petals, gradient

OPI Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window, Loreal Because You're Worth It, LeaLac LLC-B stamp

Julep Winter, Mundo de Unas Dark Gray, Uber Chic 5-03

Ever After Bite Me, MdU Black,  Uber Chic 3-01

Sally Hansen Olive Branch, Essie Good as Gold, Uber Chic 5-01 stamp

Color Club Halo Hues Eternal Beauty, Mundo de Unas Violet, Uber Chic UC 5-02 stamp

And that's it for me. Even with posting all of these, I still have several more that are sitting in drafts.

I'm holding off on those; maybe they'll eventually earn a spot as their own post.

LATE NIGHT QUICKIE POST

Well, it's after 11:30 on Sunday night, and even though I should be smart and just go to bed, I figured I'd throw up a quick post.

We had a busier than normal kind of weekend. Friday night we went out to dinner and then to the casino with some friends. It was a very late night. I had already planned on making a big dinner on Saturday, and we invited those friends over to help eat it.

As I was cooking, I got a text from my older daughter saying they wanted to come over. They had come to town to go to a play and originally the plan was to go to her dad's, go to the play and then they were coming here and spending the night. But since they got bored waiting for play time, she headed over here with my granddaughter, my grandson and his girlfriend.

Before they were even in the door, our other friends arrived. After dinner, the kids headed out to the play and we spent a few hours visiting. Once they left, the kids came back, and it was time for Posh face masks and some game playing before finally going off to bed around 2:30 a.m.

For me, that is a whole lot of social interaction. I'm a "like to be alone" kind of person most of the time. I loved all of the company, but I was not sad to have several hours by myself tonight before going back to work tomorrow.

I did do my nails tonight, but the following mani is from weeks ago.

I'm not sure what inspired this mani, if anything. Mabes I was planning to wear a blue shirt to work? No clue. The light blue is China Glaze Dashboard Dreamer, and the stamping was done with Mundo de Unas Sky Blue and the Uber Chic 6-03 plate.

This would fall under the "it's okay" category. Nothing wrong with it; nothing spectacular about it. 

And now I guess I'll go figure out what I'm wearing to work tomorrow and get myself ready for bed. At the speed with which I normally get ready for bed, that should actually put me in bed in approximately 45 minutes.

I hate having to go to bed. I'm a firm believer in being awake for as many hours as possible every day.

SNAIL VINYLS - A WINNER!

I was pleasantly surprised when I got a text from Tyler on Friday afternoon, letting me know that they were on their way home for the weekend. I didn't figure I was going to see her until the middle of March, and for that trip she is coming without the hubby or Griffin. This trip the whole family came, including my darling Zero.

It had already been pre-planned that two of my "extra" daughters were coming over to visit me on Friday after supper. Erica brought sweet little Evie, who is 2, and Jackie brought me Ayden, who is going to be 3 in a few months. I love when they come over. Erica calls me "me-mums", and the last time they visited, Evie was saying "me-grand-mums". This time as soon as she came in Erica asked her who I was, and she just said "Gramma Di". Being an honorary mom and grandma is one of my most favorite things of all time. I love those girls enough and those babies enough for them to seriously be blood relatives. The timing was perfection for them to be there because they stayed long enough to spend time with Tyler and Griffin. It was a big, noisy madhouse, and it.was.awesome.

Griffin was adorable, as always, and Zero is still my baby boy.

Honestly, is there anything more adorable than a boy and his dog?? At 5 1/2 years old, just about the only way to get a nice pic of Griffin is to have Zero in a shot with him. The rest of the time he just wants to make funny faces at me.

Because of all the company, I didn't get to nails until Sunday night. A couple of weeks ago, Aveline, the owner of Snail Vinyls contacted me on Pinterest, asking if I'd be interested in some samples.

I've seen lots of manicures where people have used them and thought they looked awesome, and since I have an IQ higher than 12, I told her I absolutely would love to try them. She told me to pick out a "couple" that I'd like, which I did, and a week later I got an envelope with a whole bunch of cool stuff.

They've been sitting on my table just waiting to be used, and finally on Sunday night I had some time to play.

My light purple base on this one is a polish that Target is selling now called Defy & Inspire. I had seen it when we were in Illinois visiting Tyler, and I wanted to buy all of them. In the end, I didn't buy any at all because I had already purchased so many bottles at the other stores we went to that I would have felt guilty spending $7.50 a bottle for polish I don't really need.

When Tyler got home on Friday she surprised me with two bottles of it. This is Defy & Inspire Laguna Beach. I love it. The formula is good, and of course I love any kind of purple. Of course, this only makes me want the rest of them even more.

After I topcoated, I decided on the Snail Vinyls Moroccan Nail stencil for my design. I won't lie; it took me a bit to get the hang of using the stencils. There may have been some swearing going on while doing my first two. I did get the hang of it, though, and the other eight went on without any troubles at all.

Once I had my stencil placed, I sponged  China Glaze Queen B over it and then immediately pulled the stencil off, leaving the design you see here. I did topcoat one more time, and that was that.

I'm still wearing this now and still liking it. I'm probably going to wear it for at least another day, but that depends on how motivated I feel tonight.

So yeah....I'm probably going to wear it for at least another day. 

THE "OTHER" HOLO TOPCOAT

When I took off the gray manicure from last night, I figured I may as well go forward with trying out the other holo topcoat.

I didn't really have any ideas in mind so I decided it would just be fun to play. 

I started out with a deep orange, China Glaze Bend Over Backwards. When that was dry, I put on one coat of the holo topcoat I bought on eBay, Spectraflair Holographic Topcoat. 

Immediately I preferred this one over the Pixie's Polish from yesterday's post. The formula is a bit thinner, and it didn't seem to add as much of a silver cast to the polish. Don't get me wrong; I do like the one from Pixie's. I just personally prefer the thinner, smidge clearer look.

It seems to me that I got a stronger linear holo effect with this one, but part of that might simply be a result of my base being a darker color. At some point I really will need to try the Pixie's Polish over a darker color. Perhaps when I take this off I'll re-do one nail just like this and compare. Or perhaps not. I don't want to lock myself into being ambitious. LOL

I think the topcoat made this polish really pretty. On its own it's kind of just another dark orange. The holo brightened it up and made it "pop".

I could have just left it alone after that, but heaven forbid I just wear a plain polish. I hate doing that!

I really struggled trying to figure out what to use on top of this orange. I tried using a purple holo polish for stamping, but it wasn't showing up very well.

I grabbed my MdU Violet, which is a dark purple and threw it on one nail using Uber Chic 5-01 for the design. 

Hated it.

I was just not digging the flatness of the dark purple on top of all that holo goodness. I decided the only option was to once again do a holo topcoat over my stamping.

This ended up being a grand idea because this mani is the shiznit in person. I've been staring at my nails a LOT today. I really love the purple over the orange, thanks to the holo topcoating.

So there you have it. My thoughts on the two holo topcoats I purchased. If you're in the market, I've given you the links, and they are both still being sold. 

Not that I'm encouraging anybody to spend money, of course. I would never, ever do that. 

2016 BLOWS.

With all of the weird health things I had in 2015, I was all set for 2016 to be the start of a happier year. 

So far, epic fail. Every day I'm afraid to turn on the computer. Losses for the world of music have been shocking. I honestly have pretty much been convinced that David Bowie wasn't even actually a human, so him dying never really occurred to me, let alone at such an early age. 

Add to that the loss of four dogs from my group of doggie FB friends, and I'm about ready to call it 2017. I know it probably seems odd to some that it even affects me, but I do consider these people friends, and when any pet dies, it hurts. Having been there, I know that pain personally and hate for anybody else to have to deal with it.

Enough of that.

I did this mani on Sunday night, and I'm still wearing it.

This shimmery purple is China Glaze No Plain Jane. Since I didn't want it to be plain, I used the Ali Express 12-51 stamping plate and MdU Black to throw a design on it.

It tickles me purple to take a pic with my new camera and have it be color perfect. I don't have to adjust a thing when I take pics anymore. It's just so nice and non-frustrating! 

It occurred to me last night that I haven't soaked my nails off in a month. I'm not sure why they still look as decent as they do, but I really should try to reapply them at some point this week. I'll have Razzie for the weekend, and I'm sure he'd want to help which means I'd better get it done before he comes.

Sometimes those 70+ pound puppies are not the most graceful or considerate of creatures, and seeing all of my nail stuff going flying around the room does not appeal to me at all.

SWEATER, DONE

I do love to knit, but I absolutely hate finishing a sweater. Weaving the pieces together is always something I dread. I took a break for a couple of days trying to get myself into the mood to do that. After that all that was left was knitting the hood.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It certainly works for me as kind of an oversized hoodie that has plenty of room to wear a sweater under it, which is how I like my hoodies to fit.

And now I'm making another one just like it. I'm going to make a few alterations in the sizing because I think I might like it a smidge smaller. I also have a feeling that when Tyler comes home for Thanksgiving, she might just take this first one home with her.

I was wearing some orange to work on Wednesday so on Tuesday night I did this mani.

The orange is China Glaze Riveting from their original Hunger Games collection. It really is a good orange with a nice metallic shimmer to it. I grabbed my new Uber Chic 6-01 stamping plate and used Mundo de Unas black for the design.

I'm ready for this one to come off, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow. I have quite a few new stamping plates that I've barely looked at and still can't decide on something to do with my nails. So frustrating to not have any kind of original ideas in my head.

Maybe I'll get lucky in the next 24 hours and come up with something fantabulous. In the meantime, my only plan for the rest of the evening is just to knit until my hands cramp up.

LAST DAY, THANKFULLY

Halloween weekend wasn't the best. The weather was just awful, and poor Griffin didn't get to trick or treat for more than a few minutes because he was freezing. He was an adorable little Batman, though. Luckily he had enough Halloween activity in Illinois so it didn't seem to really bother him that he only got about 15 pieces of candy in his bag. 

Of course, we bought him a new Lego set to do on Friday when he spent the night. I figured I'd rather do that than add to a candy stash. Actually, it really was just an excuse for me to play with Lego's. The little stinker is getting too smart now, though, so I didn't get to do nearly as much as I thought I would. I got part of the submarine together while he worked on something else, but then he kind of pushed his way into my chair and took over. It's great that he's so good at following the directions, but it's not so great for the grandma that wants to make stuff.

I spent the weekend the same way I've spent the past 10 days, sick. I never left the house at all and spent my days dozing off and on. Today is my last day of antibiotics, and I'm hoping that means I'll start feeling normal again tomorrow. 

And how did it get to be November already?? I'm nowhere near ready to start thinking about the holidays, but I need to get my mind focused on shopping. I've already told two of the grandkids if they don't get a move on with lists, they'll be getting a check and no giftage. 

This mani is from quite a few weeks ago.

I used Ivy League by Salon Perfect for the dark green base and then stamped with China Glaze Metallic Muse and the LeaLac LLC-B stamping plate.

This is one of those that turned out great but wasn't very exciting. If memory serves, I was looking to do something quickly and knew that Metallic Muse would stamp like a dream. 

I cleaned up and reapplied my nails on Thursday evening while I was waiting for Tyler and Griffin to get home. I had hoped I would take some time to do some fun Halloween stuff, but they ended up staying naked until last night. 

I'm really itching to do a water marble but don't feel like I have the patience to monkey with it right now. Maybe sometime this week my motivation will return. We shall see, I guess.

HOW DO THEY DO IT?

My weekend was filled with dogs. I had Razzie from Friday morning until late yesterday afternoon. My friend Laura brought Seven over on Friday night and on Saturday so she could play with her brother. Watching the two of them play for hours is too fun.

It also gives Tinlee a bit of a break from being bothered non-stop, too. I will say, though, that Razzie isn't as pesty as he was before. It's like he grew up all of a sudden. He still has the adorable habit of just randomly climbing halfway onto my lap to kiss me, which I just love. He is just the smoochiest of all the puppies, I think. And he is quite the bed hog. Luckily Kev was gone so it didn't matter so much. He waits for me to get in bed and then makes sure he is slammed up against me for the entire night. He is also kind enough to not wake me up before 8 a.m., unlike Seven who thinks 6:30-7:00 is get-up time when she sleeps over.

Tinlee was oddly sad when Razzie left yesterday. She kept standing by the truck looking sad before they pulled out of the driveway, and she didn't want to come inside after they left. She  just kept looking down the driveway as if they were going to come back. Then she pouted inside for about an hour. I actually felt a little bad for her. Maybe she appreciates him more now that he isn't so pesty with her. Of course, she's also in heat so maybe she just liked the male company, however pointless. LOL

Here's one I did last week. I just took it off last night because I had to do a soak off and reapplication of my nails. They'd been on since the 1st or 2nd. I'd knocked them around Wednesday night while cleaning, so several of them were hanging on by a thread. My right index was hanging on by less than that. I'm lucky Razzie didn't end up with that one as a snack.

This one actually leaned more purple than the picture shows. The base is China Glaze Fade into Hue, and I stamped over that with Sinful Colors Mesmerize. The design is from the Dana10 stamping plate.

After I finished it and took pictures, it was then that I really noticed that I didn't get the design placed very well on that index or ring finger. I don't know that I would have bothered to remove it and try again, but it was annoying to look at. Other than that flaw, I liked this one.

I often wonder how some people always seem to have perfect stamping every time. Are they just that much better than me, or do they re-do stuff and just don't admit it? 

It's just like when I see when somebody says they can do a stamped mani, start to finish, in a half hour. How?? I can't even do two coats of polish, topcoat and cleanup in a half hour. I can easily stamp all ten fingers in 5-10 minutes, but I still have to do my base, topcoat, stamp, topcoat and clean up my cuticles afterwards.

I've been stamping for probably three years now. I guess this is as good as I'm going to get, which makes me super envious of all of those other perfect people.

MINTY FRESH

After a damn near perfect weekend, it's actually painful to have to work. If life could be the way I want it to be, I would never have to work if the sun is out and it's over 70 degrees. Right now just thinking about the pool with water that is probs 90 right now is driving me crazy. When I went home at lunchtime I'm going to guess and say it was probably 92 degrees in my back yard. Do I want to be inside in a nice air-conditioned office? NOPE!

Lisa, Laura and two of the kids came out yesterday afternoon for some pool time and to drop off Seven. Today is Laura's birthday, and they wanted to go out of town to celebrate so of course I offered to keep her until Tuesday. As much as Seven loves the pool, she loves it even more when her kids or Laura are in it with her. She always makes sure to swim by every one of us at least once during her laps around. So cute.

I may have to do something highly unusual and go in the pool after I get home at 5 o'clock. Normally I don't see the point in going in the pool if I'm not in the sun, but poor Seven has been dying to go swimming ever since I covered it up yesterday. She keeps going partway up the stairs to try to get in. Whether I go in or not, if Kev hasn't taken her in this afternoon, I'm going to have to make the effort and uncover it for her. She loves it so much! Not only that, it will make her take a break from shoving every dog ball in my lap every 3 seconds. She has much more energy than I'm used to. Even after all of the swimming yesterday she wasn't tired at all. I think she only laid down for about 15 minutes right up until I went to bed at 12:30. She didn't stay in bed with me, either.....no clue where she slept. Within 5 minutes of me getting up at 6:15 she once again was shoving that toy in my face and then cried when I took a shower. What a baby.

I actually did my nails for the weekend. I didn't have any reason to, but I did them anyway.

This is such a pretty green, China Glaze Too Yacht to Handle. I will say that as much as I like the color, I did  not appreciate the application on this one. I had to do three coats, and the third one I did fairly thick to prevent bald spots. I hate when polishes do that. I used Mundo de Unas White and a pattern off of the LeaLac LLC-B stamping plate that I don't think I've used before.

Right now that's kind of my goal; use some designs I haven't tried before. I'm a terrible creature of habit, and I tend to lean towards the same colors and designs over and over again. That's the one flaw with stamping plates. I'll get a plate to get several designs that I want but then there are a bunch of other weird-ass ones I know I'll never use.

I even decided to do my nails again last night. Seven wasn't very helpful, which slowed me down considerably, but I did manage to get them done with nothing knocked over, spilled and no stray pieces of dog hair landing on my wet nails.

If I had a dollar for every time a piece of dog hair screwed up my nails, I could probably retire.

LEFT IT AT THAT

Woke up today to find fall. 50 degrees, raining and just generally crappy weather. I wanted to crawl right back into bed. 

First thing I did was go to my closet to reevaluate my wardrobe choice for the day. Yesterday it was so nice that I foolishly assumed I should dress for summer again today. Obviously that wasn't going to work so I picked out a more temperature-appropriate shirt. And for those that know me, NO, I did not choose a long sleeved winter sweater.

I turned on the air conditioning for sleeping purposes and then turned the heat on after I got up. Seriously, that is a normal thing only at my house. 

Then for some reason even though he never touched the thermostat here at work yesterday when it was hot out, today the bossman decided he should crank the air conditioner on by setting the temp to 69. Um, thanks? Maybe I really should have opted for that sweater. I'm wearing bare feet in deck shoes, and my toes are frozen. 

A while back I had this entire plan for a mani all worked out in my head. Saran wrap it and then stamp over it with either white or black. Oh, my....the stamping over it did not work at all. Completely hideous. Luckily I only tried it on one nail, realized it sucked and just left it like this.

I hated this while I was wearing it, but I hate it less just looking at the picture. I did a base of Color Club Disco's Not Dead and then saran wrapped it with China Glaze Sun of a Peach, Square Hue Yellow Submarine and Wet n Wild Club Havana.

I really don't understand why it didn't look good once I stamped on it. But whatevs. That was so five weeks ago it no longer matters.

I'M A SLACKER

Sometimes I am just not in the mood to do a blog post. Obviously. I haven't done one since last Wednesday. I don't know if anybody is stalking it to see if there's a new post or not, and if you are, I apologize.

And I also will now apologize in advance for a probable lack of new posts next week. We are leaving on Friday for a good old fashioned road trip. We will be stopping for the night at my sis-in-law's, spending the night and then going the rest of the way to Gatlinburg, Tennessee on Saturday.

The place we are going is beautimous!! It's a gorgeous, huge house near the mountains, and Kev's whole family is going there with us. So a nice 5 bedroom house for 7 adults, 3 kids and at least 1 dog. 

I'm excited for this. We don't get nearly enough "whole fam" time with everybody, so this promises to be a fantastic week. I'm hoping the weather forecast is lying. If it isn't, it once again means that rain is going to follow me like it always does and try to ruin my fun and pool time. The temps are supposed to be in the 80's, which is fantabulous, but there is also like an 80% chance of rain every damn day. I don't know why black clouds insist on following me wherever I go. With any luck, that percentage means it might rain for 10 minutes and then go away for the rest of the day. I can hope.

On Sunday I reapplied my nails in preparation for the trip and then did this, which I still have on today.

What we've got here is China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-Le stamped with LeaLac LLC-! and Mundo de Unas white.

I like this simply because I love that color. The end.

Now I need to think of what to put on my nails for vacay. And on my toes, which are bright orange from last week. I haven't even worn a pair of sandals yet so it hasn't really mattered, but I will have to make them  presentable for the trip. I might just do a neutral so I can leave them alone for the entire time we're gone.

I will say, though, that one nice thing about driving for this trip is the fact that I'll have an entire car I can fill, I can bring a whole bunch of nail stuff if I want to. And I want to, so I'm gonna'.

I need something to do if it rains, right?

SIMPLE, BUT NICE COLORS

I'm super happy my daughter, grandson and Zero came home Friday to visit for a few days, but having Zero and Seven here at the same time for an entire weekend is really knocking me on my ass. They play to the point of obvious exhaustion but fight sleep like little kids.

Last night they both slept with me, but it makes me sleep much lighter because I'm listening for them with the ears of a mother of newborn. Every tail thump woke me up. And as is pretty standard when Tyler is here, I didn't get to bed until around 4 a.m. The brats woke me up at 7:40. If Baylee pulls that nonsense, I can just tell her to go lay down, but since these two are only 10 months old, I'm not so brave with trusting them completely. So I got up, let them all out, fed them and then went back to bed to get another couple hours of off and on sleep. 

And they haven't stopped playing since then. The little buggers sure are adorable, though, and for the most part are very well-behaved. They simply have too much energy!

I did this mani at least three weeks ago.

The lighter color is China Glaze More to Explore and I stamped with Cult Laguna and the Bundle Monster BM XL05 design.

The Cult polish stamped really well, and it was the perfect color to stamp with. 

For the holiday, Cult is doing their Buy One, Get Two Free deal again. I jumped on it but only got two of their new colors and another white. If you decide to check it out, use the code MEMORIAL to get in on the deal. With shipping, my three cost $16.95. Even if they hadn't any new colors I wanted, I probably still would have hopped on board and just got three white.....love 'em.

I hope I can find some time to do my nails soon. I'm still sitting here with that gradient on, and I am SO over it at this point. I can barely stand looking at them.

If I get stuck wearing a holo or a multichrome for this long, at least those are still fun to look at on day five.

That gradient, not so much.

PRETTY STUFF

There are few things better than a weekend with nice, semi-warmish, sunny weather. Except for a weekend with nice 80+ degree, sunny weather. For now I'll be happy with the 60'ish sunny weather. This is Northern Michigan, after all. It just feels good to have the front door and the patio door open with all that lovely fresh air coming in.

I was so mad that my waspinator blew away. I told Kev about it, and being the wonderful guy that he is, a little while later he came walking up the driveway with it. He took a stroll down the neighbor's driveway and found it. He also hung it up in the back yard and secured the one on the garage. Those suckers won't be blowing anywhere anytime soon.

He also ran to Menard's for me and got me another shepherd's hook. I decided to get another one and take the bird feeder off of the garage. I don't want to grow bird seed this year. I also needed it so I'd have a place to hang the hummingbird spinner I bought in Mexico last fall, too. I sprayed that so it won't rust and finally got to hang it. It's super cute, and I love it.

It's actually much prettier in person. The colors are more shimmery than it looks here.

I did this mani a few weeks ago. After my usual battle with getting a good picture of purple with my camera, I decided to try my phone instead. It did a perfect job this time around. I'm not sure why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. So frustrating.

I started with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure I Lilac You for the lavender base. Then I used my Uber Chic 1-02 plate and stamped over it with China Glaze Tart-Y for the Party, Sinful Colors Verbena and Sinful Colors Amethyst. 

I loved this one. In person, the three different stamping colors showed up much better than they do here. I would for sure do something like this again.

Now I'm off to spend some time playing tv catchup with the hub. He got home yesterday afternoon and is leaving at the ass-crack of dawn tomorrow.

Sometimes being married to a pilot kind of blows. It would be so much easier if I didn't like him.

JUST A STAMPED GRADIENT

Razzie is so cute, but 9 month old puppies have an awful lot of energy. And just like his siblings, he's a damn stalker. I find myself literally not getting up to go to the bathroom for fear of waking him up.

One nice thing about him is when I went to bed, he jumped right in, laid practically on top of me and went to sleep. He was really good and stayed there until 7:30. That wasn't really late enough to suit me since we were up until almost 3:00, but at least he actually did let me get that whopping 4.5 hours of rest.

Tinlee is not impressed and spends most of her time ignoring him. I guess she doesn't think her puppies are so fun anymore, probably because they are so big. She'll play hard for 10 minutes until he makes her mad, then she goes off to lay down. I'm also sure she isn't appreciating that Razzie seems to have taken over her fave spot to lay, which is by me next to my recliner. He doesn't have a whole lot of finesse with that and doesn't realize he's big. He also seems to think it's okay to walk under the end table even though his back is knocking into it. I've had to save the lamp several times. He's kind of an uncoordinated moose. But cute and sweet as can be.

I did this gradient just because I like these colors on their own and wanted to see how they'd be together.

The peachy color is China Glaze Thistle Do Nicely, and the blue is Julep Margaret. I like how they kind of made a small amount of pinky-purple where they blended.

Of course I couldn't just leave it alone, so I stamped over it with black and my Uber Chic 2-01 plate.

I thought this was really pretty. I've been enjoying using more summery type colors lately. I'll be enjoying it even more when I have a tan. That's when it will really feel like summertime to me. 

Of course, once I'm tan I'm sure I'll get some comments on Pinterest. Last year some beeyotch thought she should tell me to stop with the self-tanner. After I told he she was rude and mistaken since I don't use self-tanner, I deleted her comment. I don't understand the people that feel the need to be so bitchy to people. I've seen it so many times where people just tear into people about their not-so-neat paint jobs or bad cuticles. It's just mean. Don't parents teach basic manners anymore?? I know when we post, we open ourselves up for the judgment of other people, but I still think "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" should still apply.

Hang on while I get down off my soapbox.

Got me some naked nails right now. I have a water marble in my head with some of my new Kleancolor neons, but I don't know if I'll get a chance for it this weekend. It all depends on when Razzie gets picked up and how much energy I have to spend the time on it.

He's staring at me at the moment. I can see his brain working, and I know at any second he's going to be all up in my bizness. No consideration at all for the fact that there's a computer on my lap. None.

Cute. But pushy to the point of rude.

MORE MUNDO DE UNAS PROPS!

When I put my window hummingbird feeders up last week, all it really did was start making me more crazy. Every five minutes I'm staring at those feeders, willing my little male to make his first appearance. It was so beautiful out the end of last week and into the weekend that I actually fooled myself into thinking I'd see one. Any minute now.

I got up this morning to snow flurries. No hummer in his right damn mind would show up here yet. Woe is me.

One thing I did do, though, was go back to my 2014 hummingbird album to see the exact date I first saw one last year. I had thought it was at the end of May. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I saw my little boy on May 8th. So that's good. Here I was pouting because I thought I might have another month to wait. Turns out I may only have to wait a couple of weeks. I thought maybe this horrible winter everyone has had might slow them down, but in looking at the 2015 hummingbird migration map (yes, we freak hummingbird fanatics have a first sighting map), it appears as though they are still on the same schedule as last year.

Hope springs eternal.

Another thing I had done since last year was try to find a way to keep wasps away. They were a huge problem last year. With having the puppies, I didn't get many chances to sit out there and hold the feeder, but on the few occasions I did, I could only stand it for short periods of time because the wasps were intense. Mean bastards, too. There were a couple of times I just stood out there with the spray can, killing as many of those mother-effers as I could. They try to attack my little bird friends. Momma' ain't having that. I saw lots of people saying to take those little brown lunch bags, blow them up and hang them. It fools the wasps into thinking the territory has already been taken.

Now, it doesn't take a Mensa member to realize that a paper bag isn't going to be very practical when it rains. There are a couple of genius companies that actually make fake nests. Of course they do. So I bought two different brands, two of each. I'm going to hang one in the front of the house, one on the deck and one under the garage eaves. And I'll have a spare if the rain wipes one out. I pray they work. If they do, I'm looking forward to sitting with hummingbirds buzzing by my head and landing on my fingers.

Last night I decided I just "had" to try the white MdU stamping polish. OMG.

First off, this is China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-Le. I forgot how much I love this color. Seriously. Still one of my faves of all time. It be beautimous. I also mattified it with Sally Hansen's Big Matte Topcoat. That, too, is awesome.

So then I grabbed my Uber Chic UC1-02 plate and my white polish. Usually when I would stamp with any of the other brands, I'd have to clean the plate every couple of nails and add more polish. Not so with the Mundo de Unas.

I put the white on the top 1/3 of the design, scraped and stamped. And that is ALL I used for five nails. For the next four I scraped with just the remnants from my scraper. Then I cleaned the plate and my scraper and did the same thing for my other hand.

Are.You.Freaking.Kidding.Me? For all this time I've been super annoyed at how fast my stamping polishes would seem to be gone. Either gone or they'd start getting extra sticky from reinserting the brush so many times during a stamping session.

I am so in love with these I'm either going to make out with them or just downright marry 'em. And at $3.50 a piece, they are even more of a bargain than I thought they were. Totally worth the $14 it cost for shipping 14 of them. TOTALLY.

If you like to stamp, want to stamp, have had trouble with stamping, these could very well help you in your quest. I don't exactly suck at stamping, and these make it easier for me, and in turn, it makes it more fun.

I like fun.

HMMM...NOT SURE

In looking back at blog posts from April 2013 and April 2014, I believe I shall no longer consider April to be spring. I'm not even whining; I'm just stating the facts. 

I woke this morning to find about 3 inches of snow on the ground. Really. I wasn't even aware that it was supposed to snow until Tyler texted me last night and said she didn't even want to come home to visit because it was 67 degrees at her house yesterday. Can't say I blame her. Well, I would blame her if she actually doesn't come, but I'm sure she'll pack up Griff's winter jacket and head back here, hopefully tomorrow. She was going to come today, but Griff has a doctor's appointment for some nasty cough.

So while I wait for them, I keep right on waiting for spring. Who know....maybe she'll bring it with her!

Here's one a wore for a hot minute a week or so ago. I don't even remember if I did both hands. I think I did, but I'm guessing.

I don't really like how this one turned out. It just looks kind of muddy to me. The base is Julep Gabrielle, which I happen to really like. I also happen to really like China Glaze Admire which is what I used for the stamping. It just ended up being a pattern off of the Bundle Monster BM XL04 plate that I just don't much like. 

Sometimes a design just is too much of a design, and this one covered way more real estate than I wanted it to. Oh, well. It happens.

I'm looking at my tips in this picture and at my actual hands right now, and I think I'm going to have to break down and file these damn nails. I am really not appreciating how they are starting to round themselves. I guess I'll grab a file and carefully flatten them back more square.

I really need to go back to some of my old, old pics and see my nail progression. I don't remember my first pink fashion length set wearing like my past couple of sets. And I've only had these a few months. I'm starting to wonder if the company has made some slight change in the material they use to make the nails.

Whatever the reason, I am not liking this issue at all. If I have to file them every few months to keep them straight and square edged, I'll end up needing new nails at least once a year which in my mind kind of defeats part of the reason for the lifetime guarantee.

Geez, now that I wrote that, I'm even more irritated about it.

MY EASTER NAILS

I'm not going to ramble on and on today. I'm enjoying a Saturday of puppysitting Seven until tomorrow evening. She is not so much a fan of me sitting with my laptop on my lap.

Right now she is passed out under the kitchen table. She finally got bored and fell asleep because Tinlee didn't want to play anymore. So I thought I'd do a quick post while they are recharging their batteries.

Since I knew it would be a dog filled couple of days, I decided I would do a mani last night. If my Easter Sunday goes as it usually does, we'll be going out to dinner with my family. I figured I may as well do something Easterish.

I started by putting on just one coat of white using Cult El Porto. It's my favorite white because the formula is just so nice. We all know what a pain white can be sometimes.

Then I did a gradient with Cult The Roxy, Square Hue Yellow Submarine, China Glaze Spring in My Step and Sinful Colors Bright Lucite.

I looked through all of my stamping plates and was rather shocked that I don't really have anything Easter-egg-like. I finally chose this design from my MoYou Pro XL 03 plate.

I'm pretty happy with this. I love the colors in the gradient, and all of those polishes worked really well on the sponge. My only bitch about this is the fact that I didn't get the stamping design on straight. It was too late at night to be a fuss budget about it, so I let it slide.

All in all, I'll call it a success.

I hope you all have a great day tomorrow and that the Easter Bunny brings you some goodies. My mom still handles that for me by buying me a large chocolate fudge egg from our local candy store. Sometimes she'll also get some little bunny decoration, too, if she finds a good deal somewhere. 

You're never too old for Easter goodies. 

DISAPPOINTMENT

Today it actually is spring. It didn't start out very well because it was rainy, but by the afternoon the sun came out and it was almost 60 degrees at my house. I don't know if the dampness was getting to me or what, but I spent almost the entire day just freezing. I just could not warm up even with the thermostat cranked up to 73. Once the sun started to lower and stream in through my patio door, I finally got warm.

I was hoping this warm day meant even warmer temps throughout the next week, but the ten day forecast has us back to mild winter-type weather. Lamesville. I'm itching to put my hummingbird feeders up, but I'm still about two months too soon. As soon as I get spring fever, I also get hummingbird fever. Let's face it; I just want sunny, 80 degree weather. Every day. I simply should not live here.

Sunday night while we were watching the finale of Walking Dead, I did this mani.

I always feel bad when I make Kev pause the tv while I run off to pick nail polishes, so I just went with two that were still sitting out. The base is China Glaze Grass is Lime Greener, and I stamped with Sinful Colors Endless Blue, both of which were used in yesterday's post. The lacy floral design is from the Ali Express AP 20 stamping plate.

I liked the idea of using the blue over the green, but I wish I had used a different blue. If we weren't so involved in the show, I would have gone and grabbed some different ones to try, but I decided to just go with what I started even though I was a bit disappointed that the blue wasn't as bold as I wanted.

It was well-liked enough to actually do both hands and wear it to work, though. My eyes were drawn to it a lot because that green is bright! I might not be doing any kind of actual Easter mani, but I'm sure using a lot of bright spring colors this past week. 

I might have to switch it up soon and do one that's dark and gloomy lest people think I'm perky or something. I don't want anybody getting the wrong idea since we know that is simply not the case.

Perky is definitely not my middle name.