NEWEST JULEP

I'm not going to get too carried away with the bitching, but holy crap, it is COLD outside!! For the past week we've had single digits with an even lower windchill. I was really getting spoiled by all of that abnormally warm winter weather, and I think it is making this cold snap even more shocking to my system.

It is supposed to warm up a bit tomorrow. Unfortunately the weather man is also saying it's going to snow. This isn't great timing for that. I have to drive 2 hours to Green Bay for a follow-up doctor appointment, and they are saying possible freezing rain there. I'm hoping the forecast is wrong or that it will wait until I'm nowhere around if it's going to start doing that. 

Somehow I managed to forget to look at the Julep Maven box in December to see if I wanted it or not. I probably would have skipped the month if I'd remembered because one of the items for the It Girl box was their oxygen nail treatment, which I don't use. I gave the last bottle to my sister, and she seems to like it so I'll pass this bottle to her.

The two actual polishes I got are very nice. One is a very, very light pink, and the other is this really beautiful holographic blue, Tali.

It kind of reminds me of denim, so that's kinda groovy. I did decide to stamp on it, though.....certainly wouldn't want to go to the doctor with plain nails.

I decided that I wanted to use something holographic to stamp with, so I use Darling Diva Queen of the Night even though I felt kind of guilty using such a pretty polish for scraping off of a stamping plate. The little flower design is from the Dana 2 stamping plate.

  

I'm a smidge in love with this one. The blue is just such a pretty shade, and I'm really glad I forgot to skip the Julep box.

Sometimes it pays to be forgetful!

A BIT OF STRIPING TAPE

Oh, man....it is going to be very, very quiet at my house when I go home. Seven the pup went home last evening, and my daughter headed back to Illinois with Zero today.

Last night I had Seven's owners and their kids, and then my two "almost" daughters came over with their kids. That's a whole lotta' people and dogs crammed into my living room. Everybody seemed to be having a nice time even though the dogs were wound and so were the kids. I'm not used to so much activity!!

At least I won't be completely alone this evening because Kev got home last night, too. I'm pondering whether or not I should see if he wants to go out for dinner. I'm so exhausted from not great sleep over the weekend that cooking does not appeal. Not that it ever does.

I did manage to sneak in a mani on Sunday night, and I even managed to not have anything disastrous happen with the puppies running around. Those 10 months olds are quite a bit bigger than their momma now so when they play, you never know what'll get knocked over.

It's been quite some time since I did anything with striping tape.

I began this with two coats of Sally Hansen Color Foil Sterling Silver. I did topcoat it before applying striping tape, and in each section I used a Darling Diva holo, Queen of the Night, BEWBS!! and Nightbird.
 
I thought it might look kinda' cool if I did sections with holos. Turns out I was correct. I've been doing so many light colors lately it was kind of nice to play with these.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again; if you don't have any of the Darling Diva holo polishes, get 'em! They really are nice, and I only needed one coat for these. I'm a fan of anything that only needs one coat. Such a time saver.

Although I am usually more than willing to spend a ton of time on a mani, sometimes it's nice to have a smidgeon of a shortcut.

CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT

Oh, man....today is a crab-ass day. Let's begin, shall we?

It actually started last night. I had one hell of a time falling asleep and right about the time I did, the dogs started barking because Kev came home from work. Normally not so much an issue, but I then had another hell of a time falling back to sleep. And I just couldn't stay asleep. I have no clue how many times I woke up, but I know my ass is really dragging today.

Because of no sleep, I also have one doozy of a headache. Four Excedrin Migraine already today, and they haven't touched it. 

Driving back and forth to work was causing me road rage. People are idiots. Either drive at least close to the speed limit or get off the damn road. If you can't choose an actual lane to stay in, get off the damn road. If you've forgotten that turn signals are for using, get off the damn road. And lastly, how am I apparently completely invisible in an SUV? Jackasses. All of them.

My computer at work keeps freezing up and being slow as hell, much like the drivers on the road. 'Nuff said about that.

Final vent of the day? Trying to photograph purple. I'm so over it. It's so frustrating that purple is my fave color polish and the one that causes me so much grief. If someone would please come over and teach me how to use that light box I bought, that'd be awesome. Thanks.

I finally gave up and went with this pic. In real life that shower curtain is pure white. The only way to get the polish color right was to give again give myself yellow hands. Cute.  I'm sure some idiot on some website will take the time to point it out to me, too. I love people that do that.

This polish is just beyond gorgeous. It's Darling Diva Nightbird, and it's a blackened purple holo. Amazeballs. I tried a couple of different holos for stamping and finally went with Color Club Halo Hues Eternal Beauty and my new Uber Chic 1-01 stamping plate.

I've shown off a couple of different Darling Diva polishes now, and I'm just going to say this: Run off to their website right now and just buy up all the holos. For realz. Their polish is just fantastic.

Whew!! I feel a whole lot better now that I've done all that complaining. Sometimes I just hold all that crap in because I don't have anybody to talk to. Just one more reason blogging is therapeutic. 

Does a body good to vent.

ANOTHER DARLING DIVA

I might not look human yet, but the antibiotics are doing their thing. A lot of the swelling is gone. I'm hoping by Monday that will all disappear along with any remnants of the pain. Things are looking up!  

I might even try sleeping in bed tonight. A good night of real sleep is really needed.  If I can manage that, I might even have the energy to do nails tomorrow.

In the meantime, I have another Darling Diva polish from last week.  I absolutely love this one.

This one is described as a "blackened evergreen", and I can't think of a better way to say it. It is deep, rich and dark. It's got a strong holo which makes it a ton o' fun to look at. As always, the formula is fantastic and I've gotten several days of wear without any tip damage.

I did want to play with my new creative stamper and my new Bundle Monster plates, so I stamped on this with Nicole by OPI Mer-Maid for Each Other and the BM XL18 plate.

The design on this is a larger remake of one of their designs that was on the typical round stamping plate. It was nowhere near big enough for my nails which is why I was happy to get the XL plates from Bundle Monster.

As for the creative stamper, it's a life changer. It made completely  covering my thumb nails super easy. I'm not sure if the stamper material just stretches a bit when I stamp or what the deal is, but I was surprised when I looked at my thumbs and saw there were no bare spots.  It's a win.

I got mine through a group buy that a friend of mine did, but they have it in stock here.  I post that link because when I went to look at my Facebook groups to see where to get them, that's the first link that popped up. 

If you like to stamp or if you have a love/hate relationship with stamping, I recommend it. This sucker is life altering.

Well, as life altering as anything nail polish related can be, I guess.

A LOSER AND A WINNER

I blinked, and now it's March. Hopefully that means the weather will start warming up, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for it.

Tuesday through Friday of last week the workers were here everyday refinishing the ceilings, and I have to say, they look fantastic! I get very happy every time I look up. It might have taken them 10 months to do it, but it was worth the wait. 

Next step; get the carpeting cleaned. I've been waiting awhile to do that. I wasn't going to have that done and then get the ceiling mess all over it. I'll be glad to have the "fluff" back in my living room.

I spent the entire weekend sick. We went out to dinner at the casino with some friends Friday night, and I honestly think I might have gotten food poisoning from the steak I had. Today is the first day I've even felt slightly normal, and that didn't happen until this evening. Even  now I feel like somebody ran over my insides. Not fun.

Tomorrow we will again attempt to go to Milwaukee to see Barry Manilow. So far it hasn't been canceled so that's a good sign.  Even the weather looks promising. Mid 20's....it's going to feel like summer!

I did my nails very quickly the other night, and they were so awful I didn't even take a picture. Then I did one very quickly on Friday that was also horrid. I just didn't leave myself enough time to do a good job. Cleaning the house after having all of the ceiling popcorn removed was a huge chore, and even now there is still dust settling. I did take a pic of it, but that's my excuse for the craptastic stamping job.

My pink base is Square Hue Kewpies. I just got the new XL Bundle Monster plates last week. I bought two of the three sets, and I'm pretty glad I did. I used some unnamed Color Club with the XL01 plate for this one. The awful stamping is not the fault of the plates; it is complete and utter user failure. The color I chose just wasn't made for stamping, and I just didn't have time to go digging for something else.

I am much, much happier with the one I did tonight. I even remembered to take a picture of the polish on its own. Color me proud of myself.

This absolutely spectacular polish is Darling Diva BEWBS!  And when I say it's spectacular, I'm not kidding. It is amazing and rich and holo and a gorgeous color. Their formula is really awesome, too.  There is only one thing I would change about this polish, and that is the brush. Minor detail, and it sure wouldn't have stopped me from buying it. 

For the design I used another of the new Bundle Monsters, BM XL19.  I stamped with Color Club Halo Hues Cosmic Fate. 

I love how this turned out. Holo stamp on top of a holo polish  equals win/win.

And now I'm off to bed even though I have been sleeping off and on almost non-stop since late Friday night. Hopefully being sick is completely over.

If Barry shows up for the concert and I'm not sick, that will be another win/win.

OH, WHAT A DAY!!

It has been an interesting couple of days here. Charter was here when I got home from work yesterday setting us up with cable and our new Tivo box. As usual, we got the workers that didn't really know how to connect things up with Tivo. We had Tivo years ago and really liked it. We've been swearing at DirecTv every damn day for the past couple of years. We only got it in the first place because their dvr recorded more shows at a time, and it was cheaper than cable.

Finally last week after not being able to watch a few of our fave shows due to the pixelating and pausing that happens every day, it occurred to me that maybe we should just go back to cable and look into getting Tivo again.  I looked at the Tivo website and once I discovered they have a box that will record 6 things at once, I told Kev to start looking at our options.

By the end of the next day it was decided. Ditch DirecTv and go back to Charter. Add on Tivo. Discover that monthly it's going to be something like $60 cheaper right now and will only go up $20 in a couple of years. Say whaaaa??  Why did it take me so long to think of Tivo??  

So now everything is installed, and I have to watch everything that's on my DirecTv dvr so we can send it back. And bonus, we get to keep the satellite dish. Why is that? What the hell am I supposed to do with a spare satellite dish? I guess we'll keep it as a decoration to cover the holes in the roof where it's installed. Cute.

When I went to bed at 2 a.m. last night, it was 24 below zero outside. In this cold I've been keeping the water running in the kitchen and the spare bathroom 24/7. It was running when I went to bed.

At 8 a.m., the phone rings. I'm swearing as I get up, wondering who the jerkoff is that's calling me so early. Well, it was Kevin, who got up at 4 a.m. to go to work. He was calling to tell me the pipes were frozen. At that point I was in shock. That means sometime in a 2 hour time span, the pipes froze even with the water running. That is crazy! As we're talking, he asks me to do him a "favor" and run outside to the side of the house where the crawlspace is. Evidently when the cable guys were here they had to go under the house. 

And the bricks that cover that area didn't get put back, so all of the pipes had nothing blocking all that cold from getting to them. So that's fantastic. I put a call in to a couple of plumbers and the one I reached said they were swamped but would be out between 11 and 2. 

Then I wander into the living room and find the bag from the party size bag of Hershey Kisses laying on the living room floor.  Empty.  Rut-roh. I had them out last night and was chomping on them while waching tv and went to bed, leaving it on the end table. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but I guess when Kev left for work, Baylee got pissed and decided to be bad.

So now it's semi-panic time because I have an 80 lb. Lab who has eaten probably 20 oz. of chocolate. She was acting fine, but I called the vet just to ask advice. They told me to give her peroxide and make her puke. I gave her peroxide, and the idiot wouldn't puke. In the meantime, she's still acting fine. I waited a couple of hours and did the peroxide thing again, and she finally threw up. The only thing it accomplished was proving she was the guilty party because I found a wrapper. She then made several trips outside to dispose of her gourmet breakfast from the end opposite of where it went in.

She's fine, thank God. As usual, it caused me more stress than it caused her. 

In the middle of all this, the water came back on as I was talking to the second plumber who had called me back after getting my message from 8:30. So after telling him I didn't need him, I then called the other guy to cancel.

Overall, the morning was eventful, but everything turned out fine. Needless to say the water will be running at a little bit bigger trickle when I go to bed tonight, although it isn't suppose to be nearly as cold as last night. I ain't risking it.

Here's my mani from yesterday.

I friggin' love this one. All three of the blues are holo although they really don't show it much. The lighest blue is Nfu Oh 65, the mid blue is China Glaze Take a Trek, and the navy is Darling Diva Queen of the Night. Buy Queen of the Night. Immediately. As a matter of fact, go buy a bunch of their polish. It is amazing.

Of course I couldn't just leave it alone, so I stamped on it with Essie No Place Like Chrome with the LeaLac LLC-A plate.

Did I mention I love this one? I'm still wearing it, although I am considering taking it off to play. Or maybe I'll just keep looking at it until Sunday when I'll need to do something else before going to work on Monday.

Now I'm going to marathon watch some more television. I've been trying to watch while typing this, but it isn't working. I've rewound the show 5 times now because I'm not paying attention to it.  

I wish I had some Hershey Kisses to nibble.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME??

If you read yesterday, you already know that Charter came again. The internet worked like a champ for almost 11 whole hours!! We thought, Yay!!!

We thought wrong.  For the 3rd or 4th night in a row, it went down right around 11:30 p.m. and was still down when I went to bed at 12:45.  Result? Another call made to them this morning. Kev asked them to look at how many times it had gone down since he "fixed" it. Answer, 3 or 4 times. Come on! They're coming again tomorrow. Just shoot me already.

Anywho, when I got home yesterday I finished marbling the counter area around where the tub goes. I swear I had marbled fingers, but not the good kind. Obvi I had to make time for a mani after that.

A week or two ago when I ordered my LeaLac plates at Llarowe, I picked up a few polishes. One of those was Wardrobe Malfunction by Darling Diva. What a strange polish this is. I didn't really care much for the formula, and I don't think it got pretty until after I topcoated. It also didn't seem to be holo at all until I topcoated. Even then, I didn't find much holoey goodness. 

Oh, well, that just means stamp the shit out of it like I said I would do. Grab up my LeaLac B plate and Essie Mirror Effect No Place Like Chrome and go to town. 

I like how this turned out although I don't think there's anything special about it. The purple is really brilliant and pretty, so I'm pleased with the color, just not happy about the lack of holo.

I'm anxious to get home and see how things have progressed today without me. Kev was doing the topcoat on the countertops, and I believe he was going to do the first coat on the tub. I'm really praying that turns out. Tomorrow he'll be able to put in my new sink. I'm unreasonably excited about that. It's a sink. How sad is my life that this is a major highlight? Hmmm....

Actually, I have 12 new China Glazes to swatch, the Sunsational Collection. Wowsers, are they bright.

Now that is a highlight.