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. :)

THESE FLOWERS GREW ON ME

No, flowers did not literally grow on me.  That would make for quite the blog post, though!

Whenever I actually have to go somewhere that isn't "jeans appropriate" but not really "dress up", it's quite the dilemma for me. Since I always wear jeans to the office, I don't own even a single pair of non-jeans; not even a damn pair of khakis. That's kind of ridiculous, but the last time I wanted a pair of dress pants, I went to every store in town, all 5 of them, and had no luck.

So figuring out what to wear to a church for that christening on Saturday was no easy task. I settled on a maxi dress with a cropped cardigan. Since the neckline of said dress borders on slutsville, I threw a cami under it. I'm also happy to report that I did not burst into flames upon entry into the church as I feared might happen.

The dress is the colors of this mani; mauve with blue, cream and some various other colors. It was a "holy-shit-you've-waited-to-long-to-figure-out-your-outfit mani, and I was almost late to the festivities because of it. I hate being late for anything; really irks my ass. But I did make it on time....yay me!

I used a base of Spoiled Thanks a Latte and then found some flowers on my LeaLac LLC-A plate for the stamp. I wanted to get at least two colors of the flowers from the dress, and Sinful Colors Why Not and Fresh Paint Coconut smatched perfectly. 

I really like that Fresh Paint Coconut polish, and I'm glad I bought two of them when I had the chance. It's super similar to OPI's My Vampire is Buff which is just about my fave off-white in the whole wide world.  The formula is really nice, too.  

As for Spoiled polishes, good lordie they smell SO awful!! I have a few of them, and I find their formula to be very inconsistent. A couple I've tried in the past had really turrible application. This one applied well but reeked. Can't say I really understand why that happens.

Now, when I finished this one, I thought it was kind of gross, but like I said, it really was last minute so changing my mind was not an option. I'm talking I had to be at the church by 5:30, and I think I got the last of my topcoat on at 5:05. So yeah. Stuck with it.

As I glanced at it over the next few hours, it really started to grow on me. It certainly is not unusual for me to not be a big fan of something I did, but it's kind of rare that I end up really liking something after wearing it for a bit. This is one of those rare exceptions to the rule. I was actually kind of sad to see it go.

Tonight I'll do the last of my Halloween manicures and send them out along with the four they want that I had done last year. Anytime they ask for some of my older stuff, I cringe. I think I do a better job now. 

At least I hope so.

BLUE. AND STAMPED. YUP.

Lordie, what a start to the week.

The first day back to work after a vacation pretty much always sucks. Since I'm the only person working here, nothing gets done when I'm gone so usually there is a huge pile of paperwork waiting for me. I always dread it because I hate not being caught up.

Cut to this morning. I was up and ready to go like normal. I even thought I'd go in a few minutes early to try to formulate a plan of attack before the bossman showed up. It seemed like such a great idea!

My vehicle, on the other hand, did not think it was a good idea.  On the contrary, I guess my vehicle didn't want me to go to work. Or anywhere else, for that matter.  When it didn't start, I was pissed....I figured it was probs doing the weird security reset thingie it does sometimes so I followed the usual procedure for that and waited 10 minutes.  Um, hello, car....you're then supposed to start. Remember?

Oh, "not so!" says my car. "Your ass ain't going anywhere if I have my way." All I can think about is how pissed the boss is gonna' be when I call and tell him I'm stranded at home. Yeah, that'll go over great after I've been gone for a week.

So I start calling the office. Over and over and over again. Evidently he didn't feel he needed to be on time today. I finally reached him at 10:00 and told him the scoop. I was waiting for the tow truck to come and drag the irritant over to the mechanic, and I was hitching a ride so I could pick up the loaner vehicle.

Got that accomplished and am now driving a not-so-shiny red.....minivan. God help me; I'm driving a gump-mobile. Hopefully it isn't going to cost a gazillion dollars to have the Equinox fixed....we just spent money on our vacation, dammit! I don't have any extra moolah just laying around! Seriously; I call bullshit.

I really did plan on doing my nails last night, but I just didn't have the ambition to even figure out something to do. So this post is actually a mani I did a couple of weeks ago. Not new to me but still new to you guys.

The Navy is 10 Professional Starstruck, and I stamped with Essie Mirror Blue Rhapsody and the Llarowe LeaLac LLC-B plate.

I like this one; it just isn't all that exciting. It was one of those last minute kinda' mani's where I suddenly decided around 11:30 at night that I just "had" to do my nails.  So it is what it is. Or was. Whatever. You know what I mean. lol

And now back to playing "catch-up" at work. I just thought I'd sneak this one in here while I had a minute. I'm hoping tonight I'll decide to not be lazy because right now I have the dreaded tip-wear. Gross. And something I'm not exactly used to and am definitely not a fan of.

Blog post done. Mission accomplished.

SQUIGGLICIOUS

My birdies let me down last night.  One of the baby boys flew up, hung around for a bit and then left without eating. After that I only had my own chow hound little girl stop for a bite. And that was it. Disappointing.

I wasn't really out there for very long...damn skeeters were on the attack last night. It was so warm and humid, and there wasn't any breeze to keep them away.  No wasps around, though! Not quite sure where they were, but methinks they should stay there.

It did mean that I had time to take off that purdy water marble. When I took it off, I really had no idea of what I wanted to do. That is called "piss poor planning".  I must have pondered a plan for an hour and then stared at my polishes and my stamping plates for another hour before I realized I'd better make a damn decision before it was too late to do anything at all. And that, my friends, is called "shit or get off the pot".  

Since I'm wearing a brown/cream/rust kind of hideous shirt, I figured I'd just stick with colors that aren't really smatchy but still work.

 

I don't think I've used my OPI Did You Ear About Van Gogh before, but I like it.  It made for a nice color to stamp on with Julep Olivia which is a really great chocolatey brown.  This is also one of my fave stamps on the LeaLac LLC-A plate. I used it awhile back with white over lavender. I keep wanting to use it again and then think, "oh, save it for another time."  Save it for what? I have no idea. For some reason I make myself not use things I like. That's weird, even for me.

So that's that. My toes are Van Gogh. I've never stamped on my toes. I probs should do that sometime. Of course, half the time I get my nails all done and then realize I've completely forgotten to do my toes. I hate doing them; big ol' PITA, if you ask me. There were actually a few weeks where it wasn't quite warm enough to wear sandals to work, and I was more than happy to just let my piggies be bare inside a pair of flats.  Gotta' wear sandals while the wearin' is good, though, so I guess I have to try to remember to paint them.

Don't know what I'm doing tonight. I'm uninspired at the moment and feeling a bit slumpish. Yes, slumpish is a word, or if it's not, it should be. I think that I should be able to add words to the dictionary anytime I want to. 

Wonder who I have to see about doing that.

SOMETHING SIMPLE

So much for getting to bed before midnight last night. Even with my best intentions, I still couldn't manage to get there until 12:45. Evidently I would have to start getting ready for bed at 7 o'clock in order to make it before midnight. Redonk. What the hell is wrong with me?  lol

My headache actually woke me up at 3:30 a.m., so that was awesome. I took some Excedrin Migraine, crossed my fingers it wouldn't hurt my stomach and went back to bed. I got lucky. My major headache was just a smidge of a headache when I got up, and my stomach even survived it. That made for a decent start to the day.

Kev is on his way home after stopping at a walk-in clinic before the 2 hour drive home. He's got strep throat, so that is fan-*&#@ing-tastic.  Just what he needs. Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in fast since we have a busy weekend coming up. He never gets sick; I feel so bad for him. 

Right after I finished eating supper I got to the nails.  I wanted to be done early. You know, cuz' I want to be in bed before midnight. LMAO

This looks quite a bit more purple in real life.  The base is China Glaze Bogie, and I stamped with the Llarowe LeaLac LLC-A plate using Color Club Fashion Addict. 

Fashion Addict is one of the first polishes I bought on eBay, specifically because I saw it on Chloe's blog. I still love it. It's just a really pretty light purple and is a "bit" holo. Bogie is just a dark brownish-purple. At least that's how I describe it.

So that's that for today. It isn't what I really wanted to do. I had seen a mani I wanted to do, but I just couldn't get the technique to work. It's one of those things I'll just have to try another day when I have the patience.

And with that, I'm off to clean up my nail supply mess before Kev gets home in a minute. As usual, we have about 6 hours of television to catch up on since he hasn't been here since last Thursday.

Someone should buy me a life.

 

China Glaze Bogie, Color Club Fashion Addict, Llarowe LeaLac LLC-A stamp plate

THIS IS A SNOOZEFEST

Good God, I hate that piece of shit house I live in. Any little thing we try to do is such a major pita. All we want to do is put a new drain in the tub in the spare bathroom. Isn't that supposed to be "simple"?  According to youtube it is. Lying bastards.

Oh, I forgot. If you have crap-ass well water, it corrodes everything so badly it's like the metal of the drain has just grown itself with tentacles to the surrounding areas. It's like trying to fix things in a 100 year old house. But my "house" isn't even 20 years old.

I felt so bad for Kev; he has to crawl under the house all the way to the opposite side to try to detach everything while I sit in the bathtub trying to help. And believe me, I am pretty much useless with my spaghetti arms that have no strength.  We did finally manage to get the drain out and put the new one in.  And of course it leaks. Shocking. So now he'll go to Menard's for the 50th time since we starting doing stuff to get some new parts. 

I think I should just grab my laptop and my dogs and burn the whole thing down.

After playing around with all that and then finally getting dinner, it didn't leave a lot of time for nails. That's my excuse for this bore of a mani.

I actually thought I would just go with the Nabi 3D Rainbow Effects Red and leave it at that, but I just couldn't do it. I find it very difficult to just have plain nails.  I pretty much grabbed the first easy thing I found in the drawer and stamped.  I used Essie Mirror Effect Nothing Else Metals and LeaLac LLC-B plate for the stamp. Whoop-de-frickin-do.

I have had one minor success; I've only seen 3 or 4 ants since yesterday morning. Stalking with vinegar did the trick. 

I'M GOLDEN TODAY!

When I titled this post, I didn't realize that it wouldn't just apply to my mani.

Being the complete social media addict that I "might" be, the first thing I do after getting ready for work in the morning is grab my phone. Admit it. So do you.  There are usually some Instagram notifications, sometimes Facebook, sometimes eBay....you get the idea.

This morning I clicked on my Instagram and found that someone had mentioned me in a comment. Always fun to see what that's about. I go to it, and I'll be dipped! I won one of the giveaways that I entered, AND I reached the 500 follower mark!! WooHoo!!

I have no clue how that many people even found me, but I'm happy. Here's the awesome prize package I won:

Looks like some fun goodies in there, and none of it looks like anything I already have, which is shocking.  Nice way to start the day, hey? I think every morning should begin like this.

I originally put my golden title on because last night I felt like a gold mani with stamping. I, of course, decided this around 11:30 last night. There must be something wrong with me that makes me do that to myself. It's as if the early evening hours don't exist for me sometimes. I look up from the computer, and suddenly it's midnight. Where in the hell did 7:00, 8:00 and 9:00 go?? Those would be awesome times to do nails if I would pull my head outta' my ass and get to it.

So regardless of the time factor, this is what I ended up doing.

I like. It's exactly what I was looking for today. Even though Orly Solid Gold is a matte/suede finish, I really prefer it with a topcoat. It seems to make the color look richer and more even. I used the Konad black polish with, you guessed it, my LeaLac plate B. Yeah, I know you're shocked. I'm obsessed with my LeaLac plates, and I wanted something flourishy (not a real word....don't care) that didn't cover too much of the gold. 

Mission accomplished.  This post will now self-destruct in 5 seconds.

SO I FIBBED A LITTLE.

Went and visited my doctor. I get such a kick out of him. Gotta' love a doc I can give shit to and he dishes it right back. I remember when I first started seeing him years ago, I thought he was such a dudster with no personality whatsoever. I've trained him well.

Got me a lovely cortisone shot and asked how often I'm allowed to get them since the one from March only lasted a month. Only allowed four a year. Super duper. I told him that I do not want that frozen shoulder thing. He agreed and said, "No. No, you don't."  I told him that since only 2-3% of the population gets it, obviously that's what I'll end up having because that is typical me.  I thought he would fall off his chair he was laughing so hard at me.  So now I'm being referred to an orthopedist for my shoulder. Sounds fun.

Then I told him about my failed EGD with the useless, retiring doctor who obviously had no interest in referring me for anything or to anybody....just said to talk to my regular doc and that maybe I don't want to try another EGD, make just get an upper GI. Well, imagine my surprise when I learn today from my general doc that at my last EGD in October of 2009, I not only had ulcers, I also had Barrett's Esophagus. News to me. It was also news to me that this is something that should be checked because a very small percentage of people get esophageal cancer because of it. WTF. Isn't that special. Mabes you could have mentioned that in passing, Mr. Retiring Jackass. An upper GI wouldn't show how that little gem of a problem is doing. I'm being referred to a gastroenterologist for that.

AND since my red blood cells were too large at the last visit, he took blood again today. Doesn't big blood cells sound like it should be something super awesomesauce??  Not so much. If those are still big, he wants me to have a sleep study because that can be caused by sleep apnea. Seriously? Is that "all" the fun news you have for me today? Oh, what's that? That's not one of those at-home sleep studies? I have to go sleep somewhere else? I just called him an asshole, slapped him on the arm and we both started laughing.

Why can't I ever just get a cold or the flu like normal people. Seriously, you guys would not even believe me if I told you all of the weird things I've gotten or had happen to me over the years. Redonk. Truly.

'Nuff of that.  So I lied. I said I was going to leave that foil mani on, but I didn't. I changed my mind last night and took it off. I just felt like monkeying around a bit.  It was a quick one and didn't take much time.

I knew I wanted to do a dark red with a black stamping. I dug through my two drawers of reds and decided on Nailtiques Milan.  It's such a pretty color, but I like it even better when it's matte using Butter London's matte topcoat. Since I want the black to show up well, I used my Konad black with the Llarowe LeaLac plate B to just put a little bit of a flourish on there.

I love it. I think it's dramatic without being "out there". I was wondering how the black stamp would be about staying on during my shower since I couldn't topcoat after stamping, but it still looks great after that and after working. I keep looking at it cuz' I think it's so pretty, so I call that a success.

Now I have the weekend to just lay around. Hopefully that cortisone will do its thang so I'm not in pain and so I can sleep. A decent night's sleep without waking up from the pain would be delightful.  One day last week Kev told me I had actually woken him up because I started screaming in pain. Now, he didn't define "screaming", and I don't remember it, but I guess that means it hurt.  And I don't even lay on that side.

So here's hoping!! If it works and the weather turns nice so I can lay in the pool, that would make this a damn near perfect weekend. 

In the meantime, I'm gonna' take a snappy-nap for a bit. I is tuckered.

SCRIBBLES OR SOME SUCH NONSENSE

Happy day.....my darling honorary daughter finally had her baby boy last night. I say finally but she was actually only one day after her due date. Ayden Thomas is a big boy, over 10 pounds! If you knew what a smidge-midge Jackie is, you'd never know how big that is.....he's practically bigger than her already. I'm excited for them and can't wait to meet him. Made my night when I saw the pic, chubby cheeks and full head of dark hair, just like his daddy. She got exactly what she wanted, a kid with color, since she's whiter than paper. 

Got pics of the June issue of Les Nouvelles Esthetiques & Spa magazine yesterday and figured I'd force you to see those before you see my mani. Sneak, right?

 

As always, I'm thrilled to have my nails featured. This is the third time now in this magazine. The editor-in-chief has also now asked me to do articles on my own for them. She asked me to do five tutorial-type articles that will run as a series for five months. I don't get paid or anything, but it's still pretty cool! I've already submitted my first two, which I believe will run in September and October. 

That's my brag for the day. Onto the reason you came.

I had such plans to do something more labor intensive last night, but my stomach had other plans. I didn't even start doing my damn nails until after 10 o'clock. Of course, I had to do something.....I didn't want to wear the same thing 2 days in a row. And since the hardest thing about stamping is choosing colors, this didn't take me very long at all.

I was really drawing a blank for what colors I felt like doing and figured I hadn't done grey in awhile. I love grey polishes, but for some odd reason, I only have about 40 of them. I think that's weird. I pretty much grabbed the first light one I saw, OPI Suzi Takes the Wheel and decided to use Sinful Colors Black on Black instead of the Konad stamping black. I need to buy another white and black Konad polish...mine are getting goopy.  Of course I had to use a Lealac stamping plate, and the A plate has some good geometric kinda stuff. So this is what I came up with. Methinks it's kinda-sorta cool. 

It's another one-dayer, I believe. Mabes tonight I'll start earlier and figure out something a bit more exciting to do. I have a ton of ideas I want to try, but they seem like ideas that will take a few hours to accomplish. It's never a good idea for me to do those on weeknights because I might still have my ass parked in the recliner, swearing at myself and my nails, until 2 in the morning. 

I'm super smart that way. I'd say damn near Mensa level.

WATERMELON IS DELIGHTFUL

Dear Tuesday:
You suck nearly as bad as your step-sister, Monday. 

Dear upcoming Wednesday:
Step your shit up!

Ah, the crap part of the day is almost over. Gonna' stop and do some fake and bake and then head home to see Kev, who will be home at 6:30. Of course, he leaves again tomorrow, so that blows. Another 5 days all by my lonesome. Good thing I like being by myself so much, right? Otherwise marrying a pilot probs would not have been a good choice.

Perhaps this evening we can get the bathtub out of my living room. That would be lovely, as I don't really consider that "decorating". The new faucet won't be here until Thursday, but at least I can have my living room back to normal in the meantime.

VOTD: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.  Please drop off the face of the earth. Thank you. Sincerely, 99% of the population.

On to something I enjoy! Nails! Yay!! Somebody asked in one of the nail groups what a good Watermelon polish was, and somebody said Essie Watermelon. Five minutes later, another sale was made on eBay. I received it yesterday, and it is bright! And pretty!

See? It's very watermelony and bright and pink. I'm liking it! I'll still probably be taking it off tonight, but I like it.  I just wanted to do a nice white stamp on this. I formulated that plan while standing in line at Walmart. I was a good girl there, too....I only bought 2 polishes, and one of them is white so it doesn't actually count.

I don't know why I feel the need to grab white polishes at random times even though I know I probably have 15 bottles of it in maybe 6 or 7 different brands. Apparently I must feel like I'm constantly on the verge of running out?  Who knows. I have issues. Clearly.

I used the LeaLac A plate with Sinful Colors Snow Me White for this stamp. And hey, I actually looked at the name of the SC white finally! Aren't you proud of me?? And then I put it away, forgot the name and had to go dig it out to look again to write it in here. 

Old-age brain strikes again. 

DUOCHROME + HOLO? YES, PLEASE!

Dear Monday,

You suck. Truly.

Sincerely, me.

Yesterday it was probs 85 degrees at my house. Today, I'm wearing a jacket because it's cloudy and feels like fall since it hasn't even reach 60 degrees. I friggin' hate it here sometimes.  At least it was pool weather yesterday, which made me and the dogs very happy. It felt so good to just lie on my raft, bake and watch the hummingbirds while the trees blew all kinds of crap all over me and into the pool. I must have skimmed out at least a thousand of those damn little seed thingies. As fast as I scooped, more fell in. Oh, well....still felt good!

Jackie came over last night to do her nails. I'm hoping it's the last time until she has that damn baby. She's due today and big as a house. I think she's kind of over it now and wants that son of hers to make his appearance. She wanted purdy nails for her doctor appointment today. Apparently last week's were a hit.

I just did something easy with mine because she was coming over. That's a lie. I did something easy because I was lazy. And I was so obsessed with that stamp on her from last week I wanted to use it for myself.

Coming up with a color combo is always such a pita. I decided on one of the new Kleancolor duochromes, Bright/Moody. Then I thought it might look coolio to use a holo for stamping so I chose Color Club Halo Hues Cherubic. For the record, when doesn't it look coolio to use a holo for anything! Gawd, I just love a holographic polish. So gorg.

So that sums up my Sunday. Jackie and I got our nails did and indulged in some Real Housewives and scotcheroo bars.

All in all, not a bad day! 

kk Bright/Moody CC HH Cherubic

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.

WELL, THIS IS DIFFERENT....NOT VERY "ME"

Can someone please tell me where my cardinals went?? They were around non-stop all weekend. Yesterday not a sighting, not even a peep was heard. I'm assuming the babes are now gone from the nest. I guess they only stay there for around 7 days. But does that mean they're just "gone" now? Dammit. If that's the case, I'll miss seeing them.

Ah, those new LeaLac plates!! So much fun to have new designs to mess around with. I wish more companies would make plates large enough for my nails.

I got my monthly Julep Maven polishes yesterday; 3 great colors so I immediately decided that the baby blue was the way to go. I really like being a Maven. I've found it to be really fun. The best part is finding out on the 20th of each month what's in each style box and being able to skip a month if I want. I joined last spring. I've jumped in on more mystery boxes than I can remember because those are always fun when they do those. I have skipped several monthly boxes when I wasn't thrilled with them, but I love their polish. If you want to check it out and maybe join, please use my referral link: Julep Maven.  If you don't end up liking them, you can also cancel without any trouble. Anywho, enough plugging for that. I love 'em....just sayin'.

This mani is SO not a Diane mani. I'm not sure if I like it or hate it. It seemed really stark to me, so I did add a holo topcoat which softened it even though the holo doesn't come through much. Maybe I should have done 2 coats of that. Evs.

I love this baby blue, Julep Bess. I also love a good dark blue and have some (translation-dozens), and I decided on Zoya Ibiza because it has a shimmer to it. That, just like the holo topcoat, did not really translate very well. This Llarowe LeaLac plate is LLC-A. 

Centering this bitch was not easy at all!! Holy-moly! It's the first time I think I've used a design that really needs to be centered. If I use one again, hopefully I'll get better at it. Just one more thing I need to learn, I guess. Gross. Old dogs don't like learning new tricks.

Nice to see that my mani is as off kilter as its owner.

IT'S A "KATHY" MANI

Today I finally completed the refinishing of all of the wood cabinets in the bathroom. Thank God. Now I just need to wait for Kev to be home so he can remove the sink so I can start refinishing the countertop. I'm so excited to do that part and kiss that blue goodbye.

I also spent a good part of my day bird watching. I'm now officially obsessed with cardinals, and they are apparently obsessed with hanging out on the railing of my deck. Which is fine with me because I get good pictures. 

When I was sneaking up to the door to snap pics one time today, the momma' was directly in front of me on the railing. I glance to the left, and there are two goldfinches perched on my shephard's hook. What the what?? I'm not sure why my deck area is bird heaven this summer, and I've never even been a fan of birds, but I am completely enjoying this. So before I show you my "Kathy Mani", here's a couple of my birds. :)

S

 

 

For whatever reason I guess my pics are all weirdly sized, probs because I crop them to get closer shots. Oh, well. Sorry.

Anywho, here's my mani, dubbed a "Kathy Mani" because this is totes the kind of thing she would do, and not so much the kind of thing I usually do. But I likey.

I did this using Colour Gossip Nature Girl, stamped the daisies with my LeaLac LLC-A plate and Konad white, and did the yellow centers with a dotting tool and Milani Yellow Whiz. 

I had never heard of Colour Gossip until I saw them on Instagram, and they sent me a sample. Nice, right? It came yesterday, I swatched it, and it is really nice polish. It goes on like a damn dream. I had looked at Colour Gossip a couple of weeks ago and love their colors.  Consider me a fan.

I'm going to assume you're tired of this post now, so I'll just let it be done.

 

NO REHASH TODAY! HOLLA! OR HOLO!

Yesterday we discovered that we have a family of cardinals living in a tall shrub at the corner of my house right by our deck. We snuck over to peak yesterday, and the mom flew out of it. She was PISSED!!!  We saw where the nest was and Kev saw at least two babies.  Momma' was squawking at us the whole time.

So now I not only have the hummingbirds, I have this little fam. They are much harder to stalk than the hummers. I did manage to get some pretty awesome pics of the mom and dad, though. Damn, they are purdy!!

Maybe that red cardinal was in my head last night when I picked my nail color. Totes not true. Kev had to leave for work this morning and get up at 3:30 a.m. and decided to sleep in the spare bedroom so the dogs wouldn't keep him awake. Right after he went in there, it dawned on me that all my nail stuff was in there! Whoa, hubster!! I need to grab some stuff real quick!! I grabbed a few things without giving it much thought, and this is what I ended up with.

Sorry for all the pics, but it's just so gorg I had to. It's my first Jade polish. I've been wanting some for the longest time but never bought. When I bought my new LeaLac stamping plates, I decided to grab a few polishes. I've really wanted a nice red holo; mission accomplished. This is Vermelho Surreal. I wanted to stamp on it without ruining the effect, so I just did my Essie Good as Gold with my LLC-B plate.

It looked really good all day. And now it has black paint in several spots because I'm still working on the bathroom.  I should have that part of the work done this weekend.

But for now, I'm off to eat a filet and some french fries. Cuz' I'm starving!!

YAY FOR NAIL MAIL!!

Holy wah!! I got over 10,000 views in just under two months!! I don't know for sure, but that seems like a TON to me!! Unbelievable. Thank you all for sticking with me. :)

Okay. I lied. I am posting tonight because I got two new stamping plates in the mail today and couldn't wait to try them.

But first, lest you think I have nothing to bitch about, after my unsuccessful attempt at that EGD last Friday, I heard from the doctor's office today. As I expected, my gall bladder is fine. Duh. As for another attempt at the EGD, apparently my doctor is retiring, and I was his last procedure. Nice.

So the nurse had the doc call me, and he said to go to my regular doctor, and it's up to me whether I want to retry it or not. Or maybe I'd rather just have an upper GI. Huh?

I understand why you're retiring, you f**ktard.

But then I came home for lunch and found 6 new nail polishes, some sequins, a cute little purse from Custom Nail Solutions and my two new stamping plates from Llarowe. That's enough to put even me in a good mood.

I still wanted something light, so I grabbed Zoya Kendal and my Konad white. AND my brand spankin' new LeaLac LLC-A plate. I got that and LLC-B, and oh, they are so spectacularly fab. I've been holding off on getting these because two of the images on the B plate are wonky which pisses me off, but I couldn't wait any longer. It figures the wonky images are two I really love, but such is life.

I heart this very much. It's just such a pretty color, and I love the delicate design of this one.  Lawdy, I see some fun with these plates in my future.

That'll do it for today! I'm outtie.