GRANDKIDS RULE

I hope your 4th of July weekend was fun. Mine was pretty busy, although "busy" may be a relative term since part of busy involved laying around in the pool for 3 hours on Thursday, 2 hours on Friday and 4 hours on Saturday. lol

Griffin also got into town Thursday night. Bob dropped him off at my house on Friday so he could attend my annual family cookout. After that I dropped him off at his other grampa's where he was then picked up by his dad to go to the fireworks. Kid had a busy day.

On Saturday he came over in the afternoon and then spent the night. Even though it was late in the day he still wanted to go in the pool because that kid loves the water. Too cold for me at that time of day, so Grampa Kev went in with him. He had a ball until he was so cold his lips were turning purple. Finally convinced him to get out, warm up and get dressed. We figured he was done with that for the day, but we were mistaken. An hour or so later he wanted to go swimming again, and Mr. Good Sport Kev took him back in for awhile. After that it was Pizza Hut for dinner, a walk around the neighborhood and helping me water the flowers.

Such a good kid. After playing inside for awhile and watching some Adventure Time, he just vegged out on grampa's lap for a bit. He was really starting to look sleepy. When I asked him for the 5th or 6th time if he was ready for bed, he said he was ready. Off he went, 6 cars in hand to line up in bed with him. I left the room, and 2 minutes later he asked for his semi truck. Good Lord. Of course I grabbed the wrong one so I let him go and find it on his own.

He was all tucked in and quiet, but neighbors at a couple of different houses started doing fireworks. And they do real ones, not legal ones, the kind you actually see way up in the sky. After some of the louder ones, I'd hear him tell me from his bed, "oh, that was a big one!"  I seriously want to eat him with a spoon he's so cute.

He left yesterday morning so the house is very quiet again. It's actually good that he left because I was really sick all day. I'm still not feeling great yet, but at least I'm functioning. All I did yesterday was nap on and off and eat Tums. I didn't even pick up the laptop.

I had planned to do my nails, but that obviously didn't happen either. But at least I do have this one to show.

I had gotten 8 of the 10 Sally Hansen Color Foils, and this was the first one I used. It's Leaden Lilac, and I love it. I pretty much love all of them. I used my China Glaze Queen B for the LeaLac B stamp.                                                             

And then I ran around the house trying to get the color to photograph. No luck with that at all this time around, not even in the bathroom.  I had to wait until the next day to get a picture outside, and even that was difficult. I did finally manage to get this one, though.

I was happy with this one, and the Color Foil wore very well.

I think that's about all I have to report today. I don't really have anything major to bitch about, believe it or not. Nobody has pissed me off in something like 4 days now.

Shocking, but true.

MADE OUT WITH THIS ONE. TWICE.

It is absolutely gorg outside. Sunny and warm and summer-ish. It feels so good! I went outside to refill a couple of the hummingbird feeders in a sweatshirt and realized that I was way overdressed. I'm just so accustomed to automatically dressing for winter that it hadn't occurred to me that it might actually be over 60 degrees. But it is! 64, to be exact.

I've been waiting for the weekend because I was planning to plant all of the flowers that we bought. The area along the garage needs to be cleared of the "decorative" rocks that are in there. Then the dirt needs to be all dug up and added to with some good stuff. I went to the moving company and got unprinted newspaper so I am ready to plant.

Even though I didn't ask him to, Kev had gone outside before he had to leave for work on Thursday to shovel the top layer into the wheelbarrow so it would be easier for me to get in there and dig.

15 minutes later he came in, sweating like a buffalo, and informed me that it was going to be a LOT more work than we thought. Great.  I still figured I would at least make an attempt today. Right now the plants are just all in their little nursery boxes sitting on top of the rocks. After I watered them, I put on my gardening gloves, grabbed the little shovel and went to work. 

Or tried to. It ain't happening. I'd need a jackhammer to get through that stuff. I'm so saddy-pants that now I can't plant until next week. Then I decided I would take my Supertunia out of the big pot and try again. It's looking a smidge wilty so I broke up the root system a little more, added some more dirt and replanted it. 

Kev also found time to put up the hooks along the garage for my new hummingbird feeders. They are super cute, and I love them. I now have 3 window feeders and 7 hanging feeders up. That's a lot considering I only know of 2 females and 2 males living here. There might be more, but I've seen 2 females eating at the same time and 2 males eating at the same time. Hopefully there are 2 nests with babes coming soon. Of course, there may be more adults but I haven't paid close enough attention to figure it out.

So if those 4 want sugar water, there is no lack of that here. I've yet to see any of them go near the flowers, but they are loving all of the feeders.

For some reason I have also already had to kill 3 hornets in the house. Um....not a fan of those little bastards. I haven't seen a nest anywhere. Usually late in the summer we get a yellow jacket wasp nest under the front porch, but Kev has a plan to prevent that this year.

I did this mani on Thursday night, and I am so in love with it.  I love when something I picture in my mind turns out exactly that way.

I actually did try going with a lighter grey first but didn't like it so much. I'm glad I tested that on just my thumb before painting all ten with the light color. I also was a bit concerned on how the pink flowers would hold up with no topcoat on them, but they are still perfect.

The dark grey is Julep Brandt, and just like always, it went on like a dream. I'm annoyed with what Julep has been offering in the Maven boxes lately, but I do like their formula.
 
I then used the Butter London matte topcoat.....still my fave matte topcoat. For the Llarowe LeaLac B stamp, I used China Glaze Admire.  I've used that for stamping before, and it's amazeballs. I also wanted that to stay shinier, thus the no topcoat.

I may take this off today if I find some nail inspiration. If not, I'm more than happy to look at it for another day.

I wish I had an outdoor chaise lounger. I'd probs throw on a swimsuit and lay out. I need to get my tan on. This is damn near shorts season today, and I wouldn't want to blink and miss all of it.

Instead, since I can't play outside with the flowers, I guess I'll do laundry.

This makes me very sad.

A MANI....AND SOME UNSOLICITED ADVICE

Here's my unsolicited advice. Take heed. Seriously.

If you ever plan to remodel anything,
              a)   Don't do it
              b)   Run away from home until it's done
              c)   Decide a budget for each room or item
              d)   Add at least $1,000 for each room or item
              e)   Keep plenty of kleenex handy for all of the crying you
                    will be doing

On Monday, the flooring peeps were supposed to start a four day stretch to do the bathroom floor, that stupid subway tiling thing for the side of the tub surround and then the bedroom flooring.

Before any of that could be started, Kevin had to take out our vanity so they could get to one section of the tub.  So on Sunday night, off he went to do remove it. 

OMG. What a complete piece of crap. I could make a better vanity than that thing. Once he took it out, it was painfully obvious that it was never going to go back in. So great; now what were we supposed to do.  Getting a new vanity would mean getting a new countertop for said vanity which would also mean that it would no longer match the tub surround I worked so hard on when I did the vanity countertop last year. 

After much discussion, I said (half jokingly) that we should just rip it all out and get a new tub.  15 minutes and a look at the Menard's website decided that issue.  For what it was going to cost for that stupid subway tile, we could buy a whole new freestanding bathtub.

Decision made. New tub it shall be. Now off to find a black vanity that goes all the way to the floor. Never.Gonna.Happen. At least not at any price we plan on paying.  The flooring guy was not pumped that we had to cancel at the last minute, but it isn't our fault our house is crap.

So out comes the tub that he worked so hard to refinish last year. It's so purdy, too....kind of sad to get rid of it, but whatevs. Then came the difficulty or removing the wood stuff that held the tub. Jeebus. Then we look at the weird-ass plumbing and wonder if that tub will even work. Had a plumber come over, and once again someone says they've never seen anything like it. He was successful, though, so that's a plus. Now I have a bathtub sitting in my living room while we wait for flooring. 

Now on we go to find a new black vanity. Silly me thought this should be a relatively easy task. Wrong again. Since that plumbing is also wonky, we need one that goes all the way to the floor. Good luck on that unless you're willing to spend a gazillion dollars. Kev went to Perk's to see what they have. They'll make us one for $400, which was lovely until you add in the price of a countertop, sink and install.

Like I said, pick a room and add at least $1,000. Every time.

In the midst of all this tomfoolery, Kev is putting the new decking on.  Also, lest I fail to mention it, our water system is STILL wonkified, too. 

I am hoping this weekend the weather will be as nice as they say it's going to be, and I'll attempt to plant my flowers without killing them. Lord knows, this black-thumbed idiot will probs screw that up. I bought a gorgeous supertunia in a hanging basket that I replanted in a big urn for the deck, and it's already looking sickly less than a week later. That's probably a "kiss that 40 bucks goodbye" sitch.

It should go without saying I haven't been doing much with my nails. Here's one from several weeks ago.

Be honest; how gorg is this polish??  It's Too Cute-icle Enchanted Lagoon, and I am completely enchanted by it.  I did leave it on its own for a day before stamping on it with Sinful Colors black and the LeaLac B plate.

Those Too Cute-icle holos are just fantabulous!! I adore them.

My work day is almost over, and we're heading over to Perk's to finalize the vanity and countertop. While I was so looking forward to hunting for the sink of my dreams, I guess we're going with a solid surface undermount.  Color me sorta' saddy-pants on that.

Oh, and if I suddenly disappear, it probably means my laptop got burned up in the fire that "mysteriously" occurred on the outskirts of Escanaba.

RUSTIC DREAM

Don't forget to enter the giveaway!

I woke up to a blizzard. Unreal. Not exactly how I want to start the week.

And in my usual habit of having shit luck, I found out today that there are no extensions on unemployment. Leave it to me to finish with my regular 20 weeks of benefits and hit the cutoff when extensions aren't happening. Everybody I've ever known that got unemployment got extensions all the time. Not this gal. Typical.

Also in this same vein of shit luck, we got our water softener system installed on Thursday. I was supposed to come here and write all about how happy I am. Not gonna' happen, at least not yet. Evidently there is some kind of problem because my water is yellow. They also said there may be a "slight" decrease in water pressure. Well, the water pressure is fantastic throughout the entire house.....except in MY shower. It now takes me ten minutes longer to rinse my hair. Super happy about that!

Supposedly they told Kev how to adjust the pressure so he'll try that when he gets home. I also know there is some doohickey thingamabob that you can take out of the inside of a shower head to increase pressure. When the new shower and new shower head go in, I'm going to make damn sure plumber-man does that. Of all the problems in that stupid house, water pressure was never an issue. So yeah, not so thrilled at the moment. I do assume they'll correct the yellow water. If they don't, they can pull the system out and shove it.

I did this mani quite awhile ago.  

Quite some time ago one of the peeps in the nail group had shown off this polish, and I immediately fell in love with it. After I did a basecoat of black, I used CQ Rustic Dream which flashes some pretty colors. I'm not even sure what color I would classify this as. A coppery brown that flashes gold maybe? But it also flashes kind of a rosey brown, too. I don't know. It's pretty, and that's good enough for me. 

I didn't want to cover it up so I chose one of the more delicate designs from the LeaLac B plate from Llarowe. Even though I recently got the plates from AliExpress and some MoYou plates, I still wish Llarowe would come out with some more of the LeaLacs. The size of those are still my fave, I think.

Now that I've managed to eat up a few minutes of the day, I guess I'll actually go find something productive to do.

Something that doesn't require using water.

PANICKED BUT STILL PRETTY IN PINK

I'm officially panic stricken. Shoulder surgery is for sure on the 23rd. In my mind I thought the whole thing was kind of a minor blip. Unfortunately, it appears I am mistaken. When they told me how difficult the recovery would be, I thought they were talking about if the worse case scenario happened, which would be them finding damage to my rotator cuff.  Once I got home and started thinking, I realized I didn't ask a couple of questions about how "my" recovery was going to be for him going in and just taking off part of a bone. Imagine my surprise when I was told 6 weeks in a sling and a whole LOT of pain. Not happy.

So here I am, going along with each day still wearing those rose-colored delusional land glasses. The ones where I have the surgery, go back to work on the 28th and wear a sling for maybe a week. I think it was last night when it hit me that this really isn't going to be walk in the park. Not that I ever walk in the park, but I hear tell it's pretty easy.

All day today for everything I've done, I've tried to pretend I can't use my right arm. News flash; this is a real problem!! I should probs tell the bossman that I may have been mistaken when I told him it's not that big of a deal. I'm thinking everything I do is going to be a big deal and hopefully not for weeks and weeks. Ugh. I wish I could change my mind.

If I disappear from here for awhile, you'll know why. At this point I highly doubt I'll be doing any nail art. I think I'll be lucky if I can even paint them. That's depressing.

As if that's not enough, Tinlee started throwing up on Thursday night and continued right on into Sunday. Finally I had to call the vet and get her in for an emergency visit. Everything seemed normal, and they gave her a shot to help her tummy.  She kept down some rice for breakfast this morning, and I'll find out after work if she kept it down from lunchtime. She's making me a damn basket case.

On to normal stuff; nails.

Not a whole lot to say about it. It's pink. It's pretty. It lasted 2 days. The base is Essie Neo Whimsical, and it's stamped using the Llarowe LeaLac XL-B plate and China Glaze Admire. 

I actually did a better job than it looks like I did. The glare is making it look like it's a slop-fest of a mess with missing pieces of designs. It's not! I swear!

I'm in such a slump today. All I want to do is go home to keep an eye on Tinlee. I'm uninspired with my nails, too. That's annoying because I would love to have a stockpile waiting in the wings for blogposts when I can't do my nails. Even if I can't polish, I'm thinking I could manage to type a post with just one hand.  

I think I liked my rose-colored delusional land glasses better than these damn clear ones.

GOTTA' LOVE PURPLE

Whew!! Just got the phone call about the car....just a battery.  That's quite the relief because I just figured it would be something horrid and expensive.

It does look like I'm just not supposed to be going to work on time this week, though. Today I was held up by the damn train. You should have heard the barrage of very loud expletives coming from the front seat of the gump-mobile. Then I just ended up literally lol'ing because it dawned on me how ridiculous it was to get so pissed off over a ten minute delay. Chill, woman!

Today I'm blogging about this couple week old mani because I'm trying really hard to get good pics of the mani I did last night, which is a multi-chrome gradient. And it's ah-mazing. It's so ah-mazing that I've taken about 50 pics of it between my house and the office and still can't get any I like. I'll try again after work today. It's pissing me off.

But in the meantime, I wore this for a day. While I thought it turned out pretty nice when I did it, in looking at the pics I can see where some of the lines that form the circles didn't stamp all the way. *sigh*  I wish I had noticed it when I did it so I could re-do it.

It is a really great color, though. The purple is Zoya Pinta, and it's a really rich, dark purple that's fit for a Queen (a/k/a me).  I used my LeaLac B plate for the stamp with my fave overused Essie No Place Like Chrome. Seriously, those damn mirror polishes are just the most awesomest stampers eva.

On a sad note, I guess I have seen the last of my hummingbirds this year. I haven't seen one since I got home Saturday night. The dogsitter made sure the feeder had food while I was gone, but I guess they just missed me too much and decided to migrate. I'm really missing them. I'll leave my feeders out just in case a few more come through on their way south, but I have a feeling I'm not going to see anymore.

As if I needed another reason to hate winter.

MY APOLOGIES

I wish somebody could grant me a couple of extra evening hours. I hate that I've been unable to do my nails every night for the past couple of weeks. It makes me feel like I'm letting myself, and you, down.  I know that's probably ridic, but it's how I feel about it.

I fully intended to do nails Wednesday night, but I just wasn't feeling well.  I knew for sure I would have to do them Thursday, but even that got messed up. When I took my shower this morning my hair was getting caught under my index fingernail by the cuticle, so I knew I'd have to do a soak off and reapply. That cuts into actual manicure time by a lot.

So by the time I got home, made and ate dinner and some other household stuff, I didn't even get started with soak off until almost 8 p.m. That pretty much boils down to doing a quick manicure at 11 p.m.  So that's exactly what I did.

I got 11 new Loreals on eBay that are sitting on my end table waiting to be swatched, so I just grabbed the Greycian Goddess because I was going to wear a grey and black shirt to work today. It's a nice basic medium grey, nothing special. Then I figured I might as well stamp on it. Gawd, it's so friggin' boring! 

I used my Llarowe large LeaLac plate B for the stamp. I do like this stamp, but I think it would probs be much more fun with different colors.

And to make matters worse, as soon as I finished it, it dawned on me that very recently I did a grey with a black scribbly stamp.  I must be seriously overtired to do something so similar so close together. So now I'm even more pissed.

You can choose any of the above complaints as a VOTD....they all work.

Evs. I'm not gonna' be wearing it for very long. I'm hoping to have another go with my foils this weekend. I have a new topcoat to try that I'm hoping will not ruin the foils.

So we shall see! If I have my druthers, you'll see some purdy foils at some point. If things go the way they usually do with the foils, you'll end up seeing who knows what.

Sorry I've been missing so many days. Maybe it's a summer thing. Or maybe it's the 90+ degree heat wave at my house and not sleeping worth a damn because it's like 80 something in my bedroom at night.

THAT was not a vent. At all. You will never see me actually complain about hot weather. We get so little of it and for such a short time, I'm going to love every second of it.

DOES THIS LOOK BLUE TO YOU?

So after my EGD on Monday, yesterday I made the trek an hour away in the opposite direction to see the orthopedic guy about my shoulder. I've been saying for the past couple of weeks that it seemed pointless since the cortisone shot has made me pretty much pain free.

Once again, I was right. My x-rays showed nothing, and he said the next step is an MRI. He didn't recommend doing it right now and said if/when the pain comes back, we'll do it then. He also told me I have maxed out the number of cortisone shots I should get because I could be causing more harm than good. Evidently the MRI will show some kind of stress or an actual tear in my rotator cuff....probs surgery either way. Methinks I'll just cross my prettily polished fingers that it doesn't come back. I'm not askerred of surgery, but the rehab following it would be a big issue with work.

Since we were in Marquette, we decided some shopping was in order. They have more stores than Esky. A trip to Target and TJ Maxx and dinner at Red Lobster. There's $350 I'll never see again. 

We also went and looked at cars. I'm not sure why. I'm dying to get a new car, but I am not dying to have a car payment. But I am dying to get a new car. Can't really decide what I want; a Tribeca? An Outback? Or that cute little red Mini Cooper Roadster convertible that Kev made for me online. I really should decide to not get one, but I guess we're still figuring that out.

I did actually get home in time to do my nails. I'm not liking that I haven't had much time to do them this past week or so. Hopefully life is getting back to normal so I can start doing my nails more often.

Between mail and shopping yesterday, I got a bunch of new polishes, and this is one of them from the Color Club Blossoming Collection, Blue-Ming. Sorry...looks green to me and is even a perfect smatch for the green shirt I'm wearing today. So I call bullshit. Because they're wrong. End of story.

I knew I wanted to stamp with silver on it so I used my Essie Mirror Effect No Place Like Chrome. As always, it stamped like a champ without any re-do's, and I used my Llarowe LeaLac plate LLC-B for the stamp.

I'm super happy with how this turned out. And since my old high school friend that's in town for a wedding wants her nails done tonight, that's probs a good thing. I highly doubt I'll have time to do hers and my own. 

Gosh, I am such a wonderful person, putting her needs ahead of my own. 

Karma might owe me one.

WELL, THAT SUCKED

Yesterday I did more work in three hours than I did all of last week which meant I couldn't even start my blog post. I just figured I'd go home, do my nails and get to it.  This was not meant to be.

Right as I was ready to start polishing, out goes the power. Oh, fan-frickin-tastic. It's the first time it's been miserably hot and humid, and the power goes off. I couldn't believe how fast it became sweltering in the house. Next plan, go sit on the deck and do nails while we hope for power.

If you didn't know this, know it now.....nail polish doesn't dry worth a damn out on a deck in 90% humidity. Just a friendly FYI. What a nightmare. I even tried the "stick 'em in cold water" trick. That didn't work either.

So now I have sticky nails as I sit out on a sticky deck, trying to do the cleanup as the light fades. What the hell was I thinking?? Plus, we were really pissed because Under the Dome was set to record at 10:00, and you really can't do that without power. That's another friendly FYI there for ya'. I am SO helpful today! 

I did find out that Under the Dome's pilot is replaying on Sunday, so at least that works out.

Finally at 10:30, the power popped back up, and we got the fans going again. We haven't put our window AC in yet because...well, because we really haven't been having much summer. Anywhosers, the nails finally dried, and I was all set to stamp. And OMG, it was just seriously NOT my night last night! Something that should have gone on in like 10 minutes took 45. 

By the time I finished it, I hated it just because it was such an obnoxious douche of a mani.

I was excited to do something, too, because my Essie Naughty Nautical collection came yesterday.  This is The Girls Are Out. You can't really tell with these unless you're nose is right next to them, but some of this collection has a bit of a shimmer to them. Hell, for all I know they all do; maybe I just didn't have my nose close enough as I swatched them.  I wanted the white to really show up so I used my Konad white with the Llarowe LeaLac B stamp, but it still didn't come out as strong as I wanted. After having to re-do four of them and some of them twice, I gave up. 

Color me over it.  If I do nails tonight, it has to go better than this one did. 

If not, watch for my nail supply sale on eBay.