REMEMBER ME??

OMG. It has taken me 2 days to figure this out again.

First off, if you're even still here, thank you so much!! I haven't posted in many months. At the end of September I had a brain aneurysm that exploded in my brain. My husband, who was luckily home for one night, found me in bed unconscious, vomit in my mouth and totally non-responsive early in the morning. Bottom line, I had a helicopter ride to another town and spent over 2 months in a hospital bed. I came back home in early December, and I'm very lucky to still be alive and even luckier that I still have a body that works. My left eye is still wonky and I'm still too thin because of all the weight I lost in hospital, but I'm feeling pretty confident that eventually I will be back to my normal. To say it's been a very long road is an understatement.

I've been trying for a few days to get back in here to at least say hi, but my brain doesn't always cooperate the way it used to. It's weird what I remember and what I don't.

I've managed to just paint my nails a couple of times, but I haven't attempted any nail art yet. Things are difficult, let's say. But this is one I did awhile ago so I thought I would at least stop in, say hi and post a pic.

I look forward to hopefully getting back to my old self at some point, but in looking at my drafts section, I do have a few more pics I'll be able to show.

So for now, this is OPI DS Original, stamped using OPI DS Extravagance and my Uber Chic 6-01 stamping plate. I wasn't excited about this one when I did it, and I'm still not! lol

So if you're still here and still reading, I thank you so much. I've really missed all of my nail fun and really hope I'll eventually get back to it!!

Love to all of you!!

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.

SNOWFLAKIES

Yes, I'm a slacker. I'm fully aware that I've been terrible about posting. I'm not sure if it's after-holidays exhaustion or the "I hate winter slump".

We spent the New Year holiday in lower Michigan with Kev's family. Our first night we went to dinner and then went bowling. SO fun. Long after everyone else had gone home, Kev and I stayed and bowled some more. We each bowled eight games. Somehow I managed to bowl extremely well after my first crappy game of 116. I even had one game over 200, so I was pretty pleased with myself.

I also managed to drink way too much raspberry vodka. Luckily it didn't affect me the next day, but it did make me not drink New Year's Eve. We also didn't bother going down to the ball drop because even though the temperature was quite a bit higher than last year, it was really damp out which made it feel colder. We played some games with the fam and pretty much had a laid back night. Once midnight hit, we headed back to our hotel and watched a movie. We are just way too exciting sometimes.

On Wednesday while I was at work I decided I was over Christmas so I asked Kev to start taking down the decorations. We finished that up in the evening, and I finished cleaning yesterday, so my house is officially spotless and back to normal. As usual, I immediately regretted taking everything down. The house is just blah feeling now. That's my least fave part of the holiday season. It always takes me at least a week or two to not miss the decorations and the tree.

Back before we even had snow I was doing snowflake nails. I just love using the snowflake stamping plates, and I've been forcing myself to not do snowflakes every time I do my nails. This was the first one I did for the year.

I started with my fave off-white, OPI My Vampire is Buff, and I used the MoYou Festive 04 stamping plate with Mundo de Unas Black. I topcoated it with Seche Vite but then decided to make it matte instead. I used Sally Hansen Big Matte Topcoat for that.

One of these days I'm going to just have to do a post with a bunch of mani pics of the nails I've done that didn't make me very happy. They've been accumulating for awhile now, but I don't like them enough to feel like featuring them in any way. Poor things.

Well, apparently we are now going out to dinner with my sister and her husband. Kev went over there to help with something and that has somehow turned into a dinner date. Late on we are headed out to the casino to meet up with Seven's owners for some drinks and some football on the big screen. 

No football for me! Football for them means the slot machines are calling my name, and I'm more than happy to answer that call.

LOVE ME SOME ARGYLE

Somebody should have let my stomach know that the egd says my ulcers have healed. I spent most of the weekend sick, in pain and on the verge of throwing up. Maybe I picked up a bug at the hospital. All I know is I was miserable.

That stopped me from leaving the house in the pouring rain, but I got a lot done in spite of it. I wrapped everything I had (of course I now have tons more to wrap), did the laundry, soaked off my nails and reapplied them. I even decided to risk throwing my tulle and lace shower curtain in the washing machine because I couldn't figure out a decent way to hand wash it. I was very happy that it came out beautifully clean, undamaged and with no wrinkles. Whew! 

My new camera came yesterday. Holy-moly that is a lot of camera for me to figure out. I need my how-to book for dummies to get here. It definitely seems to photograph beautifully with truer color than my old camera. I told Kev I need to paint my nails purple as soon as I have time. That'll be the true test! 

We also went looking for a new couch last night. I figured we'd probably have to order one, but they had one in the store that we liked. It's being delivered on Thursday morning, so new couch for me for Christmas! Now I have to decide whether or not I want to try to teach the dogs to stay off of it. That is a much bigger decision than it seems. I know I'm going to feel like a real shit-heel if I don't let them lay on it. But I also know that the only reason I even needed a new couch is because I let the dogs go on it. 'Tis a dilemma. 

Anywho, here's a mani I did last Monday. It's been hard to even think about doing winter mani's or Christmas nails when the only thing we've seen so far is rain. Craziest, warmest December I can remember.

I wore an argyle sweater in these colors so I was very matchy that day. The base is OPI Russian Navy and I stamped with Mundo de  Unas Turquoise and the Uber Chic 6-03 plate.

This one stayed on for a couple of days. After awhile I was just tired of looking at that lighter blue. It didn't seem so bad when I was wearing the matching sweater but didn't look so great with anything else I wore.

And of course, I'm sure people were just horrified that it didn't match!! 

Nope! Only I was.

THANKSGIVING MANI A TAD LATE

Well, I think maybe the holiday mood is starting to creep in. I decided to get serious the other day and did some major shopping.

Part of that shopping included a new camera for myself. I've been saving up my credits on my survey account, so I ended up getting $432 in Amazon credit to use toward the camera. I've been saving for a pretty long time, but I'm so glad I did that. I never would have bought a new camera without that extra help towards the cost. I bought the Canon Rebel 5, and it came with a big bundle of other stuff to go along with it. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to use it without too much difficulty.

Yesterday I took the day off. Kev and I went to Oconto in the morning for a long overdue follow-up EGD and a colonoscopy. Good times. The prep on Tuesday night was not cool. Drinking that stuff was not easy to do, and nothing started happening until after 1 a.m. which means I was up most of the night. I slept for part of the drive there. We got there at 10:45, and I have absolutely no clue what time we got home.

Everything went great and after years of problems, my ulcers have finally healed. I'm pretty happy about that. Poor Kev had to tell me my results probably five times yesterday because I was seriously out of it all day. Apparently I ate crackers at the hospital. I'm pretty sure I talked to my mom on the phone yesterday, but I'm going to call her later to find out what I said. I slept all the way home and then slept most of yesterday. I managed to stay awake long enough to watch a couple of tv shows and eat supper, and that's about it.

Since I was in a coma, Kev did the entire tree all by himself. He did a great job, and I didn't even rearrange anything. My only contribution to decorating it was some icicles that were in a box he forgot about. It's so weird how I can have a real surgery and snap right out of it, but knock me out for something like an egd and I'm useless for 24 hours.

I'm just glad it's over. I've been trying for many months to get it scheduled, and now I don't have to think about it again for a very long time.

This is the mani I wore on Thanksgiving.

I started with OPI My Private Jet and stamped with Essie Good as Gold using the Uber Chic 6-01 stamping plate. I like it. It was purdy.

Now I'm going to finish up cleaning. At some point maybe I'll wrap some presents so the tree doesn't look naked. Or maybe I'll just finish my sweater. All that's left is to finish knitting the hood, so I should have no problem getting that out of the way. I slammed my finger when I was cleaning earlier and loosened a nail so I suppose I'll have to soak them off in the next day or two. I really jammed it hard because it's painful to type.

Have a great weekend, peeps!!

THE OTHER HALF OF BORED

What the hell is going on in my house? This morning I was standing at the bathroom sink, and water started coming out of the shower. WTF. Not just a couple of drops, either; it was coming down like when you don't turn the shower off all the way. And it was off all the way and had been since yesterday morning. After it ran for about 30 seconds, it stopped.

So imaginary things falling and a shower that starts spewing water all by itself? I'm starting to think I'm going crazy or something. I even woke up in the middle of the night dreaming about being in some hotel that was actually some kind of psychiatric hospital. It was so warped I finally had to get up and stay out of bed to snap myself out of it.

I long for the first 52'ish years of my life where I never remembered a dream or work up from a nightmare. Is this also one of those fun "age" things? Nightmares almost every night? If I ever were to write them down every day and somebody found it, they'd commit me for sure. Seriously effed up stuff that makes me wonder what kind of brain it takes to come up with some of it.

Since I'm still obsessed with playing with those Mundo's, I just had to try stamping over a dark color. This was just a left-hand mani I did before the one from yesterday's post.

I didn't want to use black, but in the end it didn't really matter because OPI Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees is such a dark grey it might as well be black. I used Mundo Tutti and my DRK-A stamp. Speaking of DRK, they have all of their stamping plates in stock right now so if you've been wanting them, hop to it before they vanish again.

I would consider Tutti to be a purple/fuschia mix. This pic shows it very true to color over the dark grey. Of course I had to yellow-up everything else in the pic to show it. I had fun trying this, but I'm not a big fan of the actual mani. It was just a little practice session to test stamping ability. It was a success.

I fully planned on doing my nails last night, but after lunch yesterday I just started progressively feeling crappier. My stomach was mad at me for something, so I took about an hour nap, watched some tv and was in bed just before 12:30.

The plan was to be in bed by 11:30.  I swear I looked at the clock at 11:00 and figured I'd make it right on time. By the time I ate a yogurt, washed my face and put on my jammie-jams, it was after midnight. I don't know how that happens.

It's like a fall into a time warp of some kind whenever I try to get to bed at a normal person time.

FIGURES. NOW I LIKE IT

Maybe it's spring fever, but I decided to start cleaning weird things around the house.  After having awful water for so many years, my T-Fal pan covers were completely covered with this sticky yellowish-brown film that I couldn't get rid of no matter how hard I tried. It has always grossed me out.

A couple of years ago I discovered that if I put my gas burner covers in a ziploc bag with a little bit of ammonia and let it sit overnight, all of the cooked on crud wipes right off. So it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps that might work on those covers.

I found a big ziploc, poured about a 1/4 cup of ammonia in it and then put one of the covers inside and let it sit overnight. Yesterday I held my breath, opened the bag and rinsed it off. Every bit of that crud came right off, and that cover looks like brand new. I was completely tickled.

So last night I threw in 2 of the burner covers and 2 more pot covers. I just got done washing those, and now I have the last 2 covers and burner covers in soaking until tomorrow.

Next project, get the damn cloudiness off of my glasses. I just hate them and anytime I need to give someone a glass around here I have to look through all of them to find one decent enough to use.

I had tried the vinegar trick a long time ago without success. I checked out an antique site that said to use Dow bathroom cleaner. Nope. They said to rub with alcohol. Nope. They said to pour ammonia in them and let them soak. Not gonna' do that because with those fumes, Kev will get home tomorrow and find me unconscious. So I grabbed one and threw it in the bag with the other stuff.  I'll find out tomorrow if that worked, and if it does, I'll be doing a happy dance everywhere in the house.

Hmmmm....now I'm wondering what would happen if I put a pan in there. The outsides of all of them are cruddy looking with that same sticky film the covers had. That might be my next experiment. I really want to buy a really good set of stainless cookware without non-stick properties, but damn, they are pricey. One more thing to add to my list for when my ship comes in or Kev wins the lottery.

I always see these mani's using that leadlight technique, and I almost always think they're pretty.  I didn't really have many sheer polishes so didn't think I'd ever try it. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and broke down and bought the OPI Sheer Tints.

Last weekend I decided to give it a try. Even with all the stamping plates I own, I had a really hard time trying to figure out a design to use. After looking through all of them at least three times, I opted for this one from the MoYou Pro 10 plate.

Evidently I need to find a sheer polish that is actually red. I wanted red.  I used all of the OPI Sheer Tints,  Be Magentale with Me, Don't Violet Me Down, I'm Never Amberrassed and I Can Teal You Like Me. For the green which you can't really see much of here, I used China Glaze Keepin' it Teal.

I only did my left hand because I really wasn't impressed and really didn't like it much. I took my pics and then took it off.  After I put this picture in my blog drafts and looked at it again, I decided I really do like it. Dammit. I hate when that happens.

I don't love it nearly as much as others I've seen, but overall it was pretty fun to do, and I'm sure I'll eventually try it again.

Now I'm going to eat some oatmeal scotchies I made last night and watch Grey's Anatomy. Sounds like a productive day today!

SHOULD BE FUN - OR NOT

Looks like my work life is changing again starting next week.  At first the idea didn't appeal when bossman asked if I wanted to work extra hours on Thursdays. Right now I've only been working mornings. It sounded lame. I've liked having Thursday afternoons off because it extended the weekend.

I've also been off all day on Wednesdays since I went back to work. After thinking about it for 3.2 seconds, I told him I'd work all day Wednesdays instead of working on Thursday afternoon. So now I only work Monday through Wednesday, and I get to have full four day weekends. So a bit of an increase in my paycheck. Sweetness.

I took today off because we're heading off to Milwaukee to meet up with my fave pilot friend to go to a Barry Manilow concert. I don't  personally know many 40 something males that are Fanilows, but I know one now. I've had the pleasure of seeing Manilow twice in the past.

Stop laughing at me. Right now!

I must admit I was pretty amused when Pruett texted me about the concert. Of course, he always amuses me. He tends to drunk text me when Kev goes off to meet up with him for drunken shenanigans.  I think he's more excited about the concert than I am. And say what you want and make fun of Barry all you want, but the man can really sing, puts on a good show, and I pretty much love all those songs from the 70's.

That meant I had to put something on my nails that I could live with for a couple days.

The base is OPI Lincoln Park After Dark matte, and I stamped with China Glaze Admire, which is a frosty pink that just happens to stamp really well. I used the Ali Express AP-10 stamping plate for the design.

This looks much better in person, and even though I took at least 15 pictures, I just couldn't capture it well enough to satisfy me.

Oh, shitballs. The Graham luck strikes again. Pruett just texted us to let us know the concert is now postponed until March 2nd. Evidently Barry is not feeling well and has doctor's orders to be off for the week. Of course Kev can't go then, and I really shouldn't ask for another day off since it would be the third time this month.

Now I'm not sure what we're going to do now. We could still go and just drink and hang out, or I could stay home and just let Kev go off for their usual drunken shenanigans.

Color me super pissed off.

TEEN MOMS

For many years, back before spring 2012 when I started this tiny nail obsession, I spent a few hours of each day entering sweepstakes. Not only did I enter for myself and Kev, I also entered for my girls, their hubbies and my ex husband. Translation - hours entering with 8 different email addresses.

While I realize this might sound even more insane than doing my nails every day, it provided some pretty amazing things over the years in the way of vacays and stuff. It gave Kev and I trips to New York,  Palm Springs, and a trip to Cabo.  The travel certificate I won we used to go to what became our fave place in Cancun. It also gave us a fantastic, one of a kind trip to LA to attend the Screen Actors Guild awards, and if you were watching it, you would have seen Kev on the red carpet. We stayed at the Four Seasons, had limo service the entire trip, dinners at a couple of the hottest restaurants, professional pics by People Magazine and not only walked that famous red carpet into the event, we had admittance to the after party where we schmoozed with the stars. To say it was amazing would be an understatement. I even had a professional hair person and a makeup person come to our room to get me all gussied up. Now that I typed all that, I just want to relive that experience all over again.

The same week we were notified of winning that trip, we were notified that we had won a ten day trip to Hawaii. Unfortunately, we had to either choose one or the other because Kev couldn't get the time off for both. We've also turned down a trip to the Dominican Republic. Two years ago I won us a trip to Vegas to stay at Caesar's and see Shania Twain during her opening weekend. I have the autographed guitar I got still boxed up in the closet.

I have completely digressed from what my point was to be. But if you're bored, go enter some sweepstakes. lol

Because I entered all of these sweepstakes over the years, I get a ridiculous number of emails every day. I'd say 99.9% of that is junk which I barely glance at before deleting.  As I glance, I read the so-called "news" headlines, and I'm using the word "news" loosely.

Even as a tv junkie that is unashamed to admit watching every episode of every Real Housewives show and just about any other reality show I can stuff onto my dvr, I want to know in what universe is "How the Teen Moms Spent Valentines Day" news? Shit....does/should that even count as "entertainment" news?

Every day I delete literally dozens of emails that are about any Kardashian or Jenner (puke), Bieber (puke), a ton of rappers or their "ladies" that nobody should ever care about (puke), and of course, Kanye, the biggest pukiest douchebag of all time.

I bet every one of you reading this remembers when entertainment news actually referenced people that had talent. I'm still waiting for somebody to explain to me what talent any Kardashian has that makes them even slightly entertaining. Unless, of course, you consider the "talent" Kim K. must have exhibited in that sex tape. 

And since when is becoming pregnant while still in high school considered entertaining? While I do realize that sometime people aren't careful and do get pregnant, what about that situation warrants a tv show and the resulting reality fame and income? If I'm not mistaken, I think a couple of them have now had more than one child. News flash, gals; science has pretty much cracked the code on how to get laid and not get preggers. Let's pretend you have enough brain power to blow the snot out of your own nose and then give you a child to raise. God help us all.

Methinks the world is going to hell in a hand basket. The whole thing just makes my stomach churn.

My brain hurts now.

This mani hurts my brain, too.

I had a completely different plan in my head when I started this. I wanted to do a saran wrap orange/black with a white stamp on top, but I hated how the plastic wrap was making it look. Rather than fight with it, I gave up.

The orange is OPI My Paprika is Hotter than Yours, and I used Konad white for the DRK-C image.

I wore this for a day before doing the grey mani from yesterday's post. All day long at work Monday I just kept thinking how orange this is.

Maybe I'll wear just a plain mani tomorrow. I don't know. I have a few pretty dark holos I haven't worn yet. Can I be happy just wearing a color all by itself??

My brain hurts.

 

NOT BAD

Life is back to normal in my little town, and we have that fancy electricity just like they do in the big city. Bossman had me go in an hour early today so we could catch up on what didn't get done yesterday. Since we were supposedly going to still have rolling blackouts, I wore way too many clothes. I fully expected it to be about 60 degrees in the office, but everything was normal.

Even though I didn't actually have to get up any earlier, I'm super tired. I'm not sure why going in at 8 instead of 9 made a difference, but it did. I've been fighting to keep my eyes open ever since I got home. I'm trying to think of a mani to do just to keep me awake, but so far I haven't come up with anything.

Last night I was very happy to take off that weird-ass heart mani, and this is what took its place.

I stared at a whole lot of polish before deciding on this one. The base is OPI Don't Bossa Nova Me Around, and I stamped using Julep Olivia and the Ali Express AP 17 plate.

I'm liking how this turned out, and I'm pretty pleased with those stamping plates. I have to say I do wish the designs were a smidge bigger. Getting full coverage is a challenge. I really have to stamp them in just the right spot, especially on my thumbs. The design is in a triangle shape, so it can be tricky.  I only had to restamp a couple, so it wasn't unbearable.

 

Now I'm off to watch The Blacklist. It's such a good show, and James Spader has never played a better character. IMHO, of course. But there is just something about that guy!

 

I know some of you ladies will agree with me on that.

NEW STAMPING PLATE - YAY!

I really want to do a major whine-fest about work, but I will refrain from doing so.

I could also easily have a whine-fest about this weather, and by golly, I think I will. It's too damn cold out!! We haven't had a break from these frigid temps in so long I'm not sure when the temps actually went above 15 degrees, and for the most part it has remained in single digits, oftentimes below that lovely zero point. This morning it was -6 on my way to work. 

I wish I was a bear so I could sleep through all this shiz and wake up when it's hot out.

The Polish Sickness Facebook has gone crazy!! I was pretty much stuck at something like 975 followers when all of a sudden I noticed I was getting a bunch of new page likes. It was weird. Somebody finally sent me a private message explaining that someone that runs a nail page likes my stuff so they started sharing a bunch of my fingers over on that page. I've gained almost 200 followers in the past few days.

In the time it took me to write that last sentence, I got 15 new notifications over there. It's insanity. The one page has over a million followers, and that goofy ass decal mani from the other day has almost 7,000 views. Um, what the what? People are going through all of my pics and sharing them like crazy. 

It's pretty amazing to me, and I'm way flattered. My Instagram followers have increased by quite a few, too. I wish I had more time so I could make that dang page more interesting with stuff other than my blog link. If any of you are friends of mine or likers of the page and would like to contribute on the Polish Sickness Facebook page, send me a message over there because I'd love to have you post nail stuff!! 

All of that has led me to feel like I really need to put my other leg over the horse and start doing my nails more often. 

I was going to do a water marble last night, but I got two new MoYou plates yesterday before the mailbox was destroyed. (and yes, I'm still pissed about that)

This is off of the MoYou Fashionista 04 plate. It's a great plate. It feels like they made the design area a smidge bigger on this one. It fully covered my thumb without issue.

The base for this is OPI Taupe-Less Beach, stamped with OPI Get in the Espresso Lane.

Love the plate; love the mani. I don't have a single critical thing to say about this one.

First time for everything, right?

ANOTHER MARBLE

Christmas is over. I hate it when that happens.

Tyler, Bob, Griffin and Zero left today. I hate it when that happens, too. It's going to be way too quiet at my house, and it always takes a bit to readjust. Christmas did go well; the grandkids were all on their best behavior, and even the dogs and puppy cooperated by not adding an extra level of commotion.

On Wednesday we will be hopping in the car to make the 6 hour trip down to Kev's mom where we will celebrate the holidays with his side of the fam. Ludington always has a New Year's Eve ball drop downtown, so we'll go to that. I'm looking forward to it and not looking forward to it. 

We were there for that a few years ago, and I froze my ass off. I don't do well in the cold just going back and forth to my car. Standing outside in it for a few hours doesn't actually appeal to me. I don't own the kind of clothing required for that sort of thing. I don't even own snowboots. This year I do own a hat, which is more than I can say for last time. That year I borrowed one from Kev's sister. 

It is quite the party down there, though. They have vendors with beer, which unfortunately I don't drink. Maybe if I did, I'd at least not notice the cold so much. They also set up those heat tower thingies, but I found that they don't help that much when there are a bunch of people trying to squeeze in next to them. And of course it's rude for me to try to get the entire thing to myself.

I did a snowflake mani on the 23rd but haven't even gotten the pics put on the computer yet, so here's one from probably two months back.

I'm a fan of this one. I used Pure Ice Shore Bet, OPI's Taupe-Less Beach and I Sao Paulo Over There for the gradient and then used OPI Get in the Espresso Lane with some random clear polish for the marbling.

At some point I might get around to posting the boring-ass mani I wore for Christmas. Or perhaps not. It turned out well and was cuteish, but it's just disappointingly non-special. Even now I've just been wearing plain old polish since Friday. It's frustrating to me that when I really want to have something fantastic on for some special occasion, those are the times when there simply aren't enough hours in the day to get it done.

Now I have tonight and tomorrow night to think of and execute something to wear downstate for four days.

So far I'm stumped. Again.

I KNOW...NOT FESTIVE

It's disturbing to me that next week is Christmas. Even though I'm pretty much ready except for all of the baking, it seems to sneak up on me. I shop, I blink, it's here.

Tyler will be coming home on Monday, which is fantabulous. It should be very interesting having a five month old puppy in the house for the holidays. Christmas Eve when the whole family is at my place is going to be a real zoo. Hopefully my mom and brother-in-law will survive it. They are not big fans of the commotion. My house barely accommodates the 13 of us plus dogs. Personally, I kind of like it. Even the hubby will be coming home that day. It's been a couple of years since I had everybody there at one time, and I'm hoping I remember to try to get a complete family pic.

I'm still rocking the poinsettia mani because it's just to pretty to take off.  Well, that and the fact that it took me so long to do so I figured I should get my wear out of it. I look at it a lot.

Not all of my mani's have been holiday oriented, as you can see by this one. I can't remember if this was from last week or the week before. I so cannot keep track since I do them and then throw them on here as a draft until I can get back to them for an actual post.

If memory serves, I wore the Essie Nothing Else Metals on its own for a day before deciding to stamp on it.  I hadn't tried any of the partial designs from my MoYou Pro XL 06 plate and decided I'd try it. I figured if I didn't like it or if it didn't turn out, I'd just start over with something else.  I used OPI Vant to Bite My Neck for the design, and I really like the color on top of the pink.

Overall, I really kind of liked this one. I've always been a big fan of anything that's kind of scrolled, and this one is no exception. I do think I had to re-do a couple of them for placement, but I guess I can't always get it right the first time.

Oh, man. My mom just called asking for ideas for Christmas. She's having a hard time finishing up on me. And of course, I had nothing to tell her. I thought of something I wanted the other night while I was standing in the kitchen.

If someone can possibly remind me of what that idea was, I'd appreciate it. 

I vaguely remember when I used to have a memory.

DARK - MATCHES MY MOOD

Could I be anymore annoyed with my doctor's office right now? Nope!

With new laws that went into effect on October 1st, I  now have to get an actual written prescription for my Vicodin. Now, for years I've been taking it 4 times per day for my headaches. For the most part, it has been a very good solution for me. Not perfect, but certainly what has worked the best without making me loopy or becoming an addict.

That might seem weird, the fact that I live on Vicodin with no worries about addiction. My fave doctor-man retired a couple of months ago, and he's been on board with how it works for me. Since I don't get any kind of buzz from it, it's fine for me. 

Headaches for me are a serious issue. For years every doctor, and I, pretty much assumed they were migraines. My sister gets classic migraines, and unfortunately so does my daughter and now my oldest grandson. Starting in the early 80's, I was given Fioricet, primarily because it wasn't addictive.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. SO addictive. I loved it. It gave me the nicest fuzzy little buzz, and it was so nice I did become addicted. Badly. Took a ten day stint in a rehab center to detox off of it back in the 90's.  Good times.

In the past they tried prescribing it to my daughter with the same "not addictive" line. She wasted no time calling bullshit on that and doesn't use it.

The only other thing that really helps my headache is what I consider to be the absolute best drug on earth, Excedrine Migraine. Seriously. Tylenol, Advil, Alleve.....name it; I've tried it. Nothing works but the Excedrin. The problem with that is when you wake up with a headache every day of your life, you take a ton of Excedrine. And then you get ulcers that are one-third the size of your stomach. So yeah, that's awesome, too.

In the end, my doctor determined that I don't actually have migraines. I just have what is known as chronic headaches. I think I'd be better off with migraines since there are so many medications you can take for those.

Anyway.....I was supposed to pick up my monthly supply of pills yesterday. I went through the website and requested my prescription on Sunday, knowing they would see it Monday morning and I could pick it up on Tuesday in time to get a refill.

Uh, yeah. Not so much. My new doctor, who I've seen once and am not impressed with so far, is on vacay. The covering doc needs to sign it. Fine. So sign it. I messaged them and spoke to them twice on the phone to really let them know that it needed to be done so as not to screw up my schedule. I mean, how long does it take to physically put pen to paper and sign? It's written out already.

It's now Wednesday at 3:15 and I'm still waiting. I finally called them a few minutes ago, and it's still not signed.  I'm 6 Excedrin in at this point today. And I'm not happy.

Done venting.

I did this mani the other night. I still have it on because I still like it and sniffing polish fumes right now does not appeal.

I don't know if you can tell from the pic, but the base is a really dark green, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Olive Branch. I stamped on that with OPI's French Quarter for Your Thoughts and the DRK-A stamping design. I was actually very impressed with how well the OPI stamped.

My sweater was this color green, and the sleeves are that color grey in thermal material, so this stamp kind of looks like that pattern.

I think I did it up good on this one as far as smatchiness. I'm thinking I may change it up tonight.

Unless that damn office doesn't call, in which case I may just paint over these solid black to continue the mood smatch.

I GOT MOTIVATED

Ah, Sunday. I have a love/hate relationship with Sundays. I love them because I'm home, and I hate them because they mean I have to go to bed before 1 a.m. (or at least try to) and then it's back to work on Monday.

There's a twisted little part of me way deep on the inside that wishes it was last year. I may have been in some pretty major pain, but it was the start of 4 months off work. Of course it was also the beginning of the end for my work life as I knew it. If I had never had that damn surgery, my job never would have been turned into a part-time, you now earn less than half of what you did but basically do the exact same amount of work kind of thing. It makes me kind of hate having to go there now, but unfortunately I still need to work and certainly don't want to work anywhere else. The one bright spot of that job is the fact that I really do love my bossman 99% of the time. I know that not everybody can say that about the person that writes their paychecks.

Last night I decided to do a mani that I've actually wanted to do for probably over a year. It was pretty much copied from one that I saw on Pinterest that came from Lucysstash. She did her stripes wider than I did and is more perfect than what I managed, but I still think it's pretty.

I don't own any of the polishes she used, so I started with OPI Did You Ear About Van Gogh. For the stripes I used striping tape with a dark brown Color Club that has no name, Julep Rachel and Starlet, which is a polish I got from Frederick's of Hollywood for 50 cents.

I only had time to do one hand last night, and now I'm sitting here wondering if I want to do the other hand today or just take it off and do something else.  It's still early so I'll decide later.

I see I left the attractive hanger laying on the cupboard for my pic. I'm hanging onto it for when Kev gets home so he can break off the pinchy ends for me. Those things make great chip clips! It's not something I had ever thought of, but my friend that watches our dogs when we're out of town had one on something she had brought here. Genius!

There ya' go....you not only got a mani, you got a handy little kitchen tip.

You're welcome.

NICE TO HAVE GOOD NEIGHBORS

I was pleasantly surprised that we didn't get much more snow yesterday. I shoveled the deck when I got home, but it had gotten a lot colder than it was at lunchtime, so I decided to say "screw it" and not shovel anything between the deck and the garage like I normally do.

This morning I got up to sunshine! It feels like it's been months since we had sun, so it was really nice to see.  It didn't feel too horribly cold when I let the dogs out, either.

After I fed the dogs at noon, I noticed that our neighbor was out there with his tractor plowing the end of the driveway. He always takes care of the bottom half of our driveway and out into the street by the mailbox.

Being the quick thinker that I am, I threw on Kev's snow boots, donned my hat and down coat and scooted outside to start shoveling. My hope was he would see me, take pity on me, and plow the upper half of the driveway, too.

Yup!!  I hadn't shoveled for very long when I heard him head on up to where I was. He took care of almost everything that I would have never done which left me with a fairly small area from the deck to the edge of the driveway. I'm so grateful because even the little bit I did was difficult. That frozen rain under the heavy wet snow that then froze was not easy to move.  That guy has saved my ass more than once in the 12 winters we've been here.

WTF......I think the sky just started dumping some rain/snow mix again.  

Okay. Looked at the Weather Channel, and it says we're suppose to get less than 1/2 inch. Whew!

Have I mentioned I hate winter?

I did this manicure last week, not sure what day it was, but it only stayed on for a day.

I'm too lazy to actually go look at the stamping plate, but I keep staring at this and wondering if those lines are supposed to be wavey like that or if I really  just did that crappy of a job.

The neutral base is OPI My Vampire is Buff.  I used Square Hue Iron Horse for the DRK-D stamp, and that was a mistake because the black looks dark grey when used for stamping. Lesson learned the hard way.

I really should break down and buy some real stamping polish. I've had Konad in the past, but I guess I didn't use them often enough because last time I looked, they were pretty much dried out and useless. If memory serves, I find that when I do use it for all my stamping, that bottle didn't last very long.

I don't like the price of their stamping polishes, even on eBay. I like using regular polishes for stamping, but sometimes I want a bolder black or white, and the special polishes are so much better for that.  I'm going to have to break down and buy some. I just need to figure out what brand and who to get them from.

I'm taking suggestions, guys and gals. Tell me what you like to use, prices and where you get them. I'm sure some of you stamping fanatics will have great suggestions.

DOGGY DECALS

Eight week old puppies are a ton of work. The end.

That being said, they're still cute. And since they are so cute, right when I decided to breed Tinlee, I also decided I should have nails that have Golden Retrievers on them.

Onto eBay I went in search of the perfect decals, and I found these little cuties.

I was really happy to not need a white base for these, and I went with OPI My Vampire is Buff which is my fave neutral and added some little hearts.

I much preferred these decals to the hummingbirds I used awhile back. Rather than needing to put them in water and then applying, I cut them, peeled off a plastic layer and pressed them right onto my nail. Then I put a drop of water on them, and the backing slid right off.  Some topcoat and done.

I was very surprised when I went to remove them last night. All of the polish and rhinestones were gone, and those little buggers were still stuck tight. Even using pure acetone took a little more effort than I expected. So I'm calling these a win.

I left them on for almost a week. Of course, lately I'm leaving everything on for at least that long. Right now I have just polish on. By the time I did a soakoff last night, it's all I had time for.

If I didn't work part-time, I'd never even get a blog post done, let alone nails.

Thanks a lot, puppies.

IT'S SUMMER! NOPE....IT'S GONE AGAIN.

God help me, I really hate that damn bedroom color. Just the thought of repainting it makes me cringe. It's just too dark for that room. If it was a brighter room in general, it would have been fine, but this is just not cutting it for me. Kiss another $130 goodbye when I buy 2 more gallons of paint. *sigh*

Friday I was pretty much a slug. I watched a lot of tv and stared at the hummingbird feeders.  That one male was the only one I saw.

On Saturday morning I was very happy when I looked out and saw a female. I wasn't really expecting to see a girl so soon, but I'm certainly not complaining.  A short while after I first saw her, I looked up to find my adult male from last year. I was very happy to see him! This is his third year of hanging at my place. He may have been here before that, but I didn't start my hummingbird fascination until 2012.  I'll be sad when a year comes that he doesn't show up, but I'm glad he managed the trip again this year.

After I spent a couple of hours stalking the hummingbirds, I was a good girl and got motivated. I cleaned the entire house which lately has been dirtier than normal from all of the tomfoolery with the redecorating.   didn't mind it so much because it was sunny and 70 degrees out, and it felt good to have the doors open for the fresh air. I also enjoyed running around barefoot all day.  One day of that is all I got. Summer's over.

After I took a break to eat dinner, I then decided I would do the laundry because I thought wearing clothes to dinner on Mother's Day would be the appropriate way to go.  It was almost dark out as I was doing the last couple of loads, and I couldn't help but notice that every time I went to the kitchen to go into the laundry room, one of my male hummers was at the kitchen window feeder almost every time. I'm so glad they are using that one!

Since he was so persistent and obviously starving, I just couldn't help myself. I just had to go outside and hold that feeder. Poor dogs couldn't figure out why I was on the deck without them, but whatevs. At that moment hummers trumped furbabies.

I didn't bother bringing a chair out. I just grabbed the feeder, stood with my back to the window and tried not to move. I was so hoping that pretty little boy would stop and eat. About five minutes into it I saw movement out of the corner of my right eye and heard that joyous sound of hummingbird wings. I wish I could describe that sound when it's practically on top of you. It's amazing. I really had planned on giving them some time to get used to being at my house again before attempting that, but I'm glad I didn't wait.

I held my breath and in flew one of my females!! I'm not sure if it's the same nosy one from last summer or not, but she sure acts like that one. She didn't land on my finger (yet) but she did eat. Then she took a break from that and flew up right in front of my nose, hovered and stared and then went back to eat some more.

I had one female last summer that made me flinch many times because she was so curious about who/what I was. She would always come in to eat, but she would always take a break and hover by my nose or ear. They are so quick it's a bit freaky when they come in close like that. I usually end up closing my eyes when they get that close.  Then I'm pissed at myself later for not looking when she's that close. I think when I've spent more time with my little friend from the other night I'll probably be able to tell if it's the same one from last year.

Kev gets home today so we'll have to get the other 7 feeders up in the next couple of days. Oddly enough, I haven't seen any of them use the feeder that I put up on the corner of the garage. That one is usually pretty popular. I'd rather have them use the window ones for obvious reasons, but I'm going to give them lots of options; a sugar water buffet, so to speak.

Lately I've been having such a hard time deciding what color polish to wear. Pathetic, I know. Every time I think of a color, I feel like I've just worn it. They need to make more colors!

I don't think I've done a lavender in awhile so the other day I grabbed my all-time fave to do a mani.

I never get tired of China Glaze Agent Lavender. Ever. It's such a perfect color. I used OPI Eurso Euro to stamp with the MoYou Pro 10 plate.  

I love this one. (yes, Martha....another one I like). 

I've also been collecting stuff to practice doing acrylic and gel nails. I got myself five practice fingers and a hand. My hairdresser sent me home with all of the acrylic supplies that I need to practice. I did buy some less expensive brushes to use because the ones she gave me cost like 30 bucks a piece, and I don't want to ruin them. 

Last week I then bought a bunch more stuff on eBay, and one of my "extra" daughters is going to come over this weekend and be a guinea pig for me. Hopefully I can manage a decent full set of acrylics on her. I did do a few practice acrylic over tips that turned out pretty decent.  I also already have a professional gel nail system that I bought many years ago that still seems to be useable so at some point I'll practice with that, too.

The goal is to eventually become a nail tech. I can't really see myself going to school for it because our local school doesn't have a nail program. For awhile now my friend has been trying to get the apprenticeship thing going so I can just do that when I'm not working and then eventually take the test to get certified.

When that didn't seem to be panning out and I wasn't working, I started trying to find a school that I could attend, and I just wasn't having any luck at all. Moving to Illinois with my daughter for five months was on the table for a hot minute because I could have gone to tech school, finished in 5 months and just lived with them. I think that course was around $3,000.  Then I found out about a school just over an hour from me that I could have commuted to, but for some reason their tech program is over $6,000.  It was right about that time I discovered I'd be going back to work part-time. So much for going to class five days a week.

Now I'm back to hoping the apprenticeship works out. She doesn't have a tech in her shop right now so when I got my hairs did a few weeks ago, she sent me home with all of her equipment. Now it's just a matter of the state of Michigan getting off their asses so I can get things going. What's even better is if and when I ever get a license, I already have a place to work whatever hours I want.

The beauty of that is I could keep working my part-time here and then do nails. It sounds like a perfect plan.

I'm assuming that means it won't work out.

SO MUCH MONEY WE NEED TO SPEND!!

Yesterday was kind of fun. We're in the planning stages of doing some work around the old homestead, and yesterday we began doing some of the more fun things.

We've been getting estimates all over the place and are still waiting for a couple, but certain things are decided. So off we went to the flooring store. Usually that's a chore, but it was surprisingly easy this time. We lucked into a fab laminate for our bedroom that was on clearance....normally almost $6 a square foot, on sale for $2.39. It's gorgeous and because of the price, it's a higher quality than I thought we'd be able to get. 

On to the bathroom flooring! That was easy, too! We're getting Armstrong Alterna vinyl, which is what we have in our kitchen. For the bathroom we're going white with a grey marbling. Gotta look better than carpeting in the bathroom, right? Seriously. I'll never understand anybody putting carpeting in a bathroom.

Just to give you an example of what we've had to work with, here's a pic of my bathroom last year.  I'd like you to be aware that this "stunning" blue is what both bathrooms had along with the same cream colored carpeting. So gross. And please don't fail to notice how nicely the carpeting extends up to cover the side of the bathtub area....so considerate of them.

Last spring I learned about Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations and Giani Granite, which is a countertop refinishing system. And this is what I turned my bathroom into.

That tub was also a disaster, but I found a refinishing kit for that, too!  From THIS!

To THIS!

And that, my friends, is how you remodel on a budget. I'm super happy with how it turned out. But now it's time to continue improving it.

Next stop, Menards! Bought a brand spanking new shower and looked at toilets. The number of different styles of toilets is redonk. It's a toilet. How many options could a person possibly need? Color, height, round, elongated....just pick and be done with it already. Sheesh.

I'm getting a new toilet for both bathrooms. My well water here, even with a water softener, has been the absolute bane of my existence for the past 12 years. No matter what I've done or what I've tried, the toilets were stained badly when we moved in and remain stained to this day. It makes me feel like we're filthy people even when the rest of the house is eat-off-the-floor-clean. 

And my shower....BEYOND disgusting. Stained beyond all recognition. As an example of my water, if we get weather cold enough that freezing pipes is a concern, I'll let the water trickle in the spare bathroom and the kitchen.  Within 24 hours, my sinks are orange. And I'm not talking a smidge of orange. So imagine a shower from 1996 getting that water in it every day. Yeah. It's bad.

I've wanted to replace all of these things but said I wasn't going to do that just to have them get all ruined again. There's a water treatment company an hour from me that guarantees that I will never have this problem again. We had them out a few weeks ago to get an estimate. As I had feared, this perfect system costs over $3,000. We were kind of waiting to see how much money all of this other stuff we're doing was going to cost before making a decision on it, but I think we had resigned ourselves to the fact that it was too expensive.

Then last night the lady called and said they have a rental program for it.  Oh, hellz, yes....I am all over that.  I had Kev call her back 15 minutes later and jump on that so they'll be coming out within the next couple of weeks. I am beyond excited knowing that my brand new white shower will remain white, as will both new white toilets. Finally!!!

This week I'm going to pick up some paint swatches for the bedroom. Flooring guy will come on Wednesday to take measurements, and hopefully the ceiling guy will come out to assess what it will cost to fix the water damaged ceilings. I also have one more plumber to get out here to see about getting the shower installed and to get an estimate from him on the new furnace, air conditioning and water heater.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the deck!! I know you'll be waiting with bated breath to hear all about it!

Back when I was posting all of those half-moon mani's, I forgot about this one.

I buy these damn pixiedust/textured polishes and very rarely use them.  Since I was trying for something a little different, I went with the Zoya Pixiedust Godiva. My half-moon is OPI What Wizardry is This.  I like Godiva a lot. The OPI I bought because it's really pretty with a topcoat over it or without.

I'm thinking I'm done with half-moons for awhile. I've gotten my fill of them, and Nail It Magazine didn't even use any of the ones I did. Oh, well, I tried.

Sorry for all of the non-related house remodeling stuff, but you'll be reading more of it off and on for awhile probably since that's what's happening in my life.

Don't forget about the giveaway that will be starting soon!!!