VALENTINE'S - BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

I am officially ready for winter to be over. We had a week of brutal cold, and now that it has "warmed" up to the 20's, it snowed. Of course it did; Kev left this morning. I was silently begging Mother Nature to make it stop because my happy ass did not want to shovel after work. It did stop, but I did shovel on my lunch hour.

While Valentine's Day is just another day in February at my house, I did actually wear heart mani's last week. I don't need a February 14th holiday because I'm lucky enough to have a husband that lets me know every single day that he loves me. Sappy, but true. He is just that good.

So these are the two half-assed nods I gave to the holiday. They don't even matter enough to have their own posts.

This one was weird. I did two coats of Sally Hansen Color Foil Rose Copper, which looked quite pink when I put it on. Then when I put topcoat on it, it completely changed the color to a sickly not-quite-gold. I took it all off and started over. I then used this heart pattern from the Dana 2 stamping plate with my Mundo de Unas Black. 

Thrillsville.

I will say I was pleasantly surprised that nothing chipped off, even without a topcoat.

Before that, I had also done this mani that I wore for a couple of days.

We had just gotten back from Illinois and my buying spree, so I used Fresh Paint Shake it Off for the pink base. I used Mundo de Unas Velvet and the Uber Chic 1-01 plate for the hearts.

I bought the Fresh Paint at a Five Below store, and they were 3 for 5 bucks. I do own a few of those from a previous trip but have forgotten how much I like them. If I had remembered, I think I would have bought at least one of every Fresh Paint polish they had. I really love their formula, and you just can't beat a price like that.

That's my "note to self" for next time I'm near a Five Below which I assume won't be until the next time I go to Tyler's. So yeah, I'm guessing February 2017.

BETTER IN MY HEAD

This was my first week back to work, and it has been a bit of a struggle. I was pleasantly surprised to see a bit less of a work pile than I was expecting, and I was completely caught up before the end of Monday. Thankfully.

I'm also thankful today is Wednesday, the end of my work week. I'm very much looking forward to a quiet weekend. It might even be warm enough to lay on top of the pool water. We've had some pretty cold nights so I have no desire whatsoever to actually get into the water, but that doesn't mean I can't get some lovely warmth from the sun while lounging on my raft. 

I've still got at least three hummingbirds hanging around, too. I'm sure I'll spend some time sitting with the feeder. My routine the past week has been sitting on the deck with the feeder and basically having a staredown with my juvie male that sits across from me up in the trees. He sits and watches to make sure nobody else tries to come to my feeder. The minute another bird buzzes over to me, he buzzes over to chase them away. Monday evening I had them vying for the feeder using my head as the buffer, a bird right next to each ear. They were so close my hair was moving from their wings beating. Adorable, but he is hateful as hell. He'll let another bird eat at the garage feeders which are right across from me, but he just will not share the one I'm holding. At least when he does leave his tree perch to eat, he tends to stop and sit on my finger while he drinks. It makes it worth sitting like a statue for long periods of time.

I did this mani Sunday night. The vision in my head was better than this, but of course I started way too late to start over with something else.

I used my usual white, Cult El Porto, and then stamped with Mundo de Unas Pink, Lilac and Mint. the design is from the Uber Chic UC 1-03 stamping plate.

In my mind's eye this was adorable. In real life, it was just okay, so I only wore it for a day.

I've actually done my nails three whole days in a row this week. I can't even remember the last time I did that. I'm still suffering from lack of inspiration. I guess the slump continues.

Now for a quick VOTD.....Charter Spectrum has simply the worst homepage email setup on earth. My work computer has Windows 8.1, and it doesn't let me use Outlook Express anymore for my Charter email. The level of irritation this causes is immeasurable. I have to go through the Charter webpage, and it is nothing but trouble. I do sweepstakes via the internet, so I get at least 200 emails throughout the day. Deleting is a nightmare. And emptying the actual trash bin is not even possible since it takes at least 1/2 hour just to delete out of my inbox.

They should spend less money on their non-stop tv advertising and spend some money on tech. Vent over.

THIS IS SORTA' PRETTY

My bossman made my week. I no longer feel the need to throw my computer through the wall because he got me a new one. And it is awesome!

The computer had finally gotten to the point in it's decline that even the word processor was starting to fail. That was the last straw, and while he was in court I began the search for a new one that wouldn't cost a fortune. It never ceases to amaze me what computers cost. I remember paying $1,800 back in the olden days. Staples had a couple of all-in-one desktops on sale, two of which they "claimed" were in our local store ready to pick up.

I gave him the options, let him know the sale ended on April 25th and went on home for the weekend. I left the final choice up to him. He got the one I didn't prefer, but it was such a good sale I knew he would choose it. It has a 21" touch screen which is ridiculous because I don't really need a touch screen, but it was $100 cheaper than the one I really wanted which had a 23" non-touch screen.

And here comes today's bitch of the day! On Saturday he calls me to ask something about it because he was going to Staples to buy it. Great news! I was all excited to go into work on Monday knowing he was going to be in court for 2 days, giving me lots of time to set things up.

I get to work; no computer. He comes in and tells me Staples didn't have it, they were ordering it, and we wouldn't get it until Tuesday. WTF. I was off and on the website checking the tracking like a stalker, and that computer is still on the website saying our store has it in stock, ready for pickup today.

I call complete bullshit. What a complete load of it. Tuesday I was really stalking the order tracking because I planned on flying to Staples as soon as they had gotten it. It was on the local truck for delivery at 6:15 a.m. By 4 p.m. I was furious. Still no computer. 

I looked at the Staples receipt bossman gave me and went online to take their customer satisfaction survey which gives the opportunity to win $5,000. If they base who wins on how good the survey is, I'll never have to worry about winning that. My review was scathing.

The computer was finally dropped at the store after 6 p.m. Bossman went and got it for me on Wednesday morning, and it is awesome. I started putting in the programs and such that I use regularly and then discovered Outlook Express isn't even around anymore and not compatible with Windows 8.1. And since I didn't have a clue of what his email password was, or mine, I had to suck it up and call Charter for their help. I was pleasantly surprised when they not only let me change his, they let me change my personal one as well even though I didn't have any of my actual account info. I guess they trusted me based on the fact that my name is on his account. 

I absolutely hate the Charter email setup going from the Charter site, though. Outlook was so much more pleasant to look at and easier on the eyes. So I'm saddy pants about that.

Sorry. I rambled once again.

I had kind of thought I would stamp over that Sally Hansen Prism beauty, but my nails needed a soakoff so badly that on Tuesday night I decided I'd better just start over.

This isn't what I put on Tuesday night, but it's been in my drafts folder for a couple of weeks.

Now that I have those stamping polishes, I'm trying to think of things to use them on. It's harder than I thought it would be. 

The base blue is Cult PCH, and I stamped over it with Mundo de Unas Turquoise and Uber Chic's UC 1-03 plate.

It's fun. Normally if I've wanted to stamp over something like a darker blue, I've always had to stick with a silver, gold or white because nothing else I have would show up. I'm enjoying being able to stamp with something other than those colors.

Right now I'm trying to decide what I'll do on my nails today or if I'll just ponder it and wait until Sunday to do them. I'm not going anywhere so if I do them, it'll only be for my own fun and for posting on the interwebs.

Oh, and one more bitch! I didn't do a good enough job securing my one waspinator on the front of the house, and the dang thing is gone. It was super windy the other day and somehow it worked its way off the hook and flew to parts unknown. I wandered around the area looking for it to no avail. 

I went out and hung the spare one but took a pliers to crimp the hook closed this time. Hopefully that'll keep it safe. 

That's what I get for putting it up myself when they came. There's a reason I'm not the ones that puts things together around here.

I can't be good at everything, right?

 

WHERE'D EVERYBODY GO??

Did I offend a bunch of people? I'm thinking I must have because it appears nobody is stopping by much. At least not according to the number of views on some of the latest posts. For those of you that don't use Blogger, from my account I can see how many views a post gets. And the white and black one is apparently a ginormous flop.

Either that, or like I said, I've managed to offend the world and sent them running in the opposite direction of me. While I know it shouldn't bug me, it does. 

Oh, well, not a thing I can do about any of that, and I'd probably keep posting even if only two of you were bothering to look. Sometimes it's pretty therapeutic to come on here and vent. 

I did this one last Friday before heading off to my granddaughter's birthday party. 

I did one coat of black on my nails and then did two coats of HITS Mari Moon Trendy. There is a smidge of a color shift on this, but it doesn't show up very often. 

The stamped design came from my Uber Chic 1-03 plate. I'm really enjoying the UC plates. They're pretty big designs although I do have to be very careful with placement on my thumbs and middle fingers. They will cover, but I have to get them just right.


Off to watch The Americans with the hubby. I think we are four episodes behind. After work I cleaned the whole house, threw in a load of towels and made supper, so now I'm free as a bird until I go back to work on Monday.

Speaking of birds, I also put out my window hummingbird feeders. I'm a few weeks early, but I just thought I'd throw them up and cross my fingers. Last year I never saw one until May 9th, but I'm crossing my fingers that I'll see some early.

I'm glad they're up, but I'm already glancing sideways at them every 30 seconds thinking I should see something. 

At this rate, it might be a long month.