IT WORKS!!

Oh, man. December 20th already? I am so not ready for this week. I feel like I'm actually forgetting things I need to do. Everything I have here is wrapped, but I'm still waiting for quite a few things to arrive, thanks to the extremely late list I received from my daughter. As of right now, she's not getting anything because it's all spread out across the country as the items make their way here. It's out of my hands.

Last Christmas Eve Tyler and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning putting together a Lego Christmas scene. Once we finished, she loaded it up in the car and brought it to her in-laws' house so that Griffin would see it under the tree and think Santa built it for him.

It was at that time I decided I was for sure going to buy the actual Lego Christmas North Pole set for this year. It's been hiding under the bed for about 6 months. I asked Tyler on Friday night what the plan was for it, and she said she wanted it to be set up at my house since I bought it. I then asked when she was coming home, and she told me she's hoping to come home Monday. It's a good thing I asked what the plan was, because this plan required me to get busy!

Let me make it clear I was not upset at this prospect whatsoever. I think putting Lego sets together is way too much fun. My biggest concern was where I was going to put the darn thing.

My next concern came about 2 hours in when it became clear to me that there was a piece missing from the set. I texted Tyler and sent her a pic of the missing item and told her to grab one and bring it home with her. I told her I was going to bed with the hope that maybe I was just blind and the piece would make itself appear on Saturday morning.

No such luck. Here I was, only partway through the first building, and I was stuck. It just so happens that I bought Griff two Lego sets for Christmas that were already under my tree, so I unwrapped one of them to see if I could steal the piece I needed. Of course, that set didn't have that piece. So I had to unwrap the other set, and luckily the piece I needed was there. Problem solved. I'll put the piece Tyler brings into the new set, and everything works out perfectly.

So I spent the next couple of hours playing with Legos. The whole thing was just about finished, and I was working on the reindeer, when I discovered I was missing a reindeer face. You have got to be kidding me. The reindeer faces are a common piece that simply have eyes drawn on it. So now I'm looking at the two buildings I already made, wondering if I accidentally used a reindeer face.

Well, shitballs. Next step? Start taking apart the houses I just spent hours building looking for reindeer eyes. And after all of that extra work, I discovered I did not mistakenly use it. Final solution? A black sharpie draws very nice reindeer eyes. Done.

I decided to set it up on the shelf under the tv. I'm not going to say a word about it. We're going to wait to see how long it takes for Griffin to notice it. I'm excited because he is going to love it! I will say I'm going to be a little sad to see it go home with him because it's pretty damn adorable.

I haven't done much with my nails, but I did manage a gradient and some snowflakes the other night, even though we still don't have any snow here.

This is the first mani shot with the new camera. I'm a pretty happy camper because this purple toned Zoya Carey and Zoya Caitlin gradient actually photographed perfectly.

After I did the gradient I did a bit of sparkle with Nubar Star Sparkle and then stamped with MdU White and the snowflake pattern from the Ali Express 12-51 plate.

I did this last Tuesday and just took it off tonight.

I'm really hoping the new camera is going to make my purple problems go away. I did take a pic of this mani with my old camera, and the old camera definitely photographed this as blue. Hopefully this is a good sign that there will be no more running around the house trying to get the color right. 

I'll have to do some more purples before I can say for sure it's the result of the new camera.

I GUESS I'M OFFICIALLY A LIGHTWEIGHT

We managed to get to our destination yesterday despite running into some pretty rotten weather for part of the drive. We stopped along the way to get in some last minute shopping, and I managed to find a decent pair of snowboots and some mittens for what promised to be a very cold night at the ball drop.

First up, though, was dinner with the fam, gift opening and some game playing. And for me, quite a bit more drinking than I am used to doing. My goal was pretty much to get a good enough buzz on that I wouldn't even care about the cold.  Mission accomplished. A little too accomplished. Damn.

Since it was so vicious outside, we decided the smartest thing to do was to just go downtown a little bit before midnight. We stopped at the hotel and got bundled up and we probably got to our spot about 15 minutes before midnight, giving us just enough time to take a few pics before the ball fell and signaled the start of 2015. The fireworks that followed were pretty good, and from there we headed back to spend more time with the family.

I did a bit of drunk texting to my girls before we headed back to go to sleep. I slept like a rock and woke up feeling not so hot. I still feel not so hot. I don't know if I'd call it an actual hangover, but I've for sure felt better than this before.  I figured after eating shrimp and crabcakes I'd feel okay, but my stomach is definitely pissed off at me. I have a lot of booze here with us that I will not be imbibing. Color me done.

I did manage to do what I planned for my New Year's mani, and it turned out almost like I expected.

For this one I did a coat of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Starry, Starry Flight, and while it was still wet I sprinkled Fantasy Makers Confetti Confettis glitter. As that dried I kind of pressed it in, and then I repeated the process using a clear polish.  After I was completely glitterfied, I did a couple of coats of topcoat to smooth it out.

I used Kleancolor Metallic Black and the Messy Mansion HD05 and HB23 plates to make my snowflakes.

I had glitter everywhere. My table, my hands, my clothes.....lordie, what a mess!! I do love that loose glitter, but it sure is a nightmare to clean up. I had to take a nail brush to my fingers to get rid of it all, and I had to wait until after showering to even attempt photos.

The sad part is I think I could have gotten the same amount of glittery shine with maybe one of the polishes I own. If I ever try something like this again, I'm going to have to really peruse my stash to see what I have.

I am thankful it's wearing well. I was afraid that it might start chipping off, and I had warned Kev that we might have to make a trip to buy polish remover and polish.

To be honest, I'm a bit sick of looking at it already, but I'll suck it up and leave it on until we get home. We're heading back on Saturday so hopefully I'll be recovered enough from the trip to take this off on Sunday.

I hope you had a great New Year's Eve, and I wish for all of you a healthy and happy 2015!! Hopefully when 2016 arrives, you'll still be here reading about my ever-so-exciting life. 

(Insert eye-roll here)

SO HERE IT IS

Holy crapballs. It is SO frickin' cold out!! I've been so worried about being cold and miserable tomorrow night that I decided I'd better try to prepare. The temp there is supposed to be in the low 20's, but the wind is also supposed to be 20-30 mph. Yikes!! So I went on the Walmart site last night and found some foot and toe warmer thingies that I had Kev pick up for me today. I figure they should help, even if it's just enough to avoid frostbite. Hell, there are 10 pairs of the tootsie warmers and 7 of the hand warmers.....wonder where else I can stick those suckers to stay warm.

I then decided maybe I should buy a pair of actual winter boots. I have an old pair, but they are too tight to be comfortable. I don't even wear them when I shovel. I usually throw on Kev's huge boots for that since fashion doesn't count while shoveling.

Since I live where I live, one would think that buying snow boots should be easy, right?  Wrong. As usual, the minute I try to get something there are none to be found. I don't want to pay a fortune, but I couldn't find any at any price. It's just ridiculous. Winter boots up here should pretty much be sold year round.

Since we are leaving fairly early tomorrow, I'm hoping we can either stop somewhere along the way or at least stop at Meier when we get to Ludington. Maybe they'll have some. If not, I hope those foot warmers do the trick. I don't think it's too much to ask that I get to have fun at the ball drop without actually freezing my balls.

I decided that I would post what I had on for Christmas. It was a frustrating evening when I did this. First of all, I completely forgot about doing nails until 11 p.m. Then the first couple of things I tried didn't work out. I wanted to do a Christmas plaid....fail.  I did my nails in a really pretty Orly red and stamped a white snowflake/deer sweater pattern on it....fail.  Thankfully I had only done the left hand because when I topcoated it, the red turned the white pink. 

Off that came. By now it was probably 12:30'ish so I grabbed another red, my Konad white polish and stamped snowflakes. Then I crossed my fingers as I topcoated. Thankfully it didn't run so I finished all ten fingers.

While I was in the midst of that, Tyler and I watched the Lego movie while she wrapped presents. She reminded me that I was supposed to be building a Lego house for Griffin that she was planning to put under the Christmas tree at her in-law's house so that he'd see it Christmas morning from Santa since the rest of his Santa gifts wouldn't be there.

Now, I've never played with Lego's. I started doing it, and omg!! I was loving it!!  I don't think I'd care to make shit up on my own, but following directions to build something was super fun. It was 4:30 a.m. before I called it quits to go to bed.  The next night before Griffin got to my house for family dinner at 5, Kev and I worked on it a little bit.  After some discussion, it was decided that the only way it was going to get done so that Tyler could bring it out to their house was if she and I did it after coming home from my mom's house that night.

We left my mom's around 2 a.m. after the gift opening Christmas Eve, and Tyler and I set about finishing the Lego project. I did the house, a car, a tree and a bird, and she did a sleigh, toys, a reindeer and Santa. She left my house to go to the in-laws at 5 a.m.

She said that Christmas morning Griffin was very excited to see it under the tree, and he thought it was amazing that Santa Claus had done that. That made it worth getting not so much sleep.

I'm already looking forward to continuing this new tradition next year. We're planning to get the North Pole village for next year. Suffice it to say we'll plan a lot better so that it's done ahead of time.

Here's what I eventually ended up with. Like I said yesterday, it isn't super exciting, but at least it's Christmas red and wintery.

If I hadn't been in such a rush, I would have looked for a polish with a name. As it was, I just grabbed what I thought looked like a good Christmas red, and it turned out to be a Color Club with no name on it. I used Konad white stamping polish with the Ali Express 12-51 snowflake pattern for the stamp.

And speaking of that plate, I was pissed when I looked at it!! All this time I didn't even realize it has other holiday images, reindeer, ornaments, wrapped presents....DUH. If I would have had more time to play, I probably could have had a lot of fun playing with those, especially the ornaments and packages.

I mean, who doesn't like playing with a good package?

SNOWFLAKES PART DEUX

December? Unbelievable. I don't know where the year went. All I know is I want the damn Christmas shopping DONE. I am finished shopping for my daughters and grandkids, and I'm almost done with my sons-in-law, but figuring out what to get my 86 year old mother who needs and wants nothing is a friggin' nightmare every year.

Up until a couple of years ago I could at least buy her clothes for work, but once my brother closed his store, she stopped working. She told me last night she has clothes in her closet that she's never even worn since she has no place she really goes to wear them. 

Kill me.

I've also somehow managed to spend a shit ton more than I planned. Every year that seems to happen. It's like I blink and I've spent too much, but it feels like I've bought nothing. Things are so much more expensive than they were even a couple of years ago. Also, buying for a 15 year old boy sucks. On his list? 6 or 7 video games. Oh, that's super fun for me, and the damn things are ridiculously pricey. He also isn't really into making a list for me, so at this point he's getting what I "think" he'll like. At least he likes clothes. 

The point is.....kill me.

I did this mani for Thanksgiving. It's always hard to think of something to do that won't horrify my mom. Let's just say she is not a fan of the whole nail art thing. It's just one more thing she probably thinks I'm too old for. She's adorable and I love her, but I try not to shock her with my so-called taste.  Nobody commented on this one so I'll call that a win.

I've been using some pretty random polishes lately. I've had China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic for ages.  As in it's in my first drawer of blue polishes.  I didn't want to do white snowflakes again so I used my old standby,  Essie No Place Like Chrome. It never fails me.  The snowflake stamp is from the LeaLac LLC-A plate.

Speaking of them, does anybody know if they're ever going to make a "C" plate? I wish they would. They have the biggest images of all my plates, and I love them so much.

Oooo, I do have one semi-happy thing. Sometimes I will enter sweepstakes online. It's actually what I used to do before I became nail obsessed. I used to enter about 250 a day; now I'm lucky if I enter 20 a week. This morning I decided to enter the 7 weekly enter sweeps on my list and found my name on the winners list of one of them as a weekly winner.  I say "semi-happy" because my name was posted on November 26th, and I haven't seen an email from them or gotten a phone call. I get so much junk email every day that I'm afraid I may have missed it or tossed it by mistake. 

I've been stalking my email all day. It's a prize worth receiving since it's a $495 men's watch. 

In the meantime, I'll just keep crossing my "used to type sweeps entries" fingers and hope that email comes soon.

IT'S A 2-FER TODAY!

I'm happy to say that the Parrot Polish from the other day, Curcubeu, wore very well throughout a full day of tapping away on my computer. Nice.

Before I put it to that test I did stamp some snowflakes on it Sunday night. Unfortunately that must have been a hint to Mother Nature because the 43 degrees and rain that got rid of almost all of the snow in my yard turned into 20 degrees and about 8 inches of snow.

I'm staying away from the snowflake stamps for awhile.

After I did these, I was sorry for it. I never should have covered up Curcubeu. I should have just waited to use snowflakes until I had changed polish. The great holo and color change did still show up around the snowflakes, though, and that was kinda' cool.  The snowflake pattern is from my MoYou Festive 04 plate.

Even though it did still look great last evening, I just felt like marbling. I thought it might be fun to do a two-tone marble, one where I don't try for any specific pattern like I normally would.

This is what I ended up with.

That pretty purple is China Glaze Coconut Kiss. I just used one of the cheap Sally Hansen blacks for the marble.

I am loving how this turned out. I've been looking at it a lot today. It also made for a very fast marble since I didn't really care what the design was. Funsies!!

I'd probably better think of something to do with them tonight. Tomorrow night Tyler will be home for Thanksgiving with Griffin and Zero. While Griff goes to bed and is also old enough to let me play with my nails, Zero is not quite so helpful.  So it's tonight or not at all until the weekend.

I think we all know I do not want to still be wearing this come Sunday. Puh-leeze.

On a sad note, one of my friends had to help ease one of her precious Goldens on to Rainbow Bridge today. Cooper fathered many puppies, and there are a lot of good genes floating around out there in the form of some beautiful dogs.

He was well-loved, not just by his human family, but from what I've seen, by every person that ever had the pleasure of his company.

Cancer claims another Golden gem.

Run healthy, happy and free, sweet Cooper!! Although many are shedding tears today, you've left a trail of happy memories in your wake. 

And you're going to have a grand old time with your buddies!!!

SHAMELESS

I figure the year is ending so craptastically that I thought I'd enter, of all things, a voting contest. Just because I'm a glutton for punishment. Voting contests are notorious for people figuring out ways to cheat, blah, blah, blah, and of course bloggers with thousands of followers are shoe-ins usually. But what the hell, right?

I went through my last year's holiday attempts and decided upon this snowflake one. I liked it last year, and I still do. I know....shocking. I like something. lol

If you like it, I'd appreciate if you'd take a minute to vote for it. You actually have to vote for 3 mani's, and then you'll need to click the link in the email they send you. But it's a one-time only thing so it's pretty quick and painless.

It's purdy, right?  This is Ninja Polish Alexandrite over black, and I stamped the snowflakes with silver.  You can see how Alexandrite has a great color shift, and it was awesome in person.

Here's the link to vote if you've a mind to:   China Glaze contest 

Even if you aren't voting, there are a ton of cute mani's to look at!