SEMI-FAIL, BUT I LIKE IT ANYWAY

What a difference a week makes. During that ten day stint of antibiotics, nothing I ate tasted good. Since my stomach felt so crappy that entire time, I think I lost about 4 pounds during that time frame.

As soon as my stomach felt better, I pretty much ate non-stop for about 6 days. I did eat a decent supper every night, but I also managed to wolf down a whole lot of candy corn, Skittles, Sugar Babies and hard butterscotch candy. Oink.

My biggest downfall right now is pineapple Outshine bars. They come in a box of six, and I try to have no less than three boxes in my freezer at a time. I can seriously go through a box of those a day and seldom only eat one. I usually stop myself at two at a time. I figure I can justify that because they are fruit and are only 80 calories each, not that I care about calories. If you haven't tried these, they are a must. The strawberry is pretty good, and they do also have some other flavors. I'm addicted to the pineapple, though.  Damn. I wish I had one here at work.

I still haven't been playing with my nails much. About a week ago I decided to do some knitting. I had done an afghan a few years back and had a ton of leftover yarn so I figured I would make myself a hoodie. I've had the child's pattern for it since my girls were little. It's really the first time I've attempted to make such a huge adjustment in a pattern for size, so I haven't a clue how it's going to work out. I figure if it sucks, it's no big deal. I do hope it turns out, though. I can never have too many hoodies to wear around the house. If it turns out well in the light aqua, I'm probably going to have to make another one for myself in navy blue.

Yesterday after I finished doing all of my sweepstakes entries, I decided to do a water marble.

This looks pretty cute in person, but the very light pink that is Sally Hansen Sweet Talker doesn't look pink in this picture. I kind of wish I had gone just a smidge darker with the pink so it wouldn't look so much like white against the black. Oh, well.

At least this one didn't give me a whole lot of trouble. I probably could have tried harder to make the pattern more perfect, but I was too lazy. When I was about halfway through, I wasn't really in the mood to water marble anymore. I did manage to finish both hands, though.

When I'm in a knitting mood, it's really all I want to do, so this one might end up staying on for a few days. 

MARBLED IT UP

I've never had such a difficult recuperation from anything. I'm so over it. I'm not sleeping worth a damn. I actually have a call in to my doctor's office and am waiting for a call back to ask a few questions since yesterday I noticed a couple of popped stitches. Of course I noticed them ten minutes after their office closed for the day. The whole thing is just depressing. I'm hoping at some point today I'll be able to at least clean the house because it's filthy after not getting a good cleaning for two weeks. 

I did do a water marble the other night, and I'm semi-happy with how it turned out.

I started with a base of Cult Avalon and then used that along with Julep Sasha and 10 Professional And the Winner Is.....

Instead of using my usual orange stick to marble with, I used the water marble tool I bought from Whats Up Nails. I'm pretty impressed with it. It's very pointy and cuts through the polish very nicely. I'm glad I spent the $7.75 to get it.

In looking at this one now, I'm kind of wishing I had taken the time to redo that ring finger. It looks a little cloudy to me. Since I haven't left the house in two weeks it didn't really matter, I guess. 

Right now it is thundering outside like crazy. Summer has returned this week with temperatures in the 80's and humidity to match. Even the pool water is back up to 80 degrees which at this point is downright depressing since I'm not up to actually getting into the pool. At least if it rains today I don't have to pout about missing out on pool time. Dang. Power just went out for a minutes while I was typing this. I'm glad that didn't last very long!

That's my whining for the day, hopefully. Right now I'm sitting here with freshly applied nails that are naked. Hopefully later today I'll think of something fun to do with them.

In this mood, I'm not counting on it.

WATER MARBLE BRIGHT

OMG, I need a puppy fix SO bad!! I haven't had any of Tinlee's kids at the house for weeks! I've already sent word out to three of them that I need puppy time. Thankfully they are all ready to come over to visit. I might even get to steal Razzie for a night or two. I was thinking I would do that this weekend, but Kev made a comment about how he wouldn't be home. I guess he wants some puppy time, too.....not sure if I can wait for him, though.

I decided to carry on with that bright yellow for this mani.

I had picked up quite a few bright colors when I was on vacation, and I decided I would just use a few that were sitting on the table waiting to be swatched.

The yellow, of course, is Studio M Neon Caution. The lime green is Essie The More the Merrier and the orange is Sally Hansen Mighty Mango.

I liked how these three colors look together, and all of three of them were very cooperative for marbling. Ya' just never know what's going to work and what's not. I did have to add a few drops of thinner to the Studio M. It seems I always have more difficulties with yellows. No clue why that is. This one definitely marbled better than any of my other yellows ever have in the past.

This is damn near blinding it's so bright. That's not a bad thing, but I think I'll do something a little bit more muted tonight.

BEEN AWHILE SINCE I MARBLED

Today is my grandson's 16th birthday. So gross. I'm not sure where the time went, but it seriously seems like a blink ago that he was 2. I'd like to think that since he's 16 with a driver's license and a vehicle, that means he'll take a road trip to visit me. I do, however, remember being 16, and I wouldn't have walked 2 blocks to visit family, let alone drive an hour. So I won't expect him to be pulling into my driveway anytime soon. I'll still love him anyway. 

I just wish time would hold still for a bit longer. The grandkids getting older is making me older, and I don't appreciate it.

I bought a new shirt from Zulily awhile back and since it was actually going to hit 60 degrees today, I decided I'd wear it and do a mani with colors to match.

It's been forever since I did the loopy water marble. The last couple of times I started to, nothing would cooperate. I had much better luck yesterday. Every polish I chose worked, and I didn't have a single re-do. It made it fun.

I debated on whether I should do a white base, but I decided to go with Cult Hollywood Hills. I then used that along with Sally Hansen Hard to Get, Sally Hansen Peach Beach and Square Hue Collins Avenue.

The neon orange Square Hue, the darker pink Sally and the much lighter pinky/peach by Cult all match the colors in my shirt exactly. Crazy close in color.

I like this one a lot. Whether I'll leave it on for another day completely depends on my motivation level after work. Mabes I'll just be too lazy to do something new.

If it ends up staying on, I'm good with it.

HELLZ TO THE YES!!

The bossman is on vacay, so my work hours are pretty random for a week. Yesterday I wandered in at 1:00 and worked until 5:00. I got a lot of work done, all of the kinds of things that are hard to do when I'm doing actual work. I closed so many files that I completely emptied one of the file drawers, which is awesome. Now all I need to do is convince him that it's time to purge some old files from our storage closet. Nobody needs to keep files that are 15 damn years old. At this point I've stacked boxes so high I practically need a ladder to get them down. Not so fun.

I had been there about ten minutes, and my left eye was super irritated. I keep contact solution at work so I took out my contact, cleaned it and put it back in. It still felt kind of scratchy, but since I thought being able to see was a good idea, I just carried on.

After I'd been home for about an hour, I decided to take my contacts out and throw on my specs. If I'm not going anywhere, I do that often. Not that it matters because I'm pretty much blind as a bat no matter what I'm wearing. Low and behold, I discovered that my contact has a rip in it. No biggie, I figure; I have one spare left in my traveling makeup bag.

Wrong. I have 3 right contacts and no left ones. So now I'm sitting here wearing a torn contact. Not pleasant. I've been meaning to make an eye appointment so I called and can't get in until April 7th. I did get lucky, though, because they do have the lens in stock. Good news for me, so I'll be picking that up on my way to my physical. 

Last night I took off that pastel water marble. And decided I wanted another water marble. It was a great decision.

I couldn't be more happy with this one. I am in love with it. Even though I've never had much luck using holo polish for a holo, I figured I'd try it again.

The stars aligned perfectly on this one. I did one coat of Sinful Colors Black on Black as a base and then used it with Too Cute-icle Enchanted Lagoon and Color Club Halo Hues Eternal Beauty.

All three of them worked great. I only had to re-do one, and that's only because I accidentally marbled over it when it was already done.

I went for just a no pattern look, mostly because I didn't even start this until 10 p.m. and didn't want to waste a ton of polish trying to make some perfect loopy thing.

There isn't one thing I would change about this. IMHO it is gorgeous, and I'll be wearing it for at least 2 days. I wish it was sunny out so I could go freeze my ass off to get the holographic effect to show up better.

Sometimes these water marbles are just so fun. And if you don't like this one, then I'm pretty sure we can't be friends.

WHAT A PITA MARBLE

I was kind of shocked when I saw that I hadn't done a post since Thursday. WTF? I don't even have an excuse other than just pure laziness.

After all the cleaning I did on Thursday, I guess I hit that wall I sometimes hit when I keep staying up too late and not getting enough sleep. Which basically is every day for me, but after about 2-3 months, I'll have a day where I can't stay awake. That day was Friday. I swear I fell asleep at least 4 times throughout the day. Just quick little nappy-naps, but I still hate it. They leave me feeling completely sluggish and out of it for hours.

I was determined to do a water marble. As I was pulling out polishes on Saturday evening to start it, I popped a nail off. Oh, I was pissed!! Rather than just glue the one back on I figured I might as well just soak the suckers off.

Of course that meant the water marble was out because you can't put your hands in water for 3 hours after application. Normally I will put them on at night so I know they will stay dry overnight.

That meant I had to throw something on just because I didn't want naked nails. I decided I would do a fan brush manicure because I haven't done that in a really long time. 

And oh, I did one that turned out so horrid I didn't even take a picture. On Sunday afternoon I tried stamping over it to cover up some of the ugliness, and even that didn't work. It was really bad so I took it off and threw on a coat of white in preparation for the water marble.

Since we had a couple of the puppies over for playtime yesterday afternoon, I did the marble last night.

This one gave me SO much trouble! I think it took me almost 3 hours to finally just call it done. I would have liked to do a couple of nails over, but I couldn't look at swirly polish another second.

My colors on this one are Sinful Colors Snow Me White, China Glaze Pelican Gray, Studio M Sweet Pea and some really pretty baby pink from Sally Hansen that didn't have a name.

The trouble I had on this one was finding polishes that would all work together. I tried 4 different grays, 2 different light pinks and 2 of the darker pink before I finally got them all to cooperate.

And that is why I don't do water marbles as often as I  might like. Sometimes they are simply an exercise in frustration like this one was. My lack of patience often times gets the better of me. I was being stubborn on this one because I really, really wanted a pink, grey and white water marble.

Now I want it gone because I'm mad at it. I'm going to force myself to leave it on until tomorrow night.

HERE'S YOUR WATER MARBLE, MARTHA!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, all you Irish folk. 

Yesterday was Kev's birthday, and I thought we were going to have over a week together. I love when that happens. But work called him today, and he decided to pick up an extra four day trip, so now I won't see him again until Saturday night.  The extra money is nice, but I surely do miss him when he leaves.

Sometimes it sucks to like your husband.

I've been so busy at work I was starting to wonder if I'd ever get around to posting this one before the "holiday" was over.  A few days ago Martha from Polish Makes Me Happy posted a picture of a shamrock water marble. She kind of hinted that one of us that does marbles should do it. 

I actually did this two years ago, but it didn't turn out so great. So I figured I'd give it another shot.

 

I remember when I did it the first time the hardest part was finding a couple of greens that would marble. I sort of had the same problem this time around. Eventually I got China Glaze Exotic Encounters and Square Hue Flower Power to cooperate to make my four leaf clovers.

It took a few tries on a couple of the nails, and I would have like to redo a couple again, but my China Glaze wasn't full to start with. Once a polish gets down to below half full, I don't like using it for marbles. While they are fun and cool to look at, they certainly can be a bit wasteful.

I do love the colors on this one. Very St. Patrick's Day-ish. I'd like to do some more water marbles because I'm kind of in the mood for them, but I can't seem to decide on a color scheme. I'll just have to keep thinking.

Enjoy yourselves if you're going out to drink some green beer this evening, and don't forget to not drink and drive. For realz.

NOW THIS IS BRIGHT!!

I'm sure you will all be very relieved that we still get to go to the concert. It got rescheduled to Monday, and luckily I struck a deal with the bossman to work a couple of different days so I can have Monday and Tuesday off. 

Right now I'm fuming. I just went outside, fell down on the ice and put a hole in the knee of my jeans. Of course they are one of my favorite pairs. I'm going to do an iron on patch from the inside. Hopefully they'll not look too bad when I'm finished.

Now my knees and the palms of my hands hurt. (insert self-pity here)

I did this mani the other night. Holy brightness.

This one wasn't so easy. I don't know why I attempt these swirly water marbles. They are a headache. My colors for this one are China Glaze Sneaker Head, American Apparel Poppy, Pure Ice Show Stopper, QRS Love is Blue and Essie The Girls are Out.

I think I had to re-do at least 6 during this process. Sometimes water marbles are no fun.

I'm kind of excited to head home. After waiting for 10 months since getting the estimate to fix all of the ceilings in our house, today was day 2 of the work. By the time I get there, all of them should be smooth. By Friday they should be completely finished. Kiss those hideous popcorn ceilings buh-bye and good riddance.

I was also very excited because I ordered a new ceiling light for my bedroom on Monday and was even more happy because it was going to be delivered today.

Imagine my disappointment when I got a text from Tyler in Illinois. Evidently I forgot to change the shipping address in my account from when I sent her some boots last fall. So she has my new light fixture sitting at her house. I'm not going to pay to ship the dang thing so now I won't get it for probably at least 2 months.

And once again, I hate when I'm stupid.  I think I really should have born a blonde since being fake blonde makes me an airhead.

FAVE ONE IN QUITE AWHILE

It was practically summer today. It's amazing how warm 33 degrees can feel after having those awful temps for the past couple of weeks. I even wore my short winter jacket and my ass didn't freeze off. I'll put it back in the closet for now because I think it's going to get cold again.

After I got out of work at noon I cleaned the house, and then we went hunting for a new couch. Mine is 12 years old, and the dogs have taken a real toll on it. I liked it when we bought it, but the fabric choice was not the wisest.  Right now we have it narrowed down to a couple so I'm crossing my fingers that we can buy one very soon.

Last night I finally got around to doing the water marble I've been threatening to do for the past couple of days. I'm happy to say it turned out pretty much how I had imagined it in my head.

I friggin' love it! I've spent a lot of time looking at my fingers today, and I'm in no hurry to take it off. I did have to test out a couple of different polishes to get two that worked, but Julep Bess and the Studio M Lust that I picked up at Meijer when we were downstate worked out perfectly.

Of course, photographing it was the usual nightmare that is purple, but I managed to capture it pretty well.

I'm not sure why, but I've never done a loopy one facing this direction before, and I think it's pretty damn cool.

On a completely unrelated topic, why is it that they make Peeps for Easter, Halloween ones and Christmas ones but apparently don't think Valentine's Day is worthy of its own Peeps? I'm just dying for some of that marshmallowy delightfulness and am very disappointed that they don't seem to make them. And I don't want those stupid mini's that are flavored. I want old-school, original Peeps flavor.

It's making me sad. I want what I want when I want it, dammit. So I'm calling bullshit, Peeps!

OH, GET READY FOR SOME MAJOR BITCHING

Oh, and a happy Monday to me. I woke up with a huge headache, and then I got to work and immediately got cranky about a case. That should have warned me about how the day was going to go.

I went home at lunchtime and was in the living room when I heard a big noise outside, and the dogs started barking like maniacs. So I look out the front window to discover an SUV buried in my front yard. Right through the mailbox, which is now laying in pieces in the snow.

This isn't the first time this has happened, but it hasn't for the past couple of years. Why people don't have brains enough to slow down on the curve on a snow-covered street completely baffles me. So as I'm fuming from that, it's time to come back to work. I see that the guy is walking up my driveway, so at least he isn't hitting and running. Not that he could run since his car is completely stuck.

So he comes up to talk to me. He is super apologetic and nice. He asked to borrow a shovel, so I tell him where one is that he can use. Poor guy has no gloves, so I tell him I'll let him use a pair and to just toss them in the garage when he's done. He gives me his name and number and tells me he lives in Marquette and of course he'll pay to fix it. Great. So that means he isn't local and will not be around to rig up my mailbox somehow.

So now I won't get mail. Kev isn't home, so that screws that. I guess I'll call the post office to see if they'll hold my mail so I can go there to pick it up. Pain in the ass, but I simply hate not getting mail. I heart mail.

As I'm standing talking to the guy, I glance over at the passenger side of my Outback. Hmmm....what's that on the rear quarter panel. Dirt? Let me just rub that with my glove. Not dirt. A mother-*!@*ing DING. On my brand new car. 

Isn't that just fantastic? I guess some random *!@*tard in some random parking lot must have hit it with a car door or a shopping cart. It looks to me like it went all the way through the paint, too, so to say that I'm pissed would pretty much be the understatement of the century. I've only had it for 3 months. I'm fuming. It's either that or cry, and since I'm at work, I'm fuming. I might cry later.

Deep breath.

Last night I did finally motivate and soak off my nails. I was happy it was done, but it screwed my plan of doing a water marble since I had to keep my hands out of water for 3 hours. So I did this instead.

I started off with a grey base using Square Hue Lincoln Road and did the swirlies using Orly Liquid Vinyl, Sinful Colors Rages and Wisp. I just used a dotting tool to swish 'em around.

I really like how this turned out. I've always been a fan of pink and grey together, and my only criticism would be that I wish I had carried it closer to the cuticle line on my index and middle fingers.

All in all, a success. It didn't satisfy my desire to do a real water marble, though, so maybe I'll do that tonight. 

Of course, considering how the day is going, maybe I should not open any polish or polish remover bottles.

With my luck, I'll knock them over and the only thing painted will be my carpeting.

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.

SEE? I DO HAVE A RIGHT HAND

About 10 days ago, one of my friends that I met through a Golden Retriever page posted a pic of a holiday wreath she made for her mantle. It was so gorgeous I jokingly told her I wanted it. Come to find out, she actually makes stuff to sell, so within about 15 minutes, the deal was made.

She showed me pictures of a bunch of different ones, all beautiful, but my mind was already made up. The one she had made herself was the perfect one for my house, and she made it up for me and it arrived yesterday.

And this is what the mail lady brought me.

It's okay that it looks like that, though. The postmaster stamped in red that it arrived in town like this. Well, that makes it all okay then!

To say I was scared to open it would be an understatement. I just pictured smashed ornament balls everywhere. I was much relieved when I opened it and saw this.

How perfect is this thing?? It's going to go above the mantle, but since Kev isn't home I decided to let it hang on the front door for now.  Evidently they did somehow manage to damage the battery packs so I'll be looking for some new lights this week. It's either that or take advantage of the insurance, but the post office would take the wreath, and that ain't happening. 

I saw a really cute poinsettia mani on Pinterest that I really wanted to do. I guess I was having one of those delusional moments where I imagined I was capable of freehand nail art. So yeah, that was a couple hours of my life I'll never get back. All it did was piss me off and frustrate me, and I left my nails naked for 24 hours because of it.

I still wanted poinsettias, though. So last night I decided to kill three friggin' hours to water marble them. It was slow going, and I had to do a lot of them more than once. I really was trying for perfection.

I wouldn't call them perfect, but I like it better than last year's version. I'll be wearing these for at least a few days because of how much work they were. Sorry for so many pictures, but I wanted to catch the full effect.

And check this out, I DO have a right hand that goes along with my left!! I don't like taking photos out of my normal pose because I hate how my hands and fingers either look awkward or claw-like. When I first started taking pics of my nails it took me awhile to decide on the pose I use all the time. I think it shows the nails well, and I like the consistency.  I stray from it only when absolutely necessary.

I felt it was necessary today.

I find it very difficult finding reds that translate true red in a water marble. I tried 7 or 8 different ones before going with OPI Bogota Blackberry. The green is Loreal Hyde Park.

I used a whole lot of polish for this mani. A ridiculously wasteful amount. Enough that I actually felt bad about it on about nail 8. Of course I was way past the point of no return by then.

When I finished it I decided to add a smidge of sparkle with Orly Shine on Crazy Diamond. It is one of my all-time fave glitters because it's just a delicate little bit of bling. I also grabbed Orly Luxe and my dotting tool to add some centers to the poinsettias.

I'm considering this my first official Christmas manicure. I've seen so many people doing holiday manicures for weeks now.  I just was not feeling the Christmas mani mood yet.  

Or course, I did do those two snowflake mani's, but snowflakes don't count as holiday in my book. I could easily get away with wearing a snowflake mani every day for 5 or 6 months out of the year.

 

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!!!

MIGHT HAVE MY GROOVE BACK

My name might not be Stella, but I for sure am feeling like I've got my nail groove back. I've been feeling actual enthusiasm about manicures the past few days.  I find myself pondering what to do often during the day, just like I used to. I'm even spending some time wandering the interwebs looking for ideas.

It's been nice. It makes me feel like I'm back to normal. It dawned on me today that last year on this date I had my shoulder surgery. I guess it was at that point that my nail obsession took a hit. It took awhile for my shoulder to be well enough to really make the effort, and by then I was just in a slump about life in general because of the new work sitch, the holidays and frustration about having an arm that didn't work right.

That slump just got extended right on into what I'll call the "puppy months". So now I'm back in "let's do nails" mode. I don't know if that means I'll do them every day, but I'm sure going to be doing them more than once or twice a week.

AND I'm not just going to always do the lazy mani's. I'm going to put some actual effort into them.

Case in point, last night I did another water marble. 

I don't even remember the last time I did one of these marbles. I made sure to start before 9 p.m. because I thought for sure I'd screw some up and have to re-do them.

I started off with Fresh Paint Coconut Kiss for the base and then marbled with that along with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Himalayan Blue, Sinful Colors Cream Soda and Sinful Colors Cool Gray.

Not gonna' lie; I'm pretty proud of the fact that I didn't have to re-do any. Not a single one. It turned out to be one of the easier marbles I've probably ever done.

Some days things just work. It was nice that it went so well, and that might have something to do with my new-found enthusiasm. Oh, and I like it, so that doesn't hurt, either!

I can't decide if I want to take it off and do something else tonight or not. Even though it did see the light of day when I went to work this morning, maybe I should leave it on for when I head up to the car dealership tomorrow. I'm dropping off my car so it can be rustproofed, and they have to install the remote starter which, in some confusing way that I won't get into, did not get installed at the factory.

And anytime I'm in Marquette, that means shopping. I'm not missing an opportunity to go to a Target or a TJ Maxx, and I'm also going to pop into the Ulta store to see if they have any good deals since a friend of mine just posted the other day that she got 5 polishes for 5 bucks. 

Even a person that doesn't need polish (in other words, me) can't pass up a deal like that.

GRADIENT + WATER MARBLE = WIN

Weekend's over. Back to work tomorrow. Blech.

There's also a winter storm watch starting tomorrow, too. I'm hoping it's going to miss me here in Escanaba, the lovely banana belt of the Upper Peninsula. There was a smidge of snow on the ground this morning, and it was snowing when I ran to the store, but thankfully it melted.

I did go to the bar Friday night, and when I was standing outside smoking heard some voices calling my name. Then I heard a voice yell, "Gramma Diane". As it turns out, my grandson was next door. My ex's sons were at his place for the weekend, and they had driven to Marinette to pick him up for the weekend. I chatted with them for a few minutes, and they said they'd come out to visit.

 

I was surprised last night when they actually did come out. Right when they got there, they mentioned that they should have brought Razzie out to visit. I told them that would have been nice, but no big deal. They insisted on driving back into town to get him. I just thought that was super sweet of them.

 

So off they went and came back 20 minutes later, puppy in tow. Obvi I was pretty happy with that sitch. And it was nice to have the boys here for a couple hours. Of course I'm always happy to see Treyson, but I also really do enjoy having Tim's boys around. They're always very nice to me, and his youngest never fails to tell me how much he likes my house because it feels cozy and warm. Adorable coming from an 8th grader.

 

Today was nice because I decided I would actually do nails and take the time to really "do" something.  It's also teal week in the nail group, and I'm playing along.

I thought it might be fun to do a gradient and then water marble over it. It's actually the second time I've done this method in the past month. I just haven't gotten around to showing the other one yet.

My gradient for this one, from light to dark, is China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint, Loreal Now You Sea Me and Sinful Colors Blue Crushin.  For the marble I had to use clear with my white.

Finding a clear that will work in a water marble is torture. I don't have many clear polishes, and none of them were working. As a last ditch attempt, I tried doing it with my Seche Vite topcoat, never figuring it would work since it's a fast dry polish.  But it did! While I'm not a fan of wasting my SV, I'll probably use it from now on when I need a clear for a marble.

I must be feeling back to normal as far as nails because they are back on my mind, and I'm wandering around the web looking for ideas again.  It feels kind of nice to be doing that.

 

Maybe I'll even do something else tomorrow night! I don't even remember the last time I did my nails two days in a row, but I'm going to feel pretty accomplished if I do.

 

I'm hoping that's what happens. I'd really like to get back into blogging more than once or twice a week. Hopefully you'll like if that happens, too.

 

And if not, don't say anything to me about it. What I don't know works just fine for me. 

SOMETHING A BIT DIFFERENT

I am happy to say that on Thursday morning our new bathroom vanity is finally being installed. I will be one happy little camper when I can finally move back into my own bathroom. Right now I have all of my bathroom stuff in the spare bathroom and have been getting ready in there. I am not a fan of it. It's just too small for all my junk. Evidently it takes a whole lot of work and product to make myself look presentable, and it seems like the amount of things really show up when there's no place to put them.

Our deck is pretty much finished, too! All that's really left is to put up something on the sides that cover from the bottom to the ground. I can't think of what it's called at the moment. Duh.

I'm also proud to say that all of my flowers have survived so far. Knock on wood. While we were downstate I got some gorgeous lilies from Kev's aunt. I can't think of what kind they are. There were a whole lot of buds that she had hoped would bloom before the party. We brought them home in a bucket, but it was too late to plant them so I left them sitting outside so I could try to figure out where I could put them. When I woke up yesterday morning, some of them had bloomed. It kind of made me panic about planting them once I realized I simply didn't have room by the garage. This makes me sad because that's where I really see the flowers. 

Immediately when I got home after work yesterday, I grabbed my gardening stuff and cleared a spot along the front of the house and got them planted. I hope they live.

Kev put the steps and platform in the pool yesterday, too. Griffin will be here for the 4th of July, and I'm hoping it'll be warm enough for him to swim. At any rate, at least the dogs will now be able to get in and out so they can. Tinlee has been staring at it longingly, so I know she wants in.

After five days of that coral mani, it was def time for a change.  I thought I'd do something I hadn't done in awhile, use clear for marbling.

First I painted a coat of Sinful Colors white and then sponged on China Glaze Diva Bride pink, Color Zone no name yellow, Sinful Colors Bright Lights blue, Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet green and WetnWild On a Trip purple.  Once that was dry, I topcoated and then did my water marble with a Sally Hansen clear and Orly Liquid Vinyl.

I'm seriously loving this. If I'd had more time, I would have made the effort to do my toenails, too. That is a time-consuming thing that I've only done once, and since it was after midnight, it just wasn't going to happen.

Since I am pleased with how this worked, I'll probably leave it on for a couple of days. Then again, I do have part of a bathroom to paint so maybe not. 

It depends on if my "neat painter" status stays in tact.  I'm going to figure that if I was ever planning to make a mess while painting, it's obviously going to happen when I'm painting near a brand new floor.

Lattice!! That's what the stuff is called for the sides of the deck!!

Whew!! Brain function restored.

SPRINGTIME WATER MARBLE

Winter storm warnings. Really? I'll refrain from shouting out what I'm thinking inside my head about that.  Kind of a minor self-imposed censorship happening.

Well, the water softener lady came out to the house on Tuesday night. That poor girl had a long-ass day. She did a whole bunch of water testing. Evidently the system isn't working at all. Now I don't even have soft water which at least the old system did. I felt bad for her because she's so upset about it. I told her I'm actually afraid to even do laundry. I had thrown in a couple of crappy towels the other night, and when I looked at the machine while it was running, it basically looked like swamp water. In other words, the water was baby-shit green. So yeah....won't be throwing in any laundry I actually care about.

She's thinking maybe we got a defective unit. She said she's never had that happen before, which of course made me bust out laughing. I think she thought I was crazy until I explained to her that this comes as no surprise to me. It's just the kind of shit that happens to us.

So she filled up some bottles of yellow water and went on her merry way back to Iron Mountain. She was going to call headquarters, yada yada yada and then get back to us.  She called us early yesterday while we were on our way to Madison, and she should be at our house right now. I can't wait to get home to hear the solution.

In light of all the lovely winter weather, I decided at least my nails could be springish. 

After throwing on one coat of white, I used some purdy colors for my water marble.  The yellow is Fresh Paint Alex's Lemonade, the green is Essie Naughty Nautical, the purple is Sinful Colors Sweet Tooth and the last is Kleancolor Pastel Pink.

I liked it enough that I left it on for the past couple of days. It really needed to come off Tuesday night, but I was too lazy. I have a bit of tip wear from all the typing I've been doing so hopefully tonight I will motivate.

I also have some new polishes that should arrive today that I was sent to try. They're from a company by the name of "Motives", and they sell polish as well as other beauty stuff. I'm looking forward to trying them and will be posting my results when I do,

So that'll be fun....nice to have a little something to look forward to!

LOVE ME SOME BLURPLE

Hey! Have I mentioned lately that we have "some" snow?? Here's a couple of pics I snapped from my patio door today. It looked worse yesterday, but the bossman was kind enough to come and plow the driveway last night.

This first shot is looking to the right.  That blue thing is the plastic tarp over my deck table. As you can see, there's a "couple" of inches there.

Off to the left is where the majority of the snow builds up from snowblowing and plowing. Baylee doesn't mind plodding her way through that huge-ass snowbank, but Tinlee won't even attempt it anymore. I wish the pic showed how high the snow really is.

I would love nothing more than to wake up and have it magically disappear.

On to the nails!

For Christmas this year one of my lovely nail/Golden Retriever friends sent me a bunch of great polishes. I was happy when I opened the package and saw a fantastic China Glaze "blurple".  I do love me a good blurple. Then I turned it over and saw the name of it and started to giggle. It's called Queen Bee. I have no idea how she managed to find a polish with my "name" on it, but suffice it to say, I love it. The color and the name.

Since I had only swatched it I thought I would attempt a water marble. I pulled 4 colors to go with it, set up my new "work station" in front of my recliner and got to it. Yeah, right.

Sometimes that damn heart water marble comes together, and sometimes I just can't get it to work. I went from 5 colors, to 4 and then tried just 2 colors. No luck with it at all. 

It was at that point I said, "screw it"....all I could see were drops of my precious Queen Bee going to waste. I finally just used the last 2 colors and did the easiest one I know of to do.

At least when I do this pattern, it's a one shot deal with no do-overs. So this is the beautimous China Glaze Queen Bee marbled with Essie Absolutely Shore.

It turned out, and after all of the issues I had been having, I'm happy with it.  I'm betting I will still try to accomplish a heart water marble before the big V-Day.

I'm also betting it will take me many tries and a whole lot of bitching before I get it to work.

BEEN AWHILE WATER MARBLE

Yes, it is still bitter cold here. And yes, I am still over it. Even though I'm happy to go to work this afternoon, the part where I have to leave the house doesn't sound so fun.

I wish I had kept the Equinox instead of Kev taking it. I swear my car has to run for an hour before it gets warm in there. The Nox heats up to a nice, comfortable toasty within 15 minutes even in this cold.

One thing I will say, the new down coat I bought from Eddie Bauer this year is super warm. Thankfully.  It's also snowing a little again, which is pissing me off. I had to shovel again yesterday and don't want to do it again today. Mother Nature is obvi not a fan of mine this year. As soon as Kev leaves, it snows. What the hell.

It has been quite awhile since I took the time to do a water marble. I forgot how much I like them! Evidently I lost the knack for it a bit because this one took me a little longer than usual. I had to redo a couple of the nails a couple of times. At one point I was getting so disgusted Kev told me to "do one hand, take a picture and then just paint them yellow or something". Where he came up with just painting them yellow is anybody's guess. I thought it was hilarious.  I also ignored his idea.  I am nothing if not determined, and once I start a marble, there's no way I'm not going to finish.

I started with a base of Fresh Paint Coconut which I also used along with Orly Gumdrop and Orly Lollipop.  I love all of these individually, and I like how they turned out together.

It's 12:10, and I have to be to work for 1:00. Think if I start my car now it will be warm when I leave here at 12:35?

I'm thinking I'll start it and find out.

OH, MAN.....THE CRAZY PILLS HAVE STRUCK AGAIN!

Ohmagerd....every time I turn around lately, some new weird thing comes up.

While I've been not working, my boss has been having his daughter go in at night to type up any work he has needed done. She's an absolute doll, and if she ever has a question, we text back and forth.  A few weeks ago she advised that the computer was really acting slow, and I gave her a couple of ideas to try to help it run better. She never said anything else about it so I thought maybe the problem had been solved.

Well, on Monday she texted that she had been waiting for 10 minutes for a Word document to open. Um, that's redonk. She also said the internet was next to impossible to use. Not cool. I gave her a few places to call and told her the bossman was just going to have it brought in for a good cleaning.

In the midst of this, she brings up the fact that her dad said I'm coming back on January 6th. WTF?? I told her the entire convo I had with her dad where he asked me to keep getting unemployment for as long as possible and how it was my understanding that I was going to stay off of work until March which is when I would be required to start looking for another job in order to keep getting benefits. Of course, she had no clue about any of this. He's infamous for not passing along info. She said she'd see what she could find out.

Yesterday I got in the shower, and while I was in there, for some reason I thought mabes the bossman would call. Sure enough, I got out and Kev said the office had called. I listened to the message which pretty much just said that Dana had told him I wasn't coming back on the 6th and to please call him to let him know what was happening. Jeebus.

I decided I would go into the office to see if I could fix the computer and talk to him. I was shocked at how happy he seemed to see me. I won't lie; it felt pretty good.  After he asked about my shoulder, I asked if he was trying to put me in a loony bin. Then I sat at the computer and told him I'd try to fix it. I also walked in as he needed help with the copier, and he also needed me to open the safe because even though he has the combo, he couldn't open it. 

It took me almost 2 hours to fix the computer. I don't know if his part-time phone answerer downloaded a bunch of garbage or what, but it took me forever to uninstall all the shit that was in it, including a couple of those "go online and we'll fix your pc" programs. But it's fixed now, so he was pretty happy about that. 

I was also horrified at how all of my office stuff was moved all around like I was never coming back. Rearranged a bunch of things that were set up the way I want them. It took me a half hour just to find a friggin' rubber band. Seriously, what the hell! After 24 years I have quite a bit of personal stuff there; I really do not appreesh whoever going through and moving my stuff. AT ALL. If you know somebody is coming back to work, why would you think it's okay to go through someone's shit?

I ended up working the rest of the day, and I am now going to work on Thursdays for the time being. He'll just pay me hourly, and we'll figure out our next step at the beginning of March. I think I'm allowed to work a certain number of hours and then unemployment would pay partial benefits, but I'm not really sure how that works.

I do have to say it felt good to do some work. I'm thinking I was missing it more than I thought I was. I'm also thinking that even though being off for the past 7 weeks was nice during recovery and the busy holidays, I might ultimately get very bored not working at all. So we'll see how things go.

'Nuff of that. One of the holiday mani requests from back in October was a Christmas colors water marble. So here that is.

I think this turned out. Kinda sorta. I only did my left hand which is what I always do when I'm doing the request mani's, and I may have redone the middle and ring fingers if I were going to actually wear it, but it served its purpose as is.

I used Sally Hansen Cherry Red, the green is Sinful Colors Rise and Shine, and the gold is Loreal Because You're Worth it. I don't much like marbling with red because I don't like how it tends to alter the other colors, but it's not too bad. I was just glad they didn't ask for white with the red because that is always a problem for me.

I really wish I could motivate myself to do my nails. I'm still wearing the black/gold I did for New Year's Eve. 

If anyone has a suggestion to snap me out of this damn slump, speak up!!