ANOTHER UNDER-RATED....HAVE YOU EVER SEEN IT?

Holidays are exhausting. Tyler and the fam have been here since Wednesday, and as usual, we are staying up until the weeeeeee hours. It's ridiculous. As if my lack of sleep wasn't already messing with me enough. At this stage of the game, my body isn't sure when it's night or when it's day. I'm sleepy at 4 p.m. and wide awake at 4 a.m. Last night Tyler got back here around 1:30, I think. After we sat and watched some tv, she decided to do a bit of cleaning for me so I stayed up to keep her company. I think it was almost 6 when I finally went to bed. So yup, I is tired.

The other day when I took off Grey's Anatomy I was just looking through ye' ol' polish stash for something to throw on. It's still not easy for me to do my nails, so I'm trying to stick to plain. I completely forgot I had this. I don't think I've ever used it. I'm sure it was a random "wander through Walmart" grab.

This black is Sally Hansen Night Lights, and it is seriously a nice holo in person. And it probs cost me around $2 instead of the $8-$15 I usually pay for a holo.  Is it as striking as something like the Color Club Halo's or by an indie polish maker? Nope! But if you want to just walk into a store and pay a normal amount for a "fancier" polish, I suggest this one.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. If you braved Black Friday, hopefully you came out with no bruises or broken bones. Personally I don't go out shopping during that mess. I tend to sit home and see what great deals I can snag on the interwebs. 

And snag I did. I also found myself buying for myself because some of the deals were just too good to pass up. I think at last count I had bought myself 4 or 5 new sweaters. Shameful!!

I still have quite a few people to buy for, and writing this was a nice, much needed little break. Time to eat some dinner and perhaps try to finish up a few more people. 

I'll be glad when I'm done shopping and when life in general goes back to normal. Maybe then I can get back to tending the blog like I was before. I hate that I'm not getting as many entries in as before.

A blog without new entries just isn't any fun!

A MANI FOR JULES

I'm pretty sure that in the past I've mentioned the many wonderful people I've met online either through the nail or Golden Retriever communities, all starting 3 1/2 years ago when I got Tinlee. In that time, they have become some of the most important people in my life. Some I've had the pleasure of meeting in person, and others simply take the time to share their joys, their sorrows and their lives with me. They allow me to do the same and have shown  kindness to me in many different ways.

One of these beautiful people is MJ. I first encountered her via our mutual love of Goldens, and she owns two gems, Jazz and Jules. They even have their own Facebook page!  She has never failed to make me smile with the pictures she posts. She even got sucked into the nail community so I get double doses of her.

Sadly, in what seems to be the blink of an eye, Jules went from seeming fine to a cancer diagnosis that took him from MJ, Larry and Jazz just a few days ago. Just as that filthy scum of a disease took my Shannie from me too young at age 8, it took Jules just a little shy of 7 years old.  Shocking does not begin to describe it. Devastating does not begin to describe it. There simply are no words.  

Once again a group of people from all over the country who have never met sobbed together for a beloved furbaby we didn't have the pleasure of ever seeing in person. The tears flow again as I do this post. Once again Kevin looked over at me like I'm a crazy person as I dissolved into gulping sobs that didn't even allow me to speak to tell him what was wrong. I hate it. I could throw out a bunch of expletives here to emphasize how much I hate it, but I'll spare you the many four letter words I use when this happens.

I'm sure there are many who think it's ridiculous to get so worked up. Those of you who have pets that they love will not think it's ridiculous. It's a fact of life for us; we love our pets with the same depth that we love our people. Yes, perhaps it is a different kind of love, but that loss is felt just as strongly. They are our family. If you don't "get it", I think that's your loss because you're missing out on a bond that only can happen between a pet and their human. 

I'll get off my soapbox now. The purpose of this post is simply to show my love and sympathy.  I'm sincerely hoping MJ won't mind that I've stolen a few pictures of Jules for this post; it was done with love.

This is Jules....such a handsome boy.

Here are some of the many smiles that were given to so many over the years. It was just a couple of weeks ago that I had shared these with the hubby.

And this is one of the most hauntingly beautiful pictures I think I have ever seen, taken only a month ago. Beautiful Jules, absolutely bathed in what to me looks like a heavenly light. This one makes me cry when I look at it.

And finally, what I could manage as a mani that wasn't just plain using my gimpy arm. Not nearly as special as I would like, but it was done with love nonetheless.

The gold is a polish I got online from Frederick's of Hollywood, Starlet and then I used Out the Door Northern Lights holographic topcoat in Gold before adding the puppy pawprints.

And now that I've one-handed typed this, I'm off to throw some cold water on my face and dry my eyes. Again.

You were loved by many, Jules!

SADLY, SO UNDER-RATED

It's good to know I am still not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. I don't know why I was thinking that my recovery time should be much more miraculous than what anybody said it would/should be. I slept in bed for the past couple of nights, and I actually slept for two hours both times without waking up. Of course, other than those two consecutive hours per night, a lot of wake-ups were still happening.

Overall, though, my arm actually was feeling quite good. As I explained to the hub, my actual shoulder never did hurt either before or after the surgery. It's always been from the shoulder down to my wrist that had pain, and according to the doc, that's the norm. For those first 5 days after surgery, holy shitballs....it was like the world's worst toothache radiating down my arm whether I was moving or not.

Cut to Tuesday, where I found that my arm was feeling pretty damn good. It made me wonder why on earth I could possibly need this sling for the probable two months. I did leave it on except when changing clothes just like I was told, though. Unfortunately, me in a sling means little if I'm not in pain, and I found myself moving and using my right arm and hand quite a bit. 

Back to "I'm an idiot". On Wednesday my arm was throbbing pretty good when I was trying to sleep, and Thursday it hurt more again. Even the top of my actual shoulder hurts a little now. Methinks I made a mistake thinking I was all cool and shit because I could move so well. Lesson learned. I'm going to really have to try and concentrate on not using it even if it feels fine. I googled it. Yup. Mistake made; lesson for sure learned.

Today I'm just showing a polish I threw on last week. I've had it forever, and I think it is the first multichrome I ever bought. With all of the fancy, pricier duo and multi's out there that we all rave about, this little beauty has never gotten its fair share of praise. It's kind of a shame. If you don't own it, run your bunz over to Walmart and grab it. I think I paid around $2 for it. Keep reading to see what it is. ;)

Of course, I couldn't capture all of its beauty, but I tried. There are several colors that the camera just wouldn't pic up.

This one rivals any of my other color shifters and cost a whole lot less than most of them. That doesn't mean I don't want some more of those expensive ones, but people really should make more of a fuss over this one. 

I suppose you might want to know what this cheap little beauty is. After I did underwear of Orly Liquid Vinyl, this is two coats of Wet n Wild Gray's Anatomy. Seriously....go buy it. You won't be sorry.

I'm dying to do my nails and stamp on them or something. Anything! I just wander around looking at nails and then pouting because mine are still naked. Maybe today I'll try again, but if it hurts at all, I have to make myself stop.

Like I said; lesson learned.

I'M BACK FOR A HOT MINUTE

It's really difficult to do a lot of typing with just one hand because it simply takes way too long, but since I had a mani in the wings, I thought I'd at least pop in to say "hi".

Surgery was last Wednesday, and it went pretty well, I think. I guess I won't really know for sure until time goes by and I see whether or not my arm goes back to proper working order. Bad news, my rotator cuff was torn which is what we were hoping would not be the case. He repaired that and also removed a bone spur. I guess just having the bone spur is what I was expecting based on the MRI. I don't go back in until the 3rd so hopefully I will get more info then since right now I feel like I know nothing. Other than it hurts like a mo-fo.

For some reason I thought that right after surgery sleep would be in my future. Wrong! Oh, so wrong. My arm still hurts much worse at night, and now it's stuck in a sling so I can't even move around to try to make it better. I did manage to sleep for 2 whole hours in a row last night. Sad though it is, that's a win at this point.

Before I had my surgery, I did this water marble specifically so I'd have something to post. I would have shown it before now, but it also hadn't occurred to me that trying to do a blog post with one hand would be time-consuming, and I just haven't had that kind of ambition. I miss doing it, though, so I'm sucking it up for today.

I started off with my fave neutral, OPI My Vampire is Buff.  I was in the mood for some kind of Army green and grabbed OPI Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window, OPI Stranger Tides and Sinful Colors Nirvana.

Looking at this is really making me want to do my nails. I did do one hand the other day because I had forgotten to do one for CNS that I had promised to get to them. It was a painful process just doing the one hand. I guess you don't notice how you're moving until you do it wrong. For now my nails are naked which is really bugging me, but I don't think it's worth hurting myself just to do them.

It's not like I'm going anywhere.

THIS IS SPECTAC - I'VE OUTDONE MA'SELF

Finally heard from the hospital this morning. They did the usual run through with me, "do you have this", "have you ever had that", "what medications do you take", and on and on and on.

Once we finished up with that always boring bit of business, she told me to be at the hospital at 2 p.m. That's right, 2 p.m. At first I was really happy about it because I honestly thought they would make me be there at 6 or 7, which would have suuuccckkkkeeeed.

After thinking about it, now I'm not quite as happy because it means I won't even get home until at least 10 p.m. For some unknown reason that really chaps my ass. Oh, well. I just want it over with.

I considered saving this one for some other time, but I just can't do it. I'm too in love with it to not share. And you even get a half-assed tutorial with it! How lucky are you all feeling right about now?

TA-DA!! Here's what I ended up with!

And here's just a shot of it all by itself in its full-size glory. Hot damn, this is one fantabulous mani!!

The glitter polish base is two coats of Studio M Magic Attraction. It is a really pretty glitter, one of my favorites. I just used Sally Hansen black on top of the striping tape.

I actually copied the design off of a Konad plate that I love and had to have specifically for this pattern. And like everything else on my Konad plates, the design is way too tiny for my nails. So yeah, I'm loving this.

Oh, for cripes sake. I'm in the middle of typing this and just got an email that this is already up on the Nail It magazine webpage. Sheesh. That kind of takes the fun out of putting it here. 

Nail It has told me to submit any tutorials I do from now on. After I finished this one up on Saturday night, I emailed it to my contact person.  She didn't waste any time using it.

Can't say I blame her; it's friggin' gorg. IMHO, of course.

UNUSUAL ONE FOR ME

Last week the boss' daughter came in to visit. A few months ago she spent some time in the office doing some of the work while she was looking for a new job. She got a good job so off she went. Well, she stopped in to ask about working in the evenings while I'm off work for "two weeks". Somewhere along the line between my boss, his wife and her, two months turned into two weeks. In other words, after I was nice enough to postpone my surgery so he'd have time to find somebody, somebody still hadn't been found. Unreal.

When he came back after lunch I mentioned that she had stopped in, and he said that he was going to have her come in at night to do the typing. Um...okay. He still hadn't found anybody to actually "work" during the day. He informed me that his goal was "to not panic" when I leave. 

Today I texted his daughter to wish her a happy birthday, and she asked me if I knew that he'd found someone. What? Honest to God, he is enough to drive a person to drink. Excessively. Evidently his son's girlfriend is just going to come in and answer phones 5 hours a day, and Dana will come in at night and do the typing. And people wonder why I feel bad when I leave. Sheesh. He's like a child sometimes. But I guess I don't have to worry about it anymore. Dana knows she can text or call me, and I'll help her if she has any questions.

The biggest stress on my mind now is the whole unemployment thing. I've never had to get that before, and I guess I have to apply for jobs and prove it twice a month. Um, I don't want a new job, people. So I'm freaked out by that whole process.

The weekend was quite uneventful. Got the house cleaned on Friday, and that pretty much sums up the extent of my ambition. I did manage to make some tuna salad last night so I have something to eat without having to cook after the surgery. Next up to cook will be some chili soup. Other than those two things, maybe I'll just live on sammiches. 

I was determined to get a couple of mani's done over the weekend, and I did do three. I was just kind of messing around trying different things, and some of those were epic failures. If everything I tried would have actually worked, I probably would have six to post. Oh, wellz; not everything works every time.

I have quite a few of the stamping plates with the French tip designs on them. I used one many months ago and wasn't overly excited about it. I found it difficult to get them on straight across. On Saturday I decided I'd give it another try.

It's funny how in the pic it looks like I didn't paint my nails. Those of you with the Custom nails in pink know that they look quite similar to how these look here. Actually, they are painted with Sinful Colors Glass Pink. It's super light and has a slight shimmery sparkle to it. Photo fail!!

Then I tried stamping with an off-white OPI because I wanted the tip design to be subtle. It didn't show up at all, so I called that too subtle.  I decided I'd better use my actual stamping polish to make it show up. It still ended up not quite bold enough, but in person it wasn't bad.

I had a really hard time deciding which tip design to use, too. There are several cute ones in the bunch I have, but I like this one from the Bundlemonster BM216 plate.

While it isn't a very exciting mani, it is dainty and I suppose might be cute for a wedding mani or some such nonsense.  Of course before I found out about all this nail stuff, I would have thought this was the best shit ever! Now, not so much.

I have a couple of good mani's left to show, and I'm just going to say this much; one of them is a showstopper! I'm not sure if I'll post it tomorrow in case I'm out of commission for a bit or if I'll hold on to it for when I come back, but I think it's one of the grooviest mani's I've ever done.

Consider yourself teased.

A LAST MINUTE "LOVE IT"

I really hate stupid people.  And last night I discovered that I am a stupid people. As I'm sure you're tired of reading about, my effing arm hurts! Not a news flash, I know. Well, last night Kev was asking how it was doing, and I was telling him how it just hurts all the time now. Then I was saying how I had never let it go this long; before I would have gotten a cortisone shot and never given it a chance to get this bad.

So yeah, it was right about at that moment where I said, "Ya' know, if I was smart, I would have asked the doctor if I could get just one more shot to hold me over until surgery."  Great idea, right? Would anybody care to explain to me why the hell I didn't think of that brilliant, logical idea before now? I mean, it's pointless now, but holy shitballs; I could have saved myself a whole lot of pain and sleepless nights if I had even half of a brain. I'm so pissed at myself!

On a brighter note, though, instead of taking one Tylenol with codeine before bed last night I popped two of those suckers and slept a little better. Woop.

We were watching the telly last night and I dozed off in the middle of a show and slept kind of off and on for about 90 minutes. It was a restless nap because my arm kept waking me up, but when I finally decided to stay awake, I hadn't even thought about what to do on my nails.

I took off the red and gold, but then I just still felt kind of sleepy and unmotivated until suddenly it was midnight, and I still had naked nails. Well, that's not good! (like I said, I am a stupid people)

My Essie Good as Gold was sitting on the end table next to me, and since I didn't feel like going to search for anything else, I slapped on two coats of that, topcoated and planned on just going with that.

Of course I couldn't just leave it alone. I went and grabbed my DRK-A plate, my MASH black stamping polish and quickly did what I have here. It went really fast, so I still got to bed at my normal time.

I actually love this pretty damn much. I don't think I've used this pattern before. It's one of those that cover a nice amount of the nail but still let the base color show through, and those are usually my faves.  Yup, a last minute winner, in my opinion.

Now it's Friday; I've cleaned the whole house because I'm thinking I won't want to be doing that next weekend. I was probs funny to watch while doing it. I was trying to use just my left hand and not move my right arm. Holy-moly, that was hard! I am definitely not so coordinated without my right hand. 

I think I will go make some peanut butter cookies for supper just because they sound delightful and I can't think of anything "real" food that sounds as good as those.

Peanut butter = protein. Justified!