IT'S NEW YEAR'S EVE - BFD

I find the new year holiday a complete waste of time 99% of the time. I'm only going to give it a 1% thumbs up because a couple of years ago Kev and I were in Ludington, Michigan at his mom's, and we went downtown to their ball drop. Now, this may seem like a no biggie kind of thing since Ludington is a very small town, but the Mitten Bar actually made the top 8 in the country for places to go for a ball drop. Kinda' cool.

Today I headed up to the ortho doc to have my shoulder checked. That went very well. He was shocked at how much movement I have, and I don't even have to go to physical therapy. All he said is to keep doing whatever the hell I've been doing and no lifting for awhile. Let my pain be my guide. I wish I would have had that damn surgery 2 years ago....would have saved myself a whole lot of pain. So that's a wrap on the shoulder issue. I don't have to see him any further unless I run into a problem which is highly unlikely at this point unless I lift something and re-tear it. SO not gonna' happen.

I did take some (a/k/a a LOT) of time last night to do a sparkly mani since I'm going to dinner with my mom, bro, sis and her hubster tonight. If things go as they usually do, I'll be home by 8:30 at the latest.  Tomorrow Kev gets home, and we'll eat turkey dinner at my sister's. Be still my heart.

For this one I did two coats of  China Glaze Medallion. Then I used striping tape and went over it with black. I liked it at first, but I liked my black/silver herringbone one a whole lot better.

I probs should have done something with one of my holiday stamps but nothing really got me excited. I wish something had because it would have been a whole lot faster than this thing was.

Not that it really matters that it took some time. It was Tyler's last night here so we sat up and watched movies until way too late anyway.

Now I'm off to get ready for dinner.  After that, I'll wait for the new year to start, and while I don't do resolutions, I will be wishing on a star for a better year than 2013 has been.

Happy New Year to all of you!!!

MADE FOR A "QUEEN", a/k/a ME!!!

I officially feel special! Over the past year, 20 of us in my nail group decided to send birthday giftage to each other. My birthday was December 26th, so it was a long-ass wait for my surprises. It was well worth the wait, and this is just one of the reasons why.

Too Cute-icle makes some fab polishes, as you already know from when I did a review of three of them awhile back.  One of the sneaks in the group had her make a polish just for me!! The name of this purple gorgeousness is "Queenly".  For whatever silly reason, somehow I've acquired the nickname Queen in a couple of nail places on Facebook. Queen Bee, Queen Bitch...take your pick. It works for either depending on my mood, I suppose. Either way I don't mind. It's not like I can deny the bitch part of it. LOL

I probs should have waited to post this one until I could photograph it in the sunshine since it's a holo, but I couldn't wait to show off a polish made just for me. It's such a gorgeous "royal" shade! It's packed full of glittery flecks that I'm still waiting to see the full effect of since it's just been cloudy, cold and gloomy here.

When you have a birthday on December 26th, it can tend to be a bit of a letdown. Growing up I didn't get shortchanged on giftage, but I never got a birthday cake or a party. Seriously, with a house full of of holiday baked goods, the last thing my mom wanted to do was bake a damn cake. And it certainly wasn't a great time to throw a party.

As a "grownup", after all the busy-busy of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, when I wake up on the 26th, I kind of just lay around and try to recover from everything. It was fun this year having a bunch of little surprises to open.  

Like I said, I officially feel special. :)

O' CHRISTMAS TREE

This will be a short post in the few seconds I have before I trot my happy ass back out to the kitchen.  I've been a baking fool the past couple of days, and I'm in the home stretch. My dinner rolls are shaped, and I'm just waiting for them to finish rising so I can bake them. And then eat them. Because they are a delight. 

Before I get to bake those, I have to finish dipping marshmallows in white chocolate for my brother. I think it was 5 years ago when he was saying how much he loves chocolate covered marshmallows and can never find any. Because I'm a genius, I decided I would attempt to make those for him. I think that year I just did milk chocolate. He went batshit for them so it makes me feel obligated to do that for him every year. At some point he decided he likes the white chocolate ones I did the best so I get to skip the brown ones. I already did one dipping on two bags of marshmallows, and now I have to go get the double dipping done.

Since he is even more obsessed with white chocolate covered Oreos which are only sold at Christmas, I decided I'll try a package of those this year, too. Hopefully I do not regret this decision. lol

In the meantime, here's a mani I did with striping tape for CNS back in October. I almost forgot to post it.  I guess it's now or never because I won't have any time tomorrow for a post.

Painted them red, slapped on some striping tape, painted them green and called it a Christmas tree.  I used a yellow rhinestone for the top and called it a day. It turned out the way they wanted it, so that's good. I think if I were to do it on my own, I'd jazz it up a little, but whatevs.

So now I'm off to finish the baking. I really want to wrap it up so I can at least make an attempt at a Christmas mani for tomorrow. Late last night I just slapped on a coat of red, but I want something a little more interesting than that for Christmas. Sheesh. A plain color for a holiday? 

I think not!

SOOO TIRED OF WRAPPING

OMG, we (in other words, I) buy waaayyyy too many presents at Christmas time. We buy for everybody in the family, and I have a tendency to get just a smidge carried away. Growing up I probs didn't realize it so much, but my siblings and I were pretty damn spoiled. My Christmas morning always had wrapped packages from the tree all the way to the middle of the living room for the three of us kids. To me that was just normal.  Even though I knew it was more than my friends got from Santa, when you're 7 or 8 you don't make the "spoiled" connection.

Once I got older, got married and had the girls, the going overboard with gifts just continued on. Hell, it still goes on. I cook Christmas Eve dinner, and everybody comes. It's wonderful even though my house isn't really big enough for 10 adults and 3 grandkids. When we're finished eating, my mom and siblings give the grandkids their presents to open, and then they head off to church while my daughters and their families head out to their dad's.  A bit later the girls and hubbies come back and we exchange gifts, and then we all go to my mom's usually around 10 p.m., we eat some snacks and then we open our gifts. The packages still go to the middle of the living room. 

We always take turns opening, and there are 10 of us adults doing it, and there were many years when it took until 3 a.m. to finish up. We try to do it a bit quicker now because my girls have the other sides of their respective families to be with the next day. Lack of sleep is always an issue. For myself, I don't care. It's once a year, and I'm going to enjoy it as much as I can. My mom is 85, and I don't want to take a minute of our traditions for granted. That being said, she's a very young 85, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if she outlived most of us. lol

It's excessive and ridiculous and I love it. I love, love, love buying for everybody.  Ever year I say I should cut back, but it never happens. This year I spent more than ever before. I just can't seem to help myself. It's just so much fun watching them open! Griffin is 3 now so he should really be fun to watch, and Peyton is 8 so she'll be a joy, too. Treyson is 14, so that childlike attitude is switching to a bit more grown up. He is a freshman in high school; I guess he wasn't going to stay little forever no matter how much I willed it.

Now that I'm probs going to be jobless, we'll see what happens next year since I won't have the money I usually set aside every week specifically targeted for Christmas shopping. I'll try my damndest, tho.

Now, as much as I like the gift giving, I do not particularly care for the wrapping. It takes hours and hours, and I always end up with a very sore back from sitting on the floor doing it.  

CNS requested this mani, and doing this wrapping was a lot less work.

This was another one of those "quickie" mani's before my surgery so I didn't even bother taking note of what I used. They asked for red, green and purple. So that's what I did. Pretty basic. I had to do the bows freehand, and as you probs know, I am not a fan of my freehand work. So for me it's just kind of "meh".

For some reason last week my right index nail came loose. Apparently all this sitting around took its toll. Weird. I pulled it off and set it on my end table so I could reapply it. A few minutes later Baylee wanders over to the table and for some reason decided she should steal it. WTF? I look over and she's chomping, and it took me a minute to realize what she probably had. Luckily she decided it didn't taste so delish and dropped it on the rug. Thank God they are guaranteed to not break because even though I saw her chewing, there wasn't a mark on it. I'm glad she didn't swallow the damn thing. I have an extra one, but still....

And I don't think Kev would have appreciated me having him "search for it" in the snow, if ya' know what I mean.

Hey! Don't forget to please go vote for my snowflake mani over at the China Glaze contest if you haven't already! :)

HOLLY AND BERRIES - A WINNING COMBO

Let the actual Christmas festivities begin!!! Yesterday we hopped in the car for our annual trek to lower Michigan to do the holidays with Kev's side of the fam. We left home around 9:30 a.m. and got to his sister's at 4:30 p.m. Lordie, I really hate long car rides. At least the roads were good.

Once we arrived we hung out for a bit and then headed out for dinner at a sushi place. Sushi = YUMMERS. I really wanted a steak to go with it, but per my usual luck lately, they were out of filet. Seriously. The restaurant was out of steak. On a Wednesday. Good Lord. So I doubled up on my sushi, which also took a hit because "white tuna" was crossed off the menu. Naturally it was; it's my fave. The regular tuna and the yellowtail were delightful, though, so I didn't complain. 

Today we are going to head out to do some Christmas shopping for his family. The gift sitch with this side of the family is much more laid-back, and we always seem to do it last minute, which I hate. No matter how many times I ask what we're doing starting right around Thanksgiving, I never get any ideas from anybody and nobody tells me what the plans are, so we end up shopping the day before. Drives me a wee bit crazy. But we'll get 'er done tomorrow.

We're staying here in Kalamazoo for another night, and then on Friday we'll head up to Grand Rapids to my other sis-in-law's house. There will be a completely ridic amount of food throughout the day; we'll all gain 7 pounds or more; and then we'll exchange gifts. I'm looking forward to seeing everybody. We'll spend the night there and then head back home on Saturday.

I finally did my nails on Sunday night, and for once I'm actually pleased with the freehand work I did. So much so that I left the mani on for the whole week. I thought this was cute enough to wear for the trip and didn't bring a single item with me to change them out. I like them that much.

I started this look with two coats of Loreal Because You're Worth It, which is a really nice shimmery gold. It tends to be one of those polishes that show the brush strokes, but I took care of that issue with a coat of Seche Vite.  

Recently I've been doing some shopping over at Nomorerack, and I've really been getting some great deals. I bought a set of 6 flameless votive candles for $9, and what's really cool is they aren't just plastic. They are actually wax and vanilla scented. I also found some toys and a few clothing items that were seriously a steal.  I love the site; shit-tons of stuff and $2 shipping. They also do 3 hour segments almost daily where shipping is free, and they send you an email to let you know when. Awesome-sauce.

I digress. While I was perusing Nomorerack, I came across a few different sets of nail art pens. I decided to get the set that had 5 pens, red, green, blue, white and silver.  I was pretty excited to try them out. You can either open them to use an actual brush or just pull off the top to get a super fine, almost needle like applicator. I tested out making holly leaves on a paper plate. Once I decided I could actually do it, I freehanded leaves on all of my nails. 

Originally I had planned to do the berries with the red pen, but then I remembered I had small red rhinestones. I'm glad I used the stones because it added a little something more than just polish would have.

I was happy when I finished, and I'm still happy with it four days later. I've gotten quite a few compliments on them, too. I also should point out that I have absolutely no tip wear. That Loreal polish is really holding up great.

So yeah....love them. But as much as I do, you just know I'll be very happy to take them off when I get home.

It's 1:15 a.m., and I suppose I should head off to bed. I'm hoping I'll be able to sleep since there's no recliner here, and I haven't slept in a bed for quite some time. If Kev snores, I'm screwed for sure. I was tired quite awhile ago, but I wanted to get a post in here once everybody else was off to dreamland so I could concentrate on the business at hand. I also highly doubt I'll get a chance to post again this week amidst all the hustle and bustle of our early Christmas.

You know I'll try, though. I do already have manicures lying in wait. I just need 15 minutes of quiet time to write something to go along with them.

Quiet time + family + Christmas = not likely.

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!

QUICKIE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

Well, the end of my year is ending on an interesting note. 

On Wednesday I finally went back for my follow-up EGD on my ulcer. I was supposed to do that in September, but life got in the way.  It hasn't healed. Super. Another round of some new meds, and I get to have that redone again in February. *sigh*

Another "awesome" thing happened on Monday. I got a call from the bossman who started off the convo by asking how long I can get unemployment. Okay....weird question. I told him I have 16 more weeks of full benefits. He then proceeds to tell me that he has decided to retire at the end of 2014. I was shocked, but I didn't think it was so major that he'd have to tell me 2 weeks before Christmas. And then he says he won't have a full-time employee anymore. He's just going to do court appointments which don't really require very much work so he's just going to get someone 20-25 hours a week. I am still in shock. For lack of a better answer at the moment, I told him I'd finish out my full benefits on unemployment but would probs want to work the 25 hours a week and finish out with him. I mean, it's been 24 years. I can't imagine  not being there at the end.  Of course, I don't know  moneywise what will be best, if I should try to find another job which is damn near impossible here or just what I should do. I'm like a lost puppy right now.  Merry Effing Christmas.

On a better note, my shoulder seems to be doing pretty well. I haven't been wearing my sling at all for the past few days. It moves pretty well, but I still have to be careful.

Back in October I let CNS know that I'd be out of nail commission and that if they wanted any Christmas mani's they'd have to let me know so I could get them done before surgery. They asked for several, so I knocked them out over a couple of evenings.

For this I started off with Sally Hansen Cherry Red and then used Kleancolor Metallic Green and Metallic Yellow, OPI Blue My Mind and 10 Professional Put a Ring on It for the Christmas lights.

It was a bit of a rush job, and I could have done it better if I wasn't trying to get things done quickly. But it is what it is, which lately is turning into my attitude about everything.

Now I'm sitting here with naked nails since Monday when I put them on. I couldn't wear polish for the EGD, and I'm finding myself so totally uninspired that I haven't done anything. I've looked at hundreds of holiday themed nails over the past week, but I'm just not feelin' it. I think I'm just overwhelmed with everything right now; the arm, the ulcer, the dentist, the job, the holidays....just too much all at once.

End of today's whine session.