OH, CHRISTMAS TREE?

Thankfully our "huge" winter storm turned out to be pretty minor. I think we probably got about 4-5 inches at my house. It is pretty chilly out there, though....not a fan.

As expected, the only creatures in my house that were happy about the white stuff were the dogs. Zero had fun chasing the laser light through it, and Baylee always has a good time rolling around in it. Tinlee simply doesn't seem to care one way or another.

The plow went by our house right before I had to leave for work. Luckily my Outback had no problem plowing through what he dumped at the end of my driveway. By the time I went home for lunch, the neighbor had removed all of that, and Kevin and Griffin were bundled up to go shovel and snowblow. They were still outside when I went back to work, and Griff seemed to be having a pretty good time playing in his first snowfall of the year. Oh, to be young again.

Before I did the Christmas lights mani, I had taken a few minutes to throw on a red with an abstracty kind of tree for my two days of work last week.

When Kev and I had bebopped up to Marquette the week before Christmas, we made our usual stop at TJ Maxx, mostly so I could check out their polish offerings. 

They didn't really have much of anything, but I did manage to pick up several Orly and a couple of OPI. This deep red is Orly Smolder, and by itself it has a real nice shimmer to it. I used Essie Good as Gold and the Uber Chic Christmas 01 plate for the tree.

I had a dickens of a time trying to center that damn tree and had a couple of do-overs that needed to be done. I briefly considered adding rhinestones for ornaments but decided against it.

Right now I'm wearing snowflakes again. I can't decide if I want to change them up before we head to lower Michigan tomorrow or if I just want to be lazy and leave them as they are.

After work I'll probably spend 30 minutes staring at all of my stamping plates looking for a New Year's idea.

And then just do nothing.

CHRISTMAS EVE SHENANIGANS

This year for sure will go down in our family as having the most interesting Christmas Eve. For one thing, we still have NO snow. Like not even a speck. Evidently that is going to change sometime today, as we are under the threat of a pretty huge storm starting this afternoon and extending into tomorrow afternoon.

My bossman was very nice and let me stay home on the 23rd so that I could get ready for the family Christmas Eve. All day Wednesday I cleaned and baked, making sure I had everything done so that all that would need doing on the 24th was the actual cooking of the dinner.

Around midnight, Tyler and I were just hanging out watching tv, and I decided I would actually do a holiday mani that took some actual effort. While I was doing that, Tyler started doing her gift wrapping. All was going great, and I was in the middle of putting rhinestones on my 6th nail, when we heard a loud "pop" outside, the lights flickered, and then the  entire neighborhood went black. A few minutes later we heard another pop, this crazy-ass wind kicked up and we had a downpour of what sounded like hail that lasted for probably 30 seconds.

I immediately grabbed my phone to go to the power company website to report the outage. It was 2:45 a.m. At that point their website gave an estimated time of 3:45 a.m. for the power to come back on. We saw the power company's truck go up and down the street a few times during the next half hour. My battery operated holiday lighted items were still on, of course, and I grabbed the one battery lantern I own so we weren't in complete darkness. Kev woke up when the power shut off, and he went out to the garage and came back in with a propane lantern he had picked up when he went downstate during hunting season. That thing was super bright, and I sat with that and finished the rest of my rhinestones while Tyler wrapped by the light of the smaller lantern.

I've never had the power be out for more than a couple of hours, and I had no reason to believe this time would be any different.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

When we finally wandered off to bed at 7 a.m., the lights were still out, and the website gave no indication as to when they'd return. I got out of bed right before 11 a.m. because I was freezing and got up to find still no power, which in my house also means no running water because there's no power to the pump.

The power was out in quite a few places throughout the Upper Peninsula due to high winds, but ours was the first to go. Unfortunately we were not the first to be fixed. I called my sister to let her know what was happening and to find out if we could move the festivities to her house since I obviously couldn't cook without power. We saw a truck head down our road with a new power line pole on it at about 2:30 p.m., so Kev hopped in the car to go see what was up. A ginormous tree had split in half and fallen on the power line, snapping the pole. Since they had to remove the old pole, put up a new one and then reattach everything, it was pretty obvious our power wasn't going to be back on anytime soon. We loaded up all of the food and headed to my sister's house where we were both able to take showers.

After dinner, we let my grandkids open their gifts from everyone, and by the time we got home at 7:30, power had been restored. It hadn't been on for very long because it was still only 62 degrees in the house, but at least life was back to normal, and my daughters and their hubbies were able to come over at 9 p.m. to open gifts with us before heading over to my mom's at 11 p.m. for more food and more giftage. We got home from there about 2:30 a.m. and finally got to bed around 3:00.

Christmas Day was nice and normal; dinner at mom's and present opening and then home at a normal hour. As usual, by then I was tired of all the running around and just happy to be home.

So here's my done-in-the-dark Christmas mani.

The green is a lovely holo I got from Anonymous Lacquer, Baby Vamp. I did the light strand with my Uber Chic Christmas 01 stamping plate and then used rhinestones for the lights.

I'm pretty amazed at how well this one lasted. I lost only one rhinestone, and that was when I was rough-housing with Seven who came to play with Zero on Saturday. I finally took it off yesterday.

I hope your holiday was merry and bright, and I wish for you all nothing but great things in the upcoming new year.

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.

LOVE ME SOME ARGYLE

Somebody should have let my stomach know that the egd says my ulcers have healed. I spent most of the weekend sick, in pain and on the verge of throwing up. Maybe I picked up a bug at the hospital. All I know is I was miserable.

That stopped me from leaving the house in the pouring rain, but I got a lot done in spite of it. I wrapped everything I had (of course I now have tons more to wrap), did the laundry, soaked off my nails and reapplied them. I even decided to risk throwing my tulle and lace shower curtain in the washing machine because I couldn't figure out a decent way to hand wash it. I was very happy that it came out beautifully clean, undamaged and with no wrinkles. Whew! 

My new camera came yesterday. Holy-moly that is a lot of camera for me to figure out. I need my how-to book for dummies to get here. It definitely seems to photograph beautifully with truer color than my old camera. I told Kev I need to paint my nails purple as soon as I have time. That'll be the true test! 

We also went looking for a new couch last night. I figured we'd probably have to order one, but they had one in the store that we liked. It's being delivered on Thursday morning, so new couch for me for Christmas! Now I have to decide whether or not I want to try to teach the dogs to stay off of it. That is a much bigger decision than it seems. I know I'm going to feel like a real shit-heel if I don't let them lay on it. But I also know that the only reason I even needed a new couch is because I let the dogs go on it. 'Tis a dilemma. 

Anywho, here's a mani I did last Monday. It's been hard to even think about doing winter mani's or Christmas nails when the only thing we've seen so far is rain. Craziest, warmest December I can remember.

I wore an argyle sweater in these colors so I was very matchy that day. The base is OPI Russian Navy and I stamped with Mundo de  Unas Turquoise and the Uber Chic 6-03 plate.

This one stayed on for a couple of days. After awhile I was just tired of looking at that lighter blue. It didn't seem so bad when I was wearing the matching sweater but didn't look so great with anything else I wore.

And of course, I'm sure people were just horrified that it didn't match!! 

Nope! Only I was.

THANKSGIVING MANI A TAD LATE

Well, I think maybe the holiday mood is starting to creep in. I decided to get serious the other day and did some major shopping.

Part of that shopping included a new camera for myself. I've been saving up my credits on my survey account, so I ended up getting $432 in Amazon credit to use toward the camera. I've been saving for a pretty long time, but I'm so glad I did that. I never would have bought a new camera without that extra help towards the cost. I bought the Canon Rebel 5, and it came with a big bundle of other stuff to go along with it. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to use it without too much difficulty.

Yesterday I took the day off. Kev and I went to Oconto in the morning for a long overdue follow-up EGD and a colonoscopy. Good times. The prep on Tuesday night was not cool. Drinking that stuff was not easy to do, and nothing started happening until after 1 a.m. which means I was up most of the night. I slept for part of the drive there. We got there at 10:45, and I have absolutely no clue what time we got home.

Everything went great and after years of problems, my ulcers have finally healed. I'm pretty happy about that. Poor Kev had to tell me my results probably five times yesterday because I was seriously out of it all day. Apparently I ate crackers at the hospital. I'm pretty sure I talked to my mom on the phone yesterday, but I'm going to call her later to find out what I said. I slept all the way home and then slept most of yesterday. I managed to stay awake long enough to watch a couple of tv shows and eat supper, and that's about it.

Since I was in a coma, Kev did the entire tree all by himself. He did a great job, and I didn't even rearrange anything. My only contribution to decorating it was some icicles that were in a box he forgot about. It's so weird how I can have a real surgery and snap right out of it, but knock me out for something like an egd and I'm useless for 24 hours.

I'm just glad it's over. I've been trying for many months to get it scheduled, and now I don't have to think about it again for a very long time.

This is the mani I wore on Thanksgiving.

I started with OPI My Private Jet and stamped with Essie Good as Gold using the Uber Chic 6-01 stamping plate. I like it. It was purdy.

Now I'm going to finish up cleaning. At some point maybe I'll wrap some presents so the tree doesn't look naked. Or maybe I'll just finish my sweater. All that's left is to finish knitting the hood, so I should have no problem getting that out of the way. I slammed my finger when I was cleaning earlier and loosened a nail so I suppose I'll have to soak them off in the next day or two. I really jammed it hard because it's painful to type.

Have a great weekend, peeps!!

JUST BLUE

It's been over a week since I even thought about blogging. I'm just not feeling it lately. Of course, I did have family home for Thanksgiving, company on Saturday and other stuff going on, so that probably contributes to my absence.

Hopefully your Thanksgiving holiday weekend was at least half as nice as mine. I was happy to have Tyler, Griffin and Zero at the house from Wednesday to Sunday. On Saturday, Seven came over to play with Zero, and her family brought pizza, some extraordinarily delightful pudding shots and a homemade banana cake. I can't complain when I get good company plus good eats. Even Kevin was home for the entire time, and he managed to get a great schedule for December so he'll miss none of the holidays this year.

Thanksgiving was spent at my mom's. Every year my sister and I make the offer to take it over, but she insists she wants to do it as long as she's able. She turned 87 in September, and she is still rocking it. I'm so lucky to still have her around and in good health. The food was great, as always, and I ate way too much. As always. I was miserably full when I went home.

Before Kev left to go back to work on Sunday I had him bring in some of the Christmas bins from the garage. My plan is to clean the house today after work and get the majority of the decorating done. Kev is gone until next Monday, and I didn't want to wait that long to get started. The tree will go up on Tuesday while he's around to help with that. I'm hoping the decorations will finally get me in the holiday mood because I really do need to start shopping.

I have been doing nails every few days, but I'm still focusing on knitting. I have one sleeve and the hood left to knit on the second sweater. The first sweater now has a new home with Tyler, which is pretty much what I figured would happen. 

I'm not even sure when I did this one.

I started with a base of Orly Decoded and then used Zoya Kristen and the Stampaholic 2 plate that I recently received from a specialty group buy.

In looking at this now in the picture, I like it more than I thought I did while I was wearing it. That makes no sense whatsoever, but it's a fact.

I'm not sure if nails will get done at all for the rest of the week. I'll be cleaning and decorating, and I've decided to steal Razzie for the weekend. Tonya will drop him off on Friday and pick him up on Sunday. I needed a Razzie fix so I'm happy she's letting me take him just for the fun of it. I'll have to see if Seven wants to come over to play with this brother, too.

I love having "puppies" I can steal every so often. Even if they aren't little anymore, it's still just the best being able to keep my connection with them.

ANOTHER GREAT START

Guess I am managing to sneak in one more round of antibiotics before the end of the year. 

Considering how hellish the ten days were while I was on Cipro for my kidney infection, I thought I might actually get a break. No such luck. I've had a sneaking suspicion over the past couple of weeks that maybe not everything was kosher yet. When I had to pee six times before I had even left for work this morning, I knew I was in trouble.

Luckily I was able to get right in to the doctor's office so they could do labwork, which confirmed that I'm still not quite right. Well, not that I ever was quite right, but that's another tale for another day.

As the nurse was checking my vitals, I asked if my pulse was normal because when I had gone to the walk-in clinic last month, it was 122 for no apparent reason. Today it was 92, which is still a bit high, but my blood pressure was way up. They made me stick around after my appointment so they could take it again, and it had gone up even higher.  Now I have to go back in a week to have that checked out. Honestly, it's always something.

I did this mani last week. I used a polish that I had purchased through the Hella Holo Customs group I'm in on Facebook, so I don't know if it's even available for purchase by people not in that group.

This is "The Pink Army" by Frenzy Polish, and a portion of the proceeds on this one went to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Pretty awesome, right? Awesome that the maker gave to charity and awesome that it helps me ti justify buying it. LOL

Of course I couldn't just leave it alone; I had to muck it up with a damn stamp.

I used Mundo de Unas Cream and the Uber Chic 3-03 plate for the stamped design.

After it was done, I really wished I had just left it alone. Either that or used a more delicate design. This one just covered up the color way too much.

Now I'm off to pick up this latest medicine. I guess as long as I'm there, I may as well pick up some more Peeps. And caramel corn. I mean, something good should come out of this unplanned pharmacy trip.

And of course I'll just have to check for any new and exciting nail polishes.

SWEATER, DONE

I do love to knit, but I absolutely hate finishing a sweater. Weaving the pieces together is always something I dread. I took a break for a couple of days trying to get myself into the mood to do that. After that all that was left was knitting the hood.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It certainly works for me as kind of an oversized hoodie that has plenty of room to wear a sweater under it, which is how I like my hoodies to fit.

And now I'm making another one just like it. I'm going to make a few alterations in the sizing because I think I might like it a smidge smaller. I also have a feeling that when Tyler comes home for Thanksgiving, she might just take this first one home with her.

I was wearing some orange to work on Wednesday so on Tuesday night I did this mani.

The orange is China Glaze Riveting from their original Hunger Games collection. It really is a good orange with a nice metallic shimmer to it. I grabbed my new Uber Chic 6-01 stamping plate and used Mundo de Unas black for the design.

I'm ready for this one to come off, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow. I have quite a few new stamping plates that I've barely looked at and still can't decide on something to do with my nails. So frustrating to not have any kind of original ideas in my head.

Maybe I'll get lucky in the next 24 hours and come up with something fantabulous. In the meantime, my only plan for the rest of the evening is just to knit until my hands cramp up.

BLACK MOOD; BLACK NAILS

What a difference in this November's weather compared to last year. My Facebook page popped up with a memory on November 11th where I had posted about how my bossman had nicely plowed my driveway. This November has been in the 50's almost every day. Needless to say, I much prefer this year. While I hope that bodes well for the entire winter, I know better. As far as I know, it's supposed to be a harsh one, and I'm not looking forward to it.

Lately it seems I'm not really looking forward to anything. The holiday season is beginning, and normally I would have at least done some shopping already. So far the only things I've purchased are a couple of items my daughter found for her hubby and Griffin that I'm paying her for. The whole idea of doing anything festive just is not appealing to me at all, and I don't know what my damn problem is.

Maybe it's just that I still don't really feel quite right. I don't know what that's about, either. It's been such a weird year healthwise, and I keep feeling like I'm just waiting and watching for some new strange thing to crop up to derail me.

Or maybe today being the 16th anniversary of my dad's death is lurking in my brain. I don't know. I just want to snap out of this shit mood and get on with it.

I did this mani a few weeks back. I don't remember what my original intent was. I know that I did a black base and tried something that failed. So I did this quickly because of course it was late at night and time for bed.

This was the first time I've used Kleancolor Metallic Black as a base, and I liked it. After whatever I initially attempted wasn't working, I took Essie Good as Gold and stamped this design with the Uber Chic UC 4-03 plate.

Even though it was sort of a replacement mani, I actually liked this one. I liked how it looked like gold strands were running across my nails.

Speaking of Uber Chic, they need to stop making stuff I want. I just got their new Christmas plate and the #6 series of plates last week. I just can't resist their stuff!

It would make Christmas shopping so easy if everyone was just a nail fanatic.

RADIAL GRADIENT

I'm pouting today. 

I've been itching to replace my couch. We had looked in the stores a few months back but didn't get very excited by anything. It also pains me to get rid of the couch I have. It's 13 years old, and structurally it's like brand new. Kev and I both use recliners so the only daily use the couch gets is from the dogs. Unfortunately, the fabric was not a good choice, and it has not stood up very well at all.

I decided to check into getting it recovered. I sent some pics off to the guy that does recovering, and he called me today with the estimate. He told me that with fabric, it would run me about $2,500. Basically that is about double what I thought it would be. It's also more than twice what I paid for it brand new, and there is no way I'm paying that. So now I have to start looking again, hoping to find something I like.

I took a break from knitting last night and spent some time actually playing with my nails. 

I've been seeing a ton of radial gradients lately. I guess it's the new "cool" thing to do. I figured I may as well jump on the bandwagon and try one myself.

It was very easy to do, but it actually took me longer than the water marble. The only part that took some time was getting the coverage I wanted of the two colors.

First off, let me just say that these two Celestial Cosmetics polishes I bought through a special group are completely gorgeous. I realize it might be hard to tell, but they are full of holo greatness.

The pink in the center is Poipu Sunset, and the purple surrounding it is Hokulani. I then used my Mundo de Unas black stamping polish and the rose from my new Uber Chic 3-01 plate.

I'm loving this one, and I probably won't bother to take it off until the weekend. The only issue I have is that the rose that looks so much like a rose on the stamping plate doesn't really translate to looking much like a rose on my nails.

And I'm really nitpicking by calling that out as an issue. If someone sees this and doesn't know it's a flower, I simply do not care.

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. 

LAST DAY, THANKFULLY

Halloween weekend wasn't the best. The weather was just awful, and poor Griffin didn't get to trick or treat for more than a few minutes because he was freezing. He was an adorable little Batman, though. Luckily he had enough Halloween activity in Illinois so it didn't seem to really bother him that he only got about 15 pieces of candy in his bag. 

Of course, we bought him a new Lego set to do on Friday when he spent the night. I figured I'd rather do that than add to a candy stash. Actually, it really was just an excuse for me to play with Lego's. The little stinker is getting too smart now, though, so I didn't get to do nearly as much as I thought I would. I got part of the submarine together while he worked on something else, but then he kind of pushed his way into my chair and took over. It's great that he's so good at following the directions, but it's not so great for the grandma that wants to make stuff.

I spent the weekend the same way I've spent the past 10 days, sick. I never left the house at all and spent my days dozing off and on. Today is my last day of antibiotics, and I'm hoping that means I'll start feeling normal again tomorrow. 

And how did it get to be November already?? I'm nowhere near ready to start thinking about the holidays, but I need to get my mind focused on shopping. I've already told two of the grandkids if they don't get a move on with lists, they'll be getting a check and no giftage. 

This mani is from quite a few weeks ago.

I used Ivy League by Salon Perfect for the dark green base and then stamped with China Glaze Metallic Muse and the LeaLac LLC-B stamping plate.

This is one of those that turned out great but wasn't very exciting. If memory serves, I was looking to do something quickly and knew that Metallic Muse would stamp like a dream. 

I cleaned up and reapplied my nails on Thursday evening while I was waiting for Tyler and Griffin to get home. I had hoped I would take some time to do some fun Halloween stuff, but they ended up staying naked until last night. 

I'm really itching to do a water marble but don't feel like I have the patience to monkey with it right now. Maybe sometime this week my motivation will return. We shall see, I guess.

IF IT AIN'T ONE THING....

Evidently my new goal is to see just how many times I'll need antibiotics this year. I've stopped counting.

Last Wednesday after work I cleaned the house, and then Kev and I sat down to watch some of the 8,000 programs on the dvr. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Sometime before we went to bed I had a pain in my lower back, but I didn't really give it too much thought. When I got up on Thursday, I could hardly move. I figured maybe I tweaked it when I was cleaning or something. I grabbed the heating pad and eased myself into the chair, happy in the knowledge that I didn't have anything strenuous to do.

The heating pad and a Vicodin made a huge difference, but on Friday it still wasn't feeling good. As Friday moved into the night, I just didn't feel right. I grabbed my thermometer and discovered a temp of 103.6. Um.....that ain't groovy. I was feeling progressively worse so I took some Excedrin Migraine. That brought the fever down, but between the fever and the back pain, I started thinking kidney infection.

On Saturday I felt awful. So awful that I dragged my scuzzy, unshowered self to the walk-in clinic at 11:00 a.m. To my surprise I was the only one there, which was awesome! My self-diagnosis was, as usual, correct. But a kidney infection? Seriously? I haven't had one in over 35 years. I also had no symptoms of any kind before that knife in my back.

So now I'm on the antibiotic from hell. I've been nauseous every second, everything I try to eat tastes disgusting and now the inside of my mouth is sore.  This ten day prescription can't end soon enough for me, and I'm only on day 5.

Overall, I'm just tired and a little weirded out by these random infections that keep showing up for no apparent reason. It's why I've been absent so much, though. My enthusiasm for anything has pretty much vanished right along with what I formerly thought of as my pretty decent health.

My nails are badly in need of reapplication. I'm not even sure what's keeping them on at this point. I did this mani quickly on Monday night. I'm hoping to remove it and soak off my nails sometime before next Monday.

I'm limited to using dark colors because of grow out, so I went with Sinful Colors Smoke and then stamped using Mundo de Unas Black and my new Uber Chic 5-03 stamping plate.

Uber Chic is going to be the death of any no buy. I had managed to talk myself out of buying the 3 series, but when this 5 series came out, I ended up buying both sets. I just saw someone post that they are coming out with more in November.

Sometimes I wish I could block myself from websites.

A QUICK HALLOWEEN NOD

My week so far has been pretty uneventful. I'll call that a good thing. I'm already looking forward to tomorrow because even though it's only Wednesday, that's my Friday. I'm gonna' work and then go home and clean the house. My life is almost too exciting, I know. I will have Seven for the weekend again, so I do have that as an actual plan. I've been missing her so I'm happy she's coming back again.

On Sunday night I went through my stamping plates with spooky images and was uninspired. I'm just not feeling the whole Halloween mani thing this year. Maybe next week I'll feel like doing something.

I did think these witches hats were kind of cute.

I started off by doing a gradient with Sally Hansen Peach of Cake, Revlon Siren and American Apparel Poppy. Even on its own, I kind of liked it, especially after I used my Butter London Matte Topcoat. I really felt like I should do what I planned, though, so I used the witchy hats from the Ali Express 12-50 stamping plate.

I think it's pretty cute, actually. If I don't bother doing anything more elaborate, at least I can say I did one Halloween mani.  

The UPS man at the office liked 'em. And when it comes right down to it, isn't that all that really matters?

BIG OLD ROSES

Gawd, I need some kind of a mood-lifter. For the most part, all of last week completely sucked, and other than a high point of going out for a great dinner last night with Seven's owners, this week hasn't been much better.

First, that whole face infection hurt like a bitch. Picture having a throbbing toothache....in all 32 of your teeth. Yeah. That's what it felt like. Then on Friday the sweetheart that owns Comet, one of my pups from last year, lost her 8 year old Golden to cancer suddenly with no warning whatsoever. I don't remember the last time I cried that hard. The family is devastated, and poor little Comet is completely lost and confused without his buddy. So once again I think to myself that I just need to unfriend every person I know that has a pet to avoid being sad when something bad happens.

Then it occurs to me that I have seven puppies out there in the world and have a semi-panic attack thinking about something bad happening to one of them. Pet ownership can really be a bitch.

In all honesty, a couple of good things did happen. Seven got dropped off on Tuesday night, and I got to keep her until almost 11 p.m. on Sunday. So I had a ton of time with that little love-bug. She finally decided to let her mom sleep in bed with us by the end of the visit. So nice of her. 

I also looked almost normal enough to be out in public, so on Saturday I took a ride to Marinette. My granddaughter was in a musical, Aladdin. She played "Lago" and did just a fantastic job. She's such a talented little girl and makes me proud every time I see her perform. 

It was also homecoming night so I got to see my grandson all dressed up and met his girlfriend. Adorable. Both of them. Ridiculously so.

Then out of the blue the front door opened, and there was my other daughter from Illinois!! I had talked to her earlier in the day for about an hour, and she conveniently left out how she was on her way to Toni's house. She wanted to just show up and surprise us all. It worked. I actually got a little teary-eyed.

Peyton was already at the theater so she had no clue Tyler was in town. When she walked on stage for the first time during the performance and saw Tyler sitting in the second row, she could barely contain her smile. Unfortunately, she wasn't supposed to be smiling. She fought off a full-blown smile and had a comical smirk on throughout the rest of the show. It was pretty funny watching her try to have a serious face. She was just too happy that Tyler made the 5 hour drive just to see the play and to see Treyson before homecoming. 

That's a dedicated auntie right there. She drove the 5 hours, saw the show, hung around for a couple hours after that and then drove the 5 hours back home. I think I got a text from her around 4:30 a.m. telling me she made it. Love that sneaky girl.

I haven't really spent  any time at all doing nails. This is one from a few weeks back.

I know it appears to be black, but it's actually a very dark brown with a nice golden shimmer to it, Square Hue Deep Space. I used Essie Good as Gold to stamp with, and the roses are from the Bundle Monster BM XL07 stamping plate.

For whatever reason, I just felt like doing gold roses that day. I'm not positive, but I don't think this one ever left the house.

LORDIE....NOT AGAIN!

After my oh, so nice time last weekend, the difference from Sunday to Monday sucked. I went to bed with a normal face on Sunday night and woke up Monday morning with a fat, swollen lip, a swollen chin, a swollen jaw and pain for days.

WTF. By the end of the day it was very painfully obvious that my face was doing a repeat performance of that infection I got last March. I'm so confused by this bullshit. After that last nightmare I just assumed that was going to be a one-time fluke. Guess not.

I immediately sent a message to the doctor's office, and on Tuesday they had an antibiotic all ready for me. On Wednesday I didn't even make it through the day at work because the throbbing pain through the entire lower half of my face was pretty awful. My normal 4 a day Vicodin jumped up to 8; my normal 2 Excedrin Migraine jumped up to 8; and the rest of the fun came from microwaving a wet washcloth every so often and plastering it on my face.

After barely being able to function for 4 days, I'm starting to feel a bit more normal. I won't go into detail on how I look. I wish someone could explain why this happened once, let alone twice, because I'd do just about anything to avoid it. I went through more pain meds this week than I did after having surgery. That's how bad it is.

Because of it, I'm still wearing that grey and pink mani. I'm hoping that maybe later tonight I'll take that off if I'm feeling up to it. Of course, I'm also hoping I'll feel good enough to clean the house since that didn't get done on Wednesday, and it's driving me nuts.

This one I did a couple of weeks ago.

I didn't have any particular plan when I did this one other than thinking that I wanted blue and purple. So Wet n Wild Putting on Airs, Mundo de Unas Violet and the LeaLac LLC-A plate just ended up being what I grabbed. 

That design has always been one of my favorites so I was happy with this one.

Right now I'm going to toss a toy for Seven. She got here Tuesday night and will be here until Sunday. She really likes to play. A lot. Like all the time. But she is such a good girl to have around. 

Well, she wasn't great Tuesday night. I decided to sleep in the recliner because I thought it would help the swelling stay down. She wasn't sure what to do with that. So throughout the night she wandered around a lot, deposited different toys in my lap 5 or 6 times, climbed up and laid on me 3 times.....just not a lot of sleeping going on.

Wednesday night I decided to sleep in the spare room, and she was back to her normal, bed hogging self. I much prefer that.

NOT THE PLAN BUT LOVE IT

Last night was fun. I had a sleepover with my daughter, two of the grandkids and their friends. They had come to town to go to a play and since it got over pretty late, they decided they would spend the night with me. 

I made a pan of brownies figuring they might want a snack. One pan of brownies with two 16 year old boys does not go very far. I don't even know if the girls had any, but there's only one small brownie left. I lost count of how many cans of Dr. Pepper disappeared.

They didn't even get here until almost 11 p.m., and overall, it was just kind of a silly night. We played with free ghost hunting apps on our phones, and I told stories of the different strange happenings that went on in a couple of the houses we lived in. Unfortunately, my current house is ghost free, much to the disappointment of all but Peyton's friend.

Earlier in the day I had swatched the new Square Hue polishes that came. I wanted to do a water marble with two of them, but the three colors I tried were too dark together. Epic fail.

I did still decide to use the dark grey.

After I painted with Square Hue Y2K, I stamped with Mundo de Unas Pink and the LeaLac LLC-B plate. After that I did one coat of a holographic topcoat. I kind of thought the light pink was just a bit stark and flat looking without it. I really like what the holo topcoat did to it.

When I was doing my nails, I figured it would come off tonight so I could do something else to wear to work tomorrow. That's not going to happen because I really like this one a lot.

Hopefully your weekend was a good one, too!

BYE-BYE BIRDIES

It's a beautiful, sunny day. Sitting here and glancing out the window, it's deceiving. It looks warm out, but it's only 57 degrees, and my phone for the past few days is just constantly popping up with frost warnings. 

Even though my last hummer sighting was on September 21st, I've left my feeders up on the off chance that some stragglers come through on their way south. Unfortunately the only thing I've been seeing are wasps. And they're so big I catch them out of the corner of my eye and hurry up and look over, hoping I'm going to see a bird. No such luck.

On Sunday night I noticed that the DRK Themes Enlaced plate has a couple of hummingbirds. Thought I'd give it a try.

I started with Essie Sand Tropez and decided to just go with Mundo de Unas black for the stamping.

This one gave me a lot of trouble, and by the time I finished, I was so over it. For some reason I kept messing up the base, and I think I re-did the Essie on several fingers more than once. I don't know what my problem was.

The stamping didn't go very well, either. Parts of the background kept refusing to transfer to my nails so I had to keep re-doing that, too.

Mabes I was just having an off night. Not only did the painting and stamping not go so well, photographing didn't go so hot, either. I snapped my usual shots but didn't take the time to see how the pictures turned out until today. 

Mistake. Two of the four pics were blurry, and I guess I really should have photographed my right hand so the hummingbird's face showed in all the pics. Unfortunately I didn't realize that before I took this off.

Lesson learned.

AND SUMMER ENDS

I guess it's now officially safe to say that summer is over. Last night dropped down into the 30's. It has warmed up to about 60, but it looks like the cooldown has begun. I even remote started my car this morning so I wouldn't freeze on my way to work. 

I've even started wearing socks around the house again. I'm still barefoot in my shoes at work, though, as I fight the urge to start wearing boots. This time of year I never know what the hell to wear. Most of my sweaters are too warm for this weather, but most of my other stuff is too summery. Too cold for sandals; not cold enough for boots. It's that weird in-between weather, and my closet isn't filled with in-between clothes. Such big problems, right?

This mani I did when I was stuck at home after surgery. I don't remember if I did a complete mani or if I was just playing and did one hand.

The light green is Color Club Blue Ming. Anytime I grab this one I wonder why it's called that. This polish is not blue by any stretch of the imagination. It's friggin' green. The end. I topped it with Mundo de Unas Dark Gray using the Dana 10 stamping plate.

Actually, I think I might have just been playing that day because my Dana stamping plates arrived. Lord knows I wasn't going anywhere. If you're looking for a nice set for cheap, I would suggest grabbing them.  $12.00 with free shipping is a great price for ten plates. Just sayin'.

If you buy them, instead of blaming me for "making" you spend money, I think you should thank me because it's such a small amount this time.

HOW DO THEY DO IT?

My weekend was filled with dogs. I had Razzie from Friday morning until late yesterday afternoon. My friend Laura brought Seven over on Friday night and on Saturday so she could play with her brother. Watching the two of them play for hours is too fun.

It also gives Tinlee a bit of a break from being bothered non-stop, too. I will say, though, that Razzie isn't as pesty as he was before. It's like he grew up all of a sudden. He still has the adorable habit of just randomly climbing halfway onto my lap to kiss me, which I just love. He is just the smoochiest of all the puppies, I think. And he is quite the bed hog. Luckily Kev was gone so it didn't matter so much. He waits for me to get in bed and then makes sure he is slammed up against me for the entire night. He is also kind enough to not wake me up before 8 a.m., unlike Seven who thinks 6:30-7:00 is get-up time when she sleeps over.

Tinlee was oddly sad when Razzie left yesterday. She kept standing by the truck looking sad before they pulled out of the driveway, and she didn't want to come inside after they left. She  just kept looking down the driveway as if they were going to come back. Then she pouted inside for about an hour. I actually felt a little bad for her. Maybe she appreciates him more now that he isn't so pesty with her. Of course, she's also in heat so maybe she just liked the male company, however pointless. LOL

Here's one I did last week. I just took it off last night because I had to do a soak off and reapplication of my nails. They'd been on since the 1st or 2nd. I'd knocked them around Wednesday night while cleaning, so several of them were hanging on by a thread. My right index was hanging on by less than that. I'm lucky Razzie didn't end up with that one as a snack.

This one actually leaned more purple than the picture shows. The base is China Glaze Fade into Hue, and I stamped over that with Sinful Colors Mesmerize. The design is from the Dana10 stamping plate.

After I finished it and took pictures, it was then that I really noticed that I didn't get the design placed very well on that index or ring finger. I don't know that I would have bothered to remove it and try again, but it was annoying to look at. Other than that flaw, I liked this one.

I often wonder how some people always seem to have perfect stamping every time. Are they just that much better than me, or do they re-do stuff and just don't admit it? 

It's just like when I see when somebody says they can do a stamped mani, start to finish, in a half hour. How?? I can't even do two coats of polish, topcoat and cleanup in a half hour. I can easily stamp all ten fingers in 5-10 minutes, but I still have to do my base, topcoat, stamp, topcoat and clean up my cuticles afterwards.

I've been stamping for probably three years now. I guess this is as good as I'm going to get, which makes me super envious of all of those other perfect people.

COMPLETE COPYCATTING

Just going to be a quickie post today. The only thing I really have to bitch about is the migration of the hummingbirds. I still had one little girl as of last evening; I'll find out later if she's still around, but last year September 21st was the last day I took a picture. I tried to get shots last night, but she was very skittish for some reason. I'm crossing my fingers she's still around.

As I wander the web, if I see a mani I like I'll pin it on a Pinterest board that I've reserved specifically for things I want to try. This mani I did over the weekend is a complete copy job, right down to two of the three gradient colors. The original mani was done by @wackylaki.

I used Zoya Kennedy, Rue and Brigitte for the gradient and then stamped with Mundo de Unas white and the MoYou Pro 10 stamping plate.

I loved this when she did it, and I still love it. I loved it enough to put it on Thursday night and leave it on until last night. It was a hit at the doctor's office on Friday, and I was determined to wear it to work at least one day. I did finally remove it last night even though I wasn't tired of it.

I was actually halfway through doing my nails last night when I noticed I was actually putting the same stamping design on all over again. I guess that means I really liked it. Luckily I was able to remove the stamping without wrecking the base manicure.

I must not be getting enough sleep or something. I consider that to be a pretty good sized airhead bleach-blonde moment, even for me.

BETTER IN MY HEAD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ACTUALLY LEFT THE HOUSE

Yesterday I had my follow-up appointment with the doc in Green Bay. It was the first time I'd left the house in three weeks. The appointment went as expected, and my next follow-up is in January.

It felt pretty good to be out and about, and after we got back to town we went out to dinner. I'm kind of paying for it today because I'm pretty sore. It sure will be nice when I feel completely like myself again.

Wednesday night we rented a few movies so I played with my nails while we watched. It was the first time I'd done anything on both hands in awhile. I had kind of played just on one nail the night before but ultimately went with this foil.

I wanted my nail underneath to kind of be a natural tone so I used Zoya Loretta, which is a really sheer, very light pink. 

The foils went on reasonably well although the pinkie had to be done twice. It didn't really go on any better the second time, and you can see the missing area near the cuticle.

I'm still wearing this now, and I'm surprised at how well it's wearing. I think it's a really cute pattern. I like that the non-shiny foils aren't ruined by topcoat.

It's probably a good thing that it's holding up so well. I've got Seven here for the weekend, and since she has been bringing me toys non-stop since she got here over 2 hours ago, I don't know how helpful she's going to be if I decide to do my nails.

I'm leaning toward "not helpful". At all.

JUST PLAYIN'

Every 20th of the month, I check my Julep Maven account to see what my monthly box is going to be. It's been awhile since I bothered to buy it. This month, though, about a week or so before that I got an email from Julep giving us a chance to get an extra free polish if we got the monthly box.

So I signed in and reserved that freebie and then hoped I'd actually want my It Girl box for September. As it turns out, the polishes for the month were absolutely something I knew I'd like. I also had enough Jules in my account to get my set for free, and I even had enough to add on another polish. So the other day I got five polishes in the mail for free. Gotta' love that, right?

I was sitting here last night and decided I would try out the purple holographic polish just on my thumbnail to see if it looked as good on as it did in the bottle. 

Today I finished swatching all five and finished painting my left hand. So this is Julep Delores.

It is much better in person. I wouldn't say it's the most holo of the holo's, but it's really pretty.

Since I'm not leaving the house anytime soon, I didn't bother painting my right hand with it, but I did decide to throw a design on it just for shits and giggles. 

Horrible picture. Just horrible. The design is actually hearts from the Fab Ur Nails FUN 13 plate, and I used the Mundo de Unas fuschia stamping polish called Tutti.

You'll just have to take my word for it being cute in person. It's actually cute enough that if I had any reason to do my nails, I'd do the other hand.

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.