THE WAIT IS OVER - PUPPIES!!!

My entire last week has been just getting ready for the puppies and waiting for the puppies. Her first due date was on Friday, and on Monday we took her to the vet to have an x-ray, hoping it would show us the number of pups. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed at the x-ray because it only showed us 6 puppies. We left the vet and came home and hoped that maybe there were 1 or 2 pups hiding.

I started keeping track of Tinlee's temperature over the next few days, knowing that once it dropped to around 98, I could plan on puppies arriving in 12 to 24 hours. Finally on Friday at 5 p.m. I took her temp and it was 98.2. I immediately took it again to be sure, and then the waiting began.

The whole rest of the evening she did a whole lot of panting and was just generally uncomfortable. I spent my night trying to sleep in the recliner (trying being the operative word), and when I wasn't in the chair, I was sitting in the whelping box with her. She did the same thing with her last litter. When Kev got up, I went to bed for a couple of hours but then got back up to continue the waiting. I kept telling Kev he should go golfing because I thought he had plenty of time to do that. 

He finally decided late in the afternoon that he would go golfing. He literally said, "If we want her to have puppies, I probably should try to golf." He made it to the second hole of the course when I messaged him to come home because she was having contractions. 

I was delivering the first pup when he walked in the door 15 minutes later. Things went very smoothly and pretty quickly from that point. Her first pup was born at 4:56 p.m., and the last was born at 7:24 p.m. I'm happy to present Golden Grahams Diamond Dogs (a/k/a The Bowie Litter). My daughter again got to name the litter, and the pup's names are China Girl, Queen B, Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Starman and LDB (short for Little Drummer Boy).

 So here's just two quick shots of these precious little bundles.

 I couldn't resist this shot of puppy butts.

We are in love.

Right now my Custom Nails are off since I removed them when Tinlee's temp dropped. I wanted my nails short in case of any birthing problems. I'll probably put them back on later tonight or tomorrow. Right now I'm too tired to care.

I did this radial gradient awhile back.

I use Square Hue Kewpies, Square Hue Tomorrowland and Sinful Colors Rose Dust for the gradient. I wanted a soft white stamping so I used Cult El Porto with a floral pattern from Uber Chic 9-01.

I was a fan of this one. I didn't even do too badly of a job centering the design. I don't remember if I used a clear stamper on this one or not. Lordie, I really am suffering from brain fry from lack of sleep.

Now I'm off to the puppy pen. The little stinkers were born needing their toenails clipped, so I'm going to deal with that. I'm sure over the next 8 weeks I'll post puppy pics. My live puppy cam is also up and running over on Ustream and you can find it here. I usually turn that on as soon as I think of it in the morning and leave it on until I go to bed at night. 

They'll be much more fun to watch a few weeks from now when they're running around. Guaranteed.

ANOTHER BUNCH

I'm not sure where time goes. It's hard to believe that tomorrow is July 1st already. 

Retirement is a beautiful thing. I did work three days last week to fill in, and even though it was only about 15 hours total, I was not a fan of it. Getting up early to get ready for actual work was not something I enjoyed. I did enjoy seeing the bossman and doing some typing, but I got over it pretty quickly. 

Other than that, my days have been spent laying in the pool, cleaning, gardening, sitting with hummingbirds and getting ready for puppies. Tinlee is due in two weeks, so we are pretty excited about that. 

As absent as I've been on here, once the puppies arrive, I'll probably be even more missing in action. As I was sitting in the pool today, thinking about how lucky I've been to have so much time to be that lazy, it dawned on me that once the puppies are here, my days of lounging from 11 to 3 in the pool are probably over. I'm sure I'll sneak some pool time in, but it sure won't be like it has been the last two weeks. I remember with the last litter I was sad that I couldn't go sit with the hummingbirds as much, so I'm sure I'm going to run into the same issues this time around. 

Puppy breath trumps the pool and the hummers, though, so it's totally worth it.

For now, here's some mani's I've had on over the past month or so. I'll list everything I used, but other than that, they are what they are.

Cult The Roxy stamped with Cult Breakwater using Bundle Monster + Lucy's Stash BM XL-209 stamping plate.

Sinful Colors Endless Blue stamped with Julep Tali. The design is from the new Uber Chic 10-01 plate.

The light purple is Zoya Kendal, and I used the Cooi 035 stamping plate with Mundo de Unas Violet.

The light blue is Fresh Paint Matte in the USA, stamped with Mundo de Unas Turquoise and a plate I got from Ali Express, XY-J13.

I do have more manicures sitting around just waiting to be shown, so hopefully I'll actually post them at some point. When I look back at a couple of them, I'm rethinking even showing them. They were ugly when I did them; they've gotten uglier to me over time.

I hope your summer is going as good as mine is!!

FULL NAIL WATER DECALS

Yesterday I took the hummingbird window feeders out of the closet. I debated whether or not I should hang them yet, but the migration map seems to show the little cuties showing up a little earlier than last year in some places. I decided I'd wash them and made up a batch of nectar for them. 

While that cooled down, I washed the windows and searched around the deck hoping I'd find the suction cup that went missing at the end of last summer. No luck there. Luckily when I bought my mom her first window feeder as a Christmas gift, I bought one for myself, too. I absolutely need to have three window feeders.

It was starting to get dark out when I finally filled them and hung them up. And so begins the obsessive window watching, waiting for my first sighting. One thing about having these feeders, I'm pretty sure I have spectacular peripheral vision. I see every little movement at those windows. I really hope the birds show up sooner than last year.

When I finished up with the pink flower nail foils, I decided to use a set of water decals that I bought many months ago.

I did one coat of Cult El Porto. The white base definitely was necessary to show off the decal colors. I was pretty happy with these decals. I've had them so long that I don't remember what website I bought them from. There was a bit of a learning curve, and I did manage to damage the first decal as I tried to move it around on my left thumb.

After making that mistake, I didn't really have any more problems. I found that as long as I didn't try to slide them around, it was very easy to lift them off to move them if I needed to. That was a good thing because the set came with exactly ten.

When I added topcoat, the excess decal that was hanging off the edge at the tip pretty much melted away, and cleanup around the rest of the nail went very easily using non-acetone.

I'm kind of obsessed with full coverage water decals right now. I'm looking forward to using some of the floral ones that I bought, but I need to wait until they get to me from Ali Express.

I think I left these on for 5 or 6 days, and I have to say they held up pretty well. It's fun to use something like these just to change things up once in awhile. Lately I've been uninspired when it comes to colors for stamping manicures. Having things like decals and foils to play with gives me a little bit of motivation.

What keeps you motivated when it comes to mani ideas? I see so many gorgeous, intricate stamping manicures, but some of them look like they took forever. Back when I first started doing my nails, it wouldn't have bothered me to spend all day doing something on my nails; now I just don't want anything I do to take that long.

I bought the Uber mat and have purchased plates that would be good for doing decals, but they are so involved. I made a half-assed attempt one night awhile back, but as soon as the decal dried, it curled up horribly and was unusable. I haven't tried since. 

Maybe this weekend I'll try again. So if you hear swearing and don't know where it's coming from, it'll probs be me.

FINALLY I LIKE SOMETHING!

For quite awhile now I've just been really over being at work. I've been very lucky to have been working at a job I actually loved most of the time for a boss who, for the most part, is a great guy to work for. For reasons I'm not sure I understand, I'm just no longer finding the enjoyment that I used to in the work.

After many, many months of talking about it with the hubster, I finally bit the bullet yesterday and told him that I will be done at the end of the month. Of course, I also told him I'll still be around if he's in a pinch or needs help with something. Unless he can find somebody with experience, I expect I'll get occasional phone calls for awhile.

It is also a possibility that I will just switch to one day a week. He offered that to me just in case a year from now I decide I'm bored and made a mistake by quitting. At this point I'm undecided if I'll do that or not. Part of me thinks it's a great idea, and part of me is afraid that it just means I'll end up doing exactly as much as I do now but only having one day to do it. That's kind of what my three days a week has been; a five day amount of work that I get done in three.

I'm really hoping this doesn't end up being a mistake. I know I'm going to miss typing all the time, and I will miss the bossman. It would be so much easier to quit if he was a jerk.

So that's the most exciting news in my life right now. The other exciting thing is I actually finally did a mani that I liked after doing several that I hated. Sadly, after wearing it for five days, I am now wearing another one that I hate. It is for sure coming off tonight.

But here's a good one. Yay!

I hadn't done any double stamping in a long while, and I really like the colors on this. The light blue base is Julep Claire. I then tried a couple of different things for the stamping. I tried doing white first and then dark blue....hated it. Then I did dark blue and used MdU white on top....hated that. The MdU white just stamped way too bold.

I finally stamped with the MoYou Pro XL06 plate and Sinful Colors Blue Crushin. When that was done, I tried a Sally Hansen white for the stamping, but that was too light. I then used Cult El Porto with the same design as the blue, facing the opposite direction, and I was satisfied with the intensity of the white. It showed up just enough while still allowing the darker blue stamping to show.

The entire time I had this on I was happy with it. When I took it off last night, I was saddy pants over it. I was even more saddy pants when I finished what I replaced it with.

Gawd, it is just butt-friggin'-ugly! I may not even photograph it. That's how bad I think it is.

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.

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.

RAINBOWIE GRADIENT

I hope you had a great weekend. Mine was hectic, just as I had expected. Extra dogs, extra people....things still aren't back to normal. Tyler went back home but left Griffin and Zero here, and I'll be driving to meet up with my son-in-law on Thursday to give him back his son and his dog. 

I felt bad for Zero the past few nights. Even though none of my dogs have ever had a fear of fireworks or thunderstorms, sweet little Zero does. Luckily it isn't too intense of a fear, but he was definitely anxious when the booms were going off around the neighborhood. The holiday is over, and I'm hoping everyone used up the rest of their fireworks last night.

Over the past year or so I've seen lots of these rainbow type gradients on the interwebs, and I finally got around to doing one myself.

I did a white base with Cult El Porto, and the gradients were done with Kleancolor Tangerine Burst, Neon Green, Neon Purple, Neon Yellow and KB Shimmer Lei It Again and In Yacht Water. I added just one thin coat of Orly Shine On Crazy Diamond for a smidge of sparkles before ending with my usual Seche Vite topcoat.

Actually, I did this one last Sunday night and on Monday morning before work I decided to re-do my ring finger and pinkie. The blue I used on Sunday was a darker neon, and since the other fingers kind of had a light/dark contrast happening, I knew it would drive me insane if I didn't change that blue. It was the right decision. I can't stand anything unbalanced.

Now I'm off to either take a nap, do some sweepstakes or do my nails. We just finished supper, and I'm paying the price for eating too much. My stomach is not happy with me at all. 

I probably wouldn't be so tired if it weren't for Zero. That dog is too happy for my own good. He doesn't wag his tail; he wags the entire back half of his body, and that tail is deadly. In the bedroom no matter where he wags, it hits something.  Several times during the night he apparently got happy and whacked that thing on the bathroom door. Loudly. And woke me up every time.

He is super cute, though, so it's worth losing a little bit of sleep to have him here.

VACAY MANI

Ah, vacation is over, and it's back to normal life. Boo hiss boo.

Let me start by saying that the weather was unbelievable. All of those high percentage chances of rain meant nothing. We saw about 15 minutes of very light sprinkles one evening around dinner time, and that was it. Other than that, they had record setting high temps the entire time we were there, mid to high 90's every day. I spent a lot of time sweating my balls off, and I was fine with that.

The house we rented was completely amazing. Three floors of gorgeous, five bedrooms, five bathrooms, a deck on each floor with a hot tub on two of them. Kev and I took the top floor of the house which consisted of our bedroom, a living room area with a tv, a video game, a pool table and another area that had a 73" flat screen with kind of a movie theatre setup. It was a hoot playing some of the old-school video games like Pac Man, Centipede and Tetris. For the record, I killed it on Centipede, just like the old days. 

Bonus....bears!! I think we had been there for only about an hour when a bear went and stole the garbage can from the neighbor's house because they hadn't disposed of it properly. I didn't see it happen because I was unpacking. I also didn't get a glimpse of the bear that was in the trees as we were riding down the road on our way to go hiking. I'm never looking in the right place at the right time.

The road leading to the house was a complete nightmare. Just right up the mountain on narrow roads that didn't have shoulders but had a whole lot of tight hairpin turns. For some reason I was the only one who owns ears that didn't pop from the altitude. I was actually concerned for my Outback on those steep hills. Luckily my car survived it, but my sister-in-law's Yukon did not. It died on Thursday evening going back up to the house, and I won't even get into what a horror show it was for them to get it fixed and find a way home on Friday. 

Aside from that disaster, there really wasn't too much bad on this trip. One complaint would be the fact that we didn't have a pool at the house. We had to drive to one of the three pools within the area, so that kind of sucked. They weren't far away or anything, but it still made it more of a pain to just go lay in the sun. I did manage to get two good days of pool time, though. I have a peeling left wrist to prove it. Of course I took off my watch to go in the water so that spot burned and has now been completely peeled away by my watch. Not so smart.

We did some fun stuff: riding the mountain tram to the top of the mountain, hopping on a luge-type sled to ride down the mountain on a luge-type slide, riding the tram all the way down to the city of Gatlinburg to eat dinner and wander around the shops, mini golf, a mountain roller coaster, a hike, and best of all, Kev and I went ziplining. Cross one off my bucket list. Since it was just Kev and me going, we went to the best one in the area. It had the most lines, 9, and the mountain views were completely amazing. Best of all, it wasn't even scary. I'm so going to do that again the next time we go somewhere that has it.

This is the mani I decided on for our trip. The picture looks dark to me on this computer. If it appears darker than normal on yours, it may be partly because I did make it a little darker in order to have the colors show up.

I started off with two coats of Cult El Porto and then used Mundo de Unas Lemon Tree, Pink, Peach, Mint and Lilac for the stamping. The design is from the Uber Chic 1-01 plate.

I was so happy to be able to bring a lot of nail stuff with me, but I never did take this off. There were a couple of nights I seriously considered doing my nails, but sitting at the dining room table messing with them didn't sound as enjoyable as sitting out on the deck with the fam. And this one wore very well. I probably could have easily gotten another week out of it if I'd wanted to.

All in all, family vacay was a big success, at least as far as I'm concerned. I'm hoping we'll do it again next year, but it's going to have to be closer. Taking two days just to drive somewhere pretty much sucks, especially when the first leg of the trip home ends up taking 13 hours instead of 10. 

Overall, though, I highly recommend family vacations this way. You get to spend lots of quality time with people you may not get to see very often. This was the most time I've ever gotten to spend with Kev's family and the most even he has spent with them in many, many years. I'm happy to report I still love all of them after cohabiting with them for almost a week.

And on the other hand, if you are not a fan of some of your family members, by all means do it and rent in the mountains. There's plenty of opportunity for you to nudge one of them over the edge.

BEEN AWHILE SINCE I MARBLED

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PRETTY PURPLE

What a nice, quiet, lazy weekend it has been. I did a couple of loads of laundry, and that was the extent of anything even slightly resembling "work". After last weekend being so hectic, it was nice to have absolutely nothing that had to be done.

I spent a whole lot of time watching hummingbirds and taking pictures of hummingbirds. Yesterday was windy, gloomy and cold outside which made them very active at the feeders. I rarely looked up at the window without seeing at least one.

At one point I came out of the kitchen and noticed a little fluffball on a feeder, so I grabbed the camera. As I watched her, it became obvious that there was something wrong with her. I took some video and posted it in some hummingbird groups to confirm my worst fears. Unfortunately, it looks as though I was correct. Somewhere she must have gotten the bacteria or fungus that they can get from dirty feeders. I'm assuming since I haven't seen her since yesterday afternoon, she probably did not last through the night. 

She was a pretty little thing, and my heart is broken.

I post this depressing bit of news because I feel the need to inform anyone who either feeds them or is considering feeding them. If you put up feeders, do not buy store bought nectar. Take a few minutes and make it yourself, using one part regular white sugar to four parts water. In this prime season, I will mix 2 cups sugar with 8 cups of water. I stir it while I heat it just until it starts to boil. Once it cools, I fill my feeders and store the leftover in a sealed container in the fridge. It can be kept in the fridge for up to 2 weeks using this method. 

Your feeders must be kept clean and the food replaced every few days, daily if the weather is hot. If your food is starting to get cloudy, it's going bad and will make your birds sick. They won't recover. Absolutely do not, under any circumstances, add anything to make the water red. It's unnecessary and unhealthy for them. They are attracted simply by a small amount of red on your feeder.

On the other hand, if you do want to start feeding them, get a window feeder for whatever room you spend the most time in. It is so much fun to watch them all day. Even though I needed a winter coat to do it yesterday, I did go out and hold the feeder twice yesterday. I got a lot of fun action. Over the past two days I've had a lot of them feeding while I held the dish, and several of them stopped and sat on my finger for the longest time. 

It's just the most amazing thing to feel the breeze from those little wings and to feel those tiny little feet standing on my fingers. They are amazingly inquisitive and brave and will fly up in front of my face to get a closer look or stop eating to cock their heads to look at me. It's one of my favorite feelings in the whole world. Seriously. They are miraculous little birds.

Sorry I rambled, but once I get in hummingbird mode, it's hard to knock myself out of it.

I did this mani right after I got my Mundo de Unas stamping polishes and was just dying to try the light purple. Photographing this mani I think was the most difficult one I've ever done. It took me two days to finally get both purples to show their true purpleness.

I started with Cult Breakwater and used the Bundle Monster BM XL03 plate and Mundo de Unas #16 Lilac for the stamp.

I love purple. I love light purple. I love Bundle Monster. I loved this mani.

The only thing I didn't love was trying to photograph it.

I WENT OLD SCHOOL

I'm happy to report that no cooking was involved with my evening. Hubby happily agreed to take me out for dinner. From there my initial plan was to go home and take off that striping tape mani, but our car drove itself to the casino instead of making the turn to go home.

We had fun but came home losers. As usual.

When I was getting ready for work this morning, I looked down at my left hand, and to my horror, a huge chunk of the polish on the right side of my middle finger is gone. How crazy do you think that has been driving me all day?? It's sooooo bad!!! I don't know what I knocked it against, but it sure did some polish damage.

Now I have no choice but to do them tonight. Well, I already knew I had to, but now I can't weasel out of it. I have a doctor's appointment out of town, and obvi I need something impressive, especially since I've never been there before.

This mani from a couple weeks ago was a "just playing around" thing. Back when I first got stamping stuff, the first set I bought was a Bundle Monster set of 25 plates. One of the plates has this flower. Of course, those plates don't fill my finger, but a lot of the XL Bundle Monsters are just larger versions of their original plates. That's why I bought 'em.

I did my light pink with American Apparel Coney Island. When I stamped, I put Loreal Crazy for Chic and Cult Los Feliz in little blobs on the Bundle Monster BM XL05 plate so the colors would kind of smoosh.

While this did work out the way it was supposed to, it was only "meh" for me. I don't think I really care for those flowers as whole-nail coverage. I've used one or two in the past just for accent purposes, but to me this looks juvenile. In fact, the photo at the top of my blog on the far right has this flower from the original plate as a French tip accent.

It's probably why I didn't bother doing both hands. It just looked like a mani for a little kid on a grownup's hand. I bet I would have liked it better if I'd stamped with a really dark color.

I doubt I'll ever know because I probably won't ever use this image on my entire nail again. I may, however, at some point recreate that French tip mani using it as the accent. I still like that little mani. My friend had posted it when I first started doing my nails and kind of challenged me to do it. I was a real beginner then, but I was happy to try. After that she got all hooked on nails, too! LOL

I kind of enjoyed being able to say I was just a beginner at nail art. It gave me a built-in excuse for anything that didn't turn out very well. I'm guessing at 3 years in, I can't use that one anymore.

Now if I mess up, it's straight up incompetence. And that sucks!

SIMPLE, BUT NICE COLORS

I'm super happy my daughter, grandson and Zero came home Friday to visit for a few days, but having Zero and Seven here at the same time for an entire weekend is really knocking me on my ass. They play to the point of obvious exhaustion but fight sleep like little kids.

Last night they both slept with me, but it makes me sleep much lighter because I'm listening for them with the ears of a mother of newborn. Every tail thump woke me up. And as is pretty standard when Tyler is here, I didn't get to bed until around 4 a.m. The brats woke me up at 7:40. If Baylee pulls that nonsense, I can just tell her to go lay down, but since these two are only 10 months old, I'm not so brave with trusting them completely. So I got up, let them all out, fed them and then went back to bed to get another couple hours of off and on sleep. 

And they haven't stopped playing since then. The little buggers sure are adorable, though, and for the most part are very well-behaved. They simply have too much energy!

I did this mani at least three weeks ago.

The lighter color is China Glaze More to Explore and I stamped with Cult Laguna and the Bundle Monster BM XL05 design.

The Cult polish stamped really well, and it was the perfect color to stamp with. 

For the holiday, Cult is doing their Buy One, Get Two Free deal again. I jumped on it but only got two of their new colors and another white. If you decide to check it out, use the code MEMORIAL to get in on the deal. With shipping, my three cost $16.95. Even if they hadn't any new colors I wanted, I probably still would have hopped on board and just got three white.....love 'em.

I hope I can find some time to do my nails soon. I'm still sitting here with that gradient on, and I am SO over it at this point. I can barely stand looking at them.

If I get stuck wearing a holo or a multichrome for this long, at least those are still fun to look at on day five.

That gradient, not so much.

I DO LOVE A GRADIENT

I feel like my long weekend has gotten off to a productive start. Yesterday after work I got the house cleaned, washed sheets, our pillows and our blanket. I bought a new blanket because the other one, which is also fairly new, wouldn't stay tucked in at the foot of the bed. We have a high profile queen size Tempurpedic bed which has given me nothing but trouble in finding blankets. I have a couple of super expensive down quilts that weren't really wide enough, so I had bought a really nice blanket from Kohl's. I thought I'd be clever and get a king size. All that did was hang down too long on the sides but still come untucked.

I've been searching for awhile and finally found an oversized queen blanket, and I'm finally satisfied. As I was putting it on the bed, Kev informed me that the other one kept coming untucked on his side because he's been untucking it. When I asked why, he said his feet get too hot. So all this time I've been swearing at it in the morning, and he was doing it on purpose. I have now told him to knock it off and learn how to put his feet out without untucking the blanket. That's what grownups (like me) do. I was happy to see the blanket still firmly tucked this morning. Of course, the extra 10" in the blanket length should make it a little more difficult for him to get out. 

Then today the guy came to clean the living room carpeting. I've been waiting to have that done since last spring. I didn't want to do it before we had the ceilings redone; didn't want to do it when the puppies were still here; then it was early spring and way too muddy outside as the snow melted. Finally all of those things went away and they were able to come and take care of it. 

I also cleaned out and refilled all of the hummingbird feeders which made them very happy. After that I had a doctor's appointment, and then we went off to buy flowers for the garden. I'm hoping to get a start on that tomorrow. Damn things were expensive! We spent over $400, and I'm still trying to decide what else to get for the front of the house. 

Tomorrow will be my only chance to play in the garden this weekend because from Saturday to Monday I'll be puppysitting Seven so her owners can go off and have a nice one year anniversary. 

Done boring you!

Here's my current mani. 

I started off with a white base of Cult El Porto and then used that along with Square Hue Lincoln Road and Color Club Hot-Hot-Hot Pants for the gradient. I used Essie No Place Like Chrome and the Bundle Monster BM-XL11 plate for the stamp design.

I'm a fan of this. It needs to go, though, and it probably will tomorrow night, assuming I can think of something to put on in its place.

I WAS BORED

Where are my damn hummingbirds! Rumor has it they have arrived 7 miles away, and the migration map shows them up here since the weekend. I'm so anxious and worried my little boy didn't make it through the trip down south or back up here.

When I got home from work yesterday I was surprised to find the water part of my kitchen window feeder in the middle of the yard. So weird. I've had them fall before because the suction cup let go, but the cup and the cover part were still attached to the window. I cannot imagine how that bottom part unhooked itself and flew across the deck into the yard. That part actually screws onto the cover. Like I said, weird.

I'm also tired of hearing what sounds like things falling down in my house. I'll hear what sounds like something fall in my bathroom or laundry room but can never find anything that actually fell. And this morning I was in the living room when I heard a loud noise of something falling from behind me. I went into the two spare bedrooms and the bathroom....nada. I knew before I even went to look that there really wasn't anything that could fall. Again, weird. 

I went to the tanning bed for the first time yesterday. I was only in for 12 minutes, and today my face is on fire. Evidently they put in new bulbs. I knew I should have asked about that. I always buy a one month unlimited in May to get the season started, but I guess I'll have to cancel today's appointment. Looking like the color of a toddler's spanked backside does not appeal to me.

On Saturday I was undecided on what I wanted on my nails for work yesterday, so I did a couple of one hand mani's, and this was one of them.

I did my base with Cult El Porto and stamped with MdU #71, Nabu. I loves me a good coral, and this is a really pretty one for stamping. The plate I used was Fab Ur Nails FUN 13.

I am still loving these Mundo's. I've been seeing some people saying how they hate the smell and that they don't dry. I'm kind of confused by that. I don't find the smell to be any more offensive than normal polish, and it's less offensive to me than a lot of Kleancolor polishes. I also find that it dries like gangbusters. To each their own, I guess.

Some people also hate the fact that the maker won't disclose the ingredients, so there is a lot of speculation on what goes into these. As for myself, I figure none of this crap is good for me; acetone, non-acetone, nail glue or polish in general so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.


Simply Don't Care.

THIS IS FUN

It was summer today!! It hit 70 degrees. I briefly considered laying out in the sun but didn't have the ambition to either dig out a lawn chair or blow up my raft. I did sit out with the dogs for a bit, and nothing feels better than that sun. Love it.

Right now we are in the middle of our first full-blown thunderboomer of the season. I love a good thunderstorm. It's raining a little too hard for my liking, but I do love watching the lightning. It'll be interesting to see if the waspinators hold up with this driving rain.

I had a hell of a time trying to think of something to do on my nails today. I wanted to do a water marble, but these neons just would not cooperate so I did this instead.

I did one coat of white and then dabbed on some of the Kleancolor Neon collection I bought on eBay. Kleancolor Neon Pink, Neon Aqua, Neon Yellow, Neon Green, Neon Purple and Sangria Burst. 

It was a very bright blobbified mess, and I decided to mute it a little by putting Cult's holographic topcoat, Coachella, on top of it. From there I used my Mundo de Unas black stamping polish and this floral pattern from the FUN 13 plate.

I'm digging it. It has a very groovy vibe, I think. I think any self-respecting hippy from the late 60's-early 70's would approve.

Okay. I'm over it. The thunderstorm can go away and take the rain with it. There is absolutely no way I'm going to find those waspinators in tact in this. It's coming down so hard that if I step out there, I'll come back in with bruises.

So yeah. That's enough, Mother Nature. I don't know who you're bitching at, but let it go.

THIS IS SORTA' PRETTY

My bossman made my week. I no longer feel the need to throw my computer through the wall because he got me a new one. And it is awesome!

The computer had finally gotten to the point in it's decline that even the word processor was starting to fail. That was the last straw, and while he was in court I began the search for a new one that wouldn't cost a fortune. It never ceases to amaze me what computers cost. I remember paying $1,800 back in the olden days. Staples had a couple of all-in-one desktops on sale, two of which they "claimed" were in our local store ready to pick up.

I gave him the options, let him know the sale ended on April 25th and went on home for the weekend. I left the final choice up to him. He got the one I didn't prefer, but it was such a good sale I knew he would choose it. It has a 21" touch screen which is ridiculous because I don't really need a touch screen, but it was $100 cheaper than the one I really wanted which had a 23" non-touch screen.

And here comes today's bitch of the day! On Saturday he calls me to ask something about it because he was going to Staples to buy it. Great news! I was all excited to go into work on Monday knowing he was going to be in court for 2 days, giving me lots of time to set things up.

I get to work; no computer. He comes in and tells me Staples didn't have it, they were ordering it, and we wouldn't get it until Tuesday. WTF. I was off and on the website checking the tracking like a stalker, and that computer is still on the website saying our store has it in stock, ready for pickup today.

I call complete bullshit. What a complete load of it. Tuesday I was really stalking the order tracking because I planned on flying to Staples as soon as they had gotten it. It was on the local truck for delivery at 6:15 a.m. By 4 p.m. I was furious. Still no computer. 

I looked at the Staples receipt bossman gave me and went online to take their customer satisfaction survey which gives the opportunity to win $5,000. If they base who wins on how good the survey is, I'll never have to worry about winning that. My review was scathing.

The computer was finally dropped at the store after 6 p.m. Bossman went and got it for me on Wednesday morning, and it is awesome. I started putting in the programs and such that I use regularly and then discovered Outlook Express isn't even around anymore and not compatible with Windows 8.1. And since I didn't have a clue of what his email password was, or mine, I had to suck it up and call Charter for their help. I was pleasantly surprised when they not only let me change his, they let me change my personal one as well even though I didn't have any of my actual account info. I guess they trusted me based on the fact that my name is on his account. 

I absolutely hate the Charter email setup going from the Charter site, though. Outlook was so much more pleasant to look at and easier on the eyes. So I'm saddy pants about that.

Sorry. I rambled once again.

I had kind of thought I would stamp over that Sally Hansen Prism beauty, but my nails needed a soakoff so badly that on Tuesday night I decided I'd better just start over.

This isn't what I put on Tuesday night, but it's been in my drafts folder for a couple of weeks.

Now that I have those stamping polishes, I'm trying to think of things to use them on. It's harder than I thought it would be. 

The base blue is Cult PCH, and I stamped over it with Mundo de Unas Turquoise and Uber Chic's UC 1-03 plate.

It's fun. Normally if I've wanted to stamp over something like a darker blue, I've always had to stick with a silver, gold or white because nothing else I have would show up. I'm enjoying being able to stamp with something other than those colors.

Right now I'm trying to decide what I'll do on my nails today or if I'll just ponder it and wait until Sunday to do them. I'm not going anywhere so if I do them, it'll only be for my own fun and for posting on the interwebs.

Oh, and one more bitch! I didn't do a good enough job securing my one waspinator on the front of the house, and the dang thing is gone. It was super windy the other day and somehow it worked its way off the hook and flew to parts unknown. I wandered around the area looking for it to no avail. 

I went out and hung the spare one but took a pliers to crimp the hook closed this time. Hopefully that'll keep it safe. 

That's what I get for putting it up myself when they came. There's a reason I'm not the ones that puts things together around here.

I can't be good at everything, right?

 

TOTALLY STOLE THIS ONE

I have a minor body issue vent before I show off this mani I totally copied from someone.

Is it an old age thing? How come I weigh the same, wear the same size as I have for the past more years than I can count, but I now have a muffin top? I don't understand it. I don't remember ever being this uncomfortable in my own skin, and I'm not a fan. It makes me sad. The end.

The other day I was wandering around Pinterest looking for inspiration and found this mani. Well, it was almost this mani. She had done the stamping on only two of her nails. Doing accent nails isn't really my thing so I just tried to recreate it on all of my nails.

You can find her original of this one on her Facebook page, Esmalterapia4me. She does amazing stuff!

I don't know what colors she used, but I grabbed Square Hue Happy Creme and Cult Avalon for my pink/coral dabbed in random spots over white base. That flower is from the Uber Chic UC1-02 plate. And yes, I used my MdU for the white stamp.

I love how this turned out. Such pretty colors, I think. It feels very summery to me, and I may have to do this color combination again at some point. They might look awesome in a water marble.

I'm actually due for a water marble. I don't imagine I'll be able to get one done this weekend, though. I'm puppysitting for Razzie, and I don't think I could count on him to not run into my nail stuff. 

Seeing polish, distilled water and remover flying across the living room does not appeal to me at all.

BLACK AND WHITE

Oh, what a wondrous puppy-filled five days I had!! Tyler got home Tuesday night with Zero. He is just a joy to have around because he is such a sweetheart. The fact that he remains pretty obsessed with me doesn't exactly hurt my opinion of him.

On Saturday afternoon Major and Razzie came to play with their brother. Three big boys in the house along with Tinlee and Baylee makes for quite the houseful. And they were wound up and having a ball.

They couldn't make it with Seven during the boy time, but she came over Saturday evening for a couple of hours. She's fun to have around, and so are her owners. I love Laura and Lisa. They surprised me this weekend by bringing over some special kind of beer for Kev as well as some fruity kind of beer that I agreed to try. I actually kind of liked it so I finally now have a beer product I'm willing to drink. In other words, it doesn't really taste like beer.

The best thing they brought me was a ginormous Easter basket filled with.....PEEPS!!!! Hilarious! I should have known Lisa was up to something because she gets such an excited happy face when she is. I love it. They are the best.....they let me steal their dog AND bring me presents. 

With Tyler, Griffin and Zero home I didn't do much nail play, but even though I was exhausted last night, I did manage these.

I again used Cult El Porto for my white base, but once that was dry I mixed up some Uber Chic Girl on Fire glitter dust with some Seche Vite and gave the white an iridescent finish before using black and the FUN 13 plate for my design.

The glitter dust looked quite nice and added some depth to the white. In person it really showed up well under the black design....much better than in the picture.

Very different for me and even after wearing it all day, I never did decide if I liked it. It's gone now, though, so I guess it doesn't matter anymore.

MY EASTER NAILS

I'm not going to ramble on and on today. I'm enjoying a Saturday of puppysitting Seven until tomorrow evening. She is not so much a fan of me sitting with my laptop on my lap.

Right now she is passed out under the kitchen table. She finally got bored and fell asleep because Tinlee didn't want to play anymore. So I thought I'd do a quick post while they are recharging their batteries.

Since I knew it would be a dog filled couple of days, I decided I would do a mani last night. If my Easter Sunday goes as it usually does, we'll be going out to dinner with my family. I figured I may as well do something Easterish.

I started by putting on just one coat of white using Cult El Porto. It's my favorite white because the formula is just so nice. We all know what a pain white can be sometimes.

Then I did a gradient with Cult The Roxy, Square Hue Yellow Submarine, China Glaze Spring in My Step and Sinful Colors Bright Lucite.

I looked through all of my stamping plates and was rather shocked that I don't really have anything Easter-egg-like. I finally chose this design from my MoYou Pro XL 03 plate.

I'm pretty happy with this. I love the colors in the gradient, and all of those polishes worked really well on the sponge. My only bitch about this is the fact that I didn't get the stamping design on straight. It was too late at night to be a fuss budget about it, so I let it slide.

All in all, I'll call it a success.

I hope you all have a great day tomorrow and that the Easter Bunny brings you some goodies. My mom still handles that for me by buying me a large chocolate fudge egg from our local candy store. Sometimes she'll also get some little bunny decoration, too, if she finds a good deal somewhere. 

You're never too old for Easter goodies. 

HELLO, HOLO

Holy crapovitch! It is so friggin' cold outside! That pretty, bright sunshine is very deceiving. I never did understand why when it's sunny out in the winter, it makes it feel colder. Why is that?  Not that there's any chance in hell it could feel warm. It was 9 degrees at my house when I left for work. 

Bossman left here at 2 to go back out to camp, and I decided I would brave the cold and go outside to smoke. Normally I just use my e-cigs at work, but since I still have the loaner and couldn't smoke on my way to work, and since I have no actual work to do, I wandered out there. 

I speed smoked about  half that sucker and got my buns back inside to my space heater. Nope....I didn't need a cigarette that bad.

Last night I did decide to finish that striped mani and did the right hand. Why it went so much easier the first night is anybody's guess, but man, it was really giving me trouble! I had to re-do two of them and almost called it quits, but it seemed like such a waste to be almost done and then give up. I'm probs going to take it off tonight, though.

I think I had mentioned a few weeks back about a good deal on Nomorerack for Cult polishes. If memory serves it was 5 for 20 bucks. I didn't have any Cults so I got two sets. I like them so much I ended up buying more from the actual Cult site when they had a sale.

They actually have decent deals on polish quite often there. I know right now they have sets of 5 OPI for 20 bucks, and they have Essie's, some other brands and nail art stuff, too. Shipping on that site is only $2, which is nice.

One of my Cult sets had Coachella, which is billed as a holographic topcoat. Actually, if you do a couple of coats it's a nice silver holo all on its own. For this mani, though, I did use it as a topcoat.

I started the mani with Wet n Wild Mauve Frost, which is pretty much just some random medium pinkish/reddish/mauvish toned polish that I don't remember ever buying. I have no clue where/how/why I got it. Maybe it came in some lot on eBay way back when I was constantly hunting down lots of polish for next to nothing.

It actually is a very pretty color all on its own. Throwing the Cult Coachella over the top of it was kind of an afterthought. As you can see from the pic, even with a stamp over it, it did a pretty nice job of making the polish holographic. I was impressed. As I always find with holographic topcoats, it did lighten the color of the polish quite a few shades, but that was fine with me.

For stamping I used Sinful Colors Black on Black and the LeaLac LLC-A plate. Overall I'll call this a successful mani.

I do have to say that I'm really not sure why I've used this stamping design as many times as I have. Today I'm looking at this picture, and I don't even think I really like it.

Now that I said that I'll have to make sure I don't use it for awhile.