OH, THAT'S GREEN

I am really glad I'm now off until the 22nd, but it was a busy couple of days getting ready to leave town, which we are doing in about a half hour.

First up, got my hairs did. Last Thursday I got a much needed cut and color, and Wednesday after work I got a keratin treatment. Also much needed. I haven't had that done since September. I love having that done. It makes my hair feel fantabulous for months. This time I bought a new brand that doesn't need a 3 day wait until it can get wet, so that'll be nice. I hope it still works as well as the other stuff.

From there I popped into the tanning bad for a quick 20 minute snooze. After that I was hoping to finish planting the rest of the flowers. I had to wait until Kev pulled out a shrub, so he did that while I was at work. Then I'll be doing some last minute laundry and house cleaning.

Unfortunately after getting done with dinner, my stomach was hurting, so no planting got done. And of course yesterday it was misty and rainy starting from about 11 a.m. I did manage to get a couple of things taken care of in the back garden but was then forced inside by the weather. I was pissed!

I whipped up a fresh batch of hummingbird food, washed and refilled all of the feeders. I haven't seen too many birds the past couple of days. I'm hoping they're just nesting and will be back to business as usual by the time we get back home.

Finally late in the day I decided I was just going to have to go out in the mist and get the hydrangeas planted. Kev was a big help, so we managed to get it all done. The UPS man came while we were out there and brought me my new fountain. Kev put that together so even that got set up.

Tuesday night this is what I did.

It was actually prettier in person. The green is Barielle Polished Princess, the black is my Mundo de Unas stamping polish and the design is from the DRK-D plate.

I was a smidge irked that I did a mani using black stamping polish. My order of 14 Mundo's that I purchased through a group buy came, and even with all those colors to stamp with, I drew a complete blank on what color combo to do.

I finally came up with a mani to do last night, and once again, got all finished with it, had most of my stuff put away and then realized I once again forgot to do my toes. Seriously. So I had to get out stuff all over again and then just slapped on some light purple. Done and done.

And then I went and packed a large plastic bin of nail stuff to take on the trip. Don't know if I'll feel like doing them or even have time, but God forbid I get somewhere and realize I'm forced to leave the same thing on when I don't want to.

That would be terrible!!

VD STARTING NOW

Oh, what a great time we had for the past five days! It's always fun to visit with Tyler's adorable little fam. Good eats, good shopping, good company and just good times in general. I love it there....I'd move there if we could.

Nobody told Griffin we were coming, and the look on his face was pretty priceless when we walked in the door. I love doing that. Not much better than the excitement of a 4 year old.  Zero was also very excited to see us. Especially me. For once there's a dog that seems to like me best. Even Tyler says he's obsessed with me, and oh, lordie, is he ever cute!! I had lots of fun smooching on him.

The first night we ordered sushi, which was fantastic. There is no place in Esky to get sushi so we always have it when we go someplace that does. The other nights we had home-cooked meals, and since both Tyler and Bob are great cooks, that worked out well.

One thing about me, when I go out of town, I am not afraid to shop it up. I hit up Sally Beauty to replenish my supply of non-acetone and throughout the trip I only bought three nail polishes. That's pretty well-behaved for me, but TJ Maxx had nothing good at all this time around. Throughout the weekend I did manage to score 4 new pairs of jeans, a pair of shorts, a pair of cropped jeans and 6 shirts. Tyler and I even managed to find Kev 2 pairs of jeans that he liked and kept. He's pretty fussy about jeans, so I was really happy we found some.

On Sunday we took Griffin to Legoland. OMG! That place is amazing!!! Here's a sampling.

The Chicago stuff went on for quite awhile, showcasing a lot of the downtown area.  That tiger was just one of several, and they also had tons of other animals. It was better than a real zoo!! They have several other sections to visit as well as a store. I knew we'd have to buy Griffin a little something because he loves Legos, and he really wanted the firehouse. When Tyler and I headed out to Target Sunday night, Bob and Kev put it together, but they saved the helicopter for me to do. It is so much fun building that stuff!

After Griff left for preschool yesterday, it was time to head back home. Tyler sent me this next pic while we were still driving. She said Griffin got all posed with Zero and told her to take the picture and send it to us because it's "soooo cute". That kid cracks me up. Of course, he's not wrong. It is soooo cute!

I really did think I'd sneak in a blog post while we were gone, but we just ended up busier than I thought we'd be. And that's why I had done so many the previous weekend.

First up a purple one because it's purple week in the nail group. This is Sinful Colors Amethyst stamped with Essie Nothing Else Metals and the DRK-D plate. This Essie is actually kind of a lighter purple, but for some reason it looks more silver here.

I rather liked how this one came out. Of course I only did one hand since I was doing multiple mani's that day, but I wish I had actually worn this one for a day. Both hands.

I do still have a couple of others to show. I might even manage to post one a day until the "holiday" is over.

As I close this out, I'm pondering the title of this post and wondering how many of you remember the old-time ad; "VD, is for everybody....not just for a few" (sing along with me if you remember it, peeps!)

Now that's stuck in my head.  Which, for the record, is better than a Taylor Swift song in my brain.


 

WELL THIS IS JUST SAD

This past weekend was puppy-filled. Razzie got dropped off Friday evening. He is such a sweetheart and is as big as his momma now. He's a big boy already and has ginormous feet, so I expect he's going to be quite a bit bigger than Tinlee.

On Saturday evening his sister came over to visit, too. They rough-housed nonstop for over 3 hours. I was exhausted just from watching them.

Once Razzie went on his tail wagging way back home, I sadly sat down to take off that purdy water marble. It did not make me very happy to do so. Even after having it on for days, it still didn't have any wear on it, and I seriously was not tired of looking at it. 

I got a super cute new hoodie last week from my favorite eBay clothes seller. It's a solid off-white but has a tribal print at the very bottom of the sleeves and inside the hood. I figured I'd try to do something to match that.

Since Martha commented that she wanted to see the shirt (I just knew she was going to pull that), I decided to add this pic. In person, the colors match my nails almost exactly.

 

I used Essie Case Study as my lighter base and then used Square Hue Iron Horse and Scorched Summer to do the stamp from the DRK-D stamp.  As is often the case when I stamp something with lines, it's friggin' crooked. I was too lazy to try to redo it.

Hella-blech.

It's funny how something that is so cute on the shirt is not so cute on the nail. It's actually a really good match to the shirt, but sometimes things just don't translate the way I want them to. I'm thinking I'll ditch this one tonight because I really don't like it.

I have a feeling it might be awhile before I'm happy with a mani after that dang water marble. I've set the bar way too high for myself.

SO TYPICAL!!

I'm laaaazzzzyyyy today. Like super lazy. Well, I did sweep and vacuum, but other than that, I'm lazy. It's been a sit around, eat junk, take a nap and watch tv kind of day.

This is not what I was supposed to be doing. I was supposed to be going back up to Marquette to pick up my car.

In keeping with how everything else goes around here, I got up early yesterday and drove my happy ass up there so I could be there for the time of the appointment, which was 9:30. 

I was right on time and checked in at the service desk. Or tried to. I gave him my name, and he looked at me like I was on crazy pills. What's that? I'm not in the system? Go figure. I dug through my purse to find my appointment card. Yup, just as I thought. I'm not the crazy one.

Service guy didn't hide his annoyance very well, either, as he slunk off to find the guy that sold me the car. They never did figure out why my name didn't get into the computer, but whatever. Bottom line is there was no way they were going to get my remote starter installed yesterday.  They were supposed to do that and send the car over for rustproofing.  

So that made it possible for this lazy day because I didn't have to drive back up to get my car today. I actually won't have to drive back up there at all to get it because they said they'll deliver it since they screwed up.

They did give me the nicest loaner vehicle I've ever had before, a 2014 Forrester. Not quite as nice as my Outback, but nice!  I then made the mandatory trip to Target, where I bought a few Christmas presents and various other exciting things, like batteries. The highlight for sure was finding marshmallow snowmen and trees. Perfect timing since I had just finished off my last box of marshmallow pumpkins.

I drove over to Ulta to see if I could find any good bargains. Let's see, I think I spent approximately 90 seconds in there. I forgot how much I hate that place. They are on me like stalkers from the second I walk in. If they are constantly concerned about shoplifters, I'd rather they leave me alone while I browse and just frisk me and go through my purse on the way out. I would feel less invaded that way.

After that I hit up TJ Maxx which ended up being a place I didn't really feel like being. I absolutely love that store, but I definitely have to be in the mood to look through the racks to find something I like, and once I got there I realized I was not in that mood. I walked out of there with one bottle of nail polish and five rolls of wrapping paper. 

From there I headed home. I was looking at the growing pile of Christmas presents strewn about the house and decided to actually start wrapping. I have no good place to hide things and don't want Griffin to find things he shouldn't when he comes home for Thanksgiving. Of course, now I have to find a place to find a tempting pile of giftage. I can't win.

I'm still sporting the water marble, but here's one I did awhile ago.

This is one of those not very exciting but still good mani's. The green is Essie Sew Psyched, the white DRK-D stamp is Sinful Colors Wisp.

Like I said, it's a good mani. Don't remember how long I wore it, but I like it. I think it's a really pretty green.

Now I'm pondering what to do next. I've simply been too lazy to even think about it and too lazy to even wander the web for inspiration.

I honestly thought that today I would take the day to do some labor intensive fancy schmancy mani, but instead opted for the things I listed in the first paragraph.

Gotta' have a day like that every once in awhile, right?

NICE TO HAVE GOOD NEIGHBORS

I was pleasantly surprised that we didn't get much more snow yesterday. I shoveled the deck when I got home, but it had gotten a lot colder than it was at lunchtime, so I decided to say "screw it" and not shovel anything between the deck and the garage like I normally do.

This morning I got up to sunshine! It feels like it's been months since we had sun, so it was really nice to see.  It didn't feel too horribly cold when I let the dogs out, either.

After I fed the dogs at noon, I noticed that our neighbor was out there with his tractor plowing the end of the driveway. He always takes care of the bottom half of our driveway and out into the street by the mailbox.

Being the quick thinker that I am, I threw on Kev's snow boots, donned my hat and down coat and scooted outside to start shoveling. My hope was he would see me, take pity on me, and plow the upper half of the driveway, too.

Yup!!  I hadn't shoveled for very long when I heard him head on up to where I was. He took care of almost everything that I would have never done which left me with a fairly small area from the deck to the edge of the driveway. I'm so grateful because even the little bit I did was difficult. That frozen rain under the heavy wet snow that then froze was not easy to move.  That guy has saved my ass more than once in the 12 winters we've been here.

WTF......I think the sky just started dumping some rain/snow mix again.  

Okay. Looked at the Weather Channel, and it says we're suppose to get less than 1/2 inch. Whew!

Have I mentioned I hate winter?

I did this manicure last week, not sure what day it was, but it only stayed on for a day.

I'm too lazy to actually go look at the stamping plate, but I keep staring at this and wondering if those lines are supposed to be wavey like that or if I really  just did that crappy of a job.

The neutral base is OPI My Vampire is Buff.  I used Square Hue Iron Horse for the DRK-D stamp, and that was a mistake because the black looks dark grey when used for stamping. Lesson learned the hard way.

I really should break down and buy some real stamping polish. I've had Konad in the past, but I guess I didn't use them often enough because last time I looked, they were pretty much dried out and useless. If memory serves, I find that when I do use it for all my stamping, that bottle didn't last very long.

I don't like the price of their stamping polishes, even on eBay. I like using regular polishes for stamping, but sometimes I want a bolder black or white, and the special polishes are so much better for that.  I'm going to have to break down and buy some. I just need to figure out what brand and who to get them from.

I'm taking suggestions, guys and gals. Tell me what you like to use, prices and where you get them. I'm sure some of you stamping fanatics will have great suggestions.

JUST NAILS!

Ten minutes ago I decided I'd do a quick post since I'm all caught up at work.

The only nod to pups today is the fact that they slept from the time I went to bed at 1 a.m. all the way to 6 a.m. That's a record. I figured when I went to bed at 1 that they'd wake me at 4, which is about how long they usually stay asleep. I was surprised (pleasantly) when my alarm went off instead of puppies going off.

Here's another mani I wore for over a week. At least I really liked it.

I had seen swatches of the China Glaze Giver collection and really wanted all of them. When I went to 8ty8beauty and saw them for $3.25 each, I put all of them in my cart.

Then I pulled my head out of my ass and remembered that I probably have dupes for most of them. I limited myself to just a few.

One that I knew I had to have was Friends Forever, Right? because it's a light pink, and I do love me a great light pink. This one is very different from any of my others in that it's almost white with just a hint of pink. LOVE.

Since it was sitting next to me, I chose Release from that same collection for the stamp, which is off of my DRK-D plate.

I was and am really in love with this mani. It's just so soft and delicate, just like me. 

That's going to do it for the post today because after that last comment, I'm feeling a bit nauseous.

MIXED EMOTIONS KIND OF DAY

What a week last week was. Between the new pups, Tyler in town all week and Griff's birthday on Saturday, it was a lot busier than it usually is in my household. Tyler is heading back to Illinois today and Kev goes back to work tomorrow. It's going to be weird being alone.

I'd say it's going to be "quiet", but that just isn't the case with the 7 puppies. Lordie, they can make some racket! I'm anxious for their eyes to open so when they wander off they can find their way back to Tinlee. If it weren't for the fact that we are constantly rescuing them, I wouldn't feel the need to stay in the living room 24/7.  I'm a complete basket case thinking about having to leave them for work tomorrow. It'll help knowing I can watch them from the puppy cam, and I know they'll be fine because they are big enough to not get smothered by mom, but still....

I can't believe they are already a week old. I don't know if I like that. I have a feeling that 8 weeks is going to go by wayyyy to quickly, and I'll have to send them home with other people. I won't like it. At all. The owner of Tinlee's brother already has her plane ticket booked to come up on September 25th to pick up her girl. We've become great friends since I got Tinlee and she got Taylor, so it's going to be awesome meeting her in real life and having her at my house for a day. Plus it's a wonderful feeling knowing that the pup is going somewhere that I know she will be loved and spoiled rotten.

Sadly, amidst all of the good, fun stuff that's happening, I was saddened to learn of one old friend passing away yesterday after a battle with cancer. I also learned of another good friend from way back when that passed this morning.  They were both completely wonderful people, and it breaks my heart that they have been taken way too soon from their families.  Sometimes life just isn't fair at all.

As for nails, geez! I've been having a hard time thinking of things to do! Evidently I am no longer capable of doing a successful water marble, which is really pissing me off. I think I've tried on three separate occasions where I've given up on it. Maybe I don't have the patience I used to have, but I do think I've been giving up quicker on those. I used to spend hours to get them done. Since I had finally gotten pretty proficient at doing them, it's annoying as hell to feel like I'm a newbie at it again.

Luckily I at least have that new DRK plate to play with.  

This Julep Nan is an odd color. I don't know if it's red or a weird shade of orange. It kind of caught my attention amidst my reds because it doesn't quite fit in as red, but it also doesn't seem to fit in the orange drawers. What a dilemma!! 

Whatever it is, I used it along with the DRK D stamp and some black to do this little number. Didn't love it; didn't hate it. There just isn't anything special about it.

That's sort of how I've been feeling about every mani I've been doing. I guess I'm in a summer slump or something. 

Even if I snap out of the slump, those cute little golden colored bundles will be taking up my time....instead of golden colored nail polish.

BLUE FOR GRIFFIN

Wow. Newborn puppies are exhausting! I didn't realize when I got myself into this that it truly was like having a real baby. Sleeping at night is still intermittent, and I've spent the last two nights on the couch trying to sleep, "trying" being the operative word in this sentence.

Not only is the not sleeping difficult, leaving the house is also problematic. Today was Griffin's 4th birthday party, and since I don't dare leave them alone yet, Kev and I went to the party in shifts. Geez, at least with a human baby you can pack the diaper bag and go.

I was nervous just taking a shower today after Kev had gone for his party shift. This has got to get easier, right? Luckily the cuteness makes up for a whole lot of inconvenience.

 I mean, seriously....just look at those faces!!

Griffin was very specific this year about his color scheme for his birthday. Blue and black. He wanted 10 blue presents from his grampa; he wanted a blue and black semi truck cake; and he wanted his Gramma Diane to do blue and black nails.

 

You'd actually be surprised how much he takes notice of things like my nails. It's pretty hilarious. Very often he asks to see them and then says, "Oh, those are really cute, Gramma". He also happens to think my Coach purse is very cute. The kid is hilarious and owns my heart.

So of course I had to do my nails last night with blue and black. And when I got to the party, I got an "Oh my gosh! Those are cool, Gramma!"  So yeah....if the kid asks for specific nails, he's gonna' get 'em.

I went with my favorite light blue, Zoya Blu. I grabbed my American Apparel black to stamp with, and I used my brand spankin' new DRK-D plate. Since Ninja Polish is no longer, I kind of figured I would never get another DRK plate. Even when Ninja was still around, the D plates only came as rulers. You couldn't get all the designs on one big plate like the others. I didn't want to buy them that way.

One of my nail buds posted a link a couple of weeks ago that showed the full DRK-D designs on one plate. I wasn't even aware before that you could buy directly from DRK. Duh. Why I  never thought to check into that before is beyond me. At any rate, I bought it immediately. And if they make an E, F or any other letter of the alphabet, I'm getting those, too! I just love them!

Now I am going to change the blanket in the puppy pen. Again. I seem to be doing a lot of that. My washing machine is going to get a real workout in the next two months.