HERE'S ANOTHER THREE

It's been a good last few days. I took Tinlee to her boyfriend's house on Friday and Sunday, and I'll take her one more time on Tuesday. It's a three hour drive to get there, so it is time consuming, but the drive isn't too bad.

I've enjoyed spending time with the owner of Copper, who is the father of Tinlee's last litter. They also have Copper's daddy, who is 14 and one of Copper's sons, who is 2 and gorgeous, just like Copper. Mary, the owner, is really fun to talk to. Her husband, John, is a cutie, too. I brought them some banana cake that I made last night. When I went inside to use the restroom before making the drive back home, he had already finished his piece. It's fun to bake when somebody appreciates it.

Saturday was spent taking pictures of the neighborhood birds. It was bird-crazy at my house for some reason. I even had a female Hairy Woodpecker on the feeder. I've never seen one on my feeder before. I also had some Cowbirds and a whole lot of Goldfinches. I also took a whole lot of pics of hummingbirds. Adjusting to using my new camera is proving to be challenging. It's so much bigger and clunkier that I just can't get to it as quickly as my old point and shoot. I hope I get better with it as the summer progresses.

Sunday for the first time I had a Rose Breasted Grosbeak on the feeder, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera because I had the wrong lens on it at the time.

This first mani is from March!!

The yellow is Milani Yellow Whiz, and the scrollwork is done with Mundo de Unas White and the Uber Chic 6-01 stamping plate.

This orange thing is what I had on Friday. The base is Essie Peach Side Babe, and it's stamped with MdU Orange and the Uber Chic 7-03 plate.

I like this green one more now that I look at it again. I used Glitter Gal No Worries and MdU Green. The design is from the Cooi 035 stamping plate that I got from Ali Express a few weeks ago. 

I really recommend wandering over there and getting these Cooi plates. I'm super happy with them and if they come out with more full coverage designs, I'll for sure buy them. I bought all of the ones they currently make. They also had some plates with smaller designs, but I didn't get those. I tend to only buy full coverage designs.

Truth be told, I really should just stop buying for awhile. I have so many plates now that it makes it even harder to decide on a design. Of course, I say that right after buying the latest Uber Chic 3 set.

I suck at not buying.

NOT IRISH, BUT I PLAYED ALONG

Wednesday was Kev's 42nd birthday. I decided the housework could wait, and Kev and I went out for dinner instead. Oh, it was SO good! I had my usual, a filet, but I decided to spend the extra 10 bucks to have a lobster tail, too. It was so worth it.

After that we met up with Seven's parents at another restaurant for a drink. I didn't call them to go to dinner because we decided so last minute, and as it turned out, they had decided to go out, too. Then it was out to the casino for quite a few hours of playtime. We came home dead even, so that was nice. I'm always happy just to not lose.

Since we were out and about, I didn't get to do my nails last night.   I honestly had planned on doing a shamrock water marble, but I just never got around to it. I did this on Monday night so I'd have a St. Patrick's Day themed mani for work but then took it off on Tuesday.

I love my green base on this one. It's Nubar Reclaim, and it's a very pretty true green holo. I believe they've discontinued it, which is stupid, but I have two bottles. So I'm good.

I went through all of my stamping plates, and apparently the only shamrocky-clover thing I have is on this Fab Ur Nail FUN13 plate. I find it hard to believe I don't have any others, but I looked through them all twice and didn't see any. I find that weird. I just used Essie Good as Gold for the stamping.

I wasn't really feeling it so not a lot of effort went into this one. It was nice to use green and not have stained fingers, though. Thank you for that, Nubar. After the whole green fingers fiasco from that Julep holo, I've been afraid to do anything green.

If you've been out drinking green beer tonight, I hope you had a great St. Paddy's. And that you played safely and didn't drive.

EIGHT RANDOM MANI'S

It's Monday. Monday's suck. The end.

Here are eight pics that have been sitting in my drafts section feeling lonely and neglected. I decided since I'm in a craptastic mood I'd just throw them up here to get them out of the way.

Enjoy. Or not. Whatevs. After each pic I've posted what I used.

Square Hue Gibson Girl, Mundo de Unas Red, Uber Chic UC 4-02 stamp

Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Azure, Essie No Place Like Chrome, Uber Chic Christmas 01

Zoya Avery, Sinful Colors Bare, China Glaze Passion for Petals, gradient

OPI Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window, Loreal Because You're Worth It, LeaLac LLC-B stamp

Julep Winter, Mundo de Unas Dark Gray, Uber Chic 5-03

Ever After Bite Me, MdU Black,  Uber Chic 3-01

Sally Hansen Olive Branch, Essie Good as Gold, Uber Chic 5-01 stamp

Color Club Halo Hues Eternal Beauty, Mundo de Unas Violet, Uber Chic UC 5-02 stamp

And that's it for me. Even with posting all of these, I still have several more that are sitting in drafts.

I'm holding off on those; maybe they'll eventually earn a spot as their own post.

WHOA, JULEP - WHAT A DAMN MESS

What a lovely weekend it was. Kev somehow has managed to have every weekend off this month, which is very rare and very nice. Saturday we decided to have a date night, which is also very rare and very nice.

First up, the movies. We seldom go simply because for most films, I'm perfectly content to watch them from the comfort of my own home when they hit either pay per view or one of the premium channels. Then there are those movies that are just better on the big screen. This time it was Deadpool. Loved it. 

After that we went out to dinner. I'm always up for a steak even though I wasn't really all that hungry after eating popcorn. I did manage to eat all of it, though. Kev ordered a pizza with the intent of having leftovers for lunch the next day. It was a great plan since he only ate three pieces. He brought the box into the bar area with him and then left it behind. So no lunch for him.

From there we went home to the dogs, fed them, hung out for a bit and then headed out to the casino where we promptly lost our asses. We should have stayed home. It was fun, though!

I also managed to clean out my makeup drawer and the cupboards in our bathroom this weekend, too, so I managed to feel productive as well as just having some fun.

A few posts ago I showed you the blue holo I had gotten from Julep, Tali. It's a great polish so I ordered a couple more of their holos.

First one I decided to try was this one, Viv.

Once again, a beautiful polish. But what a complete nightmare. I was not having a good polish evening and between bumping a couple of them and some dog hair jumping on a couple, I had to start over again on several nails.

And that's when the trouble started. OMG. I've never seen such green fingers in all my life. I was horrified. When I was finally finished stamping with Essie Good as Gold and the Dana 10 plate, I spent another half hour trying to get rid of the disgusting mess on my fingers.

By the time I got done scrubbing with a toothbrush, first using toothpaste and then using baking soda, I still had quite the green tint going on. Except now I had sore fingers to go along with it.

I finally gave up and planned for some extra work in the shower the next morning. I used a ton of Julep exfoliating hand scrub and was finally satisfied that I could go to work not looking like the Grinch.

It took me two showers before I was comfortable enough with them to even take a photograph. It's a pretty polish, but I'm pretty disappointed with it because of the staining. I know I've had problems in the past with Kleancolor polishes staining, but I was not expecting that to happen here. 

Pretty annoying and certainly took the fun out of doing my nails that night. So I'm not recommending this one to anybody unless you are the perfect painter that never makes a mistake causing a do-over.

And that is certainly and obviously not me.

HOLO TOPCOAT

I'm sad that it's Saturday already. It's been a very nice, quiet couple of days, and I wouldn't mind having a few more just like it. Wednesday I cleaned the house after work like I always do and then did a couple of loads of laundry. After that I made a banana cake which was a mistake. It didn't turn out as good as the last one because the bananas were too fresh. I didn't have the patience to let them ripen and did the freezer method instead. It's still good, but the last one was better. Lesson learned.

Yesterday I groomed Tinlee, much to her dismay. That dog does not like any part of that. I easily could make a new dog with the hair that came off of her because she is shedding like a mo-fo. Baylee tried to help by shoving her way in on the action. As I'm brushing Tinlee, that moose scoots her way right in front of me and flips onto her back which leaves me reaching over her to brush the Tinster. She is so weird.

I decided to do a brown mani back on January 11th. I chose Fingerpaints Hue Are You and then did a holo topcoat to spark it up a little.

I love this holo topcoat. I really wish I knew where I got it. I bought it a long time ago, two mini bottles, and whoever made it didn't put a name on the bottle. So now I want more and can't find it. I know it is spectraflair 35, but that's it.

I used Uber Chic 3-02 and Essie Good as Gold for the leafy kind of design.

My Essies are all I use for gold or silver stamping, and I'm kind of wondering if I should buy some actual gold and silver stamping polishes. The Essie stamps really well so I'm not even sure why I'm pondering that. Maybe I just feel like spending money.

I'll need to talk myself out of that for now. I've spent money on several random things over the past couple of weeks which is something I always seem to do right after Christmas. 

I really am going to go wander Etsy, though, to see if I can find that holo topcoat. That, I need.

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.

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!!

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.

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.

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.

IT'S WHITE WEEK

Summer is back!! And it looks like it will be here for the weekend. High's in the 80's in town which means close to 90 at my house. I'm so looking forward to pool time. I managed to sneak in a couple of hours today and came inside just as it started to rain. The rain didn't last very long, but it gave us a pretty good sized jump in the humidity. It was hot and stuffy enough that I actually closed up the house when I turned on the a/c. Even with that, I was still sweating my balls off when I was cleaning the house.

My time in the pool was spent watching the Hummingbirds and warding off wasps. So part fun, part annoying. After I got done cleaning, I sat out on the deck for a few minutes and fed some birds. They are going through more nectar than I think I've ever seen right now. All day long I get to listen to them chattering out there, and they are on me almost as fast as I sit down with the feeder in my hand. 

The gang over in Nail Fun chose white as the color of the week, and I decided to play along yesterday.

I used my latest Square Hue, iPolish, for my white. I may have a new favorite white. The formula on this one is fantabulous!! The worst thing about Square Hue is falling in love with one and not just being able to order it. I'll be super saddy pants when this one runs out.

For my stamping I used Essie Penny Talk, and I used one of my new Dana stamping plates. This design is from the Dana3 plate.

For $12 I got ten Dana plates. I had run across some random link where somebody had used them and given them great reviews. I figured for that price, I'd take the risk. I'm happy I did. 

Now I have to try to force myself to stop buying stuff! It would be easier if people wouldn't constantly post pictures of their new pretties.

No buy starts.....now.

 

THE GRIFFSTER IS 5

I'd say "Happy Monday", but that would be a load of b.s. I don't think I know anybody that actually likes Mondays.

It was a busy few days. On Wednesday night Tyler got home with Griffin and Zero, although Griff went straight to his other grandparent's house. Zero was very happy to be "home". On Thursday I had a doctor's appointment two hours away, and then we went out to dinner with some friends. From there we lost some bucks at the casino.

Friday was hang around the house and pool time with the dogs and with Griffin. The little stinker turned 5 on Wednesday and doesn't need any kind of swimming helpers anymore. He is so great in the water! Absolutely no fear of going under or anything, and he has a whole lot of fun when Grampa Kev is in there with him. While I might not be strong enough to pick him up and throw him, Grampa surely can. Poor Kev always gets a workout when Griffin is around.

Saturday was the big super hero themed 5th birthday party. Griff assigned me to be Wonder Woman, and Tyler had bought me a t-shirt with the symbol on it. It was going to be in the 80's, though, so she made me a tank top on Friday night. Good thing because it was hot out during the party. I did my nails blue with red stars per Griff's request, and I had the bat signal on one nail, which he really thought was cool. The entire mani was so  hideous I didn't even take a picture of it. But it made him smile, and that's really all that mattered.

I did make the mistake of letting Griffin go swimming in the morning. He ate lunch and went back in for a little while. Then while the grownups were getting ready for the party, this happened.

Baylee hasn't shown much interest in her new dog bed, but Griffin finds it super comfy. He slept for over an hour and was late to his own party.

It was a good party with good food and lots of great people. I think everybody went home happy.

I wanted to eat his face. And the cake. I settled for just eating cake.

Unfortunately, it looks like last week was summer. Now it's back to cloudy and much colder. It was in the 50's last night, it's about 70 right now, and the next 10 days don't look much better. 

So much for nice warm pool water. :(

Last week in nail group we were doing blue. I actually managed to wear 2 different blue mani's last week but never found a chance to post either one. So as usual, I'm late.

This is Barielle End of the Rainbow stamped with Essie No Place Like Chrome and my Uber Chic UC 1-02 plate.

I had a hard time getting pics of this one. There was just a ton of glare obscuring the butterfly. I finally gave up trying and just went with this shot, which was the best of the bunch.

This one is just "okay" for me. Almost everything I've done lately is just okay for me. I need to come up with something I'm going to love, dammit!

WATER MARBLE BRIGHT

OMG, I need a puppy fix SO bad!! I haven't had any of Tinlee's kids at the house for weeks! I've already sent word out to three of them that I need puppy time. Thankfully they are all ready to come over to visit. I might even get to steal Razzie for a night or two. I was thinking I would do that this weekend, but Kev made a comment about how he wouldn't be home. I guess he wants some puppy time, too.....not sure if I can wait for him, though.

I decided to carry on with that bright yellow for this mani.

I had picked up quite a few bright colors when I was on vacation, and I decided I would just use a few that were sitting on the table waiting to be swatched.

The yellow, of course, is Studio M Neon Caution. The lime green is Essie The More the Merrier and the orange is Sally Hansen Mighty Mango.

I liked how these three colors look together, and all of three of them were very cooperative for marbling. Ya' just never know what's going to work and what's not. I did have to add a few drops of thinner to the Studio M. It seems I always have more difficulties with yellows. No clue why that is. This one definitely marbled better than any of my other yellows ever have in the past.

This is damn near blinding it's so bright. That's not a bad thing, but I think I'll do something a little bit more muted tonight.

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.

NO IDEA WHAT TO CALL IT

Ahhhh, it's April!! I don't know why that fact somehow means it's really spring now, but that's kind of how I think of it. I'm still wearing a winter coat, though, so maybe I should rethink and try again in May.

I'm attributing my office cleaning as spring fever. I feel so accomplished at what I got done over the past few days. I think there's now enough room in the storage closet to get us through the next couple of years. Our conference room, on the other hand, is a disaster. I dragged all of the old files that need destroying into that room. I didn't want to leave them hanging out in the hallway area by the closet. Obviously people's personal bizniz can't be sitting where Joe Schmo can see it.

My whole body aches from moving and lifting those damn boxes, though. I was going to have Kev come and help me but decided to just go it alone. So it's done, but I'm paying for it.

In the springtime spirit, the last few mani's I've done have been leaning towards brighter colors. And on this one I used a bunch!

I started with a base of Sinful Colors Snow Me White and then dabbed a bunch of colors on my Bundle Monster BM XL16 stamping plate and let the colors spread out however they wanted.

So this is Sinful Colors Endless Blue and Boom Boom, China Glaze Grass is Lime Greener, Julep Daisy and Essie The Girls Are Out. Once I finished stamping, I used Butter London's matte topcoat to dull it down.

This didn't turn out quite the way it was in my head, but it's okay. I'd do it again but probably use a different stamp pattern. I do think it's fun using more than one color on a stamp, though. I just don't seem to do it very often.

I took a break from this post to clean the house and make Rice Krispie bars. I'm going to go eat a row of those for supper and watch some tv.

I'm tired from not sleeping very well the past couple of nights, so this is going to be a no-nails-night for me. 

Translation: I'm uninspired and lazy.

SHAMROCKS

Well, I give up on the glasses. Considering how cheap glasses are, maybe I'll just buy new ones. I'm over it. All my pan covers look awesome, though!

The only other exciting thing I did was laundry. So not so much a "fun" four days off, but at least I accomplished something.

Now I'm just waiting for the hubster to get home around 9. He went out with his brother last night so I'm wondering what kind of shape he'll be in. I'm guessing tired. My bet is he'll stay up long enough to watch Walking Dead and Talking Dead and then go to bed. Nice rhyming there, hey?

Not a drop of Irish in this gal, but I did do a couple of green manicures. I did this one yesterday.

I got a couple of new stamping plates, FUN 13 and 15. The images are barely big enough for my thumbs, but they are pretty good sized otherwise. I did manage to make it work on my thumbs. Nobody ever looks at those anyway.

The light green on this one is Essie Absolutely Shore. I used the shamrock design from the FUN 13 plate and stamped with Barielle Date Night.

I like the color combo of the super light green with the true green. And I do think shamrocks are cute.

That's about it for tonight. I just don't have anything worthwhile to say. My brain appears to be in lockdown for some reason.

Maybe the ammonia fumes finally got to me.

NOW THIS IS BRIGHT!!

I'm sure you will all be very relieved that we still get to go to the concert. It got rescheduled to Monday, and luckily I struck a deal with the bossman to work a couple of different days so I can have Monday and Tuesday off. 

Right now I'm fuming. I just went outside, fell down on the ice and put a hole in the knee of my jeans. Of course they are one of my favorite pairs. I'm going to do an iron on patch from the inside. Hopefully they'll not look too bad when I'm finished.

Now my knees and the palms of my hands hurt. (insert self-pity here)

I did this mani the other night. Holy brightness.

This one wasn't so easy. I don't know why I attempt these swirly water marbles. They are a headache. My colors for this one are China Glaze Sneaker Head, American Apparel Poppy, Pure Ice Show Stopper, QRS Love is Blue and Essie The Girls are Out.

I think I had to re-do at least 6 during this process. Sometimes water marbles are no fun.

I'm kind of excited to head home. After waiting for 10 months since getting the estimate to fix all of the ceilings in our house, today was day 2 of the work. By the time I get there, all of them should be smooth. By Friday they should be completely finished. Kiss those hideous popcorn ceilings buh-bye and good riddance.

I was also very excited because I ordered a new ceiling light for my bedroom on Monday and was even more happy because it was going to be delivered today.

Imagine my disappointment when I got a text from Tyler in Illinois. Evidently I forgot to change the shipping address in my account from when I sent her some boots last fall. So she has my new light fixture sitting at her house. I'm not going to pay to ship the dang thing so now I won't get it for probably at least 2 months.

And once again, I hate when I'm stupid.  I think I really should have born a blonde since being fake blonde makes me an airhead.

OH, WHAT A DAY!!

It has been an interesting couple of days here. Charter was here when I got home from work yesterday setting us up with cable and our new Tivo box. As usual, we got the workers that didn't really know how to connect things up with Tivo. We had Tivo years ago and really liked it. We've been swearing at DirecTv every damn day for the past couple of years. We only got it in the first place because their dvr recorded more shows at a time, and it was cheaper than cable.

Finally last week after not being able to watch a few of our fave shows due to the pixelating and pausing that happens every day, it occurred to me that maybe we should just go back to cable and look into getting Tivo again.  I looked at the Tivo website and once I discovered they have a box that will record 6 things at once, I told Kev to start looking at our options.

By the end of the next day it was decided. Ditch DirecTv and go back to Charter. Add on Tivo. Discover that monthly it's going to be something like $60 cheaper right now and will only go up $20 in a couple of years. Say whaaaa??  Why did it take me so long to think of Tivo??  

So now everything is installed, and I have to watch everything that's on my DirecTv dvr so we can send it back. And bonus, we get to keep the satellite dish. Why is that? What the hell am I supposed to do with a spare satellite dish? I guess we'll keep it as a decoration to cover the holes in the roof where it's installed. Cute.

When I went to bed at 2 a.m. last night, it was 24 below zero outside. In this cold I've been keeping the water running in the kitchen and the spare bathroom 24/7. It was running when I went to bed.

At 8 a.m., the phone rings. I'm swearing as I get up, wondering who the jerkoff is that's calling me so early. Well, it was Kevin, who got up at 4 a.m. to go to work. He was calling to tell me the pipes were frozen. At that point I was in shock. That means sometime in a 2 hour time span, the pipes froze even with the water running. That is crazy! As we're talking, he asks me to do him a "favor" and run outside to the side of the house where the crawlspace is. Evidently when the cable guys were here they had to go under the house. 

And the bricks that cover that area didn't get put back, so all of the pipes had nothing blocking all that cold from getting to them. So that's fantastic. I put a call in to a couple of plumbers and the one I reached said they were swamped but would be out between 11 and 2. 

Then I wander into the living room and find the bag from the party size bag of Hershey Kisses laying on the living room floor.  Empty.  Rut-roh. I had them out last night and was chomping on them while waching tv and went to bed, leaving it on the end table. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but I guess when Kev left for work, Baylee got pissed and decided to be bad.

So now it's semi-panic time because I have an 80 lb. Lab who has eaten probably 20 oz. of chocolate. She was acting fine, but I called the vet just to ask advice. They told me to give her peroxide and make her puke. I gave her peroxide, and the idiot wouldn't puke. In the meantime, she's still acting fine. I waited a couple of hours and did the peroxide thing again, and she finally threw up. The only thing it accomplished was proving she was the guilty party because I found a wrapper. She then made several trips outside to dispose of her gourmet breakfast from the end opposite of where it went in.

She's fine, thank God. As usual, it caused me more stress than it caused her. 

In the middle of all this, the water came back on as I was talking to the second plumber who had called me back after getting my message from 8:30. So after telling him I didn't need him, I then called the other guy to cancel.

Overall, the morning was eventful, but everything turned out fine. Needless to say the water will be running at a little bit bigger trickle when I go to bed tonight, although it isn't suppose to be nearly as cold as last night. I ain't risking it.

Here's my mani from yesterday.

I friggin' love this one. All three of the blues are holo although they really don't show it much. The lighest blue is Nfu Oh 65, the mid blue is China Glaze Take a Trek, and the navy is Darling Diva Queen of the Night. Buy Queen of the Night. Immediately. As a matter of fact, go buy a bunch of their polish. It is amazing.

Of course I couldn't just leave it alone, so I stamped on it with Essie No Place Like Chrome with the LeaLac LLC-A plate.

Did I mention I love this one? I'm still wearing it, although I am considering taking it off to play. Or maybe I'll just keep looking at it until Sunday when I'll need to do something else before going to work on Monday.

Now I'm going to marathon watch some more television. I've been trying to watch while typing this, but it isn't working. I've rewound the show 5 times now because I'm not paying attention to it.  

I wish I had some Hershey Kisses to nibble.

GOTTA HAVE PINK, RIGHT?

I am ready to shove these fingernails right up somebody's ass. Not even kidding. After trying so hard to apply them more carefully yesterday, that damn left thumb popped off after work today. What was I doing? Unbuttoning my jeans. Really.

Not only that, the only ones that actually feel secure right now are my pinkies and my left ring and middle fingers. I honestly don't know what the problem is. I went through this a few months ago where I was having problems, and just as weirdly as that started, it then stopped. I don't get it. I've had these almost three years and never had these kinds of problems before. 

Color me frustrated/annoyed/pissed....take your pick.

Here's another heart mani. WooHoo. 

I decided to use China Glaze Spring in My Step and Essie Bachelorette Bash for this one. The sweater-ish stamp is from the MoYou Festive 04 plate.

It ain't perfect. It was during my "knock five mani's out in a day" stint so I pretty much was just letting things go as they wanted. I didn't want to take the time to redo anything. I was in that weird space of motivated to do lots; not so motivated to be careful while doing it.

In any event, it does count as a Valentine themed manicure. I wore it nowhere, and that was just fine and dandy with me.

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.