REMEMBER ME? LOTS OF PICS!!

Whew! It's been awhile! One of the parts of having puppies in the house that I forgot was the influx of people that come over. The little cuties will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. Already. It's going by way too fast, and I'm trying really hard to not think about them leaving for their furever homes.

Thankfully this time I get to keep one, and I'm also super happy that Seven's owners have decided to get another Tinlee pup this time around. So my little dark blue ribbon boy, Ziggy Stardust, already is chosen. I, on the other hand, am still undecided on who to keep. It's a good thing I only have 2 girls to choose from because having more options than that would be impossible. At this point, my red girl, Queen B, is really trying her best to make me pick her. She is the absolutely smoochiest of puppies and is always kissing my whole face and trying to eat my nose. China Girl has thrown her hat into the ring, too, but I won't be able to decide for probably a couple more weeks.

Regardless, they are all adorable. I wish I could keep them all.

 

 

Seriously....what's not to love here?

I actually have managed a couple of manicures over the past 3 weeks. Of course, in 3 weeks I have only left the house twice, so I'm not doing them very often.

The base for this is an opalescent white by the Target exclusive brand, Defy & Inspire. I found this on a clearance rack, and it had no name on it, but I "think" it's Petticoat. Over that I used MdU Black and Uber Chic 10-01. I managed to snag a couple of those polishes on the clearance rack, and I really am a huge fan. Tyler was here for a week for Griff's 6th birthday and brought the topcoat with her. Just for kicks I tried it over a mani to see if it would smear the stamping, and I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't smear the black stamp, and it dried very quickly. 

The lighter orange here is Sinful Colors Skylark stamped with Mundo de Unas Orange. The design is from the Uber Chic 4-01 stamping plate. I was just in the mood for an orange.

This one was actually the first thing I did after putting my nails back on. I had removed them for the birth of the puppies. I wanted something light so I chose Zoya Pandora. Within the first hour of painting my nails this color, I messed up 4 of them. My initial plan was to stamp on top of the pink, but I wore it, damaged, for like 5 days. When I finally felt like doing my nails again, I ended up taking it all off, starting over on all of my nails but painted them the same color all over again. I was just too tired from lack of sleep to go choose something and the Zoya was still sitting on my table. I did finally manage to stamp on them, though!! I used Fresh Paint Emma and Uber Chic 4-01 for the design. The Fresh Paint polishes stamp very nicely.

Last Friday night we had Griffin's birthday party, and I've been hanging on to these Lego water decals for awhile. I finally decided to use them. It seemed appropriate since we gave him a couple of different Lego sets for his birthday. Griff thought they were pretty cool. I did the water decals over a base of Square Hue Monch, which is bright yellow.

Right now I hear some movement in the puppy pen, so I'm guessing it's going to be time to do some cleanup and give some kisses. 

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!!

THREE TO SEE HERE

Nothing too much happening around here for the past week. I did finally get two days in the pool last weekend, but so far this week the weather has not cooperated. Luckily the forecast for at least the next couple of days is great.

Right now I have Seven. She has been here since about 4 o'clock and will be here until early evening tomorrow. She is dying to go in the pool. I had to make sure to lay a raft on the stairs so she wouldn't go flying in without permission. It's a good thing I did that because right after supper we went outside, and the minute I turned my back she was partway up the steps. Little stinker loves the pool so she is going to be one happy little girl tomorrow.

It's hard to do nails when she's here. She spends most of her time depositing toys in my lap. I figured since I'll probably not get to doing anything with them for at least a day or two, I'd show a few in this post.

This very bright pink is Fresh Paint Passion Fruit. I stamped on it with Mundo de Unas Tutti using my brand spanking new Uber Chic 10-03 stamping plate. I used one of my clear stampers to do this one, and it didn't pic up the design very well, unfortunately. It was way too late for a do-over. I actually was painting these around 2 a.m. the other night and told myself that I'd wait to stamp until the next day. 

Then for whatever reason, I totally forgot what I had just told myself  and just kept right on going and did the stamping, too. By the time I got done it was almost 3 a.m., and I decided I simply did not care enough to worry about trying to improve them.

This next one is from several weeks ago.

I used Zoya Kelly for the dark gray base and stamped with MdU Light Gray and the Ali Express Cooi 030 stamping plate. I really want them to make more of these Cooi full image plates. They are really nice!

My monthly Julep polishes came last week, and I loved all three that I received. This pretty coral is Julep Lindsey, and I decided I would stamp with a navy blue since the shirt I was wearing to bebop around town had coral and navy in it. I don't own a navy stamping polish, so I used Julep Marisa with my Uber Chic 5-03 plate. I have found that Julep polishes stamp very well indeed, and I loved the combination of the coral with the blue.

So there ya' go. I might not be posting much, but at least I'm throwing a few here for you to see just so you know I'm not completely ignoring my nails.

TWO YUKS IN A ROW

I don't know what my deal is, but I'm just hating everything I did for like the past week. I ordered a bunch of different nail vinyls from Ali Express, so I decided to give them a try last weekend.

First of all, they were super cheap at $1.44 a sheet. I bought 8 different designs from this seller. I see now they are $1.80 per sheet. I haven't looked, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone else had them for less over there somewhere.

The quality of the sheets is pretty damn good. I only used three from the sheet to do all ten of my nails.

So it isn't the fault of the vinyls that this mani is crap.

I started with two coats of the very light pink, Fresh Paint Blank Space. Once that was dry and topcoated, I placed a vinyl and sponged on Different Dimensions Coral Rose. I then used an eye shadow applicator to fill in the small spot with OPI DS Signature.

It just turned out kind of jumbled mess. Maybe I was tired; mabes I was just doing sloppy work. I don't know. I have no excuse. I was embarrassed wearing it out to dinner with the fam on Easter Sunday and was happy nobody made a comment.

The clerk at the grocery store loved it, though. I thanked her and went on my merry way back home to remove it.

Bottom line, Ali Express vinyls are a win at a great price. And I received them in 13 days, which isn't too shabby. 

I should probably stay off of that website. It makes me want to buy ALL of the nail stuff!

TEARS FOR MY NEW SHIRT :(

It probably would come as no surprise to anyone that has seen a pic of me that my hair is colored. The hair of my youth was a nondescript mud brown color, fine in texture and thin. Luckily after having my first child, my hair did improve in texture, but gradually over the years I went from blonde highlights to just being blonde. I can't imagine ever going back to natural, especially since it's more than likely a whole lot of grey by now.

Unfortunately, with that comes the upkeep, and for some reason I just really hate going to get my hairs did. I finally went in last night for a cut and color, and I hadn't been there since November 3rd. Kind of outrageous. Luckily my hair is just worn straight, and I've learned how to cut my bangs just to avoid going in.

Don't get me wrong; I love who does my hair. She's been a very dear friend since the 80's, so we go way back. We always have a lovely visit when I do go, and last night was no exception. When I got home, I was going to heat up some supper and decided to take off my pink shirt to avoid having it splattered on. When I took it off, I was horrified to find the entire upper back of it was covered in a brownish color which I immediately knew had to be hair dye. I'm assuming it had to come from the inside of the cape I was wearing. I immediately sprayed it with Oxyclean and threw it in the washing machine and crossed my fingers.

While it was washing I texted her for ideas on what to use to remove the dye. When it came out of the washing machine still stained, I tried both of her ideas and threw it in again. While it was washing that second time, I wandered the interwebs for more ideas. Since it came out still stained, I tried the other ideas I'd found and tossed it in one more time.

That shirt has officially been washed more than it's been worn. I bought the same shirt for Tyler for Christmas, and I loved it so much I got one for myself in February, so I've worn it exactly twice. Color my shirt ruined, and color me sad. It took me about one second to decide I was just going to buy it again, and of course my size is sold out because they are on sale and not being restocked. I decided to risk getting the small instead of the medium. It's a long sweatshirty thing that isn't fitted at all, so I'm hoping the small will work. If it doesn't, be prepared to see me whining about it some more because it's not returnable which means I'll have two shirts I can't wear.

By the time I got done with all of that shirt drama, it was too late to do my nails, so I'm still wearing this one from Sunday night.

I kind of like how this one looks. The lighter brown base is Fresh Paint Never Go Out of Style. You know how I love my Fresh Paints. After topcoating, I stamped with MdU Black using the Uber Chic 6-01 stamping plate. I really liked the matte look of the black on top of the brown, so I did not topcoat this mani once I was done stamping.

Oh, yikers. Hopefully I will remember that if I ever do that again, it's going to have to be a one day mani, not a three day. The black design is completely gone at the tips from typing, and it's just worn off in other random spots, too. 

Now that my work week is almost over and it's house cleaning time when I leave here, I guess it doesn't matter too much at this point, but it sure ain't cute.

My plan is go home, clean the house and then do a soak off of my nails. I can't remember when I put these on last, but I smacked my ring finger earlier and knocked one loose, and when I was painting them Sunday night, the growout was starting to look bad to me. Do I feel like doing a soak off? Nope! As much as I love my nails, sometimes they are a big ol' PITA.

And I seriously don't know what I'd do without them.

VALENTINE'S - BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

I am officially ready for winter to be over. We had a week of brutal cold, and now that it has "warmed" up to the 20's, it snowed. Of course it did; Kev left this morning. I was silently begging Mother Nature to make it stop because my happy ass did not want to shovel after work. It did stop, but I did shovel on my lunch hour.

While Valentine's Day is just another day in February at my house, I did actually wear heart mani's last week. I don't need a February 14th holiday because I'm lucky enough to have a husband that lets me know every single day that he loves me. Sappy, but true. He is just that good.

So these are the two half-assed nods I gave to the holiday. They don't even matter enough to have their own posts.

This one was weird. I did two coats of Sally Hansen Color Foil Rose Copper, which looked quite pink when I put it on. Then when I put topcoat on it, it completely changed the color to a sickly not-quite-gold. I took it all off and started over. I then used this heart pattern from the Dana 2 stamping plate with my Mundo de Unas Black. 

Thrillsville.

I will say I was pleasantly surprised that nothing chipped off, even without a topcoat.

Before that, I had also done this mani that I wore for a couple of days.

We had just gotten back from Illinois and my buying spree, so I used Fresh Paint Shake it Off for the pink base. I used Mundo de Unas Velvet and the Uber Chic 1-01 plate for the hearts.

I bought the Fresh Paint at a Five Below store, and they were 3 for 5 bucks. I do own a few of those from a previous trip but have forgotten how much I like them. If I had remembered, I think I would have bought at least one of every Fresh Paint polish they had. I really love their formula, and you just can't beat a price like that.

That's my "note to self" for next time I'm near a Five Below which I assume won't be until the next time I go to Tyler's. So yeah, I'm guessing February 2017.

A SMIDGE TOO SUBTLE

Is it 5 o'clock yet? This day has just been dragging for some reason. I want it to be over so I can move along to my four days off. It doesn't help that this work computer's ass is dragging. Few things drive me crazier than a pokey computer. It keeps freezing with a script error, usually when the bossman wants something from the internet. Explaining to him why I'm being slow is kind of pointless since he doesn't really know how it works.

I really did want to throw it through a wall today. For realz. That's probably they only way he'll buy a new one unless it literally blows up. Somebody told him about the portable clouds you can buy to back up the contents. I laughed and laughed....this old XP system doesn't even have a spot to connect any such thing. He's hilarious. 

In the meantime, I just burned all of my docs onto cd's. At least if this thing dies, I won't lose the important stuff. I'm a saver. Anytime an old client comes in, if it's for something after about 1995, I still have it in this thing. It makes my life easier.

Enough bitching about that. I did this purdy little gradient on Sunday night and really liked it and enjoyed staring at it at work on Monday.

For the gradient I used Fresh Paint Alex's Lemonade, Color Club Blue Ming (which for the record is blue, oddly enough) and QRS Cruiser. Once that was done I stamped using the Bundle Monster BM XL02 plate.

And then I screwed up. For some reason I thought adding a bit of bling would be a great idea. I grabbed one of my fave glitters, Orly Shine on Crazy Diamond and threw on a coat of that. 

That's where I should have stopped. But nooooo....I didn't think enough bling was showing up so I did a second coat. And then watched as the stamping pretty much vanished beneath it. 

While I liked the subtle white stamp, I didn't want it quite this subtle. For a brief second I actually considered stamping it again on top of the Orly but thought better of it.

So don't overdo even a delicate glitter over an already soft stamp. Got it. Lesson learned.

Oh, I am so anxious to get out of here. I want to go to Walmart and buy Peeps. I've been out of them for a couple of days which is completely unacceptable. I only bought ten boxes last time. Sometimes I buy too many and then comes the point where I'm over it and don't want to eat anymore. Now I have to decide how many more boxes I should get. I'm thinking I'll do ten again. If I'm still not over it before Easter, that'll give me time to buy one more round before they disappear from the stores.

And since Kev is gone, they might just make a delightful supper tonight.

MIGHT HAVE MY GROOVE BACK

My name might not be Stella, but I for sure am feeling like I've got my nail groove back. I've been feeling actual enthusiasm about manicures the past few days.  I find myself pondering what to do often during the day, just like I used to. I'm even spending some time wandering the interwebs looking for ideas.

It's been nice. It makes me feel like I'm back to normal. It dawned on me today that last year on this date I had my shoulder surgery. I guess it was at that point that my nail obsession took a hit. It took awhile for my shoulder to be well enough to really make the effort, and by then I was just in a slump about life in general because of the new work sitch, the holidays and frustration about having an arm that didn't work right.

That slump just got extended right on into what I'll call the "puppy months". So now I'm back in "let's do nails" mode. I don't know if that means I'll do them every day, but I'm sure going to be doing them more than once or twice a week.

AND I'm not just going to always do the lazy mani's. I'm going to put some actual effort into them.

Case in point, last night I did another water marble. 

I don't even remember the last time I did one of these marbles. I made sure to start before 9 p.m. because I thought for sure I'd screw some up and have to re-do them.

I started off with Fresh Paint Coconut Kiss for the base and then marbled with that along with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Himalayan Blue, Sinful Colors Cream Soda and Sinful Colors Cool Gray.

Not gonna' lie; I'm pretty proud of the fact that I didn't have to re-do any. Not a single one. It turned out to be one of the easier marbles I've probably ever done.

Some days things just work. It was nice that it went so well, and that might have something to do with my new-found enthusiasm. Oh, and I like it, so that doesn't hurt, either!

I can't decide if I want to take it off and do something else tonight or not. Even though it did see the light of day when I went to work this morning, maybe I should leave it on for when I head up to the car dealership tomorrow. I'm dropping off my car so it can be rustproofed, and they have to install the remote starter which, in some confusing way that I won't get into, did not get installed at the factory.

And anytime I'm in Marquette, that means shopping. I'm not missing an opportunity to go to a Target or a TJ Maxx, and I'm also going to pop into the Ulta store to see if they have any good deals since a friend of mine just posted the other day that she got 5 polishes for 5 bucks. 

Even a person that doesn't need polish (in other words, me) can't pass up a deal like that.

SPRINGTIME WATER MARBLE

Winter storm warnings. Really? I'll refrain from shouting out what I'm thinking inside my head about that.  Kind of a minor self-imposed censorship happening.

Well, the water softener lady came out to the house on Tuesday night. That poor girl had a long-ass day. She did a whole bunch of water testing. Evidently the system isn't working at all. Now I don't even have soft water which at least the old system did. I felt bad for her because she's so upset about it. I told her I'm actually afraid to even do laundry. I had thrown in a couple of crappy towels the other night, and when I looked at the machine while it was running, it basically looked like swamp water. In other words, the water was baby-shit green. So yeah....won't be throwing in any laundry I actually care about.

She's thinking maybe we got a defective unit. She said she's never had that happen before, which of course made me bust out laughing. I think she thought I was crazy until I explained to her that this comes as no surprise to me. It's just the kind of shit that happens to us.

So she filled up some bottles of yellow water and went on her merry way back to Iron Mountain. She was going to call headquarters, yada yada yada and then get back to us.  She called us early yesterday while we were on our way to Madison, and she should be at our house right now. I can't wait to get home to hear the solution.

In light of all the lovely winter weather, I decided at least my nails could be springish. 

After throwing on one coat of white, I used some purdy colors for my water marble.  The yellow is Fresh Paint Alex's Lemonade, the green is Essie Naughty Nautical, the purple is Sinful Colors Sweet Tooth and the last is Kleancolor Pastel Pink.

I liked it enough that I left it on for the past couple of days. It really needed to come off Tuesday night, but I was too lazy. I have a bit of tip wear from all the typing I've been doing so hopefully tonight I will motivate.

I also have some new polishes that should arrive today that I was sent to try. They're from a company by the name of "Motives", and they sell polish as well as other beauty stuff. I'm looking forward to trying them and will be posting my results when I do,

So that'll be fun....nice to have a little something to look forward to!

COACH NAILS - SMATCHING MY PURSE

What the hell? Winter is back in full swing. Again. I realize that I just said I can't ever remember what day it is, but I sure as hell remember that it was in the 40's on Monday.  I also know that last night at 2:30 a.m. it was -6. Stop already!! We are tired of freezing our asses off up here!

On a happier note, I got my first shipment of new nail plates yesterday. SO fun! They were so well packaged it took me about 30 minutes to open the package and then another 30 to peel that damn blue protective film off of them. That might or might not be an exaggeration of the time frame, but you get my drift.

I'm super happy with the new plates. The images are extra large even though the description of the plates says "medium".  They are also a fantastic price. I paid $19.20 for four plates, which is crazy when you consider that I paid between $18 and $20 for each of my other large plates. You can check them out on AliExpress.  In fact, they are even a little bit cheaper than when I bought them. I ordered them on February 26th, and I'm satisfied with how fast I got them from overseas.   So no complaints here.

The plates are well made, and the engraving seems to be good.  I've tried several of the designs, and they all worked perfectly. I was very happy to see a small design for The Big Bang Theory which is a fave show of mine, but they spelled it "Theoay".  Not a big deal, and it did make me laugh.

I messed around just trying stuff out on a paper plate for part of the day and did do one other mani before this one. I sat and pondered the Coach symbol for a bit and then decided it might be fun to try and match my purse.

It turned out better in my head. I tried multiple yellow-oranges, but none of them wanted to really show up properly over the blue. I still think it's pretty adorbs.

My navy blue on this one is Zoya Ibiza, and I stamped with Salon Perfect Bellini and Fresh Paint Coconut. The Coach stamp is found on the AliExpress 12-50 stamp.

Cute, right? I'm actually sitting here debating whether or not I want to do the right hand, too. It's only Thursday, and I have no plans to leave the house so I don't know if I should bother because I may want to play more with some of these plates.

Ahhh, all this playing with Coach stuff really makes me want a new Coach purse, but I really can't justify another one. The one in this pic is my newest one that I got from the Coach online outlet store, and I got it for $80 which was a steal!!

I love that site. My daughter had to send me an invite so I could join. Then they send you invites when you're eligible for a sale. I've never waited for an invite; I just log in to see if there's a sale going on that I can get to.  If anybody would like an invite to join, give me your email address, and I'll log in and send one to you. They are slow to do it, though, so don't rush right off to your email expecting to see it there.

Now I'm off to each some Peeps and jelly beans. It's a perk of being a grownup....candy even though it's getting close to dinner time.

BEEN AWHILE WATER MARBLE

Yes, it is still bitter cold here. And yes, I am still over it. Even though I'm happy to go to work this afternoon, the part where I have to leave the house doesn't sound so fun.

I wish I had kept the Equinox instead of Kev taking it. I swear my car has to run for an hour before it gets warm in there. The Nox heats up to a nice, comfortable toasty within 15 minutes even in this cold.

One thing I will say, the new down coat I bought from Eddie Bauer this year is super warm. Thankfully.  It's also snowing a little again, which is pissing me off. I had to shovel again yesterday and don't want to do it again today. Mother Nature is obvi not a fan of mine this year. As soon as Kev leaves, it snows. What the hell.

It has been quite awhile since I took the time to do a water marble. I forgot how much I like them! Evidently I lost the knack for it a bit because this one took me a little longer than usual. I had to redo a couple of the nails a couple of times. At one point I was getting so disgusted Kev told me to "do one hand, take a picture and then just paint them yellow or something". Where he came up with just painting them yellow is anybody's guess. I thought it was hilarious.  I also ignored his idea.  I am nothing if not determined, and once I start a marble, there's no way I'm not going to finish.

I started with a base of Fresh Paint Coconut which I also used along with Orly Gumdrop and Orly Lollipop.  I love all of these individually, and I like how they turned out together.

It's 12:10, and I have to be to work for 1:00. Think if I start my car now it will be warm when I leave here at 12:35?

I'm thinking I'll start it and find out.

THESE FLOWERS GREW ON ME

No, flowers did not literally grow on me.  That would make for quite the blog post, though!

Whenever I actually have to go somewhere that isn't "jeans appropriate" but not really "dress up", it's quite the dilemma for me. Since I always wear jeans to the office, I don't own even a single pair of non-jeans; not even a damn pair of khakis. That's kind of ridiculous, but the last time I wanted a pair of dress pants, I went to every store in town, all 5 of them, and had no luck.

So figuring out what to wear to a church for that christening on Saturday was no easy task. I settled on a maxi dress with a cropped cardigan. Since the neckline of said dress borders on slutsville, I threw a cami under it. I'm also happy to report that I did not burst into flames upon entry into the church as I feared might happen.

The dress is the colors of this mani; mauve with blue, cream and some various other colors. It was a "holy-shit-you've-waited-to-long-to-figure-out-your-outfit mani, and I was almost late to the festivities because of it. I hate being late for anything; really irks my ass. But I did make it on time....yay me!

I used a base of Spoiled Thanks a Latte and then found some flowers on my LeaLac LLC-A plate for the stamp. I wanted to get at least two colors of the flowers from the dress, and Sinful Colors Why Not and Fresh Paint Coconut smatched perfectly. 

I really like that Fresh Paint Coconut polish, and I'm glad I bought two of them when I had the chance. It's super similar to OPI's My Vampire is Buff which is just about my fave off-white in the whole wide world.  The formula is really nice, too.  

As for Spoiled polishes, good lordie they smell SO awful!! I have a few of them, and I find their formula to be very inconsistent. A couple I've tried in the past had really turrible application. This one applied well but reeked. Can't say I really understand why that happens.

Now, when I finished this one, I thought it was kind of gross, but like I said, it really was last minute so changing my mind was not an option. I'm talking I had to be at the church by 5:30, and I think I got the last of my topcoat on at 5:05. So yeah. Stuck with it.

As I glanced at it over the next few hours, it really started to grow on me. It certainly is not unusual for me to not be a big fan of something I did, but it's kind of rare that I end up really liking something after wearing it for a bit. This is one of those rare exceptions to the rule. I was actually kind of sad to see it go.

Tonight I'll do the last of my Halloween manicures and send them out along with the four they want that I had done last year. Anytime they ask for some of my older stuff, I cringe. I think I do a better job now. 

At least I hope so.

I HEART THIS

I really think my hummers have begun to migrate south for the winter. Color me saddy-pants. The past couple of days have been very quiet. I'm still only seeing one at a time. My adult male is still around, though, so I'm just not sure. Supposedly the males migrate first so I guess I'm just not sure what's happening. They do say that sometimes that even after the usual birds have left, those coming from farther north might stop in for a visit and a bite to eat. Mabes the male I'm seeing isn't even mine. I don't know....I'm just sad they are going to leave. I'll miss them. *sniff*

In the meantime, though, I'm thinking I'll buy a window feeder to keep the cardinals around for the winter. I haven't seen much of them, but they are still around and don't leave when it gets cold out. So that might be fun, too!

Tomorrow we leave for lower Michigan for a family wedding, so I don't know if I'll have time for blogging. I do have mani's on standby so if I get a chance, maybe I'll manage to quickly throw one up here. No promises.

This is a marble I did over the weekend. I had done a successful heart marble once before. I then tried to show someone how to do it a few months ago and was majorly disappointed in myself because I just couldn't get it to work. It finally kind of dawned on me what I was doing wrong, and when I tried it again, I had very little trouble getting the pattern to work.

The grey is Spa Ritual Basalt, and the yellow is Fresh Paint Alex's Lemonade.

I really like heart marbles. I think they are seriously groovy and since they are misshapen, I'm sure some acid-tripping hippie from the 60's might think so, too.

And no, I'm not old enough to have actually experienced the psychedelia from back than.