DISAPPOINTED ON A COUPLE LEVELS

Let me make one thing clear; these puppies are a G.D. blast and a half. My brain could explode from cuteness at any given moment of the day, and I feel like my camera has become a permanent attachment because every time I look, they are either laying cute or doing something cuter.

Here's some proof.

This light blue ribbon boy is Zero, my daughter's pup. Apparently he is a contortionist. How that position is comfortable is known only to him.

 I bought this 22 inch stuffed dog on eBay. It is a ginormous hit!

So yeah....cuteness overload.

After 3 weeks, though, I'm missing having nail time. I'm very disappointed to just be posting a plain mani. The horror!! And after I took this one off, I painted them plain again to go out for our anniversary on Friday. It's so boring I didn't even bother taking a pic of that one.

I did feel the need to share this one. It's I Love Nail Polish's (ILNP) Washing Ashore. It's sold as one of the multichromes.

I'm calling bullshit in a big way. It looks nothing like their swatches on their website.  That being said, it is a gorgeous color. 

But multichrome? No way in hell. It's not even a duochrome. I looked at it in every possible light source around. You name it; I tried it. I even put my hand under water in my sinks AND in my pool.  Let's call it what it is, ILNP....blue. A very pretty shade of blue, but it's blue.

And therein lies my second disappointment.  I love a multi or duo chrome madly and have been very happy with the others I've gotten from them. I'm calling this one a fail, ILNP. A big ol' fashioned fail.

Luckily I liked the color enough to wear it for a bunch of days. On my days off I've been very lucky that the weather has been awesome, so all of my spare time has been completely eaten up by the pool and the puppies. And that puppy time is only going to get more hectic now that they are 3 weeks old.

Since my Facebook page is public, if you want to see cute-ass puppy videos, hop on over there. Just do a search for Diane Moran Graham, and it'll take you to my personal page. The videos are all short, and they are all simply too cute for words. 

And of course they are still being streamed live on my Ustream channel, "Tinlee's Golden Retriever Pups".  The live stream will become much more fun to watch very soon, as I'll be letting them play outside of the pen more and will bring them outside for their first taste of the outdoors before too long.

All in all, while I do miss doing my nails constantly, puppy time still trumps nail time. I only have them for 6 more weeks, and one of those weeks I'll be in Cancun missing them. The week after we come home, they'll all be going to their fur-ever homes.

Well, maybe they will be. I still have 2 boys and 1 girl looking for someone to love them besides me and Kev.

AND THEN IT WAS STAMPED

When you're old as dirt like I am, you remember what children's books and stories were like back in the old days. For me, there were three books that belonged to my older brother that were read many times over by me. I loved these books as a child. They were large hardcover books with fantastical illustrations. "Stories That Never Grow Old", "The Gateway to Storyland" and "The Brimful Book", all of which were done by Watty Piper.

 

If you were lucky enough to own these, you for sure remember them.  Back then, Mother Goose and Grimm's still meant something in a literary sense rather than an NBC television show.

Back in 1988, my girls were 9 and 7, and my brother passed these books on to them. I hadn't thought much about them since then, but last year I was feeling sentimental and wanted to see them again. My older daughter has Brimful, so I leafed through it at her house.  It gave me the warm fuzzies. Then I kind of put it out of my mind for awhile until I remembered to ask my younger daughter about the other two. She has them stored away until Griffin gets a bit older, and it kind of got pushed to the wayside again.

One of Tyler's best friends is having a baby in a week or so, and for her baby shower, she asked that people give a book instead of a card. Since I hadn't really looked at the invite, that little detail slipped past me so I had no book for her. Once Tyler and I got to talking about the kind of books we should get, I mentioned that I would really love to give her these books. Her friend is a true lover of the written word, and to find these for her and my second honorary grandchild would be meaningful for me. And hopefully for her, too.

Thus began my internet search to find these books. I was hoping they were still in print, but in keeping with my usual luck, they haven't been printed for many, many years. On to eBay I go! I was lucky to find the two companion books in really nice vintage condition for not too outrageous a price. Brimful is giving me much more trouble. The pic of it above is from an eBay listing I had bid on. I'm SOOOOO beyond mad at myself today. The auction ended this morning around 11:00 which on any other day would mean I'd almost surely win. But today I woke with a doozy of a headache and had fallen asleep in my chair, completely forgetting about the auction. Even though it hadn't appeared that anybody else was even looking at this one, they outbid me by 50 cents. I'm crushed. It went for only $10.49, and the condition of the book is so wonderful. I seriously want to just cry. Any others I've found are in much worse shape and much more expensive. I guess my search will continue. I have even sent a message to the seller to see if they will put me in contact with the person that outbid me so I can see if they'll sell it to me.

In the meantime, if anybody has it and wants to part with it, please contact me! I'm desperate!

As I said I would, last night I did some stamping over the ILNP Nostalgia.  I just think black stamping over a color shifter always looks good.

In general, this is not a fantastic picture, but I figured I would include it because it shows that vibrant green I wasn't able to capture in my indoor photos. 

The polish is still spectacular, and as I figured, I like it stamped with black.

I actually get to work tomorrow, and I'm going to leave this one on for at least another day. 

Drivers on the road tomorrow; take heed!

HERE WE GO AGAIN - CAPTURE THE COLORS!

Have I mentioned the weather is cold? The weather is mothereffing cold. Beyond cold. Like ridiculously cold. Right now it's -15 with a -37 wind chill factor. When I looked at the weather forecast last night, they actually had the nerve to say today would be "rapidly warming to -8". Seriously? They're calling that "warming"? I'm pretty sure my definition is a whole lot different than theirs.

I didn't plan on even going down the driveway to check the mail today, but then I realized I had some nail polish coming. Shit. I really didn't know if nail polish could freeze or if it would ruin it, so I trotted my happy ass out there to get it.

I'm glad I did. For my birthday one of my nail group buds got me an ILNP polish, Birefringence. It's so gorgeous I just had to get a few more. If you're a fan of chromatic polishes, I suggest you head on over there and buy them. All of them. Immediately, if not sooner.

Of course since this one is an ultrachrome, that means a ton of pictures. Even though I took about 30 pics, I still couldn't get a couple shades to show very well, but you can still see how pretty it is.  

Ridiculous, right?? This one is called Nostalgia. In simple terms, it is amazing.

I may decide to stamp over this before taking it off. It's just one of those polishes that are fun to look at. And since it's too cold to go anywhere, the other drivers on the road are safe.

Season premiere of The Bachelor tonight! I let it record so I can fast forward through the commercials. So now I'm off to watch 27 women act crazy as they "think" they're in love within the first 24 hours and then cry hysterically when they are booted off, blubbering about how he's made a mistake and they've just lost the love of their lives.

I do love me some (almost all) reality tv.