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.

JUST BLUE

It's been over a week since I even thought about blogging. I'm just not feeling it lately. Of course, I did have family home for Thanksgiving, company on Saturday and other stuff going on, so that probably contributes to my absence.

Hopefully your Thanksgiving holiday weekend was at least half as nice as mine. I was happy to have Tyler, Griffin and Zero at the house from Wednesday to Sunday. On Saturday, Seven came over to play with Zero, and her family brought pizza, some extraordinarily delightful pudding shots and a homemade banana cake. I can't complain when I get good company plus good eats. Even Kevin was home for the entire time, and he managed to get a great schedule for December so he'll miss none of the holidays this year.

Thanksgiving was spent at my mom's. Every year my sister and I make the offer to take it over, but she insists she wants to do it as long as she's able. She turned 87 in September, and she is still rocking it. I'm so lucky to still have her around and in good health. The food was great, as always, and I ate way too much. As always. I was miserably full when I went home.

Before Kev left to go back to work on Sunday I had him bring in some of the Christmas bins from the garage. My plan is to clean the house today after work and get the majority of the decorating done. Kev is gone until next Monday, and I didn't want to wait that long to get started. The tree will go up on Tuesday while he's around to help with that. I'm hoping the decorations will finally get me in the holiday mood because I really do need to start shopping.

I have been doing nails every few days, but I'm still focusing on knitting. I have one sleeve and the hood left to knit on the second sweater. The first sweater now has a new home with Tyler, which is pretty much what I figured would happen. 

I'm not even sure when I did this one.

I started with a base of Orly Decoded and then used Zoya Kristen and the Stampaholic 2 plate that I recently received from a specialty group buy.

In looking at this now in the picture, I like it more than I thought I did while I was wearing it. That makes no sense whatsoever, but it's a fact.

I'm not sure if nails will get done at all for the rest of the week. I'll be cleaning and decorating, and I've decided to steal Razzie for the weekend. Tonya will drop him off on Friday and pick him up on Sunday. I needed a Razzie fix so I'm happy she's letting me take him just for the fun of it. I'll have to see if Seven wants to come over to play with this brother, too.

I love having "puppies" I can steal every so often. Even if they aren't little anymore, it's still just the best being able to keep my connection with them.

RAINBOWIE GRADIENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IS IT JUST ME???

Does anybody else find it disturbing how lazy people are? It seems like so many people just don't think they should have to work for anything.

I've noticed this a lot over the years in my job, as we certainly come into contact with most of the local criminal element. We see the same people over and over again. I'm not sure if shoplifting or drug dealing actually counts as a job, but if it does, they apparently aren't very good at it.

An owner of a local restaurant has a terrible time finding employees that will actually show up when they're supposed to and that will actually do the work once they get there. If they do that and then manage to not steal from the employer, it's pretty much a bonus.

One of our larger local stores was hiring recently. Over one-third of the new hires didn't bother to show up for their first day of work, and I don't mean 2 or 3 people; I'm talking 20 didn't show.

What the hell is that?? Where does this attitude come from? They're the first ones to take advantage of the system unjustly and are also the first ones to bitch if they feel like they've missed out on some handout that the rest of us working stiffs would have to pay for with our hard-earned cash. I don't understand who raised these people; farm animals?? 

Don't piss and moan and complain about how it's impossible to find work. I'm calling bullshit because I see help wanted signs around town all the damn time. You're lazy, you're whiney, and you are a self-entitled drain on society. 

My final thoughts are: get off your ass, take a shower, put on real pants instead of the pj bottoms I just saw you wandering around the grocery store in and get a damn job like a real grownup. Hopefully you have enough smarts to fill out an application in English after all the time you've spent using text-speak on that latest smartphone you can manage to afford while the government pays your rent. And if, by some miracle, you do manage to get the job, try actually doing it the way it should be done.

I am so over you.

I feel the need to point out that this rant is not aimed at those who actually do need and deserve assistance. I have zero issues with that.

Whew! On to a mani!

I've had this sitting in my drafts folder for so long I'm not even sure when I did it.

I used Orly Glam Rock with my Uber Chic 1-02 plate for the design.

I like this even more now than when I actually did it. I wonder how long I wore it. I'm hoping it lasted at least a day. Actually, I'm kind of wondering if I had even done both hands. 

It's sad to watch my mind go......

WOW, THAT IS PINK

Thought I'd pop in just quickly with a mani since I really didn't have a chance to do it over the weekend. It was quite a busy one with the extra dog, the relatives, the other extra dog that came for a playdate and Mother's Day. I always feel like I need a day all alone just to feel normal again.

At any rate, I did do my nails on Sunday night. My original plan was to do a bright pink with black stamping but hated the stamping designs I tried.

After a couple of frustrating fails, I opted for white instead.

This very intense pink is Orly Fiesta, stamped with the MdU white and the Fab Ur Nails FUN 13 plate.

Not a whole lot to say about this one. I only left it on for a day because it just didn't make me happy. I can't even give you a reason why, but it simply didn't do it for me.

I also am getting the feeling that my camera might be thinking about dying on me. I'm having more and more problems with lighting and color with it, and that's just making me more and more frustrated.

If I do my blogging from work, I have already put the manicure in a blank post from my home computer. Then when I get to work, I just have to fill in the post. Lately when I've been doing this, once I open it up, my pic seems darker and my hands are a weird shade of not really my skin tone and not even really my "beginning of a tan" skin tone. 

And since I can't save the pic from the draft onto my computer, I can't edit it before I publish. What that means is now I've been publishing the post, saving the pic to this computer, editing the shot and then revising the post by removing the original pic and replacing it with the newly edited version. If that sounds like a pain in the ass, it's because it is. And it still doesn't really fix things as much as I'd like.

I'd love to get a new camera, but I haven't got a clue what I should get. I have absolutely no knowledge of how to work the damn things when I get them, and as some of you are aware, I have been unable to figure out that mother-friggin' lightbox I just had to buy. I also can't really justify anything outrageously expensive just to take pics of hummingbirds and manicures.

I'm kind of needing that ship to come in so if anybody sees it, send it my way. Then I could buy whatever I want!

That would be fun!

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.

JUST A QUICKIE

Tuesday felt like Monday. Normally Mondays are my catchup day after getting off work at noon on Thursday. We've been so busy lately that it took me until almost the end of the day to be caught up.

I have conflicting feelings about this. On the one hand, being non-stop busy can make the day go by faster. On the other hand, I miss having down time where I can do other things. Important stuff....like blogging.

It's also kind of curious to me that according to the bossman in December of 2013, he should be retired now. Which would also mean I should be retired now. Somehow "retiring" turned into being busier than we were before. It's weird. Somehow I feel like in ten years I will still be able to write this exact same first three paragraphs. 

He's been talking retirement off and on for years, and I just don't think it's ever going to happen.

On a nice note, though, tomorrow is Wednesday which is now my new Friday. He also told me today that it's possible I won't actually have to work full days on Wednesdays. In any event, having a guaranteed four day weekend is something I'm sure I'll like.

I tried something last night that just wasn't working out, and it was too late to fight with it, so I just threw this on.

This is a pretty blue, Orly Sweet Peacock. I don't think I've used any kind of animal print stamp since I first started doing my nails, so I used the leopard print from the Bundle Monster XL08 plate.

It is what it is. What was in my head was better than this, but this got me through the day.  The mail lady liked it. So that counts for something. Of course, she also always says "hi, beautiful" when she brings the mail. And then we have a mini bitch session about the weather, and off she goes.  So she's a keeper!

And on that note, I'm going to eat a Rice Krispie treat and watch some Real Housewives.

The perfect end to a very decent evening.

TURNED OUT COOL!

Hey, ladies....and gents, too, I suppose, are your heels as in craptastic shape as mine? 

I'm not a feet fan, and certainly not of my own. After 55 years of avoiding their proper pampering, they are not exactly cute. My heels are rough as hell, and since  a)  I'm too cheap to go get a real pedi, and b) I don't like people playing with my feet, I've tried off and on to find something that I can do on my own to fix them.

Last year I discovered the Best Pedi Prep Ever from Julep, which is a roll-on solution that you let sit on your feet for a few minutes and then use a file to get rid of dry skin. It actually works quite well, and if I wasn't too lazy to keep up with it, it might have eliminated the issue.

But I am too lazy and don't really concern myself with my feet until summer hits and want to wear sandals. In the winter my feet are covered in my socks which are only off long enough to shower. 

So I had seen an add for the Amope foot file thingie on tv and decided that would be the next thing I try. I ordered it from Target. OMG. It works crazy good!! I used it once a couple of weeks ago, and it really made a difference. I did it for the second time last night. My heels are smooth. They are so smooth my damn feet are literally sliding around inside my socks. This smoothness is completely foreign to me. I'm already looking forward to wearing sandals.

Enough for the commercial that I'm not getting paid for.

I did manage a mani last night, and now I have a dilemma.

I have seen the different water marbles using hairspray or alcohol, some of which were for the look of turquoise.  Since I don't buy hairspray and didn't have a spray bottle lying around to put alcohol in, I didn't think I'd ever try this method.

Well, I found a little sample bottle of hairspray in the spare bathroom so I decided to try it.

I did two coats of Kleancolor Pastel Teal, and once that was dry I used saran wrap and dabbed on some spots of Milani Gold Dust. I did a coat of topcoat before I marbled. I put just one drop of Orly Liquid Vinyl in the water and after it spread, I sprayed it with hair spray. 

Holy coolness!! I was surprised at how easily it worked. My only complaint with the method was that after spraying it, then the polish wouldn't spread for the next finger. I managed to mostly solve that problem by kind of swiping the water with a cotton ball between fingers.

I only have this on my left hand right now, so now I have a decision to make. The plan was to do a few different mani's this weekend, and now I can't decide if I really want to take this off. Part of me wants to do the other hand and leave it on until Monday night.  The other part of me wants to take it off and do a striping tape mani I've got halfway planned in my head. Another part of me wants to play with some new stamping plates I just got from Ali Express.

Decisions, decisions!! I honestly do not know what I'm going to do.

Geez, it's a good thing there aren't any more parts of me.

OH, GET READY FOR SOME MAJOR BITCHING

Oh, and a happy Monday to me. I woke up with a huge headache, and then I got to work and immediately got cranky about a case. That should have warned me about how the day was going to go.

I went home at lunchtime and was in the living room when I heard a big noise outside, and the dogs started barking like maniacs. So I look out the front window to discover an SUV buried in my front yard. Right through the mailbox, which is now laying in pieces in the snow.

This isn't the first time this has happened, but it hasn't for the past couple of years. Why people don't have brains enough to slow down on the curve on a snow-covered street completely baffles me. So as I'm fuming from that, it's time to come back to work. I see that the guy is walking up my driveway, so at least he isn't hitting and running. Not that he could run since his car is completely stuck.

So he comes up to talk to me. He is super apologetic and nice. He asked to borrow a shovel, so I tell him where one is that he can use. Poor guy has no gloves, so I tell him I'll let him use a pair and to just toss them in the garage when he's done. He gives me his name and number and tells me he lives in Marquette and of course he'll pay to fix it. Great. So that means he isn't local and will not be around to rig up my mailbox somehow.

So now I won't get mail. Kev isn't home, so that screws that. I guess I'll call the post office to see if they'll hold my mail so I can go there to pick it up. Pain in the ass, but I simply hate not getting mail. I heart mail.

As I'm standing talking to the guy, I glance over at the passenger side of my Outback. Hmmm....what's that on the rear quarter panel. Dirt? Let me just rub that with my glove. Not dirt. A mother-*!@*ing DING. On my brand new car. 

Isn't that just fantastic? I guess some random *!@*tard in some random parking lot must have hit it with a car door or a shopping cart. It looks to me like it went all the way through the paint, too, so to say that I'm pissed would pretty much be the understatement of the century. I've only had it for 3 months. I'm fuming. It's either that or cry, and since I'm at work, I'm fuming. I might cry later.

Deep breath.

Last night I did finally motivate and soak off my nails. I was happy it was done, but it screwed my plan of doing a water marble since I had to keep my hands out of water for 3 hours. So I did this instead.

I started off with a grey base using Square Hue Lincoln Road and did the swirlies using Orly Liquid Vinyl, Sinful Colors Rages and Wisp. I just used a dotting tool to swish 'em around.

I really like how this turned out. I've always been a fan of pink and grey together, and my only criticism would be that I wish I had carried it closer to the cuticle line on my index and middle fingers.

All in all, a success. It didn't satisfy my desire to do a real water marble, though, so maybe I'll do that tonight. 

Of course, considering how the day is going, maybe I should not open any polish or polish remover bottles.

With my luck, I'll knock them over and the only thing painted will be my carpeting.

LET THE MADNESS COMMENCE!

My weekend didn't start off so great. I put my old car up for sale on Craigslist, and I think it was only up for about 8 hours before a guy called and said he'd come out on Friday to see it. Or maybe it was Saturday. I no longer have a clue what day it is.

So Kev calls to tell me he's on his way, and I figure I'll go pull it out of the garage. Um....won't start. Great.  I call Kev and tell him to call the guy to stop him from making the trip out to the house and hung up.  I called him back a couple of minutes later and he said he hadn't gotten through to the guy and then told me how to attach the battery charger.

So as I'm standing at the front of my car trying to get the hood open, the guy pulls up. I felt like an idiot for having the poor guy come out to see a car that won't start. Seriously. I've honestly had no trouble with that car. So the guy puts the charger on for me and then looks at the car, and he likes what he sees. He seems completely unconcerned by the battery thing. We set it up so he could come out yesterday to try again after I got the battery charged.

In the end, the battery charger was doing nothing, so I called one of my friends to come rescue me and jump it. He stopped out, hooked it up and then came in to visit while it ran for about 45 minutes.  After he left, I started it 3 times throughout the evening with no issues.

Cut to yesterday morning when I go out to start it.  Yup.  Nope. Dead again, although not quite as dead as the day before. The guy called to come out, and once again I had to tell him it wasn't starting. Thankfully he works at a car place and is still interested and will come out again next weekend. That gives Kev Friday to figure it out or buy a new battery. Honestly, what an embarrassing mess!!  It's just my luck I would try to sell a perfectly working car only to have it die when I try to sell it. I mean, I really love the car and will be sad when it goes, but I didn't figure the feeling was mutual.

I also managed to pop off a nail while trying to fix a light in the house, and I popped one off under the hood of the car. I was very happy it landed where I could get it. Of course, that meant I had to soak them all off and do a reapplication which was really not in my schedule for before Christmas.

Now it's three measly days before Christmas which means it's time for the last three days of rushing around to get everything done at my house.

Yesterday I did two separate double batches of a Swedish cookie that has to be made one at a time on a cast iron thingamabop on the stove, so that takes hours out of my life. I considered just doing the one double batch, but since I'm the only one that makes these, people in my family tend to steal some to take home. And since I love them so much, I have to make sure I'm left with plenty.

I also finished up the last 12 items I needed to wrap for Wednesday. I'll have more to wrap before we go out of town next week, but for now I'm done with that.

Right now it's 4:30, and I'm sitting at work. I've basically had not a thing to do since I came back after lunch, and it's been really bugging me since I could be at home doing stuff. He did give me tomorrow off so that's good because tomorrow is bake the homemade rolls and clean the house day. 

When I leave here at 5, I'm headed home to set up the yeast-based dough for German sour cream twists. Those have to sit in the fridge for a few hours before baking. Once those are set up I'll probably do my annual "cover the big marshmallows in white chocolate for my brother" thing. He told me several years ago that it's hard to find good chocolate covered mallows, and I decided I'd try to make them for him that year. Kind of a mistake because he loved them so much I now feel obligated to make them every year. I don't want to disappoint him.

I think it was about 11 p.m. last night when it occurred to me that my nails were naked. Wonderful. I didn't have time to do anything much, but I did at least manage to get them stamped.

I don't even know what I'd call this base color. It's Orly Act Your Shoe Size, and I guess it's kind of a cross between mauve and burgundy?  I did a matte topcoat with the Sally Hansen one whose name escapes me, and then I used  China Glaze Red Dahlia for the MoYou Festive 04 stamp.

This is just an "okay" one for me, but it served the purpose of covering my nails for a day.  I really am hoping to have time to do something a little more fancy-schmancy for my actual Christmas mani, but no guarantees on that one.

Tyler is on her way home and will be here later tonight, so I'll be happy to see her. She will probably pretty much just be dropping off the dog and then heading to her dad's because today is his birthday.

Tyler was a real sweetheart last night and did up one kind of cookie that we always make, so that saves me a huge chunk of time.  I can always count on her to be helpful during Christmas week. She's a gem, that one.

Now hopefully Zero will be just as helpful and cooperative as I try to get things done.

Anyone want to place bets on that fantasy?

SEE? I DO HAVE A RIGHT HAND

About 10 days ago, one of my friends that I met through a Golden Retriever page posted a pic of a holiday wreath she made for her mantle. It was so gorgeous I jokingly told her I wanted it. Come to find out, she actually makes stuff to sell, so within about 15 minutes, the deal was made.

She showed me pictures of a bunch of different ones, all beautiful, but my mind was already made up. The one she had made herself was the perfect one for my house, and she made it up for me and it arrived yesterday.

And this is what the mail lady brought me.

It's okay that it looks like that, though. The postmaster stamped in red that it arrived in town like this. Well, that makes it all okay then!

To say I was scared to open it would be an understatement. I just pictured smashed ornament balls everywhere. I was much relieved when I opened it and saw this.

How perfect is this thing?? It's going to go above the mantle, but since Kev isn't home I decided to let it hang on the front door for now.  Evidently they did somehow manage to damage the battery packs so I'll be looking for some new lights this week. It's either that or take advantage of the insurance, but the post office would take the wreath, and that ain't happening. 

I saw a really cute poinsettia mani on Pinterest that I really wanted to do. I guess I was having one of those delusional moments where I imagined I was capable of freehand nail art. So yeah, that was a couple hours of my life I'll never get back. All it did was piss me off and frustrate me, and I left my nails naked for 24 hours because of it.

I still wanted poinsettias, though. So last night I decided to kill three friggin' hours to water marble them. It was slow going, and I had to do a lot of them more than once. I really was trying for perfection.

I wouldn't call them perfect, but I like it better than last year's version. I'll be wearing these for at least a few days because of how much work they were. Sorry for so many pictures, but I wanted to catch the full effect.

And check this out, I DO have a right hand that goes along with my left!! I don't like taking photos out of my normal pose because I hate how my hands and fingers either look awkward or claw-like. When I first started taking pics of my nails it took me awhile to decide on the pose I use all the time. I think it shows the nails well, and I like the consistency.  I stray from it only when absolutely necessary.

I felt it was necessary today.

I find it very difficult finding reds that translate true red in a water marble. I tried 7 or 8 different ones before going with OPI Bogota Blackberry. The green is Loreal Hyde Park.

I used a whole lot of polish for this mani. A ridiculously wasteful amount. Enough that I actually felt bad about it on about nail 8. Of course I was way past the point of no return by then.

When I finished it I decided to add a smidge of sparkle with Orly Shine on Crazy Diamond. It is one of my all-time fave glitters because it's just a delicate little bit of bling. I also grabbed Orly Luxe and my dotting tool to add some centers to the poinsettias.

I'm considering this my first official Christmas manicure. I've seen so many people doing holiday manicures for weeks now.  I just was not feeling the Christmas mani mood yet.  

Or course, I did do those two snowflake mani's, but snowflakes don't count as holiday in my book. I could easily get away with wearing a snowflake mani every day for 5 or 6 months out of the year.

 

CANCUN MANI #2

Work day ended at noon, the laundry is all done and the house is all clean and shiny.  Kev is gone for the weekend, so I guess it's going to be a very quiet few days.

It feels weird here already because I'm alone and it's quiet. It won't be as much fun as last weekend when I had Razzie here to play with and keep me busy. Sometimes I really wish I had kept one of those dang puppies.

I figured since I posted Cancun mani #1 on Tuesday, I may as well post the one I did mid-week of the trip. I regretted it the minute I started it. Even though I had tried it on one nail before I left home, the yellow really gave me trouble once I started doing it for realz.

It's a really nice yellow, Orly Lemonade. For some reason when I tried it at home, it did fine with two coats. I don't know if it was a weather or air conditioning issue in Cancun, but it took three coats, and even that was difficult. That third coat had to be pretty thick. 

The grey I used to stamp with my AliExpress 12-51 plate is Sinful Colors Smokin.  This is one of those rare cases where either my memory is fuzzy or this actually looks better in pics than I think it did in person.  I know it couldn't have looked too bad because I had several women comment on it during out thousand hour layover in  Atlanta on the way home.

Gee, I guess that's all I have for today. I've been starting at the blank area on this post and can't think of a single interesting thing to say. 

But at least I posted a mani!

 

CANCUN MANI #1

Oh, it is soooo damp and gloomy today!! As if being November isn't already depressing enough. It makes the 50 degree weather seem much colder than it should. I'm going to try to just be happy it's 50 and not 30 out there.

I made a discovery on my way home yesterday. I knew that my car was hands free for phone use, not that I ever talk on the phone while driving. If it wasn't for Kev calling me almost every night when he's working, I can seriously go for weeks without ever actually using the damn thing to talk. It doesn't seem that long ago that I said I'd never use texting. Sha', right. Now if I hear a text come in and can't get to my phone immediately, it literally makes me anxious. I don't know what I think I might be missing, but it bothers me. It also bothers me if someone doesn't respond to one of my texts within the first 5 minutes. Yes, I know it's ridiculous.

Anywho, when I got in the car, I hit the bluetooth on my phone so it would connect and discovered that not only can I make and answer calls, I can actually talk to my car and make it do stuff!! Like change the radio station, the temp, the fan speed and I'm not even sure what else. I changed the fan speed 3 times on my way to work just for shits and giggles. I am easily amused. I would say it's sad to be so lazy that you can't change the heat by yourself, but I guess it's not a bad idea because I don't have to take my eyes off the road to do it. 

I wonder if it can have dinner ready and my house cleaned before I make it home.

Here's the mani I did before heading off to Cancun last month.

It's always hard to pick something to do when I'm leaving town. God forbid I decide I hate it once we leave! The light purple here is Orly Harmonious Mess, and I used the LeaLac LLC-A plate with Sinful Colors Nouveau Purple for the stamp.

I did do a different mani mid-way through the trip, but I wish I would have just left this one for the whole week. I never really get tired of purple and wasn't all that pleased with what I did after taking this off.

Too funny. I wrote the first part of this post before lunch. I must have spoken too soon because right when I left for lunch hour, I pulled away and my phone rang while I was driving. So I did actually use the hands free for phone talking! I have to say I kind of liked it!  LOL
 
I am so glad this day is almost over and tomorrow is a day off. Maybe if I sleep in a little later I can shake this headache. I am so over it and so over how it's affecting my mood.

Color me cranky.

MY NOD TO HALLOWEEN

Since it's 2 a.m., it's technically Halloween. This won't be a long post; it's simply for purposes of Halloween.

First, a complete VOTD. Or VO-Yesterday. Whatever. It's a vent.

Last night I settled in with what I thought was a foolproof plan for a fairly quick Halloween mani that I would actually wear out of the house. Mummy nails the water marble way. I'm good at water marbles, right? Should be a cinch.

I found the polishes I wanted and off I went. I marbled 'em all, and they looked really nice.  As a marble. As mummies, not so much.

And then being the genius that I am, not only did I not take a picture of that nice water marble, I took it off, painted my  nails blue and called it a night.

I went to bed pissed.

So the plan for today was work, clean the house, make supper, do Halloween nails. And that's exactly what I did. 

I'm not the least bit excited by these, but at least I can say I did a manicure for Halloween.  Cuz' I'm cool like that.

This is a gradient using (light to dark) Essie Rock the Boat, China Glaze Secret Peri-Winkle and Maybelline Color Show Blue Freeze. Then I used Julep Ledi for the black stamping. The graveyard is off of Messy Mansion's HD04 stamping plate, and the little bats are from the Bundlemonster BM213 plate.  As an afterthought I decided to slap on a bit of Orly Shine On Crazy Diamond to add a bit of twinkle to the night sky.

I'm assuming this will be on for a few days. Razzie will be here for some puppy fun this weekend, so at this point I'm just hoping to get this off before work on Monday, at which point it will be too late to be sporting a graveyard on my nails.

Happy Halloween!!!

SOMETHING A BIT DIFFERENT

I am happy to say that on Thursday morning our new bathroom vanity is finally being installed. I will be one happy little camper when I can finally move back into my own bathroom. Right now I have all of my bathroom stuff in the spare bathroom and have been getting ready in there. I am not a fan of it. It's just too small for all my junk. Evidently it takes a whole lot of work and product to make myself look presentable, and it seems like the amount of things really show up when there's no place to put them.

Our deck is pretty much finished, too! All that's really left is to put up something on the sides that cover from the bottom to the ground. I can't think of what it's called at the moment. Duh.

I'm also proud to say that all of my flowers have survived so far. Knock on wood. While we were downstate I got some gorgeous lilies from Kev's aunt. I can't think of what kind they are. There were a whole lot of buds that she had hoped would bloom before the party. We brought them home in a bucket, but it was too late to plant them so I left them sitting outside so I could try to figure out where I could put them. When I woke up yesterday morning, some of them had bloomed. It kind of made me panic about planting them once I realized I simply didn't have room by the garage. This makes me sad because that's where I really see the flowers. 

Immediately when I got home after work yesterday, I grabbed my gardening stuff and cleared a spot along the front of the house and got them planted. I hope they live.

Kev put the steps and platform in the pool yesterday, too. Griffin will be here for the 4th of July, and I'm hoping it'll be warm enough for him to swim. At any rate, at least the dogs will now be able to get in and out so they can. Tinlee has been staring at it longingly, so I know she wants in.

After five days of that coral mani, it was def time for a change.  I thought I'd do something I hadn't done in awhile, use clear for marbling.

First I painted a coat of Sinful Colors white and then sponged on China Glaze Diva Bride pink, Color Zone no name yellow, Sinful Colors Bright Lights blue, Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet green and WetnWild On a Trip purple.  Once that was dry, I topcoated and then did my water marble with a Sally Hansen clear and Orly Liquid Vinyl.

I'm seriously loving this. If I'd had more time, I would have made the effort to do my toenails, too. That is a time-consuming thing that I've only done once, and since it was after midnight, it just wasn't going to happen.

Since I am pleased with how this worked, I'll probably leave it on for a couple of days. Then again, I do have part of a bathroom to paint so maybe not. 

It depends on if my "neat painter" status stays in tact.  I'm going to figure that if I was ever planning to make a mess while painting, it's obviously going to happen when I'm painting near a brand new floor.

Lattice!! That's what the stuff is called for the sides of the deck!!

Whew!! Brain function restored.

STRIPING TAPE. AND BIRDS, OF COURSE.

It was not too fantastic a weekend. Chilly and rainy for the most part. Yesterday we finally saw sun and temps in the 70's. 'Bout damn time. Too bad it isn't lasting, as mid-week we're supposed to top out in the 50's.  At least my two day weather headache finally left yesterday.

One bright spot of rainy weather is a lot of hummingbird activity so at least I had something fun to watch while I was stuck inside pouting.  Seems to me I was bitching about cold, craptastic weather last June, too. The hummers were very busy during the rain! And they are extra adorbs when it's rainy because they hunker down and get all fluffed up. Check out this little guy. I just love when I manage to catch one with their mouth open.

And here's his date for the weekend. I used a flash on this pic so the color is off a smidge, but she's still cute.

And even though I said I was going to stop being a lookie-loo at the Robin's nest.....

In all fairness, I only looked because the dad flew off as I went to get the mail. And I conveniently had my camera in my hand. Honestly, I was kind of afraid that the third egg wasn't going to hatch because it hadn't hatched when the other two did. So I was actually being very nice by looking.

Daddy, on the other hand, did not think I was being nice. While I was sneaking a peek and a pic, he was swearing at me. Loudly. Then he landed and actually ran towards me as fast as his little spindly legs could go and stopped just a few feet from me. He was bitching at me the entire time. I told him to chill out because I was already leaving. Sheesh. Grumpy old man much?

He's in for a rude awakening because I will be looking again. And again. I'm anxiously awaiting for them to get all their feathers so they'll be cute.

The weather forecast for this past Thursday was rain in the morning with sun and low 60's in the afternoon. Normally a forecast of 60's would mean it'll be around 70 at my house. When I left work at noon, I was fully expecting that I'd get some pool time. Sadly when I did get home it was still cloudy and windy, and that wind was cold!

My solution for that was heading off to the tanning place to at least get some fake sun. I walked out of there 30 minutes later to full sunshine outside. Really??  When I got home I asked Kev if the weather decided to change just because I decided to go tanning, and he said that 5 minutes after I drove off, the sun came out.  It still was no heatwave, but I figured it would be warm laying on the raft. 

Off I went to throw on the bathing suit. Then I spent 20 minutes skimming all of the tree seeds that have been accumulating in the pool. Seriously, I should have an actual tree growing in that pool by now. Onto the raft I go, being very careful to stay dry. My pool thermometer keeps saying the water is 74, but there's no way I'm buying that. Methinks I need a new, more honest version. That water was chilly!

After about an hour and a half, I decided to call it a day because I had to re-shower to go out to dinner. 

And later that night, my lesson was learned. In the form of a bright red face. Evidently it is not a genius move to remove one's makeup for the tanning bed and then lay in the real sun. I so should have sunscreened before hitting that pool.  It started to itch on Friday, so I waited for the peeling to begin. And Saturday it did, but for some reason just on the sides of my face right by my chin.  Cuteness.

Actually, this is the third lesson I've learned this year. The first one I learned was that the coconut oil I've been slathering on before tanning the past couple of years is actually a natural sunscreen. Guess that explains why I didn't get as dark as I usually do.  The second lesson I learned was that if I start my tan in the real sun using tanning lotion, I burn and then peel like a mo-fo. I was so happy to see my legs get tan for the first time ever using the real sun instead of the tanning bed. I was not so happy to then peel from my ankle all the way up to the top of my legs. And not everywhere, just dead center. I guess starting in the tanning bed is still the best way to go for me because I work my way up and don't burn.

Lessons learned. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Apparently you can as long as I'm the old dog.

In the midst of catching up on some tv last night, I grabbed my trusty striping tape to do nails.

I like the Orly Lollipop light pink, but in person it is completely hideous on me which is why I decided to three-tone it using American Apparel Sweetpea and Wet n Wild Through the Grapevine.  Grapevine is one of those polishes I have extras of because I used it in a lot of water marbles back in the day.

A huge problem with it is it doesn't stay on well at all. I think I had tip wear before I went to bed last night, and I hadn't even been doing anything.  So now I'm sitting at work being annoyed by how they look.  

I don't really feel like doing my nails today so who knows what I'll do about it. Maybe I'll just really be lazy and touch up the tips. Blech. I'm simply not in the mood.

That might change once I leave the office. The air conditioning doesn't seem to be working at all, which normally would suit me just fine. It was nice coming into work and not throwing on my sweater to ward off the bone chills. Now that the lights have been on all day and the sun has started to shine directly into my office, it ain't so great. 

I'm still hoping the bossman doesn't notice, though. I'd rather sit here sweating than have to wear that winter sweater.

WATERCOLORS, STAMPED AND GLITTER, OH MY!

Don't pass out; I don't have a complaint in the world today. Well, unless you count the fact that I'm at work. And that's just a necessary evil I can't seem to weasel out of.

Our weather this weekend was gorgeous!! I really wish the pool was up and ready. Of course, once it goes up, who knows how long it will take to get the water right because of the new water softener. Once I get that straightened out, then I get to wait until the water is warm enough to actually use it. Bring on the sun so my solar rings can do their job.

Since I didn't have the use of my pool this weekend, I did blow up my raft so I could catch some rays on the half-finished deck. Lordie, it was hot out there! I don't usually lay outside without the pool. Now I know why. I was sweating my damn balls off. 

I was pretty shocked I got as pink as I did in a couple of hours. Usually already have my tan on from an unlimited month at the tanning salon before I ever hit the pool, so I never burn. I also hate laying on my stomach so I was red on one side and paper white on the back side. That was ever so attractive.  So yesterday I headed back out there and forced myself to lay on my stomach for an hour. That helped considerably. I am almost matching shades of pink now.

In the evenings I took about 45 minutes to sit out in front of the house to feed the hummingbirds, too. Happily they still seem very willing to come to me to eat. I love that feeling so much!

I was still wearing that make-out mani from the other day, but last night I decided it really was time to take it off. To Julep's credit, that sucker wore like iron, not even a smidge of tip wear.

Another success here....turned out just like it looked in my head. I started off with just one coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. I didn't care if it was perfect or not because I knew I'd be going over it with other stuff.

The other stuff ended up being China Glaze's Lemon Fizz and Highlight of My Summer, Essie Play Date, QRS Cruiser and Barielle Pink Quartz.  I dabbed each of those on with saran wrap. I like doing that because it doesn't matter where anything goes.

After I stamped it with the DRK-A stamp, I decided that it just might need a teensie bit of glitter so I added one coat of Orly Shine on Crazy Diamond.

I should have skipped the glitter. It's fine with it, but I'm thinking I liked it better before it. That'll teach me to overthink. 

Well, truth be told, it probably won't teach me a thing.  Maybe it's the "old dog" syndrome that prevents me from being teachable.

BLUE MOYOU SAILOR

Today I took my last shower in the piece of crap that was in my bathroom. When I went home at lunch, it was in pieces on the deck. Good place for it.

Of course, putting in the new one couldn't go easily. Weird, right? The old shower sat up on a little platform thing which I was hoping to get rid of. Oh, obvi that couldn't happen. The platform is because the plumbing was set up above floor level. Genius. So now I'll have to have the flooring guy come back to give me an estimate to put subway tiles on that. Great. By all means lets add some additional cost.

Then I get a call at work from Kev telling me that the new shower bar can't go in the center of the shower like our old one. That has to be moved about 8 inches to the left or right of center. I was so annoyed I don't even give a shit anymore. Since Tyler is in town right now, I told him to ask her and the two of them could just make an executive decision without me. It'll be fine, but it's still irritating. I sure didn't feel like sending back the $300 shower system it took me 3 days to decide on.

Part of the wall above the back of the shower got damaged when the old one came out, too. So yeah. That's fun. I'm hoping the ceiling guy will fix that when he comes to do all of the ceilings. 

The new furnace is going in today, too, which was unexpected. We didn't think that was happening yet, but I'm not complaining; one more thing out of the way. He can't install central air until it warms up here. So in other words, we might not ever get it. I'm still wearing my winter coat.

Not everything sucks in my world, tho! Over the weekend there was some actual fun. A few weeks back I had told my oldest daughter that lives an hour away that we should have a girls night sleepover with her, me and my 9 year old granddaughter. So Saturday we did that. And as an added bonus, my daughter in Illinois came home to surprise her sister and spend a few days with us.  So not only did I get the girls night, I got Griffin! Those dang grandkids just light up my world, for sure. 

SO fun!!  We ate homemade pizza, made malts, did facials and just did a lot of talking. Even my ex sister-in-law spent the night.  She was texting Toni that she was bored around 11 p.m. so I told her to come out, too. So my ex and his boys drove her out to my house, visited a bit and then left. She crashed on my couch for the night, so I had a houseful of a whole lot of estrogen floating around.

On Thursday after work I stopped and bought paint for the spare bedroom which we weren't even planning on painting. Evidently I am in the mood to paint. So even though I couldn't move the bed or get the polish rack off of the one wall, I spent that evening doing the first coat and a huge chunk of the day doing the second coat. 

I really like it even though I had a huge moment of panic. It's a two-tone paint job because the room has a chair rail. The bottom half is brown, and the top half previously was kind of a celery green.  I decided to stick with a different shade of brown for the bottom and a slightly pink-toned lighter brown for the top half. I finished the first wall in the top color and as I moved on to the next wall, I looked over at the color as it dried and thought I had made one huge-ass mistake in color choice. I kept on going and have decided it looks good. I'll post pics when it's finally done.

After painting I had the whole house to clean, so I was exhausted by the end of the day. I also managed to find a couple of random kitchen drawers I decided to clean out on Saturday morning. Seriously, ADD much?  Between all that work, the slumber party and having Tyler and Griff at the house, I am still pretty wiped out.

I haven't really been doing my nails because they keep getting messed up from doing all that stuff I've been doing, but I still have a mani to show.

I heart this color! It's one of the newer Sally Hansens from their Glam collection, Teal Tulle. I stamped over it with Orly Sweet Peacock using one of my new MoYou plates, Sailor 04. I actually loved this mani even though I can't even remember how long I wore it. The pic has been sitting in my rough drafts file for at least a couple of weeks.

Other than that, I think I wore my last mani for almost a week, which I hate doing. I did reapply my nails early Saturday but they stayed naked until late last night. I'm really a slacker!

Just a reminder, the giveaway ends in a couple of days, so if you haven't entered, you'd better get to it!! 

GARDEN OF HEARTS TUTORIAL

Still freezing my ass off here in Plainfield, Illinois. I don't even want to leave the house to go shopping. Thankfully tomorrow it's going to be at least 20 degrees....a veritable heatwave.  

Folks are still not feeling so great here so nothing exciting happening. I did motivate long enough to shower so at least I'm not a complete scrub, and I made chicken for supper. Now for the rest of the night it'll just be more sitting around in front of the tv. In other words, it's just like being at home! 

Here's another mani that I did for Nail It magazine along with a tutorial. I forgot to post the tutorial for yesterday's mani. Oopsie. You may see it on the Nail It website at some point.

 

Since I had just taken off that mani from yesterday's post, I just stuck with using Orly Lift the Veil as my base. (translation - too lazy to go find something else)

I wasn't originally planning to do a "garden".  Actually, I don't remember what my intention was. Somehow whatever I was trying turned into this. In reality, I just wanted to play with the heart rhinestones I had just gotten from eBay.

For all of the green I used my Nail Candy pens. They still have them on Nomorerack, and you should consider getting them.  They are $12 for five of them. I love that they can be a needle point or a brush. I'm really happy with them.

I just checked over on that site, and they have some other decent polish-related bargains. 

Guess I'll end this now so I can peruse the site and try to not buy anything.