MOSTLY BRIGHTS

This should be the week. The puppy pen is all cleaned and set up in my living room. I forgot how much I hate that thing in my living room. It sits in the only corner large enough which happens to be right in front of the door. Immediately after they brought it in, I remembered how much I hate not being able to open my front door. Thankfully the plan is to only leave it in that spot for the first couple of weeks. After that we are going to  move it into the dining room so that the pups can run out of it right into the kitchen.

I had a doctor's appointment in Green Bay last Thursday, and on our way home we stopped at the Goodwill store where I found four very nice baby blankets to use in the pen. I had also saved the old quilted couch cover that had ripped on the edge, so on Friday I cut that into four pieces and used my little $10 handheld sewing machine to stitch it up real quick. Not exactly a great looking or expert job, but I don't think the pups will care.

Puppy cam stuff is all configured and ready to go, too. Yesterday Tinlee had an x-ray to give us an idea of how many we can be looking forward to, and it looks like there's 6 pups for sure, very possibly more. In other words, we'll find out when we find out. No cheating allowed. I was surprised at only 6 because she is huge compared to last time. I hope those puppies aren't gigantic. I want this to be as easy as possible for her. 

I've been taking her temp three times a day waiting for the drop so I can officially start Puppy Watch 2016. I'm ready now and won't be  un-stressed until the pups are here. I  lay in bed every night just thinking of things that could go wrong, puppy names, things I may have forgotten.....in other words, sleep is not really happening much. Between my mind not shutting off and hearing Tinlee's every move and panting, tired has been my word of the day for the past week. It's been two years since her first litter; I forgot about the no sleep part of all of this.

With the July 4th holiday last week, I think I only painted my nails one time. Tyler was here with Griffin and Zero, and for whatever reason, Griff slept at our house almost every night that they were here. I don't usually waste time with nails when I have a grandson to play with. 

But I do have some to show you.

I used China Glaze Aquadelic with MdU Cream for this one. I pretty successfully used a clear stamper and the Uber Chic 7-02 plate for the stamp. I'm still struggling with the clear stampers. I think I used the one from FabUrNails for this mani.

This bright orangey-pink is QRS Sunshine Energy. It was actually a much brighter neon in person. I fully intended to stamp on this but simply never got around to it.

I apparently was in a bright mood because after I took off that QRS, I immediately replaced it with this neon from KB Shimmer, Sarong Place, Sarong Time. The design came from my Dana2 stamping plate using Mundo de Unas Black.

Now I'm thinking I'll clean the house. Kev is gone for just today, and then he's around for awhile, and it's always easier for me to clean when I'm here alone even though I do appreciate that he does the vacuuming if he's here. I had him bid to get the days off when Tinlee is due, and luckily he got off all of the days I wanted. Today he is gone to his annual physical in Green Bay and then is off to Madison to meet up with my fave of his pilot friends for a visit.

I've been putting him to work around here getting things ready, so he deserves the break.

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.

NOW THIS IS BRIGHT!!

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

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

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

I did this mani the other night. Holy brightness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

BLECH - NEON AGAIN

On Friday I finished the polish reorganization which was supposed to mean that yesterday I'd clean out my closet. Guess who was too damn lazy to do it? I spent part of the day uploading photos into the Polish Sickness Facebook page....am done all the way back through October and part of September. I'm not sure how far back I'm willing to go with that project because when I look back at stuff I did last year, some of those that I thought were decent now I think are SOOOO bad!! 

Another part of my day was spent posting pics on Instagram and wandering all of the FB nail groups I'm now in. It feels like my brain is only ever thinking of polish and polish-related stuff. There aren't enough hours in the day for this "hobby". Hopefully once I load up everything I already have on my computer into the Facebook page and onto Instagram, it'll be a lot quicker and easier to just load up one at a time as I do them. Maybe then I'll take the time to do other things, like lay in the pool if it ever gets warm enough to even put it up.

Okay. That's enough bitching! You didn't come here to read a whining post, correct? If you're here, you're expecting to see nails!

 

If someone had told me I'd be doing neon again, I wouldn't have believed them. Neons are just not my thang. I've accumulated several and considered not even keeping them, but I figured at some point maybe I'd use them in a marble or something. I've actually seen this particular mani on Pinterest and didn't care for it; now I ended up doing it. And I still don't care for it! lol

For what this is, it turned out. How's that for a glowing review! I wonder how anybody can live without striping tape. I seem to be grabbing it all the time; good thing I have a lot of it. I've only used it a couple of times for actually wearing on my nails, which is what I bought it for, but I'll probs use it all up just for making straight lines. I'm estimating I'll be around 60 years old when I use it all up; I have a lot of it.

All I did on this one was sponge on different color neons on each nail. After my topcoat dried, I randomly laid down some striping tape and painted over it with black. This time I actually let that coat of black dry almost all the way and then had to add a second coat before I could peel the tape off. Since it was almost dry, the black did dry with little ridges on their edges, but a coat of topcoat took care of that. 

Since my neons from the tip mani were still sitting next to me on the table, I just used those same ones; China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, QRS Belmont Garden and Sinfuls Dream On and 24/7.  The black is Orly Liquid Vinyl, which is now my new fave black.

Has anyone ever seen the QRS polishes for sale anywhere? I bought ten of them in a lot on eBay really cheap, and I really like them and wouldn't mind getting some more.

Lordie, I wish it wasn't Sunday already. Weak sauce. I really need my ship to come in so I can retire and become a lady of leisure; I would be SO good at that! Much better than I am at nails.

NEON NIGHT (kinda)

Sunshine!! What a nice change! It's still way too cold here for almost May, but it looks like we're supposed to have a balmy 50 degree week coming up. Wowsers....I hope the heat doesn't get to me. This weather has really diminished my mood and my motivation, even for nails. 
 

Is this seriously a new trend for summer 2013? If so, I don't like it much. At least it was easy. This is one that was requested for use in some media stuff. I try to do whatever is asked of me.  Whether or not I personally would wear it in public is irrelevant. So I did this one and then removed it right away to move on to another.

I did get very lucky because I was able to give them some of my older mani's which will save me a lot of time. Normally I only have a couple of days to get them all submitted, so I have done 3 or 4 now and will do a couple more tonight.

I wanted to do a basecoat of something sheer enough to cover my light pink Custom nails but didn't want it too opaque. For that I dug out my China Glaze Linger, which I've probably had for 10 months but never used. I seldom use sheer colors, but this was perfect for what I needed.  Neons!! Something else I rarely use, but I have somehow managed to accumulate them just the same.  I just dug through my Helmer drawers and pulled out the brightest things I could find.  For my yellow, I used China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, the pink is Sinful Colors 24/7, my green is QRS Belmont Garden, purple is Sinful Dream On and the orange is LA Colors Shock.  Holy brightness!!  And of course there's nothing like striping tape to make some nice straight lines; super helpful! Scotch tape works well for a lot of people, but I've gotten pretty attached to the striping tape method.

Overall, this is probably not something I would do again, but I still think it turned out okay. 

Now, here's a question for you who are taking the time to actually read the blog posts:  Should I continue writing the type of things I write in here? Or do you all prefer just a straightforward, "here is my mani and this is what I used" kind of blog? This enquiring mind wants to know! Since this is new to me, I don't want to waste anybody's time with a bunch of garbage nobody is interested in.

Until next time! :)   

So here I am, doing something I said I would "never" do. Apparently I lied. After debating back and forth in my brain, and with some encouragement and a lot of help from Essie at iHeartprettypolish.com, I decided to give it a shot.

A bit about me! Yay! I'm 53, married with 2 grown daughters and 3 grandkids. I'm sure I'll mention more about them as I go forward with this new venture. I work full-time as a legal secretary and live in a very small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Exciting so far, right?

For as long as I can remember, I've had a fascination with long, gorgeous nails. Unfortunately, I was not blessed with whatever gene that is that provides them. My natural nails are crap, and that's putting it mildly. For years I did the store-bought full glue on nails. I went to salons and got gels for a bit. My last salon did fiberglass nails, which I really liked. So when I went, I checked out what products were being used and watched intently to see how they were done. Once I felt confident, I went on my beloved eBay and found all of her professional products and learned to do them myself. These I did with much success for quite a few years. I never, ever polished my nails. They were just french white. Always. I didn't really own any nail polish, but I had one random Essie that I had won, "Carry On", and for some odd reason last April I decided I would try it. In my head I had decided long ago that I couldn't wear dark polish. I threw that polish on and after staring at it for a day, I actually kind of loved it! Then oddly enough, out of the blue my daughter called that same night and said I just "had" to get the China Glaze Hunger Games collection. What? Me? Buy nail polish?? What a strange concept! I had bought all 12 before the end of the night and waited impatiently for them to arrive from Sally Beauty.

I will finish this little story in my next post. This story is wayyyy too long to put as my very first entry. In the meantime, I will post one of my most recent water marbles, a little pastel I did for spring, which we are still waiting for up here in the U.P.

For this I used OPI My Vampire is Buff (best neutral EVA) along with Orly Gumdrop, Barielle Peach Popsicle, CG Pink-Ie Promise, QRS Cruiser, SC Candy Coated. I love how this one turned out. The marble is a bit more subtle.

And that's that! My first entry. I hope you'll wander back over here to see what's next!