REMEMBER ME??

OMG. It has taken me 2 days to figure this out again.

First off, if you're even still here, thank you so much!! I haven't posted in many months. At the end of September I had a brain aneurysm that exploded in my brain. My husband, who was luckily home for one night, found me in bed unconscious, vomit in my mouth and totally non-responsive early in the morning. Bottom line, I had a helicopter ride to another town and spent over 2 months in a hospital bed. I came back home in early December, and I'm very lucky to still be alive and even luckier that I still have a body that works. My left eye is still wonky and I'm still too thin because of all the weight I lost in hospital, but I'm feeling pretty confident that eventually I will be back to my normal. To say it's been a very long road is an understatement.

I've been trying for a few days to get back in here to at least say hi, but my brain doesn't always cooperate the way it used to. It's weird what I remember and what I don't.

I've managed to just paint my nails a couple of times, but I haven't attempted any nail art yet. Things are difficult, let's say. But this is one I did awhile ago so I thought I would at least stop in, say hi and post a pic.

I look forward to hopefully getting back to my old self at some point, but in looking at my drafts section, I do have a few more pics I'll be able to show.

So for now, this is OPI DS Original, stamped using OPI DS Extravagance and my Uber Chic 6-01 stamping plate. I wasn't excited about this one when I did it, and I'm still not! lol

So if you're still here and still reading, I thank you so much. I've really missed all of my nail fun and really hope I'll eventually get back to it!!

Love to all of you!!

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.

QUITE THE WEEK

It was a long, weird week. The bossman was on a short vacay and was out of the office on Monday and Tuesday. I went in for a few hours on Monday to do a bunch of odds and ends when I got the call that my first mother-in-law had passed away.

I've known her for over 40 years, and even though her son and I divorced, she was still family in the heart-sense. Knowing how painful the loss is for her entire family, for my girls and for my grandkids is tough. 

On Tuesday I spent some time teaching my replacement some of the ins and outs of the office. Wednesday the bossman was back and we spent the day getting everything caught up from while he was gone. He wandered out the door at about 3 p.m. and never came back. So that made for a pretty underwhelming last day. 

After my "last day" of work was over, I stopped over and spent some time with my ex and then I met up with the hubby, Lisa and Laura for dinner. As is the norm, from there we headed to the casino, where luck was actually on our side and we walked out about $300 ahead. We got back home just as Tyler was pulling in from Illinois. Obviously I'm happy to have her and Zero here but wish she hadn't come because of losing her grandma.

Yesterday was the funeral. Painful on many levels, and I would much appreciate not having to see my grandchildren feel like that ever again. For real. 

After that was over, we headed over to the bar that is owned by my ex and his sister. It was lots of family and friends that had been at the funeral, and they had a whole spread of food set out. I think we got there about 5:30 and by 7:30 this girl needed to go home and sleep. I hadn't eaten, had taken a Vicodin earlier in the day and then drank 3 mixed drinks. At this particular bar, that is actually more like 6 drinks when it comes to alcohol content. I was more than a little toasty. I either needed to drink more to get past the sleepy stage or go home and sleep. I chose to go home and sleep. Kev headed back over there an hour later to hang with the family and watch karaoke and came home with some video of both of the grandkids singing. I'm pretty pissed that I missed out on that. I guess it didn't occur to me that they would be at the bar, too.

I had ordered a couple of LynB Designs polishes that came in the mail on Wednesday. After swatching them, I decided to use the neutral holo as my mani for yesterday.

The picture did not capture the prettiness of this polish very well. It's actually got a lot of holo goodness. I absolutely love the color, so if you're looking for a nice, neutral holo, I will for sure recommend LynB Designs Defender of the Downtrodden.

I tried a couple of different designs with my MdU Black before deciding on this one from the Cooi 026 stamping plate that I got from Ali Express. I bought six of these plates, and they are really nice! And at $1.18 a piece, they were a fantastic deal. I received them pretty quickly, too, less than two weeks. It ended up being a good mani for what I wore to the funeral, which was black leggings with a neutral and black sweater dress. This polish matched the neutral of my sweater perfectly.

Overall, I am very impressed with my first LynB polishes and with those Ali Express plates. 

Today I had a lazy, quiet afternoon. Kev went off golfing, and when he was done, he went and stole Seven so she could come over and play with her brother. Zero was very happy to have her here to play. Tinlee only puts up with him for a certain amount of time and then wants to take a break while Zero would play non-stop for hours. Seven accommodates him.

Quiet went out the window at that point. I'm worn out just from watching them.

TWO ORANGE MANI'S

Since I'm so lazy about blogging lately, I just accumulate pictures just waiting for me to take the time to write about them. Just to get 'em out there, I guess sometimes I should just post more than one pic.

This first mani I did Thursday night. It ended up being a disappointment, and it came off tonight.

The light coral is a pretty color by Funky Fingers, Pluto 4Ever. While I do have a tendency to grab up any coral shade I find, I did get this one specifically because it was supposed to change colors in sunlight. It "should" have gone from this color to a darker color. It did not.

I also had a difficult time finding a good color to stamp with. I tried three different regular polishes before caving and just using Mundo de Unas Orange with the Uber Chic 8-02 plate. 

Frankly, I didn't find this one to be Funky at all. I found it Fugly. And that's why it's gone.

Way back in January I did this orange one that I liked so much better.

It probs didn't hurt that the base is one of my all-time fave corals, Sinful Colors Mardi Gras. And of course, you can never go wrong with MdU White for stamping on top of that color. The design is from the Stampaholic 2 plate.

Tonight I really should have taken the time to soak off my nails because my left thumb came loose, but I was not in the mood. I shoved a bit of nail glue under it to keep it on for another day or two.

Bossman is on vacation until Wednesday which means I don't have to get up early on Monday or Tuesday. So if I stay up too late tomorrow or Monday night to do the reapplication, no biggie. 

Of course, very soon now I won't have to worry about staying up late ANY night since I won't ever have to go in to work early. This coming Wednesday is supposed to be my last day working. 

I say supposed to be because the bossman called me already to ask if I'd work May 9, 10 and 11th because my replacement had already made plans to go out of town before she took the job. So I'm retiring for a week and then going back in for a week.

Figures. I knew I'd never get out of there that easily.

I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS

Last night I stayed up way too late. When I was at my mom's house during the holidays, I decided to steal a bunch of the old family photographs so I could scan them into my computer. I finally got around to doing it and was up until 3:30 a.m. cropping them to normal size. It was fun looking back at pics from when I was little and seeing pics of loved ones now long gone. Some of them also made me seriously question some of my "fashion" choices over the years.

When I did finally go to sleep, I vaguely remember having some kind of weird-ass dream about ghosts, and then I was awoken by this godawful beeping noise. In my stupor I reach over to Kev's empty side of the bed to practically break his alarm clock before realizing that wasn't where the sound was coming from. So I stumbled out of my room into the living room and stood in the dark trying to discern where the screeching was coming from.

Finally it became apparent that it was coming from the spare bedroom. I went in there and found Tinlee on that bed, completely unconcerned by the sound but looking at me like I was the crazy one. I flipped on the light and saw that it was the weather warning radio my mom bought me for Christmas. I wanted one basically to warn me of bad summer weather, not stupid snow. And why it chose 4:40 a.m. to start squawking about a winter storm warning is baffling. My phone has been warning me for days about the winter storm. And for the record, the damn storm started before midnight. Not only that, just exactly what kind of warning do I actually need for a bunch of white, fluffy stuff falling down in my yard?

I don't know who sends the signals to that thing, but if a tornado is coming, I'd appreciate the warning ahead of time....not 5 hours after it hits. I could be lying naked and dead in a field 2 miles from my house by that time.

So thanks for nothing, weather warning radio. You suck at life.

I shut it off.

I took off that really cute pastel saran wrap mani and did this. And if it wasn't 12:40 a.m. right now, I'd take it right back off. I hate when I take off something I really like and then follow it up with crap.

The base is a night neutral, Morgan Taylor Birthday Suit. I tried stamping on it with a couple different light neutrals and wasn't satisfied with any of them. I finally just used Mundo de Unas Cream, but it isn't what I wanted at all. I had a couple of regular polishes that I tried that I would have liked better, but they just weren't showing up. Maybe I should have just gone with white.

I got my Uber Chic 7 series of stamping plates today so I got this design from UC 7-03. Scrolly, flourishy goodness. My fave thing.

Kev will be home in the morning and then we are heading off to Manistique with Seven's parents to eat and go to the casino. Then he has to leave right away on Saturday morning. Short trip home this time around.

And after he's gone, so is this mani!

SPRING IS SPRINGING

Why does it have to be Sunday already. I'm not ready for Monday and work. Adulting can be so hard.

It was a pretty darn good weekend, though. Friday night we went to a St. Patrick's Day party. Yesterday the girls came over with Seven to watch American Idol and then left Seven her overnight. So lots of fun with good peeps and a great dog.

For the party I didn't feel like doing green again so I decided to just do a saran wrap smoosh.

I used Glitter Gal White Pointer for my base. When that was dry I put dots of the white in random spots on my nails and did the same with dots of China Glaze More to Explore and OPI DS Sapphire. Then I laid saran wrap gently on top of the wet blobs and tapped lightly to spread the colors.

I was pleased with how it turned out. Of course, that was two days ago so I got bored with it. With Seven here I didn't really want to spend much time changing them up, so I just did a quick stamping job on top of it.

I just got the new 8 series from Uber Chic so I used a design from the UC 8-02 plate and Mundo de Unas white. I wasn't sure how well it was going to show up on top of the white nails, but it turned out pretty cute.

It's at least cute enough to get me through tomorrow. Maybe by tomorrow night I'll think of what I want to do next.

The only thing I know for sure is next is placing another Uber Chic order. The 7 series were out of stock when I got this latest batch so I think I'm just going to have to get them, too.

NOT IRISH, BUT I PLAYED ALONG

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

LATE NIGHT QUICKIE POST

Well, it's after 11:30 on Sunday night, and even though I should be smart and just go to bed, I figured I'd throw up a quick post.

We had a busier than normal kind of weekend. Friday night we went out to dinner and then to the casino with some friends. It was a very late night. I had already planned on making a big dinner on Saturday, and we invited those friends over to help eat it.

As I was cooking, I got a text from my older daughter saying they wanted to come over. They had come to town to go to a play and originally the plan was to go to her dad's, go to the play and then they were coming here and spending the night. But since they got bored waiting for play time, she headed over here with my granddaughter, my grandson and his girlfriend.

Before they were even in the door, our other friends arrived. After dinner, the kids headed out to the play and we spent a few hours visiting. Once they left, the kids came back, and it was time for Posh face masks and some game playing before finally going off to bed around 2:30 a.m.

For me, that is a whole lot of social interaction. I'm a "like to be alone" kind of person most of the time. I loved all of the company, but I was not sad to have several hours by myself tonight before going back to work tomorrow.

I did do my nails tonight, but the following mani is from weeks ago.

I'm not sure what inspired this mani, if anything. Mabes I was planning to wear a blue shirt to work? No clue. The light blue is China Glaze Dashboard Dreamer, and the stamping was done with Mundo de Unas Sky Blue and the Uber Chic 6-03 plate.

This would fall under the "it's okay" category. Nothing wrong with it; nothing spectacular about it. 

And now I guess I'll go figure out what I'm wearing to work tomorrow and get myself ready for bed. At the speed with which I normally get ready for bed, that should actually put me in bed in approximately 45 minutes.

I hate having to go to bed. I'm a firm believer in being awake for as many hours as possible every day.

SO PRETTY, I THINK

I guess at some point last weekend Baylee got a little carried away. On Sunday we noticed her left ear was completely swollen. She wasn't in any pain, but almost her entire ear flap was full of fluid. I'm not sure if she hurt it while playing with one of the pups or if she banged her head in the driveway. Her fave thing in the winter is to start walking down our downward sloping driveway, take a few quick steps as she dives face first onto the snow/ice, flip to her back and slide. Then she'll get up and do it again. It's hilarious to watch, and she thoroughly enjoys her self-propelled sledding action. We think it's possible that perhaps on one of her flips, she hit her ear on a hard spot of ice, causing it to swell.

Kev brought her to the vet on Monday, and they had to sedate her, cut her ear and insert a tube which she has to have in for 3 more weeks so the ear can continue to drain as needed. Our job is to massage it and keep her from injuring it or taking out the tube. Enter the "cone of shame". The plastic, huge cone the vet gave us lasted less than 24 hours. She kept walking into things with it and managed to break it. Twice. I ordered her a Comfy Cone from Amazon which got here today, and that is a much better size. 

At this point we only make her wear it to go outside to prevent her from sliding because she couldn't care less about that tube in her ear. She doesn't seem to even realize there's anything going on, which works out well because not once has she attempted to scratch that ear. As long as someone is home with her, we aren't forcing her to wear the cone. I'll be very surprised if the vet leaves the tube in for the full 3 1/2 weeks because there isn't really much draining going on at all. I guess we'll see what happens next week. She has doctor appointments for the next three Thursdays.

Tonight around 11 o'clock I decided to take off the Snail Vinyl mani. I had the other polish that Tyler bought me sitting here next to me so I decided to try that out.

This is Target's Defy & Inspire Make it Work, which she basically purchased for me just for the name. We are huge Project Runway fans, and Tim Gunn is famous for saying "make it work". I love the names of these polishes; things like Toddlers and Tiaras, Big Brother, The Final Rose, Tribal Council....perfect for a reality tv junkie like me.

For the design I used one of my new Bundle Monster plates. This one is from the blogger collaboration with Nailstamp4fun, BM-XL206, and I used Mundo de Unas Mint.

I'm way happy with this whole thing. At some point I'm really going to have to get a bunch more of this Target brand polish because I'm in love with it. Tyler had Toddlers and Tiaras pink with her, and I was so hoping she'd forget to take it back home. I know there are at least six more that I want so the next time I'm near a Target, nothing is going to stop me.

Either that or I'm going to keep watching them online and hope for a sale. But I will have them one way or another.

Everyone should have a goal, right?

THE "OTHER" HOLO TOPCOAT

When I took off the gray manicure from last night, I figured I may as well go forward with trying out the other holo topcoat.

I didn't really have any ideas in mind so I decided it would just be fun to play. 

I started out with a deep orange, China Glaze Bend Over Backwards. When that was dry, I put on one coat of the holo topcoat I bought on eBay, Spectraflair Holographic Topcoat. 

Immediately I preferred this one over the Pixie's Polish from yesterday's post. The formula is a bit thinner, and it didn't seem to add as much of a silver cast to the polish. Don't get me wrong; I do like the one from Pixie's. I just personally prefer the thinner, smidge clearer look.

It seems to me that I got a stronger linear holo effect with this one, but part of that might simply be a result of my base being a darker color. At some point I really will need to try the Pixie's Polish over a darker color. Perhaps when I take this off I'll re-do one nail just like this and compare. Or perhaps not. I don't want to lock myself into being ambitious. LOL

I think the topcoat made this polish really pretty. On its own it's kind of just another dark orange. The holo brightened it up and made it "pop".

I could have just left it alone after that, but heaven forbid I just wear a plain polish. I hate doing that!

I really struggled trying to figure out what to use on top of this orange. I tried using a purple holo polish for stamping, but it wasn't showing up very well.

I grabbed my MdU Violet, which is a dark purple and threw it on one nail using Uber Chic 5-01 for the design. 

Hated it.

I was just not digging the flatness of the dark purple on top of all that holo goodness. I decided the only option was to once again do a holo topcoat over my stamping.

This ended up being a grand idea because this mani is the shiznit in person. I've been staring at my nails a LOT today. I really love the purple over the orange, thanks to the holo topcoating.

So there you have it. My thoughts on the two holo topcoats I purchased. If you're in the market, I've given you the links, and they are both still being sold. 

Not that I'm encouraging anybody to spend money, of course. I would never, ever do that. 

NEW HOLO TOPCOAT

A few posts back I discussed holo topcoats. After wandering the web to find some, I ended up buying two on eBay. They weren't expensive, and I figured I'd try them out to see what I like.

On Sunday night I tried out this one from Pixie's Polish. Her swatches looked great, and the price was perfectly acceptable.

I started with the light gray from Square Hue, Vice and then stamped using MdU Dark Gray and the FUN13 plate from Fab Ur Nails. Over that I did one coat of the holo topcoat.

It did make for a very nice holo effect, but as is often the case, it isn't quite as sheer as the first holo topcoat I purchased that I'm almost out of. I really wish there was a name on that damn bottle.

I'm not unhappy with the Pixie's Polish topcoat, but I do need to try it just over a color that has no stamping to see how much I really like it. If I'm feeling ambitious when I take this mani off, perhaps I'll try it over something darker on its own. For this one, I'm wishing I had done the holo and then stamped rather than covering up the stamp.

It's not a bad effect, especially in person. The stamping design is just super muted due to the topcoat. It's quite pretty in person.

Overall, I'd recommend it, I think. I like a linear holo the best, and this fits the bill even though it doesn't show that much in the photo.

One down, one more to try that I purchased on eBay from Spectraflair. I'll try that one soon so I can show you how good/bad it is.

WHOA, JULEP - WHAT A DAMN MESS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that is certainly and obviously not me.

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.

PINK AND GIRLY

Last Thursday we headed off to Illinois to spend a few days with my daughter and her fam. I think this is the third year in a row that we've gone there in February. The last two times we had bone-chilling, unusually cold weather when we got there. Not surprising since shit weather usually follows me wherever I go.

It was a nice change to be there this time. They have no snow, and the temps were around 40 degrees which pretty much feels like a heatwave compared to home.

I love visiting there, and every time we do, I give serious thought about just packing up and moving to their neighborhood. They live in such a nice area that has a small town feel but has all the perks (shopping) of being in a big city. We got our shop on a couple of times, and I came home with a bunch of new shirts and sweaters and more nail polish than I've bought in months. I do love a bargain.

Zero was obsessed with me, as always, and Griffin was just beyond adorable, as usual. We went out for sushi on Saturday night, and it was amazing. Our plan had also included indoor skydiving, but they didn't have any open times for us to go. Evidently that needs to be planned in advance a little better. Lesson learned.

I even made sure to get a pic of Griffin with me, which are few and far between since I'm usually the one taking the pics. That and it's even more rare that I think I look decent enough in a picture to actually post it.

For real, how cute is this kid? I absolutely want to eat him up.

I had done my nails a few days before we left and ended up leaving this same mani on for an entire week. To say I was sick of looking at it would be an understatement. It got lots of compliments when we were shopping, though.

I used Zoya Dot for the pink base and then stamped with MdU White and the DRK Themes Enlaced stamping plate. It turned out pretty much exactly as it was in my head, so I was happy with it.

As much as I liked it, I couldn't get rid of it fast enough when we got home Sunday night. When I was playing with Zero over the weekend, I had managed to loosen both of my index finger nails so I had to completely remove those.

Once I did that, I did a heart mani that I still have on now. I'm really missing the days when I had the motivation to do a manicure every night, but I just don't have the energy or inspiration. 

It took me two days to swatch and organize the new polishes I bought, and even that took a whole lot of effort. I easily bought at least 20 polishes, and while we were gone, my Square Hue and Julep came, so finishing it up was pretty time consuming.

On a super depressing note, when we went to Sally Beauty it was time to renew my membership, which costs $5 a year. This year it only cost me $2.50.

I'm still undecided whether I'm happy about that or horrified that I officially received my first "senior discount". I'm 56.....I don't feel like a senior.

Color me saddy-pants, I think.

HOLO TOPCOAT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2016 BLOWS.

With all of the weird health things I had in 2015, I was all set for 2016 to be the start of a happier year. 

So far, epic fail. Every day I'm afraid to turn on the computer. Losses for the world of music have been shocking. I honestly have pretty much been convinced that David Bowie wasn't even actually a human, so him dying never really occurred to me, let alone at such an early age. 

Add to that the loss of four dogs from my group of doggie FB friends, and I'm about ready to call it 2017. I know it probably seems odd to some that it even affects me, but I do consider these people friends, and when any pet dies, it hurts. Having been there, I know that pain personally and hate for anybody else to have to deal with it.

Enough of that.

I did this mani on Sunday night, and I'm still wearing it.

This shimmery purple is China Glaze No Plain Jane. Since I didn't want it to be plain, I used the Ali Express 12-51 stamping plate and MdU Black to throw a design on it.

It tickles me purple to take a pic with my new camera and have it be color perfect. I don't have to adjust a thing when I take pics anymore. It's just so nice and non-frustrating! 

It occurred to me last night that I haven't soaked my nails off in a month. I'm not sure why they still look as decent as they do, but I really should try to reapply them at some point this week. I'll have Razzie for the weekend, and I'm sure he'd want to help which means I'd better get it done before he comes.

Sometimes those 70+ pound puppies are not the most graceful or considerate of creatures, and seeing all of my nail stuff going flying around the room does not appeal to me at all.

NEWEST JULEP

I'm not going to get too carried away with the bitching, but holy crap, it is COLD outside!! For the past week we've had single digits with an even lower windchill. I was really getting spoiled by all of that abnormally warm winter weather, and I think it is making this cold snap even more shocking to my system.

It is supposed to warm up a bit tomorrow. Unfortunately the weather man is also saying it's going to snow. This isn't great timing for that. I have to drive 2 hours to Green Bay for a follow-up doctor appointment, and they are saying possible freezing rain there. I'm hoping the forecast is wrong or that it will wait until I'm nowhere around if it's going to start doing that. 

Somehow I managed to forget to look at the Julep Maven box in December to see if I wanted it or not. I probably would have skipped the month if I'd remembered because one of the items for the It Girl box was their oxygen nail treatment, which I don't use. I gave the last bottle to my sister, and she seems to like it so I'll pass this bottle to her.

The two actual polishes I got are very nice. One is a very, very light pink, and the other is this really beautiful holographic blue, Tali.

It kind of reminds me of denim, so that's kinda groovy. I did decide to stamp on it, though.....certainly wouldn't want to go to the doctor with plain nails.

I decided that I wanted to use something holographic to stamp with, so I use Darling Diva Queen of the Night even though I felt kind of guilty using such a pretty polish for scraping off of a stamping plate. The little flower design is from the Dana 2 stamping plate.

  

I'm a smidge in love with this one. The blue is just such a pretty shade, and I'm really glad I forgot to skip the Julep box.

Sometimes it pays to be forgetful!

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.

IT WORKS!!

Oh, man. December 20th already? I am so not ready for this week. I feel like I'm actually forgetting things I need to do. Everything I have here is wrapped, but I'm still waiting for quite a few things to arrive, thanks to the extremely late list I received from my daughter. As of right now, she's not getting anything because it's all spread out across the country as the items make their way here. It's out of my hands.

Last Christmas Eve Tyler and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning putting together a Lego Christmas scene. Once we finished, she loaded it up in the car and brought it to her in-laws' house so that Griffin would see it under the tree and think Santa built it for him.

It was at that time I decided I was for sure going to buy the actual Lego Christmas North Pole set for this year. It's been hiding under the bed for about 6 months. I asked Tyler on Friday night what the plan was for it, and she said she wanted it to be set up at my house since I bought it. I then asked when she was coming home, and she told me she's hoping to come home Monday. It's a good thing I asked what the plan was, because this plan required me to get busy!

Let me make it clear I was not upset at this prospect whatsoever. I think putting Lego sets together is way too much fun. My biggest concern was where I was going to put the darn thing.

My next concern came about 2 hours in when it became clear to me that there was a piece missing from the set. I texted Tyler and sent her a pic of the missing item and told her to grab one and bring it home with her. I told her I was going to bed with the hope that maybe I was just blind and the piece would make itself appear on Saturday morning.

No such luck. Here I was, only partway through the first building, and I was stuck. It just so happens that I bought Griff two Lego sets for Christmas that were already under my tree, so I unwrapped one of them to see if I could steal the piece I needed. Of course, that set didn't have that piece. So I had to unwrap the other set, and luckily the piece I needed was there. Problem solved. I'll put the piece Tyler brings into the new set, and everything works out perfectly.

So I spent the next couple of hours playing with Legos. The whole thing was just about finished, and I was working on the reindeer, when I discovered I was missing a reindeer face. You have got to be kidding me. The reindeer faces are a common piece that simply have eyes drawn on it. So now I'm looking at the two buildings I already made, wondering if I accidentally used a reindeer face.

Well, shitballs. Next step? Start taking apart the houses I just spent hours building looking for reindeer eyes. And after all of that extra work, I discovered I did not mistakenly use it. Final solution? A black sharpie draws very nice reindeer eyes. Done.

I decided to set it up on the shelf under the tv. I'm not going to say a word about it. We're going to wait to see how long it takes for Griffin to notice it. I'm excited because he is going to love it! I will say I'm going to be a little sad to see it go home with him because it's pretty damn adorable.

I haven't done much with my nails, but I did manage a gradient and some snowflakes the other night, even though we still don't have any snow here.

This is the first mani shot with the new camera. I'm a pretty happy camper because this purple toned Zoya Carey and Zoya Caitlin gradient actually photographed perfectly.

After I did the gradient I did a bit of sparkle with Nubar Star Sparkle and then stamped with MdU White and the snowflake pattern from the Ali Express 12-51 plate.

I did this last Tuesday and just took it off tonight.

I'm really hoping the new camera is going to make my purple problems go away. I did take a pic of this mani with my old camera, and the old camera definitely photographed this as blue. Hopefully this is a good sign that there will be no more running around the house trying to get the color right. 

I'll have to do some more purples before I can say for sure it's the result of the new camera.