Mani Monday: Inspired by a television show

Happy Monday, friends!

Hubby and I have a running issue: finding movies and TV shows that we can both enjoy.  I tend to lean towards fantasy and sci-fi, and whereas he can get into sci-fi, he isn't really a fantasy guy.  In the past, we've been able to find common shows that we can watch together (Doctor Who was one of the first things we bonded over), and he's turned me on to things I hadn't seen in the past, and vice-versa.  For instance, he has gotten me watch Game of Thrones (we're still going thru season 1, NO SPOILERS PLEASE!), District 9, Super 8, and a few other assorted movies.  I suggested he watch Being Human and Battlestar Galactica.  I've tried my best to turn him on to my Joss Whedon obsession - the first time we met I made him watch Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and though he'd seen Serenity but didn't "get it", on my first trip to England we sat and watched Firefly, which he didn't really start appreciating until midway through the only season that exists.  Pardon me a moment, I still need time to grieve.

Okay, I'm better.  Moving on.  He liked The Avengers, hated Cabin in the Woods and Buffy, but he willingly watched Much Ado About Nothing with me last month and enjoyed it quite a bit.  After many discussions about the kinds of sci-fi he likes, I figured I had one last trick up my sleeve to make him realize why I would, at any given moment, leave him to go make genius babies with the mangod Joss. 

Hey wait, isn't this supposed to be a manicure post?  Oh yeah.  Can you guess from the mani below which Whedon tv show I've suckered hubby into watching, and he actually loves it?

Hey, Swatch It! - Maybelline Color Show Vintage Leather

Happy Saturday, folks!  As of today, I am exactly 2 weeks away from landing in Texas with dear hubby in tow.  I can't wait to get back home and see everyone, especially Mom and the best set of girlfriends on the planet!  Also expecting I'll be trolling the old stomping grounds, aka doing some fierce karaoke.  Got word this morning that one of my girls has also recorded Glee for me, so we'll have a little Glee-fest one day (and I'm sure hubby will just LOVE that, since he likes Glee so much...).

Also looking forward to meeting up with a couple of fellow bloggers for a nail-painting party.  If you're a mommy or you just appreciate good humor and blogs with exceptional emphasis on good grammar, please do show some love to Evin and Shelley.  I'm so looking forward to meeting these two bishes!  I've been playing third-wheel in their FB and Pinterest love affair for a few months now, but they're real life besties and they do make me giggle so!

Okay, enough rambling... let's get to the swatching.  I stroll through Superdrug a lot.  By a lot, I mean every time I go into the city, I stop in and look to see what new polishes are in stock.  It was during one of these browsing trips that I came across these new Color Show polishes and I just had to have them.  They're the drugstore version of the Nails Inc Leather Effect polishes, which I've been kinda drooling over.  Maybelline added these Vintage Leather to their collection a couple of months ago.  I picked up the shades Tanned & Ready and Mudslide Tote.  There were two other colors, a grey-ish teal called Turquoise Temptation, and an orangey-red called Red Grained.  I left those behind because I just couldn't get into the shades.

Mani(c) Monday: Why I should swatch before I make "ze arts"

So I realize this says Mani Monday and it's being posted on Tuesday.  My intended schedule is to do new manis on Mondays, swatch/reviews on Saturdays, and a lifestyle/catching up post somewhere mid-week, moving forward.  I learned a valuable lesson yesterday - always swatch new stuff before starting a mani.  I also realize that should've been common sense, but my brain works... differently.

It has been a bit warmer than last week, but although it's not raining, the air is heavy and laden with lots of moisture.  Isis and I went to the dog park yesterday, first thing, because I wanted to wear her out a little bit before I went grocery shopping.  Last weekend we had an "incident" - hubby and I walked down to the Onion Fayre and after a bit of conversation about it, he convinced me that we shouldn't take her with us.  After we'd been home for about an hour we left again to go to the store.  When we returned, she had let us know exactly what she thought of us leaving her twice in one day by demolishing the vinyl flooring at the back door leading into the conservatory, and scratching up a bit of the door as well.  Since then, we've been a bit more diligent about taking her for long walks to work off some of that excess energy.  ANYWAY... so we walked through the arboretum and I noticed that my sneakers have worn out and my feet started getting wet because, as I said, the air is... moist.  Long story short, the dog didn't destroy anything while I was out, but I need to buy new tennies.

Hey, Swatch It! - OPI Fall/Winter 2013 San Francisco Collection

Hey y'all!

Don't you love getting a package from Amazon in the mail?  I think it may be one of the top ten simple pleasures in life, for me.  Specifically to irritate my hubby, I'm not going to list the other nine.

So anyway, I recently ordered in three shades from the OPI Fall/Winter 2013 San Francisco Collection.  I looked long and hard at the rest of the shades and decided these were the only ones I needed.  I ordered Muir Muir on the Wall, Peace & Love & OPI, and Incognito in Sausalito.

Hey, Swatch It! - George Denim Effect Nails

Welcome to my first swatch/review post.  Today I'll be reviewing the George Denim Effect Nail polish, which is a limited edition available in two colors: blue or black.

So I was cruising thru ASDA, which is the UK version of Walmart (sue me, I was tired of shopping at Tesco), and of course I had a little wander through the makeup aisle. I came across this:

The nails that have come before...

I was a chronic nail biter in my younger years.  All through high school and well into my 20s, I chewed my poor little digits down to frayed nubs, and I hated myself for it.  Eventually I started wearing acrylics to try to stop myself from chewing.  This worked, of course, but only for as long as I could afford the upkeep on the nails.  I'd go through periods of pocket money where all was fine, and when they money ran out, so then did my pretty nails.  Of course, they were even worse then, because months of drilling and gluing and suffocation would leave the nailbeds thin and tender and unhappy.

Somewhere towards the end of my 20s, I finally quit biting my nails and they started growing out - never very long, mind you, but they were at least more than a tiny half-moon sliver nowhere near the end of my finger.  I had an on/off affair with doing acrylics once again, and every time I took them off I went back to the same old problem where once the natural nails grew out past the end of my finger, they would split, tear, and break.  I tried shellacs for a little while, but ultimately had the same problems.  In the last year, I finally decided to stop with the acrylics and finally start caring about my nails.  It was then that I started trying to do my own nail art - thanks a lot, Pinterest.  

tl;dr version:  I've had bad nails my whole life, but I'm reforming.

I thought since I'm going to start blogging my nail art experiments, it would be fun to show you guys a showcase of the nail art that came before.  It all started in April 2013, with this:

I had these sprinkles, see...

And I saw this thing on Pinterest...

Anyway... that's where it all started.  I had officially discovered that I could waste copious amounts of time by playing on my fingertips.  I bought some polishes with nail art brushes and set to work.  I didn't know then about cleaning up my cuticles, and had no ability to actually keep the polish ON MY NAILS.  Mostly it's been a big mess.

Welcome to the bungle

So, it's come to this... I'm blogging.  Hurray!  I've finally found the year 2000!

In any event, this journal came about as a promise from me to my friends and family back home that I would chronicle the journey into my new life.  In May of 2011, I met a funny, weird, sweet, geeky man in an online chat room.  At the time, I was recently unemployed and stressed about what my future would hold.  We spent a few weeks chatting back and forth, culminating in a meetup at a small party of internet-type friendlies in Oklahoma.  We spent that weekend partying and laughing, and when my best friend and I left that Sunday to drive back to Austin, I truly didn't know if I would ever see him again.  

Hubby and I, the first weekend we met.