Nail Me!

i've been on a bit of a nailpolish kick lately.  i don't usually paint my fingernails because, well, frankly, it never lasts longer than a day.  but i've been poking around some nail blogs and picked up some tips for longer manicures and thought i'd try them out.  and then i found the most awesome nailpolish at a local discount store and the rest is history.  i've become addicted!

the polish that started my obsession (OPI Designer Series DS 007):

and then i came across some fun China Glaze polishes (full size bottles, from left to right: Dynasty, Luna, C-C-Courage, Drastic, Good Witch?.  and the mini bottles - i really don't know what collection they're from -, top row left to right: Something Sweet, Light As Air, Re-Fresh Mint.  bottom row: Peachy Keen, Lemon Fizz, Bahamian Escape):

base coat, top coats.  i only just bought the Seche products this afternoon, i haven't had a chance to try them out yet.  the Essie No Chips Ahead top coat was applied yesterday.  i haven't been too hard on my nails since then so i don't have a quality comment on how it's holding up.  yet.  anyway... on to the picture:

and my current home-made amature manicure.  i'm wearing China Glaze in Drastic and Essie No Chips Ahead top coat:

Stash Enhancement!

my love took me to Riverside Yarns in Owen Sound on Friday.  i don't think words are needed for the rest of this post... just yarn pr0n.

In order of appearance;
- Trekking XXL in colour 415.
- Wendy Happy in colour 2520/Virgo.
- Malabrigo Sock in Archangel (i loved the colour so much the first time i bought another hank.  i wound it into a ball the moment i got home).
- Fleece Artist Trail Socks in Rose Garden.
- Malabrigo Sock in Indiecita (another repeat... i knit the first hank into a In the Land of Oz shawlette).
- Koigu KPM and Koigu KPPPM.  intended for striped socks for meeeeee :)
- Malabrigo Sock in Abril, being knit into another Holden Shawlette.  (i wasn't kidding when i said that Malabrigo Sock was my new favourite yarn of all time.  i could knit with it forever and be happy :)

 

 

it's... beige.

so not me, i know!  i don't do beige.  beige is so... beige.  usually i pick out furniture based on it's colour and looks.  this time i just went with price and comfort.  so beige it is.

i've lived in this apartment for exactly a year and haven't bothered to paint any of the rooms.  i keep wanting to, but keep getting this weird feeling that it would be a waste.  i think it's the universe telling me that something more permanent (and without the three flights of stairs up) is coming along soon :)

so... here's my new sofa.  all arranged.  i won't go into details about how that went.  all you need to know is all it took for it to get done without frustration was for John and i to leave and for his teenage children to take over and finish the job doing what parents preach for their kids to do but somehow forget the lessons when it comes to themselves: co-operation and compromise.  they are awesome kids :)

please pardon the clutter.  i will get around to arranging the books on the bookshelf again.  eventually.  i'm just happy they're back on the shelf at all after the re-arrangement of the living room to make room for the new sofa that seems so much bigger in my apartment than it did on the showroom floor.  ;)

i am so excited

i have to announce that i have bought myself a wonderful set of rings.  i have been eyeing the rose rings available from Wexford Jewelers for longer than i care to admit.  i have finally purchased.  it is a wedding set.  i suppose if John and i ever get married (we have talked about it) i can use it as it is intended to be used... as a wedding set.  i can give him the engagement ring and he can propose to me if that's in the cards.  but i bought it, i paid for it, if we don't last it is mine.  if he uses it to propose to me i will not let him "pay me back" for it.  if we marry it will represent my love for him.  if we don't marry or we break up it will represent my independence because *i* bought it.  and i will wear it proudly on my right hand.

okay... so maybe i have some issues left over from my last experience with marriage ;) 

anyway... looooook!  isn't it stunning??

i have nothing but good things to say about the people at Wexford.  buying from them was pure and utter joy.  they are real, kind, easy to work with people.  i cannot possibly recommend them highly enough.

my ring is being sized and will ship to me when my paypal payment clears (stupid paypal, the only option i had was to pay by echeck and we all know how long that takes).  i will post more when it arrives :D

oooo shiney

my life is full of shiney new things at the moment.  yes, totally and entirely material, but hey, a girl's gotta take what she can get ;)

my super awesome boyfriend surprised me with aquamarine earrings for my birthday:

i treated myself to a new tanzanite ring:

and a better cell phone for texting, cuz that's all i really do on my cell.  the yellow/green edging is my own doing... i didn't like it all pink, it was just too.pink.  so i took some nail polish to it to personalize it.  i think it will need one more coat, when the first three are completely dry:

oh, and i've been knitting a wee little bit.  that brightly coloured background is a shawlette in Fleece Artist Trail sock, i believe the colourway is called Sangria.  i'm not sure i'm going to have enough to make it a shawlette sized shawlette though.  i guess i'll keep knitting until i'm out of yarn and then decide if it will block out big enough.  bummer if it doesn't, but not the end of the world.  not really sure what else i could use this colourway for other than socks though... it just doesn't "go" with the lacey shawlettes i see on Ravelry, know what i mean?  :)

well... i'll be damned...

i ran out of yarn while casting off on my Holden Shawlette.  i was so close!  i'm slowly unravelling it.  slowly because every stitch i unravel is dropping and i have to pick it up with a handy dandy crochet hook.  i'm hoping that i can do the picot cast off again (because it really looks so cute!), but next time around i'm going to knit more stitches between each picot.  hopefully that will save me some yarn and i'll have enough to get all the way across.

witness the sadness:

but, in better news, i did get this in the mail:

my new fuzzy wallet.  it is so adorable!  lots of room for my stuff too.  i'm happy :)  i got it from this seller on Etsy:  BearMojo.

so sick

holy moley.  a week of hell has passed in my world.  i have been so sick with a stomach bug.  i'm finally at the point where i'm (kind of) eating again, but definitely not up and about or doing anything more than watching movies on my laptop.  this blows.  thank god for John, he has been my saviour this week.  he's done my errands, fed me, got my mail, made sure i'm well medicated and rested and has worked two jobs between taking care of me!  the man is wonderful!

so i've missed a bunch of days of the Month of Blog.  i'll try to catch up now :)

Day 7 - a picture that shows your true self:

Day 8 - a picture that makes you laugh (there are so many, so i'll go with the most recent... from a post on Ravelry this afternoon that cracked me up):

day 9 - a picture of the person who has gotten you through the most (i'm using a photo of my immediate family from my brother's wedding, because they have all been there for me through many things):

Day 10 - A picture of someone you see yourself marrying/being with in the future:

Day 11 - A picture of something you hate:

i hate Valentine's Day

because it usually sucks butt for me.

however, the man i am currently dating is thoughtful.  yesterday he gave me a little bit of bling for valentine's day.  :)  i'm impressed that he bought it in white gold... he has noticed that i'm not a yellow gold kind of gal!  i do really love white gold/silver.  i can't believe he even took notice of that.

i might have to change my mind about the evil day if he keeps this up :)

Month of Blog. day six.

day 6 - a picture of somewhere you've been.

Amsterdam:

i have been to Holland twice.  both times i stayed in Amsterdam with family.  i went once when i was 13 and spent the summer between grade 8 and grade 9 in Amsterdam.  and then i went back when my children were very small.  Jake was 6 months old, Juliet was 2.

i would LOVE to go back again.  i would love to go back, spend a few days dedicated to visitng family and then do a lot of the usual tourist-y type things there are to do, and i'd also love to spend a few days wandering the city with no real destination.  i find the canals and the buildings along them incredibly fascinating.  i love the history.  there are buildings in Amsterdam that are older than my country and they're still being lived in as it they were built yesterday :)  it's mind boggling :D

Month of Blog. day five.

Day 5 - a picture of your favourite memory.

there are really too many to chose from.  the births of my children rank up there at the tippy top, but i don't have any digital-form pics of either.

so i'll add some pictures of more recent wonderful memories.

making soap with my kids back when we did the homeschooling thing:

playing around at the skateboard park when it wasn't quite finished:

Jake with our cat Burban (i really love this picture).  he was so sweet to that cat (she is no longer with us):

crashing my daughter in as my guest an "adults only" family wedding (that was 6 or 7 years ago):

Month of Blog... day four

Day 4 - a picture of your night.

will a mental picture do??  tonight i went to Ikea with my love.  we bought some lighting for the living room, so i can see better when i knit in the dark.  i have no pictures.  and i'm too tired to take pictures right now.  how about some pictures of the lights when they are installed?  will that suffice to make up for my lack of picture blogging tonight?  :)  

we laughed and laughed all night long together.  he is just so much fun to hang out with.  he's such a good sport.  he's not embarrassed when i plunk down on the display furniture, i laugh when he makes comments about how "ikea" it all looks, he goes along with me when i start talking in funny accents to see the reactions of shoppers around us (and he always always always one ups me in that department... the man is talented when it comes to accents), he lays next to me on the beds, says he doesn't care what the bed looks like as long as i am in it next to him, and we mess up the pillows, he's okay with me dragging in poor unsuspecting shoppers in colour choices for the new Lack side tables for the kids' rooms... he's just so great to spend time with :)  i think i love this man.  a lot.  

Month of Blog, day three

"Day 03 - A picture of the cast from your favorite show."

hrmmm.  this is a problem.

i don't really watch tv.  i don't subscribe to cable, or satellite, or any other means of receiving a television signal through my tv.  i don't have a favourite tv show.  i do watch a lot of documentaries.  there is an entire website filled with them, all yours to watch for free!  i spend a lot of time on that site and watch on my laptop while i knit.  

i also watch freebie ghost/haunting type shows here from time to time.  and sometimes i pop over to History Television's video page and watch a little there (hey... they have some new "Museum Secrets" up.  guess what i'll be watching while i knit this afternoon).

Month of Blog day two

it's 3 a.m. and i just can't sleep.  so here i am posting day two of the Month of Blog challenge.  today's challenge is "a picture of you and the person you're closest to"

this is John and I at my brother's wedding reception.  pardon my messy hair... i was dancing a little too hard for my own good ;)   to be clear, this is my new John, not my ex husband John.

Month of Blog. Day One

a picture of yourself with ten facts.

1. apparently i am slightly vain, because i chose to use two pictures of me.
2. i don't like brown chocolate.  blech.  i like white chocolate :)
3. i hate talking on the phone.
4. i have a mental illness... i enjoy depression, anxiety and panic attacks on a frighteningly regular basis.
5. i have a few tattoos and a few piercings.
6. i like black.  and purple.
7. i like my eye makeup dark.
8. i buy a lot of lipstick but rarely wear it.
9. i don't have a car. 
10. i drink a lot of milk.  white.  skim.  banana flavour when i want to change it up. 

shoes!

yeah.  i like shoes.  but i've been way too broke to buy good shoes.  today i thought "fuck it" and went out to buy some docs, because, you know, those things last forEVER!  you know it.  i know it.  even when you want them to die so you can replace them with a newer model, they don't.  and i need shoes that will last me for a while.  really... spend $150 on docs or spend $30 every few months on cheap-ass walmart shoes?  docs seem the better choice.

so that's what i did.  i will be eating kraft dinner for weeks, but my shoes will not fall apart! 

and because i am a sucker, i had to pick up the chucks too.  they were on sale for $30!!  who can pass that up??  apparently, not i.

(pardon the "omg, i got new shoes.  new PURPLE shoes!  must.take.picture.now." crappy photo.  lol)

i'm back.

my life has changed so much since my last post here. i am now divorced and no longer homeschool my kidlets. they are getting so big... one of them is in grade 9 (holy crow... when did i become the mother of a high schooler??! time, stop flying!) and the other is in grade 7.

i have started dating a new man, who, ironically, is named John. i just can't escape the Johns!! we met last year in June online and then in person in July. the rest, as they say, is history. ;)

after a very long hiatus and so many changes i have decided to come back to my blog. so i can fill your ears and eyes with sounds and sights of my yarn and makeup addictions and let poor John have a break.

my life has been turned upside down with the divorce, starting over, etc. but i'm still knitting! and i'm still equally obsessed with makeup. i never blogged about my love of makeup here before, but now i figure "what the hell, why can't a girl have one blog about two obsessions?" :)

oooh la la

what is that in my yarn yummy alpaca sock yarn??

and there it is again in my black Regia...

yeah... lame... i know. LOL. John bought me a beautiful dainty little ruby ring today. i need to have it sized down, so i'm wearing it with a funny clear rubbery "ring snuggie" for the time being.

drama queen!!

a little dramatic for running some errands and Stitch and Bitch... but what the hell.

... i cropped the photos this way on purpose. i'm not wearing much in the way of foundation (just a very light dusting of powder) and i thought i'd spare you all the worst of the vitiligo patches.


for the curious, here's what i used (all MAC unless stated): paint pot in Painterly, Mi'Lady (red side only), Odd Couple (purple side only), Hot Contrast (black side only), Stars n Rockets, Forgery, GOSH Cosmetics eyeliner in Hypnotic Grey, Covergirl Lash Blast mascara in black, and some old Rimmel matte black eyeshadow on my brows.

Canada's Wonderland

i have to say this first. Behemoth = best. roller. coaster. EVER.



the first hill is 230ft high. top speed is 125km/77miles per hour.

we waited an extra 15-20 minutes to get the front car. the kids sat right up front, Mariella (my brother's girlfriend) and i sat behind them. well, i say behind, but the seating in the second row of the cars flares out so nothing is obstructing your view.

what a crazy ride. i can't wait to do it again!



some of the other rides we did were The Vortex, The Fly, The Great Canadian Minebuster, The Wild Beast (twice... there was no line up!), The Italian Job, the Bumper Cars, and the Sledge Hammer. here's a video showing some pictures of them (we didn't get many good photos ourselves).



... needless to say, i didn't knit a stitch yesterday.

nude no more...

yaaay! our threadless order arrived today :) so we're all sporting smart tees now.

for me:



for Jake:


and for Juliet:
and one that i ordered a couple of weeks ago for John (from Jinx.com):


... and now i'm off to knitting with the girlies. but, sssshh, we really don't get that much knitting done.