Nail Junk #1

    Yay!  I got acrylics put on yesterday!!!  I'm super excited, now I can do all sorts of funky things to my nails.  Those plastic things were just not cutting it.  I can't decide what to do for my first manicure though...I put on two coats of cheapo pearl last night but my nails looked kind of lumpy...So I took that off and gave my nails a good buff.  I went to Expo Nails, that's in Lancaster, CA btw, right next to my smoke shop.  I hadn't been there before.  If you go tell her the big lady with the cotton candy hair sent you!  Maybe she'll freaking let go of that merch.  I went to two other places before settling on that one, I wanted a damned discount since I wasn't having them painted but no one would bite so I just jumped on in.  She was busy so I took a seat in front of the counter where there was a TON of polish and gems.  I asked her if they use any of that on the clients, she said no, they just sell it...She charges $7 for the OPI and $3 for the China Glaze, which is good but some of it looks like it's been there for 10 years...I told her I'd give her a plug in my blog, so she should give me some free stuff, she didn't bite :)
    I've been watching videos on "how to" do every damned thing for months and I can't get anything to work :(  Fuck a bunch a water marbling.  Gradient nails work out fabulously.  I do highly recommend putting Vaseline or A&D ointment around your nail though, it's messy and then you can just wipe your fingers off instead of spending another hour screwing up your nails with a q-tip and a cap full of nail polish remover.  Another hint:  use a sharp, narrow paint brush instead of the q-tip.  That way you'll have more control and you're less likely to take off the polish you want to STAY on your nail.  Don't you hate that?  You're almost done, you're just cleaning up the lat couple of nails and you try to get that last little bit of erroneous nail polish and you take half the nail's with it.  I've been looking for one of those super long brushes like the ones in the skinny nail art polishes.  You know the ones, the ones the peeps in the salons wield like swords, never making a mistake.  I lucked into one...I was at a beauty supply joint, one that I'm sure I've dropped over a thousand bucks at over the years, and the cashier rang me up and I said that was cheap, I've never gotten out of there so cheap!  I had a buttload of stuff that was on sale so I didn't suspect anything nefarious...I picked up my bag and there was my long brush, not even rung up.  Well, somehow that brush just jumped right into my bag...I love that store!  That was a $10 brush!  Sometimes you have a good day.  Well, I haven't had a good day since 2005 so this year has really been great.  I haven't had the balls to try the brush out yet, I'm afraid I won't be up to it's fabulousnness.  I didn't mention this first but I should have!!!  I wasn't supposed to get my nails done, I had to get my hair cut and I needed smokes this week.  Wah.  But when I got to Supercuts I remembered that we had filled up my stamp card so my haircut was free!!  Awesome!  So that's the only reason I was able to get them done.  See, even though things might suck for several years one day you'll have a good month or so.  I promise.
    Another tip:  I've been looking for the perfect dotting tool for AGES.  I swear I've used every thing in this house to try to get the perfect dotting tool, nada.  They were out at the shop too, figures.  This morning I was struck by inspiration!  What if I took my useless little wooden cuticle pushers, I never use them anyway, clipped the very tip off the pointy end, file it down a little bit and give it a shot?  It freaking worked like it was my job yo!  I was so impressed I tried to make one even smaller, that worked too!  I've tried them before, and toothpicks, but they didn't pick up enough paint.  Whoo hooo!  So, now what do I want to do to my damned nails??  Something with the dots or do I try the brush?  Major find at Michael's:  Huge scrap booking stamp with small Chinese symbols all over it!  It's freaking epic, the symbols are the perfect size for nails but I have no clue what they mean...I'm going to post it to Facebook to see if someone can help me out.  I think I'll practice with the brush a bit then decide what to do with my nails.
    Another tip:  When messing around with testing implements or even when applying patterns to nails think about using acrylic craft paint instead of your precious nail polish.  I've got a whole box of them left over from another craft and they're really cheap, not to mention of you were using them for nails they'd last forever!
    One more tip:  I've been playing around with the idea of mixing my own polishes or making my own glitter polishes with my jumbo ball of topcoat and a series of glitters I got at Sally's on sale...Then I found in the paint aisle at Michael's 12 plastic jars with lids!  Perfect, now I can save my polish mixtures and put my glitters in there.  I think they were only $2.99 as well.
     My mind is a hamster wheel.

DIY, Weddings

    I've been pretty busy the last few days, researching DIY wedding stuff.  I'm not getting married, I don't even know anyone getting married.  I was looking for some patterns for making flowers and stumbled upon Martha Stewart's wedding site.  She has a lot of fantastic templates for making your own flowers out of paper or fabric, I was pleased.  Then I stumbled upon some other sites that were selling some items made out of paper flowers for weddings and I was flabbergasted!  The one that is ingrained upon my brain is a backdrop for taking photos.  It is a thin log/branch type of thing with several lines of fishing line with paper flowers flowing down, very pretty.  Just white flowers, with a couple of yellow ones thrown in and a couple of lines of green leaves.  I thought "Hey, that's pretty cute!  I could make that!"  Then I saw how much they were selling it for.  $1,600.  For approximately $40 in supplies.  I cannot get over that number.  I looked up some other sites that sell wedding items, bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, hair flowers, all manner of things, made out of card stock, construction paper and tissue paper, with prices out of this world.  The producers of products are taking advantage of people that want to make their weddings a special day.  It's revolting.  I wish brides and grooms could see what's going on here and make better decisions!  One producer, makes invites, he was selling 25 invites an 25 RSVP cards, the price tag for those was $600.  And guess what?  No envelopes.  You had to "contact the seller" to make arrangements for those.  I feel so sick to  my stomach over the whole thing.  Another seller was manipulating consumers to pay out the nose for religion specific items.  My favorites are the listings at Etsy, storenvy, luulla and the like that offer "consultations."  That's what I want to do with my life, people.  I want to consult with prospective brides and grooms, listen to what they have to say, tell them they're all wrong and tell them that it's totally IN to use products from the businesses that I have my greasy little hands in.  Totally.
    I guess I'm totally out of the loop.  When the hubby and I got married almost 22 years ago in England I bought a dress for $180, hubby and two of his friends rented tuxes with long tails an top hats and we got married at the city hall.  We had a hell of a party afterwards, that's kind of what we did back then :)  There weren't a lot of options for a reception so we shut own one of the small bars at the enlisted club and recruited one of my bartender friends that worked there to work it, and we started out with 4 bottles of champagne.  Oh, and we had one of those sterno heated thingies, bbq meatballs and wienies.  It was a blast, there were only about 12 of us, some drifted in and out.  The champagne number climbed to about 6 cases, we did a money dance and made about $500.  Those guys rocked.  I never had a wedding cake either.  I did have a couple of flowers.  I was a hippy, so I had a light blue and ecru hair thing, the circle, I can't remember what it's called.  Halo?  Anyway, it was so  stinking cute.  I think I had a small bouquet and I had 2 corsages made up and 3 boutonnieres for the dudes.  It was a great ceremony, everybody in the room was in tears, even the person doing the ceremony and all of hubby's hard core military dudes!  I looked kick ass in that dress, but there was a little too much cleavage...in all of the pictures peeps took of us at the table signing the big book all you can see is this giant buttt crack of cleavage.  I honestly think that the tone of the wedding sets the tone of the marriage.  If you spend every last penny on a ridiculous wedding, making your parents take out a second mortgage, all of that stress is going to get to you.  If you have a nice quiet wedding the focus is on the family, where it should be.  I have a lot of bizarre theories like that, but we'lll get to that later.
    So I'm thinking I'll get into the wedding flower business if the disability thhing doesnn''t work out.  I was also thinking about getting registered at the Universal Life Church online, I think it's somewhere around $35 dollas to get registered to be able to perform marriages.  Well, I just went looking for it and found another one, free, but you have to purchase the identification documents to show to officials when you do the marriage license and stuff.  It's at American Marriage Ministries, theamm.org .  Totally awesome.  I'd love to be able to perform services for people considered "alternative" or  different.  I think I could turn this into a real business, if my body holds up.  That's my only concern.  I'm so freaking tired and in pain all the time.  I'm not doing badly right now, so if we can keep the medication at what it is right now we may be able to do this.  I'm going to go try to  mess around with some flowers now, see what works and doesn't.  I'll do bouquets first, that's what the bride is going to key onto.  What I am the least enthused about is centerpieces.  I'll have to think about that.  If I can crochet baskets and starch them and just put some of my handmade flowers in there we're golden.  If I have to track down $80 vases for 20 tables and fill them with flowers my head will explode.  There are just soooooo many things that people use in weddings now.  It used to be so simple, I guess it just got out of hand when businesses figured out exactly how much money they could make out of a bride.  It makes me sad AND angry.  All that money, up in smoke.  Literally.  Seriously, what do you have left?  Some pictures in a book and a stained gown that cost you $3,000?  I don't think so.  Ok, off to work.  After one more post :)

Busy, busy Krismas

I was writing a quick note on Tumblr but it turned into a stream of consciousness about all the stuff I've been doing over the last couple of days, so I thought it was better if I shared it here instead.  You may need to imbibe a great deal of coffee, tea, No-Doz or other product that will keep you awake if you intend to read all the way to the end :)

So many things have happened in the last couple of days, it's hard to keep up!  Let's see, we opened prezzies on Friday, I got the most expensive thing I've ever owned besides furniture and cars-a Michael Kors Item Tote in Lapis.  It's the most gorgeous thing EVAH.  The cool thing is that we only paid $138 for it through the military exchange!  Cha-ching!  I also got a gorgeous super fluffy pink blanket that I adore and need, for my mental health-long story.  I got a Keurig coffee machine with those little individual buckets!!!  I love it.  The only drawback is that it's not as strong as I like it.  I wonder if I can poke a hole in the buckets and add a little more grounds...My MIL sent us all gifts and I got this kick ass pair of slippers, they're the right size!!!  I'm so excited that she remembered my size, actually she may have asked the Hubster what size now that I think of it.  They're furry inside and have a nice rubbery sole so I can wear them out back on the patio comfortably.  The also gave me a pair of pajama pants that are way to small, not really her fault.  I usually wear a 2X on the bottom, but wherever she got those things makes a 2X approximately the same as a woman's medium.  She also gave me a pair of red super soft slipper socks!  She's a real doll, I'll send her a note when I get done typing this.  I got a card from my mother, she says she misses us.  I guess I'll send her a note.  She fucking came unglued at the kids and me over the summer when we were visiting her 6 hours away from home.  I don't know if she wants back in, and if I do let her back in if she ever pulls anything like that again I don't know what I'll do.  I haven't spoken to her since it happened.  Or my sister.  We're in a couple of online groups together, I don't think she realizes that I'm not talking to her, because I blame her for my mother losing her mind on my ass.  

    Anywho:  Hubby's dad sent us $400 and hubby got $400 for a bonus at work so he gave me and the kids $150 each to buy whatever we wanted to!!!!!  So, the kids and I went all over both towns and the mall yesterday.  I got a pair of purple leggings-the entire store (Fashion Bug) was on sale except for the two damned things I grabbed, the leggings and a bottle of silver crackle nail polish, both of which had sale signs directly above them....Anywho...Purple leggings, because I can rock that shit, two plain but comfy pajama shirts, a gorgeous thin knit poncho with those angel wing things.  I've been resistant because I'm kind of fat but it's so comfortable I really don't care.  OOO, all I talk about is how American women get sucked in to spending so much on beauty products in a year it's disgusting.  Srsly, I go on and on about it.  But the boy and I were walking through JCPenney's waiting on my daughter and I steered my way through Sephora.  On purpose.  I really wanted to look at their nail polish.  I obsess over nail polish, all day, every day, all the time.  It was pretty, and it was $9.50 a bottle.  FMA.  But, I did buy a bottle, just to have one to experiment with for the blog. I got Stop Stocking Me.  When you look at the bottle it's kind of a tarnished purpley/gold thing but on the nail it's totally purple.  If I had done my research properly I would have gone in there to get a couple of specific colors like that super silver mirrored one and maybe the super glitters.  But I have another idea about that, saving for later!

     Ok, I know I bought more than that for $150...Or not.  Everything was on sale though!  What did I buy at Lane Bryant?  Oh, the skirts.  I needed to buy bras, they were buy 2 get two free, which still boils down to $60, but I needed the skirts more.  They were on the sale rack, and half off but still twenty and twenty five each.  Fuck. I also picked up the prettiest ring for $10.  It's one of those stretchy band ones and the top is elaborate and huge with a peacock feather eye thingy, all of my favorite colors are in it and it's gorgeous.  I'm addicted to these rings too...Which is the dumbest thing on the fucking planet.  I'm allergic to metal.  But I can wear these because they're mostly plastic, at least the part touching your finger is.  If it's not I just don't wear it for very long.  OOOooo!  Right when we were done shopping my son wanted to check out the vendor that does those charcoal/pencil drawings at the end of the mall and they have a new store...All accessories/jewelry by color in every color known to man.  ZOMG.  Of course I was dead ass broke by then.  The cobalt blue counter was amazing, I fell in love with two rings: one was a cluster of about a dozen soft pink roses with tiny sparkle in the middle of each rose and a tiny pink heart that was a watch too.  So damned cute.  I wanted to hide under a counter and sleep there over the holiday, just so I could check out every single bag, clutch, brooch, RING, necklace, bracelet, wallet, grooming kit, manicure kit, EVERYTHING.  Color coordinated!  Fake!  It's called Charming Charlie, according to the daughter.  I was blown away.  I'm really not into jewelry, I SWEAR!!!  Because of my metal allergy.  I don't wear a wedding ring, I've been married for 21 years!  I used to try to wear jewelry people gave me as gifts but I'd always get hives, no matter what it was.  With gold rings my fingers end up looking like they've got athlete's foot, or athlete's hand as the case may be.  I guess I'm embracing my girly, ew, side.  That term...must be renovated.  I'm embracing my.....Drag queen side.  There we go.  Much better.  It suits me better too.  I'm a big ol' bitch, bigger than life itself, my stuff is all big and loud as I am, so I'm using that term!  I'm embracing my inner drag queen!  Back to business:  

    Money goes so quick.  We had to go to Target to get some stuff for hubby and I was evil and bought some stuff on the debit card even though I had already spend all of my Krismas money...They finally had some damned shirts!!!!!  Holy Shit Balls!  They had new styles of tshirts that were nice and comfy and they had a gorgeous long sleeved top that doesn't have ruffles, sequins, lace, kittens or any other ugly shit.  And the sleeves are human sized!  Not super tight!  So I HAD to buy them, right???  RIGHT????  I bought a feather pillow too.  I've been sleeping so badly, I just can't get a good night in, and I'm on a fist full of drugs to make me sleep, no way in hell should I be rolling around all night.  

    So the other thing that happened Friday and Saturday, I dyed my hair purple.  At first I was just going for a few strands in the front, framing my face.  I couldn't get a good applicator so I used one of my paint brushes, about half an inch wide.  I did a little more and called it a day, I rinsed it out pretty much immediately and it was PURPLE and awesome.  I'm using Beyond the Zone, BTW.  I loved it, but there were large chunks that just needed some love on the side with all the hair.  So I put some more purple on, do you see where this is going??  I was trying to get the lower side, then I decided to try to put a little on the back by myself, I just took the brush and swiped several nice sized chunks.  I rinsed and witnessed a nasty ass purple job.  It looked like I hadn't even attempted to make strands out of it, it looked like I just dipped the crown of my head in purple and then put in some zebra stripes in the back.  EW.  Luckily, I still had a package of Quick Blue!  Yay!!!  I swear, that stuff is awesome.  I've been bleaching the shit out of my hair for several months and have never, ever had a problem with it.  No breakage, no nastiness.  I also use a kick ass conditioner if it feels nasty after I've bleached it but never any probs.  Ok, where was I.  Quick Blue to the rescue!  I pinned up a little purple around my face because that's what I wanted originally, LOL.  So I just slapped on the bleach, twice.  I use 30% developer and shampoo in my bleach, so after I hit it and it didn't look like it was doing much I added a little more developer and shampoo and hit it again.  I wrapped it in plastic wrap and put the hair dryer to it.  I sat for about 50 minutes, probably more than that though.  I was mortified by what I was looking at.  At least it wasn't the fuchsia that it was earlier.  The second helping took care of that.  So, I took the plunge and rinsed it.  I saw loads of pink coming out, but the family was watching intently from the couch and they said "Oh.My.God."  Then the hubby yelled something really bad and I screamed at him "WHAT?????"  "Oh, I was watching the game" he says...Heavy sigh.  I rinse and rinse, then I wash the whole thing and condition it.  The fam just looks at me as I walk the Green Mile, or should it be the Pink Mile now?  I go to the bathroom and brush it straight forward as I usually do, it's cotton candy pink, all the way around with the shock of purple on my bangs.  Holy shit.  It's gorgeous but not what I was going for.  See, I don't do pink.  I'm not a chick like that.  I'm kind of anti-pink if you know what I mean.  I'm a card carrying Amazon, but I like to do my nails.  I wear dresses now, but only because they're so much easier to wear.  I just started wearing them this year!  I never, EVER, wear jeans.  EVER.  Back on track, stream of consciousness posts are common lately.  Ok, I slap my gel in it, blow it dry like I usually do and take a look.  It's fucking awesome.  I got my purple, and it's gorgeous pink all over the rest of my hair, just a little in the back though.  Pink is so much more forgiving.  Hubby is totally in love with it.  He was so negative about me even coloring my hair and he insists it's because he doesn't want me to be disappointed when it doesn't turn out right.  He's a douche, he just doesn't want it to be crappy and have to go out in public with me, but he won't admit that.  Anyway, I almost had to take the garden hose to him last night, he LOVES it.  He didn't like the purple all over, he was freaking out when I had the bleach in and the plastic wrap over it.  He was sweating bullets, but he will not admit it :)  After I came out and it looked like a fucking goddess, he loves it.  To him, it's the right amount of freaky, of being different, whatever.  Now I have a tattoo and colored hair, I'm the freak of the week according to him.  And that's ok, I just wish he would admit that he didn't want me to color my hair for HIS reasons.  Not mine.  It loos awesome.  I got several comments on it yesterday when we were shopping.  Both my peeps at Sally's had to get the lowdown, they thought it looked great too.  They thought it looked like I meant to do it, cool beans dude.  And Rick, the dude that goes back and forth with me like we're an old married couple, he told me I did a great job on it, that meant TONS to me.  He just doesn't say shit like that.  The sales peeps at Fashion Bug, Penney's and Lane Bryant all said something, half of them wanted me to tell them how I did it!  Well shit, now I guess I have to post a recipe on "How to Fuck Up Your Hair Color So It Looks Awesome" or something.  

    I guess that's it.  I picked up some stuff at Sally's as well.  I had a basket full, 6 polishes, two holiday packs, one with two China Glaze polishes and an ornament, one with three polishes and a little fuzzy bag/wallet/thingie of some sort.  But, I knew I wanted to have some money left for the mall and put most of it back.  I got two China Glaze polishes, Princess Grace which is the most gorgeous light pink, almost translucent, but it's not thin at all.  I was worried that since it's a light pink it would be super thin like most of the other stuff like that but I tried it on last night and two coats covered just like any other polish.  I also got CG Grape Juice.  I swear, I had four more I had to put back :(  I love nail polish, it makes me happy!  I was supposed to save enough money to get acrylic nails done.  I've been doing glue-on nails all summer because I'm too cheap to get acrylics but I think it's time to just bite the bullet and get them done.  Doing the glue-ons gets to be such a pain in the ass.  You've got super glue everywhere, you've got nails popping off everywhere, it's fun as hell, you get to do whatever you want because you know you can just pop them off whenever you want to!  But, like I said, it's a pain in the ass.  Not to mention that the nail packages you get at the drug stores or big stores are crap.  I love the ones they have at Sally's, I just buy the large package of overlays, not tips but the full nail overlays.  I glue them over my whole nail, cut them down to wherever I want them, shape and polish.  The glue is the biggest pain in the ass.  There's one that is so awesome, and I can't remember which package it came in.  It's a little pink tube, and it fits right in the top of the tips package while you are getting your next nail ready.  AND it holds for over a week.  I think it was in one of those packets of already done nails, I'll look next time I'm in the store, you know, for my reader's benefit :)  Because I totally have readers and stuff......Hahahaha!  So, if I get acrylics I can do all sorts of shit to them, manicures and polish changes and whatever I want!  And I won't have to worry about the damned things popping off, being the wrong size, melting when you take the polish off, having glue all over your hands and fingers (seriously, you have to take a nail file or buffer to it, evil,) I just have to wait until next week.  Blergh.  I want to do them NOW.  

    Another thing I want to mess with in the realm of nails is making my own chunky glitter thingies.  You know how they have those polishes with the HUGE chunks of glitter that you can't even get out, it's all stuck to the sides of the bottle and crap?  I picked up a packet of little appliques at Sally's with the intent to glue them on whatever designs I come up with, but then I started thinking, these are really tiny...What if I combined them with some clear polish and tried applying that to a nail?  If I used it in a craft paint palette I would always be able to get at the bits I want on my nails...They're really kind of too big, well some of them are anyway.  There are 10 packets:  white super tiny balls, black super tiny balls, I have no clue what in the hell they are intending the user to do with these.  They are way too small to use with any sort of applicator and they're too small to shake a couple onto a nail.  Hmmm.  Next:  Irridescent white 5 petal flowers, multi-faceted blue,green,gold,purple circles with a hole in the middle.  Those two I don't think would work in a polish, they're pretty big.  Next row:  Iridescent white teardrops, next is shiny green hearts.  Green hearts?  Rilly?  The teardrops would be gorgeous in a polish,  hell, I think they both would honestly.  But like I said earlier, there really are not a lot of these little things.  I paid $5 for the whole shebang, not bad.  Next:  Silver stars with the middle cut out, next is gold 5 petal flowers with circles cut out of the middle.  The stars are perfect for a clear polish!  Flowers, not so much, they've got to be good for something but I've no clue what that is at the mo.  Finally:  Silver stars, then gold slivers.  The stars could go either way, I've seen glitters bigger.  The gold has got to GO.  OMG, it's leaching out of it's packaging, LOL!  I'm seeing a nail with a fresh layer of Gelous and then a cut out of a nail over it and sprinkling the gold over it...That may be a bit much.  Maybe a black nail, pain the tip with Gelous and dip it in the gold slivers...that sounds cool!  There's not a lot of any of these little appliques so I have to be careful how I use them.  Well, not really, I'm up at Sally's all the time :)  Yesterday when we went in the chick gave the standard "welcome to Sally's" greeting and stopped halfway through!  She just started talking to us like we're old friends, she said she had to go into the back, if we needed any help...she stopped herself right there and said "Hell, you guys are in here almost as much as I am!  You probably know the store better too!  Just let me know when you're ready to check out!"  It was cute :)  Wow, I can really go on and on talking about stupid fucking nail products, can't I?  

    I go on and on to my kids and my hubby about their ridiculous addictions to consumerism, TVs, video games, phones, clothes (daughter, getting more ridiculous every day, post for later.)  I suppose I have been sucked in as well.  I don't leave the house much.  Now that we are on mail order pharmacy I hardly go out at all.  That was my main thing I had to go out to get, medication.  The kids and I are both on medication and our insurance would only let us get them two days before we were to run out so we were up there shuffling around a LOT.  Anyway, we don't have a lot of money for me to go out and run around spending on stupid nail shit.  Or yarn.  I haven't even begun to tell you about my yarn addiction.  Probably because I've been off my yarn for about a month.  I can't seen to get into it, most likely a casualty of the Seasonal Affective Disorder and mania.  Anywho.  I suppose I'm just as much a consumer as they are, but I have a conscience.  And it haunts me.  They have no such thing.  And they're Bipolar, as am I, so we don't always have the best ideas regarding what our money is spent on.  I make lists.  All damned day.  I have about 6 little notepads, in my purse, one at the big computer, one at the lap top, a couple at my chair, one in my purse.  My memory is so poor I have to use them or else I would loose everything! My main problem is that I remember the first couple of things on my list so I buy 10 of those but forget the rest of the list... I don't want to buy so much crap.  I don't want to have 50 bottles of nail polish.  But I got most of them for 1.99.  So that's something, right?  I buy clothes that I really need.  I don't even have anything hung up in my closet, just my one chest of drawers and a laundry basket full.  How many women do you know with that amount of clothes?  Reduce.  That's my thing.  I don't buy yarn like I used to.  I buy for the project I need, or if something is on sale and I can see the exact project I will make it into I will buy it.  I love being crafty.  It makes me feel good, and I've just recently been able to make things for other people and that makes me feel good too.  If I don't get disability I'm going to try to get a crochet business started.  If my body holds up...Anyway.  Does any of that make the least bit of sense?  I don't want to waste money but I spend it on nail polish!  But I use the shit out of nail polish, so does that count?  I obviously don't overspend on clothes since I've still got room in my one chest of drawers.  Ok, I've managed to rationalize my spending!!  Go me!!!  And in just a couple of months it will be Taxmas...and hopefully we will be getting some money back and THEN I can get my bras!  And hopefully some more maxi-dresses, I'm addicted to them.  You throw them on, they cover your hairy legs, it appears like you're spending time on your appearance since you're wearing a dress but it's the exact opposite!  Ha!  Take that fashion police!  I guess that's it, I'm going to go pet my Michael Kors bag, that is wonderful and fantastic and beautiful

    So, I've managed to come to terms with my overspending at the time of year people celebrate a holiday they've celebrated for a couple of hundred years, how 'bout you?

Right in the Face!

Well crap.  I had finally found a fantastic site with tons of awesome information, telling me what NOT to use and what was good to use, not even pushing her own products.  Heavy sigh.  Then I get to the "Make your own magical potions to blow up your house, get on the FBI's most wanted and get rid of acne now!" page.  Maybe I should start with the good stuff.  Yes?  Ok.
    I started my usual internet cruising, checked my peeps on FB (hey Snarkies!!!) decided not to check out ravelry, that's been happening a lot lately.  I've been checking one group on there daily for about a year, I suppose my new junkie sites have pushed it to the wayside.  I pop onto pinterest, nothing new.  I started following a new person yesterday hoping she would add some flava to my page but she's just scary.  Unfollow!  I went to Google, looked up some "luxury bedroom furniture,"  found a couple of things, nothing was tickling my hiney today.  My back started bothering me so I thought about hitting the recliner like I usually do, well, did, before I started the Adderall!!!1!!  But I thought, hey, surely there's something to piss me off online.  And of course there is :)
    I started with the coffee thing.  I'm a coffee junkie.  I typically don't drink very much of it but I must have it.  Whenever I want it.  I like Starbucks, I know, I know, bad me, but I have this whorebag lustaffair with a Venti Mocha that's just outta control.  They have this new thing, a Caramel Brule, damn my ass this is what an angel's ass would taste like if there were any.  Angels, that is.  Incredible.  Back to topic, I don't usually do the grocery shopping since I've been too sick to do it but I went once a few months ago and was shocked at how high the coffee in cans was!  What in the hell???  So I went online and checked it out, turns out there have been some weather problems in Mexico and Columbia.  I think it was heavy rains in Columbia, so bad that the flooding made the roads impassable so nobody could farm the beans and even when they could the beans were ruined, that's what I got out of it.  And in Mexico, I can't find a definitive reason but their output was crappy too so there isn't much coffee to be had so companies have had to use other producers who charge more.  Not to mention other nations that have recently discovered the lovely that is coffee, namely China, Brazil and Ethiopia, so we've got more demand and less coffee.  WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO??  I can't afford $10 a can!  I go through a can a week of the cheap crap.  I prefer French Roast, I don't have to use as much coffee that way.  If I have to use the cheap store brand I need half a bag of ground up good stuff to mix into it to make it least palatable.  Maybe throw in some half and half for good measure.  I gave that up too because it's too expensive.  See what a good housewife I am??  Blergh.  I drink a lot of tea too.  Should I just switch to tea?  It would make more sense, but I've been drinking coffee  since I was about 9, I love the stuff, the smell, I even love the grounds at the bottom of a burnt ass cup.  Mmmm.  BRB, coffee break.  Then we shall dive into the topic of skin treatments!  And we shall have another scathing review of what I thought was a lovely businesswoman and site owner at the end.  Yay me!
    Ok!  I started my skin care mission asking the wise internet if the Aspirin thing could really help your skin and acne as I heard so many times.  The chemical make up is very similar to salcylic acid, the ingredient in a lot of acne fighting medications, but it's not the same thing.  One entry I found said that a paste of crushed up aspirin and water left on her skin for a few minutes then rinsed off did in fact help the redness and inflammation of her skin, but that's what anti-inflammatories are supposed to do, right?  So there was one myth debunked.
    Oooo, I lied!  I started with salt.  I was going on and on yesterday about the sugar scrubs and was thinking the whole time, isn't salt so much better for you?  Hasn't salt been used for thousands of years in numerous settings to make us better?  And in fact it had!  Eureka!  Put down your sugar and let's check out the salt.  Table salt is OUT.  No good.  Ok to eat and all that, in fact, salt is the best diuretic you can get your hands on.  Feeling a little bloated?  Go get a large order of fries!  Well, do whatever is best for you, I most certainly won't be going out for fries, I'll be looking in the freezer, but you know what I mean.
    There are several salts, only a couple of them are beneficial to our purposes, which are I suppose to debunk the beauty industry and do nice things for ourselves.  I haven't declared that yet and I didn't set out to do that but it's been on my mind for YEARS and I've been excessively chatty lately so let's hit it!  I don't wear make up, every year around my birthday I buy some bullshit beauty product to make me feel like I'm making me look younger.  I wore makeup when I was working, from about 2001-2004, I dropped a damned bomb on that shit.  A co-worker got me a gift card for a department store and a chick working the Prescriptives counter asked me if I'd like a makeover.  Why, yes, yes I would!  I looked hot too.  I bought tons of that crap but that's where I learned my toner formula so I guess I learned something.  She also did me a favor and shaved my eyebrows.  I lost 5 pounds.  Back on track...You know, I just wonder sometimes how much money women drop into the beauty industry in this country.  It's fucking absurd.  We've gotten so far away from what's really important in our lives it makes me weep.  We buy shampoo, conditioner, mousse, gel, root lifter, hair spray, foundation, concealer, powder, eye shadow, blush, bronzer, lip liner, lipstick, lip gloss, eye liner, eye brow pencil, mascara, finishing powder, moisturizer, cleanser, facial scrubs, toner, acne treatment, anti-aging products, mud masks, cholesterol treatments for our face and hair, hot oil, lotion for our hands, face and feet, crap to shave our legs, under our arms, wax to do other shit, little shavers for other shit, clippers, filers, paint, hair dye because we don't like what color our hair is, ALL of this shit, how much money do we spend on this stuff in a month?  How about the money we pay other people to do stuff?  Cutting our hair?  Coloring our hair?  Doing our nails?  Waxing the muff?  WTF on that last thing dude.  Who the fuck thought that was ever a good idea.  Letting someone outside your home wax your fucking crotch.  HELL NO.  I can tell you that I spend nada.  I spend most of my money on nail polish.  I only shower once a week or so, it's hard for me to get up the stairs, but I wash up in the sink several times.  I have super short hair so I only use a dime's worth of shampoo, and a smidge of my lovely Placenta Conditioner.  You'll be hearing a lot about that stuff.  I love it.  It's cheap.  It's awesome.
    Back.  Had to take a break.  I'm re-entering mania stage so I'm flitting from here to there.  I arranged the bathroom sink and had to do a foot soak and scrape.  Oh, and attempt to figure out what the hell AAFES.com is thinking.  They sent me exactly half of what I ordered.  They sent three boxes, each was missing one item.  Are they guessing peeps won't notice?  I've never had trouble with them before.  Ooooo, and last night I was opening a box that came and I thought it was the rest of hubby and son's stuff...it's a freaking Michael Kors bag that was on my list....Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!@!!  It's not the one I fell madly in love with at TJMaxx but it's better.  And bigger.  And Fucking Michael Kors!  So I guess that's it for today, I can't remember what I was going on about.  I'll pick it back up tomorrow.

My First Scathing Beauty Industry Flail

Oops.  I wrote a post several weeks ago, and, um, didn't hit publish.  I am a technological genius. Yeah.  Awesome.
    Anywho, I've been cruising the internet, getting more and more cranky with everything.  I mainly cruise pinterest all day, I obsess over nail polish.  I pour over blogs and youtube videos showing me how to do fancy ass manicures.  They all have perfect cuticles, the polish isn't all over the fucking place, there aren't little scrapes and scratches in the polish because they couldn't wait five minutes longer to get into the bag of M & Ms...They all are doing 3 manicures a day with $9 polish!  Who the hell buys that crap???  I mean, I understand wanting to have a great product and I go and drool at it but I don't BUY it.  I can feed my whole family for $9.  I can buy enough toilet paper to last my entire family two weeks for $9.  I can buy 9 bottles of Wet n' Wild for $9!!! Holy shit, have you figured out that I'm a tightwad?  Really I'm not, I just can't justify spending that much.  I buy China Glaze and sometimes Finger Paints, but only when I have a coupons and I really get excited when they have those buy two polishes and you get a wallet or a change purse or something.  It's purely psychological, because in the end I'm still dropping $9, but I'm getting more stuff for it!  Plus something practical!!!
    I've also been reading a lot of websites that have those recipes for scrubs, you know, the ones that are supposed to be awesome and holistic and home made and awesome!  And only one told me NOT TO USE THEM ON MY FACE.  So let's just get that out of the way now.  I was really hoping these were for my face. I have a lot more issues with that area than my hands, we won't talk about my feet.  That's a whole new post. Ahem.  They get you all wound up talking about these scrubs, you'll have everything in your kitchen cabinets!  Not.  I do not have coconut oil in my cabinet.  I don't even have essential oils in my house.  Wtf?  Am I even a woman?  *Looking down shirt*  Yep, I'm still a chick.  So why don't I want to run straight down to the healthy store (I don't even know where the fuck that is) and get my basic set of essential oils for, let's see, do we want the 6 pack or do I want the super-duper-mondo-ultra set so I can make my ass smell like everything smelly on the face of the planet?  It's only $50!!!  Good grief, what is in this thing?  I have one pulled up from Amazon...It says "The Beginners of the Best" and includes "Bergamot, Clary Sage, Cinnamon Leaf, Eucalyptus, Grapefruit, Lavender, Lemon, Lime, Patchouli, Peppermint, Rosemary, Spearmint, Sweet Orange and Tea Tree." Hmmm, not a lot in there that I want to be smelling like quite frankly.  If I go up to the bigger set, that's $99.99.  Damn.  Just the stuff that was in the first one and then some questionable "blends..."  What the fuck is a Bergamot?  If I was watching Jeopardy or something I would say it was a small lemur...And then there's the mother of them all, the big set, for $199.98.  Keep in mind that's allegedly half off.  Good grief.  
    So, in order to be a good little American woman and keep ourselves as fresh and beautiful as possible we're supposed to drop all this dough on oils?  I know a lot of people that use them all around the house, in laundry soap they make themselves, all over, but for crap's sake.  To make a "scrub" that you can only use on your hands and feet you're dropping a significant time here.  You've got the sugar, which in one blog it specified a certain kind of raw sugar only procured at the health food store, and enough of the following to dampen the mixture:  cold-pressed oil (olive, wheat germ, peanut, corn, or sunflower.)  OH!!!  So now we're on to COLD -PRESSED oils.  I wasn't informed that cold pressed was a part of the situation!!!  I thought I could just run up to my health store, after donning some type of outfit that would ensure my not being kicked out, maybe I could throw on a dress and one of my crocheted sweaters, and pick up whatever oil had struck my fancy.  Now they're throwing a whole 'nutha wrench in the works!  Good Gravy Batman!  Let's try another recipe, shall we?  
    Ok, this one is going to give us the softest skin we've ever had!  Are you ready, I know I am!!!  

"50 percent white cane sugar (note that organic sucanat, while the best choice for food, doesn’t work as well for this recipe)

50 percent vegetable glycerin to moisten the sugar (I used avocado oil since I was out of vegetable glycerin and it proved to be a successful substitute)

Small amounts of aloe vera gel, vitamin C crystals, or anything healing that dissolves in water

1 or 2 drops of essential oil if desired (Larry recommends combining orange and lavender)

Enough ground hibiscus powder for pink color."

    Oh brother.  I mean really.  This is just too fucking much.  What the hell is sucanat?  I admit I was pulling your leg up there earlier about the Bergamot but damn!  Ok, vegetable glycerin to moisten sugar.  EW.  That just sounds gross, for starters.  Secondly, I'm sure the health food industry is making out huge by marketing vegetable glycerin as some major too doo, but it's some cheap-o thing in the baking aisle.  Now, once we've done that we're to add something healing.  Like vitamin C crystals or something.  Like, whatever.  I'm about THIS close from marketing my chihuahua's crap as healing.  It's like life changing man.  If you wait long enough for it to become crystallized and smoke it you'll get the most pure high.  And if you add if to your facials it will give you the most clear complexion, you won't believe it!  Srsly.  And then, we add our offending essential oil.  Oh, let's combine some, just for the hell of it!  Go for it!  You've earned it!!  For our final ingredient, I give you hibiscus powder.  W.T.F.  I give up.  I'm through.  Do these people farm the hibiscus petals, dehydrate them and then grind them into powder just to sell them to rich people so they can add them to their fucking HAND SCRUBS???  You know damned well if I ever get my hands on some hibiscus powder I'm sure as shit never EVER putting it in a scrub for my hands or feet.  I might even snort that shit!  Whew.  I'm through.  I don't have any breath left, the essential oil industry has robbed me of an afternoon but I hope you can relate.  Or can tell me where I can further my quest to snort some hibiscus powder.

CRAP.  See what happens when you challenge the essential oil industry in America?  They fuck with your blog so you can't get it the right size after you've pasted something.  Don't tell me it's just because I pasted something either, I know who did this.  *shifty eyes*

Beginnings

I guess this is the intro post.  Hi!  I'm a 42 year old mother of two, married for almost 22 years.  I am an Air Force veteran but got out because I hated it, then promptly found out that I was pregnant with my first child, so, it's all good.  My kids are adults now, but I don't speak of them that way, that's a bone of contention between the hubby and I.  In his world (and apparently many others, who knew?) once they turn 18 and finish high school they're out of the house.  I told them, the kids that is, that as long as they're pursuing higher education they can stay.  Plus, I get to keep them longer :)


   History:I was born in San Francisco in 1969.  Yeah, I'm lucky I wasn't named SooperFlowerUnitofLove or some shit.  Oh, and I swear a lot.  I know, I know, it's allegedly a sigh of low intelligence or something.  Bite me.  Anywho,  I grew up in Fontana, CA until I was 9 then we moved to WA, I lived there until I was 17 when I joined the military.  I met the hubby when I was 19 and living in England, which was totally awesome by the way.  I love the way the military works.  Take a bunch of teenagers that have never been away from home, send them overseas where drinking is legal at 18 and expect them to act right.  Hilarious.  Life was pretty damned good.  Hubby and I married in January of 1990, my daughter was born in September of the same year.  We moved back stateside and my son was born in 1992, I really wanted to have them close together.  No way in hell was I going to have one kid going to school and then have another at home in diapers.  Hell no.  I wanted them both in diapers and get it all over with.  Hahahahahaha!!!  You can see how that faulty logic got me in trouble.  That was my first initiation into the darkness that is depression.  That would be the cloud that has followed me and has attempted to swallow me whole several times.


   Mental health is a subject I'll talk about a lot.  We're all nuts here.  I've got tons of diagnoses but basically I'm depressed all the time with bouts of worsening depression including thoughts of suicide and all that fund stuff, dysthymia it's called in the biz.  I started getting treatment in about 1998 primarily for PTSD from sexual abuse from my father and earlier from a babysitter.  Slap the depression on top of that, the anxiety of being a parent that has had bad things happen to her when she was a child so she's being "hyper-vigilant."  I've also got Bipolar Disorder, which is just lovely.  So far it really hasn't been that much of a big deal, just the money spending thing, but never putting us in the hole, and the verbal diarrhea.  That's fun!  But since  my shrink put me on Adderall to help me with the (soul sucking) fatigue I've become truly manic.  Hubby calls it tweaking.  


   It started the day I had my disability hearing.  I had been thinking about getting all of my hair cut off for a long time.  It wasn't long, just a little past shoulder length, but I wanted it SHORT!  So I got the cut and looked in the mirror and all I could see was gray hair...motherfucker.  I talked to the girl that cuts my hair and she told me how to do a home bleach, so I tried it.  Three times.  It just wasn't right.  I looked at the bottle that she told me to shake everything up in and I'll be damned if there wasn't a huge blob of powder down there that hadn't been incorporated.  So I went down to Sally's and the dude down there hooked my ass up.  He talked me out of buying one of their bowls, lol, said to just use an old butter bowl or something, and mix the bleach powder and HIGH percentage developer (I use 30) with one of those big brushes until completely dissolved.  I throw in a big glob of shampoo too, I find that it makes it so much easier to get the bleach all through my hair.  I've done that with one of my daughter's hair colors too, it was so much easier to get it all worked in.  So, all those years thinking I was too fat, I had a funny head, I just was too chicken to get my hair cut short when I really wanted to, I hate my hair touching me, it makes me want to vomit sometimes.  Especially at night, you know, when you wake up and roll over you have to pick up your hair and throw it over and it's all sweaty...Not anymore bitches!!  


   Ok, you can probably tell I'm extremely manic today, but I have a lot to say, I've been kind of stifled at home for the last several years.  Hubby used to get deployed all the time, which meant extra money and we (meaning the kids and I) got to do whatever the hell we wanted to.  After a one year stint by himself in Korea he's been home ever since.  And he's fucking driving me insane.  I swear if I had any money or any place to go I would have left him at least 6 times in the last year.  He doesn't particularly like when I talk to his dad, who came to town for a very brief visit last month.  My FIL and I share a lot of views politically so it's fun for the both of us to actually have someone to talk to.  Hubby, well, he just doesn't appreciate the fervor with  which I express my views.  He also disapproves of how many times I use the "f" word.  I've known these people for over 20 years, they fucking know me.  whatevs.  Hubby just gets sooooooo anxious and wound up when his relatives show up.  But this was his father for crap's sake!  If he can't be comfortable around his own dad that's his problem.  I do edit myself a smidgen for company, but then again I have the verbal diarrhea and can't stop myself if I'm on a tear or the swearing starts.  What was really funny was at dinner, Denny's, my fave, hubby was wearing his douche pants and his dad called him out on it.  He said he wondered how long he would survive if HE were to act that way to me.  There wasn't anything I could do at the time.  Hubby called his dad a few days later to apologizes for his behavior and his dad ran him through the ringers, I wish I could have heard it.  What he does is act like nothing is wrong, so hubby has to TELL him what he did and then apologize.  It's awesome, I love him.


   More mental health stuff.  Ok.  Both of my kids inherited the Bipolar gene, my daughter's is pretty mild but she's been exhibiting some extreme OCD behavior over the last month or so.  My son got the whole shebang.  He has Schizoaffective Disorder, a combo of schizophrenia (paranoid type) and bipolar disorder.  Loads of fun.  He's got two distinct voices in his head, one tells him to kill and hurt others, the other tells him to do the same to himself.  He's also exhibited signs and symptoms (via school testing and two therapists) of ADHD, OCD (Unholy hell this is the worst one.  I've never seen anyone that can obsess like this kid...He literally cannot replace the obsession with another thought,) Aspergers, crap, I forget everything else.  He's been hospitalized twice for it.  He hasn't had an "episode" since he graduated high school this last May so that's awesome.  Keeping his environment as drama free as possible is the key to keeping the voices quiet.  When they get loud he can't think around them, he can't trust me his eyes get really small.  It's very creepy and scary.  The worst part is that he says the voices tell him he can't trust me so he won't take his meds.  If I can get meds in him quick enough I can minimize the psychosis.  Unfortunately he won't be able to work and he won't go to any of the programs for people with special needs, but after reading up on them they're really not what he needs.  We applied for SSI and he got it!  First try, three months from start to finish!  Freaking miraculous.  I'm still waiting on the judge in Virginia to check out my appeal from my hearing.  I think I've been working on my case for a year and a half.  


   I guess that's about it for now.  Oh!  I want to talk a little about the other things I love:  fingernails, music, and CROCHET!  I'm really working on the crochet thing.  If the disability thing doesn't work out I think I'm going to start a work from home crochet business and put together a book of patterns  I have a notebook full of ideas of the patterns for the book, it's all just a little too scary.  I haven't typed it up either.  Jeez, for being an Amazon I'm sure being a chicken.  Fingernails:  I kind of obsess over them.  I'm too cheap to get acrylics so I do the glue on ones.  It's so much fun :)  There are tutorials all over YouTube to show you how to do a bunch of stuff.  I can't get the water marbling down.  I love the sponge gradient nails though.  I'm sure I'll be a giant dork and post lots of pictures of my stupid fingernails, but I can't post a lot of crochet pics if it's stuff that's going to be in the book, I don't want anyone to steal it.  Music:  I spent the last two days putting all of my CDs onto itunes so I could put them on a sooper tiny sd card (or whatever the hell they're called) and put it in my phone so can just hang  out and jam while I'm hookin' and junk.  I could only afford the 4GB card and that was freaking $25...So I put all my stuff on one playlist and I'm getting the second set ready and I happen to look at the bottom of the screen and it says we have 3.76 GB.  Fuck.  And I hadn't even touched what was in the car visor or my classical folder... So I had to delete everything that wasn't absolutely crucial.  At least it's still in the main library playlist.  It was an amazing technological feat, for me, definitely.


   Ok, I think that's enough of an introduction.  I'll be off to find out about this 30 day business.  Thank you Blogger.com for running this site and letting people act a fool.