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Another One Bites The Dust

Another One Bites The Dust

Posted on by Cynthia

Ok, no, it’s not me…at least not yet. Earlier this month I got a wordpress notification congratulating me for 5 years of blogging. 5 years, really?! It feels strange saying this because it doesn’t feel like I’ve been at this that long. I keep thinking about just shutting down my blog altogether, but I know that I will miss it terribly. It is still fun most of the time especially now that I am posting less and just doing it when I want to. It feels like so many of the OG bloggers that got me excited about blogging have retired and it makes me feel like it’s the end of an era. While I was contemplating all of this, I started doing a “festive” mani and realized I had done the exact same manicure 5 years ago. It was kind of funny so I wanted to share it with you guys.

Oh, remember when I thought flash equaled good lighting? Hahaha! I do have to admit that my stamping was pretty good even as a newb, don’t you think? I know that my hand position and lighting left a lot to be desired, but I don’t think it was tooooo horrible. Or am I wrong?

And here is a polish that we all know and love: China Glaze Ruby Pumps. I actually couldn’t find my old bottle of this so I had to go out and buy it when I decided I wanted to do this mani. It’s such a gorgeous polish in my opinion.

And here is my full mani using Konad plate M60 and the white Konad polish. I did a crappy job of clean up since I still have some traces of the white polish on my skin–so please excuse that. I actually feel that my stamping was crisper on the first manicure, but that’s due to the white polish. I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but I feel like the Konad stamping polishes have gone down in quality. If you know of a super awesome white stamping polish, please let me know!

So, I leave you with this little blast from the past and hope that you stick around. I know I don’t post very often and I know that a lot of my old readers don’t stop by often because of this, but I just want to tell you all that I truly appreciate every visit, every comment and every like. You guys are what made blogging fun and I hope that you still enjoy reading my blog.

With much love and best wishes for 2017,

Cynthia

Full Of Awesomeness

Posted on by Cynthia

This is a super quick post because I forgot to mention something I saw on youtube earlier today. OMFG this is so full of awesomeness on so many levels…especially because Chrono Trigger is my favorite game ever. EVER. It even beats Super Metroid and Super Mario Bros. 3

Anyway, revel in my absolute nerdiness.

 

 

Hope you have a good week…yeah, Mondays suck.

I Need To Lay Off The Polish

Posted on by Cynthia

I think the pictures will speak for themselves…………..

Bikini So Teeny, Off The Shoulder, Fear Or Desire, Mojito Madness, All Tied Up and Damsel In A Dress

 

I’m All Ears, The Color of Minnie and If You Moust You Moust

 

Exotic Encounters, Elephant Walk, Jungle Queen, Purr-fect Plum and Man Hunt

 

Under The Boardwalk, Splish Splash and Love’s A Beach

 

Dramatic Blue

 

Phallic

 

To say I have issues is an understatement.The polishes I’m most excited about are from the new On Safari Collection from China Glaze. I really wasn’t expecting to see them at my nail polish places yet so I grabbed a bunch of them. There were others that I wanted, but I passed on them for now.

Since I went to my nail polish mecca today and I convinced two of my girlfriends to join me, we ended up buying way too much. Yeah, it was mostly me but they bought some stuff too! Afterwards we went to Vietnamese restaurant for dinner. Everything was yummy except that at the end of our meal, my friend found a bug in her food. Ugggghhhhh…barf. I always have a great time when I hang out with V & N; they are my oldest childhood friends and we always manage to comfort each other when life is handing us a shit sandwich.  Oh, and I also got stopped by a cop for talking on my cell. The ironic part is that I almost NEVER talk on my cell whether I’m in the car or not…so I guess I was getting an extra layer of poop in my sammy today. 🙁 Yeah, happy Saturday to me.

Where Is My Nail Polish Juju?

Posted on by Cynthia

The beauty.com debacle is still ongoing. As you may recall, I ordered a nail polish set around 3 weeks ago and I still don’t have my items! I was sent out a replacement when I received my empty order and when I received the replacement, it was also empty!!!!! After ignoring me, someone finally got back to me and said that the sets were now out of stock in their warehouse so they couldn’t verify if other sets were also empty. Oh, how convenient. I was informed that they were going to receive a new shipment and that once they unpacked and inspected the new sets, they would send one out to me and also refund my money. I got my refund but haven’t heard anything else since early this week, but I won’t hold my breath when it comes to receiving that SpaRitual set.  That whole situation is such a freaking joke.

Well, get ready for today. I was expecting my Sephora shipment of nail polishes. I saw that a bunch of them were on sale so I stocked up. I ordered the following: Illamasqua Velocity, SOPI Who Let The Dorks Out, SOPI Slushied, Sephora Burst Of Mango Cream, Nails Inc Bruton Street, Nails Inc Gatwick, Nails Inc Heathrow and Nails Inc Hampstead Gardens. This is what I received:

All of these bottles of nail polish were in one bubble wrap baggie so maybe that’s how one of them broke and covered all the other bottles. I’m not interested in keeping bottles that are completely covered in nail polish and with ruined labels. If I pay for something, I want to get it in perfect condition. So anyway, I called Sephora and everything is pretty much out of stock now. Only 2 of the 4 Nails Inc polishes are still available so I’m returning everything else. I am keeping the Illamasqua polish and the glass nail file as well. The only reason the Illamasqua polish was spared is because it wasn’t in the same bag as all these other polishes and it was in its separate box. I’m so annoyed right now. Is this the universe telling me that I need to stop purchasing nail polish online? Empty boxes, exploded nail polishes….what a waste.

Alfie got his rabies shot earlier in the week so I was super worried about him after I read all the horror stories about dog vaccines. I was convinced that he was going to have a horrible reaction because he was so lethargic for a couple of days. He now seems like he’s back to his stubborn self. He has been really testy lately and throws massive doggy tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. He nips me when he gets annoyed, but he never really bites me. The other day I got so mad at him because he went apeshit when we got home after a 2 hour walk. Since I live so close to the beach, we have a great breeze so I’m not afraid of him getting too hot. I take his water bottle and dish as well as treats so that if he wants to rest, we can just stop somewhere nice.

My 4-year-old neighbor, Sarah, hugging Alfie

Alfie waiting for me to put on my sneakers for our afternoon walk

Alfie watching someone on a bike and getting ready to chase after them

Alfie trying to eat grass

Mohawk Alfie (he was annoyed that I used water to spike his hair)

I hope you all had a nice week and that you enjoy your weekend. Thanks for stopping by!

My Last Orders Came In & Puppy News

Posted on by Cynthia

I was anxiously waiting for my last couple of orders to come in from Cult Nails and from the Beauty.com friends and family sale. Finally, I got everything and I couldn’t wait to try my new polishes. Look how pretty everything is:

I purchased these three during the last Cult Nails sale. Woo hoo for sales. The colors are: Iconic, Hypnotize Me and Let Me Fly.

This is my first RGB polish so I am excited to see what the formula and wear are like. This shade is Haze.

This SpaRitual Holiday set is really pretty. Just look at the pretty gold box. I am a sucker for packaging so I really loved this set.

Until I opened up the box….

Where are the polishes?????? Hahaha…this was such a wah wah moment that I wish you could have seen my face. Since I was in a crazy good mood for reasons I will go into shortly, I wasn’t super annoyed. I called up Beauty.com and explained to them that I received an empty box. The CSR sounded a little incredulous but he didn’t give me any grief about it or anything. He just re-ordered the set for me. Hopefully the polishes will be in the box this time.

 

So for my puppy news: I was going to put down a deposit for my pup pup and the breeder informed me that he was no longer available. Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh! My heart sank. Then she told me that she did have an older puppy that had been on hold for a buyer who later changed his mind. So this is the pup that I’m going to go meet this weekend!!!! He’s 4.5 months old and absolutely adorable. I can’t wait to meet him.

 

 

And just for reference, this is a picture of the puppy’s dad so I can get an idea of what my pup will look like when he’s older.

 

I am sure that I won’t be able to sleep for the next couple of days until I get to go see my little Alfie. It’s finally happening. I’m getting my first dog at the ripe old age of 32. Wish me luck. 🙂

I <3 My UPS Man

Posted on by Cynthia

I only love him when he delivers my package to me and not my neighbor. I had to clear that up because I have always been very resentful about the time that UPS delivered my plane tickets to some random neighbor that I bought when I was drunk on priceline.com. When they couldn’t track them, they basically told me I was SOL and priceline wouldn’t do anything about it either. This was a round trip ticket to Rome so I was pretty upset as you can imagine. This was pre-electronic tickets so you had to have the paper tickets. Eventually I went all around the neighborhood asking if anyone had accidentally accepted my tickets and I tracked them down. Fuck you UPS and Priceline. That trip was awesome, by the way…even though I got the flu when I was in Italy by myself in the dead of winter. Ah…to be young, retarded and carefree.

I really wanted to go see The Dictator today so I went to a super early showing in order to avoid crowds. I hate crowds. It was really dumb so watch it at your own risk. Borat was a gem. Bruno and The Dictator? Not so much. Because I was so disappointed by The Dictator, I sneaked in to see The Avengers. I know, how very Jr. High of me. I just didn’t have that much going on today and I thought I might as well watch a movie…or two. I loved The Avengers!

Back to UPS: I had two packages waiting for me when I got home: my nails inc. set from Sephora and my 4 Deborah Lippmann polishes from HSN.

Before you think I’m insane for buying all those Deborah Lippmann polishes, I have to confess that they were on clearance at HSN. Each duo was priced at $9.95!!! Can you believe it? Thanks to Vienna’s post, I jumped right on these. She has some swatches up if you want to see what they look like. This is my first DL purchase so I’m glad I was able to get such a super deal. I can’t wait to try them out.

I am really excited to see what happens on Grey’s Anatomy tonight. Any other fans out there? Who do you think is going to die?????

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that I did get my dog letter from my psychiatrist and I sent it off to my landlady. Now I just have to wait to hear from her so that we can talk about the pet deposit. I hope it’s not a super ridiculous amount. Here is a copy of the letter. It seems so basic that I am a little concerned that it won’t be enough. My psychiatrist did tell me that they try to make it as vague as possible for confidentiality reasons. I’m sure they don’t want to advertise: Hey, your tenant is cray-cray!

So keep your fingers crossed for me. I am sooooo close to getting my pup pup. 🙂

Polish Moratorium

Posted on by Cynthia

My nail polish boycott begins now. Since I was so close to the end of the month, I just decided to start everything May 1st. I will not buy nail polish for one month. I think that I have enough new polishes to last me a month or more and I want to save up some money for other things. Today I bought a few new polishes and some “interview shoes.”

I had never heard of this brand so when I saw these at one of my nail places, I picked up a couple to try them out. They had about 4 other colors that looked pretty interesting, but I’d rather wait and see what the formula is like before I buy more. The first one is supposed to go from Teal to Turquoise and the second one is supposed to go from Blue to Neon Blue.

I didn’t see too many Essies that I wanted. Neither of my main nail places have the new bridal collection or the poppy razzi collection so I am just going to wait to get a couple of colors after next month. The two colors I picked up are Watermelon and Haute As Hello. I almost got Tarte Deco but I liked Haute As Hello a little better. They look pretty close from the bottles so I didn’t want to get both.

I also got two new Orly polishes from two new collections. Mysterious Curse was the one polish that really drew me in from the Dark Shadows Collection. There was another one that looked cool but I just picked one. I can’t wait to see the movie because who doesn’t like Johnny Depp? The other one I purchased is called Skinny Dip and it is from Orly’s Feel The Vibe Summer 2012 Collection. The whole collection is full of super bright colors and one dark glitter. I loved this one because it’s one of those blues that I adore, and it has some purple microshimmer. I suspect that it’s not going to show up much once it’s on my nails but I’ll probably still like it.

I am really loving Poshé way more than Seche Vite. I never thought I’d say that but I just really like it. I got the professional size and it came with an extra regular size bottle. Best of all, I only paid $11 for it. For those who have used Poshé for a while, does this thicken up the way Seche  Vite does? Do you need to buy thinner for it?

Here are the shoes I bought:

I got them in black and beige so I can wear them with anything. They are a little “grandma” but they are a perfect height and I like the cut out on the sides. They are SUPER comfy so I’ll be able to walk around for a long time. I bought two new pantsuits: one in black and one that is light lilac with brown pinstripes. I may not be confident about many things, but one thing I am 100% confident about is job interviews. Maybe it’s because I have hired a lot of people in the past…I just know how to work the interviewer.  And maybe I’m weird, but I really like going to interviews.

And these just for fun:

I love flats, and I love peeptoes even though I hate my feet and really don’t like feet in general. I know I’m not alone on this so at least I don’t sound like a total freak.

I don’t know what to do with my nails today. There is zero sunlight…it’s all overcast and windy. I love this kind of weather but it’s not good for taking pictures of my manicure. I’ll see what I come up with. I can’t believe I haven’t cut my nails yet. I think this is the longest they have ever been, and I haven’t broken one yet. I am using this new Nail-Aid Strengthening/Growth thing so maybe that’s made a difference.

How is your Monday going?

Don’t Hate Me! I Have A Sickness.

Posted on by Cynthia

Master enabler Nicole “convinced” me that it was ok to start my no-buy policy this Saturday instead of in the middle of the week.  And when I say that she convinced me, she just agreed with me when I put it out there. I needed no further justification to jump in my car and head over to Little Saigon for polish therapy. I told myself that I wouldn’t spend more than $20 and I stuck to it much to my surprise. It’s a good thing that everything is so cheap there or else I would have been in big trouble.

So, this is what I ended up purchasing today:

Enchantress, Showstopper

 

Jazz, A Crewed Interest, Funny Face and Turquoise & Caicos

Once I had my polish fill, I decided to stop at Sephora. Bad idea. I had gotten a few samples of Korres Wild Rose Moisturizer, and I freaking loved it so I wanted to go check it out. Since I had some store credit, I decided I might as well get something useful like moisturizer. Even though it’s starting to get hot and I have oily skin most of the time, I have noticed that my Clinique gel moisturizer isn’t helping some of the weird dry patches I’ve been getting lately. The Korres moisturizer is really thick but it feels great on my skin and best of all, it doesn’t make me break out. Of course they didn’t have it in store so I have to buy it online. Poo. I started walking around, and of course I ended up at their nail bar. My Sephora is now carrying Julep as well as SpaRitual. I was curious to see if they had Ciaté but it wasn’t available yet.  Then I remembered how much I wanted Illamasqua Nomad. No bueno. I picked it up and also grabbed SpaRitual Meditate On This and ran to the check-out before I could change my mind or grab more things.

These are new brands to me so I can’t wait to try them out. So excited!

Remember how I initially went to Sephora for the Korres moisturizer? Well, at check-out they had the usual 100pt and 500pt perks. Yawn. The perks haven’t been worth squat lately so I barely even glanced at them. The cashier told me I had like 3,000 points. I always kind of hate when they tell me my point balance because it makes me feel self-conscious like I have issues. Well, I do but still… Then I noticed that one of the 100pt perks was a mini tube of the moisturizer I was looking for. Score! I ended up taking 5 of them which is 1.7oz of moisturizer: .3oz more than the amount a full size container carries and retails for $35.00.

This is probably the most well-spent points EVER for me. When’s the last time they had any kind of full-size product even at the 500pt level? Poo to you Sephora. You have to kick it up a notch or else loyal customers, like moi, will start to go elsewhere like *cough* Ulta *cough*

Are you glad it’s Friday? Do you have any plans for the weekend? What do you think of the polish colors I got? Tell me! 🙂

The Office by Essie

Posted on by Cynthia

EDIT 6/25/12: This post has gotten tons of hits lately so. There are some really dedicated fans of The Office out there! I hope you look around my blog and find something interesting. Thank you for visiting my little spot of the the blogosphere.

 

If this is for real, my nail polish year was just made.

Someone please tell me this is not just someone’s wishful thinking because I’m about to crap my pants over here.

Weekend Stuff

Posted on by Cynthia

I finally got around to watching the two Redbox movies I checked out on Thursday. Yeah, I now…I’m dumb. I got The Skin I Live In and In The Land Of Blood In Honey. It is very rare that I don’t go see an Almodovar movie as soon as it comes out in theater, but I totally forgot about The Skin I Live In. If you aren’t much into indie and foreign cinema, you may not have seen many of Almodovar’s movies. He is one of the BEST directors in Spain and his movies are always twisted and absolutely magnificent.

Quick synopsis:

Robert is a surgeon who has created a new type of skin that he hopes will help burn victims. It’s burn resistant and repels insects. It is revealed that Robert keeps a beautiful young woman locked up in his house to whom he has given this new skin. We later learn that his wife was cheating on him and she was horribly burned in a fiery car crash. He nursed her back to health, but she committed suicide by throwing herself out a window when she saw her reflection in the glass. She landed right in front of her young daughter who was consequently hospitalized over the trauma.

Robert’s daughter, Norma, was allowed to leave the hospital to go to a wedding with her father. At the wedding, she is assaulted by a young man who is high on drugs. She is a very innocent sheltered girl who doesn’t really understand what his happening. When she starts to resist and scream, the young man, Vicente slaps her and knocks her out and he flees. Robert then finds Norma unconscious on the floor and tries to wake her up. When she wakes up and sees her father, she associates her rapist with him so she goes nuts again and has to be institutionalized again. Ultimately, she jumps out the window to her death just like her mother.

Robert then stalks and kidnaps Vicente keeping him chained up in some sort of basement. He then proceeds to give him a vaginoplasty–basically sexual reassignment surgery. He continues to transform him into a woman by using the new skin he invented and starts calling her Vera. The more work he does on Vera, the more she starts to look like his deceased wife. At the end, he takes Vera as his lover and she begins to reciprocate his affections. Vera lulls him into a false sense of security and then kills him and his housekeeper. Vera flees and goes back to his mother and reveals that he is Vicente.

If you think that’s weird, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re interested in watching any other of his movies, I would recommend:

1) All About My Mother

2) Talk To Her

3) Bad Education

4) Live Flesh

There are a lot of others but this is a good place to start.

Moving on from freaky movies, I went to America’s Family Pet Expo at the Orange County Fairgrounds today. It was AWESOME! I saw so many cool animals of all kinds. I was in puppy heaven! I got to pet a million dogs and I spent some time at the Wheaten Terrier booth which is the kind of dog I’m dying to get. Here’s a picture of Oliver.

Look at that face!!!! He was the sweetest dog and he let me pet him for ages. His owner seemed a little cranky so I didn’t ask him as much as I wanted. I came back later and there were a few other ladies there who were amazingly sweet and gave me tons of info and advice. I want my wheaten already!!!!!!!

I also saw the freaking cutest beagles ever. I love how the youngest puppy was going apeshit.

There were a lot of agility competitions as well, and I loved seeing the crazy jumping water dogs. It was awesome to see how far some of them could jump.

So now I’m even more obsessed with getting a dog!

I hope you all had a nice weekend as well. 🙂