Birthday Wrap Up

I took it nice and easy and even took a day off for my birthday. Which meant that I've been buried in work to catch up since I got back (it's that time of year--but honestly, it's always that time of year in PR). So instead of blogging, I've been working off cake and a week of decadence.

But here is the long overdue recap of the wonderful, awesome, super relaxing birthday that I got to share with Chef.

Nothing says party like some bubbly on the actual birthday. 

It sparkles so nicely. Champagne went well with the dinner he cooked me.
Apparently I ate that too fast to take a picture. 

The beautiful flowers he also surprised me with. 

This was not about cat CPR, but a book on screenwriting I've wanted forever. Good call by Chef. 

I managed to work in a much needed root touch up. Gotta keep red on the head.

I used my Sephora gift cards to do my annual "on my birthday" Sephora trip.

But the birthday just kept on going! I took off Friday to have some fun and we celebrated on Saturday too. That's how we roll in our household.  Below are more spoils from being spoiled (that included a two hour massage--somehow I've managed to tighten up again). I'm a lucky gal! Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone!

Cutting my Cotton Ball Budget to Nearly Nothing!

Fingernails-mid removal

Do you find yourself spending oodles of your beauty budget on cotton balls?

Yeah, me neither. But for some reason there was a pin on Pinterest that promised to cut your cotton ball budget and it caught my attention. Less because I am fearful of using more than my fair share of cotton, and more because I would love any easier way to take off nail polish.

Because that was what the pin actually helps do. It shows a way to take off nail polish that uses less cotton AND less time. I was up for anything that could potentially peel off my dark nail polish without have to scrape and chip away.

The idea is simple: peel apart a cotton ball (I used a cotton pad and it worked fine), soak a little in nail polish remover, stick it to your nail for a few minutes, then peel the polish off.

These little piggies weren't quite as lucky.

I tried this on my toes AND my finger nails. I can absolutely say it works brilliantly on my fingers. I can get all my polish off using two cotton pads (used to use about 5 before) and only a few minutes. It did not work as well on my toes. I might just stick to my old method on that.

All in all, two polish-free thumb nails up!

From the Outside In

As I was looking in the mirror this morning at the splotches on my face, the good inch of roots and dead ends on my hair and my chipped nail polish on my hands and feet,  it made sense to me. How can I expect to get myself out of this funk if I am relishing it too much. I've decided to fight this from the outside in.

I've made my hair cut and color appointment (sadly I think I spotted a few gray hairs in my roots, but I'm hoping it's just powder from dry shampoo that hadn't absorbed), and am going to get a mani-pedi while I'm at it. I'm going to find a skin solution to try, as no solution is perfect, and I'm going to refill any prescriptions that I have run out of for my psoriasis.

If I look better on the outside, then I feel like it will help me feel a little better on the inside. At least that's my theory now.

Lincoln Park After Dark? You Don't Know Jacque!

Lincoln Park After Dark (left)
You Don't Know Jacque (right)

One thing about Fall that I love (aside from Pumpkins, football, people freely giving away candy, chili, and a holiday devoted to gorging yourself) is the shift to darker colors and boots. It's not actually that cold in Cali (clearly) but at first dip into the 60s during the day, I'm ready to put my boots on. And I do. Because while some chicks are okay wearing boots when it's 80 degrees out, that tends to buck my common sense and novelty of great weather all year.

One of the things about darker colors that is an advantage is darker nail polish. And there are two very popular ones from OPI that I finally bought for my home collection. I've had many manicures from pros that used these colors, but had not taken the plunge for myself. Mostly because I'm sloppy in the DIY manicure/ pedicure area. I have no qualms about coloring outside the line, so to speak, and then peeling the excess off in a hot shower. It's how I roll. And the reason that I have photos of the nail polish bottles and not my hands and feet. I just did my mani/ pedi yesterday and haven't peeled yet. It looks bad. And who wants to see someone's feet on a blog post anyway. At least unless there's a bad toe or something.

So, the darker color, for those not familiar, is "Lincoln Park After Dark" and the lighter taupe is "You Don't Know Jacque".  They're replacing the "Russian Navy" that was on my hands and feet. The nice thing about the dark colors on my hand is that I don't see any crud under my nails and therefore don't bite them. So, really it's not only fashionable but strategic to get my nails back in shape.

Any fall weather fashion or beauty things that you look forward to?  What other OPI shades should I try?

Things You Don't Think About Until You Lose a Toenail

Yes it's gross. It hurt like hell when it happened. I pulled a door onto my toe and the pain was much like that of a stubbed toe but much worse (delayed as if it took my brain a couple seconds to reconcile what my eyes had seen). And I limped for a few days, could only wear flip flops for a few more and then it was over. So, I thought.

The nail popped off and it was relatively painless, but I was so determined that I wasn't going to lose it that it was a surprise when it came off and now I'm finding it's actually more of a nuisance than I thought. Here are some things that I didn't think about until that freshly exposed skin popped through:

• It's totally messing with my wardrobe. I start my outfit choice with my shoes and now my shoes are limited so I'm finding that I'm having a hard time figuring out what to wear.
• Speaking of shoes, I'm ashamed of the bruised skin and nubby little area for my toe, so no more open toe shoes. That has effectively taken my shoe choice to about 6 of my 30+ pairs.
• The skin is bruised and new so it starts to hurt at weird moments: when it happens to bump against a shoe, when the sheets hit it, in the shower when the stream strikes it, as I'm pulling on my pants.
• I haven't had a pedicure in months. Okay, so this is a really girly thing to complain about and a year ago it wouldn't have even crossed my mind, but it's nice to have your feet massaged and pampered.

Phew!

Last night was the Rutherford Heart Ball. I am relieved and excited it's over. Chef probably is too. Also my friends and family are ready for me to return to the land of the living, so to speak. It was a beautiful event that made our volunteers feel great. Things went smoothly (there's always room for improvement, clearly) and our guests had a good time. I don't think there's a whole lot more I can ask for.

I'm also grateful. I give Erin, our social events director, credit for pulling it off as she did so much, including keeping me from losing my sanity over the last four months. Plus tons of AHA staff and come of our awesome volunteers came out in full force last night to help make the night beautiful.

My favorite part of post-even clean up was that one of my co-workers (Alyssa, I'm talking about you) put a mannequin torso in my front passenger seat and buckled her in. She told me she had done it, but that did not stop me from scaring myself silly as I went to my car at 1 a.m. and thought someone had broken. It also did not stop me from scaring myself a few more times as I would catch the mannequin in my peripheral vision and jump a little. In my defense, it was late and I had been working for 16 hours yesterday with about 3 hours of nervous sleep the night before.

And if being scared also entirely by my own shadow (or that of a plastic armless torso) was not enough of a challenge on the ride home, I almost hit a deer carcass about 3 blocks from the event site. Two cars were stopped in the left hand lane with their emergency flashers on and I slowed down, which ended up saving Liam Nissan his front bumper. I was able to see the dead deer laying in the right lane that I was in and manuveur around it.

So what next? Well, today is a taking it easy kind of day. Friday is all about the mani/pedi that my hands and feet are screaming for. And next week is already scheduled for a vacation. I literally cannot wait. Focusing on work this week is going to be a challenge.