A life update...

I feel like I really needed the deep rest, so being laid off in April was kind of a relief at first.  Now I've been sick for the last week or so, and I've needed a bunch of rest to recover from that.  I'm feeling mostly better, though, so now I'm just feeling really untethered; but not in a good way.  I guess "aimless" would be a good word to describe it.

There is so much I could be doing.  I could finish swatching my polish.  Work on my database.  Try to sell some of the jewelry I made since I don't have an income.  Try to sell some of our extra stuff from around the house because I love to declutter and money would be nice.

And yet...

I just finished removing and redoing...

I just finished removing and redoing the hard gel overlay that had on when I was fired almost a month ago.

It was super grown out and starting to lift. I have plants to repot on Monday when my dirt arrives.

I might be slipping, y'all.

Maybe I'll get Shaun's nails taken care of tomorrow.

I store my Harley cat where I store my nail stamping plates. 😂

I store my Harley cat where I store my nail stamping plates. 😂

I'm about to be off work for a few days.

I'm about to be off work for a few days.

First order of business:  Do. Shaun's. Nails.

I swear if he breaks another nail and then looks at me like it's my fault he removed his gel prematurely, I'mma fight him. 😂😂😂

Birthday post.

Shaun got a lamp for me to do my nails. I'm usually on the dark side of the room, so it's nice to have a light. I just finished filling in/rebalancing my structure gel while using it, and it's really nice to be able to see. He also got me some plant hangers for the greenhouse. The kids got me tasty snacks.

I haven't done nail art in a very long time...

I haven't done nail art in a very long time, and I wouldn't really count this as art, either. I just put on my structure gel for strength as usual, then plopped down the water slide decals I made.

I made these for the work event I attended. I didn't really know what to expect, but I had a great time. I met so many of my coworkers and it was so crazy to finally see everyone in 3D. I interact with so many people on Slack, many of who I felt super connected to, and meeting in person just took that to the next level. I definitely came away from the event feeling energized about work and more secure in my work relationships. I also met a ton of cool people that I didn't know already.

I can't go without saying that it was amazing seeing my friends from GCU. It was hard being in Cincinnati for those 5 months away from my family, but we had a wonderful cohort and mentorship and we learned so much and grew together. It was such a great feeling seeing those familiar faces.

Anyway, I didn't want to let the week end without shouting out my wonderful work place for planning, executing, and treating us to this get-together. I love working remotely, being here with the family and the pets, but I do think I needed this. I'm looking forward to the next one already! 💙

    Custom Decals by Me!

I've had a really low-energy weekend.

I've had a really low-energy weekend.  The only thing I did was nails.  Shaun took off his old gel and I gave him a fresh coat.  I also re-did my gel overlay, but haven't thrown down anything pretty.  I don't know if I can/will.  I have a growing list of things to do that I am falling behind on and I don't like it.

I did these this past Monday, so they're slightly grown out...

I did these this past Monday, so they're slightly grown out because I just photographed them today.

It's nothing fancy, but I haven't dressed my nails up in months, so it feels really nice to have some color on. I keep a hard gel overlay down and that's the most effort I've been putting into them. I'm also doing a new shape. I've never been a huge fan of square nails, but I realized at some point recently that I'd been filing my sidewalls down super short to get my claws and was losing strength in my nails because of it. So I've put a lot of effort over the last few months into growing my sidewalls back out, as well as making sure my c-curve is tight when I cure my gel. I've had a lot fewer issues with breakage because of those things.

I'm really hoping I'll have time to get back into nail art soon. It's a little hard with a toddler dog around. He wants to help with everything and when he starts zooming, he parkours all over the place. 😂 I never know what he's about to do.

Anyway. This is what I'm wearing until next weekend or so.

Carol Anne by 'Ard as Nails;
Maniology plate M401;
Stamping technique

I'm stupid excited because...

I'm stupid excited because I just decided for sure that I'm going to migrate my polish database to the app I'm using to track my stamping plates. I guess I know what my winter project will be!

I'm down to adding my last drawer of nail polish to my database.

I'm down to adding my last drawer of nail polish to my database. That's giving me feelings. Well, first of all my "database" is a spreadsheet at this point. I will have to start actually building the tables and relationships as a next step. And I know how to do that. But it's been such a large project for me for so long that it's kind of scary moving to the next step.

I've been thinking about just uploading it all to the same app that I use to keep track of my stamping plates. That would make sense. I just have a hang up because in the app you can't have a hierarchy of folders. But it might make more sense to use tags to see things that came together in a collection, anyway, because sometimes stamping plates come with polishes or whatever. That would actually tie it all together in a nice way.

I don't know. It's a lot to think about. And I've come to the point where it's like, either build it myself or use the app. And I kind of wanted to build it myself, but also I would adore having more free time to do nail art rather than spend so much time on managing my collection. I mean, I enjoy managing my collection, too, but it's been all-consuming since I got serious about making progress last year. I guess that's the down-side to having a large collection of anything.