Flirty 30

Flirty, 30 and thriving? I’m not sure I feel like Jennifer Garner’s character from 30 Going On 30; rather, I’m way more accomplished than she was at 30, haha. This is my first birthday as a mom and I’m feeling good about it. I’m still on maternity leave so I have yet to balance the whole working mom aspect, and I know there will be challenges there. So until that day comes, I’m blissfully going to enjoy these times I’m spending with my adorable baby girl.

Current manicure gimmick: water nail decals. I bought a buttload of these sheets so I’m itching to try all of them out! I opted for these annoying Minon ones first just to see how they would look. Decent, I guess. The dark gray accent nail background color was a mistake but going forward, I will not commit this error. The gray is a Sephora brand and the lovely creamy orchid is an Ulta nail polish. I like the broad applicator of the Sephora one better but the size and selection of the Ulta one more.

The book I’m reading right now is an absolute page-turner. I’m so in awe of this gripping yarn and these fascinating characters the author has woven. Who knew I would enjoy a book about a cathedral being built? The preface has Ken Follett admitting he isn’t religious at all, and that his interest in writing about a cathedral was more along the lines of the architecture and culture behind it. I can dig that.

Fall outing at Gerber’s Dairy, a now annual tradition! This mini golf green made a great background for my pic!

Baby girl’s precious smiles and giggles for her momma :). 

I’ve named this toy Babylon 5 and gave him a French accent. He’s a big hit.

I’m obsessed with #Crowdtap’s samplers! I recently sampled the #Revlon sugar kiss exfoliator and lip creme plumper in nude honey. The sugar crystals of the lip scrub melted easily into my lips and didn’t need to wiped away! So easy to get soft, minty lips! The lip creme plumper easily layered on top in a universally flattering nude rose tone. That needed a few applications and was not very long lasting, but it was so smooth and non-sticky!

Mani in the City

Two weekends ago, I took my family on a Pittsburgh Just Ducky Tour! I have been to another Ducky tour in the Wisconsin Dells over 3 years ago and much enjoyed the experience. The Pittsburgh one was a whole different flavor! The land part had us easing along with the downtown traffic and having all the landmarks and skyscrapers pointed out to us. Even after living in this city for close to 3 years, I got learn and appreciate a few things! Glad that there was a major clean-up project after the whole steel manufacturing heyday was over. Traffic is horrible but at least all the buildings (new and old) look spic and span!

The water portion was great too! Seeing Point State Park from the water and going under the Liberty bridge was a neat feeling!

Being around Station Square that whole day also FINALLY gave me the chance to visit some Pokestops in a row. Even with such a huge line of shops and restaurants as well as massive throngs of people, Pittsburgh in general is just lacking in Pokemon Go hot spots. Wasting 25 balls and NOT even catching that Squirtle was the low point of the day. Getting my very first egg was the high point :).

My Pangur Ban managed to squeeze herself into the same seat I was in. Look how utterly relaxed she is.

The women in my family!

Definitely my favorite sister.

I must elaborate on this mani! I used Ulta’s warm hued lilac and it is great quality! So smooth and opaque! The accent nails have Julep’s neutral buff color and VS’s chunky gold glitter topcoat. My fine nails are posing on top of the current tome I’m reading–I Know This Much is True. It’s a massive 900-pager but it’s terrifyingly real. The details and the horrific circumstances in this book knock me out with its grittiness, absurdity and fundamentally humanistic characteristics. Finishing this novel will be rewarding as well as enlightening. I recommend it to all because I am so sick of young people taking the easy road and tossing back Hunger Games, Twilight, 50 Shades like they are actual pieces of literature. There is so much talent in the world of writing and so much to discover that people need to take a advantage of it all! I want to spread the word of good literature and promote a love of reading to everyone!

Nail Stamping!

My sis was sweet and gave me her nail stamping kit! I tried it for the first time last night so excuse the noviceness! The ring finger is supposed to be a burst of flowers almost like bamboo but didn’t transfer 100%. The thumb’s sea turtle turned out better but I smudged the side badly :(. It’s quite a messy and resource-consuming process though! For the novelty, I’ll definitely want to try out more designs, but keep cotton swabs and nail polish remover at the ready! This requires speed, dexterity and precision. I’ll have to work on my technique! The base coat is a lovely opaque mulberry from Ulta. The white is a mini Sally Hansen.
  I want to rave about this delicious meal I made last month. This is my homemade avocado pesto sauce served with rigatoni pasta on a bed of baby spinach and topped with Genoa salami.

Pesto ingredients:

-crushed garlic

-2 avocados

-olive oil

-sea salt

-red pepper flakes

-dash of sesame oil

-black pepper

-crushed mint  This was a game day meal. I will not mention which game it is because it was the only one Ohio State lost.

Anyways…I deep fried chicken wings and made my own sauce: honey BBQ sauce, dash of soy sauce, red pepper flakes, parsley. I also deep fried jalapeno poppers and served with sparkling water and lime. The ranch out of the bottle was too thick so I mixed a tiny bit of water, added crushed mint and squeezed lime juice in it–refreshing and tangy!

And now enjoy these ridiculously cute photos of my Pangur Ban.
   Meet Muffy! She is my parents’ cat and holds herself like a princess. She is equivalent to Pangur Ban’s aunt ;).

Popsicle Mani

These two colors reminded me of slurping Popsicles on a hot summer day. This past weekend was all about being outside and doing yard work so while it wasn’t summer yet, working hard builds up a sweat too and an icy treat sure helps with that! In honor of yard work, I picked these two colors for my mani to show off:

-Essie’s Bikini so Teeny

-Ulta’s Tinsel Town

Vintage Violet

I’m in love with my new mani color choice! I didn’t do a huge amount of Black Friday shopping but I did take advantage of Ulta’s 5 for $5 deal. One of my items was Ulta’s own nail polish in Vintage Violet. This shade is nice and opaque and the sweetest pinkish purple color! The consistency was creamy and fast-drying. I highly recommend and am pleasantly surprised! The bottle is full size so it offers more than Sephora’s own nail polish line.

Sheer Gray Mani

 

Depending on the angle and the lighting, this nail polish color changes the degree of grayness and even looks lilac in this picture. I’m really digging the new wide-brush format because it makes application so much easier and each additional coat smoother. However, it is not nail-art friendly because it can only go in thick, broad strokes.

I got this full size bottle of Essence nail polish in “Grey-t to be here” from Ulta in an amazing beauty extras deal. There are subtle mother of pearl glitter specks in there and you need 2-3 coats to make it opaque. It’s been 4 whole days and I have not seen one chip–all with no base or top coat! It was fast-drying too so none of that stickiness bothered me! For it being an inexpensive nail polish, the quality is akin to that of Sally Hansen, I would say. Although even Sally Hansen would have started chipping by the 4th day…