Grey Nails with Sparkle Dust

Whooops, blogging has taken a backseat to getting my bedroom in order this week. Sawryyy.

It's been a month since I moved in, but the whole place is still a bit of a work in progress. Not only is my bedroom floor still sporting a thin layer of "random stuff" and lacking an actual bed frame for the mattress that's on the floor, but there's also no furniture in the living room or a dining room table (don't ask - I don't know why). The lack of a living room doesn't seem to bother my roommate, but personally I'm going to want to get to that sort of stuff sooner rather than later.

For now, I've already ordered a bed frame, which should be here in a week. Installing new curtain rods/curtains in my bedroom is also on the "next up" list, as well as putting up tonnns of pictures on my walls. In my unpacking, I discovered a stash of framed collages that I made over the last 6 years... and I'm thinking about trying to sell them. They're not all amazing, but several of them - UM - are. #DustsOffMyShoulders. Without any real sentimental attachment to them, there's no reason to hold onto them and let them collect dust, right? Right. So it's settled. I'm selling them.

Alright well enough of my rambling about the state of my bedroom. It's Nails Day!

Here's what I'm rocking this week:

Yup, definitely lookin' like fall around these parts nails. The cloudy, breezy weather called for something cloudy on my nails, so I went with 2 coats of Recycle by China Glaze, and used 3 coats of Urban Outfitters' Dust as an accent nail.

I did a whole post about Dust back when my blog first launched in the fall of 2012. You can go check that out here, especially if you love throwback nail polish blog posts featuring absolutely atrocious cuticles. Eek.

Tonight I've got a date with my cousin Catherine, who is going to come into the city to hit up a bar with me and shoot zee shit. Other than that, I don't have a single thing to do all weekend, except continue the work in my room. Eventually I'll post a bedroom tour here on the blog, because I'm pretty pleased with the way things are coming together.

What shenanigans will you be getting into this weekend?
Anyone else recently moved and trying to put their life bedroom back together?
What's on your nails? Share with me on Twitter or Instagram!

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Life this Week: Unpacking, Friendshipping, Building, Nail Painting

I'm finally starting to feel a litttttle bit more settled into my new home this week, thank GAWD. After what seemed like a string of bad luck, the clouds are parting a little and there hasn't been a terrible event in at least a few days. Phew.

So far one of the best things about being back in the Boston area is being able to hang out with friends. It's so nice to be able to see people casually again on a weekday evening without me needing to hurriedly squeeze in a visit before leaving town again. Although, I have to say, it's not that cool that public transportation makes a 3-mile trip take no less than 1 hour to complete. (Boston transit... you and I are gonna have to work this thing out.)

On Tuesday night I ventured from Medford to Cambridge to spend some QT with my little angel-faced doll of a friend Kara. (She has been a rock star in helping me feel more at home.) We watched a ton of the trashy E! television shows that have been missing from my life for way too long, as well as the wonderfully retro movie Now & Then (all while eating a chicken quesadilla that Kara made for me herself, #nom). The viewing of the latter was mostly because we couldn't find Aladdin available On Demand or Netflix. Next time.

Earlier this week I also got a gym membership at a Gold's Gym that's within walking distance of my home. If I know me - which I do - a gym within walking distance is my best bet for frequent workouts. And here's a funny thing that happened during that sign-up process:

So. That has spawned some discussion on my Facebook page haha. The people of Pittsfield clearly don't agree with the trainer's opinion of our dental reputation.

In other news, I keep realizing as I'm preparing food that I don't have the necessary kitchen utensils to complete my meal, and neither does my roommate. This has caused a bit of frustration and has spawned a running list of several basic things that my apartment still needs. Spatulas, can openers and pasta strainers - I'm lewkin' at yew guys.

Meanwhile, as seen on Instagram, I finally finished putting together one of the two dressers I ordered from Target for my new apartment. There has never been a more involved building process for such a cheap-ish piece of furniture. Literally took me 5 sessions spread out across as many days to complete, but once it was finished I was finally able to start putting away some of the clothes that have been COVERING every corner of my bedroom since August 17th.

The white rug of my bedroom is becoming more and more visible by the day. Which reminds me, I need to buy some Resolve... because there is NO way that I'll be able to avoid getting that damn thing dirty. #ImClumsy #SpillsFindMe

As mentioned here yesterday, my friends Abby and Geoff are gettin' hitched this weekend, and YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS. Party time, excellent, wheee-oooo, wheeee-oooo, wheeee-ooo!! #FriendshipFest2k14. There are friends coming from near and far to celebrate the momentous occasion. Geobby (obviously their celeb couple name) have been dating since they were BABIES practically, and the rest of us have been -UM- waiting for this day for a long damn time. That's one of the reasons I feel SO SPESH for being able to be a part of their wedding as a bridesmaid.

Annnd speaking of that, here is the nail look that I'll probably be sporting on Sunday for the wedding, using Jade Jump by Sally Hanson Insta-Dri and Dreamer by Revlon:

Since they're both pastels, you know that their first coats looked like a hot mess: 

But they mostly evened out after the second coat. The blue nails are still a tiny bit patchy now that I'm looking at these photos, so I'll make sure to add a thin third coat when I recreate this on Sunday.

On a related note, there was a recent important lesson learned in how not to move a box full of nail polish bottles across the country:

Miraculously, it was only one single bottle of polish that broke inside of this box - but it covered dozens of other bottles in polish! The bottle that broke (the remnants of which is pictured below completely stuck to that other bottle of Insta-Dri) was actually one of the oldest (if not the oldest) nail polishes I owned. It was a Bath & Body Works purchase from middle school or high school - a pea-soup color that I probably haven't used in the last decade. 

Next time I will use a hell of a lot more (read: any) bubble wrap in my packing of those little guys. I still can't believe my luck that only one bottle broke out of my entire 100+ bottle collection. Disaster avoided, somehow. I'll circle back to the first paragraph of this blog and just say it again: "PHEW."

...And I'll end this blog now before my luck runs out ;) Have a great weekend!

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Ye Olde Moving Day

Yesterday was sorrrrrt of a rough day for me. I ended up moving into my apartment on Sunday instead of Saturday, thanks to a slight delay in the arrival of my belongings in Massachusetts from Seattle. Once my stuff arrived and my father and I packed it all into his truck/trailer in Western Mass, it was a completely law-abiding pace the entire drive east to the Boston-area. One can never drive too carefully when there's a demi-precarious trailer full of my entire life bouncing around behind one's truck.

Once in Medford, my rock star of a father helped me move everything as only dads can, while my new roommate and her boyfriend both also earn co-MVPs for helping me move in ALL of my things without my even asking them to!! Seriously, so nice of them.

The big hiccup in the move-in was when several tenants in the apartment building took turns yelling (no, really, yelling) at me because apparently a) one of the two elevators was broken that day, and b) there is a rule against moving in on Sundays. Of course, if I'd known that, we certainly wouldn't have been bogarting the sole elevator for 20 minutes or moving in that day - I'm not an asshole, as you guys hopefully have picked up on - but they were livid. LIV-ID. No amount of my apologizing calmed them. In fact, we've even been promised a fine for our misdeeds. So... Welcome to the building, Bail! Ugh. Apparently there are a lot of rules in this apartment building that I need to study.

... But the reason that I think everyone is so serious around here is because this building is pretty freaking nice. There's a gorgeous lobby, a community party room that can be rented out by tenants, a pool, and even a little gym. My apartment unit has a balcony, a washer/dryer, hardwood floors in the main area, and I even get my own bathroom. (Oh, and the apt also comes with a seemingly very nice roommate with an equally kind boyfriend.)

After my dad left (which, I was told later, he did NOT want to do), I spent the rest of the evening opening boxes and slowly putting things away. Between the symbolic (dramatic) drive east to Boston, getting yelled at by strangers, and unpacking alone in a room that's now just my bedroom... not gonna lie, I cried more than a few times. In fact, for most of the day I was feeling like little more than a helpless, emotional clusterfuck.

But as the hours went by and my belongings became less and less scattered around the room, breathing became a little bit easier. I started to notice how rather pleasant the steady rush of traffic sounded, down in front of my building on the parkway. Then as it became darker outside and I readied myself for bed, I could hear crickets begin to chirp from the nearby river banks.

It wasn't the most brilliant series of pleasant thoughts of all time or anything... but they helped me end the night with a little more peace of mind than I'd had all day.

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Welcome to Vancouver!

Today we have been in our new apartment in Canada for 1 week. We've unpacked and put 99% of everything away into its new place, and have begun the process of making this new apartment our actual home. Dave did the bulk of the unpacking while I worked 7-3pm Mon-Fri this past week - he is very good at putting a home together, and having moved 5 times in the last 4 years, he's had plenty of practice.

We love Vancouver so far, are very pleased with our apartment and are infatuated with our neighborhood. The apartment is more spacious than our place in Portland, with much newer appliances. It's completely carpeted which I actually kind of enjoy - my toes aren't as cold and I'm less inclined to put on a pair of slippers. There are tons of closets, perfect for all of our (read: David's) stuff (read: climbing/hiking gear). The closet in our bedroom is a walk-in, which I have already gotten way too used to. Spread out and hang all of my clothes in as many places as I feel like? Don't mind if I do.

Our apartment is barely 2 blocks from a beautiful beach, with an amazing view of the mountains and West Vancouver, as well as a nice skyline view of Vancouver's downtown. We have endless choices of restaurants of all types, and have vowed to try not to go to the same restaurant twice. Two years won't be nearly enough time to sample all of this food!

Last night we went to Ikea and Home Depot, both of which are basically mandatory trips to make within a week of moving anywhere. We picked up a few things for the house and a ton of plants to put out on our balcony:

We've gone on several beautiful walks since we've been here - walking over the Burrard Bridge a few times already to go over to the downtown area.

.  Burrard Bridge .

The entire city is very fitness-geared, with bike lines everywhere and tons of people walking/jogging/biking to and from work. I'll write more about that in a later blog.

There are so many amazing things to see here, and I can't wait to blog about it all!

doh!

well i moved to cape cod, so that's news. sweet house? check. beach just down the block? check. working from sweet home office with brand new macbook? check. friends? DOH!!!

yeah, oops, i forgot how to make new friends. i haven't had to do it since i think 6th grade, and i've just been cruising along ever since - sort of a snowball rolling down a hill just accumulating friends and acquaintances along the way. latching onto friends of friends and then claiming them as my own... it's been way too easy. so now i'm plucked from the bowels of boston (a timely metaphor, as i happen to be in boston today and it does indeed smell like hot shit) and plopped unceremoniously into this quaint little beach town.

within a couple days of my moving there, though, falmouth surprised me with titillating news stories about drug rings and shootings and buildings on fire. why, just this past weekend an 18-year-old drove his truck into the atlantic ocean. that story ended tragically for the driver, yes, but i can't fault the town for its ability to surprise a newly transplanted western-masser-turned-bostoner-turned-year-round-cape-codder like myself with its abundance of breaking wacky news.

here's an oldie but a goodie - "no no no" by destiny's child (a 98 classsssssssic):



peace oot
(that's canadian for "bye")