Bangs, Bags, and Bluster

Spent Friday night staying up until 2am browsing Pinterest and YouTube for makeup tips, painting, crafts, and tips to trim my bangs.  Decided to try curtain bangs.  Should have known better as always get styler's remorse after chopping my hair. Turned out fine but there's always the temptation to go a little bit shorter, just a wee bit. Thankfully ignored that and still have lengthy bangs rather than stubble shooting out from my forehead!

Watched a few eyeshadow and under eye concealer videos. Saturday morning tried the spoon on my eyelid trick to get a better lined crease. Surprisingly it actually worked!  

Have seen outrageous mascara videos on Facebook and YouTube and decided to order it with hopes it will work up to its claims. Will report back after it's been received and given the test drive.

My recent painting project is a commission for one of Sam's friends Christian. He wants a painting with blue/white for Dodgers and purple/yellow for Lakers. Last weekend I tried and failed. Scrapped those and tried again. Ended up with a couple okay pictures and they've been on the back porch trying to dry. This morning after yesterday's windy storm found newspaper under one had flipped up and melded into the damp paint. Arrrgggg! 

I moved the remaining picture to my room to dry, tossed the newspaper mess, and set out to make two more paintings with the scraped canvas. First one I did for Christian; had leftover paint so added in some fuschia and made another one for myself.  And they both turned out great! Finally. They are currently setting then they will be moved inside to dry.

One of first attempts

Acceptable

One for me

Stopped by Jordan and Candy's to visit. Jordan wanted me to make a D&D dice bag out of some Mario and Luigi material.  Came home and whipped up a bag using some red material for the lining.  Turned out excellent. He was so excited he had to stop by this afternoon to pick it up.

The other night made dinner for Stan and Susan - Linguine with Clam Sauce.  Bought a bottle of inexpensive ($2.98 and with a cork!) wine for the sauce. Cooked up a sauce of butter, olive oil, salt, pepper, minced clams (store was out of chopped dangit), clam juice, and fresh parsley. Added in the noodles then served it with parmesan, parsley, and lemon wedges. Say down to eat and realized I had forgotten to add the wine!  Was still pretty tasty!

Tomorrow is Monday once e again. Have been so busy at work I've been underwater trying to catch up. Definitely do not like that feeling.  On a positive note we just hired a new assistant so once she is trained it will lighten my load.

Rain is on the forecast for the immediate future but let's look past that and have a memorable week! ❤

Cloudy Day

Was driving the other day and took my life in my hands to snap a few pics of the glorious clouds.  Gorgeous!

79 Days Til Christmas! 😉

Days seem to get away with me and there's never enough time to document my fairly uneventful life!

Fall is here and the rain has spoiled my sunny days of fishing.  One of my co-workers took a job elsewhere, which has resulted in my work expounding exponentially! Lots of overtime on the weekend and when you reach the point you think you are caught up, twelve projects and 100 emails prove you otherwise. 

The last two weeks I've been rising early to give Sammy a ride to work as his truck is giving him fits. My taxi service continues when I pick him up after work. Fun time bonding but there have been some early mornings!

Saturday night Sam rang me up to see if I wanted to get together at Jimmy's girlfriend Lexxi's parents house. The parents (who gave me access to their property on the Cowlitz River for fishing) are actually pretty darn funny so I figured why not.

It was a blast!  Music, singing, laughing, goofiness, story-telling, dancing to Thriller, and good old fashioned fun!

On a lark submitted one of my photos to a Beautiful Washington calendar contest.  And it was selected to be in the 2022 calendar!  Whoop whoop!

Lake Sacajawea

Painted a few rocks and even brought Sam into the mix by having him paint three anime rocks for my Facebook club's September theme. Actually won an anime prize rock for his efforts, which we gifted to Lexxi.

Sam's DragonBall Z Art

Diva's Halloween Art

Prize Rock

I picked up a couple items from the dollar store and whipped up this fall wreath. 

Finally had my regular mammogram today which I had lazily been delaying.  Monday scheduled my annual eye exam. Getting med shit done!!

Yesterday morning the deer were out in full force so couldn't resist filming their actions.

And tomorrow is Friday!!  Enjoy your weekend!

Breaking Bread and Blonde

This was definitely a work week - but in a great way!  Met up Thursday with the Longview office team as a fond farewell to our building and excitement about working from home indefinitely.

Friday had our work team picnic at Lake Sacajawea.  It was the first day in a long time that it was cloudy and cool outside.  Even had to put on a jacket. We spent almost three hours eating barbecue from Hop-N-Grape, laughing, and missing our coworker Pam who couldn't make it.

Toyed with the idea of going gray; however, after seeing the team picnic photos, decided to screw the gray and get my blonde back.  Used a couple of at home mixes - champagne blonde and dark blonde - to bring back some va va voom to my hair. Very happy with the result!

Painted five mini canvas recently and attached then to a painted board.  Ran across some liquid gold foil leaf so included that in the paint pour.

Another art project was a vintage bike flower display.  Jordan and Candy gave me the bike and instead of riding it, last week I added some potted plants along with a whimsical painted sign.

Beware Rip-Off Registers

Normally I'm a Walmart shopper.  However, Safeway is just down the street so now and then I pop over there. Plus, although their prices are high, they always have a bread markdown section.  I recently signed up on their app where you can clip coupon deals that automatically register when you input your phone number at checkout. Or so I thought.

Stopped in there yesterday for a few items. One of the steals via the app was $5 ice cream for 77cents. Can't beat that! Also grabbed a loaf of bread with a corresponding coupon saving 50cents.

Here's the deal - always check the register when you are paying.  More often than not the sale price will not pull up so you end up paying and finding out later you didn't save money.  I frequently play a game with myself to add up the items in my cart to see how close I get at checkout. Did this yesterday and my ballpark total was going to be about $9.77.

The checker scanned the items and my grand total was over $18. I think not!  Questioned him on my 77cent ice cream and there you go - my app coupon didn't register. I had to show him my app list to prove I had the coupon. Pissed me off.  Ending balance was $10.27.

Leaving the store I reviewed my receipt and had not received the coupon savings on the bread. Doesn't that figure! Just let it go as I didn't want to go through the rigamaroll to obtain a refund.

This has frequently happened at other stores where sale or clearance prices do not come up.  I always keep my eye on the register to verify what I'm buying matches up with the noted prices.

There's your tip for today.  And happy Labor Day which I'm spending cleaning and perhaps fishing!

Staycation, Santorini, Sandwich, and Special Friends

This week I've been enjoying the vacation days I scheduled. It's really been a staycation based upon my quarantine. Spent most of my time on the river by myself fishing and working on my tan along with painting rocks and canvas.

During my stay-at-home mandate, I also watched all of the Jaws movies - Jaws, Jaws 2, Jaws 3D (with Dennis Quaid) , and Jaws The Revenge (with Michael Caine of all people.)  All I can say is poor old Sharkey looked more fake with each sequel.

Thankfully, my quarantine was up along with all symptoms gone so I was able to meet up with the Blue Jacket Divas on Friday night at Kalama McMenamins. Was just awesome to catch up with the gals, meet Perla's new husband, wax nostalgic about previous adventures, and just plain laugh. We definitely need to meet up more often!!

Wore red, which is rare. Was just feeling it!

Last weekend got my reel restrung for a second time. Had high hopes this would eliminate the on-going line tanglement.  Well, that didn't happen.  Going to restring the reel myself and hope third times a charm!  There are just some moments in life when you plan for the best but wind up with numerous line tangles, a spinner hooked beyond help in the deep river which means cutting the line, and three days straight with no catches. You just have to laugh, continue on, and realize the lesson you must learn is patience!

One nostalgic habit I've picked up while fishing has been the quick sandwich. Was on my way to the river and was going to grab a Subway sandwich when i thought "what would Mom do?"  She'd grab some cheese, turkey, and bread and make a sandwich in the car! So that's what I did and boy did that hit the spot. I've since been making one for my fishing breakfast or lunch each time I go plunking, using Dad's tackle.

Another guilty pleasure I've indulged in lately is cottage cheese and pineapple.  Have bought the pre-made container of it from the store but today picked up the cottage cheese and pineapple separately and mixed together. In a word...yum!

Each month in the Facebook rock group to which I belong they have a theme contest.  Once the month is over, they choose out of the contest participants winners for prize items. My name was drawn and I won the following Santorini, resined rock. Isn't it fab?  I love it!!

This month's theme is Anime so I enlisted Sam's help to create the perfect rocks.  Here are the first two DragonBall Z rocks he's made so far.

And tomorrow is Labor Day and my last day off from work.  If you have the day off - enjoy!!

Covid & Me 😷

My symptoms started on August 20 - stuffed up, fever, sneezing, congestion.  Typical summer cold which put me in bed all weekend.  The weird thing was my taste buds and smell were messed up...food tasted weird and there was an odd smell to regular odors.  Even though I received the vaccine, decided it would be best to get tested.  And sure enough, I had the Covid!

Diagnosis meant quarantine until my symptoms passed. This actually worked out well since I work from home and Stan/Susan were leaving on an RV trip to N. Dakota.  I've had the place to myself and it has sure been quiet!  Aside from an occasional cough, it's been over ten days since my symptoms began so I'm free to return to society.

On top of that, I scheduled a few vacation days - for no reason.  Since they fell during my quarantine, I've spent most of my time all by my lonesome fishing!  Even caught a small steelhead!

Looking forward to a Blue Jacket Diva's dinner this Friday!  Probably been two years since we've seen each other. Can't wait to catch up!