Monday, January 31, 2011

Predicament

I'm very good at convincing myself that I need shoes when they are way too expensive for my measly paycheck can afford.  $250 for a pair of four and a half inched purple stilettos, no biggie.  But when it comes to purses I just don't like to fork out the money.  I just don't understand myself since I probably wear my shoes two or three times a year and use a purse every time I go out.  My predicament is that I really like this purse I saw on Macys.com, but it's $50 over the purse budget that I set for myself.  I don't know if I should get it.  It's free shipping so if I decide I can't afford it then I can always return it and won't lose any money.  I'm going to sleep on it.  If this was a matter of buying a pair of shoes, they would have already been purchased by now.  Hahaha

Friday, January 28, 2011

Sacrificed Tail Fur

As you all know by now, Emmy has problems with being left.  We have basically trained her to look out my parents' bedroom window when someone leaves the house.  She stands at the top of the stairs to watch people leave and then starts barking and then does a couple of tight circles while running to the window.  I have read in my behavioral books that the tight circles she does when she runs to the window are a sign of stress.  Unfortunately for her, there is a metal bench for decoration sitting by their door.  I don't know when it happened, but at some point she must have gotten herself upset and gotten her tail fur caught in it.  It seems most likely that she got it caught doing one of her frantic circles.  Yesterday I noticed this giant clump of fur caught in the bench leg.  I better find a new home for the bench before Emmy is furless. 



Giselle Ballet

Tomorrow I will be going to see the ballet Giselle with some friends of mine.  This is my first real ballet (I don't count the Nutcracker for some reason.)  This may be the first and last time I go to a ballet.  I'm not really sure how into it I will be, but I wanted to experience it at least once.  My friend Jenelle, who I'm going with, was a ballet dancer for the same amount of time that I was a gymnast so maybe her enthusiasm will get me really into it.  I'm excited for the new experience, but a little apprehensive because the stigma of how boring ballets tend to be.  I'll let you all know how it goes.  Right now my biggest predicament is what to wear.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

This week's nails

Here are this week's nails.  I was trying to use one of the dot stampers, but I wasn't getting it straight and it looked a little funny so I went back to this design since it's a little more forgiving with mistakes.  In the picture the base color looks kind of pink, but it's actually a lavender.  As a base I used Confetti: 071 Belle of the Ball and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure: Trouble Maker.  I think that next week I'll go back to plain old painting.

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Full-time!

After two years of working with Celery, I am finally full-time.  They have always wanted to make me full-time, but since we're a small company they couldn't afford it.  Right now there are three of us doing customer support.  My manager and I do both Celery and PC Freemail's (our business branch) customer support.  Our morning lady does just Celery.  We've been generating a lot of sales recently with the Mennonite community who is the main consumer of the PC Freemail service.  Now that we have so many more PC Freemail customers, Celery can actually afford to have me on for 40 hours a week doing support for both branches.  After the holidays I had been bumped up to 37 hours a week to provide extra support for new customers and I kind of just stayed at that hour level, but I've been averaging 40 anyway with extra hours for when Neil (CEO) was traveling on business.  I decided yesterday that I may as well just ask for the extra three hours since we get a lot of PC Freemail calls in the early afternoon (EST) anyway.  So now I work 9am-5pm like normal people.   I still don't get benefits, but no one at our company does since we're all contractors.  Neil doesn't even pay himself yet!  I'm just happy that I'm full time now.

Nick also made it to full time yesterday.  Woo hoo!  We originally were going to make dinner, but since we both had long and trying days we decided to order Chinese takeout with a bottle of champagne in celebration.

Makeup storage

Yesterday was a really busy day at work and it made me really grumpy.  I don't know what was going on, but the phones were ringing off the hook.  So by 3:30pm I was crabby and not very good company.  Luckily for me, I had some organizing to do to pull me out of my funk.  I told Nick and Linda that makeup and organizing things make me calm.  It totally worked!

Christopher has this habit of putting things that he doesn't want anymore in my parents' room, making it always look messy.  He does this because he doesn't want to throw stuff out that one of my parents may want or need.  I was in their room going to the bathroom when I spotted a five-drawer container sitting on their floor hidden by the rocking chair.  It turns out that this was one of Christopher's discarded items.

I have been using a Kaboodle that I got when I was like 10-years-old and didn't actually have any make up to put in it.  The only thing about the Kaboodle is that anytime I want to use it I have to remove my backpack and SLR camera bag from sitting on top of it.  It's not really that big of a deal, but a lot of my makeup gets ignored because it isn't easily accessible.  I usually just use stuff that I have in my makeup bag and don't use all the fun colors and products that I have.  Plus, I don't actually use makeup that often because I work at home and then when I do go out I get lazy.  I figured that if I have out all of my stuff then I will use it more.  Knowing myself, I will probably just turn to my everyday makeup bag that has everything that I need in it and my extra stuff will still be ignored. 

I'm still debating on putting labels on each drawer with our label maker.  I have a feeling that I will end up moving stuff around eventually and I don't want a label permanently stuck on the container.  Who knows, a week or two from now I may get tired of seeing the container out in the open and put everything back in the Kaboodle where it's not cluttering up my room.

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New setup

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Drawer #1: Square eye shadows

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Drawer #2: Round eye shadows

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Drawer #3: Eyeliners and tools

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Drawer #4: Lipsticks and glosses

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Drawer #5: Face products

Brisket with Mushrooms

Let me preface this post with: I am allergic to mushrooms.

But this recipe sounded so good that I had to make it.  And indeed it was.  I got this recipe out of my Good Housekeeping Cookbook (GHK) that I got a few years ago.  I have to say, if you want to start cooking, this is the book to get.  There are so many books out there it is really difficult to choose which one to get.  When you go to the cooking section at Barnes and Noble there are stacks and stacks of cookbooks for all types of cuisine.  I love looking in the cooking section, but I become overwhelmed by the shear amount of cooking literature that sits in front of me and leave before I can get sucked into buying a book all about bread that I think I need and must have but really don't.   I have a couple of staples that it seems like everyone has either heard of or owns, but I really like GHK's cookbook the best for getting me motivated.

I like it because it has pictures, but not too many pictures.  When I first started cooking the big books that had tons of information intimidated me.  Mark Bitman's How To Cook Everything is chalk full of good recipes, techniques, and tips, but the lack of photographs discouraged me because I couldn't picture what the meal would look like just by reading the recipe.  Joy of Cooking and even Mastering the Art of French Cooking is like that too.  All are staples of the cookbook world, in my opinion.   GHK has all of these great qualities, but it also has a fair amount of color photos on nice, glossy paper.  For the beginner, this is what you need.  I have come across and own plenty of books that seem like they are full of all pictures and no recipes.  At first I really liked them because each recipe came with it's own picture, but as I became more familiar with cooking, I wanted more recipes for my buck.  GHK was a good stepping stone for this.  It has plenty of recipes and as I said before, provides some pictures, but they don't over do it.  Now, since I cook more, I can look at Joy and MAFC's pictureless pages and imagine what my dish will look like.  I do believe that I have promoted GHK before, but it deserves it.  The best part?  The food is always delicious.

About the recipe

The book didn't lie.  It said that it takes an hour and a half to prepare and it was right.  Preparation wasn't difficult, but it was tedious.  Chopping onions and cleaning mushrooms, though not hard, takes more time than you would think.  I figured since I do this kind of stuff all the time it wouldn't really take that long.  It did.  I also had to cut the brisket into thirds because it was way to big for my pot, which is an 8-qt dutch oven.  It's not exactly a small pot, but I got the brisket from Costco so there was no way I was going to get that puppy to fit as one piece.

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Before cooking

I used regular white button mushrooms cut into 8ths, shitake in strips, and baby portobellos whole.  I liked the idea of using different shapes to add some texture to the meal.

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After braising in the oven for two and a half hours

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Brisket over mushrooms

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Roasted red potatoes with garlic and rosemary

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Garlic green beans

I know that we always make these oven roasted potatoes and garlic green beans, but I wanted to put the pictures up because they were just so good.  The green beans are our go-to vegetable recipe.  They're so quick and easy.  In total, this meal took about five hours to make from start to the time we sat down to eat.  It's a good thing I work at home and that my boss doesn't read my blog.  Heheh.

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Dun-da-da-dah!  The whole  shebang 

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Progress

This weekend I actually was able to get some training in with Emmy.  It went really well!  I'm so pleased.  I think I had mentioned before that the last time we left off with training around the holidays I was able to sit in my dark garage for 10 minutes before going back in the house.  The routine was:  fill Kong with peanut butter, put on shoes, give her Kong, get keys out, put on purse, open door, look to see if she is still eating, open garage door, close back door, lock door, make stomping noises like I was going down the stairs, close garage door, sit on top step for ten minutes waiting, quietly stand up and open garage door, make stomping noises like I was going up the stairs, unlock back door, say hello, lock door, put down purse, put away keys, take off shoes, pick up Kong, refill, start over.  It seems a lot more tedious when it's all written down.  I did this five times on Sunday, each time I would wait a little longer.  I waited in the car this time because it was nice and warm in there and I have a garage door opener so the timing was more realistic.  By the last round I was able to sit with a book for thirty minutes.  Woopie!  When I came back in she was excited and seemed a tad bit stressed, but there were no little stress poop nuggets and nothing was destroyed, though she generally doesn't destroy much when she's alone.  I used to give her cardboard boxes in her crate for her to tear up to keep herself occupied, but in the house I don't because it spreads all over the place and is a pain to clean up.  In total she was alone for about an hour with all the time added up.  Not bad at all.

Next time I'm going to set up my camera and put it on video so that I can see what she does while I'm gone.  She is no longer allowed on our couch since we got the new one so I brushed down the cushions to make them nice and smooth to see if she would get up on there while she was waiting.  She didn't.  I think she might have been laying on the floor in front of the door waiting for me to come back.  I purchased a second Kong for when we really do start leaving her alone.  I'm planning on filling it and then putting it upstairs and then putting one downstairs so that she has stuff to do.  I'm also considering buying a third one so that I can put it elsewhere.  The way I figure it is, she'll see me filling them and where I put them.  The last one goes in her bed downstairs where she can eat it while we're leaving.  Then after she finishs that and realizes that we're gone, she will go get the other ones.  Hopefully this will work.  When I have time by myself I'm going to start training her like that too.

One thing I learned this weekend is that Emmy is not the only one with Separation Anxiety.  I have it too!  I was sitting in the car reading and checking the time every couple of minutes.  I was worrying that she was inside freaking out and leaving me little stress poops.  I call them stress poops because they're tiny little nuggets the size of rasins.  She knows she's not supposed to go in the house, but when she's freaking out it just seems to happen against her will.  Her fear of being left behind literally scares the *beep* out of her.  I think she did better alone than I did.  If I would have gone out and done something maybe I wouldn't have felt so anxious, but sitting in the car waiting was like torture.  Now I know how she feels when she's waiting for us to come home!

Monday, January 24, 2011

CVS Madness

Where to start, where to start.  Maybe with a Holy smokes, you're CRAZY!  This is also a good time to sigh and shake your head.  When my mom says she goes hog wild at the Meyer kitchen supply sale, it's nothing compared to the damage I did this weekend.  I was literally bouncing around the store with a huge smile on my face scanning the cosmetic aisles for the little 75% off stickers.  Ohhh how there were many.  I just couldn't get enough!  I went to three different CVS' in my area and found different deals and products at each location.  Last night I was just going to CVS to get some face cream, but decided I didn't want to spend a lot of money on it.  Then, low and behold, I came back with four more lip glosses, a cream blush, and nail polish.  In the last four days, I've been to CVS five times.  I'm banning myself from CVS...after today because I have to drop a movie off at Redbox, which is inside the store.

Originally, I wanted to post pictures of everything that I got, but by the end of the weekend it just wasn't feasible.  No right-minded person who isn't planning on becoming a makeup artist and on a low income should be allowed to do what I did.  It's just plain crazy.  I didn't think that you would want to see every single thing that I purchased so I compiled all the days worth of CVS trips into one picture and will just show you some of the things that I'm a little more excited about.  I ended up spending $75.95 and saving $165.86. (I know, I know, I could have saved a lot more if I didn't get any of it.)

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My Complete Haul

That little brush set wasn't actually from CVS, but I included it because it came in the mail over the weekend.  I like the brushes a lot.  They are nice and soft and fit into my existing brush set case.  So far none of the bristles are falling out, but I haven't used them extensively yet.  I've noticed in the last few weeks that my Sonia Kashuk brush set that I got from Target a the beginning of 2010 is starting to have a lot of fall out.  I've tried washing them because people say it helps get rid of the loose bristles, but it seems to be making it worse.  I have brush bristles left on my face after applying blush with the blush brush and from the shading brushes when I apply eye shadow.

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Sonia Kashuck: Out of the Woods 6-pc brush set; Spring 2010 collection



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L'oreal Hip High Intensity Pigment
Org: $13.49 Sale: $3.25
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Left:#924 Visonary
Right: #848 Tenacious
I am particularly fond of the copper color and have worn it out over a base of the dark brown shadow pictured below from the Rimmel palette.  These are very similar in pigmentation and texture as the little Christmas pigment set that Nick's sister gave me from Mac.


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Smokey Brun
Org: $7.89 Sale: $1.95
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Smokey Purple
Org: $7.89 Sale: $1.95
I like the brown set and have added this to my everyday makeup bag.  The purple is pretty too and I'm considering putting that in my bag if I can fit it.

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Quartz Eye Palette
Org: $8.99 Sale: $2.19

Since I discovered that neutrals look better than all the bright colors that I have so diligently collected over the years, I purchased this trio from the Sally Hansen Natural Beauty collection inspired by Carmindy from What Not to Wear

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Confetti #071 Belle of the Ball

This was not on sale, but I thought that the color was really pretty and believe it or not, I don't already have a color similar to this.  



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Sally Hansen Insta-Dri #17 Mochachino
Org: $5.49 Sale: $1.37

The reason I posted this picture is because I really like the dark color on the far left.  I also got four bottles of the Hard As Nails line for only $0.79 each.  I just couldn't pass them up at that price.

Years ago my mom had gotten me this cute little beauty mirror that has a light going around the edge of it.  I thought it was so pretty and sophisticated looking.  The only problem was that the mirror was a magnifier and made me feel sick whenever I looked into it.  It was basically a large concave mirror/fish eye.  Bleh.  Needless to say, I didn't use it ever, but I kept it out anyway because I liked the way it looked.  On Friday I went to Ross to find myself a proper mirror to use at my desk.

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This one doesn't have a cool light, but is much bigger and doesn't make me feel ill when I look into it.  For $20, I thought it was a good deal.  While at Ross I got my mom four different sized OXO push-pop-top containers.  Of course, they were were on the highest shelf so I could barely reach them and was afraid I'd make the whole shelf come toppling down on me.  It's a good thing I had grubby little fingers to grip onto the container way in the back. 

Friday, January 21, 2011

Costal Scents 88 Warm Palette

This is why I can't save money.  Last night after playing around with the bright makeup colors that I already own, I decided that neutrals look much better on me.  I've been eyeing this palette for a while now so I decided to finally buy it.  Briana and I are going to play around with it when I get it so that she can try Senior Ball looks without having to spend a fortune, especially since I have so much stuff already.   I had shown her pictures of the palette a while ago and she oohhed and ahhed along with me.  For $25 the 88 Warm Palette is a pretty good deal.  I also got a little set of brushes that one of my makeup gals recommended.  I believe that they are sold in Walgreens, but since it was a Prime product on Amazon I didn't have to pay tax or shipping.  This is also probably why I've become so lazy.  I just order everything online.

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The artist who recommended this set said that this brand has the softest brushes that she has found in drugstores.  She's a big drugstore makeup buyer so I believe her.  I also have a Sonia Kashuk set that I got a Target, but it only comes with two eye shading brushes.

Soothing Sounds for Emmy

A penpal of mine just sent me a little ad for this product called Through a Dog's Ears.  In the ad that she sent it says "...how to alleviate separation anxiety, visitor excitement, thunderstorm phobia, etc."  That is Emmy!  I had been telling my penpal about how we've been trying to train Emmy for all of these things so she sent me the ad.  Her package came in the mail this afternoon and I ordered the book and an extra cd called "While You are Gone: Music Pets Love"not even ten minutes after seeing it.  I am hoping that this will help Emmy relax when we're gone.  My training has stopped for now, but once Christopher goes back to school next week I'm going to start training her to get used to two people leaving the house at the same time.  I'm hoping that since she's okay with me leaving for 10 minutes at a time now that increasing to two people leaving for short periods will come a little easier.  I used the Amazon giftcard that I bought for $10 and got $20 during that LivingSocial.com sale for these two things and only had to pay $3!  Pretty good!  Well, I guess it would be more like $13, but $3 sounds better.

Amazing Steal!

I had heard from a beauty blog that I sometimes read that CVS and Rite Aid are having a lot of inventory clearances on their makeup.  I had to stop by CVS to pick up some stuff anyway, so I checked out their makeup aisle.  I got this bonus pack of Physician's Formula bronzer and powder for $2.40 when it is regularly $15.99.  Can you believe it?  The set was 75% off and then I had a 10% coupon for joining CVS' free Beauty Club.  The only bummer is that I had one of those Extra Buck coupons that come on the bottom of your receipt and read the expiration date incorrectly so I thought it had already expired but it doesn't actually until February.  If I would have applied my $2 in Extra Bucks I would have gotten this set for $0.40!  Oh well.  If I'm not lazy later I might go to the other CVS near me to check out their sales and apply that coupon to whatever I purchase.  Still, what an amazing buy.

I really only needed a bronzer and was hoping to find a matte finish one so that I don't walk around looking like a shimmery basketball, but for $2.40 I can settle with a shimmery bronzer and extra powder.  I'm still experimenting with all this stuff anyway, so I'm in the stage of trying out new things to see what I like.  To be honest, even though all my makeup ladies look awesome with lots of makeup on, when I use it just doesn't look as good.  I don't use powder really, but I'm going to fool around with it and see if it really does help with shine.  I've been noticing in pictures that my forehead gets shiny when I didn't think that it did.  So since this was so cheap I will see if it really does what it's supposed to do.

The only thing that I dislike about this product is the casing.  They're kind of bulky and they feel really cheap.  Sometimes when I open them it feels like the plastic might break right off the hinge.  The makeup product itself is pretty good.  I like the sponge that came with the powder.  I haven't used the brush that came with the bronzer because it's too thin and I'm afraid if I use it I'll end up with a giant streak of bronze on my face.  Needless to say, even though they are pretty good products, they are now in my caboodle for when I feel like wearing it, not in my everyday makeup drawer.
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Left is Bronzer right is Powder

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Powder

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Bronzer

Here are some other recent products I purchased.  As you can tell by my comments, I still don't know what in the world I'm doing with all this stuff, but if you're like me and experimenting then maybe this will help you.  Makeup guru's are great, but when you really don't know what you're doing, it's all trial and error.

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I got this last night as well.  The Cover Girl blush color is in Pretty Peach.  I tried it out last night when I was fooling around with new looks.  It is bright.  It's pretty, but it's bright. Even with one little dab on my brush (I use a large blush brush) it was very, very rosy.  I looked like I had just run a marathon.  For now I have this in my makeup bag because it fits nicely, but I'm going to have to be very careful when I use this.

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I got this Maybelline Mineral Powder Finishing Veil Translucent Powder for putting over my under-eye concealer (which I'm not really sure how to use that well) to finish off the look.  I couldn't really tell the difference.  When I asked Briana if she could tell the difference with the concealer and the powder under my eyes she said that she couldn't really and that it just looked a little paler.  Maybe that's what it's supposed to do?  One of the makeup gurus recommended it for under the eye because it's so sheer.  It's sheer alright!  Maybe I just don't have the "eye" for makeup because I couldn't see the difference at all.  I have tried this all over my face and it does feel nice.  Again, I can't tell the difference really.  It kind of evened out my skin so I guess that's a good thing.

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Now this blush, this blush I love.  One of my makeup gals loves this blush.  She says it's very, very similar to NARS' Orgasm blush, which is listed at $26 for 0.16oz on Sephora.com.  This Milani blush in Luminous was $5 for 0.15oz will do it for me!  I really enjoy this blush.  It have a lot of gold tinted shimmer, but I'm okay with that.  I've been wearing it recently and it's not over powering, though admittedly I probably put too much on sometimes when I do my makeup in my room where the lighting is bad.  I've learned to do my blush in the bathroom so I don't look like a clown, but that is beside the point.  I love this blush.  It is great for winter when everything is dreary and your skin looks ultra pale.  I probably won't use this during the summer because I tan and am always hot so my cheeks get rosy anyway.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Nails Redo

Earlier in the week I did my nails a light pink with a purple flower.  I liked the detail of the flower, but just couldn't love the color of the nail polish or the paint quality for that matter.  I figured after a few days of wearing the color I would start to like it and it would grow on me.  That has happened a few times before.  Not the case.  I may try to give the color another try with a stamp design that's a little more busy, but I just wasn't loving it this week.

I also wasn't fond of the quality of paint.  Remember how I said that I didn't feel like cleaning up my edges and cuticles that night?  Well it did start to come off in the shower like I predicted, but it was cracking!  Usually if I just let the paint that I miss come off of my skin in the shower it comes off and leave a nice smooth line on my nail where the paint is supposed to be.  This was not the case for this nail polish.  It was cracking apart from the polish on the nail so that when it came off of my skin it left a jagged look on my nail.  What?!  I am not please with this polish at all.  I guess you get what you pay for as this was only $2 a bottle, but even Wet n' Wild (usually a $1) is better than Easy Going.  I did buy a glittery purple that I want to try by this brand.  After I see how that one goes I'll give you my full review on the brand, but until then, stay clear of SinfulColors!

Today I inverted the colors I used on Monday.  The base is Sally Hansen's Trouble Maker and the flower is SinfulColors' Easy Going.

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Today I did my nails at work.  This may sound bad, but while I was doing them I did get a sales call and got us a new customer and a nice chunk of change in Celery's bank account. Hehe.  I like to paint my nails while I work because I can't get up to move around much, which means less chance of me whacking my hand against something and messing up my nail polish.

As a continuation of my pampering, I plan on spending the night in and trying out makeup looks for our Valentine's Day weekend.  I like to watch makeup videos before I go to sleep to shut off my brain so now I'm feeling inspired.  I will not be posting pictures of this because I usually end up looking like a clown.  Hahaha.

Sauteed Chicken

Last night Nick and I tried a Julia recipe on a week night, which I was a little apprehensive about because all her stuff takes forever to make.  It wasn't that hard and it actually didn't take as long as most of the other dishes I've tried by her.  It did take a lot of dishes and pots as usual though!  This was her French-style Sauteed Chicken.  Nick butchered and cooked the chicken while I did all the chopping and prep work for the soup, veggies and chicken sauce.

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Okay, so I had left over French Onion soup that I was reserving for this night.  I had run out of shredded parmesan cheese to put on top.  Christopher was going to the grocery store with Briana so I asked him to pick up some parmesan for me.  He couldn't find the brand that I had originally bought so he got me the store brand, which isn't as good of quality.  This is how the crust turned out.  I was not pleased with it at all.  Instead of getting melty and gooey like my first batch, the cheese got hard and crusty.  If you like this texture, and I'm sure some people do, this is great.  However, be aware if you try this recipe to use quality parmesan.  The inside was still delicious, but I was a fan of the crust texture.

Emmy's Personal Dog Run

Much to my father's chagrin,  Emmy has once again created herself a dog run.  She did this last year when we were taking care of her, but then when she went back to Auntie Julie's the grass began to grow back.  Now the run is back in full swing.  As I said in previous posts, she runs back and forth, back and forth for hours.  I actually haven't taken her for a walk in a couple of weeks because she get so much exercise running up and down.  You should see how fast she runs!  Maybe I'll try to video tape her and put it up on Youtube.  Her fur blows behind her and she looks like a little black and white jet.  It would be nice if she ran around the whole backyard like she used to, but then she'd get burrs that we would have to pick out.  This stretch is pretty long though and she get plenty of exercise.  Her waist is starting to look pretty trim and her stamina for frisbee playing on the weekends is growing.  I used to take her out before work and she'd be tired in ten minutes.  Now I have to take her on the weekends because she goes thirty minutes or more!  So now I put her in the backyard with a bowl of water for an hour or so and she runs herself until she's tired and wants to come back in.  She rarely stops for a drink, but her throat gets dry from all of her "talking" to the dogs next door so every once in a while you'll catch her pausing for a water break.  My poor neighborhood is no longer quiet.

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The Track

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Step 1: Checking the front of the house to talk to the dogs by the gate.

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Step 2: Going to the back of the yard to tell the dogs to come to the back of the yard with her.

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Step 3: Rounding the corner (you can see her tail behind the potted plant).

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Step 4: By the fence preparing to start Step 1 again.

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Step 5: Rinse and repeat.