Another Year

Matt and I

Today is my 42nd birthday. and as i reflect on the three birthdays i have had since my diagnosis, how can i ask for anything? I am breathing and i live a good life. oh certainly i could use a million dollars or at least an extra grand.. but  I have my awesome husband, my fanTAstic daughter, and my loving son. and i get to enjoy every day of it. my birthday gift was one i gave myself, i kept going to treatment I didn't want to, i cried, i asked my family not to make me, then never forced me, but they encouraged me to change my mind and i am glad they did. i have everything i could have ever wanted... well except for a home of our own, and im certain that  if God sees fit we will have one of those too.

Barb's Gift

I went to the relay for life this year alone. My "diagnosis buddy" Barb passed away last August. So things are kinda "off" But I came away with a renewed sense of self with some new goals. and once again she has renewed my spirit.

Barb at the Catskills

I have trouble remembering being sick. or rather having cancer. It feels kinda surreal. almost dream like until i get to relay, then I remember What i remember isn't nice. feeling horrible all the time, not wanting to go to my treatments missing my long wonderful hair. I remember being very angry Angry at the world angry at cancer angry at God and also angry at Barb. she would take a treatment and go on vacation. I would take my treatment the same day and VOMIT for three days. i felt so horrible and i couldn't understand WHY her chemo made her feel great and mine made me feel like old dog poo. one day she explained it. My ABVD would save my life. hers would only prolong her life. she said she wasn't looking for a cure, she was looking for LIFE. as many days as she could squeeze in. and one day those treatments would stop just like one day my treatments would be over. when mine were over i would have the greatest gift of all LIFE. She also would have a great gift to go and be with God.

Barb's Luminary

She said to me... i know you feel like crap, this thing, it sucks. But you get to LIVE beyond what i get to.  One day I will be gone and YOU will go to the catskills.  NOW is the only time i have. Krista, live for NOW. Dont let things like how fast the driver in front of you is going bother you. you might get there 3 mins faster, instead of wasting that 3 mins by fussing over how fast that jerk is going,  use that 3 mins to look out the window, see a bird flying, visit more intensely with your passenger. same with waiting in line at the deli. Do you have somewhere to be? then take your time to LIVE. because none of use will get out of this life alive. its just at different times. why do you have to wait till stage 4? do it now while you can enjoy it. 

What Barb gave me

She was right, I may never go to the Catskills, But i do have a life and i may forget that cancer ever graced my doorstep. But i wont ever forget Barb and how she taught me how to live, really live. I may still spend too much time on facebook, and i may still complain about the driver in front of me. But when i do i feel her hand touch mine and hear her say "Did you see the bird?

 

$4 of happiness

I know this post is a bit off topic, Nails resume tomorrow....


I had four dollars. Just four small ones. I needed tomato plants for my garden. Pretty flowers would be bought later because well they are just for pretty and tomatoes you could eat. I went to the local gardening store knowing that tomatoes now would look pretty sad but maybe i could get four plants for my four dollars.

wow nope not at all $6 for over grown leggy tomato plants. not a special price nothing. GRRRR... Lets try something else. there is a small garden store just down the road from me. I got a great deal on briquets last year there and i bought my tomato plants there last year as well... I'll try there. on the way "God let me be able to buy som pretty plants for my porch... I w3as so pretty the year mom filled them all for me!"

When I got there I found...

50% off all plants!

I was so happy! with my four small ones I was able to buy eight pink begonias, four pink dianthus, and four purple salvia AND my four tomatoe plants i wanted!!!


They may have been a bit on the sad looking side, but with some water and some growing room and a touch of fertilizer they will be beautiful and even though they look sad they have made me so happy!

If you want to see the garden... pop over to the other blog, there are some nice pictures of my garden there.....

Monday Manicures - Opening Season

The Acrylic nails have come off for a while, The yard work I have done is much to tough on my nails. not to mention it just isn't practical when you are working in your garden. The rest will do my nails good anyhow. So look forward to simpler manis! after all you cant do a lot of intricate work on tiny nails. As you can tell my own nails are actually very small.


Tomorrow is opening season of our national past time, and even though I watch baseball maybe two games each season I always look forward to the season coming because that is a sign of summer.

My Daddy and I watched the Reds daily in 1977 during the big year of "The Big Red Machine" Pete Rose & Johnny Bench. At the time we lived in Ohio and we saw many games at the park. So even though I don't "follow" baseball now. Baseball has many fond memories for me as does the Reds.

Daddy and I would listen to the game outside on the transistor radio, on the back porch while I played in the sand box. We lived close enough to the park that the home games were "blacked out" on the TV. Those were great times.

So this mani is for Daddy... Who gets to watch all the greats play now. The Braves play the Reds on May 19th. I wont miss that game.

Have a great season Daddy.

Monday Manicures Easter!

Easter is a great holiday! It comes on the 4th of April this year. But since today is the last Monday before Easter, I thought I had better get these done!

Honestly I have done these nails early, but it took me two days to get these all done but I wanted a bit of extra fun on my nails for this holiday!

Because it took two days, I thought I would give you a good close up view of them! I probably could have done them all in an evening, but I ran out of ideas so I put them on hold over night. I did my left hand first...

Left hand ~ Easter Eggs and the Easter Bunnie

Left thumb ~ A chocolate Easter Bunnie

Right thumb ~
Calvary, with out this there would be no Easter!
(I am not real happy with my "heaven glow")

Right hand (yes I painted these with my left hand!)
Index finger ~ a nail and a hammer
Middle finger ~ Easter Lillys
Ring finger ~ Easter basket w/ eggs
Pinky ~ a chocolate candy in a foil wrapper

Sticker tutorial

A while back I promised a tutorial about my nail stickers. Well I finially have it ready.

First get your nails painted the way you want them (unless you are going to put stems on flowers)


then you GENTLY peel off the sticker. I use a dental pic. but a toothpick or orange stick would work as well. I found peeling them off with my fingers they would "fold" on themselves. that could just be the length of my nails though.

Place the sticker where you want them.


tap them down and coat with top coat.

I used to be a big nail decal person, but i had trouble applying them. especially if they got old. They would tear or jsut not come off the paper. But these stickers are wonderful! and only $2.50 at Dollar General. I have also found them at Walmart, Rite Aid, and Target. so simple and anyone can do this.

I have gotten so many complements on this particular mani. I am actually sorry i dint take shots of doing my base coat. its so easy! The light purple is Sally Hansen Insta dry "lively lilac" the applicator brush for this is OUTSTANDING!

and the striped tip was done with the LA Colors art deco "magenta" So simple just because of the fine brush!

Monday Manicures-- first day of spring!

Since Yesterday was the first Day of spring I opted to put a little spring onto my nails! the flowers are nail stickers. I was going to paint them on but i had issues with my yellow...

Our date out

I know were we planning on going to olive garden for lunch. Well I somehow ended up in the wrong side of the parking lot and it didnt take much persuasion to get steve to go to Red Lobster for lunch. He had never EVER been here for any meal so I felt it was about time.


Steve had the Main lobster w/ shrimp


I had the shrimp lobster tail and crablegs. I have never had REAL crab. I think the next time I will get some fresh no that this wasnt great ( I will NEVER eat imitation ever again) I just know that at the coast this would be so much awesomer.

We also went to Hobby Lobby. I thought6 that Steve might like it. and I was right he set off to explore while i looked at fabric, and he came back to me very happy to have found the stuff he needed to fix his model train track. along with a HUGE wish list. we also picked up some model glue. so he can put his model together. some new paint brushes for me, and a die cast model as well. it seemed like everything was on sale 30 or 50% off!

On the way home of course no trip to NY would be complete without a stop in Riverside to look at new spring clothes. I found three new shirts and two new kitchen rugs!

It was 62 degrees on the way home and we longed for the bike, but we knew full well by the time we got home it would be to cold for me to ride. Soon enough I will be on the back enjoying it!

Pots of Gold

A little leprechaun snuck in last night and showed me how to put pots of gold on my hand for St Patrick's Day!

Originally he wanted me to used gold glitter on my tips, but I told him I had all my St Patrick's day baking yet to do, and he agreed maybe this wasn't the best idea.

Nails for NHS!

My Daughter Gets her sash for National Honor Society tomorrow night. I was not going to do my nails today, but i couldn't pass up the opportunity to display our school colors. My husband myself and my daughter have all graduated from the same High School, so to wear my school colors for this is nice :) and to have her graduate this year wearing a NHS sash will be a great honor.

Happy Birthday Whitney!

Monday Manicures are going to be a day early ...


Today's Nails are dedicated to my friend Whitney.... She loves Pink and Black and if she weren't hugely busy right now I would put these on her nails as well. Maybe when her life slows down. Yea right!

I love you Whitney, Happy Birthday!

Cool Kittie

When I first got my Konad system I was super excited but since it was the "French Manicure" set, I really thought

~~ Tips... all I can do is Tips~~

I mean I was psyched to have this great gift but I knew I couldn't get anymore disks for a while, and I was just going to have to cope with pretty tips.

Well tonight after a VERY long day, I decided to do may nails just Cuz I can. I have found it relaxes me :)

Well after putting on one of the tips I thought, why couldn't I stamp this on again...and again...and again?

Well a simple tip has now become a tiger stripe! Had I realized that I would have done it in black and orange. hummm I'll do that later :D

Second Konad Try

I have to have a lot of tests done today due to some of my presenting symptoms coming back, and I wasnt really happy with the first job I did with my Konad system. So I thought I would play around with the plates and maybe alternative polishes.

two of the colors "The Daily Nail" sent me we of the same hue. So I thought why not give them a try? The lighter color that I am holding did not cover well with the stamper, but as you can see the peacock worked really well. I just love this nail job. I seem to be chipping off the peacock, but with the simplicity of this stamp, it is so easy to touch up my tips.

Monday Manicures-- Konad Tutorial

As much as I loved my pac man nails. I have really loved these, and I nearly considered not changing them for another week I really wanted to try out my new konad system....

But I am sure you want to see how it works!

I have started off with my base coat. I am using the new polish I got with my prize package from "the daily nail" American Apparel's 'Peacock'. In the bottle I was uncertain if I really liked the color, but really I LOVE it on my nails.

I chose to used the center design of this plate.
It should look like a necklace on my nails

Place a drop of the special polish on or next to the design

Scrape it over the design
&
scrape off the excess

press the stamper FIRMLY on the plate

Lift it strait off, and the design should be on the stamper

Press it on your nail

There you go

I had to do my nails three times to get the "hang" of this. I even looked up some trouble shooting on the net. some sites suggested "roughing up" the stamper because I was having trouble getting it to "lift" so i used my emery board and did MINIMAL roughing and it then started lifting fine.

Some other tips~~~~~

• use "disk" cotton my rolled cotton balls i love so much, leaves alot of fuzzies since you have to wipe the plate, the scraper, and the stamper after each stamp
• maybe a clear coat in between the main color and your stamp so if you have to remove the stamp you don't destroy the base color.
• you dont have to scrape hard

It took me some time to learn but its a neat way and its faster than painting designs on!

Monday Manicures -- PacMan Fever

Its Tuesday! HOW after a whole 7 months did I miss Monday manicures??? I even had someone comment on how my nails are the same as the last time they saw me! So tonight I got thinking I do need to refresh these strawberries, I'll just paint them.

I had bought "full coverage" nails because I was out of acrylic. and I really think this might be the easier way... I'm not certain. We will see how they hold up.

ANYHOW.... Steve found a new "old" video game at NTCH today and he was playing it when I was thinking of ideas for my nails....

Michelle painted the "dots" and the "stripes" on my right hand for me... Thank you very much!

I did the ghosts and Pac man on my left hand.

Chocolate covered strawberries

I love my new chocolate colored nail polish! I love it so much I had to do a mid week manicure! I went for chocolate covered strawberries. Didn't they turn out neat?

Monday Manicures -- Snowcaps

Even though Valentines day was yesterday, I decided to paint my nails as "chocolate snowcaps" these have always been a favorite of mine in the movie theater. The smooth choclate and the crunchy nonpareils. I just love them together.

Monday Manicures -- Valentines Day

In honor of valentines day I put hearts on my nails... I had a bit of trouble with the outline. probably because I felt rushed.

I had to leave the paint off my first nail, because I have a dr apt tomorrow, and about two months ago my nail bed started receding, and I need him to look at it again.

Monday Manicures -- Groundhog day

Today's Nails are dedicated to Punxsutawney Phil and His Shadow for Groundhog day.

Will he or wont he? Big question isnt it? If you have been reading my blog since christmas time you have seen my count down to spring in the sidebar. So you should know i am not a big fan of winter. I get sick of it about the first snow fall which here was back in OCTOBER (click here to see my link on the snow at my house!)

So Feb 2nd is a HUGE day in the Torpy house not only will we finish up my radiation but we will also find out how many more weeks of winter we will have. I really hope we have a nice cloudy day with no shadow so we don't have to worry about more SNOW!

Stripes

I so much loved the new polish, I had to try it right out! And frankly I got tired of the zippers that didnt look just right.... everyone kept asking "what is that?" and that means FLOP!

This is also my second bottle of OPI that I hadn't tried yet. I love the copper shimmer!

I also have not had tips on my nails in nearly forever, so I took a nail day. yea like I don't do that every Sunday night...

But I love acrylic nails and I haven't worn them in a very long time. After seeing my nails, Michelle had to have some too. Notice, hers are shorter.. guitar playing dictates her nails stay short...