Being A Responsible Adult ...

...which entails, among other things, doing my taxes rather than blogging, since I did get the final piece of paperwork I was waiting for on Friday.  So that's out of the way & a huge weight off my shoulders, but it took up a good chunk of my weekend.

 

One of the things I wanted to do was get the top 20 manis of 2010 done, since January is over like, tomorrow.  I'm rather irked that we're moving into the 2nd month of 2011 & I never even got around to writing down my resolutions LOL. Where has January gone?!  Anyway, I'm going to stick up a poll, in the right sidebar - just take a minute & let me know if you are still interested to see it?

 

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Long Day & Toe-less Socks

Just a quick post ... I wore the Purple Fanatic marble for several days, so I'm not actually that far behind, but I was just too tired after work today to put together much of a post.  So I thought I would just post this up for you guys for a laugh.

 

I purchased some pedi socks a while ago, basically they're just little tubes that leave the end of your foot out, but they're thin material & don't really even cover the whole foot, so in winter they didn't work as well as I'd hoped ... so I took out a pair of my toe-socks & went at them with a pair of scissors XD  Here's a look at my much warmer custom pedi socks:

 

 

Matching the polish to the purple stripes was not intentional LOL. 

 

Real posting should resume hopefully tomorrow.  I'll have some real pics of this pedi, a mani, and several January hauls including today's trip to Ulta - 20% entire order coupon on the website right now IF you didn't know =)

 

Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette

Bachman's Holiday Idea House

We went to check out the Bachman's Holiday Idea House back on the 3rd, & I've been procrastinating on editing the pics, but I thought I better get my butt in gear & post them before Christmas is over!

 

We started out with lunch at their cafe, Patrick's:

 

 

They also had pastries, but we got those after the meal packaged to go, so I didn't get any pics.  Then we went across the parking lot, this house is like the old family homestead of something & they decorate it four times a year.  Although some of this stuff was ridiculously overpriced, but there were a lot of cute ideas (which I guess is the point LOL).  The outside was very decorated, although it was starting to get snow-covered as we were there:

 

And then of course the inside was decorated as well:

Of course I gravitated toward salt shakers filled with glitter!

Thanks for reading =)

 

~Colette

Cookie Day Part 1

Part 1 is making dozens & dozens of sugar cookies today with grandma =)  Part 2 will be Saturday when we get together to frost the sugar cookies & exchange whatever other cookies we all make.  I'm making fruity foldovers & apricot nectar cookies - yum!  I'm already in the spirit because yesterday was the annual dessert fest at work - basically a potluck with only sweet things =)  I made a batch of chocolate cake balls with red & green candy melt coating:

 

 

It's always such fun to see people who've never had a cake ball taste one for the first time LOL.  Almost everyone will take a bite, then look at it like, "Wow, there's CAKE inside!"  I had several people ask for the recipe as well, so I directed them to Bakerella's site.  Have you started your holiday baking yet?

 

If I have time when I get home I've got plans to do another Christmas tutorial =)  Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette

Snow ... Again =(

We are off to the snowiest start of winter since 1991 - which most who live in MN will recall was the Halloween blizzard.  I can vividly recall trick-or-treating through almost 3 feet of snow.  This weekend's storm takes the record for the most snow in a single day in December ... 17 inches in my neck of the woods.  Some of these were taken last night (the darker ones obviously LOL) some this morning.  It was really windy so there was a lot of duning & weird swirly things:

This is the alley after the plow went by ... still pretty shitty.  You can't tell, but that's a little  downward hill behind my car, lots of nice packed-in snow leveling it off =(

Snow piled high as my car after I got done shovelling it free - barely LOL, I should be able to get it out but I wasn't trying to do any extra.  And this is only one of the piles!

& the coolest swirly bit:

Yeah.  We could be done with snow now as far as I'm concerned, really.  Running out of places to put it!  But seems like usually when we get a lot of snow, it's just setting up for even MORE snow the rest of the winter.  To top it all off it's also super-cold now, so even if I were included to play in it, it's really too cold for that - the high today is 7, with wind chill at about -20.  I was out shovelling for a couple hours so I think I am inside for the day now.  I'll try to actually get a few things taken care of instead of just napping with a warm blanked =)

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Just (Ballet) Dance

I miss So You Think You Can Dance ... Dancing With The Stars is OK, but just not as interesting, not to mention of course that a lot of the stars can't dance for crap (even getting close to the finals this year ... WTF is Bristol Palin still doing on the show?!).

 

Anyway, I've been finding a few channels on YouTube to get my dancing fix, and one of my subscriptions is to the Anaheim Ballet.  They upload short clips on a weekly basis - like this one that I linked to after seeing their costume preview for the Nutcracker:

 

 

If you like dance, I really do recommend you check out their channel =)  Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Helloooo Winter!

Even here, we don't normally get hit quite this hard for the first storm of the season - this was the view out of my bedroom window when I woke up this morning:

 

 

And it was still coming down!  My niece's birthday party was cancelled =(

 

After we got dressed I went out for a walk with Mom & Dude & took some more pics.  It's wet, heavy snow, so there were lots of broken & bent trees but also lots of pretty, snow-covered things.  Here's a taste of November in Minnesota:

 

Bearing in mind now, that it was 70 degrees less than a week ago LOL. Do you have snow yet where you live?

Thanks for reading =)

~Colette

Minnehaha Falls

I almost forgot about all these pics, then I came across them when I was putting together October's NOTD slideshow.  Today was so nice - nearly 70 degrees, I believe the average for this time of year is now in the 40's - that I was reminded again that I needed to get some of these posted.

Back on October 9th, it was also a ridiculously nice day - in the mid 80's.  Those of your who've been reading for a while may remember that in 2009, I was greeted with 3 inches on snow on the 12th.  But I guess that's just part of the fun living in Minnesota, you never know what you're going to get =)  Although I'm sure you won't be surprised to know that I prefer the warm option LOL.

Anyway, Mom & I decided to take advantage, we went out to lunch - which I really should have taken pictures of the food, it was delicious - and then we continued on to Minnehaha Falls. Parking was insane, but we manage to grab a spot, then we walked to the falls, and from the falls down to the Mississippi river, up the other side of the creek & finally home. I ran out my battery & almost filled up my memory card!  Enjoy =)

This was just in a garden area of the park approaching the falls:



Then we actually got to the falls - there was a ton of mist in the air, it was actually noticeably cooler in the area - but it was so hot that was kind of nice!

This is part of the upper section of the creek:

Then we went down the stairs - lots of stairs, I'm telling you, but I didn't have a good pic that showed all of them - to the path along the lower end of the creek.  The people you can see up near the falls aren't really supposed to be there, everything past the fences is off-limits - but it's not really enforced.  Mom says back in the day there used to be more of a path actually behind the falls, but it's pretty eroded at this point:

We went a little further, stopped for a while at the pool although we were not among the bunch sticking our feet in:

Then we continued down the creek.  We were debating how far down toward the river we would go, because we only had 2 hours of parking, but we did manage to go the full distance & make it back without getting a ticket  =)  Some of the areas like the pool above have been renovated, but they haven't done the whole path yet & other areas show the wear of years & neglect.  Even those areas have a natural beauty still, just maybe not a place to sit down & enjoy it LOL:

This cliff was made out of sandstone & had a lot of carvings in it: 

Right at the base of the falls & for most of the way down, the creek runs really fast, but then as we got closer to the big river it slowed down & got very calm:

And then we came around a corner & there was the mighty Mississippi =)  I stitched together a panoramic shot, do click to enlarge & really enjoy:

We enjoyed the view for a while, but with no time to spare we started back, along the other side of the creek.  Turns out this was the easy side LOL, the renovations went further down the trail, so we were able to set a better pace & I did mange to snap a few more pics:

We stopped at one more scenic outlook on the way home, and I got a few really nice shots of the fall colors:

This color combination I especially wanted to capture in a manicure, maybe a fall-themed water marble, but I still haven't gotten around to that - and now they're saying snow by Saturday =( so it won't be very seasonally appropriate much longer. 

I'm not usually a huge fan of fall, weather getting chilly, threats of snow, and trouble with my asthma - but days like this was, I'll take anytime =)  Thanks for reading.

~Colette