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

NOTD: L'Oreal Bijou Crystals B. Fearless

This is an old polish that I found once upon a time when I actually had good luck at Dollar Trees LOL.  I've made a couple trips lately that turned up very little polish of interest - I hope to have a haul post up this weekend, along with the other NOTDs I've fallen behind on.  I just spent some time editing & posting up vids, so now I'm going to try & finish the posts to go along with them =)

I don't know how old this line is - I don't remember ever seeing them in the store.  The bottles are small, only 0.2 oz, which is a shame because there are some real beauties ... like this denim-blue holo.  I have a couple of other blue holos, like DS Fantasy (which barely counts), or China Glaze 2NITE, but this color is nothing like either of those.  This is L'Oreal Bijou Crystals B. Fearless:

Here's a look in motion:

My niece has a birthday party tomorrow, but the first snow storm of the season is coming in, there's a winter storm warning, and each forecast I see is predicting more & more snow LOL, so I don't know if I'll really be getting out of the house this weekend unless it is absolutely necessary.  Up to possibly 10 inches over the course of the weekend... but then again if it shifts just a little it will be rain.  Here's to hoping!

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

TOTD: China Glaze Yee-Haw

It's really too cold for sandals now, but I can't stand to have my toes naked.  I've had this on for quite a while now, but it still looks pretty good - I actually just got around to finishing the pics LOL.  2 of the below were taken today, 2 taken a little over a week ago.  From the Rodeo Diva collection, this is China Glaze Yee-Haw:

 

Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette

NOTD: Finger Paints Art of Theft + Holgraphic Stars

Sorry I've been lazy all week =)  Sometimes I feel like if I get on track with one thing, I fall off track with 2 or 3 other things - I've been trying to write every day for NaNoWriMo, and while I spaced out & forgot on the 1st, I've been successful every other day.  But I can't blame not blogging on that, I need to blame it more on my time management skills.  I get lazy - there's no reason I can't put together a decent blog post if I just give it my attention even just during commercial breaks when I'm watching TV for instance.  Edit pics one commercial, write a post the next 2, insert pics the next & post!  So why do I stare blankly into space, or actually watch the commercials like they're going to influence my purchases LOL?

 

I'm not that far behind though.  I only changed my nails twice this week, so I only have one other NOTD to post after this.  This being Finger Paints Art of Theft (It was the Color of the Month for October), topped with some holographic star stickers that I picked up at Michaels.  I used a pair of tweezers to apply them; some I cut in half.  The sheet was multicolored, and I used up almost all of the silver ones - I wish I'd had just a few more of the small size, there are a couple of gaps where I could have used a little more filler, but I quite like the way this turned out:

 

I took most of these pics on Tuesday, which was wonderful & sunny all day - until I went to take pics.  It was so nice I didn't think anything of waiting until after I voted to do my pics, and this is how narrow of a margin I missed the good sunlight by:

 

 

LOL!  So my lesson, which you'd think I'd have already learned by now, is:  don't wait to take pics.  In fact, I've decided I will probably start taking pics during my last break at work, because with Daylight Saving Time ending this weekend, it's going to be practically dark by the time I get home now.  I got a few odd looks when I put this into action on Wednesday, but not too many - most of my co-workers know about the blog at this point.  And those that don't - well, I'm used to a few weird looks.

 

I almost completed my "catch-up project" last weekend with my extra day off.  I plan to finish this weekend.  Then the trick will just be to see if I can keep caught up through the holiday season =) 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette