Pinterest Pin Test: DIY better than shellac nails

For any girl with chronically chipping nails you know yourself how exacerbating it is to have them chip the same day you paint them. And I've also been amongst those who drop $20 plus to have fake nails put on monthly so I didn't have to worry about re-painting my nails on a daily basis. When Shellac nails became popular I got rather excited to only be disappointed. Not even they could last more than five days and they still cost $20 plus per set.

Well wait no more, because I tested this pin out for the past week and my own DIY home gel nail set are still going strong. I found this idea here, and was even more happy that I wouldn't have to buy a stupid UV lamp, plus splurging lots of money of special nail polish's for a shellac set and not mentioning the top and bottom coats: only one $5.99 product was needed because I could use it with my own favorite polish color.

Necessary Items:
favorite nail polish
Gelous Advance Nail Gel Coat (available at Sally's)
Quick Drying Top Coat

Steps:
1. Layer of Gel 
2. Layer of color
3. Second layer of color
4. Layer of Gel
5. Layer of quick dry top coat
6. Let dry and enjoy!

You can bet I'll be doing this from now on! No more wasting money at Nail Salons for something I can do myself.

Aspen became an adult today

I dropped her off bright and early at Orem Spay and Neuter Clinic to have her fixed. Hope she doesn't hate me when I pick her up. I honestly felt so guilty leaving her, she looked so scared. And she's my little baby, even though she was 'Jared's' she's really become mine.

Loving on her rawhide bone...she's possessive of that like I am of food and that's saying something

We were a little late to the game getting her fixed. I waited and waited after she turned six months old to make the appointment because I was hoping that could wait until she was a year. But after sitting a friends male dog who kept (innocently) humping Aspen even though he was smaller, I decided it was time.

'Good morning mom...WHAT do you want?'

So here's to caring for a loopy puppy, and here's to Adi probably harassing Aspen when she's not going to be too groggy or in pain to move. And here's to her having accidents the next couple of days...oh joy!

Such a curious little buddy

p.s. any tips or tricks to helping them relax and recover?

Say What?: bottom of a purse

In following up with the last Say What? and the fact that I'm giving in to my germaphobe-side I remembered hearing about this a couple years ago and didn't really want to believe it. But after doing the research I got really grossed out. Rather typical.

Following up from not only my new purse, and the fact that its flu/cold season but the fact that the bottom of the average purse has more germs on it then the bottom of your shoe makes sane minds try to contemplate how dirty the bottom of their purse is.

source

From E. Coli and fecal matter, to viruses that cause skin infections and multiple strains of the cold or flu viruses the average purse has anywhere from hundreds of thousands of germs on the bottom to tens of millions. Think about it: everywhere a woman goes so does her purse. On a normal day my own purse touches the floor of the car, to the lunch tables at work, to my locker, to the floor while I put on my coat, to the check out stand or floor while I check out at multiple stores, and back home to my kitchen table.

You may be thinking, "Well that doesn't matter, it's not like I lick the bottom of my purse" but think about where you're transferring all those germs into your own home...kitchen counter, passenger car seat, couch, chairs. and then you or family members might touch those surfaces and then accidentally touch your face or mouth or eyes. And these germs don't die because they're not on a living thing, if that was so no one would ever get sick. Flu or cold virus can live longer than 48 hours and you would think it doesn't survive as long on hard, plastic, or metal surfaces and you'd be wrong. It actually lives longer than on fabric and soft surfaces.

It's really very easy to keep this bacteria and virus transport system ineffective. Just clean the bottom of your purse, and make sure to use Clorox wipes to kill those tough viruses as well. Genius idea right? But honestly, I can't tell you that I've ever regularly done that. Clearly I need to start.

p.s. Worried about hurting your leather purses? There are special cleaners for those.

Pinterest Pin Test: deep cleaning your washer

Yet again, I am all for easy cleaning solutions where no elbow grease is required for successful results. I found this pin really by happen-stance and since we've only had apartment washers that have been in them for years if not decades, thought that this would be ideal to clean them from now on when we move in.

 Here's where I found a great explanation of the how-to which was quite short making it even better.

1. Fill washer with hot water and add 1 qt. of Chlorine Bleach
2. Let agitate and cycle
3. Fill washer with hot water and add 1 qt. of Vinegar
4. Let agitate and cycle

How easy is that?! Love it! Honestly, to see how gross the water was before it drained was NASTY. Anyone who moves into an apartment should definitely do this, and than everyone should do it yearly at least if not more.

Happy Maniac Monday, clean away!

Have you ever heard of...

flour developing mold? Disgusted and baffled doesn't even begin to relay my reaction to finding that the container I had been holding my baking flour in since I got married had molded over in the bottom of the container. I didn't even know mold could grow in flour, like green mold. Fuzzy. Get the picture yet?


I think the culprit of this story would be the containers since they are glass, not air tight, and the lids come off frequently. Could it be where I kept it? On top of the fridge? Maybe the flour I bought was older and closer to going bad? Does flour even have an expiration date? As you can tell, I'm quite uninformed on this topic. Feel free to answer any and all of these questions.

My SIL referred me to these air tight containers in the mean time and I definitely am planning on going and buying quite a couple tomorrow. You know a separate container for my flour, wheat flour, sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, bulk brownie mix, bulk pizza dough mix, and ground coffee (for a bread recipe I often make). So for now, crisis averted. But it's funny that I thought I would be a genius i.e. know everything after I spent four plus years in college. And now that I'm almost done with that accomplishment I realize I have barely scrapped the surface. Scary thought. Especially because I like to know everything. And why yes, I would consider myself a know-it-all.

Trading Up

For quite some time, probably years now actually, my poor well-loved Coach has needed to be put on the shelf and treated as an antique. I've been waiting and biding my time for a great deal on a purse at work and I definitely lucked out! I helped a customer return this purse, and as soon as I finished the return I turned around and put it on hold for myself. Dooney & Burke's for under $100? Unheard of!

Just another reason why I love my job! But my husband hates it. Oh well.

It fits all my absolute necessities without allowing lots of extra stuff that seemed to always accumulate in my Coach, and this also means that I get to cross another item off my Bucket List. 

Nothing makes me happier!

Pinterest Pin Test: moldy showers

As part of my blogging NYR's I wanted to do something that was applicable, and informative. If you're on Pinterest you know that there are tons of how-to's for easier cleaning or DIY's. You may be pinning interesting things, but I want to know that they actually work. So this will be a testing and revising process for those nifty little tips to see if they actually work so you don't waste your time with them if they don't.

The Pinterest Pin test that I selected for this week was something that I was really really hoping would work. It was pretty simple concept for removing the black mold/stain that occurs in the caulking of the tub. Ours was kind of bad when we moved in, and after a year of living here it got to be horrendous! It drove my OCD side nuts looking at it every time I got in the shower, and made me deathly embarrassed if anybody saw it. I was determined to give this one a fighting chance but I was honestly doubtful the whole time. My pin led my to this blog, where it explained pretty basically how to do this project.

All you need for this is bleach, and Beauty Coil from any Sally's or Ulta type store and I would also suggest a disposable bowl to soak the Beauty Coil in which is essentially a 10 ft. cotton ball. Also get the smallest package of Beauty Coil you can find, mine was a 10 ft. box and I barely used up three feet but also it depends on how extensive the stained area of your tub covers. You can always keep the remaining for the next time you need to do it.

Directions:
Fill your bowl with bleach
Measure out the Beauty Coil piece that will cover your black caulked area
Soak the Beauty Coil in the bleach and gently put it on the area, completely covering it
Leave for 45-60 minutes depending on how bad your mold stains are

The 'set up'. Be aware it made the bathroom potent so I left the fan on the entire time.

 

My before picture

And my after picture

Amazing improvement right?! I was kind of suspicious that it was that easy, but definitely the best cleaning trick I've found in a long time. 

Result: It works folks!

Do you think you'll try it? It's so easy I absolutely suggest you do!

NYR or not?

I have always believed in setting NYR's. It's a great fresh start to life. Everyone gets a second chance to change big things in their lives that they want to change. It's the perfect time for a fresh perspective or reflection on yourself and the person you were the year before.  Granted I sometimes loose my way, or forget, or decide I no longer want to do something I goaled for myself. Life gets in the way.

This past Sunday I listened to a huge talk about how this individual doesn't think people should make NYR's because everyday of the year should be an opportunity and that self reflection should be something that happens as needed. I agree with both of these concepts, but why pass up a great opportunity to do it anyways? It's like spring cleaning of the self-development world. Monthly cleaning and daily tasks are required to keep a clean house just like making yourself into a better individual by initiating change throughout the year. But why skip over the deep cleaning or the opportunity to make serious changes when we're encouraged to do so?

Jared and I loosely set some family goals that we both wanted to accomplish I posted about here, but I also wanted to do some serious analyzing about what I personally could do to become a better person. I didn't want to set fluff goals that I didn't really care about and would then fail at, and I didn't want to overwhelm myself either so I limited myself to three large goals.

          1. Financial Goal: pay off both credit cards
                1a. By: operating on cash basis for rent/car payment/utilities/groceries
                1b. By: taking $50 out of each paycheck and put on CC
                1c. By: cut up credit cards and use only in case of an emergency

          2. Physical Goal: train for 1/2 marathon(s) and run @ 9 min. mile pace at least
                2a. By: running 30+ miles each week and increase up to 50+ miles each week by June
                2b. By: get a garmin GPS watch with a pace setter

          3. Spiritual Goal: go to the Temple monthly
                3a. By: go the first Saturday of every month no matter how tired I am from work
                3b. By: set a reminder in my phone

Every month throughout the year I have set Gmail calendar to send me an email reminding me about my goals, I also entered it into my phone to alert me with a monthly reminder, and lastly written them in my daily planner. My goals are rather large, so as you can tell I set smaller goals or how-to's to successfully accomplish each individual goal.

Are you for or against NYR's?
Did you set any NYR's that you think might really stretch your future capabilities/current boundaries?

Tory Burch dress from Nordies

p.s. I also have a blogging NYR. Wanna hear it? A new post series and more outfit posts. I mean come on I work in the Fashion industry for goodness sake!

Say What?: Poo dust

It's a true nasty little fact that every time you flush the toilet dust, poo particles, and multitudes of germs are released into the air. After watching ten quick minutes about this subject in a documentary, I immediately started searching for covered bathroom containers instead of the previous open ones we had. I got one for the q-tips, cotton balls, and another for my hair ties because poo dusted hair ties just isn't an outfit make.

And the main event was throwing away our toothbrushes and then I was on the lookout for a covered toothbrush holder. Why you ask? Well in this Mythbusters episode they had an experiment with 24 toothbrushes, keeping only a few outside the bathroom and the rest inside by the toilet. The results were that EVERY single toothbrush had poop particles on them, but the ones in the bathroom left on the counter were more thoroughly contaminated. To put this in perspective for any of your doubters, the average toothbrush can hold up to 10 million germs and up to trillions! That. Is. Gross. Since we had been leaving our toothbrushes just on the bathroom counter across from the toilet for quite a couple months I had a slight panic attack. Kind of like when you see a spider unexpectedly and just scream out of habit. But more like a Gladiator warrior scream. You get the picture.

The good news is that I found one after weeks of searching. I finally went into Bed Bath and Beyond (magical store right there) and found this glorious invention after some help from a clerk. After over a week of using it I can say that I rest easier when I brush my teeth now (you can't put a price on peace of mind), and I don't find stray hairs in my toothbrush anymore. Totally worth it, and it helps keep your toothbrushes more sanitary so total plus! I promise I'm not a total OCD/cleanfreak/germaphobe kind of person. But the only thing that I would love more is if they made a sanitizing toothbrush holder that is great quality, works, and isn't a fortune...but I digress.

Oxo covered toothbrush holder $19.99

Should this be on your New Year's Resolutions list? I'd hope so. Or you could just go around everyday after brushing your teeth with a poo dusted toothbrush. Nasty thought huh? Morning breath ain't got nothin' on that.