Sinful Colors - Dream On

I was at Wal-Mart yesterday and saw this amazingly gorgeous purple color that I just HAD to have. Before I put it in my cart, however, I decided to check my spreadsheet of nail polishes (via Google Drive on my phone) and found that I already owned it!

Friday nights, I take my polish off, work on my cuticles and then do a nail treatment that includes a nail growth serum, various nail oils, creams and the like. I let my oils sink into my nails overnight and then wash my hands and paint them the next day. I've been alternating between blues and greens for weeks, however, I absolutely HAD to put this polish on my nails after seeing it again at Wal-Mart!

FYI: This color is a very nearly, practically dead-on dupe for Zoya's Charisma. It's so dead on that I literally have Dream On ($1.99) on my left hand and Charisma ($8.00) on my right. I plan to test them out to see what formula lasts better through the week. I may do another blog showing both hands to see the results.

This two coats of base coat, three coats of polish and two coats of top coat. (If you'd like to know what I use, please let me know!)

This picture does NOT do this polish justice! It's an absolute MUST HAVE!!!! I could see myself wearing this color all year around!!

Until next time,

XOXOXO - Jessika

Money in My Closet

So...

I've made a decision about my ridiculous collection of handbags. I'd already down-sized, quite significantly, a few months back (like maybe 30 to 40 of my faux-leather bags were given away, for FREE!), however, I wasn't as willing to give up the large number of my leather bags (though I did give away two).

As much as I'm all about giving, a LOT of money was spent on bags that were hardly if ever actually carried out of the house! I believe it would be more wise of me to instead put them up for sale and get at least SOME money back.

The hardest part, I'm sure, will be in deciding which bags have to go. Sigh. I've never sold anything online before either, so it's going to be interesting to see how it goes. Fortunately, the merchandise I'm trying to get rid of is in like-new if not brand new condition.

I think I will also post the bags I have for sale in my blog, too, just in case some mystery reader happens to stumble onto my blog and want to make a purchase. I'm almost more excited about that aspect than the Ebay route. Not sure why!

Anyway, please be on the lookout for my very first "blog sale!"

Pray for me, please!

Until next time,

XOXOXO - Jessika

Habit Rotation

I begin to watch another episode of Law & Order Special Victims Unit from season six (which is where I last stopped watching it on  Hulu Plus), a show I have not watched in at least two to three months, and I realize that I have a rotation of habits and it's getting on my nerves.

I go through these cycles of things I do almost obsessively and then just drop like a hot potato for days, weeks, months at a time...only to return to them eventually.

The cycle includes watching beauty YouTube videos, of which I'm super tired and can barely stand at the moment, Judge Judy episodes, the aforementioned Law & Order episodes, cell phone and Facebook games: Words of Wonder, Scramble with Friends, Words with Friends, Candy Crush Saga, Ruzzle, Hanging with Friends, just added Quiz Cross (which I super-suck at but haven't stopped playing yet), blah, blah, blah. I am never into all of these things/games at the same time, but when I'm into them, I'm REALLY into them and it's annoying.

I know the end is near - it's got to be - for all this nonsense and distraction, because I recently committed to DAILY bible-reading, which I'd been slacking on for a very, VERY long time. I find that when I do it in the morning, I'm less stressed at work. This is important because work is my one and only cause of health-affecting stress; I've allowed things that happen there to quite literally make me physically and emotionally sick, and that's not cool.

I'm currently in Hebrews and what I love about this and the previous nine books is that they constantly remind me of how I am to behave, and of the rewards that come from living and doing the will of God.

I also find that I'm able to read the bible for longer periods of time if I read the NIV version; King James and New King James put me to sleep within three minutes. I should have realized this sooner because the last time in my life where I was super-addicted to bible reading and really loving the Word, I was reading the NIV version...until someone stole my NIV Study bible from my car in a Wal-mart parking lot. I still refer back to King James when I'm not sure about the translation of the NIV text; it can sometimes sound unbelievable to me so I need to go back and make sure. It's been checking out so far:).

I long for the day when writing, worshiping God and bible-reading are my ONLY habits/addictions. It's coming...I know it is.

Until next time,

XOXOXO - Jessika

The Blessed Throw-Up

Nice title, no?

Two nights ago, I ate a very healthy dinner (mixed green salad, tomatoes, 1/2 an avocado and two tiny, thin pieces of fish) and a less-than-healthy desert (slice of lemon pound cake and a glass of lactose free milk). I went upstairs a few minutes later, took a shower, then came back downstairs to watch TV with my family. I decided to get some water in me while I sat, so I'd say I drank about 32 ounces of water in about an hour and 20 minutes time. The water tasted funny...but I drank it anyway.

When I went to bed, my stomach felt a little weird but I didn't think much of it. An hour after that, I got up feeling pretty sickly. I felt like I had to throw up but I just KNEW that it wouldn't happen because God and I have an agreement about that sort of thing. I often feel nauseous but I rarely throw up...and when I say rarely I mean it's been at LEAST 10 years since the last time I did so. Maybe more like 15 years...and I never threw up during pregnancy either.

God knows I hate it, can't stand it, would rather sit and have hot lava come out of my butt for an hour than have to throw up out of my mouth for 10 seconds. So, as I paced around in my bathroom, rubbing my belly in a downward motion so as to redirect the storm I was feeling inside of me to my bowels, I felt pretty confident that I'd need to expel soon, and it would NOT be out of my mouth. No way, no how, no sir, NEVER! And then...

My saliva started getting thick, mucus-like, and I got a little nervous but not really worried, you see. Like I inferred earlier, vomit and I are not friends. We're very much estranged and we like to keep it that way...yet my usually dependable bowels didn't seem to want to cooperate in the receipt of the storm I was so desperately trying to redirect to them...

Finally, I resorted to thinking happier, less vomitous thoughts, like thoughts of an empty stomach, a day without having eaten a thing, feeling bouncy and energetic and happy and - wait, why am I on my knees? I swear I was skipping along on the grass on a sunny but breezy spring day when all of a sudden I found myself bent over the toilet. And then it happened....

My body betrayed me in a most violent way. My stomach contents were expelled through my mouth not once, not twice, but FOUR TIMES. I don't recall the last time I felt so...violated. But more than that, and I can't believe I'm about to say this, I felt relieved. I found myself thanking God that the pain and discomfort and sickly feeling were greatly diminished as a result of my having expelled in that way...

Seeing as how God and I have this agreement and all, I could only justify His allowing this to happen because I'd obviously drunk or eaten something that was terribly poisonous and He wanted it out of me as quickly as possible. So, I forgave God for disregarding our agreement and allowing me to throw up:).

I was able to return to bed after brushing the heck out of my teeth and tongue and gargling mouthwash, feeling better, however, I could not lie all the way down. I had to kind of keep myself propped up because I still felt the tiniest bit unsettled. My lovely husband chopped up some ice for me and put it in a baggie for me to relieve my terribly abused throat.

I didn't get to sleep that night and at one point, after my husband had fallen asleep, I found myself feeling really hot and needing more ice. So, I crept downstairs, took a dose of Pepto Bismol, put a fan on blast and sat on the couch for the rest of the night into the morning. I still didn't feel well when my husband came downstairs on his way out to the gym. He gave me more ice and another dose of PB with the promise of returning with ginger ale.

After he left, I took my powerful fan upstairs and was able to fall asleep slightly propped up in bed. Two hours later, I was awaken by my beautiful husband who had a ton of ginger ale, a breakfast sandwich and a little cup of fruit for me to enjoy. I ate about 75 percent of the sandwich, a couple of bites of fruit and about half of the ginger ale when I decided to get up and look at myself in the mirror...BIG mistake. I looked like I'd been slapped 100 times on each side of my face! The exertion behind the vomiting really took a toll on my face. It was pretty scary. It's the slightest bit better today, but needless to say, I packed on the powder this morning in an effort to cover it up. FYI, Physician's Formula Super BB All-in-1 Beauty Balm Powder over my regular BB cream did the job quite nicely!!! (I don't own and I refuse to wear liquid foundation.)

As the day progressed, I felt better and better. I realized I felt 100 percent better around 4:00 p.m., while sitting in the living room watching a Barbie movie, the Princess and the Pauper, that my 13-yes, 13-year-old daughter suggested we watch. I actually really liked it!

This experience has reminded me, once again, of how absolutely blessed I am. My husband is the absolute most loving and perfect caretaker and my kiddies gave me extra love yesterday, too.

Thank you God, for allowing me to be sick so that I could remember just how beautifully blessed I am...

Until next time,

XOXOXO - Jessika

So...

I'm really slackin' on this writing thing, huh? I wish I could say I had good reasons, but, I don't.

I've been feeling a bit down these past few days (weeks maybe) and there's no explaining it, other than my spirit may be under attack; who knows?

I have reached a record of sorts as it pertains to nail polish wear today. I've gone without changing my nail color for seven whole days! It will be eight, actually, if I don't change it tonight, which is what I plan to do. I can honestly say this hasn't happened in months and months, if not for over a year. I've been wearing Julep's Annie on all of my fingers and a coat of Zoya's Snowsicle on top of my ring fingers since last Wednesday. On Saturday, I added another layer of Seche Vite to restore shine because the polish started looking a little dull.

The below terribly blurry and faded pictures won't help you at all if you're trying to get a true idea of what this polish really looks like; needless to say it's way better looking in person. It's a bit deeper and much more gorgeous than my cruddy camera phone will photograph it...
I would, however, like to show you how well the polish has hung onto my nails!!!

Here's my left hand:

Here's my right hand:

I can't even say that the reason I haven't changed my color is because I LOVE this color so much - though I do:). The truth is that I didn't really FEEL like going through the process of changing it.

I used two coats of the polish on top of a single coat of my Julep Nail Therapy and a single coat of Seche Vite (before I refreshed it three days later) as a top coat. I'm impressed with the formula of this polish, too. It's THE perfect cream. I rarely write reviews on Julep's website for colors, but I did for this one. Here it is:

I pulled this out of my collection last night and was thoroughly impressed. The formula is perfection; it's everything we love and expect in a creme polish: very easy to control, super smooth and opaque with ONE coat - though I opted for two to ensure longer wear. I know it came out in Trina Turk's Fall '12 collection, however, when I look at my nails, it makes me feel like I shouldn't be here in the office, but instead vacationing on a beach on a tropical island sipping on something fruity (and non-alcoholic of course!) with an umbrella sticking out of it. LOVE IT!!!

That's all I've got for now...

Until next time,

xoxoxo - J

Pulled this out of my collection last night and was thoroughly impressed. The formula is perfection; it's everything we love and expect in a creme polish: very easy to control, super smooth and opaque with ONE coat - thought I opted for two to ensure longer wear. I know it came out in "TT's" Fall '12 collection, however, when I look at my nails, it makes me feel like I shouldn't be here in the office, but instead vacationing on a beach on a tropical island sipping on something fruity (and non-alcoholic of course!) with an umbrella sticking out of it. LOVE IT!!!

Jessika Mrsmorphosis5 days ago

Pulled this out of my collection last night and was thoroughly impressed. The formula is perfection; it's everything we love and expect in a creme polish: very easy to control, super smooth and opaque with ONE coat - thought I opted for two to ensure longer wear. I know it came out in "TT's" Fall '12 collection, however, when I look at my nails, it makes me feel like I shouldn't be here in the office, but instead vacationing on a beach on a tropical island sipping on something fruity (and non-alcoholic of course!) with an umbrella sticking out of it. LOVE IT!!!

Nail Polish Collection and Donation/Giveway...?

I'm going to share something with you that only a handful of people know...because I literally just found out about it quite recently myself...

Seven weekends ago, I'd decided that I needed to better organize my nail polishes and supplies. After doing some research online, I decided on a red six-drawer storage unit from Ikea called the Helmer. According to one nail polish blogger, it could hold something like 400 to 500 nail polishes...

I figured that it would be perfect for me, because in my own mind, there was no way in the world I had even HALF of that. I thought I could use the rest of the drawers for stuff like nail polish remover, cotton balls, nail and cuticle treatments, etc.

After having my 14-year-old son build the thing, I kind of just filled up the drawers without counting. I decided that my top two fave nail polish brands, Zoya and Julep, should get their own individual drawers. I then put all of my base, top and glitter coats in one drawer, my salon and higher end brands like Butter London, OPI, China Glaze, etc. into another, Avon, Sally Hansen, Sinful Colors and Wet n Wild in another, and finally my Spoiled by Wet n Wild, Revlon, and other random polishes into the final drawer. When I was done, I found myself getting a little upset with that blogger because in my mind, she was way, WAY OFF about the capacity of this thing. I mean, sure, at least half of top/base coat drawer was still available (at the time), about a third of the Zoya drawer was available (at the time) and more than half of the drugstore/Revlon drawer was available, too (at the time), but there was no way I could fit polish removers, files, cotton balls, etc. in ANY of them...plus, the way I was buying polish, I could see that those drawers would fill up way too fast....and I couldn't have had more than 200 polishes!

Two weeks ago, when I made the decision to enter all of my nail polishes into a spreadsheet, I made a shocking discovery...

Without even including my top and basecoats, nor the small handful of nail striper colors I own, my collection consisted of nearly 400 individual bottles of polish. Today, it's well over 400 due to my Julep subscription, a promo box of polishes they were offering for a ridiculously amazing price that included SIX polishes plus some extra hand/nail care goodies, the three Orly polishes I got from Sally's Beauty due to the buy two, get one free sale (for which I also had a coupon!!!), receipt of my pre-ordered Zoya Pixie Dust Summer Collection, some polish shopping on drugstore.com as well as on ebay and Amazon.com, and not even including the 14 bottles of polish I ordered late last week from Zoya's website thanks to their Earth Day/half off promotion that I have yet to receive. Sigh...

I won't feign shame about this discovery. I don't feel remorse or regret about having collected so many nail polishes. My only regret is that I don't have a rockin' awesome camera to post what's on my nails every single time I change it! (FYI: Last night, I put Julep's Ellen on all 10 fingers and layered a little bit of Julep's Chelsea on top from my cuticle to about halfway up my nail on my ring and middle fingers. It's very different from what I usually wear but I like it!)

My Zoya drawer was overflowing and I also wanted to do some reorganizing, so, this past weekend, I went back to Ikea for a second Helmer, this time in Silver - and this time, I built it myself! When I was finished, I was more than able to use the extra drawers for my nail supplies! Yay!

Having said all that, I don't plan to shop for polish for a while. I am keeping my Julep subscription, of course, though I'm going to be more picky about their mystery boxes from now on because they increased the price from $19.99 to $24.99 (and the last two mystery boxes I got, one at the old price and the other at the new one were disappointing - which is why I decided against getting their most recent Sea Salt Mystery Box offering). Also, if/when Zoya comes out with something NEW, I may very well up and buy it simply because I love Zoya like that. But then again, if I'm being honest, I most likely wouldn't have ordered the two collections I just did: Stunning and Irresistible, plus Faye and Snowsicle, if I didn't have that half-off promo code.

This decision comes from a very grown up place within me that understands how irresponsible it can be for me continue shopping for new colors/formulas when there are literally hundreds in my collection that I have yet to try.

Totally random statement: Is it just me, or is Essie nail polish ($8) WAY overrated? That stuff chips on me within two days - even when - and probably ESPECIALLY because - I've used it with her Good To Go (Allegedly) Fast Drying Top Coat. I will admit that I've loved Essie's polish formula - it applies like a dream - but it chips so quickly! I've worn $2 Sinful Colors polishes for an entire week with absolutely no chipping whatsoever!

In honor of Zoya's Earth Day promo, I've opted to do a sort of "donation" of polishes I don't love instead of sending them back to Zoya to be disposed. I put aside about 25 polishes from which my sister is going to get first dibs, and the rest of which I just might bring to church to give to the ladies there...unless someone suggests something more fun to do with them:). There are at least four or five Julep polishes that I'm including in the giveaway/donation because they were duplicates (thanks, mystery boxes! :/). I've gotten THREE Lynn's and THREE Sienna's (one of which I gave to a coworker)! I also got two Dakota's, two Evangeline's, two of a glittery mystery color, two Georgia's and two Sally's. I'm keeping the Sienna's because I'm WAY too in love with them and I think I'm keeping the Sally's, too, though I'm not 100 percent sure at this time. My daughter fell in love with the mystery glitter polish so I let her have her own. That leaves a Georgia, Dakota, Evangeline (a brown holographic) and TWO Lynn's to be given away. The other polishes are from Sally Hansen and Klean Color...I can't remember if there were other brands...

Man, I've said more than I needed to say in this post, but I couldn't help it. I kind of light up and go crazy when talking about this very insignificant-to-life-and-purpose type of stuff :/...

Until next time,

XOXOXO - Jessika

Blog Anxiety

I don't recall feeling like this (anxious) about writing before. At this moment, I haven't a clue as to what I'm going to write, but I felt I had to push myself to do it because for days and days, whenever I thought about writing, I experienced some form of anxiety...

In the past, whenever I'd experienced anxiety about somewhere I had to go, or something I had to do, and I pushed myself to go or do it anyway, the result was always positive...so here I am...

Some instances in which I've felt this type of anxiety, but went along anyway, were:

1. Signing up for technical school, from which I graduated and was able to quit my job as a cashier and then qualify for and obtain an "office job," making way more money;
2. Going to particular church services that always blessed me through messages I really needed to hear;
3. Meeting with the wedding coordinator at the place I really, REALLY wanted to have my wedding (but that I really didn't think I could afford), which resulted in my having a gorgeous wedding exactly where I wanted to have it;
4. Going to an event at my then-best friend's church, which resulted in my joining that church and eventually marrying my best friend;
5. Agreeing to go on various outings with past friends, family members, etc. that I really didn't want to go to only to have some of the best times of my life and/or even meet some fantastic new people!!!

Those are just a few of many, MANY examples. I can't think of any other explanation other than demonic influence that would have me feel so negatively toward things that actually benefited me in very positive ways.

For some reason, the word "Courageous" just popped into my head. I don't mean to brag but it's my feeling that for me to push past the anxiety all of those times was pretty courageous of me. I thank God for giving me opportunities, even now and at my age, to be strong and of good courage...

Another thing that just popped into my head:

Fear is the devil's most commonly used weapon...as well as his most frequently told lie...

Until next time,

XOXOXO - Jessika