The Nail Files - Gel Mani Kit

As always, I'm linking with Jennie and the rest of the Nail Files Crew this week:

I’ve wanted to try my hand at “DIY” gel nails for some time now. The hold back has been the cost. Sensationail starts at $49.95 depending on where you shop. Sally Hansen is around the same for the polish kits or $29.99 for the strips kit. I was leaning towards the SH Strip Kits, but I just didn’t like the selection offered. I knew Sensationail had a better selection of colors, but just couldn’t bring myself to drop $50 after missing the $10 off coupon opportunity from their website. So I was just biding my time waiting for extra money or a really good deal/sale. Then along came Groupon with the save:  A start kit and two additional colors for about $5 less than the starter kit! SHUT UP and take my money!!!

Here’s what I got:

And here’s what I did:

Here’s my review (my own words/opinion/thoughts with no type of incentive from Sensationail or Groupon for my services).

Overall, I am thrilled with the process! It’s extremely simply and the directions are easy to follow. The colors included in my purchase are great for me and ones I see myself getting a lot of use from. My only problem was the lack of warning regarding the stickiness/tackiness of the base coat, polish, and top coat after curing before using the cleaning solution and wipes.

I’ve only ever had a gel manicure that was administered by one of the ladies at my local nail spot. So, obviously, I’m not touching my nails between polish coatings to see if they’re dry. I let the pros do their job and I sit and get pampered. I didn’t know that, just because your nail has “cured” in the LED box/dryer that the polish would not be “dry” (by most people’s standards). Think regular polish that has air dried for about 10 minutes but you can still easily put your finger/hair print in it if you touch them. 

The direction say (paraphrased):  base coat, 30 seconds curing, color, 60 seconds curing, 2nd coat of color, 60 second cure, top coat, cure 30 seconds, wipe with cloth and cleaning solution. My mind interpreted the curing for drying. So imagine my freak out when I lightly touch my nail and my finger sticks a little! Seriously freaked out panic on my part. I was on my first coat of color, still freaking out, when I decided to Google this issue. Thankfully I found a review on Amazon by a lady that brought up this issue and how it gets resolved….the cleansing wipe at the END of the process. Calm ensued and I was able to finish. The end is when I realized I’d skipped the second coat of color, but I’m okay with that. The grey is just thick enough with one coat that you can’t really tell two were needed.

So I’m two full days into the manicure and all is well. No chips or peeling corners that aren’t related to broken nails (cause I’ve done that already, no surprise there). But I haven’t been hard on my hands either – no kitchen duty lately, no boxing on Thursday like usual. I’ll keep you posted on how they do. I also want to test out the base and top coats on regular polish to see if that will add some variety to the color spectrum (and the possibility of doing designs and such). We shall see.

Happy Friday, dolls!

Life Updates...Long Overdue

As you may, or may not, have noticed, I've been a little MIA here lately. There's been a lot going on since I was let go in July. Actually, there's really only been two things going on, but they seem to be pretty time consuming.

First things first - I HAVE A NEW JOB!!!

As someone who has worked more than half her life, not having a job (even for a month and a half) was very emotionally draining on me. Granted, we could survive without my paycheck, but barely. And, again, there's that whole thing about me having a job for the better part of half my life. I started working for my dad when I was 13 making $3-5 an hour helping him with his deliveries as a route salesman in Alabama. When I was 15 I got a "real" job with a local dollar store where I worked through my senior year in high school. When I started community college I was in the work study program on the days I had class, and was working at K-Mart the days I didn't. When I moved out, I got a job in housekeeping at a beach hotel. I've even done a 2-month stint in the fast food industry. My last job I was at for a little over 10 years. All this work history doesn't include all the babysitting I did ages 10-18 for various families in town we live in.  (FYI...never let a 10 year old baby sit your child, unless they have younger brothers and sisters or they're parents are home with them or in close proximity. I had NO IDEA what I was doing!!) I have worked a lot in my life. If I had to put them in order of worst to best (based on what my experiences were) it would be:
1.  Food Service (AKA - Fast food)
2.  Housekeeping (Cleaning my own mess, no biggie; cleaning another's, DISGUSTING)
3.  Babysitting
4.  Retail, especially dollar-type stores
5.  Anything that requires travel (the scenery and perks are great, but the hassle of security and such, as well as being gone from my husband every other week finally took it's toll)
6.  Office work of any kind

I love office work! Which is what my new job is! I am the receptionist for the Temecula Office of California Baptist University Online and Professional Studies. The office I work out of is a half mile from the apartment, so I could walk to work if I wanted (which I have done a few times now - it takes 15 minutes). It's also located at the mall (which could be very detrimental to my wallet and healthy eating). Right now I am one of two full time workers at this location. The other is one of the admissions advisers who handles the area we're located in and down to San Diego for enrollments. We also have three student workers that rotate throughout the week. Because we are located at the mall, we keep mall hours:  1pm - 9pm. My hours are 12 pm to 9 pm. My coworker usually comes in earlier as she meets with students and prospects throughout the day. I close with a student worker.

I love that I have stayed in the Online Education industry as that's what I'm most familiar with (my previous job was with an online university). It's very different because of various things (accreditation, degrees offered, the campus and/or hybrid options, etc), but I am loving learning these new things. And I really enjoy that I'm not traveling anymore. It's nice to be home every week with my husband for a change.

The other new change in my life is I am officially a college student, again!

While I was unemployed I decided I would start back to school as I didn't know how long I'd have all that free time on my hands. So I started the process with American Military University (no, you don't have to be military or former military to enroll with them) to enroll in a Bachelors program for Marketing. I started my second class today, Intro to Business.

I am so excited about this new chapter in my life too! I mean, I work in the education industry and I don't have my degree yet? How stupid can I be?! But I'm glad I waited...had I gone through my last employer it would not have been an accredited degree. Nor would it have been something I wanted...BS in Psychology. I could have done Marketing with them, and I was going to...but then I got let go and I moved on quickly. (I wanted no ties after the way the treated me.)

So that is the latest in my life. I'm still doing Weight Watchers...and I'm still holding steady at the 15 pounds lost mark. I have started a boot camp class in the mornings, twice a week. I'm hoping that will help kick-start the plateau I seem to be at. I've been doing it for two weeks and there hasn't been much change, but I had a few other things happen this last week that may have derailed it. So this week is the week to see my move beyond 15 lost to 17 lost (or more). I'm ready to do this!

Thank you for your patience with me. Now that I'm officially on my new work schedule and my class has started, I'm hoping to get a regular schedule going so that I can get back to blogging more. Until then...

Cheers, dolls!

The Nail Files

So, as I'm sure you are all aware, it has been SOME TIME since I've done a post of any type. I am not overly proud of that as I really have loved blogging. But I've been busy...and lazy. But more on that in another post.

Today is all about my nails.

About three weeks ago I splurged and went for a mani/pedi. If you've followed my nail posts at all in the past you know I only do gel polish on my nails cause I can't keep a manicure longer than 24 hours if my life depended on it.

Here's the original look:

I don't know the name of the color, but it's purple burgundy with a layer of lovely glitter.

A week and a half later, we had this:

In the grand scheme of things, the polish probably shouldn't peel this soon, but I'm really okay with the fact that I had a great manicure for a full week!

Not long after that picture was taken, the middle finger and ring finger polish was the rest of the way off. Now, I peel the polish off when it starts snagging on stuff. I'm not playing with it trying to make it come off. So that kind of left me in a quandry...I had three bare nails and two with polish that wasn't budging. I turned to my collection to see what I could find:

(Forgive the messy edges) This is a Julep polish from last month, Padme. It is an almost perfect match! (It's more the than gel polish, but you can only tell in certain lights). I was so excited!!
As of yesterday afternoon, this is what we had on the nails:

My thumb nail gel was hanging on for dear life two and a half weeks later. I finished it off when I got home last night.

Today I'm sporting jacked up nails...thumbs with no polish, an index finger with no polish, and two ring finger nails with half the polish torn off thanks to the shower this morning. It is, clearly, time for another manicure. I think I'll be doing my own this time.

I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! I look forward to reconnecting on here in the coming days/weeks.

Cheers, dolls!

Weekly Weigh In - Week 30

So it's been 30 weeks. I'm more than half way through the year. And I don't really feel like the results are there that I wanted to be there. But I'm going to keep going!

Today's Weigh in (because I missed it yesterday):  233.1
Difference from last week:  -1.4

WOOHOO for a loss this week! I don't really know what I did to make that loss happen. But I'm glad it did.

I think, no, I know that I need to do something different. I need to have more healthy foods in the house. And I need to work out more.

But right now, healthy food is too expensive for a couple only having one income.

And I have no motivation to work out lately.

Hopefully the mindset will change when I get a job. I'll feel like I'm contributing more and will be able to focus more on what I want to do and get done.

So, happy Tuesday, y'all. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Oh, and speaking of the job, I hope to have some good news on that front before the end of the week!

Weekly Weigh In - Week 29

Despite two work outs this week, I gained a little.

Today's weigh in:  234.5
Difference:  +.06

It's not a big change, but it's a gain. And I'm not happy with gains.

I need to do something a little more drastic to get things going again.

This is going to be short. I don't have much else to talk about the weight loss today.

Happy Monday, y'all!

The Job Hunt

After being informed in April that my position was in jeopardy, I came home and began working on my resume' and started looking for new employment options. Let me tell ya, the pickin's are slim!

I have over 10 years of administrative style experience, but I have no degree. Many of the positions I found wanted a minimum of a Bachelor's degree, plus experience. Some I would apply for anyway.

I had an interview the beginning of June for a receptionist/administrative role at an online company based here in the city I live in. And that was the last I heard of that position. The clue that I didn't make the cut was when I found the position advertised, again, three days after my interview. I was a little annoyed because I honestly thought I rocked the interview. Guess I was wrong.

But I kept looking. I put my resume' in to Monster and Career Builder. And I kept looking at Craigslist. In my opinion, Career Builder seems to have more opportunities listed. But both were turning into a bust. I also checked the websites for all the major organizations here in town that are the biggest employment centers for our city. Again, nothing.

Finally, three weeks ago (5 days after getting let go) I stumbled across an ad, on a newspaper site, that one of the many colleges here in California was hiring. I went to the HR section of their website, and they had quite a few positions available. I applied for a receptionist position at their local office and a position in their student accounts department at their main campus (a 45 minute drive). I got a call for an interview for both positions on the same day!

I had both interviews last week:  student accounts on Monday and receptionist on Friday. I think I did very well with them. I was told at the student accounts interview that it may be a couple weeks before I hear back because they were in the end of the year audit. Both positions require a three interview process:  the initial interview, an interview with the department director, then an interview with the university's president. (obviously, the pool of prospective employees gets smaller at each level)

Monday of this week I got a call to schedule my second interview for the receptionist position. I had that yesterday. I think I did well. In fact, one of the people that was in the interview on Friday was in the interview yesterday. As he walked me out he said I did well.

Of the two positions, I'd prefer the receptionist position. It's here in town and not far from the apartment. Job duty wise, either one I would feel comfortable in. I would just prefer to not drive an hour and a half each day. But, let's be honest here, I can't really be too picky right now, can I? LOL!

I'll keep you posted on how things go!

How I Became Unemployed

I've been toying with whether or not I wanted to share this. I've decided to tell my story. Names have been omitted to protect the guilty and the innocent. If you know me in person, you'll know where I worked, but probably wouldn't know the people anyway. I've left that information anonymous too.

In April, while I was at the main offices for my quarterly visit, a meeting was called for all in my department. We were told we would be merged with another, given a new director, and our current director was going to be a part of a new team with a different title. The how’s and why’s were not really discussed. Neither were the details on how it would all come into play and when the official change would be made. The VP of the whole would be gone for two weeks and the former director and new director were to work out the changes to be put in place when the VP returned.

FYI – here is the old organizational chart:

          VP

o   New Director (who’s been under VP as long as old director)

*  Supervisor 1         

·         Team

o   Old Director

*  Supervisor 2

·         Team

New organizational chart:

          VP

o   New Director    

*  Supervisor 1

·         6-7 from team

*  Supervisor 2

·         6-7 from team

Two days later, another meeting took place with the new director and her team, the old director and his team. We discussed how we did things and what would need to change. The two teams were re-assigned to the two supervisors. There would be more meetings to come with individuals to discuss how they would now be utilizing their positions and changes to their duties.

Friday of that week, my last day before going home, I met with the new director and two supervisors. I was told, by the new director, that she wasn’t sure she wanted me on the team because I do not live locally (with the changes, I was the only person on her team that hold the title “outside rep” because I do not live local to the main offices) and that hasn’t worked well for her in the past. I was asked if I would relocate back to AL/FL. The answer was “no,” even without consulting my husband. I was then told that she would need to discuss with the VP what would need to be done.

For two months I was in limbo. No new trips were approved and anything beyond what was already booked was cancelled…for the new team members. The old team members were still “business as usual.” I was back in CA by now. I had a phone conversation in May with the new director. I was no closer to an answer on my status than I was in April.

In May I made arrangements to visit my husband, who was in Andalusia to train a new call center. There was also supposed to be a team meeting at the main offices. So, even though I was on vacation, I made arrangements to drive down so I could be a part of that meeting with my full team. Honestly, the day ended up being a waste of time and nothing was accomplished that was supposed to be accomplished. But I made the effort and I wanted that on record to the lady who was trying to get rid of me.

In June I was finally able to get a trip approved. It ended up being my last.

On Monday morning, July 8, at 8 AM, I got the phone call that I knew was coming. I was being let go. I think my favorite part of the call was how the director used various excuses that were never an issue before that phone call. But I have a feeling she couldn’t fire me because she didn’t want me on her team. “Having a remote rep hasn’t worked well for me in the past” is not a valid excuse when firing someone, so you must come up with other reasons that have never been addressed in the past.

* Low productivity – my job had never been about numbers. There was never a quota to be met at any event. They had just started looking at numbers in January, but there still was never a quota for trips.

* Not finishing my Bachelor’s degree – I was never told I HAD to have it or given a time frame to complete it by, even though the position technically required one for all new hires.

* Lack of initiative – I’m sorry, who took a day from her VACATION to sit in on a team meeting that she hadn’t been required to be a part of?  (FYI – this reason makes me mad more than the others do)

Those were the three reasons she actually gave, along with the term “various other reasons”.

So there you have it. The story of how I came to be unemployed.

Oh, and FYI – I had been with this organization for ten years!

I'm currently on the job hunt. I had two interviews last week and I had a call back for one of them. I go for my second interview for one of the positions tomorrow afternoon.

And, thankfully, despite the pressure of being jobless, I feel so much less stress in my life now!