Mondays are too difficult to really think. Have some photos of food, wine, work and Comic-con 2011. (It's never too late.)

I've been sorting and organising my hard drive and ran across some photos that never got put up on the blog...not that I meant to ever put them up, but they seem worthy now, I suppose.

Because all I do is whine about work, I thought I'd show you the space I currently work in.  That monitor in front? I set up that whole thing by myself (and broke a nail in the process), CPU and internet and hooking it up to the network included.

Friends and I went wine tasting. If you're in San Diego, I recommend going to The Wine Encounter in Hillcrest!  Thursdays you can do a 5 pre-selected wine tasting for $8!

I also HIGHLY recommend R-Gang Eatery in Hillcrest. Does this sandwich not look DELICIOUS?! It was my own food and I'm jealous of my past self for having it!  We went here for my mom's birthday lunch and oh heavens I am counting the days until I can go back.  For the inquiring minds, it's their Turkey Sandy: roasted turkey, brie, tomato, spinach, sun dried tomato pesto, and basil aioli with rosemary garlic fries. My mouth watered just typing all that.

Current nails. How different do they look in flash and no flash?! Safe to say they're normally somewhere in the middle (also, the no-flash one is suuuuper blurry. Sorry!).  Apologies for the tip wear, they're about 5 days old now.  It's L'Oreal - Jet Set to Paris from their new line. (The glitter overlay is China Glaze - Fairy Dust!)

And I stumbled upon a few of my Comic-con 2011 pictures that I know I meant to put up but never did.  Enjoy how old these are now!

FilmDistrict Signing, where people from Drive and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark were there. That's Ron Perlman, Carey Mulligan (girlcrush<3) and Nicolas Winding Refn (director) there. Hilarious to talk to. Ron was gruff and awesome, Carey was quiet and sweet and a bit tired, and Nicolas was druuuuuuunk.  At the other end of the table was Guy Pearce who was scruffy and charming and held up the line chatting with me.

Zach Levi (from Chuck). This was the last day of Comic-con and we were at Nerd HQ with him.

Yeah I look horrible (I was sick and tired and it was raining and I'd just spent a good 80 hours at Comic-con stuff), but the story behind this is that right as it was my turn to go up and have my 20 second chat and photo with him (I was going to tell him how much my mom loves him!), some bitch girl screams from the street how much she loves him and he changed her life and gave her the strength to really follow her dreams. UH--EXCUSE ME GIRL, YOU'RE INTERRUPTING MY ZACH TIME. I'm totally giving her the stink eye here. (But he did have his arm around my back sothere'salwaysthat)

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New Year Nails

Because my phone was being difficult and wouldn't send the photos, I wasn't able to put up a photo of my nails in that Last 2011 Post I did.  But fear not, because I shall now!

I ended December with these:

OPI - Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous
Seche Vite Quick Dry Top Coat

But when it was New Year's, I was like "Ashley, come on - it's New Year's Eve! How can you not have glitter on your nails?!" Which is a perfectly reasonable question.  So, I added China Glaze - Cleopatra (a lovely gold glitter with some blue glitter) over, and I quite like it!  It reminds me of concrete for some odd reason (if it was super diva-d out, of course), which I'm good with. The shimmer of the grey base went well with all the glitters!

Shade

Direct sunlight

Obviously my nails are already growing out, and there's slight tip wear and a bit of chipping, so I'm thinking tomorrow it'll change.

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Life Through My Phone - Christmas + Holiday Nail Polish!

I've been emptying out all the photos on my phone, so I thought I'd post some of the recent images!  Mostly Christmas and the nails I've had for the month :)

Disneyland! The castle lit up :)

SUPER grainy, but I was at one of my favourite bars (Vin De Syrah - it has a hidden door entrance!)
and some guy was dressed as Elf! Tights and all.

Allll these bags on my bed?  Christmas gifts. In their unwrapped state. 

But I finally started wrapping!  A few of them all done up.

I took a picture of the gift tags I make! You can't tell from the photo, but they're shaded with colour, too :)
These are stamped, but most of the time I'll just draw holly/snowflakes/trees/etc.

Christmas cards! Finished! It was a feat, but so satisfying to see the finished 25 card stack.
(Which all were placed in the post Tuesday, so recipients, it should come soon!)

That beautiful ornament came direct from Poland! My best friend brought it back
from her trip, and it's GORGEOUS. Hand-painted and glittery!

Nails I began the month with :) Lots of compliments on them, surprisingly.
Wore for a loooong time (10 days!). This is the only manicure I've done that I took off
when they chipped and redid exactly again - loved that much!
OPI - Big Apple Red; China Glaze - White On White; China Glaze - Nova (glitter)

Current nails! I think they're Holiday-y without being so obvious.
OPI - Onyx with OPI - Rainbow Connection over it
BUT! That ring finger? Onyx with Essie - Shine of the Times over it. Which is an amazing polish because
that's what it looks like at that moment, but...

moved my hand out of direct sunlight and it's position, and that's what it looks like.
CRAZY, right?! Completely different at every second, and changes depending on the base polish under.

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Happy Halloween!

It's always weird having a holiday on Monday, since it kicks off a week in a very funky way - I guarantee the rest of the week will be confusing and all of us will be thinking, "Gosh thank goodness it's Fri--OH WAIT IT'S TUESDAY."  Not fun, my dears. Not fun.

But anyhow!  Happy Halloween, all!  Did everyone do fun things over the weekend?  I myself...did not.  I literally did not leave the house once.  I did not dress up, didn't see any of my friends. And yes, that sounds really pathetic and sorry in a way, but I enjoyed it immensely.  I feel like I've been running around since...last year.  It's just been non-stop hanging out and birthdays and errands and stress...so it was really, really nice to not deal with any of that this weekend.

I also didn't do anything productive, which kind of sucked...but once again, a nice break. I did continue with my prep for NaNoWriMo, and I started getting all my Christmas lists going.  It feels early, but I know the next 8 weeks are going to absolutely fly by.

Anyone doing anything for Halloween? A few friends and I might just hang out at someone's house and pass out candy, but otherwise, it'll just be a regular Monday for me.  Most important to me is that Halloween means November 1 is the next day - which is the big start of National Novel Writing Month!  I've been stewing on this story idea for 2 months now, so it'll be a relief to finally get it started and down on paper (or a Word doc, as the case may be).

The rest of the week has no solid plans, though Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday are all friends birthdays; so there's bound to be something. Dinners and games and alcohol and maybe even a recording session??  Whoooo knowssss...

Have a wonderful week all!

PS. To finish out the month of nails, these are currently mine:

OPI - Take the Stage; with China Glaze - Black Diamond and It's Alive! as the alternative colours. 

I did take that last one off the day I said I would, but I let my nails be polish-free for a few days since that hasn't happened in 3-4 months.  Until tomorrow, these are mine!

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October Nails

As I've alluded to before, and if you follow me on Twitter you know...I'm a bit of a Nail Polish Freak.  I don't really know how it happened, but I know it's gotten way worse in the past 4 months or so.  I used to only have a few bottles - maybe 6 or so.

Well, at last count, I'm somewhere in the 50-range.  So...it's gotten bad.  It's just something that's so versatile, for relatively cheap (if you know where to look), and it makes me feel happy.  I've never really been a vain person, or one who focuses a lot on clothing/style/make-up/accessories.  But I understand it with nail polish. Oh, do I ever.

So, I thought I'd show you the different nails I've had during the month of October. I don't usually change my polish that often (usually every 6-11 days), but with the ever-present costumes and parties I've been doing, I coordinate them - so this month's gotten a bit terrible. Plus, I can't stand chipped nails, so as soon as polish starts to come off...by the next day I'll have changed it.

Anyway.

Started off the month with:

Bad lighting. I look extremely tan.

OPI - Big Apple Red with China Glaze - Black Diamond tips

Changed to this for my Disney Halloween costume:

in sunlight so you can see it glittering

bad lighting, but at least you can see all the different glitter colours!

OPI - Extra-va-vaganza (Burlesque line)

Which I chipped pretty early because I didn't put enough top coat on, so it quickly turned to this:

China Glaze - Midtown Magic

And then I decided to get Halloween-y 3 days later, so my nails are currently this:

China Glaze - It's Alive (2011 Haunting collection) with OPI - Just A Little Rosti At This (Swiss Collection) tips/blood drips.

As I was typing up this post, my right hand ring finger started chipping (irony?), so tomorrow they'll probably be gone. I'll do another Halloween-themed one, but i have to decide which one first.

Please tell me I'm not the only one with a Polish craze!  Right?!?


PS. I apologize for such crappy photos!  Usually I take them in my car with sunlight (like the last, most recent one), but I've been slacking this month.  Promise to keep it consistent the next time :)

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