Somehow there's a lot of sports in this post. Also, a Ten on Tuesday!

Last monday, despite my very public dislike of basketball, I found myself at a Clippers game.

Truthfully, it wasn't terrible. I mean, I like sports and going to any sporting event is always fun. My brother's been a Clippers fan for over a decade (before all this "Chris Paul turned around the team" bullshit), and it was awesome to see him so excited about the team and seeing everyone. We were fairly high up (top section), but in the front row so it was actually pretty good. It figures that the one game I'd be at is the one with Blake Griffin's "Dunk of the Year" on Kendrick Perkins. But hooray for the Clippers beating the Thunder! I had no idea OKC is first in the league, because they were not playing like it.

That monday also kicked off my week-long break from work. I don't know why every job doesn't allow a week off after a few weeks; I felt so much better and refreshed heading into work this morning! I didn't do too much during my off time; mostly read, a lot of sleep, some seeing friends but not too much. It figures that the new layout code I was about to launch would not be compatible with the threaded commenting feature Blogger is now offering, so I've also been working like a madwoman reworking all of it for this blog and my book blog - I think I'm giving up and just going to customise the shit out of a Template layout. I want those threaded comments, man!

Anyway. I'm back at work this week but will probably take advantage of my working-at-home status towards the end since I'd quite like to not waste gas going all the way into the Pacific Beach office.

Onto the Tuesday questions!

PS. OH WAIT, one last thing! Though I cannot stand either the Patriots or Eli Manning, I have to admit the Super Bowl was a moderately entertaining game. Boo for no more football :(

Hosted by Chelsea!

1. How do you feel about Groundhog’s Day?
Do people normally have feelings about Groundhog's Day? I had no idea. It's just another day, although I do notice an increase in groundhog-related tweets that day. I suppose that makes sense.

2. What color are your fingernails right now? (Bonus points if you include a picture.)
A shimmery brown! Zoya's Cheryl.

Sun glare FTL.

3. Do you like riddles?
I do! I'm terrible at solving most of them though. I really like word puzzles, but if it's riddles that just make me go in circles, I give up pretty easily.

4. When you were 10, how old did you think “old” was? At your current age, how old do you think “old” is?
When I was 10, I thought 20 was old. A fact that disturbs me now, but I was 10! Now at 24 (2 months shy of my 25th birthday!) I tend to think 60s is old.

5. Do you wish on stars?
I do. Not often, but if I'm feeling particularly astronomical or my-fate-is-in-your-hands-y, I'll do it.

6. Do you recycle?
I try to! We do at home (cans v. plastic v. paper v. waste), but we don't at the office - which makes me angry since my office uses SO SO SO much paper.

7. On a scale from 1-10, how good of a cook are you?
Hmmm...I'd probably put myself at the 6.5 - 7 scale. Definitely not bad, but nothing to write home about. I always want to try to improve, but it's time and energy and I've yet to really put it as a priority.

8. Do you color your hair? Professionally or at home?
Never. I donate my hair almost every time I get it cut, and you aren't allowed to donate dyed hair. Plus, mine is naturally black with brown and red streaks/chunks, which I actually like.

9. On a scale from 1-10, how do you rate your manners?
Ohhh dear. I would think I'm a 9 since I'll occasionally forget to say 'thank you' if something is done for me while I'm not giving it my attention, but I try to be a perfect 10! I say all my please and thank yous, and I always try to be pleasant and considerate. People like to give me shit when I say "pardon?" if I need something repeated.

Wait, cursing isn't considered bad manners, right? I mean, I don't do it at people. Because if it does count well...we'll just slide my butt down to the 7 on the scale.

10. Who are the last 5 people you have texted?
1. Brother
2. Alexis (co-worker; I brought them cupcakes and needed to know flavor requests!)
3. Kathy (best friend & co-worker; no explanation needed)
4. Amanda (brother's gf/my friend)
5. Enzo (co-worker)

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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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Some November and December things

Well kids, in case you missed the NaNo post - I did it! I hit 50,000 words on November 21 (probably Nov. 22, it was late in the night/early in the morning). I'm officially going to validate my novel today at 2pm since I wanted to get as much done as I could in the deadline. As I type, my current word count is: 67,556. So hurrah!

I meant to post up my nails every week, but failed on that - which means a mass photo dump at the end of this post of all the ways I've worn all my nails this month. It's sad how many times I've changed it.

Because I am seriously the worst at time and math and all of that, I'm letting everyone know in advance that I'll be a guest poster over at Girl With Curls!  My post of 10 Christmas Things That Make Me Happy will be up on Friday - HOWEVER, it will be posted up at 1pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. Which confuses the crap out of me as to the time here PST...if my math is right (HA!), it's roughly ~13 hours time difference. Which means it'll be up at 11pm Thursday for me? Maybe?

THE POINT is that sometime at the end of the week, Jess at Girl With Curls is gracious enough to host my Christmas post, and you must go check it out! She's got an entire Christmas series going while she's on holiday in Melbourne, so I encourage you to go check out her blog at any time - she's cute and awesome and you'll love her.  I'll remind you later, of course.

Does anyone else think all Christmas stuff has started earlier? I know stores were starting in September, but I mean...everyone seems to be in the spirit these days! I honestly feel like I'm one of the last ones without my tree up. Seven houses in my neighbourhood have their houses lit up already, and so many friends on Facebook have put up pics of decorations already. I support it since I've secretly been playing Christmas carols in my car for 3 weeks already, but still...DAMN yo.

Anyway, Happy Wednesday all!  Hope your week's been well and the rest is even better.  Onto the recap of polish!

Essie - Bobbing for Baubles. LOVE the colour, but this was my first time using an Essie polish
and I had the WORST problems with chipping. I paint my nails before I go to bed, and by the time I brushed
my teeth in the morning, a good 5/10 were chipped. Disappointing.
Also, my fingers look SUPER dry, but my camera was too sharply focused and I don't have Photoshop to fix it :(

The only pic I took after I tipped my nails to cover all the chipping. Used China Glaze - Black Diamond as french tips.
(PS. Isn't my Tigger cup adorable?! It's striped inside.)

Dark, but you get the picture. OPI - OP-I love this colour.

A few days later added China Glaze - Twinkle Lights to the cuticle. Nice winter effect!
Crappy photo that doesn't display all the wonderful Christmas-y-ness of the polish, but no worries:
it'll be used tons this Holiday season.

I was trying super hard to get a good photo of this polish because it's so flashy and GORGEOUS. But it's near impossible.
OPI - Warm & Fozzie (Winter/Muppet collection) in the sunlight.

OPI - Warm & Fozzie (from above) in the shade/dark.

And the nails I wore for Thanksgiving (and currently still have - they're chipping like mad though!)
Tape manicure with OPI - Warm & Fozzie and OPI - Romeo & Juliet. Super sparkly.

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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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