This Really Bugs Me

I have no idea what the scientific name of these things are but there has been an insane influx of them this summer.  The kids call them “stinkbugs” but thank goodness I haven’t had to be the beneficiary of the odor they emit.  Apparently when they feel threatened or are smashed they release something that is quite offensive.  This was demonstrated by one of the soccer dads shaking one up in hands and telling us to “smell my fingers”.  Umm, no and  thanks.  After a few jokes he even showed a trail of “stink” that the critter left.  YUCK.

They are everywhere.  Hanging out by my front door.  Diving toward me when I am entering and exiting my car.  Don’t be caught standing still.  It is almost like they are out to get me.  I hate bugs.  I have said it before and yes, here, I have posted about my weapons of choice when trying annihilate these suckers from afar.  I did find out that the ant spray works pretty well.  It isn’t an immediate death.  It is slow and torturous which I feel they deserve for all of the fear they inflict upon me.

Oh and then there is this thing on my back screen door.

Can I scream now?

Ouch Ouch and Ouch

Ok, it really was that bad physically but mentally it hurt to have to cut my nail off. I'll live. I think I was gardening or something and kept banging my thumb against something. Quite obvious that I lost that battle.

It's So Hard to Say Goodbye..

Just kidding..but I am kind of bummed my nail broke. I knew it was coming but patched it so when it did break the break wouldn't be so low in the nailbed. The day has come to say goodbye to my nail. So long to probably my longest nail ever. Time to start again.



This is my ring finger which seems to grow faster than the others. We'll see.

Am I A Sale Junkie

Oh, geez!! I have done it again. Walked into a store seen a sale and bought things I wasn't even planning on buying. My justification is that it was 75% off. Does that make it okay? I need some input please.

The mission was to find 75% off nailpolishes at CVS. That mission totally failed because there was no polish marked down whatsoever. They DID have some makeup items 75% off though. I strolled up and down the aisle seeing what was what and grabbed a few items. Once it was all said and done I had spent $23.25. WHAT!! The normal price would have been $93.18 so I got a great deal right?

Here is a pic of the items I got.


A lot of lip glosses, some eyeliner, and pigments.

Nine items for that price is not so bad right. The real question though is how much do I need these items or was it just the thrill of the sale. I am going to say the latter because when I left the store I had a sinking feeling that I wanted to spend that money elsewhere. Where you ask? On nailpolish of course.

So here is the deal, all of the HIP products go back because even though I got them for a steal after thinking about it, I don't NEED them and I would rather put the money elsewhere. The rest of the products get to stay. My justification for this is, at $2 a pop for lipgloss and the way my daughter loses it, I may as well stock up for the summer.

With the HIP products going back that puts $11.72 in my pocket which is going toward:

BUNDLE MONSTER IMAGE PLATES!!!

Milani Tricky Treat, I Am Saying Tricky but Maybe Treat

This polish has me sitting on both sides of the fence. First off the color isn't one that I would usually wear. It seemed a little dull initially but the more I looked at it I could appreciate the metallic look. What exactly this color is I was hoping maybe one of my readers could help me out. The bottle looks like a shimmer tan/gray/hint of rose mix. Told ya, I need some help here. On the nail some mix between gray and tan. That sounds odd but I ended up liking it. There is the "treat".


The "tricky" was the application of this polish. Probably one of strangest applications and formulations I have dealt with. First off the brush is thin with not a lot of spread so it took at least 3 strokes to cover most of my nails and then another half a stroke. Thumbs down to that. Then, on top of that, while the polish seems normal in the bottle it applies like an old, thick, goopy polish. CONFUSING. I battled to get a halfway decent (indudge me please) mani out of this. Two coats is sufficient if you can manage to get it all perfect in 2 coats. I surely didn't. Maybe some Konading is in order.


This is the second Milani Polish I have used. The first one, Garnet Gems, gave me no issues at all so I won't form an opinion on the overall brand just yet. There are still a few more Milani's in my untried stash that I am willing to give a shot.

Iris I Was Thinner- NOT

Surely, there had to be some controversy when naming this polish. Sephora by OPI all I can ask is why? Why in this day and age of women of varying shapes and sizes do you name a polish based on wanting to be thinnner. Really, can I paint my nails without worrying about my weight? Of course I could have just not bought the polish as a protest but I am really not that worked up about it. More of a fleeting thought of tacky name, pretty color.

Anyhoo on to the pics...

The flaws and indentations on these nails are quite obvious but I will address that in a moment. First I will just do a quick blurb on the application of this polsih. The polish reminds me of the composition of my Orly Green With Envy. It seems a bit thin but it goes on nice and smooth. Not a one coater, two if you are great and got the 1st coat just right, and 3 if you are like me and need that last coat to smooth everything out and make sure it is all uniform.

Three coats looked great and I applied my top coat and used my OPI Drip Dry drying drops for the first time. I actually just relaxed and watched TV for a while. Then I went to bed and woke up with these horrendous nails with all sorts of dents. What in the world, what about the drying drops, what did I do wrong!?! GRRRRRRR. These darn sheet indentations are going to be the death of me.

FHI Dud...A Little Irked

This really bothers me. Why would a store sell an item it knows it is defective. Over the weekend I went to BeautyFirst to pick up an FHI flat iron. The girl told me they had one left with adjustable heat settings so I told her I was coming to get it. The box was a little beat up but I have seen that before with items on the shelf. Anyhow when I got home and plugged it up to use it my daughter looked at it and said, "Is this supposed to be like this?" The flat iron would not close completely. I looked and tried to be optimistic but there was no way around it something was definitely amiss.

Online research didn't yield any results about this defect so I contacted FHI via the webform on their site but decided to call as well. I explained the situation and the lady said it should NOT be like that and to take it back. This store better not give me any issues returning this. I am kind of irked because I used a 20% coupon to buy it so hopefully if they have another model I want they will give me the 20% off.

This is just such a pain in the you know what more than anything. I desparately need a new flat iron and since my kids now have relaxers and I flat iron their hair it is very important that I get a quality tool that will keep their hair healthy.

Sorry for the rant I just needed to vent once again

Are You Serious Taco Bell!!

The first time I saw this commercial I had to do a double take. Charles Barkley endorsing Taco Bell. It had to be a joke but it wasn't. Each time I see this commercial I cringe. Why would Taco Bell choose Charles Barkley to promote this product. Watching Barkley squeeze through a phone booth and hobble across my screen with his beer belly poking out of his blazer I need to know what the marketing department was thinking. Yes it is a catchy jingle but looking at Barkley painfully waddle through the commercial is enough to make me swear off Taco Bell for life!!

Your Wait Time Will Be 43 Minutes

What has customer service come to these days. I am currently on the phone with customer service for the City of XXXX and after going through an automated menu three levels deep I am finally transferred to the correct line telling me there are 4 calls ahead of me and my approximate hold time will be 43 minutes. WHAT.. how is this okay on any level. Mind you this is a follow up call because what needed to be done has not been done has and it is 2 months later.

My gut thought is that the city budget only allows for a certain number of people to fill these positions. Okay so we can point to the money factor. Budget is an issue everywhere so why not try to maximize what you do have instead of complaining about what you don't

The problem is mass inefficiency. I have called the city so many times on various things and it is just the most inefficient you can get. Once I spend the 43 minutes on the phone I will have someone answer, let me get two words in, and then transfer me to the next queue. I have had so many robots answer the phone that don't want to do anything but transfer to the next queue it is pathetic. I actually got hung up on by one of these people because at the height of my frustration I called her a robot. I didn't yell and I do admit that it wasn't the nicest of things to say but sometimes if they would just listen and let common sense prevail it would be so much easier not to mention efficient. But no, I guess some things are too easy.

UPDATE- I should have looked at the time I called but I didn't so I will let you know that in the time I have been on the phone. I have eaten 2 bowls of cereal, gone to the bathroom, responded to a few emails, and started cleaning off my desk. Needless to say, I am still listening to the same elevator music and my neck is starting to get a little out of whack from holding the phone with my shoulder.

Okay so back to what I was saying about inefficiency. I think the easiest thing to do instead of set up 5 different menu options that lead you in circles cross-train your people. Most of the problems people call about are for billing or loss of service. Surely, they can set up a queue for people just calling to say thank you but I don't think that one is necessay.

Granted there are going to be some issues that need to be escalated to more experienced professionals but that is fine. If the first level of people are cross-trained to handle multiple types of calls and accountable for answering the question and solving the problem the first time that may cut down on a lot of the inefficiency that we the customer get to reap the benefits of.

RANT OVER...it 12:49 PM this post was started at 12:27 PM and I had already been on hold for at least 15 minutes!! I will be happy to come back and update when I am graced with the voice of a human.

UPDATE- It is 1:00 pm and I have a human!! But back on hold again.

UPDATE 2- At 1:08 after getting 1 issue solved and working on the 2nd issue we were disconnected.

My Worst Nightmare..Part 2

This unbelievable. Right when I am making progress, scanning away, getting all of this paper out of my life guess what happens. I am sure you can guess...my scanner(actually a multifunction scanner/copier/printer/fax) dies. This thing jut will not power on anymore. What has me really irked is there were no signs of distress.  Sometimes I can tell when I should start prepping myself to by a new printer, monitor, whatever it is. This nothing. My daughter copied something earlier there was a paper jam which was cleared and all was fine.  A few hours later I hear the sound your computer makes when something is connected via USB. I really didn't pay it any mind until I noticed the blinking alarm light on the scanner. It wouldn't go away so I powered it down and the poor thing never powered back up. We have had it for about 3 years so I guess it may be about time for a new one..who knows.

Bye bye Canon MP780. You were great. I never had any issues (until you stopped working when I needed you the most). Well actually that is a major issue, you should have warned me you were about to go kaput!!

At my office (I am currently self-employed) we have a printer/copier/scanner that is not in use. No fax but I have an e-fax number for incoming and can either scan and email or scan and fax from my computer. My husband suggested to use that one. Great no need to spend money.He just brought it home and guess what again...there is no way on earth I will be able to use this thing. My major need is for scanning right now. This is a Photo printer..not so much for document scanning but scanning of photos it appears. No Automatic Document Feeder (ADF). I am used to taking a stack of 30 or so sheets of paper..loading it in the ADF and scanning it all at once, no more need for me to touch anything. With this I would have to open, put paper in, close, and scan for each sheet of paper. It is not happening. The time vs. money trade-off is just not there for the amount of scanning I need to do.

With that being said there is another multifunction at the office that I will suggest should be bestowed upon me. This is a newer model of my beloved Canon and has wireless networking. All I need to do is set up one of the PC's to receive incoming faxes and for outgoing faxes, hey, they can scan and email or scan and fax from the PC, that is what I would have had to do.

Either way this Photo printer is not going to cut it so we can either swap..or spend the money for a new one.

*UPDATE*-1/14/10- I did get the one from the office on Wednesday.  I was so happy I did a few hours of "virtual filing" last night.  Will try to do another hour tonight. Woo hoo! PROGRESS!

Holiday Smoliday...Bah Humbug...and Ugh!!

Based on the title it is pretty evident that holidays are just not my thing. It is beyond not my thing I almost despise the holidays. Really Christmas. My qualm is the whole commercial factor of it. A few years ago I found myself all stressed out because I didn't have gifts for people. People who I only see once a year around the holidays. People who I don't even talk to on the phone really or email. I had to take a step back and put things in perspective. Now that they are in perspective I still dread the holidays because 99% of the people around me continuously ask me if I am done shopping and blah, blah, blah. I hate shopping the rest of the year so you can only imagine my utter disdain for shopping around Christmas time.

I don't want gifts that you felt obligated to buy. That does not sit well with me. I no longer feel obligated to buy gifts for anyone. If I am thinking of you I will buy you a gift, in May, August, or whenever. Please, people, please open your eyes and stop spending your money on nonsense. Spend time with the people you love. The memories will far outlast anything you can give them.

Okay, my rant is over. I just had to get that out.