About the Shamrock

This week we have been learning about the symbols of Ireland and one of the them is the Shamrock. A shamrock has three leaves joined together on one stem. Each leaf is shaped like a heart.Specifically, a shamrock is what is known as a trifoliate plant, meaning a plant upon which each individual leaf is divided into three smaller leaves, or sections, generally each of the same shape and size.

Greens #10, 9 & 8

I was trying to save my most anticipated greens for next week, but caved and put on OPI Jade is the New Black today. I was hoping it would live up to the hype, and it totally did! I can tell I'm going to be wearing this one a lot, it's the perfect dusty cream green. It applied flawlessly and was perfect in 2 coats. Also I filed down my nails yesterday, it seems like every 3 weeks my classes all pile up big papers and projects and I do a lot of typing. It's so much easier to do the work with nubbins!

It's raining out today (OMG rain! I've missed you!) so I took pictures under an Ott light. I've never done it before but this picture is completely accurate!


I swatched China Glaze Paper Chasing yesterday. I adore this color, so much so that I wore it for 4 days straight last August. But when I took it off I had terrible stains, so this is another one I'd steer clear of. If that doesn't deter you, it took 3 coats to get this and it chips easily. I was sad about this one, it was one of my most anticipated from the Kicks collection. And green #8 was butter LONDON Thames. I like it, but it's similar to the Essence I wore a few days ago, and I like the Essence much more because it's less blue. I'm swapping it away; I won't miss the color but I will miss the little square bottle... so cute!




Also MAC's Liberty of London collection came out yesterday, YAY! If you're interested in the Blue India NP you can use the code LIBERTY and get free shipping with no minimum amount. My awesome mom placed an order for me last night, along with a bunch of lipsticks I've been lemming. I'm pretty excited!

GOOD MENTAL HEALTH is...........

The Joy of Caring and Sharing.....simple life pleasures.

Shamrock Sun Catchers and St. Patrick's day Books

This week we are reading books about Shamrocks and St. Patrick's day. Today, we read two wonderful books.St. Patrick's Day in the Morning by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Jan Brett.It is a story about a little boy Jamie. He wants to be in the St. Patrick's Day parade, but his family has told him he's too young to make it all the way up Acorn Hill, along with everyone else in the parade. Early the

St. Patrick's day Decorations

Around here we love March, for three reasons.. The first reason is my birthday comes a three days before St. Patrick's day. Secondly, my husband is Irish and we celebrate St. Patrick's day and the third reason is Spring season begins in March.

With that in mind we started decorating our home. The boys and I made our own borders for our Calendar and added lovely green shamrocks.

We did not stop

Greens #5, 6 &7

I just put on my 7th green and I'm loving this theme month. I've been saving my greens for so long and pulling them out now is so much fun! Yesterday I put on one of the Sally Hansen HD's, Hi-Def. These came out last summer and this green was actually the start of my collection. And it was a big sad disappointment. Streaky, sheer, and so many bubbles! Also since this was the first nail polish I had worn in 8+ years, my family teased me about my "Kermit fingers". They've gotten used to my love of greens now though so it's all good. But even though I didn't like the formula on this HD, I bought another 5 colors, mostly because I didn't know where to buy other nail polish in my tiny town and I still hadn't heard about Transdesign (discovering that was like the best. day. evar.), and partly because the rainbow of 8 colors looked so cute together. Anyways, I pulled it out again yesterday to see if my feelings had changed about it.... Nope. Still hate it. This was with 4 sloppy coats.



I only wore Hi-Def for about 45 minutes before pulling out one of my new Sally Hansens, Going Green. I've never tried Xtreme Wear, but I loved it! Check out this green! I thought it was a cream and was a little disappointed when I brought it out in the sunlight at home and saw shimmer, but after wearing it I was really happy with it. This is with 2 coats. I liked the application with this, the brush was pretty wide but super manageable; this picture was taken with no cleanup! I'm such a klutz and I've never been able to stay in the lines but this polish made it easy.



I've been stalking my Walgreens and even Walmart for 10 days trying to get the new Maybelline Minty. A wonderful NBer read about my plight and offered to swap me her extra, which arrived yesterday. I just put this one on for green #7, and wow. Wow. Wow!! This is my new favorite mint! The application was maybe not as smooth as my all-time favorite, RGB Minty, but it was a lot better than 90% of my other mints. The first coat was streaky, the second evened it out a bit, but the third coat was flawless perfection. I need to go back to stalking the drugstore so I can get a back up!




I also did a quick comparison swatch but I didn't take the time to clean up as acetone is drying out my skin terribly, so please excuse the mess. Left to right is China Glaze Re-fresh Mint, Maybelline Minty, RGB Minty and Essie Mint Candy Apple. MCA doesn't really have anything to do with Minty, but it seems like everyone has MCA so it's a good one for comparison.



I'd also like to let you all know that in addition to being a klutz with nail polish, I'm totally forgetful. Wonderful reader Isa asked me who the winner of my Who Loves Purple? giveway was and I realized I completely forgot to post the wrap up! Reader Caitlin, who is new to nail polish, won 3 awesome purples to expand her collection. Congrats, Caitlin!

I'm planning on doing another giveway sometime in April and was planning on doing a theme of my newest obsession, coral. But since YOU guys are the one winning polish, I'll let you decide! Vote in the poll on the sidebar for which color family you'd like to win! I'm also accepting write-in votes, leave a comment on this post with your suggestion.

AMAZING MAIL

In the valley's back of beyond where I live there are mailbox's to delight the Postie's ride. Awaiting a letter with anticipation from a loved one is fast becoming a memory. We are a faster world with emails replacing and making the other, obsolete. As a country girl I grew up having to walk over a mile to the local postoffice to collect the post. What a joy to find a personal handwritten letter. They were kept, treasured and re-read. I had two Penpals, one in Japan named Hiroko and one in Texas named Mary. I still possess those letters... written so long ago.
And stamp collecting. We'd moon over the pages of beautiful designs from distant lands. Swapping and bargaining for the one sort-after was a thrill. Will that all soon become just a recollection from the past? ....probably! 
So start keeping letters and you'll have a piece of history to pass on, when they are only a vague memory.
All photo's are original .....enjoy.

Queensland Australia