Summer Week in Review for July 4 to July 10, 2010

We had a great fourth of July weekend. My younger brother stopped by for a visit and my youngest was happy to entertain him with toys and stories, We enjoyed a good dinner on Sunday with friends and ended our day with viewing the Capitol Fourth on PBS. The concert was great. I was especially touched by the tribute to Erich Kunzel. The program ended on a high note with explosive fireworks set to

Chanel Paradoxal

I was really unsure about why I dropped so much cash on this polish. Chanel is hyped up and I'm never sure if I should buy in to the hype or not. This time around though, I'm really happy I did. Paradoxal was worth it! I love the smoked out feel to it and the light shimmer. Sadly I hate the application. Since I'm paying top dollar, would it kill Chanel to design a better brush? And maybe add a little more shine to the polish? I'll forgive you once, Chanel, since this color is so pretty! I don't think I'll be wearing this much in the summer though, it's definitely a fall color.

OPI Keys to my Karma

What's more perfect for 4th of July then a bright red? I've had a ban on almost all reds from entering my collection for a long time... such a big ban that I only owned 1 red (Ruby Pumps of course!) for the last 2 years. I refused to buy them thinking they were so cliche. But recently something in my snapped and I've gone red crazy. I ordered 8 reds I was curious about, and I have to say, I'm quite happy about them. OPI Keys to my Karma was the one I was most excited about and it did not disappoint. It's a perfect maraschino cherry red with a yummy squishy jelly finish. I swear, I wanted to dip my finger in a glass of 7-Up to see if it could sweeten the drink a bit, that's how good this polish looks! Application took 3 coats like most jellies do and it applied perfectly.

Where To Now Lord??

FROM: PSALM 139
O Lord, you have searched me

and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O Lord.

Crystal and Friend

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths,a you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

We were two young women on the brink of life.
Work mates both in our early twenties..
Neither knew where life was going to take us.
Yet we both trusted in our Lord for direction.
The road wasn't easy, we both had much to learn.
But we survived, because our guide led the way.
We survived because we trusted in Him.
And after almost 40yrs, we both still do.
The secret is believing in His Word...
And remaining strong in Him....
Our Savour, Christ Jesus.

G-Rated Lohanicure

Dear Lindsay Lohan,

You were once super cute. I remember watching The Parent Trap maybe a dozen times when I was a kid. You had talent and a bright future. You should really grow up, kick the addiction and take your career seriously again.

Best of luck to you!

Unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure you've heard that Lindsay Lohan has to do some time in jail. As an aside, my heart weeps for the fact that this made the national news... seriously, Brian Williams? Must have been a slow news day. But her nails, while slightly profane, were seriously cute. She was wearing a pastel air brushed design with a secret message to the judge. I used that as inspiration this morning. I'm not much in to nail art so I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but I actually thought it turned out super cute! I used 2 coats of OPI What's with the Cattitude as a base, then sponged on China Glaze Grape Pop, Heli-yum, and a bit of Essie Pretty Edgy. I used Lincoln Park After Dark and a toothpick for the message.

And really, aren't puppies cuter than the F-bomb? (There's a Friends reference in there for anyone who's a mega-fan :D)


Can't wait to wear Cattitude on it's own, it's a really pretty color!

X-Celling Over Men !

Women seem to like generalizing about their menfolk....but a startling study shows that science is backing them up. Research published in the NATURE Magazine reveals that women are genetically more complex than scientists ever imagined, while men remain the simple creatures they appear to be.

"Alas," said one of the authors of the study, the Duke University genome expert Huntington Willard, "genetically speaking, if you've met one man, you've met them all. We are, I hate to say it, predictable. You can't say that about women. Men and women are further apart than we ever knew. It's not Mars or Venus. It's Mars and Venus, Jupiter, Neptune and who knows what other planets. Women are not only more different from men than we knew....women are more different from each other than we knew; creatures of 'infinite variety' as Shakespeare wrote."

Dr Willard stated that the poor male of the species has only 45 chromosomes to do their work with because the 46th is the pathetic Y that has only a few genes (29) which operates below the waist and above the knees. He observed, "In contrast, we now know that women have a full 46 chromosomes that they're getting to work from and the 46th is a second X that is working at levels greater than we knew."

Dr Willard and his co-author, Laura Carrel, a molecular biologist, think that their discovery may help explain why the behavior and traits of men and women are so different. They learned that a whopping 50% (200-300) of the genes on the second X chromosome in women, thought to be submissive and inert are active, giving women a significant increase in gene expression over men. They explained that women are mosaics, one could even say chimeras (that fabled creature made up of various parts of animals) in the sense that they are made up of two different kinds of cell. Whereas men are pure and uncomplicated, being made of just a single kind of cell throughout.

"Women's chromosomes have more complexity, which men view a unpredictability," says David Page, a molecular biologist and expert on sex evolution at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge. His studies showed that the Y chromosome has been shedding genes willy-nilly for millions of years and is now a fraction of the size of its partner, the X chromosome. Size matters, as some experts have suggested that in 1 million years or even much sooner (100,000 years) men could disappear taking Playboy magazine, the second childhood and pizza and beer with them.

The Way I See It....this means men's generalizations about women are correct too. Women are an inscrutable, changeable, crafty, idiosyncratic species. Their superior gene expression may answer the age-old question about why men have trouble expressing themselves: because their genes do.

My Wednesday walk: Storms

If you live in Texas, you know the weather changes at the drop of a hat. Only here, do you need to keep clothing for different seasons on hand. You could be out wearing shorts and a top and by dusk need pants and a jacket.During the Spring and Summer seasons, storms come and go. The skies can be clear and next moment dark with severe thunder storms. Sometimes, it is not uncommon to hear a tornado