Occupational Hazards: Why I don't Paint my Nails Anymore

As a jewelry maker, I work with lots of wire and chain and jump rings, and all of these things are like the evil villains that hate nail polish.  When I first started working there in September, I still painted my nails sometimes.  And you guys, I can chip my nail polish ridiculously easily anyway.  If I click my mouse wrong, my nail polish will chip.  It's pretty crazy.  Jewelry making is not the friend of pretty colored nails.  My nail polish would chip the instant I started to make a necklace and only get worse and worse throughout the day.  And I like having pretty nails, but I hate painting them, because drying times force me to just sit and watch a movie or something, and as you may recall, I'm a multitasker.  I was organizing my room yesterday and came across my nail polish.  I have a lot of it, not as much as some people, but for never painting my nails, it's a lot.

But nail polish actually works as a way to personalize jewelry stuff and make it even cuter.  I got a whole bag of broken/mismatched jewelry the other day and I intend to use all sorts of nail polish on it (in a way that looks good, obviously).  And remember that cute jewelry box I thrifted that looks like it's missing something on the door?  Well I think I can do something cool with white nail polish.  So today I'm feeling pretty crafty.  I might even do battle with my sewing machine!  We'll see.

What creative uses do you have for nail polish?

Food Friday: Bucket Listing

I checked an item off of my bucket list!  I ate at a food truck!  Well, technically it was a food cart, but that's as close as I can get to a gluten free food truck (at least in Seattle).

Since I first discovered them, they have gotten a second food cart.  They are called I Love My GFF (GFF stands for gluten free food), and their food is all gluten-free and mostly organic.  It's also super healthy and it tastes amazing!  And it's really affordable.  Each of these bowls cost $9.50 for the 16 oz. size, but they last for two meals because they are so filling.  And if you eat gluten-free food, you know that you really can't beat that price for a delicious and filling meal.  There are two kinds of quinoa bowls on their menu, and chocolate chip cookies.  I bought two of each kind of quinoa bowl after tasting the free samples, because I wanted to have some again later in the week too.  They also gave me a free cookie!  Everything was really yummy.  I preferred the Sunshine Bowl over the Fiesta Bowl, but enjoyed them both enough that I would order them again.  If you're a vegetarian, you can order either of these bowls without chicken.  They both have sprouted quinoa, pumpkin seeds, chicken, red peppers, and green onions.  The Fiesta Bowl is sort of a Mexican style, with black beans, avocado, green onions and their special Fiesta Sauce, as well as the previously mentioned ingredients.  The Sunshine Bowl has more of what I would call a summery flavor, with cannellini beans, carrots, broccoli, and their special Sunshine Sauce, as well as the previously mentioned ingredients.  They both have a great balance of flavors, textures, and colors.  And the cookies are really good too.  They taste just like a great chocolate chip cookie, without any weird texture at all.  I highly recommend this food cart to everyone in Seattle.  G tried it too and also loved it, so much that I gave him one of the Fiesta Bowls, which was his preferred flavor.

All Work and All Play

Makes me a well-balanced person, I guess.  I've been doing a lot of work lately, staying extra at work and then working on my own shop stuff when I get home.  But it's fun work.  I'm making flower crowns for my shop!  So before they're crowns, they're a pretty bouquet in my room.

fake flowers in a vase that I thrifted today for $1!, plus a sneak peek of my art wall

And I got my new game the other day, so that's awesome.  (It's one of the ones that needed funding help, Pandora: Purge of Pride)  The weather was finally nice enough to go hacky sack in the park yesterday, so I did that for almost an hour.  Then I accidentally made new friends who live in my house and one of them made a big dinner for all of us, that I could actually eat :)  (Let's call him The Chef)  It was really tasty.  There was chicken, broccoli with cheese sauce, and potatoes.  And The Chef also commisioned a necklace from me, which is super cool.  Then I hacky sacked with the other friend, who did alright despite not hacky sacking since 8th grade.  (We'll call him The Rollerblader, because he roller blades.)  And then I went to bed, because that was a whole lot of human interaction and it made me sleepy.

And in other notable events, I discovered the wonder that is Desura, and specifically Desura's free games, and downloaded a bunch of them.  So far I have only played (and completed) The Kite.   That game will make you feel feelings.  It is intense.  Seriously.

And I've also discovered that I don't hate documentaries; I just hate boring documentaries.  Now I am that person who says, "Oh, I actually just watched a really interesting documentary about that" during conversations.  Here are some documentaries that I have watched and enjoyed on Netflix recently (with handy dandy links and my ratings, out of 5 stars):

• Happy 3 stars
• Nerdcore Rising (I'm actually watching it right now, so no rating yet, but I love it so far)
• Indie Game: The Movie 5 stars
• Afterlife 4 stars
• The Human Experience 5 stars
• Bomb It 5 stars
• Dive! 4 stars
• Buskers 3 stars
• The Antics Roadshow 3 stars

I also watched two documentaries that are no longer on Netflix, but I still highly recommend them: What the #$*! Do We Know!? and What are Dreams?: Nova.  I give them both 5 stars.

How to Exercise the Easy Way

Dance like no one is watching (and then photograph it?)

Are you one of those super busy people who never has time to exercise?  Let me share my tips for exercising the (sometimes fun) easy way.  First of all, you might not believe me but you do have time to exercise!  Do you drink milk or orange juice?  Lift it up a couple of times with each arm before you put it back in the fridge.  Do you cook?  Dance around the kitchen while you're waiting for your water to boil, or whatever you're cooking.  (even if you're just waiting for the microwave to heat up your food)  Do you do laundry?  Lift up your laundry basket like you're curling a weight, as you're carrying it wherever you have to take it to.  Walking up some stairs?  Walk on your tiptoes, as if you're wearing heels. (It probably doesn't work if you're actually wearing heels though)  Do your brush your teeth?  (I really hope so!)  Repeatedly stand on your tiptoes then back down the whole time you're brushing.

The next part is only for people who are comfortable doing crazy things in public without caring what people think about them.  If you do a lot of walking to and from places, don't just walk, skip, gallop, prance (haha), dance, whatever.  Basically try to remember how you walked with your parents (and probably drove them crazy doing it) as a toddler and do that.  Another great way to exercise is for people who babysit toddlers.  When the toddlers are playing outside or inside or wherever, run around with them and do everything they do (exercise-wise; don't pick your nose or eat worms or anything like that).  Believe me, after about four hours of this, you'll be feeling it.

And when all else fails, dance around the house like a maniac.  Plus it's super fun!