5 Loads of Laundry and a Chrstimas Tree!

I was pleasantly productive yesterday and part of today. I got five, yes five!, loads of laundry done yesterday. Three were human laundry and two were piggy laundry, per usual. This of course meant that I also cleaned their cage, vacuumed, etc. Today I cleaned the bathroom (and got all the shelves super white!) and the humidifier. The humidifier was DISGUSTING. Tons of build-up. I think I haven't cleaned it since we moved here, and the water here tends to have more gunk in it than the water did at Maureen's. Which resulted in a lot of ew.

The other thing we did yesterday was finally get rid of the Christmas Tree. I know, I know, it's almost March, but we just hadn't gotten rid of it yet! We missed the curbside tree pick-ups (and would have had to take all the tinsel off- no thanks!) so we figured we'd just throw it in the dumpster for the apartment. But, we knew it was going to be really annoying to get it out of the apartment. And it was. We got pine needles EVERYWHERE. In the spare room, in the kitchen, on the stove, in the building's spare room, in the downstairs hall, on the stairs, in the upstairs hall, and in the vestibule. So then once we crammed the tree into the dumpster we had to go back and sweep up/vacuum all the common spaces. And then all of our spaces. And then pick the pine needles up off the stove. It was a lot of fun. Um, not. But it smells like pine everywhere now!

In other news, someone in the building got Indian food last night and it really made me want Indian food. :(

Hay!!! *happy dance*

I finally got the hay for the piggies today. I was a little nervous because I agreed to buy it without actually know what kind of hay it was (I just specified that it couldn't be alfalfa, it had to be a grass hay). And then, when I got it from Emily tonight, it was bundled in a bag so that it wouldn't get hay all over the car, so I couldn't actually see the quality of the hay. Well, once I got home I cracked open the bag and it's amazing! It's green and soft and fragrant and (I presume) delicious. I'm so excited! And it was only $10!!! Also great, I was able to plop it right into the empty box my last order of hay came in.

Can you tell I'm excited?

At last! Organization.

I've always been fond of make-up, as I feel that it is like personal art. Some people don't make much of a statement with it, but it truly can be an expression of you and how you're feeling. I love doing lots of fun and crazy things with eye make-up. Because of Lilly's job at Clinique, I got some better quality make-up recently and got back into really playing around with my make-up. That, plus discovering Kandee's blog and youtube channel, inspired me to reorganize my make-up to make it easier to use and encourage me to branch out day to day. Up until a week ago, I kept all the make-up I used most in this bag:

On the right was all the eye shadow and colored eye pencils, and everything else was on the right. I had another make-up bag that held the stuff I hardly ever used. This worked out great for traveling, or when I used to not be able to do my make-up in the bathroom (college, living at Maureen's, etc.). But after seeing one of Kandee's videos where she talked about how she organized her stuff when she was doing a tutorial, I realized I needed to do an overhaul. Meet the new and improved make-up storage:

I have a jar for implements, one for eye liner, one for mascara, and one for lipstick. Some of the extra stuff is in little Clinique bags. Then all my eyeshadow, foundation, and blush etc. are in the rectangular containers. Soon I'm going to get a nice glass jar for the cotton balls. Irony is, I've been sick and off-work the past couple days so I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I'm still very excited about it. :) It looks much prettier and I'm hoping it will be much easier to find/use everything when it's set up this way.

*bleh* *sniffle sniffle*

The past two days have not been kind. Yesterday, I threw up part of my breakfast at work (long story short, it was a very deep gag reflex, not a stomach bug or anything). That of course threw me off for the entire rest of the day because I was then very ginger with my stomach just in case. Then today I wake up with Mike's really bad head cold/flu from last week. :/ Happy Valentine's Day indeed. At least I have a heart shaped box of chocolates to eat whenever chocolate starts to sound good again.

Goodbye Grandad

I was going to post and complain about the fact that I had to take a lukewarm shower this morning and that someone parked so poorly that we couldn't park in our spot today, but that all seems rather petty now. Mum had me call Sir so he could tell me that Grandad passed last night in his sleep. Really not a shock as I know he's been doing poorly and he just got back from the hospital after having a stroke and then a coma. The really sad thing is, Grandma Settle is stuck in a ten minute loop where she keeps finding out over and over that he's passed. :/

So yeah, that was my Sunday.

Not-really-snow day

Yesterday everyone was all in a panic because it was going to snow! In Rhode Island! In the wintertime! All the cat can ladies were stocking u, and one of the girls even switched her shift to tomorrow (ironically, now it's supposed to snow tomorrow too and probably worse). So I get up this morning, and what meets my eyes? Wet. Technically, yes, there is snow falling, but by the time it hits the ground it's just wet. And it's only 34F out, so it's not like the roads are frozen or anything either. We basically have glorified rain. Tomorrow says it's supposed to be below 28F and snowing again, so we may get actual snow tomorrow. Or maybe not.

The thing that annoys me is that the girl who moved her shift is the same girl I'm going to be buying a bale of hay from (YAY!!! I found someone local! And the hay is wicked cheap!). But, understandably, she doesn't want to pack the hay in her car with the inclement weather, so I have to wait for this storm to pass to get my hay. The boys are currently suffering with the pet store hay, which by all rights should just be called straw. It's so sad and pokey. :(

So yay that the roads aren't going to be bad as I drive to work momentarily, but boo to the weather which is not cooperating with my new awesome hay acquisition plan.

New Year, New Motivation?

I've randomly started following a make-up artist named Kandee Johnson on YouTube and on her blog (http://www.kandeej.com/). She has inspired me (among other things) to return to jotting my thoughts/happenings down.

Happening #1:
I finally got the awesome Santoku knife from Crate and Barrel that's been in my registry for two years. I decided to save up my tip money from work, since I'd done pretty well around Christmas time, and go get it. Of course, it was on back-order, so I had to wait a few weeks to actually get it, but it arrived yesterday so I rushed to pick it up! Just in time too, because our only long, big knife decided to start falling apart this week. Below- picture of the crappy, falling apart, old knife next to the new awesome, amazing knife! Haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I'm sure it's going to be super fantastic. :)

Happening #2:
I dyed my hair! And really, it's about time. I've had the box of dye since probably October, but I had a problem of actually getting it done. Because, previous to this, Mum has always dyed it for me. And then I found out they were coming for Christmas, so I said, "Oh, I'll just wait until they come and she can do it for me then!" However, between work and trying to actually do stuff with them when they were here, my hair never got done. So, I spent a few hours on YouTube looking up videos on how to dye one's hair one's self (and of course most of them were actually their mom's doing it) which is when I discovered Kandee! She was one of two people who actually had a video posted of how to dye one's hair without any help. I then fussed about it for a couple days and finally did it late Wednesday night. Yay!

Bad picture, I know. My hair barely looks red at all (it's MUCH more red in person). I'll post a better picture when I can get one.

So that's what's been going on. I'm also on a mission to reorganize my make-up and get into a better nighttime beauty regime. But more about that later...