Mini-fashionistas

Miss Lizzie is all geared up for back to school this Tuesday, clothes-wise that it. We went shopping on Friday and brought along our friend JJ, our neighbourhood fashion guru for some advice. The girls gathered up all their new clothes and treated us to a 2 hour + fashion show. I played photographer.

It's so much fun to shop for Lizzie these days. We aren't limited to children's stores anymore so we have so much selection. Unfortunately, it's also become much more expensive.

Larger clothes = more money?

A little bling on the back pocket of Lizzie's jeans.

I'm not sure where the long, long legs come from, certainly not from me.

Oh what style these girls have.

I'm pretty sure my 13-year-old self would have been totally jealous.

Porch living

We've been blessed with wonderful weather this summer and I was able to make the time and "pretty up" by front porch this year. The last few years I just haven't been able to make it happen.

I put out these flowers out mid-June and they are still alive! Granted they are slowly dying but I think I can keep them going if my neighbours remember to water them for me on my upcoming trip. Last time I went away they got pretty thirsty and brown.

I bought two "motel" chairs a few years ago at a Montana antique store and decided to paint one bright yellow and the other orange this summer. The year one is my favourite and makes a great perch for one of my stone bunnies.

I bought two more adirondack chairs too and painted them turquoise (my current fave colour!) to match my old one. I love the pop of colour against the brickwork.

Some days I'm actually able to relax on the porch with my beer or iced coffee and a book and it's lovely...

It ain't easy being green

For all of my nursing career so far I've been diligently at maintaining clean, short fingernails, clear of any polish. I had my gel nails removed before I even started school. I barely even wear my rings at work. It's kind of expected for nurses as we use our hands so much for close work and have be careful at preventing and spreading infection.

I save nail polish for vacations. Lizzie and I like to purchase a new colour and apply on our first day of holidays. This year, for our San Diego trip, I found a lovely teal polish by Sinful Color. I realized it may have been a mistake at first when the colour went on somewhat chalky instead the usual pretty gloss we are use to. No fear though, Lizzie and I are very resourceful. We simply covered it with a single coat of a pretty electric blue that we had hanging around to create a new even more lovely colour. And we had pretty nails for a week.

The trouble started when I tried to remove the polish and realized that my nails were stained a sickly green colour.

This doesn't look so bad but this is after having the nails grow out for about 3 weeks. I still keep them short but got tired of having to explain that "no, I haven't been gardening, painting, or healing from some un-diagnosed nail fungus", so I been painting them. Even for work.

I've tried yellow and orange. The orange almost covered the green but not quite. The yellow worked barely at all. I tried to keep things low key with some nude polish, but five coats of polish meant constant smudges as it never seemed to dry for hours.

Then I found Essie's Chinchilly.

And I fell in love. Isn't it a pretty colour? Not subtle like a nude polish but not exactly in your face either. Please excuse my horribly dehydrated fingers. Comes with washing your hands 50 million times each day.

I will dutifully go back to my plain nail once the green completely grows out, but it's kind of fun having pretty nails for a while.

I guess there is a silver lining to being green. Plus I've learned never to cheap out on nail polish.

Yes deer

One of the unfortunate things about having a 13 year old daughter able to take on some responsibilities is that mom's sometimes have to take over those responsibilities when said daughter goes to Waterton for the weekend with her dad.

Yes, I've been abandoned by both Javier and Lizzie all weekend. Granted I've been working or sleeping most of the time, so I guess it's warranted.

Okay, back to the responsibilities. Lizzie's friend took on a little neighbourhood lawn watering job and then went away, subsequently passing it over to Lizzie for the last few weeks of the summer. So I've been busy, between sleeping, working, eating, and running in the heat, moving sprinklers around our neighbour's lawns.

It's not all bad though, because I made a new friend the other day. She's very pretty though her ears are a little large.

This graceful creature was lounging in one of the backyards when I arrived. She looked at me with some interest as I retrieved the hose and sprinklers. I had to get quite close to get the sprinkler but she didn't seem to mind. She stood up when I went near her, but I looked at her and said "it's okay, you can stay", and she quickly laid back down.

Medicine Hat is a small city, but a city nonetheless, so it constantly surprises me to see deer in my inner-city neighbourhood. It's always a nice surprise though.

Even when they leave "gifts" in the middle of the lawn at the end of their visit.

The blog that just won't die

Every time I think this blog is finished, I some how get dragged back into it, albeit quite willingly. One of my coworkers was looking at my blog today and I peaked over her shoulder as she was doing so. I liked reading what I wrote. I like having a concrete record of what has happened throughout the past few years. So here I am once again, after a prolonged absence. Hopefully I still have some readers out there?

I stopped blogging for a while for several reasons. I simply didn't have the time for a few months. Work was busy. Life at home was busy. Blogging just fell to the wayside. The other reason is that I just wasn't that inspired to write about anything, I lost focus. However, a friend (who also blogs) recently pointed out that I have plenty of topics to write about. Anything from my ongoing crafts, my sometimes misguided attempts to eat healthy, my obsession with working out, my travels....

I also worry that no one will read what I write, but that's just silly. I realized today that I get as much enjoyment from reading my own blog as I do reading comments on my posts. It's a way to remember what I've done and where I've been.

So I'm back to blogging. And what will I blog about? Well, everything! This summer has been fabulous and there's always a new adventure waiting around that corner at Chez Oliver Rain.

Miss Lizzie and I in San Diego in July