Author: Tanie

Tons of people commented on the dotted nails I posted on Monday, asking me how I did them, so I put together this little tutorial to show you how easy it is! All Sym’s fake nails popped off on the weekend so I used her as my hand model.

All you need to do these nails are a few different colours of polish (I used eleven for my own and five for Sym’s) and some toothpicks. The toothpicks I have are cylindrical with a pointed and a blunt end- use the blunt end for dotting.

Apply your base coat and a couple coats of your background colour. It’s okay if it’s a little streaky since you’ll be doing the dots on top. This is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Peachy Keen.

Next, get out your dot colours. I used OPI in Planks A Lot, Essie in Mod Square, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Lacey Lilac and Sally Hansen Maximum Growth in Delightful Dawn.

To do the dots, simply dip the toothpick into the polish and dot away! You don’t want so much polish on the toothpick that it drips off, the dots will run all over your nails if they are too big.

The dots will look lumpy and 3D at first but they’ll flatten out as they dry. You don’t need each layer of dots to dry totally before adding the next one.

Keep adding dots until you have good coverage and you like how your nails look, then apply your top coat!

Happy dotting!

I think I’m getting the hang of this wearing colours thing!

June 30th, 2011: brown plaid western shirt, vintage & Taylor’s.

July 1st, 2011: red plaid western shirt, Diesel, also Taylor’s; teal bag, Kinies.

July 2nd, 2011: chevron striped dress, Forever 21. I got tons of compliments on this dress. Okay, two. I got two compliments.

Guess who’s here?

… it’s my old cat Ophelia! I’ve rehomed her about a million times, but she always finds her way back to me.

Thankfully*, this time it’s just temporary. Her owner is in the hospital recovering from emergency surgery so Ophie is staying with us until she can go home.

*Thankfully for Ophie. She hates kids and dogs and other cats so she isn’t very happy here.

I forgot I was planning on making smoothies this morning until after I’d already eaten cereal for breakfast, so I made these for Sym and Taylor. Strawberries & raspberries from the farmer’s market, local honey and vanilla yogurt.

… or more accurately What I’ve Been Eating and Reading and Why I’ve Been Eating What I’ve Been Eating Because of What I’ve Been Reading. That would be too long though.

right, top to bottom: cheese, tomatoes, lettuce & black bean humous sandwich; goat cheese mini-frittatas with salad; Mangled Eggs at the Templeton (eggs, brie and veggie bacon on a croissant) with rosemary potatoes; left: poutine with vegetarian gravy

So all of these meals have something in common: NO MEAT. Why? Because last week I read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer and omggggg I am so grossed out now. I read the part about chicken processing while I was at the salon getting my hair done and I seriously almost barfed in the shampoo sink.

It also made me feel really sad and guilty. The cruelty and abuse is just… ugh. I can’t even explain it. I know that the food industry in Canada isn’t quite as terrible as it is in the US, but it’s definitely not good. I even feel bad about the eggs in my fridge, and I bought them for $6 a dozen at the farmer’s market from an organic biodynamic free range family farm, but is that good enough? IS IT? I feel like I’m one step away from being these people:

I mentioned reading this book in a general discussion forum and these are the replies I got

if it wasn’t for bacon, i swear…

I feel like once a year I’ll read a book about the ethics and environmental problems caused by eating meat and then 6 months later I’ll crave bacon.

i read that and saw food inc which made me very concious of what i eat. i still eat meat but not lots of it and i try to know where it came from

reading that book convinced me to be a vegetarian.

I definitely ate some bacon from Taylor’s bacon poutine last Thursday, without even thinking because I ALWAYS eat bacon from his poutine. Should I stop doing that? Will I stop doing that? I don’t even know. I’m loathe to say “Oh I’m a vegetarian now!” because I mean WHO KNOWS how this bacon thing is going to play out, but right now I’m too grossed out to even consider eating meat.

a full list of all this year’s books can always be found here, and as always, book links are usually to Amazon, and clicking on them might earn me a nickel.

I wanted to post this sooner but SOMEONE takes eight thousand years to upload pictures.
How Taylor and I spent our nation’s birthday:

He bought me french vanilla, apple and pomegranate jellybeans.

This is the only picture I managed to get of Taylor in his outer layer of Canada Day regalia, aka a Team Canada jersey. It turned out really warm so he stripped down to his inner Canadian layer, a CBC t-shirt.

In addition to my super sweet nails I wore a red shirt of Taylor’s and my denim jacket with some jean shorts. That’s right, a Canadian tuxedo. I totally rocked it, too.

We spent most of the day doing our regular day off things- brunch, shopping, dog park and watching tv.

Georgie got very grubby at the park and needed a bath. When she’s all wet her nefarious evil really shows.

We finished the day watching the fireworks from beside the Olympic cauldron, which is now a fountain. It was a true Vancouver moment, from the crazy guy in the fountain gathering up all the coins to the group of drunken international students next to us talking in like, four different languages. Such is the mosaic, amirite, Canadians?

It happens every time- I just put away all the bottles of nail polish on my desk and BOOM! There’s another dozen or so out again.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow, Green With Envy, Lacey Lilac and Blue Me Away!;
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Yellow Kitty and Peachy Keen;
Essie in Turquoise & Caicos and Mod Square;
Cover Girl Boundless Color in Candy Corn;
OPI in Planks A Lot;
Sally Hansen Maximum Growth in Delightful Dawn

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves; Daddy-Long-Legs; Dear Enemy

a full list of all this year’s books can always be found here, and as always, book links are usually to Amazon, and clicking on them might earn me a nickel.

Between the last few days of school and a visit to her grandparents’ house, Thursday was the only day I only had to spend with Sym this week. We spent it the best way possible: shopping, hanging out in Chinatown and doing our nails.

I was taking pics of Sym on the fountain outside the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and a guy came up and asked if I wanted him to take a picture of both of us. Pretty sure he thought we were tourists.

Please observe how she tied her sweater around her body so she didn’t have to carry it. Actually, please observe her entire outfit: hot pink sweater, black Hello Kitty t-shirt, grey sweatpants, yellow flip-flops and enormous sunglasses? GENIUS.

These are fake nails. She chews hers down to tiny little nubs so I found some stick-on nails for kids and then glued them on. Is that good parenting or bad parenting?

This is the best/worst thing I’ve ever done in my life.

right hand: Deborah Lippman in Ruby Red Slippers, Essie in Blanc, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Right Said Red, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Diamonds

left hand: Deborah Lippman in Ruby Red Slippers, Essie in Blanc, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Right Said Red

Happy Canada Day!!