Back from Vacation

Last week when I was trying to stay off the internet, I was also enjoying a vacation in northern Idaho. Work issues pulled me away from my fun (and condo improvement projects) and back online more than a few times, but I did manage to spend most of my waking hours places other than plopped down in front of a computer screen.

Mr. Karen and I did lots of walking and hiking; we went down by the lake, around the neighborhood on the mountain, and onto nearby National Forest land on various days. Looking at the great scenery and pretty wildflowers mostly distracted me from realizing how much I've been slacking on my aerobic exercise—some of those mountain paths are steep! On one trail, I got passed by a tiny dog who was clearly in much better shape than I was.











On another day, we got out of nature and went to the Silverwood theme park.





We didn't have to leave the condo to see things, though; mule deer walked quite near the building a few different times.



For most of the week, my nails were adorned with Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips in Fly With Me. I hadn't tried this butterfly design before, and now that I have they're on my good list. They applied nicely and held up pretty well. They weren't quite up to the challenge of staining a railing, but even then only a few nails looked the worse for wear after emerging from the chemical-resistant gloves; not surprising given how I was using a rag to rub on the stain and pushing my fingertips into all the tight spaces where the pickets and posts joined up so I could get the color in there. I got lots of comments and compliments on these—my mom thought I'd gotten my nails done by a professional. My photos of these aren't the best (I did not take my lightbox on vacation with me) but still give a good idea what they looked like.





My mom flew in mid-week to join us, and I used the time in the big city before I picked her up at the airport to check out some of the local stores for nail polish. First stop was Fred Meyer, where they have L.A. Girl Disco Brites, Metal, and Rock Star polishes. I'd seen these before on visits to the northwest U.S. and bought some then (and swapped for some since) so I didn't buy any of these.



They also had an L.A. Splash display with Crackle'd polishes (and some base colors and top coat). These I hadn't seen before, so had to buy a couple. They were sold out of the purple crack (called Divorce'd, which I don't understand, any more than I understand the apostrophe in Crackle'd—what letters is the apostrophe supposed to be standing in for there?), but I managed to console myself with the pink (Love'd) and seafoam (Psych'd). I'm not sure how many colors there are in this line; the display had a royal blue that wasn't on the the "color matching" guide, and there were plenty of empty slots. I looked on the L.A. Splash website and couldn't find any mention of this line at all, so they're no help.





Something I'd hoped to see at Fred Meyer but didn't was a Cosmetic Arts display; I did find a few marked down bottles in a basket at the end of an aisle but no sign of a display. Maybe I just wasn't looking in the right place, though I weaved through the cosmetics aisles a few times.

At a Dollar Tree, I spotted some L'Oreal polishes from a line I don't recall ever seeing before: Grow Strong. I was tempted by the bottle because I don't have any like this, but I was able to resist because the colors and finishes all looked like things I already had.



At a Walgreens, there were two Sinful Colors displays I hadn't seen in my area: Wild Instincts and Go Plaid. Each had four nail art colors and four polish colors, but none of them looked new to me. I wish they'd put as much effort into creating new polishes as they do into putting out new displays.





All too soon it was time to come home; on our way, we watched the sun set over the airport in Minneapolis, where we had a long layover.



(Note: I tweaked my template to allow bigger photos; please let me know if you have any trouble with the new format.)