Welcome to The City of Desire.

At least not for today. Booboo had his annual vet visit and he is fine, fine, fine! About as fine as a 16 1/2 year old cat with aging kidneys can be. That Porus One supplement has done wonders for his kidneys and his tummy. He actually gained 1/2 lb. Even though he's been happy and adorable lately, he's been drinking and peeing a lot and I was afraid that meant his kidneys were going south. But they aren't! For all I know this kid is going to live to be 20+. My funny baby. Somebody was looking out for us out there. We really needed this good news.

...for some reason whenever I use a sheet mask Lucas has to start licking the serum off my face.

Getting some hearty rain today. I'm glad that I don't have to water anything! Unfortunately, the lawn is growing fast and the brush has gotten really crazy around here. It's hard to keep up with the yard when you're sitting by the phone all the time, you know? But I ordered myself a little hand sickle off Amazon and I'm ready to go massacre mode on the weeds once it shows up on Sunday.

The only flowers we have of interest right now are butterfly bush and some giant ass hibiscus. Quietness is blooming, too. Lovely rose.

Booboo has a vet appointment next Tuesday. I'm a bit nervous. He's still pretty juicy, but he's 16. He doesn't seem like he's ill, though...he loves his life.

Practicing with the subholes on the ocarina, alternating between my soprano and alto models. I'm trying to convince myself that being able to easily play the soprano ocarina is a privilege reserved for people like me who have small hands...really, I'm trying to make myself feel better because my hands are too small for the bass ocarina!

Thanks to me giving myself a baptism by fire and attempting to play flute music in the key of F#minor and other keys that are like ##### I've finally achieved the finger flexibility in my left hand to play that dreaded Fmaj7 chord on the ukulele! This is truly a milestone!

I wonder if anyone else has ever sat there for twenty minutes watching their cat lick himself.

We had a big thunderstorm this evening but it was just heavy rain. I've hated thunderstorms since I was a kid, but apparently they clear pollution from the air. And this storm saved me from having to water my plants, so I'm grateful.

I ordered myself a beautiful fuchsia concert ukulele off Etsy. It was pretty pricey, but I'm paying it off in installments. I've been playing the ukulele for since last June, and I'm teaching myself how to finger pick now. I've been using the Hal Leonard method books for instruction, and man, they force you to do that nasty B flat bar chord in like every song! I can't say how good I am at the instrument, but at least if you screw up in practice it doesn't sound as awful as it does with the flute, LOL...

Yeah, I've been coping with all this stress by trying to learn like 4 different instruments. Don't ask me why I can't stick to one. They all seem like they are related somehow. Maybe it's because they are all in the key of C?

On the ocarina front, I don't know why Song of Storms is considered a beginner piece. That high E-F-E drop down to C and then A is murder on my hands and I'm always worried I'm going to drop my instrument!

I found 2 sites with video game lead sheets and I'm like ^O^...

https://www.facebook.com/lauren.moran.758

Kind of. But you don't get to see my face! You only get to see Booboo!

Seriously, fuck Facebook for putting my DOB out there. I had wanted to stay off Facebook, because there are a few people from my high school years I am hiding from forever. I just don't think I have a choice. I have literally no presence in social media. No one is going to be seeing that nail polish!

No point in pretending to be a Millennial.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/BlueMeconopsisShop

We have a few more colors to add at the end of the week. At the moment we only have three wee bottles of each color, and once they sell out, we'll be making these to order in both 5ml and 15ml size. Because everyone likes a fresh bottle of nail polish, right?

We had to charge more for some of them because the interference pigment was $$$. But I do have a taste for the stuff!

I had painted my nails a couple of days ago, which is why you can see so much cuticle margin there, lol...the lighting has been just wrong even for my crappy photos.

But look at that red! There is nary a hint of orange!

The glitter jelly was made by Kristen, and she's calling it Benibara. The violet shifty one is mine, and I'm calling it Mariko. Because of the entire cast of Oniisama e...Mariko with her red pinky nails was the only character I liked by the end. XD

We've been filling up mini bottles for eventual sale. I have two polishes I'd like to reformulate a bit before releasing them into the wild: Saint Elles, because the glitter has been discontinued, and Frozen Dream, because I think that the old suspension base and large silver holo shreds made it too prone to chipping.

I told Kristen I love Benibara so much I wouldn't mind being buried wearing it. That glitter jelly really looks like jelly!

This is literally the first time in my life I've worn red nail polish. I think I like it!

This very pale blue creme polish is called Iceflower. The color reminds me of the Essie polish Find Me an Oasis, but with blue and pink shimmer. In some lighting it looks more white than blue, but trust me, it's blue! I think it self-levels better, too...lol...

Please ignore that air bubble there. I was a fool and shook the polish hard before I applied it!

It's the first time I've done a one color manicure in a long time! I just noticed that the glitter polish takes shorter to dry, and I'm too busy to wait 10 minutes per coat.

This one is really...purple. I only have a sample of the pigment I used for this polish, so if I want to sell this one I'll definitely have to buy more.

Reine des Violettes is the name of a sad little Hybrid Perpetual rose we have growing in a pot on our deck. Maybe naming a nail polish after it will make it get healthy!