L’oreal Lash Serum end results

Okay so I’m going to do a L’oreal lash serum update tonight, mostly because it is wayyyyy overdue and I need to just stop procrastinating and DO IT!

These are my final results using the Lash Serum by L’oreal and although I will keep on using the product for a while more since I do have favorable results using it, I will be switching to Latisse to see if I can amp up the results I have gotten from the Lash Serum… anyways if you want to see the before picture’s and the in progress pictures you will have to look in my archives… these are my result pictures.

The end result im going for is length, but this particular product did not lengthen as much as it darkened and thickened my lashes, which is not unfavorable but I was hoping for length also since my lashes are on the shorter side (to me at least) especially when I compare my lashes to my son and daughters lashes, holy guacamole my children have LONG lashes! Take a look at this!

My 3 year old son's eye's

My daughters are similar but have more curl to them but ya, my son has pretty eyes.

So the next time I update on my lashes I will not be updating on the Lash Serum anymore but instead will be updating on Latisse.

This post is sponsered by ambien…well, not really.

I have a lot that I have to update and talk about but right now I just can’t, it has been a rough couple weeks dealing with everyone in my house being sick and having to go to multiple doctors. I had a dentist appointment yesterday and have to go back in a couple days because one of my back teeth needs deep cleaning with some laser action because of a pocket developing due to bone loss… so, I really will not be having fun.

Last week my bean sprout was attacked by a pilbug (aka: Rolly Polly) and sustained damage…. surprisingly it has flourished and soon I will show you pictures of how it looks now. I really want to find some cute pots I can put it in once its outside…. my gardener might just pull him out like a weed if I plant him directly into the ground….. arg, scared.

My daughter has learned how to walk within the past few weeks so she is getting really good and can actually cross a whole room without falling on her bottom, she looks so cute when she is moving, her hands are all stretched out and she has this huge smile on her face, because I think she knows she is doing something really special.

My husband and I have a wedding anniversary coming up and we are planning to be out-of-town for a few days while my mom baby sits the kids, it will be nice just to be with each other and celebrate how far we have come.

I have been noticing a lot lately that when I wake up my face looks more lined than usual so im kind of freaking out a bit since I have a pretty good routine with my skin care… I am not sure if the olay proX is actually doing what its supposed to be doing… so once im out I might get something similar from Avon and see how I like it and if I notice a difference.

Soon I will have to cut out all the soda I drink and all the white bread I eat in anticipation of the medically imposed diet I will have no choice in following unless I want dire side effects, so ya, I have no idea how im going to do it yet but boy howdy am I going to be one stressed out mama. My doctor has put me on Metformin once again… 2000 mg a day. oy.

We have been cutting back on some bills lately because it just seemed wasteful to keep services we weren’t using, we changed out cable plan so now it is extended basic with discovery channels, nickjr and sprout added on along with HBO… so basically we cut out starz and encore along with some other channels we just do not watch. I told the hubby to get rid of HBO even but he thinks we should keep it… *shrug* either way I don’t watch it much.

Any who, its late and I am tired, time for bed. The sooner I sleep, the sooner I wake up and get to see my son. He is spending the night at his Nanna’s house with his uncle’s and there two dogs so he has a lot of things to do over there… doesn’t make me not miss him though, little booger can annoy me to tears but take him away for a night and im lost without him lol.

-Nicko

In which life is created

It feels like a long time since I have blogged when its only been a few days. I havent had much to talk about lately because my kids and I have been sick with a cold.  The only thing interesting I really have to talk about is the growth of new life!… and im not talking about the production of baby humans but the production of a plant… or, a baby plant? I know virtually nothing about plants or the growth of them, if I had to describe my abilities to keep plant life alive it would be bleak at best… I have a brown thumb instead of a green one.

A quick story about the first time I ever grew anything. I was either in kindergarten or first grade I cannot remember which but my teacher had a little class project that was really neat for all of the kids. We were instructed to bring an empty gallon milk container from home that had been washed really good because we were going to grow our very own tomato plants. I remember cutting a hole in the side of the milk container with safety scissors and then we all got a bit of soil and a couple seeds to put in it. Everyday we would watch our plants and one day they just started growing and eventually little tomatoes started popping up (they were small and green at first but still cool) when the tomatoes started getting red the teacher finally let us take our tomato plants home and I was so happy because I felt like I had done something big. This story has a sad ending though because my tomato plant ended up dying and that is when my thumb turned brown.

Okay so about this new life form. It all started a few days ago quite by accident, you see I had made my first batch of homemade beans a very yummy batch of beans if I might add (although a bit to chewy, oops)

Beans beans the magical fruit!

Before I could even get to the point of cooking I had to soak a bunch of pinto beans a while and somehow or another one of the beans that I soaked got “misplaced” and started to sprout! When I saw this little thing growing I wasnt sure what to do because I couldn’t just throw it away or put it down the disposal because it was life! I had accidentally created a little being… even if it is just a plant. So what did I do? Well, I sorta just put it in a pinch bowl and have it submersed in water and it has doubled in size since yesterday!

I guess all babies look the same when there in this stage.

For now it is just kicking back in the bowl but I have a feeling its going to need soil soon, so maybe tomorrow I will find some dirt and put it in the pot/wannabe vase that I got for valentine’s day from my hubby (edible arrangements come in them and there kinda like pretty keepsakes) and I hope I can keep it alive. Wish me luck, because im going to need it!

-Nicko

Oh look, a post!

Not a whole lot going on right now except that both my children are now sick with a cold, poor kids, hopefully they make a speedy recovery. Yesterday I saved over 12 bucks just by using coupons at target, I was pretty stoked… now if only I could take that savings and actually “save” it.

I finally got around to trying out Pioneer Woman’s Bacon wrapped jalapeno’s and even though they turned out okay I think for my own personal tastes I will revise the recipe when I make it again because to me there wasnt enough kick and the flavors were not as savory as I would like… I might try getting smaller jalapeno’s as well *grin* I sort of went a little over board with the biggest jalapeno’s I could find, bite sized would work better lol.

Don't you know that bacon makes everything taste better?

So im thinking of mixing some medium salsa in with the cream cheese next time and also using center cut bacon instead of the cheap stuff I usually buy, but who knows I will work something out on paper first and then see what happens.

I was taking a look at a Diet plan the other day that I saw on the Woman’s Day website, called “the get real diet plan” and I have to say how surprised I am by how much food a regular person can eat and still be eating healthy and losing weight… When I learn how to have self-control I might actually try to eat “normal”… and of course that means I would have to say no to Coca Cola which is probably the most painful thought I can have right now lol. Mmmm coca cola!

Anyways, that’s all I have in me right now to talk about, im tired, sick with a cold and just want to curl up in a warm ball and sleep… 2 hours till i can do that!

-Nicko

Adventures with Chinese food!

I have always wanted to make chinese food but somehow found myself intimidated by the process, not because I thought it was hard but because i did not want to fail at making something so simple. Yesterday I pushed aside my trepidation and went forward, going boldly where I have never gone before (wow, just had a star trek moment!)! I made my own version of chicken fried rice and general chicken, which tastes pretty much just like you get at any westernized chinese restaurant minus the vegetables since the hubby is not into them and I had no acceptable ones on hand lol. Anyways I started out with some rice:

Oooo Rice!

I basically followed the directions to make this rice, the only thing I did differently is I used less water than called for because I do not like my rice sticky or watery (gimme that fluff!). After the rice was done it looked pretty much like regular white rice so I knew I didn’t screw it up lol.

Perfect!

Since im making two dishes that call for chicken I marinated 5 chicken breasts in teriyaki sauce for about an hour.

Look's like it's done marinating!

So once my chicken was done marinating I took two breasts and cubed it and then the three reminding breasts I cut into strips.

Chicken strips

cubed chicken.

After getting everything all cut up I started frying everything like a mad woman… first up is the rice, I throw it in the skillet and swish in some sesame seed oil and some soy sauce getting it a little combined, then I start to fry up the cubed chicken, after it gets a little toasty I add two eggs and make a very choppy scramble… at that stage I just throw it into the pan with the rice… kinda like this:

chicken and eggs, pre dump.

chicken and egg dumped on top of the frying rice

Now at this point the meal looks slightly weird and unfinished… mostly because, it is! okay so after I dump all that in I just start working it all around with a wooden spoon getting everything combined, I then proceed to layer flavors starting with onion powder, next comes sugar…. yes, sugar! I added about a tablespoon of sugar, depending on your taste you can either add or take away. once I have those flavors in I add a little more soy sauce but not too much, don’t wanna over power the rice. I mix it all really well, fluffing with my wooden spoon untill the rice turns that oh so lovely shade that tells you “im done! 🙂 ” and if you dont know it, it looks like this:

happy rice! yey!

So now that the rice is done I now start working on my General Chicken!

First thing is first… I get out the tin foil and flour… ya, this sounds weird but it’s what I do, k? so I get out the tin foil and fllllower:

This is what I do with the tin foil and flower!

now that that’s out, I take my chicken strips who are happy to be getting some attention and I throw them into the flower, I coat the chicken lightly since I want to taste the chicken and not a bunch of breading… the flower is just more for texture and to give the glaze something to hold onto.

Silly chicken strips, they seem to be having a sexy party and they forgot the sauce!

okay so, chicken gets tossed in the pan with a dash of sesame seed oil and i just herd the little nuggets around til they get brown… at which point the chicken strips finally remember the sauce and have a real sexy party!

Wow there at it again! and this time with sauce!

so when all is said and done the food came out wonderfully and it was easy… I took a picture of my plate right before dinner to show you how they look together (aww, chicken fried rice and general chicken, a match made in… uh… my pan)

Yum... look at all those CARBS!

It may not be traditional, but it tasted it!

-Nicko

Who needs clay pidgeons when you have frozen beef patty disks?

If you have not noticed lately, I have not posted an updated picture of my eyelashes in a while… this is because of several reasons but mostly because there has been zero, and I mean ZERO change since the last update, it has left me a little let down and maybe even a bit annoyed.

the lash serum trying to look cool on my bathroom vanity

I do have to admit, my lashes do feel softer and more moisture infused, maybe even a bit denser than they were but I was expecting so much more by now. There is still hope though! I have plenty of Lash Serum left so I will just keep on applying daily until it is all gone. I will post more pics when and if there is more change to my lashes.

The hubby and I got out of the house on sunday which was awesome since I have been clawing at the walls wanting fresh air and to be reminded that there is a world outside of my house. I managed to get my new glasses ordered from SEARS optical and now I just have to wait a week to get them.

I got a couple new shirts from Lane Bryant and I actually went out on a limb (for me that is) and bought one in neon green, yup, I have gone insane but lately I have had a thing about wearing different shade’s of green, I think it might have something to do with the color of my hair right now (yes I colored it again!) I chose a new Auburn color from a different brand, the Clairol color I was using rocked but it washed out to a mousey brown within 2 weeks flat… so now im using L’Oreal’s Superior Preference in Intense Dark Red.

Intense Dark Red

The color on the box looks great, the only problem I have with it is it shows up much darker on me and has more of a “Purple” hue to it… so my quest to find the perfect Dark Auburn is far from over so for now I might just try using a color glaze to see if the red can be intensified.

I had to order my groceries online this week and I had an OOPS moment… I accidentally bought the wrong kind of hamburgers *sigh* usually I get my hamburger meat in a large tube because its cheap and I can work miracles with that meat, well, this time I accidentally got the frozen pre-formed patties, so now I have to figure out how to prepare them so they don’t taste as terrible as I know they are, right now im working on a few things in my head that might work but if anyone knows how to make these little frozen disks taste like anything other than cow manure (not that I know what it tastes like) let me know.

-Nicko

V-Day!

Today was: Good, Bad… and Ugly.

Let’s start off by turning on my /rant switch. *flick* ah, there we go, now down to business. I woke up this morning to a hungry baby and a loud toddler which is usual and expected, even on Valentines day, so I do not really mind because even though I was tired I love waking up to my rug rats. In the middle of changing a diaper the door bell rang and lo’ and behold there was a deliver for me! my dear husband had Edible arrangements deliver me a bouquet of chocolate dipped fruit (Thank you to my step mom Judy who introduced him to this great company!) and wow it looked good enough to eat, so I did!

Anyways the day started off great… but then my brother in-law told me he would be gone all day *sad face* so that is pretty much when everything went downhill.  To make a long story short my day consisted of staying home taking care of my mother in-law who is so headstrong that she ate what she was not supposed to and ended up getting sick all over everything in her room *huff* so I had to do a lot of laundry and clean up a lot of other stuff *sigh* so no romantic gazing into my husbands eyes… no alone time… no excursion out of the house… nothing, except my lovely bouquet of chocolate covered fruit and the adoration of the hubby. I guess my day was not all bad after all *wink*

The moral of the story I think is even though things do not turn out as planned, you gotta look on the bright side and realise that the good parts can eclipse the bad, especially when chocolate is involved.

-Nicko

Weedle think’s Jeff Dunham is hot… like, Jalapeno hot.

The other day was my Weedle kitty’s vet appointment and im glad to say he is doing great, they cleaned his teeth and extracted two of them, he is eating (soft food) and drinking water. He came home with medication and he seems to be a bit wobbly but other than that he is my same love bug.

I got my new Avon books so I already have my fingers poised to circle the items I want/need/have to have. I am honestly a junky when it comes to beauty products, especially when they say “anti-aging”, the only real beef I have with Avon is that the kids stuff they sell are mostly for girls, I want to see more neutral and boy items in the kids section because lets face it, a lot of the people out there that buy from Avon have kids and grandkids so there bound to want to buy them something too. They have a little bedroom door name sign for girls in the new catalogue, I would love to get one for my daughter and my son to put outside of there bedrooms… but nooooooOoo, they don’t have one for boys and I do not want to get one child something and not the other, i want to be as fair as I can with my kids.

Big brother trying to pick up Little sister

Last night was pretty good, me and the hubby went to see Jeff Dunham live at the Stockton Arena, talk about some small seats and almost zero leg room for tall people (guess i cant whine since im short eh?). I for the most part enjoyed the show except there was no new material for Bubba J which to me is the funniest character besides Walter, so that was a little disappointing. Guitar Guy did a good job at making everyone laugh, especially when he was talking about his son who is a band member of avenged seven fold. All in all the night was good, I just wish they had more elbow room and maybe someone walking around taking drink orders lol… no booze for me 😦

Drinking beer and watching NASCAR!

been thinking about spending some of our tax return on a new dish washer because the old one always tells me he will do them tomorrow and the previous one before him doesn’t work so it’s either I bully the hubby to wash the dishes ASAP or continue to multitask while doing the dishes… sigh. The only thing that holds me back from getting a new one is price, I don’t want to get a cheap one because it has to last untill either I kick the bucket or untill we become millionaires (which do you think will happen first hmm?) so I have one I like in my wish list but I am still unsure if it’s the best in my price range *sigh* who would have thought I would be asking for divine intervention in choosing a dish washing machine. Or i can just hire this guy;

This guy can come wash my dishes any time!

Now hopefully the hubby doesn’t get his boxers in a wedge lol… anyways on a serious note, I like cake. a lot… la la la, ignoring the hot image and thinking of the hubby… and cake.

Okay now, where was I?

I saw a sexy looking recipe on TPW’s blog I am dying to try… basically you just take some  jalapeño’s, cut them in half, take out the seeds and the white membrane… stuff cream cheese in the jalapeño halves, wrap each one in a bacon slice… poke a toothpick through each  one to secure the bacon so the stuffing doesnt plop out and you bake it till its good’n cooked… sounds like a good time if you pair it with a strong bloody mary with some chips and dip. But seriously, look at this thing… im gonna call it a sinister bacon wrapped jalapeño popper with tude!

The Pioneer Woman is my muse and I would totally marry her if I wasnt married and streight

So I think im going to make some of these little things soon and post about my experience with them… and of course I need to take more pictures of my lashes soon so I can update y’all on my L’oreal lash serum trial run.

tomorrow is another day, and I hope I can get all my chores done… laundry is the bane of my existence. till then.

-Nicko

productive

I spent my day mostly doing housework and making phone calls while taking care of my rug rats and mother in-law, the cool thing is I made some good headway with a few things, the one that has me the most stoked is getting a hold of the preschool provider in my area. I will be getting the paperwork in the mail soon to enroll my son into preschool for the next school term coming up which is almost overwhelming for me, not because I want him out of my hair 3 hours a day (which would be nice though) but because it is a huge step for my little man, and one for me also. I will have to stay strong though because I know the minute he goes into that class room im going to cry like a baby. I have an appointment for my cat to see the vet tomorrow, so tonight im going to try to go to sleep early.

-Nicko

insomnia = sucky

Today was pretty busy and sleep did not happen last night so it was also stressful. I had to pick my mother in-law up from the hospital, she is finally better and able to be home once again. I am struggling pretty bad with insomnia, I have ambien to take but I try not to take it because I don’t want to be dependant on a medication all the time, little good that does me since I don’t sleep if I don’t take them so I can’t think streight, I have the attention span of a zombie and im overly moody right now. I am going to give in tonight. If I didn’t love sleep so much I would hate it.

I made some awesome burgers tonight for dinner, I mixed egg, BBQ sauce, shredded cheddar and chopped bacon into the meat before I cooked them… slap those puppies on some potato buns with a slice of american cheese and BAM! those are some sexy burgers. Deep fried some potato wedges and made a special sauce to pair it with, what an artery clogging match made in heaven.

Got some new Avon book’s so I will be browsing through those for a few days untill the pages start to look like toilet paper. I am almost feverishly looking for that elusive product that has not been invented yet, it is so mysterious that I dont even know what it is yet.

Things on my list to do this week are too numerous to count but one of the major things (at least for me) is I have to get my cat in to see the vet, his teeth are bugging him and I’m pretty sure one of his front fangs need to be extracted. I am so petrified of taking him in though, because they will have to put him under to clean his teeth and he is 13 years old so im worried he will not make it… it’s kind of dramatic to think that but I am naturally a worrier but I will do it, I have to think of what is best for him and I know I wouldn’t want my teeth to bother me all the time.

My weedle kitty

Well that’s all from me for tonight, I have to go play game’s on Facebook lol.

-Nicko