Nail Art Roundup

I gave my nails a break after my nails were stained by some green polish. They were also too long and splitting so a week of rest and freshly trimmed have helped tremendously.




It was this design that the green polish did a number on my nails. I'm still not the greatest at nail art but I have noticed a big improvement from when I first started so that's fine with me. There are so many videos on Youtube of easy nail art for beginners and it can snowball quickly. I have more fun trying and sometimes it's a total disaster. I just remove it and do something else.

My left hand usually has the better nail art because I'm right handed. Practice is key. Lately, I'll do a completely different design on my right hand just to practice and see how it looks. Even if my right hand looks a tad wonky, people still tend to give compliments because they can't see the details where I messed up and usually a distance like 2-3 feet. 

So if you're interested, there are videos and tutorials on using household items as nail tools so it doesn't have to be expensive and wasteful.Have fun with it.




These nails were supposed to look like opals. I didn't have all the right colors so mine came out more like granite which I still love. 










I noticed that simple designs suit my nail better since I have short nails but that shouldn't limit you.




Here is my right hand for a change. Crackle or Shatter nail polish goes on like regular polish then as it dries, it cracks showing the base color. Like I said before, it looks messy up close but I got lots of compliments on this one too.

That's it for now. Nail art is something that I can do for fun and let's me carve out some personal time for myself. 

June Favorites

July is already flying by and I've been meaning to post a blog of June faves so let's get going!

1) My lovely ocean sunset painting...



My friend is an artist and I've started my own personal collection. This is the 2nd piece I've acquired from Kathy Johnson Studio. She is down in the San Diego area and I'm in love with all her pieces. So the most difficult part is deciding but the art usually speaks to me so I have to hurry and get it. :)

Moody Sunset hangs in my kitchen so I get to see it often....


2) Nail art.

I still enjoy doing my nails although I need some serious cuticle moisturizer. This is my favorite nail art pattern. It's simple and I got a ton of compliments.



3) Dancing with Hector.

He keeps my spirits up and I have a keeper in that he loves to dance. He would convince me to go even if I didn't feel like dancing and has no problem dancing by himself. I've heard from several women that sounded envious that my hubby loves to shake his groove thang and I know that it isn't the most common trait but it's one of my ALL- TIME favorite things. It helps that he has rhythm and moves too.







Thanks honey!

Cat Cafe

More Kyoto fun! After our adventure at the shrine we wandered back down the street filling up with street food along the way and found a cat cafe. We've heard of them but this was our first time to actually see one. Hector opted out so the kids and I went up to the 2nd floor where we paid 500 yen/20 minutes of cat time. I think they had 8 cats inside, all rescued and it was very clean.

A couple of people were there just sitting with their beverages looking out onto the street and the cats had lots of treehouses, beds and toys to use. The kids enjoyed spotting all the cats and looking thru their individual cat books.

We had a fun time and I tried to get all the cats pictures but some were hiding.

2 happy kids

This one reminded us of Phil and he was the most friendly/playful at the time. Later you'll see his messed up tail.


















Don't know how this purebred Persian was a stray but there you go.

They have a nice life here.

Fushimi-Inari-Taisha

We are finally to my personal favorite day of our Japan trip! We did not see this on our first trip when the boys were 6 and 3 years old so this was the time to do it!

The guidebook says that one should allow 3-4 hours and silly me, I was thinking it was because of its vast space. Well, I was partially right; it is vast but the guidebook didn't mention that most of the entire thing is up the  mountain! We had been experiencing rainy weather up to this point and we were supposed to get a break from it while still being cool. I told the kids to wear long pants & jacket  which wasn't necessary since it was warmer than I anticipated. But better to be safe than sorry. ;)

Prepare for lots of walking and not just walking, more like hiking on paved steps. The maps are not the clearest although at first glance they appear to be as we found out and somehow got separated from the kids at some point. There was a fork in the road which a sign pointed back down to the entrance that we assumed the kids would go but we were pleasantly surprised to see them near the top (we thought) an hour later of climbing. The paths are winding and seem to go up for a while making us think we are getting close to the top then go back down for another portion. 

What kept me and Hector going was seeing the elderly men and women (65 + years) coming back down. If these people can do this, so can we !?! There are areas that are flat with rest stations that offer souvenirs and food/drink. There are also areas of shrines that are decorated with all sorts of items.

Now on to the shrine...






This is the area leading to the shrine. Just follow the torii gates both sides of this area is packed with street food vendors. We ate after visiting the shrine so I don't remember if I took pictures but I remember we had karaage (chicken pieces), crab on a stick and a pastry shaped like a fish filled with custard. I really wanted to go back and but we didn't have the time during our trip.



















Now here is one of several posted maps showing the layout and definitely not to scale. At the time, we saw the red dot to indicate you are here and we"ll check where the dot is at another location. It didn't seem to move which really confused us but looking at this, I believe the dot will move up.

To be honest, this map is the most basic of maps and it's very deceiving for us visitors. Maybe distance markers would be more helpful. Lets get walking/climbing.




But there's so much to see! 



In the lower areas, the walkways are very crowded as you can see and everyone is trying to take their pictures. Some people are polite trying to give you space while others plow right through...

Big tip: there are plenty of opportunities to take more photos where people are no where to be seen.Be patient and willing to walk much further. This is where the many people either get tired or get slower. 




I'm not sure what's going on here but I know you can buy these fox faces. They have different faces and I'm not sure if people draw these faces on them or if you can do your own drawing. I don't see any blank ones. No, I see  a couple of blank ones.

I have lots of pics of the torii gates which is what this shrine is all about. 



This shrine is for business/companies so the writing on the gate shows the sponsor and they're responsible for the maintenance/upkeep of the gate. Later in the photo set, you can see a worker painting one.




See? No one to be seen in our photo. Seriously, I think we walked 5-7 miles on that day just at the shrine. 



We did see the occasional couple. Keep hanging in there, we're almost to the summit. Not exactly the top but a big area overlooking the city. Remember I said there are shops, little tea/food areas up here so think about the people that work up here. Do they do rock, paper, scissors to see who works up at the top that day? I have some huge respect for the Japanese people. 







Off the main path, there are a few areas that have stairs leading to these shrines. Pretty cool.







That's when we start noticing the feral cats. This is one of many that we saw in Kyoto. Most didn't seem too skittish but we didn't pet them. Another thing is that most of them have had something done to their tails. Either broken or chopped so that part is sad but it looks like someone is feeding them. Stay tuned for a later post of our time in a cat cafe.







Now a break from shrines and gates...a little lake. If you want to see Hector and I go off the beaten path into the woods on a tiny dirt/mud path around half the lake before we went back to the main path, you can view them on Flickr.




What? More stairs? 

Here's the rest point I was telling you about...it took us a while to get here, didn't it? Almost as long as it takes for me to do this post.










Here is my 2nd map photo. Now that I see this again, this map is different from the first one. That's why we were confused to where we were since the red dot moved but still in the middle of the map and that's what I remembered from the previous map.




I'll end my super long post here. Somewhere in the upper half, we met a woman travelling alone from Mexico so we kept each other company the rest of the journey up. She had been in Japan for 2 weeks and she & Hector chatted a lot.

She took this photo of us and at the top of the shrine/mountain, we ran into our children which was super impressive because it is a super long hike. They took a different path up so that explained why we never ran into them. Family reunited. :)

Filler

I know I've been absent lately. Lots of family stuff is going on that I'm dealing with and I'm extremely grateful to H for being my rock and keeping me sane.

Here are some things that help me focus and recharge.




Some nail art that is quite messy/sloppy up close but I got compliments on it so I'll take it. Even though I applied a base coat, my nails got stained the lovely green color. I did a little break from them to give my nails a break but should have some more to show next week.




I did a sock yarn swap with the Monstersock group on Ravelry and this is my package that arrived. I'm already in the midst of knitting these and throwing in a few more bright colors.

Like I said above, Hector really makes me happy even when I'm grumpy and blech. We go dancing although sometimes I just watch him dance. Our local watering hole is convenient place to dance and the lights were fun so I enjoyed taking pics of Hector shaking his groove thang.






I knit a baby sweater and Hungry Caterpillar for my cousin Grace who is expecting a baby boy in September. I'm excited for them and expect more knit items in the future.





The kids and I have been looking forward to the Anime Expo convention since April and I got even more excited when Josh said he wanted to wear his Link costume. It still fits but he outgrew his shoe covers, so Hector to the rescue...He managed to find the perfect sized Uggs at the first thrift store for $8. My hubby is the best!









Here is Josh in action...he really loves this and even wore a long sleeved shirt in July. That's dedication.



The expo was a blast like usual. I saw these hats a lot and liked it even though I didn't find out what it was from till later. League of Legends which looks like a fun game but it's PC and honestly I don't have time for all that. Our waitress at The Yardhouse complimented me on the hat since she knows/plays the game so I got some info from her. This year the kids really thought about what to buy in their budget which made me proud. Josh got that Pika-Boo shirt he's wearing and Tyler bought an adorable book called Stupid Fox and some prints for his room. :)

Like I said again and again, Hector really looks out for me. He took me for a walk to show me something nearby. Right in front of the Chinese restaurant is this awesome curb marker...





It's on a busy street so I would never see it driving by but H happened to see it while running and had to show me. :)

And to finish this very long post, I will end it with this photo from our Korean market that has the most interesting products. It's very amusing to read some of the names.