Radio Silence

I've been super quiet lately, I know... buuuut... I have a reason. Archimedes has two weeks of 12 hour days with only one day off, which may seem like I have a ridiculous amount more time on my hands and I DO! But I've been using it to crochet and play my NEW favorite game that just came out. I've been excited about Borderlands: The Pre-Sequal for MONTHS and I just can't get enough of it. If your asking, no, I haven't even put a clear coat on my nails since I last showed you them although this game is giving me ideas for some cool borderlands inspired nails? Eh?

Well we'll see.
Back to my game and hot chocolate.

Manicure Monday ~ On a TUESDAY! Fall Nails

Yeah.. yeah.. I know. I said I'd be back on Monday with a new post, but I ended up spending the majority of my day deep cleaning the cat's automatic litter box. Super fun right? Anyways, I have a double wammy for you to make up for it. Two manicures at the SAME TIME! Both nail designs are super cute for Fall, the first one a French Tip and the second a full nail design.

The first French Tip manicure I've done for Fall this year is this one! The orange glittery French Tip was done with OPI's A Woman's Prague-ative which is one of the prettiest orange-red glitter polish's I've ever had. I love using it in Autumn because it reminds me of leaves and all the wonderful decorations Archimedes won't let me get from the store. I thought the French Tip at this point was a little boring so I added e.l.f.'s Gold Star over the top, stopping about halfway up my nail. I love the little golden glitter pieces and the few random big chunky glitter. It made it a sort of Ombre nail while still having a strong French Tip line.

Here they are, looking magnificent.

This was literally the next day. I went to Archimedes flag football game and somehow left with my middle nail broken off. It was quite depressing since all my nails have been getting so long. 

The second nail I've done for my Fall Nails is a taupe and blood red design with gold accents. I recently purchased an e.l.f. nail polish sampler that included 10 miniature polishes. I picked it up at Burlington Coat Factory for around $5 and have been enjoying testing all of its colors. The taupe in this set looked extraordinarily purple and didn't even know it was taupe til I looked at the name "Taupe of the World. Once I gave it a good shake it looked much more taupe, but it is quite purple-y. I was even going to try to take a picture of it to show you how lavender it actually looks, but the camera actually made it look quite.... taupe. ANYWAYS! On to the manicure. The blood red color is Essie's Limited Addiction over the e.l.f. Taupe of the World.

To attach the golden detail fixtures, I use an old bottle of Seche Vite that's gone too sticky to use as a topcoat anymore, but is really quite a perfect glue.

 Thank you so much for your patience with my lack of presence in the past week. Let me know if you would like another Recipe Wednesday! I've got one lined up all ready to go.

~À Bientôt

Absence Excuse and Date Night

Now, I know I haven't blogged in a short while.. I have a good excuse I promise. My mom was in town bringing my things to the new apartment and exploring all of the new city with me. Then of course unpacking and sorting through for a second time far too many boxes for one person to have. Since she left I've been unpacking and going to Archimedes Flag Football games they had on base between the squadrons. Excitingly, they won, despite starting out their first practice wondering if there were going to be enough people to even play.

I'm ready to get back in the swing of things this next week after a nice break with my mom and then spending some quality time with Archimedes. Tonight we're having a dinner & a movie date night. I'm really excited because believe it or not, we've never been to the movies together before.

Manicure Monday ~ OPI Bond Skyfall Collection Mani

It's been two years since the OPI Bond Skyfall Collection came out and it's still one of my favorites. I got a few of the miniature sizes for Christmas 2012, instant love ensued. I used up the entire sample size of OPI's Tomorrow Never Dies so I decided to buy the full size. This color is gorgeous and easily a base for any gorgeous manicure.

My favorite pairing in this collection is Tomorrow Never Dies and Golden Eye. Tomorrow Never Dies is a wonderful blue with a sheen more than a sparkle. Unlike a lot of blue colors that OPI makes, it doesn't really have any flecks of other colors, just dark and light blue that makes for a gorgeous navy color. Golden Eye is the best accent gold I've ever had. It truly looks like flecks of gold as you would see if you panned gold or something of the sort; small, but uneven in size is what gives it a very natural (less chunky glitter) look. When you paint it on your nail, one swipe leaves an evenly dispersed amount of gold and can easily be intensified with an extra coat.

This is how I put them together today in a simple golden ombre from the top of the nail over the top of the blue.

Thank's for reading guys, let me know if you like this "Manicure Monday" thing. I really enjoy doing it because I do my nails all the time anyways, certainly at least once a week. Have a great day!

~À Bientôt

Over 1000!

I've gotten over 1,000 page views. I know that's not big and I honestly don't have a lot of followers, but my blog has been viewed over 1,000 times! That's super exciting to me! Thank you all for reading my silly little musings and please, continue to view it, comment even! :) This has most certainly made my day.

Baking a Cake in a Silicone Mold ~Recipe Wednesday on a Thursday

I did some inspirational baking yesterday and it came in the form of a chocolate cake! Now, I got this recipe from tasteofhome.com and it's a chocolate Dr. Pepper cake. I'm immensely excited because I've had a few cakes with soda in them, but I've never made one myself so I didn't know how it would end up. I made a few adjustments based on what I happened to have lying around today. In my experience, improvisation is one of the best ways to find new, delicious foods.

This is the list of ingredients from the website:

1 package German chocolate cake mix, regular size   1 package (3.4 ounces) instant chocolate pudding mix   4 eggs   1 can (12 ounces) Dr Pepper   1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Read more: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/dr-pepper-cake#ixzz3Cl87IiMD

This is the list of ingredients with my replacements:

• 1 package of Devils Food cake mix, regular size
• 1 package (3.4 ounces) instant vanilla pudding mix
• 4 eggs
• 1 can (12 ounces) Dr Pepper
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

They also suggested to put it into 3, 9 inch round baking pans, but I don't happen to have any round baking pans. All I have are a few silicon cake molds that are ABSOLUTELY adorable from Ikea. They are the Sockerkaka line of cake molds and you can find them right here! I have all three styles of molds that they have, but for this cake I decided to use the heart shaped one. 

I followed the mixing directions exactly :

• In a large bowl, combine cake and pudding mixes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in Dr Pepper and vanilla. 

I then transferred it into the greased heart shaped silicon mold, all of it. I wasn't sure how this would turn out for me since the recipe recommended more cake pans, but the molds are actually quite tall, double the height of a normal cake pan so I had HOPED it wouldn't cook over the height of the pan as the batter only came to its midpoint. 

As the oven was heating to its recommended 350°, the lovely maintenance people from my apartment came to replace my dishwasher. It took a while and I didn't put the cake in the whole time they were here.

The cake ended up being so large I had to turn the oven down to 200° and cooked it for around an hour. Looking back I would have distributed it into different pans because having all the batter in the one cake mold was just too much.

FINAL RESULT:

 I decided it needed a little bit of frosting, so I made a glaze with store-bought dark chocolate frosting, put it in the microwave for 10 seconds, spooned some into a bowl and added just a smidgen of Dr. Pepper. I poured the mixture all over the cake and bam! It was delicious!

MANICURE MONDAY----Hard Candy Glitter Polish ~ King of Pop ~

I decided to do something new! Manicure Monday!!! I know, a ton of people do them, but its kind of a fun way to structure consistent content and a great way to have something to look forward to. Now, I'm new at this and although I'm actually quite good at Photoshop or any photo-editor I don't actually have access to one right now so I can't produce cute little images or easy-to-pin pictures. I also have to tell you it took practically forever to get these pictures on to my computer because I really have far too many pictures on my phone and my computer tries to import literally all of them.

On to the manicure!

I like to start off my nail routine with Hard as Hoof Nail Strengthening Cream which I got at Walmart. I put a tad on each nail, massage it in and let it soak in for at least an hour. I clean off any residue left before putting on the base coat.

I used to not use anything to strengthen my nails, as I naturally have very durable nails, but since I used to constantly use 100% Acetone to remove my polish multiple times a week they started to become a bit more brittle and split a lot. 

I then use Essie's All in One Base. Mine spilled a bit in transportation so the bottle's a tad messed up.

 I alternated fingers using Sinful Colors' Easy Going and Pure Ice's Scream.

 To top it off I used Hard Candy's King of Pop glitter polish. I'm not the best at keeping neat while I paint so when my nail's are completely dry I wash my hands and most of the polish comes off the skin and you can just pull it or scrub it off. Sometimes If I'm not doing anything or going anywhere I'll wait til much later in the day and scrub it off in the shower. 

*To note, I did not put a top coat on because in my personal experience it becomes practically impossible to remove without soaking. Currently I just have an inexpensive drugstore non-acetone polish remover, so it would really take a while.*

~Update: It took over an hour to remove even without a topcoat~

 This is the finished look I posed on Instagram about a week ago with the edges all cleaned up. If you want to follow me on Instagram @Psychopomp (as you can see).

I also post all my nail art to Twitter @TheRedBuffalo and Tumblr @redpsychopomp

Yeah... I know.. I should probably get them all the same.

Background Change

I love Fall. I mean, I really LOVE Fall. This year the first day of the Autumnal Equinox is on September 23rd which I feel is too late, it should be Fall right now. To hold me off on my love of Fall, the brisk air, the changing leaves, the smell of pumpkin pie (although I dislike the taste of pumpkin pie, I can't get over the smell... lucky for me, Archimedes LOVES pumpkin, so I can make ALL the pumpkin pastries I feel like) I've decided to change my background on the blog to some lovely fall leaves. I've also been gathering a plethora of Fall Foods on my Pinterest, if any of you would like to view it, click here. I've been constantly adding things to it on a daily basis, so go ahead and follow it to keep updated! I've been adding things that make me feel a bit like I'm home, what my family normally has in Autumn, and new things I've never had before that sound amazing.

I really enjoy making blog posts and have been thinking about how to evolve this, make this more enjoyable for all of us, keeping it fresh and interesting. I'm thinking of maybe starting something specific I do weekly, I'll update you as I decide what it may be.

Until next time!

~À Bientôt

Back to my New Home

So I'm on a plane back home (to Archimedes and my apartment) and I can't help but think about how much I am amazed by planes. I mean,  I understand how they work with lift and what not, I actually studied aerospace science for a year. I still find them immensely interesting, but really... I dislike flying in them. In this past year I've been on 8 flights and two were international 7+ hour flights.  I don't think its wrong to say I'm very tired of flying while at the same time getting very good at it. Its easier to pack appropriately for my carry-on, remember snacks, and go through security with confidence. 

Earlier today, I had that feeling that it wasnt going to be too busy today at the airport and despite my reassuring my father I ended up there 2 hours early. Security took 5 minutes so I had 2 hours to just chat with Arch on skype. I had felt miserable earlier in the day and had only slept about 5 hours the night before.

All in all Im happy to be home.

Starbucks, My New Friend

We have an apartment, but no internet. Currently I'm spending most of my day in Starbucks. Honestly it's kind of fun because it's quite a bit more social than just sitting alone in an apartment by myself. Even if I'm sitting around when people are having conversations next to me it's just as interesting as being in the conversation. Today, I'm particularly enjoying it due to the fact that there's a very lovely lady and two young adults crocheting take-home outfits for babies to take to the hospital. Their stories are great and as much as I'd like to join in I feel like it would be rude. I've been thinking maybe before she or I leave I say something so maybe I can join in next time they have their little crochet meeting. It really makes me miss my friend and I going to her aunts house to crochet and watch episodes of "Once Upon a Time".

Being in a new place kind of sucks when you don't have friends and happen to be the kind of person who has a very hard time talking to people, even if they seem awesome and would like similar things. I'd love to have friends to enjoy things with so that maybe these days while Archimedes is at work for twelve hours at a time. Without internet it's frustrating, but I think even with internet it'd still be quite boring to have no one to spend time with. 

Guy with the rainbow beanie and Pusheen t-shirt with the awesome Aunt (I think) and the lovely redhead that wants to be a Vet sitting in the Starbucks today crocheting take-home outfits to donate to the hospital and speaking of Jolly Rancher cotton candy and horses.... please find me... You people are massively enjoyable to listen to. I just wish I had the courage to talk to you and come crochet with you. 

Gah.. 

~À Bientôt


*Update: I talked to them. They are quite awesome. They are making baby outfits for the ones that don't make it and donating them to the hospital. How amazing of them to find something awesome to do with their talents. All of them are quite nice and intrigued into my life. Yey.. getting to talk to people. :) Really, I missed it. 

NEW HOME

SO... exciting news guys... Archimedes and I moved in together. He finally got back from his year long overseas deployment when I was in France and about a month later we moved in together at his new base. We found a nice little apartment near to the base in a nice little down right down the highway from a bigger city area. It took us 9 days to sign a lease and get an apartment all to ourselves.

The first night in the new apartment we had to sleep on the floor, but due to our 9 days of house hunting and furniture shopping, we have finally found an apartment and the next day a bed showed up on our doorstep ready to be installed. It's really helped since we have no other furniture in the whole place (unless you count the packing box we are using as a dinner table and the floor as chairs).

I'm growing quite fond of this little town and since I don't have a job now that we moved, I think that I'll blog more often... I hope. I think I'll devote myself more to crafts, nail art, and creativity in general.

Archimedes and I have a big surprise for you soon so stay tuned, I definitely won't forget to post about it.

~À Bientôt

France- A Place of Delicious Bread, To-Die-For Ice Cream, and My Favorite Sparkling Drink: Limonade

I haven't posted in almost a year, so time to fill you guys in. I WENT TO FRANCE. Now, this is something I've wanted to do for most of my young adult life and I was finally able to go to France for 5 weeks. An entire month left me with a wonderful feeling of closeness to a place many visitors only have a short time in. I went with school and for the first 4 weeks, we were in "classes" (I use the word "classes" loosely due to the fact that they were more like planned adventures through the cities.) We stepped foot in a classroom once, for our orientation on the second day of the trip. It was really an amazing experience and I just can't wait to go back again one day.

Now, five WEEKS of pictures is... a lot. I wish I could show you all, but its truly a ridiculous number of pictures so here are some of my favorites.

The Eiffel Tour from the Montparnasse Building

St. Chapelle 

Mont Saint Michel

Normandy Cemetery

Macarons from D'Alloyeau

Oh, did I mention my mom and I went to England for the weekend?

We went to Cardiff, Wales to see the Dr. Who Experience.

The last few days we were there was for France's independence day.

Our hotel was pretty close.

The fireworks were absolutely unbelievable from our balcony.

In all, it was probably one of the most amazing things I have ever done. I'm so happy I mustered up the courage and money to go to this wonderful country.