Do your nails before that 10:15 meeting and other favs

July 3, 2012 1 Comment

Morning everyone!

I’m reporting live from my new suburban digs and let me tell you how incredible it is to be writing from a dining room table instead of my bed or a hipster coffee shop blasting heavy metal and rolling their eyes when I ask if they have sugar free vanilla syrup.

I will write more about transitions later, I’m still trying to soak it all in, but for now, let me tell you about a few of my favorite things at the moment!

1. Sally Hanson Insta-Dri Fast Nail Color

There is NO excuse for you not to have your nails done red or blue for the 4th of July!

Ok, so this stuff is not a magic potion nail color where you get a quick coat that lasts for a week, but it’s only $5 and is a very quick coat. I used to paint my nails with this stuff at my desk and let it air dry while I typed at least a couple times during the month.

For me, I hate not having my nails painted. I went to my nail salon in brooklyn about once a week, sometimes more and the nail techs there even knew what colors I liked the most.

Ballet Slippers

and my new obsession: Van D’go

But when I want to paint my nails fast to go out, my go to color is almost always red.

The insta-dry color for that is Sonic Boom, which is the one I have at the top of this section, and is this perfect, bright candy apple red that looks great with gold jewelry and a leopard print iPhone case. It’s like a modern day Peg Bundy and is just superb.

If you don’t have time for a mani, but need your nails done within 15 mins, grab this bottle and just paint away. The brush is really thick and easy to use and the color is very pigmented. It probably will chip by the next day, but if you need it for one night– these bottles are my go to.

I used to keep them at my boyfriends house because mani pedis in his town, the place I am living now, are outrageous and I’m going to have to figure something out. Like $15 for a mani, EFF!

So anyway, if you need fast, cheap for tonight– get it!

2. New fav. drink to make at home for hardly any cals!

What you need:

Key Lime Whipped (I’m addicted to all of these whipped vodkas)

Fresca

Lime

Ice

Shaker

I make great cocktails, I DO. In college I invented these shots called “blind fold me’s” that were just me pouring vodka, crystal light mix and a splash of OJ into a glass, shaking with tons of ice and pouring in mugs used as shot glasses. They were incredible (most of the time) and sometimes bombed.

Anyway, my dad is also the greatest cocktail maker ever, so maybe this gene was passed down. Or at least the knowledge. A great cocktail is made by shaking the drink, not just stirring. Thank you father, and James Bond.

So if you don’t have any barware, that’s FINE, you don’t need martini glasses, in fact, at bars I ask for my martinis in lowballs (waiter/bartender speak for short glass) if I don’t have a table to rest it because I end up spilling half of it on my Reefs and then I get really angry.

ANYWAY, you don’t need much barware except a metal shaker and strainer.

Even in college, when I didn’t have one of these, I would pour the drink back and forth between two plastic cups over the sink and it would make even a plastic bottle vodka and soda with a lime taste 100 times better.

Here’s how to make it:

Fill shaker 3/4 with ice, pour about a jigger and a half of the keylime vodka on top, then fill the rest with fresca, squeeze a lime wedge into the drink and then shake for about 10 seconds. Pour into a glass with the ice and then garnish with one more lime.

It’s so limey and refreshing and cold on a summer day, you will just LOVE it.

Fresca = zero cals, and the vodka with key lime has maybe 15-20 more than reg vodka. Not bad.

3. Bath and Body works room sprays

I know, the fact that I love Bath and Body Works still is completely appalling to most. But I do, and you cannot stop me.

They have these awesome room sprays that work so well, one spray is so strong it will fill almost an entire house, though, so don’t go overboard and don’t leave them in the bathroom for guests to use at their own will. It’s so powerful I could smell it in the hallway of my apartment building when I sprayed it in my room. YIKES!

I have one in Island Colada that makes my house smell like a giant pina colada and it’s awesome, but I really want the twilight woods one and the warm vanilla sugar.

I am really a firm believer in pretty smells and how they effect your mood and I have this serious bed time routine that I cannot shake. I like going into the bedroom and turning down the sheets, putting on the ceiling fan, spraying the room and turning off the lights so it gets really cold.

Then I close the door, go downstairs, watch TV for a little then come back up in about an hour to change into my nightgown and read.

The room smells so fresh and clean– and the sheets are cold that I fall asleep within minutes.

So get one of these room sprays and try it tonight!