Lies, Deception, and... Photoshop?

I don't know who or what to believe anymore. Everywhere you look, news articles are flooding your Facebook feeds. Youtube videos are showing you how to do amazing things. People are spreading information at a viral rate. What is real? How do you know?

It seems as though you can't even look for facts anymore. With so many sites on the internet, everyone has different "facts." It isn't like it was years ago when you would just open up an encyclopedia for the truth. Many people tell you "truth" which is so completely false. "Trolls" run a muck in our time. Anyone could write a bullshit article claiming it is news or that it is true spreading lies and deception.

Memes have pictures of Bernie Sanders stating a Hitler quote. How would you know that unless you researched Hitler or were there to hear him speak the words? What would even indicate to an avid Bernie supporter that further research was needed? Wasn't Hitler a socialist too? Wait, let me search the internet to find out since I am not a history buff and I had to return all of my high school history text books when I graduated... Oh wait. Is internet research even reliable? Which sites can be trusted? I don't know. Shit.

People put a banana and a kiwi together and bury it... tricking young viewers into believing that they, too, can do this. Obviously this is fake but it is just an example of intentionally trying to deceive people. A girl posts a video of snow boarding down a hill with a bear chasing her. Same with the biker in the woods. Have these bears been spliced into the videos? Are they real? How do you know? People are so good at editing things these days that your first instinct is to be amazed... then to convince yourself that everything is fake and take a nap. At least in the 1990's America's Home Videos area, everything seemed believable. I mean, who at home possessed the technology to take a cassette tape and edit in unbelievable things? Have you ever found yourself watching 9/11 conspiracy videos and believing them? Are they true? They sure seem to be but so does the bear chasing the girl...

Kiwi Banana

Snowboarder getting chased by Bear

Biker being chased by Bear

Can you even trust the News anymore? They twist everything to fit their agenda. These pictures below demonstrate this idea better than I ever could.

This leads me to a scary conclusion. Because of all the deception and "trolling" the world does now, we are not taking things seriously. Terrifying things are happening around the world and no one believes they are real. Every TV show or movie I have ever watched portrays a world in widespread panic at the announcement of extraterrestrial life. People have been reporting UFO sightings and abductions for years. Everyone thinks they are nuts. When they really show up (if they haven't already) no one is even going to believe it. Excuse me while I put my tinfoil hat back on. Are we even going to have the chaos and panic everyone assumes comes with frightening reality?

I do not consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but I question things that do not seem to add up. I find myself looking to Snopes when something doesn't seem believable... but who are these Snopes people? Is their information any more truthful than (in the words of my High School English Teacher) BillyBob'sBackyardBBQ.com? I feel more lost and confused than I ever have in my entire life.

I think that is enough internet for the day.

The Granny Square Expiriment

I had all but given up on making granny squares because they would always turn out floppy. I don't feel my tension is off and I count properly - 3 dc ch 1 then 3 dc ch 2 3 dc on the corners. Upon watching a tutorial about Tunisian crochet, I saw someone do "blocking." Basically all you do is get some foam pads and pin your work strait and steam it. Voila! - it stays in place forever!

This made me want to do a granny square again more than ever! I do get sick of going round and round so I decided to do something I had never done before... make a ton of small ones and connect them. SO I investigated again on a new technique. How the hell do I connect them without making a ton and putting them together at the end? TEDIOUS! The answer was within a video. Join as you go. Excellent.

I didn't want it to look the same in all squares so I used the granny square colors generator. All you do is pick your colors and tell it how many squares you want with how many colors and it randomly creates different squares. I had to refresh quite a few times until I found one that was pleasing to my eye.

This is the result. It took about a month by the time I could do 2-3 squares in an evening after work prior to bed.

 I chose I Love This Yarn brand White, Greymyst, Greybeard, and Glacier for this project.

When it was done, the effect of joining as you go leaves an almost diagonal step look. Blocking and bordering helps with this. You almost can't tell! If you look closely, you can see that I had to be a bit creative to do the first border of white around the entire blanket. Where the squares join, there isn't a large space so I had to put one dc in the space before, one dc in the middle space, and one dc in the space after to make a faux (3) dc space. This gives the illusion of continuing with the pattern as planned. It does have to stretch a tiny bit further but in the end you can't really tell unless you are REALLY looking for it.

Not sure what lucky baby is going to get this soft blankie yet but I will know when the time comes :)

My favorite part about this? No floppy blanket!

Baby Madness!

So pretty much everyone I know is pregnant right now. Ok, not really. But there are several - 2 girls at work, 2 friends, 1 sister... Anyway, I make a lot of crocheted blankets. I can't knit to save my life but I can crochet blankets... go figure. My latest and most beloved creation is this beautiful baby throw I made for my very best friend, Erin, while I was visiting her in Louisiana earlier in the month. She is having a girl in the beginning of November. I cranked this beaut out in all of 3 days. It was quite difficult to capture the soft pink that it truly is. I am so excited to see a picture of baby Brooklyn with this blanket! I used the rugged ripples pattern by Stephanie Gage as viewed and learned through VeryPink Knits on youtube. Here is the link! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6TQOJdTnvQ. I also chose to use three rows per color to help aid in having a more dominant color strip. I also like the effect of more pink than grey and vice versa on either side. I also hate to change colors so the more rows of one color the better! The yarn used was I Love This Yarn brand Soft Pink and Graymyst with a size K hook. (thank god they let me take it on the plane with me even though I had plastic backups! haha

Be still my heart! It has arrived. Super pumped that the nail polish gods were listening when I cried out, "WHY? WHY DOES THE UK HAVE BETTER SHIT?" Maybelline stole the show this time by giving us what we wanted. Bravo! I thoroughly enjoy this over their Impeccable Grey's. Lo'real, eat your heart out! Not sure why the picture portrays the polish with a greyish tint to the lacquer but that isn't the case.

VS

Win.

Loathing in Self Pitty...

I am feeling a bit low today as I am thinking about the things I can't find.

I recently stumbled across this lovely confetti top coat online called Confettis by L'Oréal. Unfortunately this seems to only to be available in Europe. Freaking crap. It is so pretty over any color.

I borrowed this picture from Spektor's Nails, whose blog I follow quite regularly.

L'Oréal... bring it here! PLEASE!

Another lemming of mine is Pitch Black Glimmer by Nicole (OPI brand). This was out a few years ago and only at Target. I can't find it ANYWHERE including ebay or amazon. Things sporadically show up on ebay but I have yet to see it available to buy.

I borrowed this picture from Addicted to Polish, whose blog I also follow.

I am so jealous of her! There are no other polishes with black glitter and a clear background that I can find anywhere. This polish seems to be one of a kind and they don't even make it any more :(

I guess I will just go eat. :D

St. Patrick's Day

In lieu of drinking on our most recent holiday, I decided to decorate my nails with several little Irish inspired nail designs. Ok... so I had one Guinness :)

I used a combination of water marbling and free hand design.

I recently have been in love with Sally Hansen Insta-grip base coat. It just seems to hold onto my nail better than anything else I have tried as of late.

I have also fallen in love with OPI's Greenwich Villiage - the light green in my design. This was the base color for my design. The last time I had water marbled I used Alpine Snow as my base color and was not impressed when the color started wearing off on the tips and exposing the white underneath  I have decided that from now on, I will just use the lightest color in my marbling to decrease the obviousness in the wear. OPI Jade is the new Black was also used in the marbling design. I used this youtube video to learn how to water marble the shamrock --- http://youtu.be/VVvMH90w9iM

OPI Goldeneye is my accent gold color on the thumb, first finger and also the gold in my pot o' gold. Next time I think I will put the rainbow leading to the pot of gold because that just seems like the thing to do.

Rainbow was my color club neon striper collection.

A New Beginning

Well... after being encouraged by several friends to start my own nail blog, I have decided I will put my fears aside and test it out. I know I am not the best nail artist or the most creative, but I love to try new designs and paint nails!

Let me start off by telling you a little bit about me.

Work: I have been a Registered Nurse since 2009. I currently work in an Emergency Department which is always full of surprises. My hospital, at this point, doesn't seem to really care about nail polish. Several of my co-workers wear shellac/gel polish. I have never had acrylics because those aren't the cleanest things in my line of work and are typically forbidden to have. When dealing with poo, puke, puss, blood or sputum... bacteria under acrylics don't really seem all that bad but whatever...

Personal Life: I am 25 years old. I married my husband in 2010. I LOVE cats. Almost to the point where people wonder what the heck is wrong with me how I could be so awesome. If I could support every lonely kitty that crosses my path I would <3 I am sure I will blog about my animals as well as polish. I have three tuxedo cats named Levi, Sasha, and Zoë. I also have a bumbling black lab named Annie who I have a love hate relationship with. I am sure her antics will make it into my blogging. My husband and I have several fish tanks - (2) 10 gallon tanks, (1) 29 gallon tank, and (2) 55 gallon tanks. My favorite fish is my Clown Knife Fish named Rocky.

(Left to Right - Levi, Zoë, Sasha)

Music: Music is a supremely important aspect of my life. My husband proposed to me in the Pink Floyd Exhibit of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I also walked down the isle to Shine on you Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd. I am a metal head. I am in love with all things Trivium. I love to sing Karaoke and I hear I am pretty good at it. I play some instruments casually but I do not excel at any one thing.

I don't know if I will ever get viewers - after all, this blog is more for me to express my creativity and blow off some steam. Also, for my few friends who truly care about my nail art and life beyond Facebook.

Starting out this blog, I own 209 nail polishes and 15 gel products (Photo is a little old). Yes, I realize that isn't very impressive compared to other bloggers but I am always working to improve my collection. My husband thinks I have 208 too many. I have been trying not to be quite so impulsive with buying everything I like but it is so hard! It just always seems like I never have every single color I "need." :)

I have no idea how often I will be able to blog but I am going to try hard to keep up!