A Bit of Saturday Serendipity

Have you ever experienced serendipity?

I totally did while at a farmer's market with my buddy last weekend. We were there to look for some wedding decorations for her wedding (the theme is officially "Urban Garden" by the way, so think rusty wheelbarrows, watering cans, etc). The market is kind of just a large yard sale so I didn't think I'd find anything for me (but we did find a wheelbarrow and ladder for her--can't wait to blog about that wedding). While we were walking around, and amidst all the joint wedding talk (a little about mine too), I happened to notice a book sitting on a table as I walked by.

Lo and behold, I found a book that has been sitting in my Amazon cart for MONTHS. What book? Well, I am a big fan of Rachel Brathen, aka "Yoga Girl", a Swedish woman who is currently living in Aruba and who has become a yoga teaching sensation and inspiration. You should look her up on her website or on her Instagram. I was watching an interview with her where she talks about what inspires her and such and she mentioned The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Ever since then I have wanted to read the book just to see what she was talking about. Ok, so going back to the farmers market...I looked down and there it was! The Power of Now staring back at me. A beautiful hardback version, too. So I grabbed it in about 0.002 seconds and when the woman shouted over to me "It's only $1" I was basically putting the book in my purse already. I handed over the money and walked away utterly gleeful that I had put off buying it from Amazon.

Fast forward a bit and I started reading it. On page 4 it says "I trust that this book will find its way to those who are ready for such radical inner transformation so act as a catalyst foro it. I also hope that it will reach many othes who will find its content worthy of consideration, although they may not be ready to fully live or practice it"....my jaw hit the floor. The book find its way! I can't wait to see everything it has to say.

This might be the first book I've read since law school but I'm enjoying it already. And hey, it even came with a matching yellow bookmark.

So,have you ever experienced serendipity?

Friday Favorites: July

I have been waiting for this post since I snapped these photos on Sunday. So yes, I've been planning this post for 1,2,3,4,5 days! It's been a while since I posted a Friday Favorites here (did I even think post a Friday Favorites for June?? I don't think so...)  Where is the time going?? These are a few of my current favorites:

These adorable black flats. Or really any black flats...

How cute are the little locks? They match the bag I use for work too so that's a plus.

 I also think I have a minor shopping problem...

This adorable present.

Andrew's niece turned TWO at the end of June so we all had brunch and mini party for her. She doesn't know Andrew or I because she never sees us so it was kind of awkward when she wouldn't come near us but eh...kids are kids. Of course, her being afraid of me will make for a very interesting flower girl at my wedding...great.

HOUSEHUNTING

The future husband and I have been searching high and low for our perfect first home. We love going to open houses, seeing all the different layouts, and figuring out whether we like it enough to put in an offer. It's very exciting!

 What are your favorites right now??

Swatch: Sally Hansen - Dabbler

Can I just say, Sally Hansen is quickly turning into one of my favorite brands? Does anyone else agree? The formula is amazing and the dry time doesn't leave me sitting on the couch watching the third episode of Gilmore Girls in a row just because my nails are still wet. Wait, I'd watch the third episode even if my nails are dry. Anyway, I picked up two Sally Hansen polishes when I was in Target the other day and they were EXACTLY what I was looking for. Below are some swatch photos of Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in the color, Dabbler.

This color is pretty Perhaps we have a bridesmaid gown color on our hands here. Haha, ON our HANDS. Lol, pun intended! Thoughts on this color? Do you like Sally Hansen?

Happy Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July to my American visitors!! I'll be adding more to this post later BUT for now here are my nails!

EDIT: As promised, here are some firework photos we snapped during some Fourth of July fireworks. The town to our east puts on a community firework show for its residents and nearby neighbors and it is probably one of the nicer displays I've seen.

Unfortunately, my hometown's fireworks got canceled because it ended up raining but we did get to go to a firework show around us. All in all not a bad time. Do you see any fireworks??

Simple Layered Mani

Because sometimes one polish just won't do, you know? I wasn't deciding on a single polish to use for my nails today so I grabbed OPI Where's My Czechbook and Essie Turqs and Caicos and decided to do a simple layered manicure with both. There was something about the bright blue of the OPI polish that I thought would mix well with the green tiny of the Essie polish. I think I was right but see for yourself?

See? The Essie polish just barely covers the OPI but does change the color a bit. Do you layer polishes? Have you ever layered polishes that you ended up hating?

Ah, in other news, I have officially begun my "Shred Then Wed" weight-loss-tone-up plan and today was a decent day. There's supposed to be some rain coming for us tonight though so I have to go out for my run now or I risk missing out! Hope everyone is doing well! Anyone want to weight loss adventure with me??

Zoya Is At It Again!

I'm so excited that I checked my Instagram this morning and found out about the newest Zoya deal going on right now! That's right, Zoya is at it again:

To get your 3 Free Zoya polishes all you do is pick out SIX of your favorite Zoya shades and enter the promo code 34FREE when you checkout. I already ordered mine, what will you get?? The promo runs until July 5th at 11:59 pm so take your time deciding!

Let's See Some Selfies!

I found out about this while sitting in a deposition this morning and I quickly started thinking up what to do since this is most definitely a bloggable moment. If you didn't already know, today is National Selfie Day! So regardless of how you feel about the act of selfie-ing, grab you camera, iPhone, vlogging camera, selfie stick, tripods, and Instagram filters and let's take some selfies! Slap some valencia on that and upload it to Instagram so I can see it -- #NikkisNailFilesSelfies

My nails for today are inspired by my all time favorite selfie -- a Halloween 2015 selfie I took on the way to my sister's Halloween party. Don't worry, I wasn't the one driving. One of the main reasons I like it is my broski (aka Mark Ronson) photobombing it from the back seat.

And here are the nails, a simple black and white design that took five seconds..literally.

Leave me links to your favorite selfies!

Happy Father's Day 2016

My Dad has never liked when his kids spend money on him. In fact, he's never been into receiving gifts from us. For example, I spent $50 for a really awesome Peanuts snow globe gift for him when I was 12 and he ended up giving to back to me saying it was too expensive! Anyway, today is the one day a year where my Dad allows himself to be spoiled by us kids. Because he doesn't particularly enjoy gifts from us though I always try to come up with something to do instead. This year, the whole family (minus significant others shockingly--it ended up being the original party of five!) spent the day hiking on a really cool boulder field. It looks like this:

Photo stolen from their website but you get the idea. Big boulders don't change very much!

Then Steph and I prepared a steak feast for my dad to enjoy while drinking brewskies out back. And boy did we go all out! The menu consisted of steaks on the grill, baked potato wedge fries (cut and seasoned by yours truly), vegetable skewers, corn on the cob, and mushrooms. For dessert we had cheesecake with berries and berry shortcake with whipped cream. Let's just say my Dad was blown away and it was really nice to see him relaxing and just having a good time with us kids.

Here is a quick photo I took before devouring all the food!

For my nails I used my Winstonia stamps that featured two of my Dad's favorite things: Beers and Grills. I used a Sally Hansen nude as a base (don't remember which!) and Art Deco in black for the stamp.

California Adventure - The End

Our last day there we toured the west coast just Andrew and I. We stopped at Bodega and saw the church where the Alfred Hitchcock classic, The Birds, was filmed on our way to Bodega Bay. This church would be a good choice for our wedding, right? Destination wedding anyone??

It was seriously the most beautiful day ever. The sky was clear and sunny but it wasn't too hot. I was in jeans and was super comfortable. Here are some coast photos we took during our excursion.

Northern California beaches are weird to me because they aren't typical beaches. As you can see, there are a ton of rocks! And you have to be really careful with rip currents/tides if you decide to go surfing or swimming in the water. We just stayed on the land and in the sand and let the surfers enjoy the ocean.

How pretty is this photo though? I kind of want to frame it for a hallway or something. I really love the rock formation in the background, the wispy hint of the cloud, and the cresting wave. It just looks really pretty! I could stand and listen to an ocean forever.

What's really nice is you can drive the coast and then get out at overlooks where you can have some amazing views.

 Andrew took this photo. This is another one I'd be interested in framing and hanging up somewhere.

Lastly, just a few more photos of one of the vineyards we went to. These last two were taken a Chateau St. Jean. Is this not the proudest palm tree out there??

 And the final photo of us in the garden at Chateau St. Jean.

Seriously, if you have never been to California I highly recommend going! We had a blast and are so grateful that my family let us crash with them.

California Adventure - The Middle

We took a day trip to walk around some shopping places in cute little towns in Sonoma county. We also ended up going Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve in Guernesville to check out some super old (and super BIG) redwoods. To give you some perspective about the scale of these trees, here are a couple photos I took of Andrew. He looks like a tiny child next to the massive trees!

If you don't want to walk through the redwood grove you can drive up to the top of the hill and see some pretty cool views at the outlooks along the way. The road up the hill is a little terrifying since it's a one lane road with constant switchbacks but Andrew and I are pros at mountains since he lived in Colorado for six months.

Is this the first photo of me during this trip?! Andrew took it at the top of the hill and I actually really like the way it came out...

 And here is some of the view we were looking at:

It sort of reminded me of our one Jamaica photo actually. Maybe we just like standing on top of mountains?? There are more mountain photos in my Colorado recap. Of course I don't think we saw a sign like this in Jamaica or Colorado...

Enough for one post I think. I haven't bored you too much have I??