My San Francisco Weekend

I have something I have never done for you guys today...I have spa review.  I didn't seek this out, it sort of fell in my lap and I just feel really compelled to tell you about the manicure & pedicure I had this past weekend.  On Saturday, my husband and I set out for San Francisco.  We both LOVE that city and he surprised me with a manicure and pedicure at the spa in the hotel we stayed at.  tru is an upscale spa in the Hilton in the Financial District.  They charge hefty prices for their services and most reviews are very favorable to them.  Initially my husband booked me for just a pedicure and then changed it to a manicure and pedicure.  All they had was a 1 hour appointment available, so he went for the Blush Hour, a mani/pedi in an hour.  The spa itself was very clean and modern.  The manicurist was really sweet and had everything ready to go when she brought me back for my service.  I chose 2 Essie polishes, Wicked for my fingers and Really Red for my toes.  The service itself was really nice.  Although I would have preferred the manicure first, so that my nails would have had 30 extra drying minutes, but she already had the pedicure bath ready to go.  When she painted my nails, I noticed the top coat bottle.  It was a square bottle that I kind of recognized, but I couldn't see the label.  Next was the manicure and it was just as nice.  Then before I new it, she has whipped out a bottle of OPI Bondex and  gave each one of my nails a quick coat.  Bondex is a product you use to dehydrate the nail before applying acrylic.  It is a mild acid that puts teeny tiny pits in your nail so that the acrylic will adhere to it.  Nail polish remover or alcohol on a cotton ball would have worked just fine to remove the lotion and oil residue left from the service.  Bondex was over the top, in my opinion.  She painted my nails and then pulled out the same square shaped bottle of top coat, this time I saw the label- Rimmel.  Rimmel?  I am paying $70 for you to use Rimmel top coat?!!  I had a bottle of Seche Vite up in my room!  Well, needless to say, the Bondex didn't help, because my nails bubbled worse than I have ever seen.  Not to mention her clean up!  Man, I was so bummed!  My husband went out of his way to surprise me with this and my nails looked like crap and somehow, 6 hours later I still managed to get sheet marks in a couple of the nails.  As far as I am concerned, tru blew it and I won't have my nails done there ever again.  Here they are, my overpriced, major bubbled nails...

Other than that, I had a fabulous weekend in San Francisco!

 The view from our room.

The sea lions at Pier 39.  I thought this was so funny Sea-Esta- with sea lions taking a siesta (yes I am a dork)

Looking back at San Francisco.

I'm back!

I'm back, did you miss me?  Or I guess I should say did you miss my nails?  Anyways, what a fabulous blog vacation I have had.  My kids and I spent many days at the lake, going to outdoor concerts, swimming, visiting with friends & family, and we even threw a camping trip in there too.  The picture is of Rollins Lake in Colfax, CA.  It is actually the view from outside the bathroom where we camped.  I know that some people don't consider that camping, but that is as primitive as this girly girl gets :)  This week marked the end of my kids summer vacation as school started on Wednesday.     

One of the things I did do on my "blogation" was a little soul searching about Nail'd & Polish'd.  This last year was not what I had hoped it would be for my blog and I have been very discouraged for about the last 6-9 months.  I have felt a tremendous amount of pressure to be one of the first bloggers with this or that collection.  Pressure to not only post daily, but to post entire collections in 1-2 days.  I got resentful of fellow bloggers who where able to devote more hours to their blog than I was.  And the amount of caddyness, pushiness, and down right meanness going on with other bloggers was just getting to be too much.  These are NOT the reasons I started blogging and they are definitely not the reasons why I want to continue blogging.  I have decided that in order to have a great blog, the blogger doesn't have to practically kill herself trying to obtain the newest polish collection or the latest and greatest product.  One doesn't have to have give away after give away in order to recruit new followers.  And most importantly, this is not High School and I am not going to support bloggers that take part in this behavior.  So, I have cleaned up my blog roll, the people I follow on twitter, and I am starting fresh!  I am really excited to get back into a blogging routine and share my love and addiction of nail polish.  Stay tuned...