Press on Nails 2022
Those of us of a certain age surely remember the cheesy commercials from the. 70's advertising Lee Press on Nails. We howled with laughter at the awful faux fingernails that resembled construction paper pasts ons. Press on nails did not compute. They seemed tacky and low brow. But, those of us at the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation still had youthful, strong fingernails that could flick the pull of a Coke can with nary a scratch.
Forward 45 years. Our strong as horse hoof nails have deteriorated to thin, brittle shadows that we never expected. When my mom complained of skimpy nails I suggested she embrace jello. Well, apparently diet can't save us from the vagaries of aging.
WTF! I awakened one day to discover my previously concrete nails had become brittle, thin, sad, ridged, aged examples of deteriorating youth. This I never expected. I thought strong fingernails were ageless. How wrong!
I tried cuticle oil, nail strengthening, o poly shower, short nails, gel polish and every remedy I could find. Nothing worked. Gel looked Brest, but destroyed the nail bed and natural nails.
So, a few weeks ago I read about the modern glue on nails that received rave reviews. They became popular during COVID lockdowns. I was suspicious of the product. But, I started to conduct red arch and discovered that glue on/ press on nails had evolved exponentially in the last decades including mail safe glue and an abundance of options in length, shape, application and price point. Wow! I am amazed how natural they look with easy application att a price point far less than even a regular manicure that lasts less than a week.
I am sold! You can buy these press on nail at the grocery store, Target, Walmart and specialty retailers online.
Cheap options: Olive & June.
Upscale: Static Nails or LA Nails.
And if a nail falls off, you can glue it back on. No downside. Lots of options. And a set lasts up to 3 weeks.
Posted by Vivian Harrington at 12:13 AM No comments:
Give Patriotism a Try This 246th Independence Day | Let Go of Anger
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime..Mark Twain
I have been privileged to travel extensively through Europe and East Asia which included 6 years living abroad. Living on foreign soil gave me the opportunities to break the bubble of organized tourism that most Americans, including those in the political class, experience. Those who travel in that bubble on the plush heated or air conditioned coach, or luxury staterooms on a cruise, stay in western style hotels, and dine in carefully selected restaurants do not truly see a country. Instead, these travelers are escorted by guides or handlers to meetings, historical sites, cultural shows, museums, ruins or places that insulate the traveler from scenes of poverty, pollution, environmental devastation, oppression, disregard for safety or government surveillance. ( with the exception of Kuala Lumpur where they drive tourists by the prison and mention execution for drug possession).
In the USA at this moment we have cultural and political divisiveness that is exacerbated by 24/7 media, partisan politicians, inflammatory rhetoric, an undereducated population taught that the sins of the Founding Fathers stain generations of sons and daughters, the devaluation of a liberal arts education that teaches critical thinking, an inability to recognize that America promises opportunities but not outcomes, and that we the people can alter the course of history by getting involved at the grassroots level and working to change what we don't like through peaceful persuasion.
I've spoken to a multitude of immigrants who came to this land for political freedom, religious freedom, freedom of protest, the right to due process, the right to avoid persecution, the ability to start with nothing and create a peaceful life, a small business or a conglomerate, a chance to start over, the right to an attorney if arrested, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, an infrastructure that provides people with access to clean water, mostly well paved roads, safe air travel, safe food, free primary and secondary education, libraries, and the right to remove government representatives we don't like by casting a vote.
I still believe that America 🇺🇸 is the land of the free and the home of the brave. Contrary to what many want us to believe, this is not the most tumultuous time in our history. Read it. All of it. The good, the bad, the ugly, the great, the individuals who remain for the most part unsung heroes or heroines in somebody's life.
I felt most fortunate to be an American while celebrating Independence Day in Taipei, Taiwan, a place separated from PRC by the 110 mile Taiwan Straits, shortly after the crackdown in Tiananmen Square, knowing I had an American passport and a ticket to freedom.
On the July 4, 2022~ A Reminder~ In Case You've Not Read Beyond the Preamble
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The Supreme Court Was Right on the Law but Wrong In it's Decision on Roe
The 49+ year debate over a woman's right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy baffles me. Why does anybody not involved in the decision care? How does this decision adversely affect another? Why do Right To Life people believe they should have any influence over another woman's choices? Are any of these people donating significant dollars to raise an unwanted child?
I was raised Catholic. I tend to support the Libertarian view that another individual should not infringe my rights in my bedroom, on my property or in my bank account.
While I do believe from a strict reading of the Constitution that abortion is not specifically enumerated as a right, the 1973 court created a right with twisted interpretation. As Congress well knows, once a program or a right has been deployed, withdrawing that program or right becomes a hornets nest.
There has been a lot of discussion about legal precedent. Much has been said about the overturn of decisions such as Dredd Scott and Plessy. These cases were clearly wrongly decided. And the decisions to reverse course has been argued to support overturn of Roe.
But, there is a significant difference. Plessy and Dredd Scott deprived people of rights they should have had under the Constitution. Roe created rights that never existed and were not enumerated in the Constitution. Overturning Scott and Plessy righted terrible wrongs and reinstated rights that should never have been abrogated.
But Roe created rights that had not been previously conveyed. American women relied on these created rights for 49 years. Withdrawing rights previous confirmed, notwithstanding the original error, is inexcusable. Women have come to depend on the rights expanded by Roe. How is removing the right to a safe and legal abortion any less heinous than attempting to nullify Medicare, Aid to Dependent Children, SNAP, or. Medicaid?
Again, why do you care? If you want to have a kid, do it. But do not tel anyone else how to live their lives. Unless you plan to adopt, pay for and raise an unwanted child, STFU ! This issue should not be the subject of legislation in the states or the federal government.
And, if you really value life, don't buy oil produced in Saudi Arabia. Don't buy any goods manufactured in China or Mexico. Don't purchase anything made Russia. Don't put grandma is a nursing home. Invite a homeless person or refugee to live in your spare room.
Posted by Vivian Harrington at 11:40 PM No comments:
Give Patriotism a Try This 246th Independence Day ...
On the July 4, 2022~ A Reminder~ In Case You've No...
The Supreme Court Was Right on the Law but Wrong I...