For my birthday I really wanted French Macaroons again. I was planning on going downtown to Miel Patisserie in Philadelphia during Labor Day weekend, right before my birthday on the 4th... but I forgot Philadelphia was having the 'Made in America' concert for two days straight. So downtown would have been crazy, the trains would have been mobbed... I don't do crowds. I get claustrophobic.

So since I was planning on spending a certain amount on French Macaroons anyway, I just decided I would order online from Macaron Cafe in New York City. I used a 10% off coupon too! (MAC10). They only have one shipping option, overnight shipping. It was $17 to Philadelphia, but since this was a birthday splurge it was worth it. (Sometimes you have to spoil yourself!)

 
I liked that you can customize your box with any of the flavors available. Most online places have set flavors. And the prices are pretty reasonable, the smallest box is only $16. (Compared to when I was looking online on Amazon and they wanted to charge $30 for 6 macaroons... what the heck?!)

Being a splurge I ordered the largest box of 24 French Macaroons. I ordered two of each flavor (so hubby can share too!) of: Dark Chocolate, Vanilla, Pistachio, Raspberry, Mocha, Peanut Butter, Caramel, Coconut, Strawberry Rhubarb, Nutella, Espresso, Chocolate Raspberry.

When they arrived, they were packed in a box and the gift box was within a thermal bubble envelope with ice packs. The macaroons themselves were in a special plastic separator tray inside the gift box, so none of them got crushed or broken during shipping! The gift box is nice too, it came with a pink ribbon. I'm going to keep it to put makeup or nail polish in after they are all gone!

They are so pretty! French Macaroons are normally pretty. These ones had shimmer & edible gold shimmer on some of the flavors. And of course they are so good! So far I've tried chocolate, raspberry & pistachio. Pistachio is my favorite so far. (I liked pistachio at Miel Patisserie too).


*This was purchased by myself. I am not associated with Macaron Cafe.

I have some catching up to do! Molly & Willow joined our rat family last Saturday. A birthday gift to myself. They are just little babies. I would guess about 2 months old.

Molly is black capped with a white blaze. We noticed she's missing the tip of her left ear also. Molly is smaller than Willow, but chubbier.

Willow we think is a hooded blue. (I say think, because she's molting a bit growing into her coat and sometimes her coat looks a little cocoa). I think she might just be darker blue, like Daisy was. Willow is... very adventurous, lol. (I think she's going to be feisty like our other new girl Toffee!)


 

I finally got Zoya Carter from the 2013 Winter Collection! It's the only one that stood out to me, because of the royal purple color. When I got it yesterday though I was surprised, in the bottle it almost reminded me of Zoya Roxy, it has a lot of pink sparkles. I was afraid it would look too pink on my nails, but with 3 coats it definitely looks more purple, than it does in the bottle. Thank goodness! It's so pretty!






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I was excited to try out my other Messy Mansion stamping plate, MM06. I tried the damask pattern this time. It's a little tricky to center on the nail, but I still think they turned out pretty.

I used China Glaze Flying Dragon for my base. I got a mini bottle on eBay. I'm glad I did get a mini and not a full size, because it takes longer than usual to dry, even with Seche Vite fast dry topcoat. I did 3 thin coats.

I've never had a problem with China Glaze's formula before... but this one was tricky to work with. It's a royal purple color with blue & pink micro glitter. It dries gritty & matte, so you need a topcoat to make it shiny. I stamped with Maybelline Color Show Metallic's in Bold Gold.






Disclosure: The products above were purchased with my own money. I was not asked to blog about them.

P.S. I also did a little video showing how I paint my nails. Mostly because I get asked a lot how do I keep my nails so neat when painting. It's not really a tutorial, it was mainly to show people after painting my nails for 3 years straight every 1-2 weeks, I've developed a steady hand- so it is rare that I ever have to do more than swipe of a q-tip if I do get paint on my skin.

Now.... the only exception to that is doing a gradient or stamping... those are messy and you will get paint on your skin, I do! I don't have a tripod, so I balanced my camera on a book, lol. There's no sound... but you get the idea!

The boy rats have kept things interesting here over the past few weeks. (I have 4 boy rats. Templeton, Teddy, Remy & Emile). First Teddy came down with a respiratory infection and had to be treated with antibiotics and separated from the other boys.

When Teddy finally rejoined the other guys, he decided he wanted to torment Emile (as usual), chase him around & fight him. Only this time their fighting got out of hand. The day after they had fought I picked up Emile to notice a scab on his one finger. At first I thought he had just torn off a fingernail fighting. But when I looked closer... he was missing half his finger!

Surprisingly, there was no blood anywhere in the cage, which is crazy. Because when a pet rat just pulls off a nail it bleeds like crazy. There was just a scab. I decided to separate Emile while his finger healed so he wouldn't pull the scab off accidentally. Less than 2 weeks later he is doing just fine, just missing part of his finger... though he doesn't seem to notice.




Then... Saturday. A little after my husband had filled all the rat's food dishes up. We noticed Templeton was heaving/gagging and drooling. He must have choked on something, most likely a lab block. He gave us such a scare because the choking went on for at least 30 minutes. He would heave and gag and drool. It was terrifying. I would pound him light on his back and sides, we tried giving him an oral syringe with water. Eventually he started to regurgitate this food colored... drool... (gross I know, sorry- but may be helpful to another rat owner out there). I kept wiping it away with a tissue. He really gave me a heart attack.

About 40 minutes later he was doing much better, though sleepy. I got this cell phone photo of him napping in our emergency rat towel. I didn't want him to have anymore solid food that day so we gave him baby food sweet potatoes for lunch and dinner. Today he his back to his normal self, thank goodness!


   
Templeton. And Templeton below yawning... check out that crazy tongue!

Just two weeks after Cherry passed away... we woke up Friday morning to find Belle had passed away during the night. When I woke up Baby Rat (Violet) was cuddled up next to Belle. Belle was our last little dumbo eared girl and the last of our adopted rats from Star's Rat Rescue.

We only had the girls a year. Cherry & Belle were born in the same litter at Star's Rat Rescue on Christmas day in 2011. They traveled 1,500 miles from South Dakota to Philadelphia when we adopted them last August.

Belle was always petite, she would run on the wheel a little bit. She was very spoiled in her elderly years always popping her head out of her hammock for a treat before any of the other girls got one. Belle was very frail and had one small mammary tumor on her chest in her old age.