Happy New Year Fanatics!!  I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and brought in the new year with a lot of fun and style.  I know I’m so excited to put 2009 behind me and move forward into 2010.  One thing worth celebrating… All Lacquered Up’s 3rd Anniversary!

Can you believe it’s been 3 years already?  I certainly can’t.  When I started this blog it was such a random thing.  I could never have dreamed what this would all turn into.  I was amazed to find out anyone was even reading it.

I seriously feel so blessed to have all of you come back, time and again, to hear what I have to say about polish and share my passion with me.  I’m thankful for the amazing opportunities ALU has brought me and the joy I get from being able to blog about what I love.  Thank you for coming on this journey with me and all your support.

So as I prepare to blow out the candles on my virtual cake, I’d like to make a polish wish for 2010.  Three years gets me three wishes, right?  Here is what I’d love to see…

1. Please for the love of all that is polish, someone make us an Emerald Green HOLO!!

2. Don’t let the green nail trend slow down anytime soon.  I’m in heaven and I don’t want to come down.  Thank you to all the brands that continue to amaze me with their greens.  What have you got to amaze us next??

3. China Glaze old buddy, old pal, old friend… can you find it in your hearts to give me what I’ve been asking for?  A black glass-flecked polish?  I know we’ve discussed this in the past and we’re all waiting with bated breath.

Now let’s hear your polish wishes for 2010.  What is desperately missing from your stash?  What kind of collections do you want to see?  Do you have a fave ALU post from the past three years?  Join me in the celebration with your comments!

I’ve received some questions regarding some functions here on ALU and wanted to update you on a few things.

1. Comment Form – Something was wrong with the comment form. Apparently the site I was using to manage it was taken over so the form stopped working. I have it all set up again so it should work fine now.

2. Gallery – The gallery is down at the moment. I had someone helping me with things and she straight up disappeared. People are awesome, huh? So I’m working my butt off to find a resolution thanks to the kindness of a fellow blogger. I hope to be able to have that back up and working soon. I’ll let you know when it’s active.

3. Feed – I didn’t realize when I moved from Blogger that so many of you were subscribing to the feed that blogger assigns so I lost a LOT of you in that process. I have since redirected the feed but if you want to update your readers for the future, my feed address is http://www.alllacqueredup.com/feed

4. Email – I’ve been moving hosts and having some downtime as a result (I’m sure you noticed) and that means I lost quite a few emails along the way. If you emailed me and did not hear back, please resend. You may have been lost in the moves/downtime. So so sorry about that.

Other than that, everything should be running normally. I’m hoping the headaches are over with the exception of the gallery issue. If you see any other problems with the site, please let me know.

If you’re wondering why I’ve been relatively MIA this week there’s a reason (two actually).  1. I’ve been dealing with the hosting issues plaguing ALU. 2. I was busy organizing a beauty charity sale to benefit Dress For Success Cleveland. You see, I had a stockpile of both new and tested products that I received at various events and from PR firms/brands I’ve met with.  It was more than one person could use in a lifetime so I wanted to put it to good use. I’ve read about magazines holding charity product sales for employees to clear out their beauty closest and it sounded like a perfect solution.  So I invited some of my fellow Cleveland bloggers and friends over the shop the ALU product closet with the proceeds benefiting Dress for Success. It was a great time and everyone went home with bags full of goodies and the most important part… we raised $700 for charity.  How cool is that?  I loved getting to meet some of the area bloggers, ah the power of the blogosphere, and seeing some old friends including a classmate from high school I hadn’t seen in at least 15 years (wow do I feel old!). I want to thank my friends and my fellow bloggers Alexa from Cleveland’s A Plum, Allison from Confessions of a Cohabitant, Amelia from Chef’s Widow and Mel from Life Liberty & The Pursuit of Your Boyfriend for supporting the event.  If you’re looking for some fun reads to add to your blogrolls, check them out. Alexa is the Queen of Cleveland and always has best weekend adventures to share.  The stories Allison tells about living with her boyfriend crack me up.  They seem to be the true definition of opposites attracting.  Amelia and her hubby Chef Jonathan Sawyer own Ohio’s first certified “green” restaurant, The Greenhouse Tavern, and their kiddos are too adorable for words.  And as if her biting wit isn’t enough to get you reading Mel’s blog, I’m sure knowing there’s a regular feature called “Penis Tuesday” will.

image credit: Alexa from Cleveland’s A Plum