The best DIY pedicure!

Once sandal season is over, I hate getting pedicures at salons. Not because I hide my feet all winter. On the contrary-- I typically wear Uggs sans socks and spend my days barefoot inside. Also, thanks to Little Gym, I have to bare my feet once a week in front of others. I could just wear socks, but I LIKE to have pretty feet. I dislike salons because I have to wait so damn long for my nails to dry OR wear flip flops and freeze my toes off.

Also it's hard to find the TIME to go to the salon-- I am sure I squander way more time than it takes to have my nails done each week, but for some reason, salon pedis just feel like they take FOREVER. And when I have a babysitter, I feel like I should, you know, go to work.

So I have perfected the art of the DIY pedicure in 10 easy steps.

1. Be a multi-tasker and do the prep work of trimming and filing your nails, removing old nail polish, applying cuticle oil, etc. while you're dealing with the kids, since this part isn't really fun anyway.
2. When you have 20 or 30 minutes to yourself, grab some magazines and your iPod, a bottle of baby oil,the $2 Walgreens knock-off of St. Ives Apricot Scrub (which is murder on your face by absolutely perfect for sloughing the dead skin off your feet), a pumice stone, a foot file, a nail file, a bottle of lotion (I like something pepperminty), one of these little metal tools with the tiny little scoop thing on the end that roughs up the surface of your nails and pushes back your cuticles, OPI nail polish (the BEST stuff out there), an express dry topcoat (I like the $.99 Wet'n Wild version), a large glass of wine, and some towels.
3. Sit on the edge of your tub and soak your feet in the hottest water you can stand. Squirt a crapload of baby oil into the water. Read your mags and listen to your music for at least 20 minutes. Also drink your wine.
4. Scrub, file, and pumice the heck out of your feet, paying special attention to the bottom of your big toes, your heels, the sides of your feet, and anywhere else that gets dry.
5. Pat your feet dry and liberally apply lotion
6. Use the cuticle/nail rougher thing
7. Apply 2 coats of OPI polish and one coat of clear. Make a mess-- it does not matter how good your nails look at this point. There can be globs of polish in your cuticles, polish rubbing off on the sides of your toes, polish on your skin-- whatev.
8. Let the whole mess dry. I usually let it dry overnight and make sure I paint my nails at least 2 hours before bed to prevent any sheet imprints in the polish.
9. Next time you take a shower, use your thumbnails to scrape off any excess polish. Not only will this clean up your bad paint job, but it will make your cuticles look totally fabulous, which gives the DIY pedicure a salon-pro look.
10. Use the apricot scrub and the pumice stone in the shower everyday to maintain smoothness for the just-left-the-manicurist's-chair look that lasts the life of your paint job.

So cheap! So relaxing!
What about you? Any great beauty-on-the-fly tips to share?

Here are Harry and Jack clowning around campus on Sunday: