Good morning, Dear Reader!
If you'd prefer to skip the little story I have for you today, please feel free to go straight to the pictures - the explanation of the mani is the paragraph preceding them.
I had an experience last night which evolved this morning into gratitude and appreciation for you, Dear Reader, and a little more acceptance of myself, which was nice. I thought I'd share the story of it with you today.
I'll give you some information to set up the story: I have a tool here that lets me see some basic statistics of the traffic to The Nailphile. Nothing to worry about, no identifying or tracking info, just things like hit count, traffic trends, and the bit that this story is about - referring URL (the page from which there was a link to get here, which is, to be honest, "Unknown" at least 60% of the time...). Why do I use this tool, you ask? I think it's because I'm a data analyst at heart, and I like data - there's no money to be made and nothing to be gained, and I don't do anything with this information other than review it, but numbers make me happy. That's the background.
I checked this information last night (when I was tired, and as we've seen, I should do nothing then), looking at the referring URLs. I came across a site that had one of my pictures posted and a link to me that consisted of a few pages of people discussing how creepy and disgusting my nails are. Initially, I was absolutely horrified, and second guessed even having a blog. Then I looked at the profiles of some of the people posting comments to discover that they're American high school and college students. That made me consider the source, which helped a bit. While I was looking through this site, two of my favorite readers IM'd me, but regrettably, I dismissed them since I was shaken - I've apologized to both for that. I decided to sleep on it, as I'm generally hypersensitive to criticism, and when I'm tired, I'm overly emotional, so I just went about my business and went to bed.
This morning, in the fresh light of day, I see things completely differently. What I didn't mention that I found in those referring URLs last night was a link from a French fashion forum where the ladies were complimentary, and I always think of French women as the epitome of style (see Angy's blog here to see what I mean!). I considered all of your kind comments and supportive emails, and the wonderful readers with whom I'm often busy IM'ing. I was only looking at my first taste of the negative, and was missing out on all the positive (I'm not fishing for compliments or comments here - I'm just stating fact)!
Somehow, that realization made me more okay with me as I am. When I was 10, I made the conscious decision to grow out my nails, and since then, they've simply been - they are what is. Love 'em, hate 'em, completely indifferent and just here to see pretty colors, they're just there, and will be there until I'm a little old lady! The feeling of being more okay with me even gave me the cajones to try a mani that I knew would be imperfect from the outset, but I did it anyhow for practice to get better, and have pics for you today. In the end, I'm grateful to those little girls for their comments, because the result was freeing!
With that, on to today's manicure! I decided to try a Konadicure that required perfect lining up on the double stamp, which I know I can't do yet. But if I want to get there, I have to practice, so that's today's mani. I worked backward on this one, choosing my most-feared plaid pattern from plate M64, and decided that plaid should involve navy blue and green. I know SpaRitual's Surreal works beautifully for the stamp, so I chose it, and to spice things up a bit, I selected China Glaze's Cherish for the base. I don't know if I've shown you Cherish alone, so I took pics. I generally just apply polish and show it to you wet, but this one, I waited to take pics until I was ready to stamp it. It goes on super streaky, enough to cause concern, and dries nice and chrome-y - no need for alarm!
I waited 10 minutes, then went at it with the Konad. It's not perfect, and the imperfections certainly show more in large pictures, but it ain't half bad.
That's today's KOTD and my tale of what happens as a result of posting pictures on the internet. I'm more grateful to each of you as a result! Until later (when I plan to have something fabulous if the USPS comes through), love and nail polish to you!
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