Hey! So nice to see you again. Why haven’t you been visiting? Maybe because I barely post regularly, right? Not because you think I’m annoying or boring…right? RIGHT? Well, I have been thinking a lot about my blog and whether I want to continue after 9 years at this. I still love nail polish. I still love the nail community–despite all the gossip and scandals. Have you ever tried to explain the nail polish community to a person who is not this deep into the rabbit hole? They literally think I’m insane. Well, I do want to continue blogging for the pure enjoyment of it. I started looking back at my old posts from 2012 where my pictures sucked and my hands looked like Donald Trump’s face: orange and wrinkled. One thing that struck me is how much fun I had writing my posts, sharing my stories and interacting with all of you. I literally had comment sections longer than my actual posts! Do you want to read some of my favorites? Check these posts out:
Dollish Polish It’s A Me, Mario and the greatest moment of my childhood
Kleancolor Smelly Polish (This 8 year old post still gets a lot of hits and I can’t figure out why.)
Finding OMG Polishes In The Wild
These posts still make me smile just because they were fun to write and fun to discuss with you all!
After my moving saga–moving in December, living in a temporary place for 5 months and then moving to my permanent place–I was exhausted. I also realized that I have way too much stuff: clothes, shoes, make up and polish. I have always been a prolific destasher because I literally had no room for all the polish I had accumulated over the years. I was a blogger for OPI, China Glaze, Zoya, Jessica, Sation and other assorted mainstreams at the beginning of my blogging journey so imagine getting EVERY SINGLE POLISH THEY PUT OUT for a few years. It was overwhelming when it came to storage. Do I wish I had kept every single bottle? OF COURSE! But I can’t really justify it and it was an utter nightmare when I moved–twice. Partly because of this, I have given away so much polish to friends, family and co-workers. I still have polish in storage that I am slowly bringing home and cataloguing. This is where my #swatchmystash project is starting. I am committing to swatching all polishes in my stash while I continue to review newer polishes and collections.
If you’re interested in seeing what I currently have, I created a spreadsheet with information and links to reviews on my blog. It’s a work in progress so I’ll be updating it slowly. You can check it out here.
I have been super interested in giving live swatch videos a try but that’s going to be a big feat for me since I don’t know how to use my DSLR and I want to invest in a good macro lens before I start this. Believe it or not, I still use my little point and shoot and have found it almost impossible to figure out how to use my DSLR. To be honest, I haven’t tried that hard and I am a creature of habit.
I also want to do more nail art, stamping and other fun nail stuff. I just don’t know where to start! One of the things that is taking up a lot of my time right now is getting my health in order. I have been a diabetic for almost 10 years and I’ve had many setbacks due to the lack of regulating my condition. I am now taking control of this which has included major lifestyle changes. It’s hard, but I think I am worth the effort.
So…these are my thoughts. I almost feel like blogs are a dying breed since everyone seems to prefer Instagram, YouTube or even Facebook. I still want to keep this going. I keep seeing so many bloggers leave and it makes me sad, but everyone has to do what is best for themselves. I hope to be around for a while longer so I hope you will be here too.
I know what you mean! I miss the heyday of nail blogging. We were such a fun bunch! Then it is like Instagram killed blogging.
I am so glad you will continue post here!
It’s so true! So many people blew up on IG and I was super slow to even head over there. I still don’t 100% like it but I can’t completely be a dinosaur. I’m glad you’re here and there! 🙂
Just wanted to commend you for taking care of your health! I know how hard this is as I watched my mom struggle with T2 for years, and my son has T1 diabetes. I have followed your blog for a long time and I am glad you are staying around. I am looking forward too seeing all the oldies in your polish stash 🙂
Thank you, Cyndi. People have been so supportive and it has meant the world to me because I have felt so isolated with this disease and the pandemic has made it worse. One of my friends joked that I’m the only one who is losing weight during the pandemic. lol I think I am at an age where if I don’t get it under control now, I am going to pay for it dearly. Thank you so much for reading and sticking around. I know I haven’t been as active on here in the last couple of years, but I’m looking forward to creating content on a more consistent schedule.
I never wanted to create Instagram but I felt kind of forced because everyone else moved over there! I really felt like.. “Ahh.. this is where everyone is hanging out these days” when I created my own instagram account.
Same here. I was very hesitant to move to that platform and I do feel that it effectively killed most blogs. I think that maintaining a blog is sooooo much work and IG was just much easier and faster. There are people that seem to have been able to find a balance and that’s great. If I had to pick, I’d definitely want to stay with blogging instead of just IG.
I gave up on blogging because of IG taking over. I still revisit my early posts to see the ideas I had without the ability to execute them. I still lack that in some cases! I had a DSLR and eventually found settings that worked, but it was then my blogging camera only, the ex husband wasn’t allowed to use it at all in case he messed them up because I didn’t have a clue about setting them again! I used raw mode a lot so I could tweak it after if necessary!
So so many people have given up on blogging and it makes me sad because it’s such a fun community. I will keep doing it as long as I can which I hope is a long time. I just want to be more consistent and want to get out of my comfort zone. Camera woes are definitely one of the things I have to work on. If I can at least get some kind of video set up that works, I will be happy. I don’t think my pictures are terrible with my point and shoot so I don’t necessarily see myself stressing out about learning to take nail pics on my DSLR. Thank you for still visiting my corner. 😉
I have been blogging since 2011. A lot of people have vanished or gone to IG. I am not interested in IG or other social medias! I don’t have any at all and resisted this long haha! There are still people out there blogging nails/nail art from so many different countries.
I will keep blogging as I enjoy it, I think that is the important thing 🙂 So yeah I will still be here watching your blog 😀
I remember saying to the boyfriend, if we ever move…all the Helmers and all the cats are going with us haha! Most stressful thing I have ever done in my life – move house.