I Owe You An Explanation

I have been working on this post now for several days, and I'm still not sure if I've said everything that I want to say, but I feel it's time I publish it. This will be a long and wordy post, and I will not be at all offended if you just scroll through to look at the pictures of my pets and then move on. Oh, yeah- I've included some pictures of my pets to keep things interesting!

As any of my regular readers (are there any of you left?) are aware, I took a looong break from blogging recently, and I feel like I need to tell you why. In short: Life. Real life gets in the way of polish, but when polish is a great deal of what's keeping you sane, it is important, too! Long story: At the end of March, I moved. Which, in and of itself, would necessitate a hiatus, as all of my things were uprooted into boxes, moved across town, then slowly picked out of boxes and found new homes in the order of importance. And, as important as polish is to me, things like clothing and pots and pans and such are more so. About six weeks or so later, otherwise known as "Just when I was getting settled", one of my new roommates sat me  down for a chat. He asked me to move out. He was, for some reason, uncomfortable having me as a roommate. I won't get into the emotional trauma that THAT caused, but it did mean having to find a new place to live, and in short order! So, June 1st, I moved again. Everything back into the boxes, moved across town again, and then the long process of everything finding new homes in the new home, for the second time in as many months. This time, I got a place by myself! And it is the very first time I have EVER lived alone. (Except for the animals, of course!) So that explains a good half of my absence right there.

Speaking of animals, this is Clio. She is so gorgeous, but so incredibly unphotogenic!

Once things got rather settled into the new place, and I pulled myself out of the funk I was in, I began contemplating my return to blogging. And then I ran into a snag: Can I afford it anymore?This weighed very heavily on me, as my polish budget has shrunk to pretty much zero. As I mentioned, this is my very first time living alone. Which is great, and I love it, but it means there is no one to share the bills with! My rent tripled. My grocery budget (a rather important budget point!) is only about $100 per month. It's workable, as I shop sales, and cook and freeze a lot of meals. I could also easily increase it, but then my discretionary/emergency budget has to suffer. So how could I justify spending $100 on polish every month when I can't spend more on household necessities? What does that leave me to blog about? I can retread the tons of indies I've already posted about. Or I can start showing off the name brand polishes that I own, but I've always tried to keep this blog focused on independent businesses. Or I can just go off in a completely new direction. Or quit. 

This is Ash, telling me to drop the camera and give him treats already.

As you've probably guessed by now, I did NOT choose the quit option. I did consider it- seriously- but the blogging community is so amazing, and I asolutely love being a part of it. I have never received a negative comment, or experienced anything other than love and support from the lovely ladies in the nail community- despite my occasionally lacking skills, tendency to completely forget the cleanup step, and the fact that my nails are rarely the same length. I came back as much out of the desire to rejoin that community and I did out of love for polish. Also, I felt that by not participating in the nail community at large, my indie brand was suffering (shameless self promotion: Check out my Etsy store! By not keeping up with the trends and what everyone else was doing, I risked inadvertently duping a super popular polish, and I certainly didn't want that!

I came back directly into a nail art challenge, partially to better my nail art skills, and partially to buy me some time. As much as I enjoy nail art, I don't think this will ever be a strictly nail art blog. I just simply don't have the patience for it 365 days a year! So, after careful deliberation, and a revisit to my Changes for 2013 Post, I have created a new battle plan for this blog. It is as follows:

-I will still review indie polishes, as often as possible- it is after all the original focus point of the blog! I have won some contests, I have some leftover indies that I've never reviewed, and I still have some great friends in the indie polish community that I can trade with :) I'm also starting a blog sale to purge TONS of not only polish, but various other beauty items. This will be my polish fund :)

-When the occasion arises, and a mainstream brand really impresses me, I'll show you that too. This was one of my 2013 changes that I never really got around to, but I'll make a point of it now.

- I will continue to participate in the occasional challenge. It gives me great post material, connects me to tons of other great bloggers, and keeps my motivation up when I'm flagging. 

- I will also incorporate several of my other interests into the blog. This was another of my 2013 Changes that I never got around to implementing. I'm an avid crafter, a Pinterest freak (follow me!), and, as of late, a DIY domestic diva! You'll be seeing occasional posts on any or all of those things. I have a few post series in mind, such as Weekend Pinspiration (all those oddball Pinterest things that everyone pins and no one ever does), Wallet Friendly Wednesday (some of the money saving DIY tricks I've picked up in the past few months) and a crafty day that I don't have a clever name for. None of these will be weekly posts, but they will pop up fairly regularly. Please let me know if any of these interest you! Or if none of them do! After all, the blog is for you as much as me!

- Finally, I will not be posting every single day most of the time. Challenges are the obvious exception. My unofficial schedule going forward will be Monday, Wednesday, Friday and once over the weekend. Anything else is just a bonus!

Bonus, kind of like this second picture of Ash! He was jealous because I was paying attention to the fishie instead of him :).

I'm sure there are tons of things that I wanted to say at some point, and they never resurfaced during the length writing of this post. But the bulk of the important things have been said, and even if no one reads the entire post, I feel better just having it off my chest!

I can't say enough how much I love being a part of this community. I have met so many amazing people, and every single one of you have been so supportive and amazing to me, and I love and thank each and every one of you!

Final pet photo, the newest addition: Samwise the Betta