Happy Sunday! I don't have a product post for you this morning. I just want to talk. I've been going through a lot of emotional ups and downs lately, some having to do with this blog, some personal. Last year, around this time, I was so full of wonder for this blog and the blogging community - I was attending Cosmoprof North America in Vegas! I met a lot of people, rubbed elbows with a lot of brands and made some great friends. My blog hit its high point, and more people took notice of me. For a while.

While I was there, I had always been a nails-only blogger for the most part. But seeing everything happening and going on, I kind of got a bug in my ear to switch this blog around and possibly do some beauty posts as well. I really liked that I was branching out, offering more product reviews than just nails. It gave me a chance to learn about makeup like I'd never learned before! Here I was, a relative newbie to makeup, in my mid-30s.

Then the self-doubt started setting in. Were my pictures good enough? Did my lips look okay in that last post? Ugh, why are my eyelooks so horrible even tho I try and try? Am I even doing all this stuff right? I found out I was still a scared, self-conscious little girl when blogging is concerned. I started to doubt whether it was even worth it for me to continue to be a beauty blogger when people only really looked at my nail posts.

I'd try to interact on my social media outlets (FB, Twitter, IG)...and get hits or views or comments on nails posts mostly. Was I meant to be a nail only blogger? I didn't want to be. I loved having an expanded beauty blog, reaching out with more products, offering a wider audience my trials and tribulations. But viewers never came. In fact, they fled.

My pageviews and monthly stats started dropping early on this year and they have yet to recover. I'm posting about what I want to post about, tho, so shouldn't that be a fair trade-off? Everyone keeps saying "Blog for you! Don't worry about numbers!" I know people think that advice is helpful, but honestly, for me, it is not. It's the "pity vote" in terms of blogging. Yes, I blog for other people sometimes a lot. If I didn't, why do I even bother? I want to share with people - I want to share my experiences. If I was only blogging for myself, why would I take the time to take photos and post them along with tutorials/reviews, etc? If it was just for me, I could just take pictures of myself and never post them. Or better yet, save so much time and just look in the mirror! Why would I put so much extra work if it was just for me?

Don't get me wrong here. I know it's not all about numbers; it really isn't. I like my blog design. I think my pictures are good most of the time. I always give my honest opinions about things. What else can I do? I'd ask what you guys want to see, but I can almost guarantee 90% of y'all will scream for more nail polish haha! There is a big world out here in beauty blogging, and nail polish is just a small portion of it. I know in recent years, it has REALLY expanded, and lately, it seems to be "all about the polish." I don't want this blog to be "all about the polish" anymore. I want it to be a full-blown beauty blog.

What was the purpose of posting this? I can't even say I'm sure anymore. I needed to get some stuff off my chest, and this is ALWAYS the avenue to do it. I hope all my readers stick around. I hope y'all will give me ideas for content YOU want to see. I hope others will come. We shall see what the future holds, I suppose...