Nails

I thought I wrote a post here about the first time Dallas did my nails, but I can't find it so it might have just been on Facebook. Anyway, we went to a hair shop to get Dallas's hair cut and mine trimmed. Somehow they thought only Dallas wanted a haircut, so after he was done, they started on another person. Then they figured it out and felt bad, but it didn't bother me that much to wait some. Lots of hair and glasses shops have nail polish sitting out for their customers. Dallas was getting bored and his phone was about to die, so he grabbed my hands and started painting my nails. This led into a tradition of sorts, where he started to do my nails on a regular basis.

The next time was a week or so later when we went to Seoul. That's tagged here if you really want to see them that much. The next time we went all neon and he added a stripe, trying to get creative.

I looks like I'm trying to feel him up. Pretty sure I wasn't, but it was a long time ago, so maybe I was.

The nail painting started just before the summer session and because he didn't have many classes, he was able to change it up every 3-5 days. Lots of my students commented on them and got used to seeing new patterns and would get mad when I didn't change them enough. Lots of my girl students were doing their nails too because they aren't allowed to wear polish during the school year (especially middle school and high school girls) so they go crazy during the break.

My student's nails. She went all jeweled - I still haven't done that - too much work.

He only let me post this picture because his arms look good.

I loved this part of hanging out with Dallas. It was a strange bonding thing - I mean the fact that he would hold my feet shows how comfortable he is with me because I've got some jacked up feet. I've had more than one pedicurist yell at me. It's also relaxing/meditative. Plus it was fun and my nails didn't break as much.

Sparkles! This was a pain to remove. Tip - sparkle polish never looks like it does in the jar (pot?).

Lots of pinks

Towards the end, we started to get more creative and try for harder designs. My friend Cindy recommended paint pens and gave me a good store to look for some.  She got super into doing her nails when she worked in Jinju because she had the entire Friday afternoon off in her own office and would do her nails (and usually toes too) at school. She kept it up when she moved to Daegu, but not quite as often.

Clouds on my toes. I kept these for a long time, until I got a pedicure here.

I got a special dot tool so he could try more stuff instead of using toothpicks.

The night before I left Korea, Dallas did my nails for the last time. He wanted to do red, white and blue since I was going back to the US. I let him do whatever he wanted. I got quite a few compliments on those ones.

I really like the red and white

 I waited a long time to take the polish off of these because it was one more end to my Korean life. I finally did though and went purple, which my mother hated. I used a tip from one of my old students about using tape and made the tips pink. Then I went blue again. My mother said they were hideous. Then, she got into it and helped me do candy corn ones! She said, "Not as good as Dallas, but I'm working on it" after she finished the first layer and got paint on my finger. She got the hang of it though, so I'll be using her again :)

Lots of tape was involved.

I've gotten lots of complements and comments on these ones. One lady asked me for detailed instructions on how to do it and when I told her about the tape, she was like, "You're a genius". I mean I can't argue with her can I?

I doubt I will do another post dedicated to my nails, but I'll try to periodically post pictures and I will add them to my facebook for those that follow me on there. I've never really had fingernails to paint before because I bit them all off. Hopefully the stress in my life will stay away and I won't go back to that old habit.