10 things I am growing.

[reynardo]

My fingernails.

That might not sound so major, but I've been a fingernail-biter for about 25 years at least. I remember starting to grown them and then my piano teacher telling me that you couldn't play piano with long nails. At that stage they were barely a millimetre above the tips, so I think she was being a little dramatic, but I know I started to bite them from that point on. Not down to the quicks, not to the point of bleeding (unless I made a major miscalculation), but certainly they stayed short by application of teeth rather than scissors.

Washing up without gloves never helped. Long hot baths and cleaning products and the like certainly didn't help. If they were the slightest bit long they were attacked and reduced to their normal length.

But for once I've decided that a slight bit of nail can come in useful. After all, there are lids to open, blackboards to scrape, scalps to scritchel. And my beloved husband has a lovely set of slightly-long nails that make for a very lovely back-scratch when one is in need of comfort.

And I'm sure I can scratch a back or two in return.

Comments

[emu-bitter-babe.livejournal.com]

As well as the obligatory hand cream, get a hold of some solar oil - a cuticle nourishing oil. You paint it around your cuticles and rub it in whenever you think on it. It'll condition your nails really well and it smells wonderful too - like marzipan :) my nails are normally the wrong side of shithouse but I find if I use that, they grow much nicer and I'm more inclined to look after them.

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

Nails are also very useful for taking staples out of paper - over the last month or so I've discovered that you can insert a thumbnail under the staple and lever it out without any trouble at all.

Of course, I keep breaking them trying to pick up heavy folders by their spine with one hand...

Freya,
Also a nailbiter, particularly under stress.
My nails are currently (apart from the broken ones) the longest they've ever been (that I remember.

PS. I advise that a nailfile and scissors are good to carry around - when you notice a break starting to form in the edge, you can file it off at once instead of catching it on something and ripping the whole thing.

[djfiggy.livejournal.com]

It certainly allows you to peel an orange with your bare hands

[emmasee100.livejournal.com]

Oh. the nails and piano thing. Turned me into a nailbiter. (So helpful when you work with chemicals. *sigh*)

Gloves. Gloves all the damned time at work. I'm aspiring to "sports length" nails