Breaking a bad habit

My entire life I have had the bad habit of biting my fingernails. In fact, if anyone asks, I say I have bitten my nails ever since I had teeth. I honestly don't remember a time when I didn't bite my nails. After I graduated from college, my dad paid for me to get braces to help close the small gap between my two front teeth. I remember it being so frustrating because the braces made it so I couldn't bite my nails. I just knew that after having braces for a year that I would have kicked that bad habit. Well, unfortunately that wasn't the case. I don't think I had even had my braces off a week when I started biting my nails again.

Anyway, this year as part of my Halloween costume, I painted my fingernails black. Because I had parties two weekends in a row, I just left the nail polish on and touched up before the second party. Something must have triggered in my brain not to bite my nails because of my fingernail polish... A couple weeks ago when I took the nail polish off, I was so excited to see white tips on each of my nails. That is so rare! And not only that, but I could actually see the tips of a couple of my nails peeking up over the fingers when looking at the palm-side of my hand. Wahoo! Granted, the white on my nail starts down lower on my finger than most because I have consistently bitten the nails down so low, but I'm excited nonetheless. (I know it's kind of a funky picture, but I couldn't figure out how to take an attractive picture of my hand!) So I wonder if I can keep this up? Guess we'll see. In the mean time, I think I'll just keep putting nail polish on my nails, and maybe even use this as an excuse to get a manicure :-)