Blessed but still quite stressed

I'm two weeks into summer classes which isn't horrible in terms of workload and what I need to do.  It also means only four more weeks of me actually having to be on campus and then yeah time off for the kid.  Some of you may remember I'm also in the middle of the four week span of suckage that is my life between the anniversary of my father's death and Father's Day.  In the middle of there I graduated from my MA program, my brother's birthday hits, my dad's birthday hits and this year for an extra added dose of well that's fucked up, one of my sorority sisters died this week.  She wasn't forty and she wasn't ill.  I haven't been really able to process her loss and it is for the best because I could come up with about eighteen thousand people that should be gone instead of her but that's not cool either.  I'll miss her and while we as a line were blessed not to lose anyone in fourteen years this hurts in ways I can't really articulate. 

Add into that stress that I'm tired because of the mom care taking duties that are underway and I have made about a million excuses not to go to the gym.  Thursday and Friday I said no more of that.  I wasn't there more than 45 minutes, at least 30 though, working out but it felt good to clear my head.  Ate too much over the ensuing bad news days but have doubled down on the diet plan.  I have to take care of myself for a variety of reason but if for none other than to honor my 6.  Gotta experience life fully and that means getting my health fully under control. 

I also splurged on some DevaCurl bundle set and leave in conditioner.  My hair really does like it and seems to look healthy after I use it.  Depending on how this new set works I may scrap some of the older stuff that I've just been working through and may or may not be helping my hair.  I also gotta figure out how to take care of my hair more when it's out cause I'm not really up for twists right now.  I'm tired man.  Hope all of you are doing well.

It's Wash Day Again

This post may mostly be photos as I haven't shared any visual hair updates in a while.  I just washed my hair after a few weeks of stress and worry because my mother was ill.  I did a quick wash after Chicago but nothing close to the normal wash and deep conditioning routine.  So this first photo is just me fresh out the shower with a little finger shaping.  I have some interesting stuff happening at my hairline.  It almost feels like a reveres widows peak cause the hair all around the nape is like we just gonna do our own thing, hope you like it.

So this photo is post deep condition, with leave ins added and just styling products pulled through my hair with my fingers.  I'll get back to why I did that in a second.

For the most part I just pulled product through my hair and down to weigh down my hair and hopefully keep it stretched a bit more than normal but I'm okay if it scrunches up a bit.  Still glad it's still growing.  Now this last photo I may need to go crop to get to the point.  So you see the wavy tight curly hair all around except the very nape of my neck is like nah we doing our own thing back here too.  Not sure why but it develops a curl patter totally unlike the rest of my head at all times. 

So earlier I mentioned that I pulled the product through my hair for a reason and yes I had one.  I used DevaCurl's Wash Day Wonder today instead of prepooing.  I lost a few knots but in general my hair was like come through.  It mostly loosened up and detangled with just my fingers moving through it.  I didn't want to stress it or me out anymore than I had to so I just kept up that process throughout the rest of my wash day.  At this moment my hair feels great and smells good so I'm happy.  I'm not sure how it will hold up after I go to bed tonight.  Going to attempt a pineapple but meh that is hit or miss for me.  And if all else fails I'm going to try the puff cuff I just bought.  Hoping my giant head works with the junior at least lol.  Hope you all have a good week.

Preemptive fail?

I took my twist down yesterday because I was tired of them and my scalp was super itchy.  But as I'm home alone for a bit there was no need to rush through the process of washing them out and what not.  Instead I lathered in some oils and leave ins so I could do a long term deep condition.  When I do that it loosens up more of the dirt and makes the detangling easier later.  I planned on washing my hair before bed and then doing an overnight deep condition before styling but that didn't happen. I'm home alone because I got up at 2:30 to make sure my mother was ready to get on plane at 6:30 so she could make it to Dallas in time for the family roll out to a funeral in another state.  So we're clear that is AM.  I still had to run to work, have a meeting and eat some food and then take down said twists.  By the time I was done with that and putting in the leave ins I was hanging on by a thread.  At 9PM I gave it up and slept all the way through till the next morning. 

I took my time today and watched more YouTube videos about what to do with my hair.  I was fully prepared to attempt a horse shoe method twist out.  I went through my routine, all was good, and my hair was like ma'am stop it.  I tried it with a few different lengths and thicknesses of flexi-rods but it was still like give up the ghost ma'am.  Now I didn't really have a plan B so I got frustrated and was about to say eff it let it just dry and I'll put in something to make it curly on Monday and we'll rock the fro with my new wraps.  But instead I went back to my old short flex-rods, hard to find them that length anymore which is neither here nor there, and did a normal flexi set using one rod per pull of hair.  I used Curl Manetenance from Aunt Jackie's and Wrap and Roll lotion from Jane Carter Solution and then set my hair.  I rolled it from the root for a change and I can't say it took longer than normal but I was taking my time.  Everything is rolled now and I don't have to take this down for over 24 hours so if it's not dry then my hair is just being evil.  I will try to take a photo when it's all loose and see if we have achieved cute curls or if I really need to learn hot to braid my own hair.

Curly Girl Back From Hiatus

Hey Folks,

I just realized it's been over a month since I posted.  Right after my last post I went to a conference, taught a week long intensive course, wrapped up my other summer class, had to prep for fall classes, and had about 18 meetings all before classes started.  My twists were meh and I can't say that I was doing the best job taking care of them but I'll get to that in a bit.  I took them down Friday after work and was having a moment of regression.  I was back to mini afro puff status lol.  I left them in puffs for the rest of the night and yesterday as well cause.......lazy.  Much more on that later.  I've been watching videos on hair care and checking out products and adding a few products to my rotation to try out so I'll try to get to all of that now.

Tell you all about it....

.....when I see you again.


See I'm back to being corny.  So I mentioned last post that it's been a full year being natural with lots of protective styling I've gone from tiny fro to larger fro and loving it.  I spent the last week natural and tried my first for real wash and go that didn't to hell immediately.  There was some shrinkage of course but not as much as normal thanks to Jane Carter's products, which I did have to order from the site directly and Amazon.  Now I could have gotten it all from the site but I assumed my local Sally's had some products I wanted and they were running a 2 for 1 deal so yeah gotta take advantage of that but locally they have no love for me and my hair texture.  I'm better off at Kroger of all places.  Anyway I got all of my stuff by Wednesday but really just slept in a baggy all the days that I was teaching and then Friday afternoon came home and  planned to wash my hair again because it was almost time for a new twist install PLUS I had plans and wanted my hair to be shiny since it was going to be out.  I didn't actually get to my hair unitl Saturday morning.  Wednesday was the 13th Anniversary of when I became a Delta.  We met up yesterday to hang out and catch up.  Love my sands, I'm down front if you are looking for me.

The Last Time I Checked I only Had One Butt

I legit don't have a witty or appropriate title so I went with a line from the last movie I saw: Lego Batman.  If you haven't seen it you definitely should it's quite funny and actually much less kid oriented than you'd think considering it's made of Legos lol.  Okay so got lots of updates and I will try to get to them as I can.  I haven't posted since December and yeah I was borderline depressed post election and ensuing foolishness that was on the horizon.  I took a quick trip to London which was amazing.  So far the hotel I was staying at is home to the best pizza I've ever ingested and I was sad to leave it an ocean away from me.  They also had a Belgian chocolate pudding (chocolat pot) that was oh my goodness.  And breakfast was quite tasty as well.  Of course I took photos cause that's what we do now.  The pudding is covered in homemade whip cream, berries and with chocolate straws but not straws cause there was no way to even begin to suck anything through them without looking entirely stupid.

Ok enough with the food porn because while I was there I walked around a bit and actually got in a legit workout which was good too.  Cute couple to chat with on the way out.  Not as much on the way back but I did have the row to myself which was nice.  Since I've been back it's been one thing after another derailing both my time and my psyche some days but I realized a few days ago that it's been a whole year since I chopped off my relaxed hair and embraced natural life for good.  Well with the plan of it being for good because yeah I wasn't sure how my hair would grow or what it would be like and all that.  It's been in twists cause I'm super lazy and can admit to being a little self conscious about the tiny fro because shrinkage is a bitch. 

So I am going to share some photos of this whole last few months.  The first up is a photo of me in London with the fresh twists.  Then there's a collage of pictures.  First up is immediately after take down of the twists--I was feeling very much like a member of the Lion King.  Second is the morning after where I just rolled my untwisted hair around soft foam rollers.  Third is post detangling and the final one is just showing a little bit of the stretch.  Cause yeah shrinkage.

Now finally in my random updates, at least concerning my hair, is a year comparison.  I'm not sure if I look grayer in the second photo because I've developed more gray hair or because there's just more of it but here we go.  . 

So yeah my hair grows and it gets thick.  Moving through the detangling and take down process this time wore me out.  That's a good thing of course cause that means hair is growing but damn not sure what I'm going to do.  I feel like I lost less hair this time but there is still more work to do there.  Like taking down my edges faster and getting them redone cause they take more stress than the rest of my hair.  Staying more focused on moisturizing all of my hair.  I took them down this weekend because it felt like my roots were just screaming for moisture even though I had been tending to them as much as possible.  The length of my hair though was soft and pretty well moisturized.  Winning.  And star members this installation were Jane Carter Solutions products in particular Slumber Party.  I just bought a ton of new products from her and will be updating you as I use them.  Wash day worked better with DevaCurl products as my hair felt clean with no tangles.  The Kinky Curly products were where the tangles came in and came with a vengeance.  I took my time after my deep condition to move through most of the tangles with my fingers but then coated my hair with my products and did something I haven't done in a long while: 3 comb detangle.  Oh my gosh it still works lol.  And here we are with the hair. 

In terms of working out it's been abysmal for months now.  My visit to the doctor to make sure my girly bits were still where they should be lol reminded me that while I'm still not back at the formerly scary weight that I need to get it back together and actually utilize the service I'm paying for.  GYM GYM GYM.  I gotta do better.

How is life with you?

Just So Fresh and Clean

Hey everyone,

The summer is mostly over for me in terms of workload and y'all just don't know how happy I am about that.  I've been able to get a few more workouts in over the last few weeks now that I'm not teaching for six and half hours every day.  I just got back from a much needed vacation and decided that I had to get over the time since my last install and just take down my twists.  I'm sure that as my hair grows out more the ability to leave it up longer will disappear and I will have to start tinkering with my hair more than I do now.  I took as many photos as I could because I wanted to have time points of each phase.  I knew there would be much shrinkage going on after I washed but was happy that my hair looked nice and full when I took the twists out.  I also forgot that my hair is basically stretched at that point so that's what full blown out length would be but anyhoo this is me last night after I finally was done removing all the wonderful gray locks.

I had planned on washing it but between driving back from the airport and a later than planned start on the take down I just went to bed after I took my hair down.  I was expecting a little more compact stuff going on to be honest so I was happy with the post scarf take down look this morning.  Ignore the damn it's bright in here look cause my room is woosah bright in the morning.

I decided to skip the prepoo and and just use two new products I got during my last troll through Ulta's discount aisle.  DevaCurl No Poo and One Conditioner.

I have no idea why I need the towel and didn't use it this morning because I paid attention to another new product I bought which said to detangle my hair while I still had conditioner in it and then wash it out and move on to my leave in and add this product to the mix.

I used another Kinky Curly product as my leave in as well.

This is what I looked like post detangle and then about eight hours later.

Yes ma'am there was shrinkage and the part kind of went by the way side but when I tell you my hair still feels soft and most of the curls that defined this morning are still popping.  I'm not sure if you remember me mentioning a few posts back that the shampoo and I were not loving each other.  I wasn't sure if the No Poo would do much but my hair felt great this morning just from cleansing it.  Yes there was the shed hair that came out as I moved through it but nothing major in the way of tangles like has happened with my Moroccan Oil the last few washes.  That alone got DevaCurl some love.  I had to remember that it wasn't going to do give me massive lather but it was worth the risk.  Then I moved on to my DevaCurl One Conditioner and my hair loved it as well.  I can't skip the Mizani  MoistureFuse Moisturizing conditioner because I LOVE IT but really I could have stopped after I picked my hair out with a wide tooth comb using just the DevaCurl.  So yeah great easy wash day.  Enjoying the moment but still gotta do the leave in and for once I didn't spray it half to death I just went with wet hair, again at the encouragement of Kinky Curly and just added in the leave in/detangler.  I used my wide tooth comb again to get most of the stray shed hair and once I felt like it was in a good place I added in the Custard.  I probably used too much in some spots but nothing felt hard or weird and the curls were really just too cute.  And to top it off my hair smells amazing.  Not too intense but clearly fresh and clean and looking healthy.  I might switch it up next time but I am just intrigued on the lack of oil and how my hair has managed to feel and stay moisturized all day.  Right now I'm focused on what works and if I can get wash day down to a simple maybe 30 minute experience it's going to be on and popping.