Six years and counting

 Y'all are probably not even worried about these updates anymore and I admittedly am not doing monthly photos the way I used to but I got my first trim at the six year mark in July.  All it did was even out my hair to just above my bra but I was happy about it.  It's been up and down since then but it's down right now because we're running towards the end of the semester and my lazy has somewhat kicked in.  Except I was gonna take it down in a few weeks anyway.  I'm going to go back to Amsterdam for my birthday and get back before Christmas so I don't totally abandon mom.  If I remember, the next time I take my bonnet off I'll take a photo and update this or just do a photo dump for the last year.  Love my hair and need to work on embracing all the love I can since these next years may be rough as hell.

This is late, really late

Howdy Folks,

My four year locaversary was in July.  I have no photos of that time frame really because I'm a horrible person in this regard.  I was just happy my hair was done this summer.  Add in lots of random travel and yeah, girl is tired.  On the upside, my hair is healthy and long.  On the downside, my monthly documentation will be lacking this year.  Maybe I'll get back on it with the birthday hair.

Here is four years and some change hair

Tap Tap, let me clear some things off here

Not sure why I keep forgetting to come post after my appointments but clearly I'm still doing that.  Here's a photo update of the last few months.  I seemed to have skipped a few months in there.  Okay I didn't skip, I reorganized and forgot lol.  Y'all I'm tired.  My hair is cute and growing and that's all that matters.

Almost 3 Years

Today may actually be my locversary if we are being technical about number of days since this started but I think it's officially tomorrow.  Hold on, let me check.  So it's been 1095 days which is exactly three years if there had been no leap year which there was so that makes it one day, at a minimum, short.  Regardless, it's been an interesting journey.  From the teeny tiny goodness that's a lot of scalp on my head phases to now.  Looking now you would just assume they have always been healthy and long but that is thanks to the lovely ladies who have maintained my locs, gone alone with my weirdness and helped me learn how to take care of them while also not doing too damn much to my hair at the same time.  Each year has meant learning something new and as we slide into the beginning of marking this next year of growth, my scalp is demanding more attention but my hair overall looks better than I think I could have imagined at this stage.  I meant to wear the same shirt for the retwist so that you could note growth but yeah that didn't happen.  If you're on the fence about locs go for it. It's one of the best decisions I've ever made.   Photos or it didn't happen lol.

Hair in The Time of COVID

Y'all I'm off cycle with an update because I'm off cycle with my hair getting done.  Last week we had a conflict and this week we do too.  I'll be at least two weeks off with this retwist.  And I say at least two weeks because next week I gotta get my second COVID vaccine and if it lays me out then I may not be recovered by Saturday to drive anywhere.  In the mean time though.  My hair feels good, it's long enough that it's mostly not hitting that irritating the back of my neck phase BUT I'm not sure that I'm good with leaving it down which was my thought initially.  It's kind of in the way but my scalp isn't as itchy because hair is resting in the same position.  I'm weird I know.  There are one or two I'm a little worried about because the base is small but the base also look solid so I may be overreacting.  Not doing a whole lot is making my hair keep growing but it's not to get back to the gym like seriously. 

This Whole Adulting Thing wooo

Y'all I had words here, nice lovely words that went away as I was trying to understand Blogger's new layout that moved something was easy to find to somewhere that literally is not intuitive at all.  Now I'm annoyed and I'm not ever sure if we won't end up in the same place in a second.  Okay so I can breathe again.  This time it appears as those the words have stuck so I can just add to them.

I have not been updating here as routinely as I used to do and I can't say it's for any other reason than I've been lazy.  I post to Facebook, which is where most of my friends are, and then I go to bed because life has been hectic.  I will say this.  I love my hair.  I mean I've said that before but I really love my hair.  my locs are healthy and growing and are at the point length wise that my loose natural or relaxed hair hasn't been at in years, decades really.  We've had it up because of a weak loc that is now good to go.  I've put it up the last two months just so it can be out of my way while I'm doing 50 million things and just not wanting to mess with my hair.  A few locs have been combined to make sure they had a stronger base which is good because the back of my hair is a totally different texture than the front and thus don't want to let that loose hair not be able to support the locs there.  It's slightly more uniformly gray now as well which I love but even if it wasn't like I feel like good energy is in them and me as a result.  Anyway, enjoy the Google slides update on my hair.  It goes in order of hair updates so January, February and March.  Hopefully, I'm back on track next month.

End of the Year Update

 

It's not quiet the end of the year but it is approaching right.  Three more days and we will hopefully be done with this train wreck of a year even if the fall out from it won't be over for quite some time.  I got my hair done last week and I'll share photos of that in a second.  It's been a year.  There has definitely been good things that happened but conversely the bad has been so bad it's exhausting.  I won't say I'm hopeful about 2021 yet because folks are intent on showing their whole entire behinds for the next few days which will only amplify if someone is forcibly removed from office.  This is also my last week of indiscriminate eating.  I've gained back most of the weight I lost and since I'll be home for a few months before we can get back together face to face on campus I need to eat less and move more to get a handle on things.  Anyway I hope you all have a wonderful new year.  I'm prepping an Asian feast or just knock off versions of P.F. Chang's items so we can eat without having a ton of food left over when we don't need it.  I really wanna go back to sleep but that is not possible right now.  I'll be up all night if I do.  Anyhoo, here are photos.

So here we are, back where we started

I have been home mostly since mid March.  All travel has been halted, classes were taught remotely, there has been no tennis and I have had no retwist since February I think.  Right before I went to see my nieces and yeah my brother but mostly my youngest niece for her birthday.  I have to drive a bit to get my hair done and the city where I typically go was in major lock down for almost two months.  My loctition appears to be stepping away from doing hair and my initial one is taking over her clients but it's been nearly a month since I got that news and still freshly parted retwisted hair so I'm debating going back to doing my hair again solo.  That terrifies me now more than it did when I just went natural but I'm not sure if it's I'm lazy or that I have to do more reading on my own to be healthy.  On the flip, much like when I was doing my own hair pre locs I get to save a lot of money and I can do my hair on my schedule and no more hour long commutes.  Given the pandemic it may be the best option because there's no way to prevent getting exposed save not leaving the house and not letting anyone in the house.  I'll think it over but you know me.  I tend to make decisions after thinking on it for longer than any human should and asking for input.  That's the stage I'm in now.  I'm also in the itchy scalp and needing to wash my hair phase so I may do that tomorrow regardless of anything else I do.  Hope you are all well. 

Staying Safe---No Retwists, Still Updates

Life has been hectic since the last update let me just tell you.  That was a few weeks before spring break and my plan to get back on my diet and workout grind.  And then spring break got extended.  And then the gym shut down because of city ordinances.  And then my state, like many others, issued a shelter in place so school shut down too (school is where I work for those that don't remember) so I had a week or so to figure out what to do with my classes and have been teaching remotely since late March.  My retwist was scheduled for the Friday after we started remote teaching.  Insert sad face but still happy face cause you know breathing and mom isn't sick and my hair is still growing.  I'm not sure when in May I might be able to get in because I haven't been rescheduled yet--I am feeling some kind of way about that but I'll come back to that later--I just know that by the time I am in that it will have been a minimum of eight weeks between appointments and I kind alternate between thinking my hair is cute, to let's cut it all off so I can wash it whenever I like without having a lengthy post wash process but really it's just a different process. I could wash it now and just forcibly detangle it until I can get back in but it's been a struggle to keep my locs from marrying each other right now.  Water is all the motivation my hair needs to tangle in on itself. And as cute as mom is, her hands get tired after prolonged action so she wouldn't be able to help really.  So for now I've just been waiting for my stylist.

I mean that's not all I'm doing.  I'm oiling my scalp and moisturizing my hair.  Especially over the last few weeks when my hair started to feel like it was super duper dry all of a sudden.  That has helped along with scratching my scalp as necessary because for real I don't care if it looks fuzzy on Zoom right now.  I am noticing when I'm on camera just a see of white hair because new growth is having a party but hey it's still growing right.  Now for anyone that's been around a while, like maybe about a year, you know that there was a stylist change about the four month mark because my original loctition went on maternity leave and when she came back her schedule was limited.  I stayed with the replacement stylist and I like both of them.  What I'm not enjoying as much is the longer drive to the shop and the one drawback of having a popular stylist--she stays busy so getting in if I need to reschedule can take a minute.  Or the baby loc dance we had to do for a while.  I know I'm tired and bored so this is probably not the best time to make any lasting decisions but I may have to at least consider a plan b to plan a and ignore plan C (me doing my own locs) for as long as possible.

Ahh well, I'm going to go either have dinner or a cookie depending on what mom has done.

How are y'all doing?

No Snappy Title

Life has been a bit hectic around these parts since my last post.  I was enjoying life and playing tennis and then suddenly I was playing crash your car with a large green pickup.  I'm okay, the other driver was okay, my car went to the cute care graveyard in the sky mostly because it was old.  My twelve year old car's appraised value was just about the same cost as repairs so no more twelve year old car.  Into a two year old SUV now that I have not taken photos of but will eventually and while I like it, I miss the whole no car note situation.  I guess it's a good thing that it's coming around the same time as my promotion and negotiation for my job but woosah.  Bye bye no car note life. 

May Update A Little Late

This is always a hectic time of year from yours truly.  Grades are due, commencement and honors ceremonies, and we have maybe a week of downtime before it's off to the races for summer two courses and my annual countdown to crappy things.  Every year is different with the crappy things so we'll see how that goes.  Anyway, I say all that to say that with the normal crappy things and my present to myself then it was more hectic than normal and thus I am late updating you on my loc appointment. 

Things went well and actually the retwist time keeps shrinking which I love.  The dryer time not so much but it's what you can do lol.  I was tired because the night before I went to a concert.  I haven't been to a concert in a long time.  Probably my last one was Prince or Essence Music Festival and both of those were a gap ago.  I bought the ticket months ago as an end of the semester, end of the promotion wait, girl needs to have some fun gift.  It came with some unanticipated swag.  First shot is a bag, second is a pillow and the third is a VIP lanyard.  Totally wasn't expecting it and I used two of the three at the concert.

The next set of photos are from the show.  I had a blast.  She's well worth the ticket price.  I haven't said that in a while so yeah believe me.  These are just different parts of the show including me smiling ridiculously big in my seat before the show started while rocking my Prince inspired Rain Drops shirt.  You can't see my struggle loc but it disappeared while I was at the stylist so it's okay.

These last set of photos are just the ones of my last retwist.  My hair and I are happy and life is good.  I'm tired but trying to get adequate rest and avoiding people when I need to.    What is going on with you guys?

New tickers and timing

I added the ticker for my locs today.  When people ask me about things I sometimes remember but the tickers make it easier to do a direct tracking of things.  I am officially just over 9 months in this journey even though this will be my tenth follow up.  I've gone literally every for weeks to let someone tend to my hair which means this month I'll go twice.  First of the month and end of the month.  That 11th follow up will put me at 10 months in with appointments in June and July bringing me into a full year loc'd.  The process has been eye opening in a lot of ways. 

I have been dreading the ugly phase but I'm not sure that my hair has ever really been ugly to me.  It was thinner and less like a hair style in the beginning but everything since then has gotten better.  There's frizz if it's been a few weeks since my last retwist but I'm okay with that too.  And over the last few months my hair has hit a nice growth spurt so the very small locs that were started in July look nothing like the ones that are up for a good wash and style.  I of course am not beyond social comparison so I keep looking for videos of locs around my size and same time on this journey.  The only thing I wonder about from time to time is the super neat parting that would make my hair look more like braids.  Neither my original loctitian of the one that replaced her on maternity leave were overly concerned by that as they both talked about working with your hair and the shape of your head as much as possible.  And I stopped worrying about it because the only women with gray hair that I have seen with super neat parting mostly seem to have hair snatched back into styles or thinning areas with really long locs.  I'm not really shooting for either of those things so I've gotten over the parting.  The locs I like the most, bias totally being in play here if I am thinking about it, look like mine or like I think mine will look eventually.  Especially those with gray hair, thick and full and clear pattern for the locs but not super neat.

I have been somewhat jealous of the dyed locs but I remember why I stopped dyeing my air years ago and really don't want to damage my locs before they really get a chance to turn into whatever they want to be.  The colors are cute though so I will definitely be stalking those that do them from time to time.  I just won't be joining in cause yeah I'm not ready for things not to go well and then I'd be salty at myself indefinitely cause it was my fault lol.

I have finally rebooted my gym routine and it's been easier to keep my hair chill now that it's longer.  I keep a headband on the roots to catch the immediate sweat and then a larger sock to keep the rest of the hair secure while I move through my routine that can sometimes involve putting my head on equipment.  I really wasn't thinking about it in terms of protecting my hair but it does that too.  It reduces the amount of gross I have to share with others and eliminates friction of my hair against leather or yoga mats. 

Hmm I think that's it.  I'll be rocking day before retwist hair at the P!nk concert and then get my hair done as a wrap up to the month of wellness.  How's life treating you.  Oh and here's a photo of me and my promoted/tenured colleagues that shows my hair last week.

So I'm late ha

Hey hair buddies,

Looking at my last post I realize I didn't update last month.  I posted on Facebook but not here.  Last month was a blur.  It was filled with preparing for the spring break international trip and then taking said trip and then coming back and working like a lunatic like normal.  I did get a retwist so I'm going to post that in a second and then post my April update as well.  This was an oil retwist which isn't my fave as my gray hair is like ma'am really very quickly afterwards.  It held up well though and by mid month was hanging cute enough that it was commented on and that I took photos of so I could memorialize the moment.  That photo is the third in the list. 

So this month my retwist got moved because of a sick tiny human and since I'm not an ogre Friday it is.  It was good and I was able to catch the process early so I could go back to the cream/gel because it holds longer with my hair.  My hair is still growing well and is again striking out on a path on its  own.  Around my front edges my hair is a pretty even mix of black and gray.  But apparently when a coworker thought my hair was getting lighter it wasn't because of the oil I was using to moisturize my scalp.  Nope, in different parts of my hair the roots are just growing in white or gray, whatever you want to call it.  I knew it would at some point just based on the rude gray hair that keeps popping up on my chin and randomly on my arm but apparently my embracing the gray is for the best.  I could dye it but my pockets aren't that deep.  Regardless, I'm still loving my hair.  Sleeping is the biggest issue now as the locs are long though that I have to get creative to keep them completely covered at night but this is just the start of all of that so I better get used to it.  Anyway brought on by a question from my brother on how long they had gotten since this process started in July, here's a collage of July, October, and January I think plus this month.  Still loving it.

777-9311, not really 7 months loc'd

Just had to throw in a Prince song because well why not.  I may be a few days late on this officially but I just had my 7 month retwist appointment and length is what is on tap now.  They aren't super hard yet but for 7 months I'm not sure that I would expect them to be.  So let's do the photos first before I get into me being pseudo-paranoid about taking care of my hair lol.

How many locs and Random Update

Do you know what you do when you get bored because you are snowed in and nothing good is on tv right now?  You count your locs and notice some issues with your nape.  Some hair at the dead center of my nape has freed itself from the surrounding locs.  Where it is I think it was tucked into other locs but doesn't want to stay there.  I go in about two weeks from now to get my retwist so I'll talk to her then about what to do with that hair because I don't wanna be sorta loc'd a year from now because that hair keeps coming loose--to be clear this is the first time I've noticed it so it may just be how I was sleeping and my body generating lots of heat for a while because of weather and illness.  Depending on what we do with that hair I may have more or less locs heading forward.  I've twisted them to keep them from just being loosey goosey until I head back in but the back two rows may be getting adjusted to accommodate that hair. 

So after splitting my hair into four segments I started in the back of my hair and those two bunches, save the loose nape, accounted for 45 locs.  Seems reasonable enough and I wasn't shocked or disappointed.  The front half of my hair took much longer to count and was almost twice as many locs at 77.  The locs around my edges are much smaller than the others and I'm okay with that for now as they will likely continue to be much smaller going forward than the crown and other spots near the edges.  I can always combine them in the future if need be but I'm hoping the growing loc doesn't get too heavy to cause any thinning in the future.  Regardless, I have a count now and can stop wondering.  I'm not in the sisterloc range clearly but for some reason I didn't think I had 100 plus locs.

Anyway I'm going to try not to fall asleep again cause that's all I've been doing since we've been snowed in.

How goes life?

And just like that, it's nearly 2019

Woo it's been quite a busy few days.  I went to Texas to see the family for Christmas and got all the hugs I could want from my cutie pie nieces.  It was my first long trip away from home with my locs and it taught me something.  I really need to plan better.  I brought oil and spray with me but I was exhausted every night and waking up early every day to let in my contractor so I was running on fumes by the time I got home on Saturday.  I did fill up my tank for 1.90 a gallon so let's just say small wins.  Regardless, had I oiled up before I left my hair would have been fine that week and then I COULD have taken the spray but likely wouldn't have paid much attention to it honestly.

I still have a favorite loc even though it changes now instead of being one of the top central ones.  And I'm more aware of my hair health if that makes sense now.  I did my oil and spray routine today and my scalp was like ma'am bless you.  Good looking out to you and yours.  My hair is back under my wrap now because seriously I'm about ready for a nap.  I'm not sure about the seeing the ball drop faster than I see my head drop onto the pillow but I'm also very well aware that I lost the ability to do the all nighters a long time ago and the late nighters not as long ago but long enough lol.

I'm almost six months loc'd and I am still enjoying it.  My hair is growing still and now that I'm using a loc soc I'm not getting curly locs unplanned.  I'm getting used to them being hanging on or near my neck.  I'm still obsessively watching loc videos on YouTube and then remembering that my journey is my own, much like my loose natural hair journey was, so that I can take things with a grain of salt.  For example I'm not super worried about lint because I've always slept with a bonnet on even when my hair was relaxed and I don't like a lot of furry clothes.  I don't typically wear scarves and I got a warm slap from Grace Eleyae which is lined with satin so nothing catching on my locs when I do have to cover them up.  Plus, and this is true whenever I do anything slightly new or different, I'm noticing how many other people are loc'd and appreciating their hair as I watch them move around.  Plus much like when my hair was out and silvery in all it's glory or in silver twists people are fascinated by it so I get lots of questions and complements.

Next year I think I'll be just enjoying life, my hair and keeping you updated.  Next week will be the six month retwist.  I'll take photos like normal and update after that.  Have a good New Year's Eve.  And if you know where I live, stop by and I'll let you have some fried turkey lol.  Happy New Year!

Loc Update & End of Semester Praise Report

So let me start this off by saying as of about 8 hours ago I'm officially done with this semester.  I cannot at all begin to explain how excited that is.  No last minute grading or negotiations with students about their grades.  I was even able to help one out on a paper she needs to rewrite for someone else.  I stayed on top of my grading this term with my two official classes, internship and research.  Proud of myself on that front so yeah do a dance there.  Okay let's move on.

So yesterday was my loc retwist and my hair keeps maintaining well.  As they get longer I can see more closely what size they will likely be as they continue to mature as well.  Loving that.  I'm officially five months loc'd as of today.  I saw someone's locs fresh off her retwist when I was just getting settled into the chair and she's probably six months plus ahead of where I am but around the same size and I was like in love.  We started talking to someone else in the shop who started wondering if the loc life was for her and it was like ma'am totally depends on you but I'm loving this process in ways I can't actually articulate.  She asked if I was saving money being loc'd and I'd have to say probably not on one front.  I'm still having to pay someone at least once a month to do my hair.  That's instead of the every two month Senegalese twist life that would be the equivalent of three months of loc visits and one month of my hair doing whatever it wanted while I let it rest.  Plus products.  At this point, I'm light on products outside of oils and my hair is doing its own thing with minimal input from me.  We both shared that sentiment and she seemed to take it to heart but probably not ready for that and I totally understand that.  It's a lot to commit to.

Where do the lonely hearts umm bloggers go?

I was going to post a mini pity party because so many of the women I used to stalk for their hair and just generally happy personas are no longer blogging or doing so very infrequently.  Others are still blogging but are more of a business now than anything else.  I spent about 20 minutes cleaning up my blog feed and adding a couple new folks to groups.  I wanted to be sad but I can't really.  Life happens and when it does there are about 18 million things more important than documenting your hair growth.  I am instead choosing to be grateful that they were around when I was making decisions about hair and being supportive of my journey while they continued on their own.  Trying to map out what it means to have healthy hair solo would have been a train wreck for me.  Those women, that community, helped me do a better job of nurturing my hair, asking questions of stylists and were generally just good folks to digitally be around.  And I definitely can't throw stones.  As of this post I'm almost at the total of the last two years combined (24 this year, 26 total the last two years).  I abandoned them well before they left me.  We all start with vim and vigor and free flowing thoughts and keeping anything going indefinitely is unlikely.  Especially when we get bored.  My hair is exciting to me again so you're going to hear way more from me than you want to for a while.  Buckle up buttercup.

Oh and while my hair friends are taking a break or on hiatus, my food friends are crushing it.  The next time I'm bored for dinner I gotta remember to come back and check things out and maybe get an instant pot.

The Year of Many Changes

I have been a busy girl.  I've gone from planning a graduate program to nearly being done with the first semester of a graduate program--five more to go.  I've gotten another 20 ish students to conferences.  I've gone from planning a study abroad course to being four months away from heading out on said trip and have been fundraising my ass off well figuratively not literally cause my butt needs to go to the gym.  And while all the work stuff is good, the personal stuff is good too.  Earlier in the year I planned on getting Lasik cause I was tired of my glasses costing a tiny fortune and if I could I would like to opt for just waking up and seeing clearly with no assistance.  Recovery time was factored in and July seemed like the best option but mom was ill so I stashed that idea.

Three Month Update

Hey people,

I am very glad that I was able to retrieve my calendar because as smart as I think I am normally I am super tired because I am sick and my brain was blanking on an important date.  I went from thinking about locs to getting them very quickly.  So quickly I was starting to think that i started the process in August because it didn't seem like I had had them that long.  I was incorrect.  I had my consult with Sarah @ Soul Sistahs in mid July and the install done the next week so yes I am officially three months in.  Corissa has been filling in for Sarah who is on maternity leave and I have to say I enjoy both of them and this journey has been smoother because I have been able to ask questions and discuss what I wanted openly.  I wanted to see what looked different from day one to now so I put together a quick progress update using Pixlr express.