Guess who is on team natural now? I took my oldest daughter to the barber for her big chop two weeks ago. She has been using the creamy crack for a while and wanted to go natural now that she will be starting college in the fall. The problem is that she decided to get an extreme asymmetrical hair cut for prom. Why is this a problem? Well initially her plan was to go the slow transition route, but that was not going to happen with that haircut. Her hair was shaved in the back and on one side and long on the other side. Did I mention the layers? I talked to her about cutting it even all the way down to the new growth and she agreed (to my surprise). She has so much more nerve than I had at that age. I think she is
having a little remorse, but her hair is already growing back. I am posting two before pictures and one
after. They are from her camera phone, so please excuse the quality. Also keep in mind  that the before
pictures were fresh from the beauty shop and her hair did not look quite like this before she cut it (you can never recreate those beauty shop hairstyles).

 Before

 It's hard to tell from this picture, but the back and one side is shaved. It was a cute style.

After. She is makeup free in this photo, but still so beautiful to me.

I just wanted to say that I am really digging my hair as of late. I dyed my hair last night, because I was seeing a lot of grey. I never thought that the grey hair would bother me, but it was right in the middle of my forehead darnit! So I dyed my hair black and it was the third dyeing my hair in my life. It was not bad at all. I did wash and rinse repeatedly. I also wanted to share my latest obsession with you all. It is called Pinterest. I love this site and right now I am attempting to unravel some yard to do a project that I had found on there. Happy pinning everyone.

I'm stylin'

One thing I like to do is copy loose hair styles on my sisterlocks. What do you think about the job I did?

This is my attempt to copy the style on the video.

Yes I am in my car. I had some time to kill before work.

Just wanted to give you a close up to show texture. As I said in a previous post, My ends are not sealed even though I am going on 8 months locked.

Like Marvin said, "What's going on"

I have not posted on here forever. I have not posted a picture since always. Well here is a follow up ( a very brief one). My oldest daughter is graduating from high school, so I am busy with that. I am attending college, yep busy with that too. Still trying to get pregnant and I will be starting Lupron soon. Yippee! I get to be poked with a needle! My hair is growing and shrinking. My hair feels so dry, but I had a lot of slippage during my re-ti, so I do not want to put a lot of stuff in it. I am not a braid and bander...nope... no sir. I just would rather wash my hair without all the extra. Right now I am branding my hair up so that I can have a braid out for tomorrow and then off to bed. I am so surprised that I am not fully locked yet. My hair is so tightly coiled, I thought I would be locked quickly. Nope we are almost at 7 months and my ends are not sealed. Oh and to do a follow up on all the things that I said I would do as far as skin. Well I am not consistent enough to give a proper review. So, sorry. Wow this post is a real bummer. Right?

Keeping my finger and toes crossed

I have been having a hard time conceiving this last go around. It has been an emotional roller coaster. There are times that I really feel like giving up and there are days that I feel so positive. I just gave myself a trigger shot about two hours ago and this Sunday we will be going back to the doctor to be inseminated again. The doctor said that we will have to sit down and reevaluate if there is no pregnancy this go around. I know that IVF is not something that we can afford on top of the money that we have spent on IUI, so that is not really and option for us. I was surprised that the clinic was going to open on Easter. The plan is to get inseminated and hopefully make it to church before the doors close. We will be cutting it very close. A part of me says that I should be satisfied with the two kids that I already have and maybe having a third is just not in the cards for us. There are a lot of women who can not even have one baby and I am blessed with two kids. But I know that my family is not complete and I know that a third child is my future. I might have waited to long for me to be able to conceive again, but maybe the child is already here and is just waiting for me to be his or her mother. Anyway, one thing I am working on is losing weight. I have lost about 13 pounds so far since March. I hope the weight loss will help with conception.

What ? A bargain!

Oh yeah I am loving life right about now. I found this website that sells discounted accessories and makeup! Love, love, love! I love so much I have to keep using exclamation points! I actually took a picture of all the stuff I got for.....wait for it..... do I hear a drum roll? $20! That includes the tax, shipping and the handling. The best part is the stuff does not look cheap either. I will tell you the site, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else and save some stuff for me. It is called http://www.mizoutlet.com/ . I heard about the site from yt, someone was on there doing a giveaway of their stuff. The stuff that was picked out for the giveaway was not my favorite, but I found tons of cute stuff. Check out the picture of my "precious"  (said in Gollum's voice)

Check one, Check two, check, check, check

I am just checking in and giving an update. My next post will include some picture, I promise. I just need to find the time to have someone take some pictures of me. I hate the pictures of the reflection in the bathroom mirror look. I am trying a few youtube inspired short loc styles and I am getting a ton of compliments on my styling. I have done twist and braid outs before, but felt that pipe cleaner curls were best left on longer hair. Well I did pipe cleaner curls last weekend and received a lot of compliments on my locs. The compliments were starting to make me a little self-conscious after awhile. On a personal level, my mother is doing better after her health scare. I thought that I was going to lose her and I am so grateful that I didn't. I had a positive pregnancy test and felt so happy, thankful and blessed. Then I started bleeding. I am still trying to get over the fact that I am not pregnant and I am wondering if it will ever happen again for me. I am thankful for the family I have and I will be trying again. Wish me luck.

Coming home

I was born in the state of Ohio and spent the first four years of my life there. I was raised in San Diego and consider it my hometown. I would visit Cleveland on rare occasions, but did not spend to much time there growing up. About twelve years ago my mom moved back to Cleveland and has been there ever since. I have probably visited Ohio more times in the last 12 years then I have since moving away at four. I consider home to be wherever my mom is, so when I say that I am going home to visit my mom, I am now talking about Cleveland. I recently flew to Cleveland because my mother was rushed to the hospital. My mother health is declining, so this was not her first visit to the hospital. What really caught my attention was my sister saying that she just signed a do not resuscitate order. I've been here for a week and my mother's health has improved, but she is still in the hospital and will probably remain there even after I leave this Sunday. As I sit in my mothers kitchen, looking out at the grey sky, listening to my father coughing in his bedroom, watching a city that I hardly know cat-nap, I start to think about home. Not the home that is the city where my mother lives, but the home that is the city where my own family lives. Is this what being an adult is all about?

slip, slip, slippage

I had to make an unexpected trip to Cleveland, Ohio to see my mother in the hospital. I had to forgo this month's scheduled re-tightening in order to make the trip. I can wait until I come home and make another appointment or I can get my hair done while I am here. I looked into some natural hair salons and their prices range between $90 to $100. One salon in particular has their price listed at $45/hour. What! Are you kidding me?!! I know that I have some slippage going on and I want to address it as soon as possible,  but not at those prices. I went on the sisterlock® website and emailed some trainees and consultants and I am just waiting for them to respond. I also wanted to see what a different consultant is working with and make sure my consultant was on point with my hair. Until next time.......

Ain't nothin going on but the....

Well I really do not have anything new to report about my hair. It is growing, but I do not notice a huge difference. I notice that I have a lot of shrinkage. My loose hair would always shrink up on my head and my locked hair does too.  I have started to do twist-outs instead of braid-outs and have decided that the twist give my more length. I know there are people who say that they never had bad hair days with sisterlocks, but I can not make the same claim. I have had some bad hair days, but I really do not sweat it. I am just letting my hair do whatever it wants to do. I wash my hair weekly and do the occasional twist out. I will be getting my third retightening next week. That's it and that's all. I need to take some pictures so that I can have a visual record of my journey.

The last dragon

I got my reti on Wednesday and I must say that my hair is growing like crazy. You would not be able to tell due to all of my shrinkage. Today I was wearing my contacts for a change and happened to catch a glimpse of a loc that is usually hid by my eyeglass stem. Well to my surprise I had a two headed dragon! I had asked my loctician if she needed me to remove my glasses while she did my reti and she said no. Obviously she ended up combining a loc. How do I feel about this? Well the loc in question was to small for my taste anyway, but I think that there should be some kind of dialogue if she did this on purpose. On a different note, I have not used my bio oil as much as I was previously. I did feel the length of my Cesarean scar and found part of it strangely smooth. I this stuff work??!!! I am re-motivated and I will keep everyone informed of my progress.

2 month update

Here I am going on almost 7 weeks with my sisterlocks. I will be getting my re-ti next week. My hair is growing like crazy. I have shrinkage and a lot of it. My main complaint is that I do not have the movement that I wish, but maybe that will happen as my hair grows. I am not sure. I will ask my loctician if there is a way to get more movement...I am not sure exactly how to express what I am wanting here. My hair is just sitting on my head, but I really want is to whip my hair back and forth. Lol.

What I will be trying out for the New Year

I just ordered Strong Roots Red Pimento Hair Growth Oil and it came in this morning. I just washed my hair last night and picked up my order from the post office and applied it a little while ago. I applied it to my scalp only and will do an application once a week after I was my hair. I already have a lot of hair and my hair seems to be growing pretty quickly from the sisterlocks alone. My hair really is not in any need of growth oil, but my scalp is dry and is in need of moisture. I will also use this on my teen who wears her hair relaxed (hopefully for not much longer) and is wanting to grow out of her latest haircut. This month I have started to use Bio Oil on my stretch marks, acne scars, and C-section scars. I will share the results of my Bio Oil experiment in another two months or so. Lastly I am trying to get in shape with the hope that it will help with fertility. We have tried to get pregnant again with no luck. I took a month off  from the whole stressful fertility thing, but that month has turned into three months now. I am really excited about trying to get pregnant, but I will try not to get stressed out about the process. If it is to be, it will be or not. Only God knows what he has in store for me