Sunday, February 5, 2012

My Best Hair Days

Hey Dolls!

Here is a post of my hair faves since I've been on my natural hair journey!  Keeping a photo journal is an excellent tool to track the progress of your growth and hair health.  I love to see my hair bloom before my eyes when I'm not even watching.  I have kept a photo journal since my BC.  Our hair grows, y'all!!!

I'm 32 months natural!  Check out my photo faves! Enjoy!




















Thursday, February 2, 2012

Healthy Hair Challenge: Jan Recap

Soooo....here is a little recap on my healthy hair challenge for the month of January.  I'm so incredibly proud of myself for sticking to this challenge of protective styling.  After being natural for over 2.5 years, I have never worn a low maintenance style for more than a week tops.  To go for 30 days is a major achievement for me.  Now the question is, did protective styling benefit my hair overall?  Hmmm...we'll let the pics decide.


In the first pic, I took this on 1/7/12.  The 2nd pic was taken just two days ago.  My fingers are literally touching the top of my bra in the 2nd pic.  I totally gained my .5"!  I'm thisclose from BSL and I'm just too excited!  For my hair to show this kinda progress in a three week span is short of amazing.  Couple that with exercise 3x a week, healthy eating, and just leaving my hair alone definitely benefits and promotes hair growth.  To celebrate, I wore my hair out for the first time on the 1st.  I missed my big fluffy hair and I wanted to flaunt it as a reward for being so disciplined.  Here is my twistout from that day.

I flat twisted my hair in 10 large twists and set it with my Qhemet AOHC and sealed with my beloved avocado oil.  I had incredible shine and bangin' definition.  It was nice having my hair out for the day, but today I have tucked it away for another 30 days.  Now I have a bit of an unconventional approach to PSing.  I don't keep a style for 5+ days straight.  I have fine to medium strands and keeping twists in my hair for two weeks will result in knots, tangles, excessive shedding and other not so nice things.  So I typically wear a style for about 3-4 days, maybe 5 if I'm lazy and refresh, detangle, reset, and restyle.  I manipulate my hair 1x a week.  Hats off to those curlies who can rock twists for a month straight.  My hair would rebel in the worst way.  We all have to do what's best for our hair, and mine is thriving pretty well.  Here is my style for the rest of the week until wash day on Sunday.  Pinned up with no where to go!



That's my January check in/update!  February I'll be tucking those ends all this month.  Hopefully, I'll get these city twists this month so I can stop doing my hair for a few weeks.  I need a break. lol






Amazing Affirmations: People and Trees

The other night I was in my counseling class and we were talking about self-reflection.  It was an intriguing discussion about how to be a reflective practitioner.  In the counseling field, it is such an important concept to grasp and understand, especially dealing with people one on one.  Advice is something we are NOT supposed to give as counselors, but as the discussion got deeper, my professor showed us a "Madea" clip on Youtube.  It was a clip of her giving advice to a young man about relationships.  Although the clip was used as an instructional resource of what counselors are not to do with our clients, it actually struck something inside of me that I truly needed to hear and take heed.

Watch the clip for yourself.

I'm not much of a Tyler Perry fan, but maaaaan this clip spoke directly to my spirit.  People and trees.  So simple, yet so profound.  There is a reason why there are so many leaves, so few branches, and even fewer roots.   This was by far the best analogy to describe a good and bad relationship, in my opinion.  It was comedic, but it was definitely comedic truth.

Think about the relationships you have in your life right now.  Who do you think of when you place people in these three categories? Who do you consider your roots? Branches?  Leaves?  Thinking back on a certain relationship I had, it is clear this person is a leaf.  He is not meant to stay in my life and I had to accept that once and for all.  I've never known a person who was so emotionally disconnected, full of excuses, uncommunicative, and overall just weird.  Dude is just a strange cat. I don't understand him and it's not meant for me understand him.  Good luck to the person who will understand him.  I get it now.  I totally see it for what it is.  A waste of my valuable time.

I gave myself a hard time for going back to it after the fact.  There is no use in beating myself up when I all I have to do is walk away and never look back.  Going backwards is the wrong answer.  Leave your past in the past and move forward.  They are in your past for a reason.  Let them stay there.  Letting go is hard to do, but Madea said it best.  When it gets to a point when I have to choose You or Me?  I have to choose me, because simply put, I love me more.

I deserve so much more. I'm a beautiful woman who deserves to be pursued.  Yea, Imma a little old school.  I believe in chivalry and the "he who finds a wife" ideology.  I have so much love to give and I'm patiently waiting for the right "him" to come and scoop me up and share the love with me.  There is a deserving someone out there looking for me.  I'm just waiting on the day when we finally find each other.  Love.  I remember it. *smiles*

Thank you, Madea for the insight.  I needed this reminder to slap me in the face and wake me the hell up!