not quite obsessed, but in "like"

Even though my flat ironing experience was less than stellar, I've at least overcome my fear of adding direct heat to my hair. However, for every humid day that we had last week, I was worried ENTIRELY too much about my hair. It did revert a little, so I'm glad that I twisted it up after I flat ironed it. It served me well to camouflage the poof with ringlets here and there.

So, I haven't really been a fan of my hair lately. I don't hate it. It's just that everytime I think about another detangling session, I get a little annoyed. This used to be fun when I had less hair. Now, it's a chore.

I have been talking to another natural friend of mine, who suggested that I try Miss Je.ssie's. One of my girls gave me a sample of the "curly meringue" last year. I used it and loved it the day that I applied it. The day after, was a whole 'nother horrible story. So I've avoided it. But I happened to be in Targ.et the other day and said that I would just look at another option. I saw a $58 price tag and couldn't swallow. The product may last forever for all I know, but I just couldn't justify that investment right now. So instead, I picked up another She.a Moistur.e product.

Shampoo isn't really a product must-have for me. I have used Giovanni 50:50, which was pretty decent. When I ran out of that, I decided to try the Gio.vanni Tea Tree Tin.gle and I was less of a fan. For that shampoo to not have sulfates, my hair felt stripped to the core. I bought Trader's Joe's Nour.ishing Spa and I felt as if it were the best shampoo that I had tried since transitioning. But then, I picked up Sh.ea Mois.ture's Thicke.ning Sham.poo (as if I need a thickening shampoo when I just complained about my detangling sessions). BUT, I couldn't pass up the ingredients. Goodness, that was THE MOST delightful shampooing session that I've had, lol. I am becoming a huge fan of the product line. Unlike before, I wasn't running to the conditioner immediately to soothe my frazzled hair. My hair loved it. I'm still a Yes to Cu.cumbers/Toma.toes fan, but I went BACK to Tar.get and picked up the Sh.ea Mois.ture Thickening Con.ditioner, the Thicken.ing spray (that I hadn't quite figured out how I plan to use), and more of the Deep Trea.tment Mas.que. If all goes well, I might back away from the Yes to Cu.cumbers line.

Last night, I decided to braid my dry hair. I saturated my strands with aloe vera gel and then added a little more of the Cur.l En.hancing Smoothie to each braid. Once finished, I sprayed my braids with a jojoba oil mixture and went to sleep.

I took the braids out this morning before church. Again, I have bounce and a nice sheen. My hair was even more voluminous than this picture shows. I think that I am FINALLY falling back in love with my hair (although the jury is still out on whether I prefer braidouts to twistouts). I went to another game night on Friday and people kept touching and commenting on my hair. I think that I just might be on to something. I haven't used gel and I haven't pulled my hair back in a puff and I believe that my hair is thanking me for that as well. I think that I will keep using the Sh.ea Moisture products and see where my hair's health stands by Dec.ember.

fried and laid to the side

My hair posts have been few and far between b/c I haven't been doing anything new and exciting with my hair. Constantly taking/showing pics of a wash n' go is not really saying anything other than look at me.

But this weekend, I decided to tackle my fear of flat ironing. Actually, I experimented with a few things this weekend.

First, I washed, conditioned, and set in spiral rollers. However, I didn't roll my hair in a spiral direction. I was trying to see if these rollers would stretch my roots out, so that it would be possible for me to do a roller wrap.

FAIL!

Second, I decided to blow dry my extremely shrunken hair after I came from under the hair dryer. After that (which didn't take more than 10 minutes), I flat ironed using my Pro.claim heat protectant.

FAIL!

Well, it didn't look bad. It was just HUGE! I didn't take pics...have no good reason other than my being disappointed and not interested in trying to hunt down my camera. My hair was certainly longer than I thought it was. But after blow dring and frying, my hair felt like straw. Just plain ole crispy.

So, instead of washing it out, I picked up my trusty She.a Mois.ture Cur.l En.hancing Smoothie and Jo.joba oil (that I forgot I even had). Remember, I have been trying to figure out how to use this smoothie b/c it was so frickin' moisturizing that I didn't want to let it go. I slathered it on my fried hair and twisted it up for church.

I have bounce, shine, and its so ridiculously soft that I can't stop touching it! A little more defined than I wanted but its cool. I think that I realized the error of my ways. My hair already takes forever to dry, so when I do wet twists and add the Shea Moi.sture it prolongs the drying time so when I take them down while I'm getting ready for work, disaster awaits. But I think that it works best for me on dry hair. So I will try this again next week. If it works, then I'm leaving the wash n' gos behind for a while. I won't expect my hair to be as elongated but I look forward to it being soft and poofy.

I'm also on a challenge to give up my Eco Styler gel...but we'll see where that takes me. Puffs are my fave hairstyle.

august showers

Lawd t'day...I can already tell that it's going to be one of THOSE weeks. I was at work until 7:15pm tonight, determined to finish up one project today, so that I can finally start another one tomorrow. And something tells me that I'm gonna spend half of tomorrow putting out fires with other projects. I am just a tad bit overwhelmed at the moment.

My mind must be somewhere else b/c this morning I got up, got dressed, left the house, and stayed productive until 10am before I realized that I forgot to put my bra on. Who does that??? I wore a new blouse and I kept saying to myself that its fitting kinda weird. I mean, I had absolutely no clue until I went to habitually adjust my bra strap, only to discover that there was not one to be found. Talk about embarrassed. Now, my girls may not be big enough to notice, but I felt saggy all day and just kept telling myself to walk light. Still in disbelief over my absent-mindedness.

I spent the weekend showering. I went to a bridal shower and a baby shower on Saturday. I enjoyed the cute little finger foods and the cute little games with the cute little stories and the cute little gifts, but I needed to decompress after all of that cuteness. My girl, Kat, was having a game night (b/c Navy was in town). I was good for a while. We played dominoes and spades, but then came the boardgame of Life. Now, the Life that I played as a child is no where near the version of Life that's out now. Anyway, I kept losing a turn and spinning 1s and 2s. Everyone else was on a whole 'nother side of the board and I was the LAST to get married, the LAST to establish my career, and the LAST to have kids. Excluding the kid part, this game was starting to mimick how I felt about my actual life, lol. But then again, I won in the end. So maybe being slow on my milestones is not so bad.

When I was at the baby shower, the guest of honor kept asking me questions about diet restrictions, high-tech baby gadgets, and even the dos and donts about caring for a newborn. I didn't realize how much has changed in 9 years. I was looking at a baby monitor with all these different bells and whistles, but 9 years ago, my baby monitor was my ear. I might've even been given a baby monitor but I don't recall using it. I really don't recall sleeping through the night during that first year with J. Even when HE started sleeping through the night, I would get up to watch him take at least 2 breaths before I went back to sleep. A few times, I held a mirror up to his nose b/c I was just that paranoid.

My girlfriend said that her doctor gave her an exhaustive list of foods she couldn't have. My doctor told me to ease up on the blue cheese dressing and caffeine in moderation. That's all I really remember. It didn't matter b/c by the end of my pregnancy all I wanted were a jar of olives/pickles and lemonade...and I think that I got real pissed when someone (in an attempt to be nice) didn't bring me the Coun.try Ti.me lemonade. I was even particular about the brand.

I would like a do over, one day. I want to be all overjoyed when I find out that I'm pregnant instead of being slightly disoriented when the stick went from clear to magenta in 30 seconds. I want to buy all the cute maternity clothes and take professional photos, with J rubbing my belly...oh, and I guess a daddy will be in there somewhere. I want the joys of pregnancy, but I don't know how I'll survive that newborn period again.

Anywya, here's one of the cute stories: The mom-to-be didn't want to know the sex of the baby. Dad, on the other hand, did. When they went for the ultrasound, mom requested that the technician write down the sex of the baby and seal it in an envelope. They decided to have a family get-together. The mom-to-be went to a bakery and requested a special cake. She handed them the envelope and instructed them to open it. If the paper says that it's a girl, then they were to put pink filling in the middle of the cake. And if it's a boy, then blue. When the family came over, everyone found out the sex of the baby at the same time once they cut the cake...cheers, applause, a drammatic moment for all, lol.

Now, doesn't that make you just want to run out and get pregnant??? LOL. I'm sure that if my breasts swole up to the size that they were when I was pregnant, there would be no way in hell that I'd forget to wear a bra.

finally

Guess what? The baby (yes, he's still my baby even though he's a month away from being 9 y/o) has been in Flori.da with his father for the past week and a half. And I didn't die, cry, hyperventilate, fall out, or have heart palpitations. He's heading back to his PawPaw in N.ew Orl.eans tomorrow afternoon.

I did get sick last week and can you believe that this child REFUSED to come back and nurse me back to health? I mean, does Mic.key Mou.se feed and clothe him? As far as his even caring, I recall him telling me that I need to turn the A/C off so that I don't catch a cold and he also asked about the flavor of my meds. I chalk it up to his having a lot going on out there and not much time to compose his thoughts.

But I can say one thing...the fact that he was having fun with his father perked me up out of my summer funk.

This was a first and a long time coming.

But let me tell you another reason why I was beaming. MY father was probably sitting in Ha.waii (yes, he went to Ha.waii with his church last week) eating crow and a whole heap of it!

Before, he was talking MUCH sh*t about J's dad. Talking 'bout how he 's not going to come through...talking 'bout how he puts everything else before his son...talking 'bout how he doesn't have an idea of what it means to be a father. He says that last line SO MUCH that it takes the WHOLE armor of God to keep me from spitting, "AND what in da hell do YOU know about being a father? And if that ain't the pot calling the m*****f***in' kettle black!"

Whew! I'm composed...

Don't get me wrong. I often think those things, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I want to sit and listen to him gripe about it. I had been in constant communication with J's dad, explaining to him how much this trip means to J. I put it in no uncertain terms that if he didn't come through...that that was his ass. Period. We had many talks over the course of the month that even went deeper than the trip. He said a lot of things that actually made me question if he finally gets it. If he finally understands the type of commitment that transcends beyond mailing a video game everytime J calls.

No, he doesn't have the best track record, but for some reason, I said "...starting today, we're gonna wipe the slate clean. I will not pre-judge you based on your past. I will give you a chance to prove your word."

MY dad, on the other hand, didn't want to be stressed about it and kept hounding me to tell J that he wasn't going to Flo.rida.

But guess what...he's wrapping that trip up as I type. The baby needs this time. He even got a little bass in his voice over the phone. This trip has me thinking. There will be some changes come next summer and I can tell who will be the first to be unhappy about it.