Vacation: All I Ever Wanted

Finally, for the first time in about 14 years I took a real vacation!!!

My mom, brother & I went and it was great. This was my first vacay with my mom in 22 years & my first vacay with my brother ever. Needless to say, I was excited!!!

We went to Hilton Head Island, SC.  A place we had all been before, but never together. So it was familiar, but different. 

First of all, it was originally forecast to rain all week long because of a hurricane/storm in the Atlantic. It didn't!!! It rained on the way there, it rained Sunday, but the rest of the week, is was smooth, beautiful, dry sailing.

The island has changed soooo much since the last time I was there in about 1999.  So many new things have been built, the make of the streets have changed to the point where it almost looked unrecognizable.  Almost. But change is ever present, and we still had a ball.

How did my hair fair???? NOT WELL AT ALL!!!!  It was actually kind of funny. I had washed my hair and put it in big twists the Thursday before we left, so that I would have all of this definition and lusciousness when we got there. Well, I took those twists out Monday morning before going on my bike ride. I walked out of the door with beautiful definition.

I came back with this:

No definition, no twist, no curl and barely a coil. There died my hopes of a twist out. Not to be deterred from my desire for biking, beach and books, I turned to the ever-faithful fallback...

THE PUFF!!!!

I was a puff princess for a couple of days, but after a while, having to twist & take out the fluffy, pillow soft hair over and over grew old.  Especially since I normally do not manipulate my hair daily.

I ended up cowashing my hair and putting it up in not-so-mini twists for the remaining days of my vacay.

The lesson: Just twist your hair!!! It's so much easier and much less time consuming when it's all said and done.

Now, I'm back to reality!!!



Been M.I.A.

But not really though.

Here's what I'm struggling with folks: My hair regimen is pretty solid & hasn't been causing any issues, so I haven't had to change it.

I'm still working my way through my products and not buying any products, so I haven't made anything new to share with you all yet.

My book videos & posts have not done well here at all, so I can see that those of you who read my blog (and I thank you for reading) are not interested in that aspect of my activity so I've stopped posting my BookTube videos here, even though I am still recording and posting videos on YouTube.

So that leaves me with the question of what to present to those of you who have been so wonderful about following my blog, when the original purpose of this blog has become more of a routine (thus repetitive) and less something new.

I have some things in the works to share, but they aren't ready yet. And some other things I'm like...nah, I'm not talking about that. Or at least not yet. So I'm working on it people. I'm still here. I just don't have a lot to say that hasn't already been said right now.

But I'm here!

TTFN!!!

June Book Haul

Long Hair

For maybe the second time in my life, I can say that I have long hair.  And the length of it today is longer than it ever reached when I was perming my hair.

If you saw my length check video, you can see the growth in my hair from March 2012 to March 2013, I never thought my hair could grow so much in a year. I am absolutely amazed by it. But now that my hair is longer, there are some changes that have come into affect.

Change #1

I get a lot more single-strand knots. 

At first, I thought I was getting them because my hair needed to be trimmed, or I was not taking enough time with my detangling. However, the mane was trimmed & I have gone back to my patient, time-consuming detangling routine and I'm still getting them.  So, of course I did a YT search to see if other naturals were or had experienced the same thing. Yup. I am not alone.  The difference I have seen is that some elect not to trim theirs out and others do trim them.  I am of the trimming persuasion. My hair is so tightly coiled in its natural state that those single-strand knots increase my tangles and lead to me spending a lot of time on 4-5 strands of hair, trying to reduce the tangle to the smallest knot before I cut it out.  Most times, I can get it down to the single strand. Other times I am not so lucky. And for a scissorphobe with designs on longer hair, having to cut out more than 1 strand just hurts my feelings. LOL. But I get over it because it's best for the overall health of my hair.

 

Change #2

 

Detangling is (gasp) EASIER!!!

 

What do I mean??? My hair is longer now, so its heavier.  That weight, I'm thinking, is making the tangles fall further down my strands if I detangle while my hair is wet.  Now, I still have trouble spots.  For example, the hair closer to my roots at the crown of my head still manage to cram together like they're vying for the same spot in a cover photo. But overall, the detangling if much easier and faster.  When my hair was shorter, it could take up to 40 minutes to detangle with a comb. Finger detangling was out of the question!!! But now, all I do is finger detangle and I can get my hair wash regimen completed in an hour and 30 minutes...and that includes deep conditioning!!!

 

 

Change #3

 

Bye-Bye mini-twists

 

Mini-twists are an absolute no-no now.  It's too time consuming.  Both twisting and taking them down. The detangling after the take down is a pain in the arse!!! I end up frustrated and careless so I feel like I'm doing more damage to my hair than good, therefore removing the benefit of doing the mini-twists in the first place.  So I'm graduating to medium twists. Mini is no longer allowed in my hair vocabulary.

 

 

Change #4

 

My scalp....my poor scalp

 

The final change really has nothing to do with my hair.  I think its more related to the weather. My issues with my scalp are back with a vengeance. So I'm back to frequently oiling my scalp with my oil mix and even using Sulfur 8 a few times a month to try and get it back under control.  I'll be doing that for the duration of the summer.  If you are anti-grease, the idea of this will not appeal to you. Oh well. Grease has never done me wrong. With my eczema and dry skin/scalp issues, I will do what I can so that my freshly cleaned scalp doesn't look flaky 2 days after I washed it.  I'm also thinking that some of my issues may be damage from years of perms. Nothing I can do but work on and with it.

 

So, what are my hair plans for spring/summer? I don't know yet. I'm not sure yet.  I'm thinking I may go back to doing more cowashing and lay off the shea butter for a few months and stick to the coconut oil other light oils that would be easily washed out using conditioner only.  But time will tell.

 

That's all for now folks. I would like to send out a mighty THANK YOU to all of you who are reading my blog.  I love coming on here and seeing how many people have taken a peek at what I have to say. So if you've been reading from the start: Thank you. To my lovely subscribers: THANK YOU!! If you are reading for the 1st time: Thank you!! I hope you all are enjoying reading theses posts as much as I enjoy doing them.

 

TTFN!!

20th Century Book Tag

May Book Haul

The Book Thief - Book Review

I finally finished reading The Book Thief...

It took more than 2 months...

Wowzers!