Kemi's Sisterlock and Life Journey

2007-08-05T15:42:00.000-05:00

Gonna stop trying...

I've decided that my husband and I are under a lot of stress so we're going to stop trying to conceive for a while. I don't really know how long that's going to be, but things just aren't working out in that area of our life and I'm feeling really down about it. I mean depressed really. It's been 13 months and things haven't gone the way I thought they would. So we're going to take it easy and just enjoy life. I will continue the Chinese herbs and will add in the acupuncture for relaxation. I've stopped the charting and temperature taking (as a matter of fact I've shredded all my paper charts and tossed my thermometer) and just everything and I'm simply going to live life and try to relax about things. I know that there will be children in our future because I know I'm healthy, just not now.

On a more positive note, my husband has just accepted a job position in Portland, Maine! So we'll be moving in 2 weeks. Basically, we're going to pay someone to pack our house and move it to our new home. We'll be going in a week to the area to look for a house to rent for now. We really want to get to know the area before we decide on a neighborhood to move into. I'm very excited about our move so I'm looking forward to getting to know another community and enjoying our life close to the shore.

2007-07-30T12:28:00.000-05:00

I'm still waiting...

Well Jeff and I are still trying to get pregnant. I never thought that it would be this hard to get pregnant, what with all the advertisements about "only ONE act of unprotected intercourse can result in pregnancy!" warnings. Jeff and I have decided to go to Chinese medicine to help us out. At this point, we're only taking the herbs and I feel much better. I have changed my diet slightly so I'm just eating more dairy products.

As for my sisterlocks, they're doing great! I need to take a photo right after I wash or something so you all can see this, but I've been so lazy about not only posting, but taking photos. I think the only photos I've taken have been of my new hobby, knitting...

I need to upload the photos, but I'll do that soon. I've been knitting most days actually. I knit socks, diaper covers (made three for a friend), and dish cloths for the kitchen. My next project after my own pair of socks is a baby sweater with matching socks and hat for a girlfriend who is pregnant right now. I'm just looking for a nice pattern that I'd like. I'm thinking a wrap-style kimono type sweater would be best since they're easy to put on and take off of a newborn.

Life at this point is interesting. Jeff and I have been traveling around New England looking for a place for him to work. It's pretty easy for me to find people to work with so I'm not worried about that, but for him, Vermont has been less than generous with jobs in the IT field. We like New England, so we decided that we're going to stay here. He had two interviews last week with companies in Massachusetts, and this week he has an interview in Portland, Maine for a nice company. He didn't really like either of the Massachusetts jobs and I told him that it isn't imperative that he take those jobs. I feel that his sense of self worth and happiness in a work environment are very important. So we'll see how this Maine job pans out. I'd love to live in Maine, though. Some of the houses that I'm looking to check out are within a few minutes of the beach!!! That and the fact that they're inexpensive rentals is a wonderful thing. So I'm really gunning for the Maine job. We'll see how that goes.

In summary, we've turned to Chinese medicine to help us get pregnant, Sisterlocks look great, and Jeff has interviews for a job and we'll be moving once we decide where we're going to go. So there you have it... I'm not going to promise to not take so long to update considering my life is really busy and there is a lot of change going on so I'll just say that I hope that I can come back soon...

2007-02-28T19:14:00.000-05:00

So, what occupies my thoughts now?

Well, babies of course!!! Once you get bit by the bug, you want a baby and your thoughts go to the cute things you're going to do and all of that. Since I am training to become a Lactation Consultant and I'm still working on my doula certification, babies have been on my mind for quite some time. :) I've also learned so many new and interesting things regarding birth and parenting choices, that I've come to some pretty strong conclusions and I'm very happy with the choices that my husband and I are making.

So what are those choices? Well first of all, I've read many studies on the use of midwives during pregnancy and birth, and with the U.S. having an over 30% c-section rate (in some areas even more!), I thought that using a midwife would help me to beat the odds. The midwives we decided to go with once I'm pregnant attend homebirths only. The practice has 4 CPMs (Certified Professional Midwives) all of which have collectively 40 years experience catching babies. Their c-section rate is 4.3% which is about what it should be for normal, low risk birthing women. We've decided on having a waterbirth which during my doula training I have seen many of. They're so peaceful and beautiful I want that experience for myself.

One may ask, "Is homebirth safe?". Well in short, yes it is. According to British Medical Journal studies using statistics from CPMs, homebirth is as safe if not more so than hospital birth. There are also wonderful Certified Nurse Midwives (CNM) who do hospital, free standing birth center, and homebirths (depending on the area). They also have amazing statistics that rival any Obstetrician in the U.S. You can see the BMJ study at http://http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7505/1416?ehom. "What if something goes wrong?", is the second question asked. As trained professionals with State and National licenses, midwives are trained to see birth as a normal natural event and it is normal until proven otherwise. So midwives know what's normal, they see normal births and pregnancies all the time. Once they see something that is out of their scope of practice like for example gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, or pregnancy induced hypertentsion in pregnancy, they will transfer your care to an Obstetrician who is by the way the expert on abnormal, high risk pregnancy and birth. Unfortunately OBs are trained to see pregnancy and birth as a medical condition, a disease that is abnormal until proven otherwise. Midwives also have the training to see when things are not going normally during childbirth during which time they will transfer your care to that of her backup Obstetrician(unless she works in a state where the obstetricians are hostile to midwives) who will meet you at the hospital to help rectify the situation be it that you may need drugs because of exhaustion, or for a necessary c-section. So midwives will see that things are going wrong before they become a serious problem which is a misconception about the profession.

"What about the pain?", is another question that is asked. Well, I have no personal experience with this, but the way I see it is this way: My mother had all 6 of her babies naturally and her mother before that and before that until the first mother. My father's mother who is a strong Nigerian woman had her babies naturally and her mother, and her mother until the first woman. My body is not broken. If all my foremothers can birth babies naturally and with no complications then I can do the same. I'm not afraid of the pain. We as women need to take back that power that has been stripped away from us and know that we are strong and we can do this. Yes, it's difficult but the pain is there for a reason. I'm personally more afraid of the cascade of interventions than any labor pain.

"Who cleans up afterwards?" The midwives do! You have your baby, they clean up the mess, do the laundry and you and your baby snuggle up in bed together and nurse and fall asleep. That's it.

So that's just the beginning of my obsession with babies....BTW, the picture up top is that of my beautiful niece Sakinah at 6 weeks old.

2007-02-25T21:36:00.000-05:00

It's been too long...

Well, It's been a very long time since I've posted. I know that this is just for me now unless there are people who still read this. My one year anniversary came and went. My hair is doing very well. I love it more than when I started definitely. My hair is thicker and it's growing longer every day. Jeff still can't keep his hands out of my head! Here is a picture taken at home this January. Not the best photo, but I still like it. It was a no-makeup (like I go any other way 90% of the time) sort of day. I'm sure you can see my long underwear under my shirt. I thought my hair looked a little cute so I had DH (dear husband) take a picture. This was day three of a Chi-Chi special (braids set on soft spikes).So here is an updated photo (recent too!!) of my sisterlocks. They're happy and healthy and growing. I use the green tea shampoo to wash and the moisture treatment for after I shampoo. I freestyle most days and every other day dampen my hair in the shower and add some of the spray moisturizer to keep my hair from drying out. It gets cold and dry up here in New England!!!

On to the reason why I haven't posted in so long...Well Jeff and I decided to move to Vermont like we had planned on doing for so long. I remember talking about him looking for jobs and the like, but the companies weren't biting because we lived in VA. So we decided to put our house together and sell it. It was such a blessing. We put our house on the market at the end of October and it was under contract in 5 days! The first person who went through the house fell in love with it and put an offer on the table the same day she saw it. We were so happy. Well things went "smoothly" for the most part. We went to VT to look for a place in the Burlington area and found a house to rent right away. I was doing lots of reasearch on homes in the area and we had narrowed it down to three houses. One was a really cute blue cape style house, the second was a nice yellow farm house, and the third was a little white rancher with black shutters. The blue house was under lease contract the day we wanted to look at it. I was so upset. We liked the yellow house, but it was right on a kind of main road and it would have been difficult to get out of the driveway. Also the owners of the yellow house would only sign a lease for 6 months and we wanted to be able to sign on for a year. We went to the cute rancher and I loved it. It's a lot smaller than our townhouse in VA, but it has hardwood floors in all the rooms except the kitchen. I like hardwoods because it's easy to keep clean. Ironically, our home is in the same neighborhood as the cute blue cape home we wanted. In fact, it's right across the street from our house. Talk about funny! So even though I don't live there I can still look at the place.

This is our house after we had a little snow. We have much more than that now. I adore the fact that we have a large front and back yard. Which brings me to my next subject.

Another reason that I haven't been blogging is because Jeff and I have been trying to conceive our first child. So far, no success. It's been a long process and with moving, we haven't exactly been stellar in the baby making department. I started charting last May and in July we decided to give it a go. Like I said, there has been a lot going on in general so our attempts have been lack luster at best. Our timing has always been a couple of days off for some reason. I'll get excited and jump the gun (no pun intended) and then we'll burn ourselves out. I'll spare you the details. So trying to get pregnant has been taking a large chunk of our time and attention. We're taking a break this month because we'll be travelling to Austin, TX and staying with my brother. We'll resume in April and hope to have a late December/early January baby. Wish us luck in our journey together. I certainly has stirred some interesting conversation between my husband and I. :)

What does this have to do with my hair? Nothing really. I just wanted to let you know the other things going on in my life. I will make my best effort to be more consistent with my updates. Things just seemed to be so busy that I didn't have a chance to let everybody know how I was doing or what I was up to. I hope someone is out there reading this. If so, please leave me a comment so I know you're there. Until next time...thanks.

2006-07-14T21:03:00.000-05:00

Can I be any lazier!!!

It's been a while, but I am coming back to give you life and hair updates. I'll post pictures shortly. Well things are going well on my end. My internship is going very well and I love working with mothers and babies. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner? Anyways, it's a wonderful calling and I'm having a great time doing it. My doula work is picking up a little as well. I have a new client I will be supporting at the end of the month for her birth and I'm very excited about this one. The family is quite nice and I'm looking forward to this.

As for my dear husband Jeff, he had interviewed for company in Vermont a month ago only to not be offered the job. Bottom line was, he had more leadership qualities and ability than the man who was supposed to be his supervisor if he had been hired. Not cool. They didn't want Jeff outshining the homeboy from Vermont. We still haven't given up though. He just completed an interview with a company in Burlington and it seems promising. The interview liked Jeff and we'll see how it goes. He's waiting for his business partner to return from vacation to do another interview and see if Jeff is right for the job. We'll see soon. I'm not going to bet the farm on this because of what happened last time. Live and learn. We would prefer living in Burlington though since we're both familiar with the area.

As for my Sisterlocks(tm) they're doing great. I love how they have fattened up and are well on their way to locking. My locks are 8 months old now!!! My ends have the balls still and some of them fell off, but they're doing great. Larry found that I was washing my hair once a week and since I'm not fully locked advised that I reduce my washing to once every two weeks. It's going well so far. I just put SeaBreeze on my scalp to cleanse and keep the itchies away in between shampooings. I do love how my hair falls though. Especially a few days after I set it on soft spikes. The first day is very curly and they seem to gracefully fall into a very nice every day style. I'll be setting them again this weekend. I think that's about it. I hope that I still have someone out there reading my blog. It's been a fun ride with my hair so far and it just seems to be getting better every day.

2006-05-18T21:31:00.000-05:00

Pictures... FINALLY!!!!

This is me after six months of sisterlocks. Can you believe it? This was taken this morning while waiting for my mother to arrive for our outing. I feel like I've really grown in these. I did a braid and curl set last night and I'm happy to say that it looked good to me this morning. This was a way to battle the "little balls" that have been driving me crazy lately. I wouldn't trade my hair for anything though. I love this process. I know that it's locking and that soon, I'll be able to stop braiding and banding! Anyways, here are a few more photos so that you all can see the progression.
This photo is of me at a little over 4 months. My hair is getting fuller and It's growing so what can I say? I'm so happy!!! I just thought I was too cute in this photo.

This other photo was taken a month before the March photo. See I did take photos, I was just too lazy to update my blog! Well I don't know what was going on in this picture. I thought I was cute here too, but my hair is doing some funky stack thing. I just wanted to show the difference in each month. I was just over 3 months in this one. For some reason I don't think I took any photos in April. I think the only one I did take, it was with my sister and her husband at my house and it was after a braid and band session. I hadn't finished separating my locks yet. Oh well.

I'm just in awe of the change in just a couple of months. My locks have grown a little longer every month, a little thicker and just more of what I wanted to see at this point. I did think that I would be locked by this point, but everyone's hair is different. Though my hair is definitely kinky, it's also soft so it will take me a little longer before it's all finished locking. I think it's nearly settled though. I'm just hoping to get little buds on most of the top and I'll be in business. My edges have stopped slipping between retightenings so that's a good sign. I just want to be able to learn how to retighten my own hair before we move. I think where we're going there aren't any sisterlocks consultants or anyone for that matter who specializes in cultivated locks so I'm going to have to do it myself and make appointments with Dana and Larry when I come back to visit. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed my updates. I'll try to be more active in the blog, I promise. I just had to get over a little hump.

2006-05-16T21:53:00.000-05:00

I am sooooo lazy!!

I thought that I would have updated with photos by now, but I haven't. I've taken photos over the last couple of months, but no updates. I've been a bit out of the loop lately. For my regular life update, I've completed my doula training and my lactation consultant course as well. I'm currently interning at the best privately owned lactation center in the area and get to see all sorts of babies and mothers every day! It's wonderful to feel so fulfilled with what you're doing. Jeff is currently looking for a job in our dream spot Vermont where we will be building our Enertia home (http://www.enertia.com). Our favorite is the Brandywine. We're building a solar home complete with photovoltaic and solarthermal panels. We're excited. That is if Jeff can get a job there we can move and make this a reality sooner. We'll see.

On to hair. Like I said before, I have photos. I will post them. Yeah, right. I've been promising photos forever and I still havne't produced. I've been just really busy lately, but I will post photos. I've just celebrated my 6 month sisterlocks anniversary and I have little buds everywhere. Mostly on the back of my head, but they're there. I'm starting to get a little frustrated with them though. You all may have read my post about the little hanging balls driving me nuts. They are. I think I want to pull them off, but I haven't and I won't since Dana told me not to. Other than that, I love my hair. I find that it has more of a bounce. Especially when I do my little braid/curl out ala Chi Chi. It's great. I get a great deal of body with that set. Yes, I'm a bit guilty of the "whitegirl" disease since it's starting to move more. I love it. Anyways, I've been not too good to you guys about keeping up with blogging and also with photos so I'll see what I can do.

2006-03-20T10:22:00.000-05:00

Has it been that long????

For real! I had no idea that I have become so lazy about my blog. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to post today, but I will shortly. I am currently at 4 months and counting on my baby SL's and they're doing great! I'm not much for styling at this point, but I did take a page from Chi Chi's book and braided my locks and set them on softpikes. The results were fantastic! I plan on doing it again this week. Maybe I can get some photos together. I've noticed that I do have some growth as well as some condensing and fattening up on my locks I have a few that needed to be redone because of slippage, but that was only 5 or so. The rest are getting plump (as far as SL's go) and locking nicely.

I did get my Sisterlocks Journal and it is fantastic. For some reason, I thought that it would be bigger, but when I received it, it was kind of like a Jet magazine, but a lot longer and I read every article! I'm so happy to have this because it's great to see a magazine about real natural hair. I know that there is Naturally Yours as well, but I have yet to get a copy. I'm simply happy to see some real natural women in the magazines instead of the afro weave and the kinky twist extentions or lock extensions. Then they praise certain women with natural hair and their hair is basically curly/straight and not kinky at all. Whoopie. That gets on my nerves. Then when they do have a kinky sister featured, they give her some weird hairdo conceptual thing. Anyways, enough of my venting. I love the Sisterlocks Journal. I bought a one year subscription even before I received my first copy. I just knew it was going to be good and I'm very happy that it is.

On to life stuff. I think that I already made it known that I'm working on becoming a Lactation Consultant and Doula. I have doula training this weekend and LC training next month. Then I'm off to get internships for a year a piece so I'll be doing those two things full time. I'm so happy I got fired. So take that former place of imprisonment! I'm HAPPY!!! I do hope to have some photos soon. I feel like I'm letting you guys down by not letting you know how I'm doing.

2006-01-19T11:36:00.000-05:00

Well I had my first retightening....

That was a few weeks ago. I don't have any pictures this time and I do apologize for that. So much has happened in the last few weeks. First of all, for New Year's both Jeff and I were sick and then the next week I had to take a day off from work. The next week Jeff had a serious stomach flu and I had to take care of him because he was getting seriously dehydrated and I had to consult the doctor about it. That same day, I get fired for taking my own sick leave hours to take care of my husband. I wasn't upset though because I'm working on a career change anyway. I'm looking for another job, but if one doesn't present itself, I'm not going to worry because this is giving me a lot of time to study. :)

Back to my retightening...Dana is a champ! She retightened all of my 560+ sisterlocks in 3 1/2 hours! She just got started and it took absolutely no time at all. I did experience some slippage on the edges and I had a LOT of new growth (it had been 7 weeks). So Dana has decided that we will meet every 4 weeks since my hair grows pretty quickly. I've washed my hair twice since then and I've been using the soft spikes from time to time. Dana said that it was okay for me to curl my hair since I have that "good" locking hair and it is unlikely to come undone or slow the process. My hair is getting fuzzy. Well actually it is fuzzy. I'm getting the little balls at the ends now and it's great to see the progress. I'm actually happy that I'm not working now because I get to freestyle more often now. It's been a good journey and I'm so happy to have my cheering section online and with friends and family. :)

One more thing is that I did change the security on my blog to have all messages approved before they get posted. The reason behind this was that I was on Nappturality.com today and this one woman or man or whatever has been leaving the nastiest messages to people on the message board. I know that it won't be long before she has been banned from the board, but for peace of mind, I would like to screen the messages before they are approved of to avoid any unpleasant messages on my blog. S/he was on the board saying very terrible things about the women involved with non-black men particularly those dating or married to white men and I just will not have that ugliness on my blog. I hope to have pictures next time. And I hope to get back to you all soon.

2005-12-28T15:52:00.000-05:00

Spotlight on....
My Husband....

My husband Jeff is such a wonderful person! I wanted to give him a spotlight today since I'm at home sick and he opted to stay home with me to help me feel better. :) This is us on the day of our "cookie party" where we invited my sister and her two boys over to bake cookies for Christmas. In the backgrond is our very small, but cute tree.

When I decided to lock, I let him know right away and told him what I wanted to do with my hair. He said, "Alright, but I'm going to miss the 'fro". I went on to show him photos so he knew what I was up to. He became excited once he saw all of the beautiful SL's and asked me, "So, you're going to let your hair get that long? Wow!!" He was thrilled. He loves me and my hair very much. It's great to have so much support. I am truly blessed. You may see some more of Jeff some other time. :)

2005-12-28T15:33:00.000-05:00

Almost done with my Nappy Christmas...

Well I did take a lot of photos. This next one is of all my featured locked ladies together taking a back shot. My pregnant younger sister just couldn't stay still and wanted to turn around. I loved this picture because it was all of them together. I did say that I had another natural haired young lady at the party. The reason I didn't choose to put her in is because though her hair is natural, her mother(Mrs. C) maintains it by pressing so it looks straight though her hair is quite curly naturally. It wouldn't look any different than another girl with relaxed hair so I decided to leave her out, but I am giving her some love for being natural and not using chemicals. :) The next photo is of me. I did my hair with some borrowed (from Sola) flex rollers and some water (my SL's are only 6 weeks old now). I basically just put the water in my hair to dampen it and rolled away. I made sure not to stretch my hair out while I rolled it and did it very softly. I then finger combed my hair, thew on a headband and was out. The result is what you see here. The gentleman in the background is my father. As you can see we had a very happy holiday. I was so happy to see that the majority of my family is natural and free. I do have an older sister in New York who is also 100% natural (she does have naturally straight hair, but that's another story). I just wanted to give her some love. :) Three out of four girls isn't bad for my Mom!

My SL's are doing great! As I've said before I've experienced some slippage on the edges and I'm loving the shrinkage. My very first retightening is this coming Tuesday! Yes, it's been a while, but I didn't have too much growth since it's winter and my hair doesn't grow as fast as it does in the Spring and Summer. Also, my consultant didn't have any free spots available for me during December so I had to take the very first available day in January. I'm looking forward to this!

2005-12-28T15:19:00.000-05:00

It's still a Nappy Christmas...

More photos!!!! This next one is of my mom. She has been natural for five years as well. She spent a lot of time talking to us about the virtues of natural hair and especially the beauty and ease of locking. I'll give her some credit. :) I think that I did say that the reason I didn't lock sooner was because first of all I wasn't ready and second of all, my mother was pressuring me to lock. I needed to do more research before I jumped in so it took me five years of the 'fro before I made that decision. Anyways, back to mom. Her hair is pulled back and I'll show it to you in a moment. Mom has been locked for five years as I've said and her traditional locks were first started with extension braids. Yeah, I thought is was weird too, but that's how they were started. She went to a lady who called herself a natural hair care specialist and she put my mother's hair in short extension braids and the locks started from there. After a year, she took the braids out (we cut them out rather) and she had these short locks all over her head. Well then it started growing, and growing, and growning. They're still growing... :) The next photo is of my mother's hair in the back. I did the styling this round with a fish tail design and a scrunchie to hold it in the back. My mother's hair is very thick and sometimes when I secure it with one her her locks, it comes undone so we opted for the srunchie this time. Next entry....

**I had to edit this one to clarify that my mother's locks were started with extension braids and not braiding her actual hair. Before her locks she had a jherri curl. I like the locks much better! :)

2005-12-28T15:10:00.000-05:00

A very Nappy Christmas Continued...

This is the coninuation of my Christmas photos. When I left you last, I had a frontal picture of my sister Sola and Mrs. Chin. Here is our next subject! This is Mrs. Chin's sister Mrs. A. She was a bit shy about having a frontal so I have her permission to use her back side only. She has traditional locks the same as her sister's. She has been locked for 2 years. Her daughter one of the other relaxed sisters at our holiday get together really wants locks, but her mother says she's too young. She is in college and plans on locking as soon as she graduates so you know that we'll have another natural head in joining the ranks!!! I almost forgot to post this next photo of Mrs. C's hair in the back. It was so beautiful that I just had to take a picture. Isn't this just amazing? Like I said before her locks are five years old. I mean it's pretty much down "to there" already. My younger sister is in the background. To be continued!!!

2005-12-28T14:41:00.000-05:00

A very Nappy Christmas.....

Well we had a very happy holiday this past week. We spent Christmas Eve with my in-laws and Christmas Day with my family. It was a beautiful holiday. The most interesting thing about it was that out of 8 ladies in the house, 6 of us were natural and 5 of us were locked! You will have to see it to believe it! So I have pictures!!!! This first photo is of my sister Sola. The woman in the background is our eldest sister Moremi. She was the other woman with out natural hair. I don't know where she got it from, but my mother never put it in our heads that straight hair was better even though we did get our hair relaxed. She just kind of put that in her own head as well as the other people in school and her friends she hangs around. Anyways, this is about giving love to my locked girls at our Christmas dinner. Back to Sola...She has very small traditional locks. She started hers by washing her hair, shaking it and letting the curls fall where they may. She maintains her hair by latching now (she learned from our friend who has SL's) and she has been locked for 2 years. The next photo is of Mrs. Chin. Mrs. Chin has traditional locks. She has been locked for 5 years now. Can you believe it? I couldn't when she told me! She had hers started by a loctician and has them professionally maintained and colored (which is why she's wearing a hat in this photo. Sorry Mrs. Chin, I just had to tell the truth). You wouldn't believe that this very beautiful woman has 2 children and has been with her husband (Mr. Chin) for over 20 years? She is great and I love her family! Well I guess I will have to continue the photos on another entry. My next photo wouldn't load up!

2005-12-19T09:28:00.000-05:00

I love my sisterlock journey so far. I'm experiencing the ever famous "shrinkage". I find that a lot of women compain about that phase and want to show their length, but for me it's been a great experience. I'm really enjoying the shrinkage phase. It's just a sign that my hair is happy and getting ready to lock. I have the cute little curlies at the ends of my babies right now in most parts of my head. I do try not to do too much with my hair as far as styling goes. Last week, I freestyled the entire week. It was great to just put water in my hair and go.

I have had some slippage around the edges though which is annoying. I have one behind my ear that slipped out before my follow up appointment. That very same one came undone again. I have a few in the back that have slipped out as well and some in the very front on the edges. I can count my blessings that all the slippage is around the edges where the hair is a bit softer. The interior of my hair is really holding it together. Other than that, I'm enjoying every day of my journey. You know I'll tell it when it gets a bit ugly, but right now, I'm really having a good time with it. I'll try to post some pictures soon.

2005-12-09T20:36:00.000-05:00

I'm really loving my sisterlocks(tm). Right now they're starting to do something, I don't know what, but it's something. Right now my only "style" is a flat twist out simply because I don't want to do anything else and it's also too early in the process to go all out and do anything major.

I wonder what drives so many African American women to fry their hair. I just couldn't imagine doing that again. The long lines or in the case of the kitchen beautician, just not knowing where to not put the relaxer which is basically obvious to those of us who are natural; NOWHERE NEAR YOUR HEAD! I see this every day in the office. Women who barely have enough hair to put in a ponytail trying to put it up with all sorts of hair sticking out at strange angles from the drawn up little scrunchie. I call them no-nytails because there isn't anything in there! WTF? Then there are the ladies who have the attached ponytail that's all silky and you get to the top and it's kinky-straight. Um that doesn't look right. Oh well. I hope that one day they will all wake up.

Anyways, this is me again after my second washing last Sunday. This is right after I separated all my locks. As you can see, it's filling in a bit. I find that they feel more full now that I have a "little" (and I do mean little) growth on top. I thought I was looking too cute that morning. I don't really think so now so don't look at the face, just the hair. On the top you can see where it's starting to fill in. I'm really feeling this. I'm just looking forward to the time when my locks look more "lockish". Hopefully I have the texture of hair that will do it's thing quickly. Dana says my hair is perfect for locking so we'll just have to see. At this point I'm at 3 weeks. Also I forgot to give my dear husband Jeff the credit for taking these photos. He has been a wonderful support for me from my desire to lock up until now where I have what I've been looking for in terms of hair care. He's great and I love him dearly. :) So that's it until later. Hopefully I'll have some freshly styled hair to show you.

It's about time..

2005-12-04T12:35:00.000-05:00

Well I've finally started my blog. This will be a description of my journey and what I'm going through with my sistelocks. I first went natural at around age 24 after I hit the wall. It was just one bad relaxer too many and I was sick and tired of living the "lye". I decided from then on, I would wear my hair natural no matter what and I did. I transitioned with braids for about a year before wearing my hair all the way natural. I BC'd after 4 months and continued to wear braids until the one year mark. It was great when I took my braids out to find lots of thick kinky hair. But what do I do with it?

I went through the ever famous product junkie phase where you try to find the magic product to give you the ringlets you've been dreaming of. Curl definition was my mission. After about a year of kidding myself with that, I decided that my hair wasn't going to have curl definition because it wasn't curly. It's kinky. I can have little coils, but not curls. I was better off after having realized that. So what I did was twist my hair. I wore two-strand twists and twist-outs. My hair grew and grew and grew. The only problem I came up with to mess it up was daily brushing. I found a really cute style with a clip in the back of my head after I flattened the rest on top and left a cute little 'fro puff in the back. It was so sweet. I did that style and the double afro puffs too much and experienced breakage. So I had to cut my hair down 3 inches. From 9"-10" inches to 3"-6" can you say upset? Well I decided to go back to twisting and my hair grew a bit.

Then it happened. I saw a woman with locks that were just too cute. No they weren't sisterlocks, but they were beautiful and I was in love. You see, my mom has traditional locks and they're beautiful, but you know you never appreciate something until you see someone else with them on. That and my mother was pressuring me to lock. I thought it was good enough that I wear my hair natural. It was and it still is. I just needed time. I knew that I wanted locks, but what to do? How to start? So I researched for months and months and I came across sisterlocks. I was thrilled. I was a bit discouraged by my sister because she said it was too expensive. At first I was going to get micro braidlocks and call it a life, but I thought about it again and realized that for me sisterlocks was the way to go. I was getting married in September so I decided that I would lock after my wedding was over. November 11, 2005, my sisterlocks were born! I am so happy with them. It was the best decision I've made.

The first set of photos is a week after I started my sisterlocks. Thanks to Dana, I now have over 550 (yes I counted them) sisterlocks. As you can see, I have some scalp showing. This was three days into a flat twist out (currently my favorite style). Enjoy!