Trying to keep up...

Things have been crazy at the beginning of 2008. Along with teaching, being married and caring for 2 small children, I started grad school in January. I figured I just keep the momentum after achieving my NBCT in November. I feel like with everything I'm doing, I'm playing catch up. Luckily the program is only a 1 1/2 years. I can do this. But combined with the 9 months that I worked on my boards, I'm exhausted. Hopefully, I won't change my mind between now and 1st summer session and stop.

My hair seems to be doing okay. The size of my locks is somewhat surprising. When I look back at the initial pictures taken at the time of installation, I remember wondering if I had made a mistake having them done over. Now, I can say that I absolutely love the way my hair looks. I love the size. From the pictures, you can't really see the difference between the two sets. The swelling at the ends is a little misleading. Although, my hair is shorter now than it was when they were installed back in May. I had so many loose and stray hairs, it was annoying so I cut them. My hair was different lengths because I took the first set out after 18 months. I had to cut more off in different sections of my hair when taking my locks down. I also cut it to try and even it up around my head.

Right now, I can't figure out what to do about my hair. It feels so hard!! I was using the Carol's Daughter Black Vanilla Leave-in . After a while I realized that using that was making my hair feel worse than before. I read on Nappturality that someone else was having the same problem so she diluted it. I tried it because I absolutely love the smell of the conditioner. But, no luck. It wasn't as hard but it wasn't working either. I'll find someone to take it. But, it is definitely my last bottle.

I've been searching for a shampoo and conditioner to do my hair some justice. I know my hair is not going to be the same kind of soft as it was before when I wore it loose. But that doesn't mean that it has to take my husband's skin off when we hug. Through all of this, I have become a product junkie all over again. I've probably purchased at least 5 different shampoos over the last month and a half. Today, I purchased the clarifying shampoo and conditioner by Avalon. I don't know what the outcome is going to be once it dries, but my hair smells sooooo good! I'm crazy for great smelling hair products. Lucky for me I have a husband. He uses all of the shampoos I don't like.

So finally, here are pics....

These pics show a lot of fuzz!!!!
I did this by setting on Soft Spikes. The top front was rolled on the large size. I rolled the rest of my hair with the small ones.

Settled!

Over the past few months I have had a time trying to find someone that I can settle down with to do my retightenings. During the month of December, the person that installed my sisterlocks could not be reached. I found someone right outside of Charlotte. She did a great job! But since my retightenings were taking about 5 1/2 hours the thought of driving 45 minutes home in the middle of the night was not to appealing but I was willing to do it if I had no other choice. Then, I ran into someone in Walmart that I knew who had just had her sisterlocks installed. It just so happened that the person that did her installation worked in her shop. An even bigger coincidence was that I had called her when I was looking for someone to install my second set but she was too far away(or at least I thought). The good news was that the shop is 5 minutes from my house. I met with Michelle a week ago and had an appointment for my retightening with her last night. It was great!!! I expected it to take the normal 6 hours that it had with the other retightenings. She did it in 3 1/2 hours!!!! I was so excited that I hasd difficulty going to sleep. I can now get my hair done during the week and not have to use my Fridays(unless I want) for my hair. I have options!!! I was at a point that I was just going to cut my hair and go back to a TWA. If anyone is looking for someone to install sisterlocks, I highly recommend Diane(if you live near Matthews) or Michelle is you are near 85/77.
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These are pictures that I took as soon as I got home. I was so happy that I had to take pictures.
I did a set with soft spikes. The picture on top is of the curls right after removing the curlers. The other is a picture of finger combed curls.

Soft Spikes

I received my Softspikes in the mail. I thought I'd try them out since I was going out and wanted something different done with my hair. I misted it with this 'stuff" that I mixed up. I sat under the dryer for about 20 minutes and BAM! I had curls on top of curls. I wasn't expecting all of that in such a short amount of time. I only got a chance to take a few AWFUL pics(not really clear). But as I try more sets, more pics to come.