I realize I have been neglecting this blog, but I'm kind of at a standstill with my hair right now.  I'm just waiting for it to grow long enough that it will hang down instead of stick out.  Don't get me wrong, I love it & get many compliments on it, but it just is not yet where I want it to be.  I really want to try straightening it (temporarily) at some point, but I think I'll go ahead and try Diva Smooth.  It looks wonderful & is all natural.  I love being able to wear my hair in it's natural state, but I also like the way I look with straight hair.  I think this product is definitely worth trying.
So, one day when I feel like I'm looking cute enough :-) I'll go ahead &  post some pics since my wonderful husband got me a new camera for Christmas. :-)

Motivation (or lack thereof)

Lately, it seems I am having an extremely hard time staying motivated to do anything.  I guess I'm just kind of in a funk which is why I haven't updated this blog very much.
With my current schedule of being home all day with two small children, I am having a hard time trying to find a good time to wash my hair & de-tangle it.  I usually try to do this when they take their 2-3 hour nap, but there are usually other things that also need to get done and can only be done when the babies are asleep.  The evenings are hectic as well and by the time all the kids are in bed, I'm just too tired to go through the whole 1-1.5 hour process which means I usually end up in bed with half of my head de-tangled and must do the rest at some point the following day.
I think I'm kind of spoiled now with my natural hair because daily styling only takes about 5 minutes or less and I'm still complaining about having to do a 1 hour process once a week or so.  Ha!  What is my problem anyway.  Oh well, it will be better soon.
By the way, tried the Trader Joe's Nourish Spa condition and LOVE it!  It does work differently on my hair than it does on my daughter's.  I wonder if there are any two heads of hair exactly alike.  It's so hard for me to figure out what products are going to work well & what aren't.  I'm not yet ready to spend a whole lot of money trying something that might not work.  I'll just take it a little at a time.

Disturbing...

First of all, let me tell you about a new website: Black Girl With Long Hair I LOVE it!  It has great pictures of women who have gone natural and they are so beautiful.  The site also has great articles/posts including this one: Interview with Aron Ranen  Be sure to watch the video at the end.  It makes me so sad that we African Americans are taking money from our own businesses and pouring it into other businesses without any thought.  First of all, I want to say there is nothing wrong with shopping at a store that is not Black-owned, BUT when our Black-owned businesses are shutting down in Black neighborhoods b/c of other businesses, that is just sad!  How are we going to get anywhere if we don't support our own?!  If you think about Jewish, or Asian communities where a high concentration of a certain ethnicity lives, they have THEIR OWN businesses in those neighborhoods and the people of the neighborhood support those businesses instead of traveling elsewhere.  That's why so many of those places have been around for decades.  We need to do the same.  We spend BILLIONS of dollars in haircare.  How many Black families could we be supporting with that money?  How many Black teenagers could we keep off of the streets and out of jails if they were working in a legitimate family business???  There is no excuse for Black people not to patronize Black hair care stores.  No excuse.  Maybe I need to open up one of my own one day...

Happy to be Nappy :-)

I'm addicted to Youtube natural hair videos, especially those from ShidaNatural.  She is so wonderful, always posting step by step trials of different products.  I really wouldn't have finally done my big chop if it weren't for her videos & the fact that she has tried so many different products. 
Anyway, I just want to post about all of the compliments I have been receiving!  Even when I am not exactly liking my hair on a certain day, people still tell me how great I look.  I have been told I'm "glowing" (& I'm definitely not pregnant! LOL), that I have just been "looking so good lately," and all kinds of nice things.  It's so funny because I couldn't have imagined hearing so many positive responses from people with natural and relaxed hair.  I always figured the compliments would come once my hair grew long again, but I'm walking around with a curly 'fro and people act like....well I don't know, but I'm just getting 1000% more positive reactions than I ever expected! :-) 

"A-FRO-dite"

So right now I have a real 'fro and I'm not sure how much I like it. I have gotten many compliments on it, but I think my face looks too fat. Actually, my face is too fat since I need to lose at least 15 lbs. Maybe once I do that, I will be happy with any natural style. I'm just not sure why my hair isn't staying the way I want it. Yesterday it looked great, but I must have skipped a step today.

I have to do so much experimentation it's ridiculous. On a positive note, all of this experimenting is causing me to care about my appearance again. For at least the last year, I haven't really cared too much about how I looked. I guess I was in a mental state where I felt it was a lost cause until I made a concrete decision on my hair. Now that I've taken this step, it's amazing how my self esteem has soared! It's a wonderful feeling.

Empowerment

It's been almost a week since I took the plunge and I'm still feeling great. I have gotten so many compliments about my new style and I don't regret my decision for one minute. My husband is even okay with it. Even though he has always preferred long, straight hair, he still thinks my new style looks good on me. I believe a big part of it has been the fact that I am once again liking the way I look and in return, I am caring more about my appearance in general.

For months, I had been feeling so hopeless about my hair that I just kind of gave up. I just slapped it back into a bun and went out the door. There were a few times that I attempted a style, but it always seemed to backfire so most days I went back to the old ugly standby. Now I am like a new person. I've been smiling more & my attitude in general has improved. It's so interesting that when you make one positive change in your life, so many other things line up and change for the better as well.

On a funny note, sometimes when I look in the mirror, the first person that pops into my head is Wanda Sykes! LOL Of course I didn't mention it to Charles, I just waited until he noticed it. It didn't take long, yesterday he was teasing me & called me Wanda. I was just cracking up. I know him & I knew he would say it. :-)

One more thing before I go to sleep - I love playing with my hair and stretching out my curls just for them to spring back. I never played in my hair this much before, but it's so springy and soft I just LOVE IT! (Can anyone tell that I'm happy? :-) )

I DID IT!!

I finally got rid of those raggedy relaxed ends. Now my hair can grow as long as I want it. Now I can do all the cute natural styles that never came out right because I had raggedy ends. I'm ecstatic. My family on the other hand is not as supportive.

Quotes after I did my conditioner treatment so it was still wet & curly:

"Are you going to leave it like that? I don't really dig the jheri curl look." (husband)

"Oh my gosh, it's so puffy!" (stepdaughter)

"Woah Mom, you have a fro like Will Smith!" (oldest son {and when the heck did Will Smith ever have a fro??})

So I didn't exactly get a rave review from the family, but I'm alright with that. I knew my husband wouldn't love it b/c every woman in his family has straight hair, but if he doesn't like it, that's his problem. Now when it comes to my hair, I'm going to work with what God gave me without permanently chemically altering it. I'm done doing things to my hair just to conform to what everyone else wants. Whoever doesn't like "Curly" Natalie will just have to get used to it because she's here to stay. :-)