Stylish Blogger Award

I am so happy to be nominated for this award.  Thanks very much to the lovely Love, Life & Locks for nominating me.  She is such an inspiration.  You should check out her blog, if you haven't done so already.

The Stylish Blogger Award Rules

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers.

4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award!

So,  7 things about myself.  Hopefully these are things that are new to you:

1.  I love to cook and entertain and I love to try new recipes.   

2.  I go to the gym........ahem....let me re-phrase that...........I try to go to the gym three days a week.  I hate exercise, but the health benefits are immeasurable.  Plus the exercise allows me to indulge my sweet tooth.  shhhhh! don't tell that to my trainer.

3.  I started a vegetable garden this year, and it has been a very rewarding experience.  I have tomatoes, cucumbers, callaloo (Spinach).  Gungo peas (pigeon peas) are coming up. Every time food prices go up, I get inspired to grow my own food.

4.  I am not averse to getting a tattoo.  If I decided to get one, I would do something small on my hip, at a place not visible when wearing regular clothes.

5.  I no longer sweat the small stuff.  After my father died at the age of 69, it really struck me that life is short, and precious, and I made a conscious decision to enjoy life to the fullest. I work hard, play hard and love with all my heart.  I love my family, and I tell them.  I love my friends and I tell them. I love my God and I worship him.

6.  I don't buy cheap shoes or clothes anymore.  It is better to have one good pair of leather shoes, that are kind to your feet and will last for years, than to have 4 pairs of cheap shoes that hurt your feet and give you corns and callouses.

7.  I love to travel.  It is good to get out of your own zone and see how other people live.  If nothing else, it makes you appreciate what you have even more.

Here are my nominees:

1.  BlaqKofi  She is such a queen.  Her hair blog has inspired me more than she will ever know.

2.  Locrocker  Her blog is bright and colorful and just plain entertaining.

3.  Love, Life & Locks  This is one really cool lady, who has gone through major hair loss, and she has handled it with such grace and style.

4.  Thandi is my South African online friend.  I love her stories on life and raising kids in a culture that is in many ways different from my own.

5.  And the lovely Dewdrop, who is an awe-inpriring do-it-yourselfer. 

6.  Euphoria.  Love her hair and her blog.

7.  Karen has an amazing blog.  Beautiful. Colourful.  Inspiring photos.

8.  Chescalocs has gorgeous locks, and a very interesting video blog.

Growing by Leaps and Bounds

It seems that once I passed the two-year anniversary of lock-dom, my hair has just been growing really, really fast.  There was a time during the first year when it seemed as if it wasn't really growing all that much.  But that has changed now.  The growth rate is very surprising to me.  My locks are now 2 years and 5 months old.

Here's a picture of me and my hubby at a friend's birthday party earlier this month.  This is a soft spike set, which didn't dry properly, and so the curls are very loose.

Happy Again

So I went back to my colourist today, and she fixed the unsatisfactory colour job from last week.  I love my colour again.  It is back to my natural dark brown, with none of the greys showing.

It struck me today how far my hair has come.  My locks are now just about 2 years and 4 months old.  I started with really short locks, and if you have been with me from the beginning of my journey, you may remember when my hair looked like this:

Sore Head

I had my re-tightening done today. 
Note to self: DO NOT wait for more than four weeks before getting hair re-tightened!
How many times have I said this?  But I had intended to do my own touch-up re-ti at home, before the professional one.  I last had my hair done about 5+ weeks ago, and that is just too much time between re-tightenings.  I had so much growth and tangling of the new growth, that it was very painful to get it all sorted out. My poor head is still quite sore.

Last week I did my colouring to cover up my grays again.  My colourist and I agreed that the last time, my hair looked too black.  I actually liked it for a few days, but it really looked too dark and unnatural on me.  So this time she decided to tone it down a bit.  Well, it went too far the other way this time.  It is too light on the crown, where the texture is different, (and far less dense), from the rest of my hair.  So on Thursday I will get the colour corrected.

Braid Out

I braided my hair on Saturday morning after I washed it.  I wanted a cute hairstyle for an event in the afternoon.  It was a damp, cool day, so air drying was out of the question.  I used the hairdryer, but it still didn't dry completely.  Anyway, for the event, the crinkles were there, but they flopped by the next day. This is what it looks like 2 days after.  My hair has really grown fast over the last three weeks since I had it re-tightened.  There is a lot of new growth, and I am not sure I can wait until my next scheduled re-ti in  another 3 weeks. I may have to do it myself in the interim.

Pipe Cleaner Set Part 2

So here are the pictures of the Pipe Cleaner Set.  These pictures were taken after the curls had several hours to relax.  When I took out the pipe cleaners this morning, I can only describe the curls as "frantic"
or "angst ridden".  They were TIGHT.  So the next time I try this set, I will put more locks on each pipe cleaner, so that the curls will be more relaxed.  I am quite happy with the result.

By the way, I am now down to one last remaining baby lock.  I just lost another one during the washing and setting process.

Pipe Cleaner Set

This evening I decided to try setting my hair with pipe cleaners.  It was quite easy.  I bent the pipe cleaner in half.  At the "fold" end I made a little loop.  This loop will prevent the hair from slipping off the end.

Then I started rolling the hair from the loop end, making sure that I covered the ends of my locks with the rest of the hair while rolling.  Then I secured the roll by bending the ends of the pipe cleaner. I am looking forward to seeing the result tomorrow.  It certainly feels much more comfortable than the soft spikes that I usually use.  I am anticipating a good night's sleep.

You can see from the photo that I couldn't get all the ends tucked under properly.  I'm not going to sweat this however.  I will post pictures when I take out the pipe cleaners tomorrow.