3 Hours Post (LOL) and One Full Year of Hair Growth

As I mentioned yesterday, today was relaxer day.  My hairdresser and I have synced up ridiculously and she keeps letting me be close to the last person in the shop so it's laughing, relaxing and no trying to work around folks who suddenly want more stuff done.  Anyhoo, I was expecting to be close to where I was last year when this whole thing started.  My last relaxer in May didn't seem to net much in the way of growth and I wasn't expecting too much retention because I hadn't been the most attentive to my ends.  I fully expected there to be some major clipping done today as a result too.  Let me just say it's good to be wrong.  I have done much better over the last year than I thought I would honestly.  I still need to do better with the moisturizing and sealing and I have no excuse not to do better with my ends now that I think I can do a low bun or a fake ponytail like my hairdresser suggested today.  She snipped a little hair here and there but for the most part most of my hair wasn't touched by clippers.  And nothing beats length but length and thickness.  I know I've been saying that too for the last few days but I haven't had to spend more than thirty minutes under a dryer in quite some time.  Even after an hour there was a spot dead center that was going ehhh I'm almost there but not quite (my hair was wrapped).  Looking at photos from a year ago my hair looks kinda pitiful now that I'm really getting healthier hair.  It was thinner, looking kind of dull and about to let that beautiful burgundy disappear.  Now there's a black dye fading off but hair looks totally different.  I'll let you be the judge of that though.  Pictures are after the break.  Thanks for going on this journey with me from KISS to here and offering words of support and ideas while sharing your own journeys.  I'm still going to make shoulder length the goal for December but if it's January or February I'll take that too.  Another 14 weeks will put me near my next birthday in December so we'll see if that works out lol.  And I even ran by  Red Lobster and had dinner with mom.  Endless shrimp and a mostly good convo plus fresh hair made for much better day.  Hope the mood holds lol.