Life Lessons Learned

So this post is going to be super random.  I have gone through another round of install, take down, let my hair rest and reinstall of my twists.  I didn't take any photos cause I was like seriously done when I took my hair down.  Let me pause for a second.  I'm so damn tired I cannot see straight some days.  Work is as always hectic.  Mom is woosah it's time for mom to visit my brother and she's going through fifty million machinations to not go visit right now.  I still have grading to do, entitled students to entertain, evaluations to conduct and somewhere in the middle of that I still have to escort students to a field trip, present at a conference, present an award to one of my favorite students (ok that will be fun) and attend graduation.  There are good things in the middle of there for sure but a sister is exhausted.  It's that time of the year and if there was a teleport a la Star Trek I'd be on Riza on a quick trip getting massages and booze and sleeping in.  Oh sweet precious sleep. 



I got a lot of sleep when I was on my spring break in Amsterdam.  This trip wasn't solo and while I initially hoped it would be it turned out to be a good time and I had a blast and hit all of my museum lust spots and saw the Anne Frank house which traumatized me a bit like seriously.  You should go if you are in the area (get tickets cause the wait is crazy) but keep in mind the emotional ebb and flow is shocking.  I also got more tattoos which I love.  One inspired by family, one inspired by my weirdness but both for me and I'm happy with them.  My masseuse saw the smaller one and had a small geek out moment.  Yeah I need to sleep.  Moving on.

So I took my hair down last Friday night but it was pushing midnight so I refused to do anything else remotely healthy.  I had been watching lots of Youtube videos on how to stretch my hair (see above) after I washed it so I decided to try that out on on my dry hair to keep it from matting or tangling overnight.  That actually worked fine.  I prepooed a bit with conditioner and oil.  Washed with DevaCurl and Kinky Curly products.  Deep conditioned with Dr. Miracles and MoroccanOil and mostly kept hair loss to shed hair and some tangles that happened in the shower.  Relatively minor really.  And hey since the video worked on dry hair then it should work on my actual wet hair right?  So let's just say the process was slower, I had to use more sections because my hair is not as long or stretchy apparently, and it wasn't ready to be pulled anywhere so I just tied it down and went to bed.  All I noticed in the morning was my hair felt dry which was no beuno and the braid out was all kinds of fail.  That reminded me of this video. 

I have a fro.  To be clear I have a thick, tightly coiled fro.  At this stage it only really stretches easily  in my twists which are installed by someone that is not me.  I watched a few different videos about how to tightly twist my hair to make sure they were more defined and believe me when I say I tried that.  I also was firmly understanding of why my mother eventually opted to relax my eleven year old scalp.  My hair isn't near as voluminous as it was at 11 and let me tell you about halfway through I was ready to say eff it because my hands and arms were screaming give us free.  Feel free to watch the whole video but the thing that stood out that she said was trying hair styles my hair isn't ready for or that I'm not ready to do.  The biggest thing I can say now is my hair wasn't sopping wet and wasn't drenched in product.  My brain is still fighting sopping wet styling which is truly just something I have to work around.  Plus my hair is about as low in porosity as one can get so water does it some wonder and I need to remember that before trying anything else out.  Anyhoo I ended up rocking a fro all week and got my hair redone yesterday ahead of the Easter rush.  It's good to have a flexible schedule sometimes.  The only thing I took advantage of this week was baggying a night or two and a good mid week moisturizing session courtesy of water and more product.  My hair was still coated in that a bit yesterday when the twists were installed--not wet just like we got you girl.  We'll see how the next few weeks go.  This last install was only in for six weeks.  I contemplated getting the edges redone and skipped it because my hair just felt so dry no matter what I did.  No major hair loss was good but nothing amazing on growth this cycle either.

Other than hair and sleep I've seen the doctor for my damn you that old set of tests namely a mammogram.  All came back clear so yeah but that mess hurts.  Ok that's all I know now.  How goes life with you?