Very Thankful Thanksgiving...

Thanksgiving last year was surreal. It was hard to really get into the spirit of the season, when you are in the process of burying a love one. I remember going through the motions, but not truly embracing everything I was thankful for. However, this year I can actually say I enjoyed Thanksgiving and I was truly grateful.

This year I took my time preparing. Instead of cleaning the week before Thanksgiving, I started cleaning a month out. I mean I did a thorough cleaning, which means a lot of stuff got thrown away. Why do we hang on to things? I asked myself several times during this process. So when the week of Thanksgiving was upon me, all I had to do was vacuum and do the bathrooms once more.

On Wednesday I actually answered the phone for the receptionist so she could run errands, because I was leaving after lunch and I did. I went home and took a nap. Now brace yourself, I got up cooked some turnips greens and made a Coconut cake with a pineapple filling. Of course when my sister arrived a little after 8 p.m., I had a small project for her. Figure out why my dayum icing was yellow instead of white. Mind you this was my very first cake. Hunny Bunny saved the day as she patiently turned the mixing bowl and had that icing turn a wonderful shade of white and so fluffy and light it just made the cake all the more better. So go Hunny Bunny. Of course she wanted to just eat the icing.

On Thursday at 4:45 a.m. I got up to prepare the homemade yeast rolls and cinnamon rolls. By 5:45 a.m. I had the dough prepared to rise and I left to get a newspaper, got to know where the Black Friday sales are. Caitlyn, my oldest niece, got up after I had rolled out the rolls and she was ready to do the cinnamon rolls. In fact, I had her doing the filling and making the icing and when those suckers were done I left her to the job of making them look pretty as I watched Norbit with Hunny Bunny and took a short nap.

Thanksgiving was good except for the cousin whose fiancée had some problems with her hemorrhoids. Yeah, I said it because she wanted attention and baby, folks gave it to her. I personally was like if you haven’t taken a dump in a week, why are you eating, again? TMI, I know, but family can be so crazy. We finished up dinner and headed to the other cousins house for drinks. For the record, I am a true drinker and I cannot for the life of me drink mixed fruity drinks. So any pictures you see with me and a glass of an orange looking concoction I didn’t drink it, I sipped it twice.

Black Friday sales were not the bomb and haven’t been in two years, but I got some good bargains. Target was where the sales truly were. I tried to get a G Phone from T-Mobile, but the folks there had lost their damn minds trying to charge me $368 for the phone. I have been with them 11 years; you would think they would do better. Next year. Later that afternoon my sister, Hunny Bunny and I went to a book club member’s house for her annual Open House. My niece had a ball playing and just plain enjoying herself. I enjoyed eating and sipping on an Amaretto Sour. Then it was time to go home, but Hunny Bunny was content to stay. Probably should have left her there.

Saturday was cool and we made cookies hoping to recreate what my mom’s cookies tasted like, but not quite there. They were good, but they didn’t taste like my mama’s.

Early Sunday morning, it was time to say goodbye to my sister and the nieces as they made the long trip back to Virginia Beach.

Thanksgiving this year was remarkable. I enjoyed the time with family and I can actually say I am truly blessed and feel it deep in my heart.

And Let the Pictures speak...

My Hair Blues and other ramblings...


I am such a bad blogger. The holidays got me and of course I had lots to do to prepare for guests and my assigned dishes.

Since this is a hair blog, let’s talk about my hair. Thanks to all the folks who complimented my hair. Also, thanks to the Lock-it-Up member who recommended my blog as a source for an Alabama meet-up, very surprising. Sometimes you don’t realize who is reading your blog. My hair has grown, but with it growing, there have been some growing pains.

I retighten my hair on a 4 week interval, any longer than that it will take too long to do and will wreck havoc with my schedule, because I stay busy. It still takes me about 5 ½ hours to retighten each of the front sides (11 hours to do the front). So I break it up into two days and it goes well. I just started doing some of the back and that seems to be going faster because the locks are bigger in the back compared to the front. This is the way it is supposed to be according to the literature regarding Sisterlocks. Well, I have officially lost 2 locks and several have broken off. Needless to say I am disappointed that I am well into this journey and my hair is showing signs of discontent. I was retightening the left side of my head and sitting in my bed with a mirror I noticed how small the bed of the lock was, so I go to the bright bathroom and look in the mirror and continue to retighten. As I go along I notice the strains are getting thinner and thinner until, pop, there went that lock. I looked at it and it was a sturdy lock except at the base. The lock was thin and probably too small for the section of my hair where it was located. Of course, no one can tell I lost it, but I know I did. And let’s not forget the several locks where the base is sturdy and then it thins in the middle and fattens back out towards the end. I see on Lock-it-Up I am not the only one suffering from this phenomenon. I contacted my Consultant by email and explain what was happening. She advised me to not get my tool entangled in the root of the hair and pay special attention to the more fragile locks. I try not to get the tool entangled, but when the base is thin and the ends are thicker is difficult to get the hair through base without tangling. I figured my fragile locks were around my hair line, but I have some locks that are just entirely too small. I have one right now that needs to be retightened but because it is so thin on the base I ain’t even trying to touch it. And today while at work and examining the newest itty bitty lock and finger combing my hair back into place, another lock came off in my hand. Yep, but I wasn’t surprised because when I retighten it I was surprised I could because it was sooo small. Thin at the base and much thicker at the end. A good twelve inch lock gone, caput! Right now, I am more frustrated with my hair than anything else. What the hell am I suppose to do with locks that are fine at the base and thin in the middle only to thicken up at the end? They are going to break off like several have already done. And although I am not about the perfection of locks, I don’t want to be baldheaded or have my hair looking weird with the differing lengths. My goal on next week when I go for my retightening is that my consultant combine quite a few of these itty bitty ones, she will not have much to retightened since I just did them 2 weeks ago. My consultant is going to take a long look at my locks to see what is going on, because right now I am not pleased.

Over the Thanksgiving holidays I met another Sisterlock person and I had lock envy. She is fully matured and I know she isn’t dealing with the mess that I am calling my hair. Sometimes I feel like due to my locks being so small that is why my hair isn’t locking. Seriously, when the smaller ones are combined they actually become stronger and seem to be locking faster.

I know I sound embittered, but I am venting because I am FRUSTRATED. Plus, I want folks to know that there are challenges on this journey. Expect them. I knew I would have some issues, but I am not about losing hair.

I did a blurb for my consultant for her website about retightening and one of the things she wants to take out of the blurb is about marrying locks. I haven’t responded to the email even after a week. For some reason, I think folks need to know they will do this in the beginning of doing their own retightenings. I think folks should know ahead of time so they will not be devastated when it happens. I mean few folks mention it happening, so when it happened to me, I was upset and in tears. Of course I realized that I should not use the clips to pin down nearby locks, every time I did that I married a lock. And when I marry them, best believe you cannot undo that mistake. My consultant said she didn’t want to scare folks from the process, but it is the truth. Oh well.

My Thanksgiving was wonderful, unlike last year when we were in the midst of planning my Uncle’s funeral. This year I really enjoyed it. I cooked my first coconut pineapple filling cake and although I forgot to take pictures of it, it was great if I do say so myself. I made it from scratch using a Food Network recipe and adding my twist of the pineapple filling. I was so proud of myself. I plan to do one for Christmas too. My rolls were perfect this year as were my cinnamon rolls. Yep, all from scratch. I will take pictures for Christmas. My sister and my nieces were so much fun. We did our Black Friday shopping and were back home and in the bed by 11 am. Although for the most part the sales sucked. Targ.et was a trip. They had 3 longs lines for folks to stand in and the management directed you to the registers. Yep that was a 1 hour wait just to make a couple of purchases. Hope you had a special Thanksgiving as well.

Thanks for reading my vent…