Yesterday was my 32nd bday!!!  I had a much needed relaxing massage, blew out candles, made a wish, ate cake, saw a movie, and went for dinner at a nice restaurant. 
Me hair started out down and messy but I liked the freedom.  However being in Florida the weather on my birthday can be either hot or cold.  This year it was hot and humid so after returning from the movies with damp shrunken frizzy hair, I had to improvise an updo. It went well and the hair jewelry I rocked for the first time added some oomph to an otherwise standard updo. So yeah it all went well.  I'm looking forward to my 32nd year of life being nothing short of fabulous!  Peep photos below.

My (lack of) hair growth

I am NOT one of those natural hair girls who keeps track of their growth on a regular basis.  From time to time I'll  kind of just eyeball my hair to see what kind of progress I am making toward my length goals.
Something told me that my hair growth had slowed to a crawl over the past the year or so but I thought maybe I was just being paranoid.  I would still get the occasional comment that my hair looks like it's growing well but recently when I looked back at some old pictures in my phone I came across a picture of me exactly one year ago a little after Thanksgiving.  I was taking selfies in the bathroom and I happened at the time to do a length check where I stretched the front of my hair down and took a picture of where my hair came to which was to about my top lip. Looking back at this picture, I realized that my hair is at this point the exact same length it was on that day about a year ago.  I did the same length check which confirmed my suspicions.  This was very disheartening because I have put a lot of work into my hair and I haven't been doing anything differently. I have been protective styling and finger detangling. I have not applied any they or color to my hair and I have tried to be very gentle with it.  I came to the conclusion that I have reached a hair plateau and I may never reach my hair goals.  However, the optimist in me decided instead that it is time to rethink my hair regimen and to put a little bit more effort into reaching my goals.  What I have decided to do after reading suggestions online and looking at some YouTube videos is to start using my biotin again, start using castor oil on my scalp and doing scalp massages regularly.  I will also haba a more stringent  moisturizing regimen.  I have decided to try this for 3 months and see if I have made any progress. If so, I will continue with these practices for the year to see if I can get closer to my hair goals.  If not I will have to think of a new strategy or I might as well just go back to my regular regimen and accept that this is the length my hair will remain and just focus on maintaining health instead of gaining length.  Here it's a photo of my hair now.  I will keep you guys posted.

My faux bob

I decided to do a faux bob on my hair after many months of yearning to cut the back of my hair into a bob. I haven't done this because it is a big commitment to cut the back of my hair short considering that I need and want to wear my hair up do hairstyles from time to time and having short hair in the back would make this difficult so instead I tucked the longer strands in the back of my head under using a bobby pin and was able to create this bob look.  What do you guys think?

Wash n No- Go!

I attempted a wash n go y'all!!!! And it was a FAIL!   I knew it wouldn't have worked but after my 3 day old twist out got wet while swimming and then again in the shower (even though I wore a swim cap and a shower cap), I thought I'd give it a whirl.  I was pretty intent on wearing my hair down today.  So I wet it and raked some gel through and waited.  The failed results are below.
I ended up doing my signature top-knot instead.  Still disappointed I couldn't wear my hair out.  Oh well.  I guess wash n go's really don't work on type 4 hair!

Wash n no-go

Can't say I'm feeling it

Almost dry

My topknot

Busy

I know it's been awhile since I have updated my blog.  But you will be happy to know it's because I have been busy checking things of my bucket list.  Yes literally.  I have 30 items on my list as of now and some have been checked off.  Most recently I was able to take my mom on an awesome vacation! That was a first and a bucket list item that I was very excited to check off. 
Currently I am learning to swim...another bucket list item.  I actually had my first day of swimming class today and I've already learned a lot and I'm feeling excited.
As far as my hair goes, I was nervous about chlorine damage and having to shampoo my hair more often than I'm used to because 1) it's time consuming as hell and 2)  shampoo dries out my hair and I avoid it when possible and opt to co-wash instead.  The damage and dryness were the biggest things. Thankfully I've discovered that with a good fitting swim cap I can almost completely avoid getting my hair saturated with chlorine water.  I was excited to discover this.  Only a little bit of my nape got slightly wet!
I went ahead and shampooed my hair anyway in twists. And that's how that went.  Done and done :-)
Anyway check out some pictures of me vacationing with mom and my hair after being washed in twists (you can really see my curl pattern)
Anyway hasta pasta, naturalistas!!  Until next time

Back to basis

So after obsessing and fighting with my hair, I decided to take it back to basics and twist it up and leave it alone.  I've been feeling in a frustrated rut.  The last time I remember feeling this way was during my awkward twa stage where I was hating the limited styling options, the texture, and the length of my hair and feeling plain ugly.  Well that's exactly how I was feeling over the past week.  Check, Check, and check...all of the above especially the ugly part. 
Anyway I've stopped obsessing.  I may be in a slow growth phase so I figured I'm always safest with protective styling and a few accessories won't hurt either.  We'll see home goes from here.  Below is my style for the day and for the first time in over a week, I feel somewhat together and decent looking.  Too bad I have no place to go :-\

A cure for the doldrums

I've been bored and frustrated with my hair.  I like to call it the summer blues because it seems in the summer my hair just don't be wantin to act right.  Don't really know how else to put it.  I started fantasizing about that pixie cut I've always wanted .... and bangs! Two hairstyle that would require me go crawling back to the creamy crack.  It was just a fantasy anyway and if I had even begun to consider it seriously, there is always my boyfriend to remind me why I went natural in the first place and all the reasons I'd regret it.  So I resorted instead to hair color...and I'm too chicken to seriously commit to even that! So I bought one of those cans you just spray on color that washes out.  I was actually giddy with excitement.  I did a couple of streaks and felt quite satisfied with myself.  I cured my boredom and feeling better.... for the moment.
See the results below.