Disjointed and random… January 30, 2011

…thoughts, that is.  I’m just sitting under the hair dryer after completing the weekly wash and thought I’d share a few things.

*I love it when someone says that they’re a “grown *ss man/woman…that usually means something is about to pop off.  Get the popcorn and wait for the show!

*Does anyone out there subscribe to Groupon?  I just signed up about a week ago and haven’t gotten anything even close to good…is it worth it?

*I’m sure you can figure out why I now know when I ovulate and how long my cycles are…but why am I a grown woman just figuring this stuff out??

*I bought mouthwash for $4 the other day and got a coupon for $4 back…I was embarrassingly over-the-moon at my savings.

*I love my hood dryer!

*Speaking of hair…did y’all know that I did my own hair for the wedding?  Now that I look back, that was kinda crazy.  I legitimately had no clue how I was going to style until I took it off of the rollers.  I mean, what if it didn’t set right or something?!  (you can see pics on the “About Dawn” button over there, top right)

*The Mister was listening to Public Enemy when I came home the other day…talk about a blast from the past! (Bass! How low can you go?)

*You know who was underrated from back in the day?  De La Soul…now that was some good music!

*I’ve set my hair with flat twists the last couple of weeks and really like them…wish I could get them to last longer though.  Anyone have tips?  I never leave them in for public consumption, I always wear them in a twist out.  Oh yeah, my hair’s natural.

*Thinking of running another half marathon in May…who’s with me?

I think that’s it chicas…holla back!

lights, camera, action September 23, 2010

So I’d planned on posting up pics of my hair so that you can see what I’m doing with it since the wedding.  I haven’t cut it, but I did get a significant trim, so it’s a bit shorter.  Though you’d never know it because I put it up everyday.  I wore it down to work last week and the other ladies marveled at how long it was and I told them that I hate the way hair feels.  It’s true!  When it’s down, it’s in my face and on my shoulders and just generally in the way…annoying!  Anyhoo, I asked The Mister to take some pics and of the ten or so that he took, only a couple turned out…sort of.  It was pretty funny though, so, here are the…

Top 5 Things That Were Said The Most While Taking These Pictures

1. How do I work this thing?
2. Why am I taking these pictures?
3. Why are you putting them on your blog?
4. Ewww…that’s ugly, take another one!
5. How come I don’t see the fl– *click*  Dangit!

So there were lots of giggles and pictures of me mid sentence…it was pretty funny.  Anyhoo, this is what my hair looks like, though you can’t really see it (which is why we kept taking pictures).

Remember this was supposed to be a pic of my hair?  So why don’t we see any hair here?  Try again!

Too far away to see the curlies and whatnot, but this is the gist…naps swept up into a bun (though some of my bobby pins had come out).

So that’s what I’m doing…it’s good for work and easy to put up at night, so it’s working out so far!  What happened to your wedding hair?  Did you go for the big chop?  Are you keeping it long?

the naps July 16, 2010

When The Mister asked me to marry him last July, I was transitioning out of dreadlocks.  I’d had them for about ten years and was ready to be able to do my hair in different styles.  When I cut out the dreads, I only had a snaps worth of hair, so I put it in braids until I could figure out what to do with it.  Then I realized how easy braids were and kept getting them instead of doing my hair myself.

I must confess that I’ve never been one to “do” my hair, which is how I ended up with the locs in the first place.  I knew I wanted to come out of the relaxers (which I did about eleven years ago now), but I also knew I didn’t want to wrangle with my hair.  Anyhoo, when he asked, I was spending about $200/session to get my hair braided.  I was getting them redone every three months or so and I added up the cost thru the wedding and realized it’d be about $800 to keep getting my hair done.  With our small budget, I couldn’t justify spending that kind of loot.  So I went cold turkey on the braids and started doing my hair.

Now I’ve got two faves that are my go-to styles.  I always go curly because when the thickness creeps in, the ‘do still looks cute.  When I flat iron (which I do roughly once a month), I set my hair on rods and sit underneath the dryer to let it set.  My wedding hair was done like this:

When I don’t flat iron (which is most of the time), I just wash and set in bantu knots and sit under the dryer to set it and let them out…I re-knot at night and sleep in them overnight.  Here’s some pics I took this morning:

Anyhoo, for those of you who are looking to do your natural hair for your wedding, it can be done without chemicals or weaves.  Mine lasted through our wedding and reception…where I danced myself sweaty and didn’t worry about my hair.  I suppose the only way I wouldn’t even try my hair is to keep it straight, so if you’re wanting head-shakin’ hair, this isn’t the look for you.  My hair is past my boobs when straightened, so you can see it’s significantly shorter this way.

Any other nappies out there with hair ideas?  I’m always looking to try new things!

recaps: getting ready June 27, 2010

My getting ready process was easier and shorter than a lot of ladies I think.  Mostly because I did everything, except makeup, myself.  So after we got the chuppah and flowers together at the chapel, I went and got changed, got my makeup done, did my hair, and waited for the ladies to get back.

My wait was a little longer than anticipated because the dudes were running late.  Why were they running late?  Well, because The Mister is allergic to nuts.  My mom made (fabulous) cheesecakes with nuts on them.  The Mister touched said cakes while dropping them off at the reception site, then touched his eye…which promptly swelled up shut like someone had sucker punched him.  Cue the groomsmen searching for Benadryl and you see why were running a tad behind.

Anyhoo, I didn’t know any of this, so we were just chillin’ and waitin’.  Here’s a couple pics from our photographer:

The photographer took tons of getting ready pics, but how many of those do you really need to see?

All day long, I was pretty happy…content almost.  I was relaxed and I feel like I was able to take in the day…which was good, because I’d wound myself up into a tight ball of nervous worry the day before, lol!  By the time we finished all of the pre-ceremony pictures, guests were starting to arrive and it was pretty awesome to see folks streaming in.  The ladies took care of whatever last minute things I needed (I got a just-in-case mint and asked for some deodorant…you know, just in case), shooed The Mister away when he tried to come into the ladies’ room.  It was as stress free as completely altering your life can be.

recaps: the day of June 26, 2010

Would you go to the place you work with a headscarf on your head?  Well, you would if you had wedding work to do and didn’t want to mess up your hair before the ceremony.

So yes, I did go to work in a headscarf and I got the same response universally:  1) shock at the way I looked and 2) but you’re “the bride”!  *sigh*  But I’ve still got fully functioning limbs and they’ve got stuff to do!  Anyhoo, the ladies had put together five bouquets the night before (ours plus one for the winner of the anniversary dance), but still had the pew balls, corsages, and boutonnieres to knock out.  Me?  I was on chuppah duty…luckily the sweetie pie of one of the bridesmaids was able to help me out.

After that, the ladies went to get their hair done and I went to get myself together and grab some chow.  I was not hungry, but determined to eat something.  Then we were off to get our posed up pics taken.  We took the majority of photos before the ceremony and afterwards spent about thirty minutes taking pics and then headed off to the reception.  It was pretty important to us to arrive to the reception site on time and we were able to do that.

Anyhoo, we’ve finally gotten our professional pics back, so I’ll be posting those soon.  The last bit left to do with the photogs is to pic the pictures for the parent albums.  Can you believe that we’ve been married almost a month already??  Crazy business!

The ladies getting their hair done:

Here’s a pic of the aisle with the pew balls and the chuppah up on the stage:

recaps: the day before June 24, 2010

In hindsight, I can say that it is indeed true that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  For as amazing and stress-free and wonderful and magical and unforgettable that my wedding day was…the day before?  Meh.

It started off as planned, I had to wash and flat iron my hair.  Remember my hair is natural, so it’s a bit of a project.  Then I was supposed to meet the ladies at my place at ten o’clock and we’d be off to do the flowers at the mansion.  One bridesmaid texted with car trouble.  Another had gotten pulled over by a cop on her way here.  Another had the wrong address programmed into her GPS.  *sigh*  I remember saying to my mom that this would all make for a funny story…later.

Anyhoo, we got to the mansion, did the flowers (which, by the way, the manager of the place loved and was asking to buy our containers…I said, “dude, if you want them when we’re done, you can have ’em”…one less thing for me to have to take home!), had to grab a quick bite then head off to get our nails done.

This is the diy-bride’s dilemma.  Everyone will tell you how “the bride” shouldn’t do work for the wedding and you should relax and get pampered.  Well, that’s an impossibility when you’re doing things yourself.  My nail lady kept telling me that I had to get my fingernails done and I kept telling her that I had work to do.  Anyhoo, she was much more persistent than I, so I got my fingers done.  Also my eyebrows…I was looking like Teen Wolf!  After that, off to the rehearsal dinner, which was held in a gym…seriously.

I’m gonna gloss over this, but here’s the deal.  My computer was giving me the blues on that Thursday morning, so I sent it in to get fixed.  But I figured before I let it out of my sight, I’d copy the wedding music (yes, the wedding ceremony music that we needed in order to have the ceremony!) onto a cd from my iTunes.  Well, iTunes wouldn’t open.  Small freakout, no big deal.  They were able to fix the computer and I was able to copy the ceremony music onto a disc as well as my iPod…whew!  Not naming names, but someone forgot to bring the ceremony music to the rehearsal dinner.  So we had to practice the ceremony without the music.  As you’d imagine, this didn’t make me happy.  I had to remove myself from the crowd to take many deep breaths…then it was okay.  Oh, and did I tell you that we were about a half an hour late to the rehearsal?  *sigh*

Here I am giving everyone the lowdown on what the haps were:

Here I am handing out gifts:

The wedding party:

Then it was back to my place for flowers because the ladies were worried about the amount of work that needed to be done.  My sis-in-law and I headed out to Walgreens for fake eyelashes since she did my makeup for the big day while they were at work.  Then I came back and rolled my hair for the next day (and messed up my manicure) and sat under the dryer while the ladies did flowers.

I probably got up at like 6 o’clock that morning and didn’t go to bed until 1 or 2 a.m…long day!  And I’m sure like every other bride, didn’t really sleep a wink…my heart was at a steady buzz.  The next day was the day and my brain wouldn’t turn off, so I laid in bed thinking about The Mister and wondering what he was up to and what he was thinking.

side ponytail April 14, 2010

I’ve just spent entirely too much time looking for a better picture of Ugly Betty’s hair from her sister’s wedding.  It was a super cute curly side ponytail…I think I wanna try it for the big day!

weddzilla post March 6, 2010

Wedding hair…ugh!  I still haven’t figured out what I’m doing yet.  This post is about my journey from relaxer to teeny weeny ‘fro to dreads to braids to flat ironing.  Check out this natural girl’s hair story over here.  And if you’ve got ideas for this hair of mine…hook me up!

hair flair February 25, 2010

I just ordered these on Etsy…don’t know which one will look better with my hair color and my skin.  I didn’t want white or ivory…just not my style.  I want something in my hair, but I don’t want to be talking to people and see their eyes drifting upward to wonder what’s that large white thing in my head.  These were ten dollars each, so I don’t feel too bad about ordering two.

The one on top looks reddish, but it’s supposed to be brown…obviously the one on the bottom is black.  I think they’re pretty cute and subtley sassy.

wedding hair? February 15, 2010

I saw this hair on Weddzilla and love it!  It’s not on an African American bride, but I think I can make it work.  More specifically, I think I’m going to ask my sister-in-law’s sister to make it work.  Check it out:

I figured it’d work well since I’m already setting my hair on rollers (they curled her whole head before pinning it) so it should work…I think.  Thoughts?