Gardening Diaries: Lessons Learned

I finally finished working on my big planters and cleaning off my balcony last night. I'm sure my neighbors were looking at me funny as I was working yesterday. We'll see who has the last laugh when it's harvest time, though. I'm still figuring out the best way to plant my herbs and lettuces. To SIP or not to SIP, that is the question...

Anyway, it took me almost 4 hours to build and plant 3 SIPs on Saturday. There was a lot of trial and error going on. Yes, even with directions. I had read them plenty of times before and figured I wouldn't need to reference them again. WRONG! Lots of time wasted, but very important lessons learned. So, maybe it wasn't wasted time after all. By Sunday, I had finally gotten the hang of things and was able to build and plant 6 more SIPs in under 2 hours. Still slow, but it's progress.

Here's what I learned:

• Read through all directions thoroughly BEFORE you begin any project. Even if you think you have the particulars down, it never hurts to review them again.

• Potting Soil is NOT the same as Potting Mix. I planted my Sweet 100 in a 5-gallon bucket full of potting soil and had to replant it in mix. Potting soil is heavy, sucks up and retains a lot of water, and looks like mud when wet. It is not ideal for container planting - I don't care what the bag claims. The "looks like mud" portion is what alerted me to the fact that I might have been doing something incorrectly. Potting mix, on the other hand, is light, and is less constricting when wet so it allows the roots of plants to breathe. If you're still not sure what you're purchasing when you go to a store, look at the measurements on the bag. Potting soil is measured in pounds. Potting mix is measured in quarts or cubic feet.

• If you're using a utility knife to cut out your buckets, letting the blade warm up in the sun might make this a bit easier to do. Or, at least, that was my experience yesterday.

• Don't pay for buckets! There are plenty of people willing to give them away for $Free.99. Spend your money on better things like potting mix, seeds, plants, ibuprofen, and a cold beverage (you'll need those last two after all of that work). I found this one out the hard way. After purchasing 8 5-gallon buckets for myself, I decided to go around town asking folks to donate buckets for the community garden. Check out bakeries (stand-alones or those in your local supermarket). Their icing comes in 3.5- and 5-gallon buckets. For 7-gallons, ask your local deli for their empty pickle buckets. Also, your wicking chambers can be made out of recycled soda/pop bottles, plastic cups, or yogurt containers. Wash them out thoroughly before use.

• And, lastly, because this is still a hair blog... If you have locs, wrap them up as you work on your garden. My hair was so dusty and smelled like whatever was in the donated buckets I cleaned (dirt, BBQ sauce, garlic, pickles, and icing) because I didn't do this. Save yourself the trouble and tuck your babies away.

Up next on Gardening Diaries... Balcony Garden Video Tour

Gardening Diaries

I've started my balcony container garden and am really excited about it. Last year, my Mom helped me plant tomatoes, peppers (Yellow Bell and Caribbean Hot), and herbs (mint, basil, & cilantro) and it was a success. I vlogged about it here and will probably do another video when the setup is complete.

I've decided to try something new this year in terms of watering methods. Enter the sub-irrigated planter (SIP). If you've ever seen an Earthbox, then you've pretty much seen this technique. Instead of the traditional method of watering plants from the top down and wasting tons of waterusing tons of drainage holes, SIPs utilize capillary action and water plants from the roots. You can read more about their virtues and stay up to date on everything SIP HERE.

Earthboxes are neat and work wonderfully, but they're also out of my grad student budget. So, I searched the internet for some DIY plans and found the blog of a couple of folks in Chicago who were making their own SIPs out of tote boxes and buckets. Sweet! You know the MacGyver Gal in me was very pleased. A quick email to the Green Roof Growers and a tour was scheduled on my last trip to the Windy City. Bruce, Art and Heidi were kind enough to show me around their lovely gardens and impart some of their SIP wisdom. I was so amazed at their setups and couldn't wait to get started on my own.

The gang's all here... and Heidi is taking the picture :-)

I have a decent sized balcony with measurements of 10' x 12'. On it are my A/C unit, a gas grill, and a small, repurposed Korean BBQ set that I use for dining. That sounds like a lot, but I have plenty of space left over for containers. So far, I'm going the two 5-gallon bucket route to plant my bigger items like tomatoes and eggplants. Peppers will be in smaller buckets or in a one 5-gallon bucket with insert design, and herbs and lettuces will be in window boxes and kitschy containers like melamine bowls and deli containers.

Here's my stash so far...

Store-bought (all but the last 2 came from a local nursery) starters:
1 Sweet 100 Cherry tomato
1 Yellow Pear tomato
1 Big Beef Champion tomato
3 pk La Roma tomatoes
1 Fairy Tale eggplant
3 pk Hungarian Wax pepper
1 Chocolate Beauty pepper
1 Garden Salsa pepper
1 Lemon Basil
1 Sweet Basil
1 Sugar Baby watermelon I killed it. RIP, Sugar Baby :-(
1 Peppermint
1 Spearmint

Started from seeds:
2 Black Beauty eggplant
4 Sugar Baby watermelon These died too :-(
12 Roma tomatoes (I planted a lot of seeds thinking most of them would die. Boy, was I wrong! Some of these will be Freecycled.)
Lavender (I think I overcrowded them, so they're on their way out.)
Sweet Basil (These are still infants.

Experiment:
I wasn't too pleased with how Cilantro looked in the big box stores or my local nursery. I purchased some from the supermarket today for dinner and will see if I can get some of these cuttings to root. If this works, I won't feel so bad about killing all those watermelon plants.

Gifted:
A friend of mine gave me a "Salad Garden" from our local Farmer's Market. It came in one of those cute, seasonal, plastic ice buckets and contains a Bell Pepper, green onions, radish, spinach, and some type of lettuce. It also came with duplicate seeds and an additional set of carrot seeds.

Speaking of gited items... In addition to growing my own veggies on my balcony, I'm also working with a local community center to grow fresh veggies for their food pantry. Art and Heidi started us off with 2 7-gallon buckets. Thanks, guys! I'll donate the eggplant, and most of the tomatoes, I started from seed to this garden. This is a project that is very dear to my heart, so I will designate special post to it in the upcoming week.

Phew! That was a lot to take in, so I'll have to update you on today's garden shenanigans in a later post.

Up next in the Gardening Diaries... Lessons (somewhat) Learned

Por Fin

I finally finished my re-ti on the back portion of my hair! Wooohoooo! It took me 3 movies to get it done - Changeling, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Notorious. I started off with a quickie baking soda wash, followed by a combo wash of Hugo's Natural Red Tea & Yland Ylang shampoo & Oyin's Honey Hemp Conditioner. I also did a hot oil treatment (using my new hooded dryer) and ended it all with a good old fashioned ACV rinse. Phew! And then I started on re-tightening my hair. Crazy, right?

Nothing else to report. No pictures. Just sweet relief to finally be done. I'll attempt this agin in another 6 weeks.

Loc Lovefest

I absolutely LOVE my hair!!!! I especially love the way it behaves when I dance. When I was younger, I was taught to use my hair as an extension of myself and my movements. That's probably why I'm also the queen of the hair flip today. Swish. Swoosh. Tussle. Flip! What? You thought only Becky and them could do that? Nerp! My baby locs can flip with the best of them. When I took belly dance class last year, there was a move where the teacher would flip her hair. I did it, but having a Big Ass Afro and all, it didn't have the same effect. Ask me to do this move again now. So seshy!

My rubberband popped tonight in African dance class and it might have been the best thing that happened to me. With my hair now loose, I could flip it as I moved. Man! It's like a whole new dancer came out of me. The routine I'd previously done just seemed to come to life all of a sudden. I was in my element. My hips had a sassier sway to them, I bent down a bit lower on certain steps so my hair would dramatically move whenever I got back up, the jumps and turns I did felt stronger now that my hair was following my body's lead. It was awesome... and I'm sure I'll feel it in the morning.

But, for now, I'm having a love affair with my locs. While the other loced sistas in the class had their long hair pulled back, when I finally released mine, my short babies were shaking around the dance floor. I loved every minute of it. In that moment, I paid no mind to the fro envy I get from time to time. I forgot about the fact that I still need to re-ti the back portion of my head. I gave no thought to how I would probably need to rinse my hair now full of sweat. All of my thoughts were about how lovely it felt to have my tresses accentuate my moves. I felt feminine and free. Ahhh! This is great!

Weekend Update

Well, I finally bit the bullet and re-ti'd the front portion of my hair. What a difference that made! It looked neater and the back still looked full - I like it like that. I've combined a few more of my babies around the hairline because they were either too little or the braids kept unraveling.

I had a great time in Chicago with my friends, but didn't sport any noteworthy 'dos. You know me, the Queen of Freestyle. *sigh* And, though I didn't get any idiots touching my hair, I did get a few compliments from strangers. One came from a guy at Funky Buddha. He approached me, drink in hand, smiling from ear to ear, and enthusiastically exclaimed, "I LOVE your dreads!" Ummm... Really? How in the world can you see my hair in this dark room? I thanked him and felt a little bit like I had arrived. My babies aren't all sealed yet, but they are now being recognized by others as locs. Sweet!

This weekend was the first time I'd seen many of my friends in a year or more. There were some folks I hadn't seen in 3 years. The first thing they all said to me when they saw me was some variation of, "Wow! You look great!" Of course, me being me, I can't take a compliment very well, so I am now left wondering just how horrible I looked before. I even saw a guy I... had a situationship with and he said I looked great, kept staring, and finding excuses to keep hugging me. Really? I thought I was bumming it with my t-shirt and jeans. *shrug*

On another totally unrelated note, I'm thinking of including a few posts over here about my balcony container garden. I try to keep Me, My Naps, And I more family-friendly and what's more family-friendly than growing your own veggies and herbs? I know most of you don't read my other, more personal, sometimes inappropriate, hot mess, tell it like it T-I is blog called Random Thoughts, so I'll be posting mini updates over here as well. Stay tuned.

I guess I'll leave you with some pics from this weekend. My camera has been acting a donkey lately, so everything has been looking extra bright for no reason. *sigh*

Celebrating a friend's Birthday at Big Bar

And the celebration continued at Butterfly Lounge

Re-Ti Session Blues

I'm in the middle of a re-ti session and am already bored with this. Good thing I started with the front portion of my head because I have to finish it now. I can't go out the house anymore looking crazy. So far, I've watched Body of Lies and Not Easily Broken on DVD. Hooray for Redbox. I'm in the middle of watching Alexander and thinking this is the most uninspiring thing I could watch right now. Maybe I'll just catch up on Grey's and Private Practice episodes online. I'm also tempted to listen to an audiobook.

I want my hairline to be a bit neater, so I'm interlocking and twisting it. We'll see if this holds up through me sweating on the dance floor tomorrow night. Bleh! I need to keep going so I can get in the bed by 3am. Still haven't packed and I need to hit the road by 11am tomorrow.

What do you watch when you have a long re-ti or other grooming session ahead of you?

Au Naptural vs The Fuzz

I really, really, really need to do something with my hair because my roots are getting a bit out of hand. Yes, I know. How about a marathon re-ti session? Bleh! I'm just not in the mood. Sadly, I know that if I do a re-ti in short sessions, I'll never finish. Maybe I'll spend tonight with a few Redbox movies and get to work.

I'm going to Chicago tomorrow to visit some friends and have a great weekend. For many of them, this will be the first time seeing my hair in person since I've begun locing. I can't help but feel like I've got to put my best foot... or is it loc?... forward.

I thought I knew frizz before. Apparently, I had NO idea! My babies are all fuzzy wuzzy along the shaft (is this the appropriate term?) and it's driving me a bit insane. On one hand, the frizz gives my hair a texture that puts me in tactile heaven. On the other hand, the frizz also makes my hair look a bit more uncoiffed than I would like. I know this is all a part of the process, so I will not be deterred. Instead, I'll just bitch and moan about it a bit here on the blog. Ahhhh! Much better.

Randomly, as if this post wasn't random enough, I've noticed that a few men have recently ventured to discover how soft my hair is. I think it has something to do with the fact that my roots are VERRRRRRY loose. Guyfriend A has gotten better, but he used to have his hands all up in my hair when we were at work in the community center. He'd be all up in the roots and pulling on my coils. If I didn't wash my hair so often, I might be bothered by this. And then comes Guyfriend B. The first time I met him he put his hands in my hair. That put me off a bit seeing as how I didn't even know his name yet. Yep, he got a straight sistagirl cussing from me that night. Fast forward a couple of months and we've made nice. Now, he has permission to touch my hair whenever I see him. Why? Because that man gives the. best. scalp massages. EVER.

So, you see, I'm struggling because I want my hair to look a bit less fuzzy, but I also want it to be touchably soft. I'll figure something out soon. Thanks for reading my word salad today, Napturals.

Race Day

Hopped up on meds and ready to run @ 6:15 AM

I finished my 2nd Half Marathon for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training on Saturday. Thanks to everyone who donated, encouraged, or shared their testimony with me about how cancer has affected their life.

For the first time ever I was able to sport a cute little loc puff ponytail. I was quite excited about this as it meant my hair would be pulled back and I could sport my freebie hat that also had a pocket on the front. I got my hair caught in the velcro strap a few times while I was adjusting it, but no major damage was done.

You know I was looking for some locs whenever I was in the race, right? As soon as I jumped in the corral I saw a lady with the prettiest locs. I thought they were sister locs, but she told me they were very small traditional ones that she maintained by palmrolling. WOW! I also saw a few heads full of locs as I trudged on in the race. I think my count was up to 4. I was tempted to increase my pace to talk to one lady, but I didn't fancy having much chit chat while I tackled 13.1 miles.

I didn't bring my camera on the course and was feeling too ill to pose for many pictures after the race. I did, however manage to document a bit of the experience. So, enjoy my race recap video.

More Frizz & Other Updates

OK, folks. I know I said at the beginning of this journey that I would embrace the frizz. But... errrrr. ummmm... uhhhh. This stuff is getting out of hand. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if my hair actually appeared to be moisturized. I need to drink more water and do more oil treatments or something.

I've re-incorporated the ACV rinses back into my routine and it's been helping with the itchies. I wonder if the itching I have now can be attributed to stress (I itch and scratch when nervous) or growth.

A strand of my hair came aloose from one of my babies. I stretched it out and it was dang near bra strap length. I'm not big on length checks, but I'm not going to sit here and lie to you fine folks and claim that I don't care about length either. Pshhh! If I'm completely honest, I'll admit that one of the main reasons why I'm growing locs is to see just how long they will get. My favorite hairstyle was to keep my hair in microbraid extensions. I loved the look. Now, I am curious to see how my locs will look when they get that long.

I have serious hand-in-loc disease! Too bad this hasn't extended to me actually re-tightening any of my locs. Well, that's a lie. I did a quickie attempt to tidy up the first two rows over the weekend. It's not that I don't have the time, I'm just not motivated to work on my hair right now. I do wonder, however, how much of a difference the re-ti session would make on how my frizzy ends look. Maybe I'll get started tomorrow so that they are a bit more tidy for my half marathon on Saturday.

I still suck at taking pictures... and trying new styles. Here are a few shots from this past weekend in DC with my cousins.

My cousin was playing paparazzi while I was getting ready.

Filling up our SmartTrip cards

Changing purses before we left for our dinner cruise on the Potomac.

Me and my Boos (cousins) celebrating Boo #1's (middle) birthday.

Buds, Latching, and Curly Qs

I think I found some buds in my hair. Yipeeee! Of course, I wouldn't be me if I didn't celebrate and panic within the same breath, right? How do I know that those buds are just tangled hair and not embedded lint? Gross! The first one I found had some lint in it, so I've been kind of paranoid ever since. Have I been paranoid to the point where I'll wrap my hair up at night? Of course not. That would make too much sense. I inspected a few more of them and they just look like a tangled mass of hair, but I'm not sure.

I still haven't done a re-ti on my entire head. At this point, the front is beginning to look a bit fuzzy and my roots in the center and back of my head are amazingly thick. I don't want to wait too long, but I'm loving the fullness of the back of my head right now. Well, that and I'm being uber lazy. Something tells me semi-freeforming might be in my future sooner than I thought. I offered to teach one of my guy friends how to do it so I could enlist his help. Knowing him, this would probably last all of one time before he got uppity and decided he wanted to charge me for his services. Nerp! Not gonna happen, buddy.

Some of the Curly Qs on the ends of my hair are beginning to disappear. I will miss them when they're gone. I wonder if I can pick them out after my locs are completely sealed/formed?

Please Help Me Find A Dress Pattern

I went to the mall today to get my beloved laptop cosmetically fixed. While Mackee (Yes, she has a name. No, it's not very original) was being serviced I popped into my favorite overpriced bohemian store, Anthro.pologie. I love their style, but cringe at the thought of paying $158 + tax for a COTTON dress. I tried on a dress called Dauntless and fell in love immediately. It had me at bold pattern and pockets! I lurve dresses with pockets!!! Unfortunately, my boobs are more comfortable in a larger dress size than the rest of my body. No, they're not huge. They just decided to shrink a little slower than the rest of me. *shrug*

If I buy the dress, which won't be happening with my anemic bank account, I'll need to get it altered. Someone suggested that I might be better off finding the dress pattern, some fabric, and having it made in Chinatown. Sweet! Too bad I'm no longer in NYC :-( There are so many cute, overpriced dresses on the market right now and I want them all. I need to learn how to sew. This is where you come in, blog family, if you can find me a pattern for the dress (remember it has pockets) I'd be eternally grateful. I've been perusing many of the popular brands online and haven't found anything yet.

I suppose this would be described as a strapless, shift style (or is this A line?) dress with invisible pockets?

Heeeeeeelllllp! Patrice? Adrienne? Carmelle? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? I'll post this on Napptu.rality and my hair blog to enlist the services of some more of you kind folks.

*Bonus points for being able to point me in the direction of some traditional fabric. The bolder the print and brighter the color the better.

Lochawk Success

Sooooo... About this lochawk. I just went for it and it worked! Too bad I had to take it down last night. Ah well. I used a bunch of tiny black rubber bands that were going to waste in the bottom of my hair supply cabinet. Started by making a small ponytail at the nape, then working my way up to my crown. That's the best description you will get out of me today. I'll do a tut or something if you reaaaaally want to see it. Otherwise, enjoy my foolish fabulousness. Yes, I was feeling myself very much last night. These moments don't come often, so I celebrate them when I can.

Beijos...

Lochawk

I want one sooooo badly. I'll see if I can pull it off tonight or tomorrow. The weather is so nice out that I want to freshen up my style and change up a bit. Even if it's only for a day. Will update with pics if I do it.

Bleh!

That's how I'm feeling about my hair these days. I interlocked the front of my hair over 2 weeks because I'm lazy and had more important things to do... like become a Doctoral Candidate. Wahoo! Not sure if I mentioned it on this blog, but I've been stressing out since January about this big paper that determined whether or not I would be allowed to finish my grad program. Anyway, my hair has taken a back burner to my academic life. Perhaps this is one of the many joys of having locs or braidlocs. I haven't had a bad hair day since I started my journey in December.

Where was I? Ah, yes. I interlocked the front part of my hair last week. I'm not in the mood to do the rest of my head and I like playing with the new growth. My roots feel great between my fingers. I'l probably bite the bullet and finish my hair before I leave for DC on the 25th to meet my cousins for our girls' retreat. I adore those ladies!

I've sort of changed up my routine a bit. I've stopped using Oyin's Honey Hemp Conditioner. *Gasp!* I know. I'm not sure, but I feel like my locs were feeling a bit more frizzy and looked duller whenever I used it. Too bad, because it smells great and works wonders on my new growth. I need to figure out how to use the rest of that bottle to benefit my babies. Last weekend I opted for a hot oil treatment with honey, EVOO, and EVCO. I then washed with baking soda and rinsed with ACV. Talk about soft hair??!!! I'd been slipping on my ACV treatments, but I see now that I must go back. I've also been experiencing a horrible case of the itchies, so going back to my weekly ACV treatments should definitely help.

Did I mention that I went into Sally's for a simple, tabletop hooded dryer and was convinced by another loced sista (very rare for this area to see another sista let alone a natural and loced one) to order the semi-professional, free-standing rolling one that was on sale this month. I shelled out $100+ for a damn dryer. Yea. I'll just have to do lots of hot oil treatments and roller sets to compensate for my ridiculousness. Seriously though, what convinced me to get it was the fact that using it didn't require me to sit uncomfortably with my back to a table. So long as it can reach an outlet, I can plug that bad boy up and sit under it anywhere. This means I could probably even blog browse NP play on Face.book work on my dissertation as I dry my hair. Sweet!

That's all I've got. I'm afraid I haven't gotten any better at taking pics either. I'm still rocking the freestyle look because it's cute, no fuss, and works for me. I'll see if I can snag some pics from my friend's camera of my hair this past weekend.

Until next time, Napturals....

Briadloc Rod Set

I had an event last night and decided to experiment with my hair. A big risk considering I had no clue how the rod set was going to look once it dried. I had very little time and was determined to make it work no matter what it looked like... Or wash out the curls and keep it moving.

Here's the video showing what I did. I'm very aware that I am acting very vain and coquettish in the first half of the video. I guess I was feeling myself just a bit. LOL! Ignore my antics and see the style at the end. I'm washing the curls out soon because my scalp is itching (I was lazy and rinsed my hair before curling instead of washing) and I need to tighten up my roots. Enjoy!

Public

I was originally going to delete the blog and just add its contents to my personal blog.... Then I decided to put it on private while I re-organized some things... But that was too much work and who really wants to read through all my crazy rants when all you actually want to read about is hair? Soooooooo. The blog is public again. I'll update you on the new style I tried last night in the next entry. Thanks for stopping by :-)

Loc Enemies

Lint, smoke, and velcro are the enemies! I don't like them one bit.

I've been battling lint for the last few weeks. Nothing major, but I must remember to wrap my hair up when I'm lounging under fuzzy blankets and laying on the carpet. I should probably invest in some microfiber towels as well to keep lint at bay when drying my hair. I pluck out what I can see in the front, but I have this ridiculous(?) fear of having a head full of lint because of what I can't see in the back. I wonder if I can hire a lintpicker? LOL!

Nitpicking monkeys from gawker.com

I'm also very sensitive to smells. So it should come as no surprise that I like my locs to smell refreshing and clean -whatever that means. Smoke, be it from cigarettes, hookah, incense, grilling or frying food, stays in my hair. Now that it's getting warmer, I have no problem washing or rinsing my hair more often to combat this. During the winter, however, this was a problem because I didn't like leaving the house with wet hair. Wet hair + cold temperatures = frozen hair & frozen Timah. No fun! If you ever want to piss me off or make me want to karate chop you in the throat, blow your funky cigar in my freshly washed locs.

Evil cigar smoker from Dailycamera.com

Lastly, I think it's important for me to reiterate that velcro is not your friend. I'd read this on NP before, but I had no idea how painful this could really be. My winter coat has velcro on the collar. Getting my locs caught in that makes me cringe. Ahhhhh! When I hear that crackling sound as I pull my hair out of it, I often think "This can NOT be good." My hair bounces back, but I'd rather not be bothered with the trauma. Good thing it's getting warmer and the coat has been put to rest for the season.

On Frizz and Styling

To continue the celebration of my 3 months of locdom, I'd like to talk very briefly about my frizz and styling.

Frizz is a part of the locing territory. This is the only place where I embrace my fuziness. Someone told me that my hair looked unkempt. It's not that my hair looks bad (IMHO), I think it's because she has never seen me with a hair too much out of place. Even my wild fros were styled just so. Don't ask how. LOL! Now? I'm happy to let it do it's own thing.

But, I also wonder if I am letting it do its own thing a bit too much. I need to up my styling game. I usually rock a tussled freestyle look.
Occasionally, I might do a mini pony on a side in the front for a change. I did this with my last set of twists, but can't seem to find pics of this style on my locs.
My standard going out style is to pin up one side (I love asymmetry) and create a swoop of layered locs coming forward on the other (see my Blogger profile pic).

I also need to take more pictures of my hair. Then again, I didn't take too many pics as a loose nappy so I don't know why I would expect that to change now.

My goal for this weekend is to curl my babies and take pictures of them. This will also buy me some time before I get to latching again. Should be simple enough.

Three! Three Months of Locs.

I always loved The Count from Sesame Street! He had the coolest cape and his laugh was pretty wicked. Ah! Ah! Ah!

Anyyyyyway, I'm approching my 3rd month of locdom over here and still loving every bit of it. To celebrate, I'll do 3 posts with random things I've observed or learned so far.

Twisting my new growth is neat and quick, but is a waste of my time. I wash my hair way too much for that. I also don't like having to use products to make that stuff stay put. All those clips and thangs while I wait for my hair to dry? No, thanks! Pass the latching tool, please. Oh, and by the way... When you're latching, if you think you can get in just one more rotation - DON'T! Talk about a sore scalp? Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

Water does a body good. Especially since my hair is dyed (*gasp* That's not natural. Yea. Whatever. Bite me!), it needs all the moisture it can get. Water is cheap and readily available around these parts, so that's what I use. I spritz and rinse in agua. Now if only I could remember to keep drinking it. *shrug* Be sure to check out MsFullroller's post called Moisture, Moisture, Moisture.

Adding water can also cause my hair to shrink as it dries. Shrinkage is a beast. It shall not be tamed by me, though. More shrinkage means that my babies are just hugging themselves a bit tighter. I'm all for that. The curlies at the end of my hair are getting more compact. I will miss them when they're gone.

Musical Fro: Esperanza Spalding

Photo Credit: Esperanzaspalding.com

Gawd! She's gorgeous! She makes me miss my Fro (just a little bit), wish I played the bass, and never stopped singing. Thanks to the ladies of NP, I have a new musical crush. I've been listening to a few songs from her latest album, Esperanza, for the last few days.

My favorite so far is Precious...

"I'm not gonna sit around and waste my precious, divine energy
Trying to explain and being ashamed of what you think is wrong with me."

I also like I Know You Know

I'm off to stalk her tour and performance dates. Enjoy the tunes!