Geeky Girl's Guide to Life

Hair on a trip.

Published June 21, 2011 | By K Leslie

Most people when they travel take one of two modes of transportation; car or plane. While gas prices are steadily going down (at least in my part of the world), they are still pretty high, making an extended car trip possibly as expensive as a plane ticket.

Our solution? The train. You win some and you lose some with the train. The last time we were on, I had a massive headache due to the fact that there were really stinky hippies. Our train last time also was like 5 hours late due to the fact that there was a mudslide in the Pacific Northwest. AKA: Nowhere near where we were, and nowhere near where we were going. Every little thing just went wrong that trip.

We are currently on a train. It is actually going rather well this time, and this leaves me optimistic. We’ve had no issues, except for a rather annoying squeaky voiced child that “loves everyone!”

The last time I was on a train, it was winter time, and my hair was in two strand twists stuffed under a scarf, stuffed under a knitted cap. The knitted cap is no longer an option in the mid west summer (the idea of it in this heat makes me gag a bit). Also, in the interest of not looking like the crazy ass ghetto black lady, I do not have a scarf on my hair. The result? I still look like the crazy ass ghetto black lady.. My hair is just out and looking a wee bit wild. I wanted to learn how to French braid my hair before this excursion, and that just didn’t happen. On long trips how do you protect your hair without looking crazy as hell? There are enough crazies on this trip (Mullet anyone?) I don’t need to add to the atmosphere.

Vidal ain’t got nothing on him.

Published June 15, 2011 | By K Leslie

Around September of last year I attempted my first (and last) braidout. My husband helped to braid my hair, and after showing him one time how to braid, he proceeded to braid better than I could. I should have known it wasn’t a fluke.

Saturday I decided that I needed to go to the bowels of hell (aka Wal-Mart) get get some headbands. I tend to lose mine. He was hungry so we decided to eat while we were out.

My hair was twisted up, and I needed to untwist it. He wasn’t doing anything but watching a bad 1980’s movie, so I enlisted his help. “This will go much faster and get us out of the house sooner if you help.” He asked me what to do. I told him to just untwist them. “Do I untwist them all the way?” I was kind of confused by his question, but told him yes. He sat there and quietly and gently untwisted the back of my hair while I did the front. I got finished before him and just sat there and waited. “I’m finished.” I went to the mirror to go check. Dear God in heaven. He untwisted each twist, and spread the hair evenly over my head so that my afro was freaking adorable!

My husband is a 28 (almost 29) white male who never touched a head of hair on an African American woman before me. I just look at him sometimes, amazed at what he does. He just tells me “I’m just good with my hands.” I keep telling him that if he ever gets sick of being a network engineer, he should go to school to be a beautician. He just rolls his eyes at me and goes back to his movie while I get dressed.

I love this man.

My hair after he got finished with it!

From the bottom of my heart.

Published June 13, 2011 | By K Leslie

I wanted to thank each and every one of you that took my survey last month. You gave me a lot of great insight that I will be able to use to make this blog greater, as well as craft it into an independent study project. I am one of the smaller natural hair blogs on the web, but I am growing with all of your help. I appreciate every single one of you that stops by to read. I am truly humbled by the response that I received.

*group hug!*

Please don’t mess with me in the morning.

Published June 10, 2011 | By K Leslie

It takes me a while to rally in the mornings, I’ll admit it. This morning was no exception. I should back up a bit though. Last night, and pretty much all day yesterday, I had pain in my left eyelid. I had a feeling a stye was coming through. I immediately canceled that thought, because I haven’t had a style since I was a freshmen in high school. Yeah…

I woke up this morning (at 7:50, about an hour earlier than I normally do) with more pain when I blinked. My husband was telling me goodbye when I asked him to look at my eye.

“Yeah, you got a stye coming it, and it is pretty swollen.”

Great.

Since I was up, I figured I would hop in the shower and get ready for my day, which I did. But I am still pretty groggy. I throw on a maxi dress and run to the drug store. I had a script I needed to pick up.

It’s early, I’m not quite all there. I know I look slightly crazy. I shuffle into the pharmacy when behind me I hear:

“Hey ‘lil mama, what it do?”

I am no one’s mother, little or otherwise, and I turn around to look at the guy. If it is possible to look crazier than I look right now he does it. Cut off shorts, dirty shirt, raggedy braids in his hair. I give him the evil (stye) eye, and move on. As I am walking I notice a mirror and noticed that my dress is sort of tucked under my strapless bra. So, I am looking crazy as hell, have a stye, and it is early as hell, and you are trying to holler at me!? DO YOU NOT HAVE ANY STANDARDS!?

Oh well, at least my hair looks decent.

Glasses are on because I don’t want you to see my stye. Plus, I do have on clothes, It is a strapless maxi dress from Old Navy last season.

So, not the greatest idea for myself. At all..

Published June 8, 2011 | By K Leslie

Well, I tried geling my two strand twists. They stayed twisted for two days. I didn’t have anything to do the past couple of days. Tonight I am going to try sushi for the first time with my friend Heather. I just undid my twists… If anything, they are wilder than when I just twist them.

Not cute at all. For those that are curious, my shirt says “Mixed martial arts and crafts” and has three ninjas painting, knitting, and writing.

So the craziness that is my hair is going into a puff for tonight. Eesh

Product Review- Kyah Alexandria Shampoo & Shower Bar.

Published June 7, 2011 | By K Leslie

One of my natural hair idols is Chary Jay. She has a channel on YouTube that I subscribe to. She did a product review on several things on Kyah Alexandria’s line, but this bar stuck out the most to me. She said something along the lines of “it made my hair feel like it had lotion in it.” I am always looking for a product (shampoo especially) to put moisture back into my hair, so I scooped this up along with a leave in conditioner (to be reviewed at a later date).

The packaging.

What the packaging says: Kyah Alexandria Shampoo & Shower Bar- Coconut Paradise with Shea butter for all hair types. Full size All Natural.

Ingredients: Glycerin, Di (deionized) water, Coconut Oil, Sorbitol, Sodium Palmitate, Sodium Stearate, Soybean Oil, Almond Oil, Safflower Oil, Jojoba Oil, Aloe Vera Gel, Shea Butter, Coconut Milk, Vitamin E, Olive Oil, Honey, Tea Tree Oil, Fragrance.

When I watched the initial review of this product, Chary Jay was able to break the bar with her hands. When I received mine in the mail, there was a note in there, stating that because it is getting hotter out, they have added an additional ingredient (jojoba oil I think) to make it more solid, so that it does not melt in the mail. So I had to use scissors to cut a piece off.

It' wasn’t difficult at all.

The Smell: I really enjoyed the smell of this product. You get the coconut smell, which isn’t overpowering at all, and then you get a sweet floral undertone. I held out the chunk I had cut off for my husband to sniff and to get his opinion on it. His response? “It smells sort of like a coconut candy.” The smell was really pleasing

Initial Tryout: I scrubbed my hair with the product, it doesn’t create a massive lather, and that is okay for me. I washed my hair and rinsed it out and paused for a moment before dumping conditioner on my hair. I felt my hair. It felt incredibly moisturized. It does feel like there is some sort of lotion on your hair. it is amazing. I love it.

Further Testing: With further testing I realized that it is easier to slice the bar using the scissors with a knife like motion instead of sawing. Also, while my hair luxuriates in the feel of this shampoo, the shampoo combined with conditioner, combined with the rest of my product line up equates product buildup rather quickly. I can use it about 2 or three times before I need to reach for a clarifying shampoo.

Bottom Line: I really liked how this shampoo made my hair feel. It was soft and manageable. I can’t wait to see how the rest of this product line feels!

Where you can purchase: http://mynaturalcare.com/index.html

Goals, it is good to have them.

Published June 6, 2011 | By K Leslie

This was an uneventful weekend for me. There was a reason for that. My second class started today, and I wanted as much relaxing time as I could possibly have. My twistout lasted a decent amount of time. Saturday the hubs and I went out for steak. I put it in a pouf and stuck a flower on it.

It looked really cute. Lately though I have been noticing that I am getting more and more headaches when I put my hair up. I use ouchless hair bands. They are big enough that I can double them up and create the pouf. My husband seems to think that my contacts are probably playing a part as well. I hope that isn't the case. How do you make a pouf with your hair? Does it cause you to have a headache?

My hair is looking kind of busted right now, but that is okay. After I do the dishes, I am getting dressed and headed to the gym. The plan is to do the machines for a while, and maybe some light weight lifiting. Then I plan on going swimming .When I come home, I am going to twist up my hair (adding gel for more definition) and work on homework. I really don't plan on un-twisting it until it is time to go somewhere.

What does your week look like this week? Anything fancy going on?

Accepting yourself completely

Published June 3, 2011 | By K Leslie

We made it to Friday! Yay!

If you are on Facebook, you would have seen that I posted a couple of photos of my hair.

This being one of them. It is my webcam on my computer, that is why it is kind of craptacular. Anyway, I was headed to the Glee concert last night and trying to do something with my hair. Normally (as in EVERY DAY) I put in a headband and a flower. Sometimes I make a poof, but still have the flower as well. In this photo I have on the flower, but no headband.

As I was figuring out my hair last night, I realized that I always feel kind of stupid without my headband and flower. I feel like everyone is looking at me. This caused me to wonder: am I being ashamed of my hair?

I didn’t want that.

I slowly took the flower out my hair, and fluffed up my twists. I looked really good. One thing I might do in the future is add gel to my twists when they are twisted up. Some of the instantly spread out. and it looked uber cute with them twisted up like that.

See? Totally cute. Except I have that Johnson forehead, that should be a fivehead. *snort*

Oh, and Glee was so much fun! I am really really loud and screamed my head off.. as a result, I got a barf bag from a cheerio. LOL. At one point it got really quiet in the place and I screamed out “I LOVE YOU PUCK!” He could so hear it.

To the two girls that I met in like while I was getting popcorn and you were getting Beer. YOU ARE AMAZING! I hope you live in Indianapolis and we can meet up sometime and drink and drool over Puck! LOL.

Clearing things up.

Published May 31, 2011 | By K Leslie

Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope you had a great Memorial Day. I had a decent time, but as I get older, I start thinking more and more about troops. Do you realize we are coming up on the 10 year anniversary of 9/11? I was 19 when all of this went down. I remember staring at the news, wondering how this would change things. I bawled when the news came on yesterday. They were talking of soldiers going to their friend’s funerals. It was sad. Then I read the news and had a o.O moment. You know how the Westboro Baptist Church are a bunch of douche canoes? Well, the KKK came out to counter protest them. Then Westboro got all righteous on the KKK saying that God doesn’t hate people that are different colors.. only the gay ones. Is it too much to hope that they blow each other up?

My hair this week has been weird. Lately it has felt like the product that I apply has been sitting on top of it, rather than absorbing in. The result is my hair feeling dry, but when I touch my hair my hands are all greasy. Ew.

So last night, when I got into the shower, I sprayed my hair down with apple cider vinegar. The apple cider vinegar then got in my eye, which I had to howl for my husband to come take the bottle, because I couldn’t see where to put it. As he walked away I heard him mumble “so many food products in her hair.” LOL. After that debacle, I shampooed and conditioned my hair as normal.

When I got out of the shower, I dried my hair slightly and applied my Belle Butters (which I am running incredibly low on *Sniffle*). I twisted my hair in huge chunky twists and wrapped with a scarf. Since I have just gotten up, I haven’t taken my twists down, but I will keep you apprised of this development.

This weekend, Yelp.com held an event in my area. The Indy 500 was going on (did you guys know that because I live in Indianapolis, they don’t televise the race? Grumblings were had from my husband and his family. I could care less.) so Yelp did The Yelp 500. It was really neat. There was all sorts of different foods to try from different companies. There were supposed to be camels, but not a one in sight! There was music, that wasn’t really my cup of tea, and a very angry and vulgar clown. He was just screaming out “TITS!!” and all sorts of other nonsense. There was a woman with a beautiful natural hair style. She was a photographer for the even though, and I didn’t want to get in her way. There was an old school photo booth as well. Jeff and I got our pictures taken! You can kind of tell I wasn’t really ready.

The rest of them came out okay for the most part though LOL.

Well, I have some chores to do, some puppies that want to go out, and I have a date.. WITH THE GYM!

Lethargy does not become me.

Published May 27, 2011 | By K Leslie

For those of you that do not know, I have sleep apnea. I don’t breathe very well when I sleep. I stop breathing in my sleep. My brain kick starts my breathing back though. Before I was diagnosed, my sleep was terrible. When I had my tests done the doctor looked at the results in amazement and asked if I drove. “No,” I replied “I don’t have my licence yet.” “Thank God.” he said. Apparently at the rate I stopped breathing 8 hours of sleep a night equated to 15 minutes of quality sleep for me. Everyone was in shock. They all thought I was lazy because I would sleep for 16 hours a day, get up, go to the bathroom, get something to eat, and go back to sleep for another 12 hours. I couldn’t really do anything. I got sick constantly, I gained a TON of weight. I was just not in a good place.

After I was diagnosed, I got fitted for a breathing machine. A man came to my mothers house (this was 10 years ago) who looked like Niles Crane from the show Fraizer.

He was..interesting. He was also one of the first guys to ever make me feel pretty. “You have such big gorgeous brown eyes, you should get contacts!” If I was lighter I would have turned beet red. My mom was looking at him with murder in her eyes.

Eventually I got fitted for this machine. It took some getting used to. However, the first nights sleep I had was the best sleep I’d had in a long long time. So much so, that the next day I stayed up for 24 hours. I was alert and fully competent. It was amazing.

As I write this, I am feeling those sluggish undertones that I used to feel pre-machine. I am exhausted, unfocused, and generally blah. My equipment (mask, tube, filter, and water cannister) needs to be switched out. The company (who I will not name on this blog) who used to be my medical supply people SUCK. They don’t bill correctly, I can’t get a straight answer from them, and I get a complete runaround. I am trying to switch to a new medical supplier, but I need the documentation that the old company has. I have called them 3 times. 3 times they have told me they will send the information to my physician. No bueno. Finally I have gone around them. I contacted the hospital I had my last sleep study done at, and supposedly they have sent the information to my physician (All my information is in Kokomo, and they will not send your information to you without a medical records request and I am not making a trip to Kokomo for just one reason. Total waste of gas). So now I am trying to get a hold of my Doctor. Madness.

One of my more recent goals in my natural hair journey is to do a front cornrow. Kind of a side swept cornrow across the front of my head. I can braid, but not very well. I learned on a barbie doll. I came across this tutorial though: http://cornrows.co.uk/howto/howtobraidcornrowsx.html

I thought it would work. I am kind of odd. If I can visualize myself doing something, I can usually do it. using this tutorial, I can visualize myself cornrowing. So yesterday I co-washed and detangled my hair, parted it, and proceeded to try…

and try…

I was frustrated, and incredibly sleepy. I gave up and ended up sleeping most of my day away. It was horrid. I am normally an incredibly patient person, but the lethargy, lack of energy, and sheer exhaustion have made me this crabby annoyed short tempered person. I need to get this fixed, and soon.