In Response to Southern Girl...

What? My words of wisdom aren't enough for you???

Pictures? You need pictures?!?

Hmph!

(JK) Southern Girl called me out because I just put up two posts after a three month absence and I have no pictures.

Y'all know I was never the best at posting pictures in timely fashion - words I have in abundance... Pictures, not so much... and that is precisely why I haven't posted in soooo long.

I have about 12 posts sitting in draft right now and most of them require pictorial accompaniment but I haven't had time to take pictures or upload the ones I have taken.

Plus, when I started my business I bought a new laptop, a new camera, and a new phone.

So I've had a huge learning curve on all this new stuff and some pics are on my desktop, some pics are on my phone, some pics are on one laptop, some pics are on the other.

I was pretty slack on posting pictures anyway, but now I am especially challenged and I have less time to boot!

Like Southern Girl, my smallest locks are also at the crown. I had them installed that way for fullness too. I refer to that area affectionately as 'the thicket'.

In the beginning it was my least favorite area to retighten. It was most prone to tangling and married locks, which I refer to (and not affectionately) as unholy unions.

However, once I realized that there was no reason I had to wait 4 weeks or 6 weeks or any set amount of time to retighten, everything changed.

I retighten that area as needed. That means very often. That area - the thicket - probably accounts for about a third of my locks - so we're talking about 100 or so. I retighten 5 to 10 locks every 2 - 3 days. Sometimes I'll go in and do all of them, then I won't need to go back again for 2 - 3 weeks.

But my hair grows fast enough that I do have enough growth in that time to merit another tightening. In fact, I really need to do it that often to stay on top of it.

Unlike my consultant, I can't see what I'm doing and I have to work entirely by feel and I don't really like bothering with clips, so I never separate my parts properly. I also rely on feel to make sure I'm staying within the established grid pattern.

So it is especially important that I don't let the thicket get out of hand. I try to keep the passes with the tool to a minimum: 3 - 4 (and sometimes 6) loops through the base of the lock as opposed to the 6 - 10 I would face at 6 weeks.

Yep...more words and still no pictures.

Lock-Splitting

The LWC strikes again....

I've had in mind to do a post on my own lock-splitting experience for about three months now, but I have been too busy. I was thinking about it again this morning, and then I found myself at Amba's blog where she recently wrote about it.

Doesn't that happen ALL the time in the blogosphere?

I was the first one to insist that I didn't want micro and mini locks, and I still don't want them all over my head. (Since I have started self-tightening, I have been especially happy with my decision to get larger than standard sisterlocks.)

However, I find that small locks have their place. I've started about twenty locks around the edges of my hairline since my initial locking and all of them are small because there just wasn't a lot of hair available, but it was more than I wanted to leave loose.

And I like them, they're fine. They are more of a pain to retighten than the larger ones, but since there are only a relatively few, I can manage it.

I split six of the my locks around the time of my one year anniversary - three on each side of my head.

The hair at my temples is really fine and soft, so I had Phyllis make those locks the size I wanted them to stay - medium.

The locks behind my ear didn't swell. They are almost the same size they always were. The locks in front of my ears did.

They got much thicker than what I wanted. It was okay when I wore my hair down, but I didn't like the look when I wore it pulled back or up, which I do a lot! Daily.

So I took them down. It wasn't that much of an ordeal, a little time-consuming, but not a terrible experience over all.

I had my consultant make each lock into two and they are micro-mini now, but I know they will be just right a year from now.

I don't foresee that I will need to split any more, but it was nice to know that it wasn't a negative experience or a grueling process.

There are probably another 6 or 8 that I COULD split, but they're such happy healthy locks and they're in the middle where no one sees, I only feel that they are larger when I retighten, so I'll probably leave them alone.

On Perfection

You know how you feel in those first weeks and months after you've just met someone new and you feel like they're perfect?

With your rational mind, you know they aren't really perfect, but with your romantic heart, you want to believe that they are. Finally you settle on the thought that they really are perfect, if only perfect for you.

That's how I feel about my locks. If I study them up close in the mirror, I become aware of all sorts of imperfections - kinks, strays, misfits, escapees, odd sizes, uneven lengths, mini-frizzies, flyaways, a bunch here, a hole there.... on and on I could list myriad and various problems that other bloggers have complained and stressed about.

But you know what? It is okay!

I love my locks anyway and I feel like they are perfect. I really do.

I am not blind to their imperfections, but still I feel like they are perfect for me. So here I am. Still in love. At 15 months.

I Feel Like Such a Nerd

As I sit here working simultaneously on three computers (two laptops and a desktop), I feel like such a nerd....three computers, really?

When I started the business I treated myself to a sexy new (RED) Dell XPS 1330.

Now, I love the color - it is fire-engine red.





I wear red almost every day anyway because I love the way it looks, but red is also a strong part of the Showhomes brand. So I thought it would be pretty cool to be color-coordinated.

But I was also concerned about my trusty old Inspiron 6000. It turned three in March and after reading what happened to so many others between 2.5 and three years, I was kind of afraid it would just die on me.

Plus, it had gotten mind-numbingly slow. My RSS feeds would no longer update. It took 5 minutes to open any program - Word, Excel, you name it. Net-surfing was a joke. I really did need a new machine. So got myself the one I always wanted.

I liked the 6000 for the large screen, but that came with the trade-off of pretty hefty weight. It's a desktop replacement model and traveling with it is not fun!

So this time I went for smaller and lighter and I couldn't be happier.

I have yet to sync all my files and software, though. And I haven't networked everything. (That's part of the reason I feel like a nerd and not a geek. If I were more technically proficient, I would have set everything up - like - instantly.)

So, when I need to print I have to use my desktop. When I want to do anything that requires speed and mobility I use the XPS. And the 6000 is now the workhorse. I use it to listen to music, upload or download files, etc...Tasks where I can set it and forget it.

But back to my XPS. I love it for the color, but it is also a tie in to (Product)RED - the charity co-created by Bono to help combat AIDS in Africa. Find out more about it here.

Leatherheads Bonus!

Okay, so it was cooler than I thought it would be to go to the movies and see places I know from main street and the football field from a school where I used to teach. I got an unexpected rush of excitement and spontaneously grabbed the arm of my date saying, "Look! Look! That's here - in Greenville!"


Duh...it was totally obvious.


I lived in D.C. and I've been to major cities like NY, Chicago, LA, and Miami numerous times. Those cities are always in the movies and on tv, so when I see actors on location at a place where I've also stood and it's the Rockefeller Plaza or Grand Central, it ain't no thang..., but when I saw the hotel that was across the street from where I used to work in downtown (small town) Greenville - it was pretty awesome!


But that wasn't the bonus!


Whodathunk there would be a locked sister in the movie???


Not me.


There's a scene in a speakeasy with a soulful blues singer crooning, 'The Man I Love.' And who was it but Ledisi! If you don't know who she is, follow the link and check out her myspace page.



*Lest you be disappointed when and if you see the movie, she was wearing a wig in keeping with the period. And I ain't mad at her either. Because I don't believe she was hiding her heritage. She was playing a character and wearing a costume.


Her locks would have been as anachronistic as an afro and bellbottoms. Do we think Renee Zellweger wore those pincurls off the set? Probably not.


Although... I loved her costumes too. She was almost always in red/orange/rust colors - which I have more than my faair share of hanging in my closet. And the hats from that age are my favorite. If I could find them, I would wear them now - on occasion, of course, not the kind of look I would rock every day.



Anyway...that's today's $0.02.

I Love My Sisterlocks!

Have I said that lately?

Not in print. But I do! There's that one picture on the official website where the caption says: "Just when you think your Sisterlocks can't get any more fabulous, they do..."

That's how I feel about mine every day! I should post a few pictures, but you know...first I have to take them, then I have to edit them, then I have to upload them, and it's all too much....

Did I tell y'all I'se gon' be own tv??? (I love the way some southerners pronounce on, which I say 'awn', as 'own' - but anyway, I digress...)

While at the trade show a month ago - yes, that was already a month ago! - I made a contact with one of the local news stations. A representative was intrigued by the Showhomes concept and she passed my story along to one of the reporters. She was equally excited and wants to shoot a story that will air during May sweeps. That's publicity that I couldn't buy.

However, preparations for it are really making me hustle. Plus, I was still working my other job part-time for the regular paycheck. (Showhomes offers homeowners the option to pay for our services at closing, and, yeah, most people take the option to defer payment given the chance...so I'm very busy working, but I have yet to actually get paid....)

But I just got to the point where the part-time job was hindering the growth of my business. It was really not worth it. The money I was earning working the job was actually costing me due to lost opportunities to close deals and meet with potential clients and partners.

Just from the stand point of scheduling, it was getting to be not just inconvenient, but actually detrimental. I have to schedule sales meetings and conference calls and the like to be effective at what I do and having to work around the times my employer needed me to be there was just not working - so I put in my notice a few weeks ago.

I wasn't making that much money because my hours were really low, but it was still money I could count on. It paid a few of the bills.

Now the cash flow situation in extremely critical. It is all outgoing and no incoming - Aaagh! Scary!

So, yeah, I said all that to say that I'm really trying to rustle up some business that will be good for the news piece and I'm planning to be out of town next week for a trade show. Therefore taking puctures of my hair is not really high on my list of priorities...but...every time I look in the mirror I think: Wow! They are looking lovely.

I adore this stage and this length. Of course I want them to continue growing, but I can tell this is a length I will miss.

It's a fun, flirty, flippy stage - great for the coming of spring. They are just sassy and full of life and body and swing. I get compliments on them daily and regularly from the same people who have been watching the process from the beginning and from total strangers on the street.

I still love them, but it is always interesting to have people comment on them over and over - how beautiful they are..

I'm sorry. I feel like this post is like: look at me I'm so wonderful. That's not how I mean it. At all. I just know that a lot of people who decide that they want locks hesitate because they wonder what other people will think and they fear a negative reception. There are also blogs I've read and people I've spoken with who have gotten nothing but negative comments from their friends, family and co-workers.

I do get the occasional ignorant statement or question, but, by and large my entire locking experience has been and continues to be very positive, and that's why I wanted to write about it.

This post is not to say: look at me! I'm so beautiful and special and talented....Don't you wish you had it going on like I do?

It's to let others know that positive feedback is out there. A completely positive experience is possible.

I feel like this: You know how some of your friends (or some of you) had difficult pregnancies, but then some women have trouble-free preganancies and quick and easy deliveries? And the same thing happens with relationships. Some of us have all sorts of drama over and over - and not necessarily as the direct result of our own neuroses, either. And then some of us have the easiest courtships after which marriage immediately follows....And we're happy!

I've never been the type to be jealous of other people's successes. I take this view: If she can do it or it worked out well for her, then that means there's hope for me. Or alternatively, in situations where my personal struggles were unavoidable, I have thought: At least someone is having an easy time of it - good for them!

And that's how I feel about my Sisterlocks.

I've read other people's blogs where they had drama from the start - problems necessitating takedowns and issues with bunching or dandruff or tenderheadedness and consultant woes and family opposition, a constant stream of rude comments and questions and all manner of other troubles - none of which were ever in my personal experience.

I just want people to know that it is an easy and painless transition for some of us. I don't think it's due to anything special about me. I am not highlighting myself in any way. I just want other women to know that sometimes it is all good - through and through.

I started my locks a year ago and I have never had any major problems (quite a few minor ones, but none my consultant and I couldn't handle). I have no regrets. I love my Sisterlocks and I know they do look good because I get so much positive feedback from others.

'Cause, you know, sometimes we make a choice and we're just like: this is what I have decided to do and I don't care what others think!

And that's the mindset I had when I started my Sisterlocks - which is all the more reason I really appreciate the positive feeback that I get and that it comes to me on such a regular basis. After all, I expected to love them, but I was mentally and emotionally prepared for the people around me not to.

I had beautiful straight hair and beautiful curly hair - good hair (if I do say so myself! ;-) so I was fully prepared for all of the 'why did you do that to your pretty hair?'-type comments. And other random ignorance. But it didn't happen - not that it never happened, but not nearly as
much as I anticipated it might and prepared myself for.

I wondered about my job interviews and my business introductions, etc. No negative experiences so far, and only people who have commented on how much they like my look.

So, I'm sharing my good news and my good experiences and passing along news of the compliments so that others know that it is good and pleasant for some of us.

I have been happy with my Sisterlocks every day since I got them.

Leatherheads (0% about my hair)

Now... much as I love movies, I'm not normally one to be star struck. I've seen several fairly famous celebrities (actors, musicians, dancers) up close and personal (read: steps away at restaurants, hotels, and on the street).




I'm not really one to name drop (LL Cool J, John Legend, Morris Chestnut, Savion Glover....the list goes on). But I think it's pretty cool that the movie, Leatherheads, starring George Clooney and Renee Zellweger was shot extensively in and around Greenville, SC - my current (adopted) hometown.


Filming began in February 2007 and there were daily reports in the newspaper and on television about sightings of the very famous, award-winning Clooney and Zellweger, as well as the less famous but very recognizable John Krasinki (Jim Halpert on 'The Office'). Many Greenville natives had the chance to be extras and the buzz went on for weeks.


I adore the classic pairings from movies of bygone eras: Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Rock Hudson and Doris Day - to name a few. Not only was their chemistry great, but the dialogue was crisp, fast-paced, and witty. (His Girl Friday is one of my all-time favorites!)

Leatherheads is set in 1925 and early reviews say it is reminiscent of screwball comedies from the 30's. That description is more of a reason for me to look forward to its release with keen anticipation than the star power or the chance to see local landmarks featured on the big screen.

George and Renee were back in town for a few days this week visiting fans and extras and promoting the film which opens nationwide next Friday, April 4th. Many special events are planned around town for the premiere.

My New Blog!

As if I need another one, right?

But this one is actually job-related. So, I kind of have to maintain it on a regular basis (unlike the weight loss and travel blogs.)

Blogging us huge in real estate and home staging, so earlier today I created a profile on Active Rain Real Estate Network. You will find a link to my Active Rain profile to the right, just below my picture.

For those of you who are interested in following my business news and success stories, please be advised that they will be posted on that blog.

Sisterlocks Photo Shoot!

I am simultaneously excited and disappointed!

What better way to celebrate my first anniversary than to have a professional photo shoot, right?

I was just visiting the Official Sisterlocks Homepage to see what was new when I saw that there are going to be professional photo shoots around the country and one is this weekend in Atlanta!

I tried and tried to figure out how I could make it, but I have previous commitments that will not allow me to attend....Darn!

There's another one scheduled in Baltimore in June, so perhaps I can make that one. My brother lives in Maryland and I've been needing a reason to visit him and the rest of the family up north. I'm going to see if they would come to Charlotte as well. That would be awesome!

Imagine: we could each have photo shoots and then gather for dinner afterwards. It would be a great thing to plan our next gathering around.

Speaking of which...I know, I know...I have to post pics of the last Sisterlocks Gathering.

I was running around like a chicken with her head cut off trying to coordinate my trade show. I am happy to report that it went off without a hitch (that anyone else was aware of) and I will be posting about that as well.

I don't have lock envy too often because I love my own locks so well, but I must admit that I am a little jealous of the bloggers who have family members available to take pictures of them and their locks.

I do get tired of taking my own (holding my arm out, propping the camera on boxes, setting the timer - it gets old and there's only so creative I can get). I'm sure I'm not the only one! And y'all know I always try to pass info on, so for anyone who is interested in having a professional photo shoot done, check out this link: Sisterlocks Photo Shoot.