Almost Four Months

A week or two from four months, yah!!! My regime I am starting to get a handle on it, I think. I still have a lot of balls on the ends of my hair and a lot of stringy loose hair. I am wondering if that is hair that is loose from when I took apart my mature locs. You know hair that should have shed but was still attached because it was locked. I am thinking about cutting them; then I change my mind. So the indecision is keeping them in tack for now.


This is a pic of the locs in the front before my re tightening. I put the paper in front of my face so you can see the actual locs. The loc all the way on the right is one that I did not feel like taking a loose. It was pretty small compared to my old set. Although when I see it against the rest of these little ones, I probably should take it down, we will see.

Well, I did my re tightening about the first weekend of this month. It did take me a day to re tighten and band. I had posted earlier that I was having a time with slippage, well that is because I forgot the first rule banding. Please do not ask me why I forgot, I guess it is a prime example of a brain cramp, OK I just got this from one of my work contacts. Love it. So when I remembered, I started banding instead of going a month without shampooing my hair, I have been shampooing every two or three weeks. My schedule is interesting these days and some of it is just laziness. This banding takes time, it is worth it because then there are just a few that need additional attention that is mainly at the front. There was a discussion on Nappturality a few months ago about re tightening before or after shampooing. I think because I am still in the early stages of this set I have to band because if I do not a lot of them will come apart. So for me right now interlocking, banding and then shampooing is working well. Once I can stop banding then I will revisit this.
Here are a few more pics, I am working with my new mini cam but I probably should have invested in a camera. Then I could do video's. Maybe next year. Anyway, I tried to get some shots of the back of my hair, but it is hard snapping pics with my back to the computer. OK, I will work it out, I probably will have to get someone to help me. LOL




Don't you think this gray is cool. I am mostly salt & pepper except in the very front, which is almost white. I guess it is a good think I am starting this set before I am totally white. I will try to record what is going on with these front white ones. I am sure they are going to cause me the most information while they settle into locing. :-)




As you can see I am still trying to get some clear rear shots. I will also try to get someone to take a close up shot of my rear soon.

Well until next time, may GOD continue to shine HIS face on you. May you know the height, the depth & the width of the love of JESUS CHRIST. HE who loves you and gave HIS life for you.

My Best Friend & Warrior in the Faith

Greetings All,

I finally got some pictures of my best friend, Karen. She is a wonderful person, friend, mother & daughter. A loving and considerate person with her mind made up for Jesus Christ. We have been and gone thru a lot these 7 years. I thank GOD for her and am honored that she is my friend. We started locking her hair I guess 5 years ago. I really do not like that I did not journalize her journey properly. We started it on a Mother's day weekend let's say 5 years ago. We were chilling at my place and she asked if I would start her locs. She had recently went from a perm to a TWA. Her hair was growing and she asked me to start them. I told her all I knew how to do is a braid or plait and since we had never talked about it before, her locking, I did not think she was serious. She assured me she was and I started her locks that day. I do have a very small amounts of pics when we were fooling around with my mini cam. Let's see what I can find.

These were taken looks like Nov 2007. We were resting after a weekend of ministry & church service on a Sunday evening.

I know I have a picture of her after inital install but I can not find it. She probably does not want me to. :-) Ok, I found one of them. It took me a couple of days but here it is. Not as in focus as I would like, but here it is. The date of this photo is 25 Jun 05. Her locs may only be 4 years old.


I say we when talking about Karen's journey because she is/was a licensed beautician for over 20 years. What happened is I installed and then any she felt were too large she resized. ;-) It was perfect, she resized and I fussed at her and left her work alone.

In the meantime, I shared all that I know/knew with her and she shared what she knows with me. I think we did a great job. When I started interlocking my own locs about the time I started Karen's I was so new to it that I did not want to mess her's up, but given her hair type I probably should have interlocked her's from the start. Her hair type is more like the s curly shape, some thin and all soft. To me, she is one of those people who should have never started perming but with my mind set now, none of us ever should have. Sorry digressed again. I banded her hair the first few months when I shampooed it. Once she started locking I stopped the band braiding. She wanted to see her scalp and never wanted that wild and wooly look that I like so I did as she asked and I did my version of the palm roll on her locs. I call it my version because I never could get my mind to cooperate with my hands to palm roll. So I used a lock gel applied to the unlocked root and twisted all the hair into the loc. Simple and it worked. I am thinking that the pics above she was two years into her loc journey.

Today she is still happy and locked, we have gone thru some hair issues but she has intro some hair vitamins & other things into her diet and the locks are healthy again.

Karen helped me restart my second set of locs, as stated before. Instead of me restarting her set I have taken her though a lot of clarifying shampoos & I have even used dawn dish detergent on her hair. ACV rinses everything I know. I even tried the Olgin soap on Karen's locs it does absolutely nothing but on mine it works, not sure why but different stroks for different folks. I am sincere about get all the dirt out of our locs, her's & mine. The two pics above are Karen just yesterday 16 Oct 09, I shampooed her hair with clarifying shampoo and reintroduced a lot of oil on her scalp because the clarifying is very drying on her scalp. I interlocked only a few because I could not go a full 4 point turn on most. I knoted a few locs with thin spots and then she went to the mirror in the bathroom for her usual inspection and said Ro we need to trim the ends. She said we cut some of her locs I guess last year, my shifting memory again. Her locs had a rounded look to them kind of like a smile ) it was cute. She said trim I asked what shape she said straight I pointed to a particular spot and lined it with me finger she said yes. I picked up the scissors and started trimming. I think I missed two that I did not see until we saw this picture. In either case we were both satisfied with the trim. We figured we trimed about 2 inches. Her locs are lovely aren't they!

Well I am out for now.

Many blessings & much Agape!

Army Days

I served in the military, the US Army back in the 1970's. I was recently contacted by one of my old Army buddies. I could not believe it. I am still smiling and it is over a week ago when he contacted me.


I have decided to share when things touch me, ie the name of the blog. The thoughts that have gone thru my mind are many. My first thought was one of nastalgia. I know there are a lot of gray hairs on this head. :-) But you know, I do not feel old; older maybe but not old. My Dad & I had a conversation about this when I was still in my 40's about how it is just perspective. When I was in my 20's I thought and considered anyone in their 60's as old. The conversation made me realized 60 was not too far down the pike and I still did not feel old. Now that 60 is becoming fewer steps away than when I was 40 I really do not think of myself as old. Seasoned yes, experienced yes, many more years past me than GOD may grant me to stay, yes. I know that GOD has ordered my steps and HE continues to do just that. I am learning that HE guides and leads me in the way that I am to go in HIM. So yes the years have come and gone but one beautiful thing is constant, GOD rules & reigns in our lives if we let HIM. I pray you will let HIM reign in you today. I know that when we trust HIM and put our whole life in HIS hands HE will get the glory out of our lives. Oh, I hope you know we are not on this earth for ourselves. We are here to bring GOD glory.


Well, once I got over my surprise at being contacted by my old Army buddy, I started pulling out the photo book. Oh yeah! I looked at those old photos, wow, we were really young. Beside our section Sargents I have to check on this, I think I was older than many of my friends. I joined when I was 20 and the rest of my friends were 18 and up. I repeat we were really young. I see it in the faces of all those pictures, I did not have enough sense to add names to. Beside the gray hair I have shifting memory. I will be so glad when the LORD helps me out with this one. I am cool with the gray, the shifting memory not sure yet.

Well until next time!

Be Bless in GOD. Jesus is the way, the truth & the light!
Much Agape!

My Activities

It was my privilege to speak to the women at the prision that we visit twice monthly here in TX. My scripture came from John 1:1-5
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The Word HE is JESUS HE is GOD, HE was in the beginning. So many times we rightly say and know that JESUS is our saviour, HE is our elder brother, HE is our friend. Maybe because we say these familiar terms we get easy with HIM and we forget that HE is GOD. HE is GOD as the scripture above says all things were made through HIM and without HIM nothing was made that was made. Nothing. HE is the Creator GOD that should do something in us. That should move us to a position of reverential respect, fear and awe at the mention of HIS name. HE is GOD. When I think of that, GOD came and dwelt among us for a season. GOD is acquainted with our sorrows and understands and knows us. GOD who loved us so much that HE lived a perfect life and then suffered the death of the cross to die for our sins. Yes HE died for us but on the third day HE arose from the dead. What a happy day! JESUS is GOD how that makes my heart tremble at the thought and joyful hope of seeing HIM one day soon.

Many Blessings & Much Agape.

New Start 2nd Set

What would cause a happy nappy dreadlocker to stop her 1st loc journey and start another one? This is just one of the questions I ask myself now on 28 July 2009. I was a happy nappy loced sister going on my merry way when I started playing with my 9 year old locs. Ok I was shy 3 months, so sue me. I must have been bored, I was talking to one of the ladies in my office she at her desk I at mine and all of a sudden I took a paper clip to one of my locs in the very back of my head. It is difficult to tell because I am very gray just not white all the way yet. I started getting all of this dirt out of my loc, I kept pulling and kept seeing lint and all kinds of unwelcome dust things coming out of my hair. I tell you I was an unhappy camper.

Now if I would have thought this thru the next part of the journey would not have been so long & hard, but a part of the journey is being you. This journey like my first started suddenly, I had an itch and I had to scratch it. It is so the way GOD made me and HE is the only one that can fix or change me. On with the story; I saw all this dirt and got it into my head to take down this older very mature set and do another set, this time I will go thinner. I had been toying around with the idea of a micro locs. So I started that evening unraveled the next one beside it with the same result. I probably should have just used clarifing shampoo or dish detergent for a month or two, but I had been unhappy with my locs for more than a few months. They felt very hard all the time and the only time they felt soft and pliable was when I put a creme conditioner in them and let them set all night. For the past few months I have been lurking on my old stomping grounds, Nappaturality, a few Yahoo sites and the older web pages like Cherie who started braidlocs & Sandy who has Sister Locs. I also looked at the SL site quite a bit and then I found on youtube a site called video locktitcian.com who also has a lovely set of SLocs. I have always loved the versatility of SL but have never wanted to invest that much money into my hair. Being real honest I have never had that much money to get them installed so I simply put the thought out of my head. Then one day my friend Karen & I were practicing with the nappy tool that I had and we discovered that a small amount of hair using the nappy tool can make micro locs that look like the brand named ones. So when I found all this stuff in my hair I had a good reason to stop and start another set. Now for many people I know, they would have done the big chop rocked a twa and waited for new growth to install what ever their heart desired. Not so with me, it seems I love doing things the hard way. In actuallity, I could not have chosen a harder way to transition; I could not have cooked up a harder way to install a new set of locs. But yes I found and took the absolute hardest road and it took two months and a lot of bad hair weeks to accomplish my goal. You ask why? All this just to use the hair that was already on my head.

With all the different sites already out here this one probably is not needed, but I really do not mind documenting my second loc journey. It is very interesting being me, I know GOD must laugh at me most of the time, I even shake my head. Here goes one woman’s story on locking micro latched locs.

I am really into natural hair and for me locs are perfect. Many people have stopped and started another set; most because they wanted to have loose hair for a time. Loose hair does not do it for me though, for me it is very labor intense. I enjoy locs because there is no day to day labor. Most time you can shake and go, if you spritz or put it up in a pony tail using your hair or a scarf rubber band or whatever total time is 5 to 10 minutes top. So to me locs are not so very labor intense on a daily basis. Now when you have to do maintance as in shampooing and retightening that can use up some time but it is just that and you are normally good to go for a 4 to 6 weeks on retightening and shampooing/clarifying twice a month in the winter and as much as you like in the summer.

For the last 4 years I have been interlocking with my fingers. Now that I know the correct way (I found the youtube of Nubian Princess, she rocks), I can not remember what I was doing. I probably was just going from north to south just ensuring that I was not going thru the same whole twice. Nubian Princess explained and gave great demonstrations on the 4 point interlocking method. She uses the nappy tool and as soon as I saw her youtube I googled and ordered my own. It is incredible how much more information is out here now as opposed to when I did my first set way back in 2000. So I ordered and had one delivered to me. I had been using it on my BB’s (best/ buddy-friend) hair. Her texture is softer than mine and it helped to really get close to her scalp and I do not have to retighten her as much, when I changed her from palm rolling to finger locking. I or should I say we, started her locs about 4 or 5 years ago, I did not document her journey I should have. Her locs are gorgeous and I will try to post a few pics of her now with her locs past her shoulders.

Back to the initial take down, when I took the two down I had about an index finger length of hair when I streched it. I continued to reason with myself, my locs were long, heavy and hot. Also this may not be the hottest it has been in Austin, but it sure feels like it. We started getting 90+ in May. The method I decided on was to undo and redo. I know that parting can be important, but what I found out with my first set is once you get length your locs start to make there own parts. They may not be straight parts but it is ok, I am doing micro locs my version. After watching the video locktician on youtube I knew I wanted thinner locs. I wanted them thinner and I am learning that wonderful saying is true, less is better. So my new idea, thinner locs, less product and monthly clarifying shampoos with ACV rinses. So with no earthly idea on how to take these locs down I started on the back row on 25 May 2009. I started with the paper clip, I graduated to needles. My thumbs are so glad I moved on from that instrument of pain, I think I made callous in my thumbs. Oh, my BB/F and warrior in the faith who stuck this out with me her name is Karen. I know she loves me because she used this needle idea and got stuck herself, when she drew blood she drew the line. I don’t blame her, she relegated herself to install until I figured something else out. Then I borrowed a knitting needle. Ok, for all of you out there laughing at me, I was desperate and I knew I needed something with some weight on it. It worked but it was just too big. Then I saw this Sister on youtube demonstrating how to take down locs. Ok, I was taking down hair that came to the middle of my back and I was doing this dry and ending up with not much hair left. At this point I should have started cutting but no that idea did not come to later, I was not sick of it yet. This sister suggested a product of heavy unlock crème, and she demonstrated by fixing one of her two headed dragon locs. She got good results and she had minimal hair loss. She also used a pick of some sort. Fast forward, so what I did was looked in my closet to where I have many relics of my past and found a box full of old jewelry and combs. One of the combs was blue on the top with metal picks on the bottom. I got some very heavy conditioner with shea butter in it, it smells great. I can not believe I did not use the whole jar, just most of it. I put it on the loc full strength and then used the metal part of the comb or pick to take them a loose. I lathered a loc with the conditioner and started taking a loc apart one at a time. It took me about 1 ½ hours to take down one loc. I watched tv and took down locs. This helped but then I discovered if I made a cup of water added some oil to it and gave the loc a health drink, when I got closer to the end or closer to the scalp it became easier to take the locs apart. This procedure was a work in process I added each step after working thru the previous step. This total process possessed me, literally I was always up in my head. I was going to work and as soon as I got home, grabbed some food and went to working on my head. I would stay up most nights until 11 or midnight. On Friday’s I really lost my mind and a few of them I stayed up until 3 am. One Friday I stayed up all night. The problem mainly is I am just slow. I tried to be faster you would think that I would have gotten faster but I did not. It took the whole two months to get to this point. Karen, was so valuable, she could not be with me all the time but whenever there was a weekend or a few extra hours, she would come over my house or I would go over to hers. Once I had a good routine down and stopped drawing her blood, she was faster than I was and the last weekend came when she & I had come together to take apart the top and final long locs. I know she was as happy as I was to see an end in sight. We had hair all over my house that was not a pretty sight. My place was a dust bowl because there was no time for cleaning and no sense while I was still working on my new project. It was great that I live alone so no one else had to see my dustbowl. When I realized that I was not keeping that much in length I started cutting the locs from mid to just below shoulder. With the last push to be through with it we cut them shorter to the neck. I was officially sick of the whole process. I was sick of the process of unlocking hair and I will never ever do it again though I think I worked out a pretty good method. I had started getting tired of it when I was 5 weeks into the process but I was too far into it to stop. Talk about obsession, wow, if ever I want to start another set I promise you & myself twa here I come.

I am so happy to be on this side of this self imposed drama that I do not even mind the maintenance because that has it’s own issues. As you can see, I kept some of my locs. I was pretty tired of hair and just wanted to be finished, so I walked around like this for a few weeks until I could get up the strenth to do one final push. Beside being weary I found if they were pretty thin already it was not worth the time to take them down. The reason I know is of course I did take some down. What I did was when I took down one loc, I would remake two or three depending on the size of the loc. When I took down a smaller loc invested all that time and effort only to find enough hair for 1 loc, I would get upset at myself for wasting time. By the time I had 90% done, I was not feeling taking down thin ones so I just cut them the length of the other newly formed locs and was officially done with the framing of my newly formed micro locs.

Well this new set is finally finished here comes the day to day stuff. I hope I will handle it well. I discovered that when I shampooed my locs the shorter micro’s were unraveling themselves from the root. So I have to contend with interlocking these unraveling micros. But that is what happens when you are a baby locker no matter what your method of locing. I have thought about it and am wondering is this the slippage that others have been speaking about. I read on Nappturality that it is this unraveling that is called slippage. So after shampooing and finding all this undone hair, I retightened and then I put a knot at the middle or end of each loc. I am not sure that this worked because I found quite a bit of shedding hair. It is like my when I run my fingers thru my locs there are quite a few loose hair tangling themselves around each other.

It is now 26 August 09 a month old in a few days and they are happy. I was so tired of undoing & redoing hair that I left about a dozen or more older locs intake. I think my arms were tired, so over the last two weeks I have taken down about 5 or 6 of the already locked locs. I have formed new locs from this hair and moved on. I may leave the last 6 or not, if I leave them I may cut them a few inches shorter than they are to give my hair more of a uniformed shape, if that makes sense.

I did my first clarifying shampoo this past weekend. I read a very informative post on Nappturality by a very clear thinking young lady by the handle of Natural Kink. I am a store or internet purchaser, so when she said that Suave clarifier was a bit too harsh and I have a giant size clarifier shampoo in my cabinet. I decided that I would simply dilute the clarifier, which is what I did. I shampooed once with the clarifier and once with a natural bar soap I have been using, rinsed extremely well. Once my hair was not wringing wet I applied a very heavy oil that a young lady at my church has been producing. She has discontinued producing the oil but it works for my hair and I was going to tell her she had a loyal customer. So all I can do is buy a few more from her put them away for when I run out. The oil is thick and my hair loves it. I rubbed it in the length of the locs & the ends real good and started latching. I have finger latched for so long that I am better at it than I am with using the tool. I do use the tool when I am closer to the roots because my big finger can not get in there like it needs to.

It is 26 Sep 09, I have not shampooed my hair for a month. I am thinking about not doing it for another month. I let my hair get wet each morning when I shower. I made a honey, olive oil, tea tree oil, water and citrus eo. Every other day I spritz my scalp & hair in the morning. This is helping my ends to lock a lot faster than my first set. Now frizz is everywhere but I do not care because I know it will settle down when it gets ready. So any picture I take now will be frizzy and to me you really can not tell what is going on. A lot of little pieces of hair with little balls and all hanging down. This is very interesting, it seems like some of the knots I placed on the ends moved down to the end of the loc and either stayed in the loc or is hanging down so when I am playing or interlocking my locs little pieces of hair is in my hands. Yes playing, with these softer locs I can not keep my hands out of them. I pat them or I fluff them by shaking them. I do love this and I am enjoying the journey.


Much peace & agape.

New Arrival

Well, Hello all!!!

I decided to take the plunge and start this blog. Many have started one and I decided to jump in also. I called this my world so that I can post almost anything that I like. I do not have a video camera so this will just be me writing until I get a better handle on my electronics.

Well the start of this blog will be about natural hair and of course mine in particular. Although these days there are hundreds if not thousands of natural hair sites, blogs & journals. I am just one in thousands, when I wrote my first journal as a web site it was very needed. It was just 9 years ago and now there are nappy men & women all around the world making their presence know on the web. It is so interesting how something like hair or the non ability to embrace our nappy tresses would and does cause so much drama.

Many things strike me as funny or interesting, I saw on the Tyra Banks show a clip on nappy hair. It was aired on 5/12/09 titled Good Hair. I will see if I can find the link later. I taped the show because I was at work. What I saw on the show gave me great uneasiness. I saw young babies getting perms in their hair. Ok to me anyone below 10 is a baby to me. I did not get a perm in my hair until I was in my teens and then I used the perm as a way to have a curly afro if that makes any sense. I only got one every 3 or 4 months but that was well over 25 years ago. My where have the years gone? Digressed sorry. Banks show, it was disturbing how still in 2009 people are still unwilling to love who they are naturally. I suppose that is what makes the world go round each of us finding our own way in whatever way we can. For me that way is accepting myself the way GOD has made me. It is also and more importantly to know GOD, to serve HIM, to honor HIM and to love HIM. HE first loved me and HE loved me so much that HE came to earth to die for me, so you see I owe HIM everything.

Here is a preview of how this blog will go; these are my interests and I am as you will read about me in future posts. I hope to meet many new and some old friends in this forum.

Many blessings and much Agape.