I haven’t talked about my natural hair journey in a while. It’s still going. I’m still learning what works best for my hair and what doesn’t. I will decide that I’m not going to straighten my hair for a while only to get bored of my ‘fro and resort to the flatiron a few weeks later. For now, I resolve to not straighten my hair for most of the summer.

Last Saturday, I attend a natural hair meet up for the first time. It was held that afternoon at a popular restaurant, The Spot of Tea (everything is good there). I initially found out about the group while browsing Meetup.com. There I came across the group for naturals in my area, founded by Tanene Jackson, a local hair stylist. Thing is, when I first went to my old hair dresser, asking her for tips on caring for my newly natural teeny weeny afro (TWA), she gave me Tanene’s number. That was almost two years ago, and I never followed up.

A few months ago, I picked up a flyer featuring community activities held at my old high school, and there was a class called Natural Hair 101, taught by none other than this same Tanene. I couldn’t arrange my schedule to attend that class either, but still, I thought it was pretty cool that this person’s name kept popping up, particularly in association with natural hair.

So, I signed up for the local natural hair group on Meetup and waited for notification of the next get-together. The first one I missed, but I had signed up my older sister and hair-inspiration to attend with me. The next meetup that came around, Crystal was the one that signed me and my mom up as her +2.

Saturday rolled around, and I had forgotten all about the meet until Crystal reminded me a few hours before. So, I drag up the will to get ready and go. My hair was currently flat-ironed, and I had really wanted to rock a nice twist-out for my first meet, but whatever. As I we approached the restaurant, we saw a girl walking down the street with her hair pulled back in a puffed. My mom wondered out loud if maybe the girl was going to the meetup, and my sister and I were like, “Nah.” Of course, we get to the restaurant, and the same girl is sitting at the table. I found out she’s from St. Kitts, here attending university because the University of South Alabama (my alma mater) has this amazing meteorology program that no one ever talks about.

Long story a little shorter, I got to meet some really nice naturalistas, including the elusive Tanene. She was very warm and personable and I would really like to visit her salon soon. (I usually like to take pictures at this sort of thing, but I felt wasn’t comfortable taking photos of complete strangers in such an intimate setting. Next time though…) Tanene told us about the Natural Hair and Wellness Expo that she was hosting next month on June 18. I will definitely try to attend. However, I literally just signed up for Art as Business: Using Social Media to Promote the Arts which happens to be the same day, but the times overlap so I will be able to attend the Natural Hair Expo later in the day.

I’m going to have to get some pieces together to bring to the seminar. I just ordered a new set of Moo cards that will be in next week. They’re regular size this time rather than the mini cards that I usually order. I can’t wait to see them. I just received the card holder in the mail today and it’s so great. I was delighted simply by the way it was packaged, not to mention what was actually inside.

A great many things occurred this past month:
• I got a tumblr account.
• My sister got married.
• I participated in NaNoWriMo for the second year. I didn’t win, but it was fun.
• I’m 27 now.

That last bullet is a doozy. As I was updating my age on the various profiles I have online, I was blindsided by an overwhelming feeling of “oh my God.” That’s the best approximation I can give to it. I am in my late twenties now and I believe a result of this is the sudden grown-up feeling I have when thinking about doing certain things, like washing dishes, cleaning my room, applying for jobs and seriously considering learning how to cook whole meals rather than random dishes like rice, box-macaroni and cheese or scrambled eggs.

11.02.2009 . shopping

Earrings from Lotus Boutique

11.03.2009 . around the house

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For the past few years, the weekend before the start of the fall semester has been designated for a Tax-Free holiday, where no sales tax is charged on purchasing made. Some stores have exceptions, putting say $100 limit on the amount one can purchase and still not be charged sales tax. The past 2 years this date has fallen between my pay days and at the beginning of the month, where either I’ve just paid bills or more are due.

This year, thankfully, that isn’t the case, and so I decided to scope the commercial center and see what was available. I’ve slowly been building up my wardrobe from ill-fitting jeans and oversized shirts to better-fitting jeans and cute and well-fitting tops that better express my quirky personality. After losing all that weight, many of my clothes no longer fit. Some items are out of style, but I’ve also been trying to acquire things more appropriate for my age (gah! 27 next b-day, late twenties, OH NOEZ).

I’m a late-bloomer in a lot of things, and finding my style seems to be one of them. What Not To Wear is one of my favorite television shows. Stacy and Clinton provide truly practical tips for dressing to fit “the body you have right now” so that you can look your best at whatever stage of life you’re in. If you’ve gained weight, and you know you’re not going to lose it anytime soon, suck it up and buy and bigger size, because you only look fatter wearing too-small clothes. I know this. Conversely, the same thing works if you lose weight. I’ve never hated shopping, but I guess it’s just a frustrating experience when you don’t actually know what looks good on you, or what you like is too expensive, or OMG, this “dress” is really cute up top, but are they sure this isn’t mislabeled, like, it’s having an identity crisis where it was born a shirt but really wants to be a dress?

However it does pay off to take the time to find things that look nice and actually TRY THINGS ON. I finally figured out what size I actually am, but all designers don’t fit the same, so a cute party dress by Max Izaria in a size 6 (small) fits great, a small sweater from Old Navy it too small.

It’s an insane rush to be this excited about buying clothes for the first time, like, ever in my life. Seriously, when I got to work after my mini-spree, I was all a-twitter to my co-worker, Dave, about the experience. Thankfully, he’s nice enough to humor me. I think he just find my kid-genius antics amusing. Incidentally, if possible, I would marry this online store: ModCloth.com. I tweeted about some of my longings while browsing their selection yesterday.

The point? Oh yes. I was originally going to begin this entry talking about how the store XXI gives me the barely controllable urge to leap from the nearest window whenever I cross its threshold. They do, however, have very cute clothes. And the store is only one story. There’s just SO MUCH STUFF. There’s no discernible (to me, at least) rhyme or reason to how they’ve organized the selection, except that the really dressy stuff is on one room and all the Sale and Clearance stuff crammed on racks and walls in another.

TL;DR version: I bought some really cute clothes. I dress from a boutique called Hourglass and a cream colored sweater and deep blue-green woven shirt from Forever 21.

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In other news, I applied for a job. I hope something comes of it.

So, my 2yr mobile phone plan is finally up, and it turns out I’m eligible to get an iPhone as a upgrade. It’s an extremely enticing offer, since I reasoned that I’d just stay content with my current phone, mostly due to my present economic situation. However, I stand to get a pretty good tax return, so the option of iPhone just became more viable.

But, geez, I’m already looking to see if I can somehow get a MacBook Pro. It’s always important to count the cost of things, though. I already have an insane phone bill for how little I actually talk on it. I currently have 4,999 roll-over minutes, 480 of which expire in the next few days. Yeah.

I have a new favorite show: The Big Bang Theory. I saw one episode and the geek in me melted in squee.

Behold the awesomeness that is Sheldon Cooper:

That being said, Season 1 of the show is currently in my shopping cart on Amazon.com. :)

I also like The Mentalist quite a bit. I started watching it because I like Simon Baker (Something New). I watched the first two episodes of Dollhouse. The first ep was blah, the second still eh, but a bit more interesting. I’m not sold on Eliza Dushku’s performance. She seems really cool, but I don’t find myself investing in her character like I want to fully enjoy the show. Other shows I’m enjoying are Burn Notice and Leverage. Only seen two episodes of the latter, but I really enjoyed the chemistry of the cast, especially Parker and Hardison, and the finale had me hooked.

I was awakened this morning by my older sister.

“Sharon,” she said as she entered the darkened recesses of my room. “You got a package in the mail. It was too big to fit in the mailbox.”

It took only a moment for me to register she was saying, and what I could possibly have received. It was too soon for my Old Navy order of my new checks to have arrived.

“Ooh!” I sat up quickly to meet the package in her profferred hand. A white cardboard envelope with the distinctive dA logo emblazoned on the top center. It was the calendar I had ordered from dA as a result of an email I received announcing a sale they were having on those items. I followed the link and scrolled the selection, thinking getting an art-themed wall calendar would be a good investment in my goal of becoming more organized. So, in the form of Parka Blogs, here’s what I got.

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