Come To My New Blog

For my latest updates come to my new blog: http://vnatural.wordpress.com/

Its a fresh start for me 🙂

-Jazzie

A New Blog? For More Than Just Hair

I really do like this blog and I have posted a lot of things that I can go back and check myself but I have been thinking in the back of my mind about having a new blog.  I mean the main reason behind me creating this blog was to track my hair journey and right now, theres so much more going on with my life than “just hair”. Thats the main reason I barely post here but I post on my tumblr because Im at a point where its no longer about hair and Im currently at the phase where Im done with research and I’m learning about my hair on my own instead og “googling” all the answers or asking someone instead of finding out myself. So I think I will begin working on a new blog and once I get it flowing correctly with posts.

-Jazzie

Motivation to Work out!

When you workout don’t be lazy. Go in hard and hard. Do the best that you can do but at your comfort. Remember, its your body and only you can change it. While those others are doing whats fine with them, do whats fine and good for you. Don’t be afraid to take that step.

– Jazzie

Hair Journey Update: Damage From Dye & The Past..Recap

Well its been a long time since I have updated about my hair journey and hair growth goodness I dont know where to start or where I left off so I will just start by telling what I remember and whats going on right now.

Over the months of this year I dyed my hair 3 times. The final time in May, I finally got the results I was looking for which were red. For the month on June I basically went without my Texturemenatural products so I really was not on top of moisturizing my hair like that.

Fast forward to July I finally received my texturemenatural products and began to moisturize my hair. I then noticed that the roots of my hair were healthy but the tips would not take in any moisturizer and my hair was shedding like crazy. I mean I lost A LOT of hair! I was getting ready to take photos of my hair at the time to update my blog so I began detangling it with my wide tooth comb. Let me tell you, I have NEVER had such a hard time detangling my hair in my entire LIFE and it wasn’t even as long as it originally was. Hair was falling EVERYWHERE after detangling all of my hair it was STILL TANLGLED!! So I braided it down and washed my hair with acv (Apple Cider Vinegar). (I got some of the apple cider vinegar on my face and I broke out like a motherf*cker the very next day.) After I finished with the acv I put some  leave in conditioner in my hair and the conditioner wouldn’t take to my hair either. It took to the roots but not the ends. Here is a photo of how my hair was looking.

So I went to the internet I did a little research and asked some questions. I did a little something with some tea to revive it but it did not work. At first I thought all I needed was some dusting of my ends because I hadn’t cut my hair in a looong time. But then as I began to cut my hair in sections I realized that I had dyed my hair so much that the ends had been damaged badly. The only reason I knew this because my ends were like that throughout my hair. If it were something else all of my ends would have been split or shedding so much. So after cutting my hair I began to de-tangle it again, it was simple as pie!

Unfortunately I do not have any photos of how my hair looks after the trimming but I definitely took a huge step back growth wise. I had to cut of about HALF of my hair. I went from shoulder length to mid neck length hair. Now I know that I am completely done with dying my hair. Plus the only reason I wanted to dye my hair was so that I could see how much my hair is growing and I got that. So there is no need for dying the rest of my hair. Besides by the time my hair reaches a certain length I’m pretty sure the hair that I had dyed will be gone due to me trimming my ends. So I’m not worried at all.

Right now I braiding my hair in big box braids, about 35 braids using kanekalon hair. Oh and ALSO as I was braiding my hair and sectioning it I found something out! I have more than one texture in my hair. That’s answers my question I kept to myself “Why does my hair in the middle of my head take to moisture more?” And the reason why is because its a different texture. I’m not sure what texture it is but the curls are a lot bigger than 4c. The photo I have of them really doesn’t show how curly it is…maybe when my hair grows a little longer I can show it more.

But overall I am very happy with my hair journey. Since this is just a hair journey update I wont tell about anything else I would include how I’m feeling and where my mind set is right now in another post probably for tomorrow morning.

Below are photos of ALL of my progress since November 2012. From my day after my big chop of struggling with high porosity hair to seeing growth to finding the perfect regimen for my hair and lessons learned. I can’t wait until Novermber 2013 so I can compare photos and see my growth. Even though I had to cut my hair I know its A LOT longer than what it was when I started.

-Jazzie

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http://tinyurl.com/journeytolong

New Beginnings: Hair, Life, Body & Mind

This year including from August 2012 has truly felt like a FIGHT for me. I’ve had to deal with people completely flipping the script on me just because they’re in a higher position than myself. At work, school, family members and home. On top of that I had to deal with my inner conflicts, people from the past that are toxic  popping up, trying to make friends happy while making myself happy, money issues, my online business, losing sleep, my health (weight and consuming foods) and my hair journey.

For the rest of the year I really want to spend my time on myself and discovering more about me and nurturing myself. I want to educate myself: spiritually, things about my hair, body & mindset….I just want to learn about things that are healthy for my lifestyle. I want to be healthy inside and out.

This is something that has been in the making for a looong time. Being tied up in school, stress and inner conflicts has not allowed me to truly dedicate myself to this. I’ve been planning for this very moment and even though my finances are not up to part I still WILL be going through with it. I’ve never been one to worry about money so I wont start now, God will make a way.

I really feel as though this is something I need for myself. A new start. I have to do better for myself…everything starts with me first before I can start trying to truly apply myself somewhere else.

My school work, the way my room looks and the dreams I have at night ALWAYS have reflected how I feel within. If my room is messy then that means I’m probably stressed. If I have a dream about tornadoes or the world ending or me dying, that means I’m going through changes/transitions within and I probably associate those changes with negativity at the time. If I do horrible in my school work that means I am neglecting it because I would rather apply myself somewhere else beneficial to me.

So the question is…where do I begin?

My answer to myself,”Look around, what needs to change?” Well my room of course. So I’ll start with that.

-Jazzie

Hair Journey Update: I Have NO Moisturizer For My Hair!

Its been like this for about a week now. I ran out of moisturizer and I haven’t moisturized my hair all week. I was moisturizing with my conditioner but my scalp REALLY does not like that. I really do love and care about my hair and I want it to grow and be healthy, so I dug into the little money have set aside for the bills I have and money saved for myself then I splurged it on stocking up on texturemenatural products.

You might ask why I would dig into the little money I have just to buy hair products. Well let me tell you, the area I live in really is not big on moisturizer and natural hair products. I have been looking for lemon oil for the longest time and its just not available here so I always have to result by ordering a lot of my natural hair items from online unless its shampoo or conditioner. Also I am not too keen on spending my money on these products. After my experience with Softsheen Carol’s Curl Mango, never again will I just blow my money on products. I know texturemenatural’s products very well and my hair loves it. Plus the owner of texturemenatural is closing her website and hasn’t set a date of when she will open back up so I HAD to get some products and make sure I have enough.

I am really really excited about what I ordered. I order her encore kit, of course I ordered her Auntie Cookies Moisturize (I did a review on it, you can see my before and after photos) and I ordered her hair tea. In total I spent $97 and that is only because I ordered the moisturizer and hair tea days apart from the encore kit and paid for separate shipping. If I had ordered it all together it would have been $89 but that’s alright. The encore kit was on sale days later and I wasn’t about about to let that slip.

Now I am ultra excited about the encore kit because I get to try majority of her products and I’ve never had a chance to do that. The encore kit consists of 12oz. Ayurvedic Hair and Scalp Detox, 12oz. Moisture Therapy Conditioner, 12oz. Amla & Avocado Leave-In, 8oz. Ayurvedic Hair Tea (Conditioning Leave-In, 16oz. Aunt Cookie’s MoistureCream, 8oz. Macadamia Styling Butter, 8oz. Healing Hair Butter. Im not sure what ALL of the products are used for but I will find out when I actually get them.

Besides that but I love love love love lovvvvveee how her lemon scented products smell. I am hooked on that lemongrass scent. IT IS SO DAMN REFRESHING! When my sister ordered it she wasn’t too crazy about it because she didn’t understand why the products all had a different scent to them but I loved it lol. She didn’t know how to use some of the products so she gave them to me. I knew how to use them but I just kept my mouth shut and took them lol.

I won’t say that I will do a review on it because whenever I do say it, I have intentions of doing it then LIFE just happens and I never get around to it. I will definitely take pics of it though, whether or not it will make it to my blog…I have no clue lol.

The only downfall to this is it will be probably 2 or 3 weeks before I actually receive the products. Unless I keep moisturizing m hair with conditioners it will literally be THAT long before my hair has anything in it :(. So we’ll just have to see what Im gonig to do. By the way, right now I have in braids/twists..I really do not like having weave or anything in my hair. I want my hair to breathe. So after June 29th, these babies are coming out of my hair. I will  be rocking wigs only and focus more on taking care of my hair while it is “out”.

-Jazzie

College Lige/Weight Loss Journey: School is Getting in the Way of Exercise

It’s like a ripply effect: If I don’t do my homework when I can andd decide to do it last minute I don’t have time to get proper sleep and when I dont have time to properly sleep, Im too tired to work out and when Im too tired to workout then Im too tired to even consider working out. Well thats how these past 2 days have been. I haven’t been on top of myy Statistics class like I should so I have been doing it last minute. I only have two more weeks of the course which is 8 days so Im hoping I can turn it around by then by staying on top of my work. As for my other course, Im taking American history online and I have a dick for a professor. He intentionally makes the course harder than it needs to be. Gives us 2 days to read 100 pages from 2 different books then we have a quiz and discussion. To finish based off of all of that information. I swear if he slips up once I will call the deans office within the quickness. Theres no reason to intentionally try to setup your students for failure.
So anyway Im going to try to stay on top of my statistics class even if I dont want to and see where it gets me.
-Jazzie

Insanity WorkOut Finally Uploaded!

I am proud to announce that I finally have uploaded the Insanity Workout on my DailyMotion channel. I know A LOT of people want to workout to it and I dont know if I will be doing it but I’m a thoughtful person and I couldn’t find it anywhere to watch so I uploaded it myself. Most of the files were big so I had to break them into part one and part two. Where I broke the videos apart are at the time where you “take a break” so you wont be missing anything at all or have to stop in between your workout to switch the videos. The videos have their own playlist so just click the play list and then you will see the videos that have been uploaded. Now let me just warn you, I do not know how long the videos will last. Majority of the places I went to download it either have it blacklisted or delete it within a couple of minutes but I will definitely keep uploading it until it stays.

Heres the link to my channel: http://www.dailymotion.com/journeytolong

You can thank me by signing up for Cashcrate using this link: http://www.cashcrate.com/4691457

At this website you can earn money. Last month I earned $25. This month my goal is $30.

 

-Jazzie

I Lost 10 LBS, Yay!

But it took 5 months. LOL. So I got on my sisters new scale; mind you I was going by the weight I weighed whenever I visited the doctors office but I don’t have any appointments scheduled currently. I decided to hop on my sister’s scale, something I never do and when I weighed myself it said 220.2 LBS. I said to myself,”It has got to be wrong I haven’t weighed that much naturally since High School”. I hadn’t been dieting at all or exercising so I thought it was very odd. So I weighed myself about 8 more times to see if it would change and it didn’t. So I waited for my sis to weigh herself, since she always announces how her weight. She had just came from the doctors so I knew if her weight from the scale matched what the doctors told her, her weight was then mine was accurate. So she weighed herself, announced how much she weighed and it matched! So I’m proud to announce that I am 220LBS, woot!

That was some great motivation not to mention that same day I just happened to catch on tv abc the show called,”Extreme Weight Loss” with this woman named Meredith Prince and she just so happens to live in my area! My area is hardly EVER on national tv so I said to myself,”If that isn’t God speaking to me then I don’t know what is.” After watching her motivational weight loss and seeing her lose weight in a year. She went from 314 to 155lbs in one year. What an accomplishment! Anyway Im going to take that motivation and USE IT.

I read a long time ago that the hardest part of working out is the first 3 days. Well Im past the 3 days and on my 4th day! Now the challenge is the next quote I read sometimes ago,”It takes 8 weeks for you to notice the difference in your body. 12 weeks for the world to notice.” So I have to give myself 2 months before I really start to notice a difference. I wont say what my plans are or anything but I definitely will be working out more and Im going to keep trying. I want to get down to my desired size 120LBS.

BUT the important thing to remember for me is that I am beautiful no matter what size I am. I am just making an adjustment to my life for the sake of my health and financially (when it comes to clothes, doctors visits). So in the long run if I keep it up I will be in good shape.

-Jazzie

Graduation, Exams, College, Money…Life but its all LOVE.

In 2 weeks have graduation coming up, two exams this week, then my summer courses start 2 days before my actual graduation. Can you say stressed?

Im worried about my Biology course. I’m taking it online and I am not sure how well of a good job I will do on the exam but Im gonna try my damn hardest. Then I have my math exam. I’m VERY worried about that because I tend to forget EVERYTHING once a paper is in front of me and I literally only have 4 days to study for it.

Not only that but I just started my process using Cashcrate to make some money on the side. I have a dilemma with Paypal and I don’t want to come out of pocket so I’m going to be using the money that I make from Cashcrate to pay off what I owe. The plan was to earn a minimum of $4 a day but I don’t really have time for that so if I skip out on that for a week I will be shorting myself $28 is it worth it? Hm.

After this week passes I am hoping things calm down a little. For my graduation I have some for myself. For my hair I will be doing senegalese twist. I was going to where my Evony wig from Outre but I put it on and I just wasn’t feeling it. So I bought 11 packs of different colored hair (pick on the side). I never buy the same colored hair its always mixed, I love it wild and I never expect how it will come out. I just know that it will work. For inspiration I started looking through photos in my computer and I saw this photo where it had a girl with box braids next to a girl with senegalese twist. At that moment I decided I wanted senegalese twist and just to make sure I could do it properly and neat I did a little strand test. It came out perfectly. So senegalese twist it is! I will also be taking a dip in the hot water and making them curly senegalese twist (Inspired by this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saOK8lJZ72c & this video too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SP7DwG1cPc)! I haaaave to. It can’t be ordinary UNLESS the straight hair matches the earrings that I made versus curly hair.

Man I have so many plans for my graduation its crazy! I really want to make myself some hand jewelry. I think I will if I find the time to. It wont be exactly like this photo but it will be similar and I’ll be taking pics of EVERYTHING.  Another thing I want to do is bedazzle my graduation cap. I just came from my aunt’s graduation and I saw this girl with a bedazzled glitter graduation cap and it was literally the only interesting thing at the graduation and it stood out. I did my little googling and found a lot of tutorials and diys on pinterest. I’m going to stop by Michaels this Friday, grab some stuff and practice on my High School graduation cap. If it comes out good on that then I will do it on my actual cap. I’ll take pics ofc.

I also want to go to an eye appointment, get my eyes examined then get a new pair of glasses. I want to get my teeth cleaned so I have nice white teeth on my graduation day :D. I’m not sure if I want to get my nails done I might just settle for painting them myself or letting my sis paint them then maybe adding some diamonds or something. I really want to buy a new dress but I always order my stuff from online and it would feel weird trying to get something from an store so I think I may settle for what I already have, I’m not sure yet I’m going to have to ask for my mom’s or sis’s opinion on that one. Shoes, I’m ust going to wear sandals, nothing too complicated. I already have my jewelry made: Necklace and Earrings. I have plenty of rings that could easily match. I think, if I have time, I’m going to make my mom and my sister some matching earrings to wear with me. I think that’ll be awesome…maybe even my grandma and cousins, it depends on how I’m feeling toward them or how I’m feeling at the moment. But I think it would be a great idea to see a family all wearing matching earrings. I know my grandma is going to ofc want a necklace to go with it, she always does.

I just really want it to be a good day. I don’t want to feel hostile toward everyone and whoever comes, comes lol. It’ll be the one day in the year where nothing can upset me except if my ex showed up lmao which would never happen. So thats whats going on in my life right now and like I said in the title, its all love.

-Jazzie