My Hair

Sigh. I can't even lie. I have treated my hair like crap for the past few years. It's almost pretty embarrassing. I've been on every hair challenge there is, and I can never stick to them.  Even when my hair starts growing nicely, I always do something to jack it up.  I'm seriously starting to think that I was subconsciously messing up my efforts on purpose.

In any case, 2012 is going to be different. I listed below some goals that I want to accomplish for the new year, but I didn't mention anything about my hair.  I am determined to make this year different. I plan on doing that by protective styling all year long.  I (think) I've finally found a protective style that I can live with - Crochet braids!

Here's how my hair gets messed up. I will either put braids, a weave or rock wigs for a while. Then I get bored and start messing in my hair. I always see someone else's hair and want to do something different.  It's when that happens when I start to get really rough on my hair. I'm not gentle with it at all.

However, crochet braids really do seem to be the the answer.  With the crochet braids, I can have all of my hair cornrowed away and not have to touch it at all. I don't have to leave any hair out to blend it with my leave out (for weaves or 1/2 wigs).  I don't have to brush it back if I want to wear it in a bun. I can just "crochet" the loose hair into my cornrows and get moving.

I did a set of crochet braids this weekend and I love them.  I'm not crazy about the hair itself right now, but I can live with it. This style allows me to change my hair up as much as I want to while keeping all of my hair tucked away. I absolutely love it.

I'll post pictures later.

What I want in 2012

As a new year approaches, I'm thinking about all of the things that I would like to accomplish.  To be quite honest, I didn't really accomplish too many of my goals in the last year or so.  The only great thing I did was become a homeowner, but that was in 2010.  Since that time, I have not really done anything that I wanted to to.  I started, but then stopped.  Terrible, I know.

I really do want this year to be different, though. I told my mom and sister, I cannot live 2012 the way I lived 2011.  2011 was a really rough year for me (financially and emotionally). That's never really happened to me before. I mean, I've had rough times as we all have, but this year was ridiculous. So, in order to combat that, I've decided to make a really clear list of what I want to accomplish in 2012.

These are more than just resolutions. These are the things that I want to bring and keep into my life for good.   Here are some of the things I want.

• Pay off my bills
• Get ahead on my recurring bills (I want to have at least 2 or 3 months of bills like electricity and water paid ahead)
• Find a second, dependable car
• Exercise at least 5 days out of the week - at home
• Eat cleaner (more salads, less proceeded food, definitely less sugar)
• Begin to date
• Go out more with my numerous Meetup groups
• Save more money
• Hustle for more money (side jobs, selling things, etc)
• Find a new job (which should actually be at the top of the list)
• Find a church home (this has been so hard for me - which is weird because I live in Atlanta..a city that literally has a church on almost every corner)
• Meditate with God every morning and night (I wake up so early in the morning already, so I may not be able to do both times of the day, but we shall see).

These are just a few (yes, I said few) of the things I can think of right now.I'll come back with anything else I can think of soon.

Random: IRS

So, I wanted to call the IRS to ask them a question. Not to get too personal, but I have a payment arrangement with them and wanted to ask them a question about one of their payments.

I spoke to the representative who advised me that their systems are currently down and are expected to be up....ON JANUARY 3RD!!! What the...?  You're a government agency. A major if not THE major government agency, and you're telling me your systems are going to be down for almost a week?

Is it me or does that sound strange?

The Holidays

Well, it's a few days after Christmas. I wish I could say that I was doing something amazing for my holiday vacation, but I'm not.

I actually had to come to NY because my sister was having surgery. I drove to Virginia Beach to go and get my mom and then drove up to NY to be with my sister. Thank God everything turned out okay.  However, we're now just sitting up in the house just looking at each other.

I can't really blame anyone, though. I spend so much time driving to and from work and spent so many hours driving from Atlanta to here that I welcome to break.

Of course with a new year approaching there are so many things that I want to do for the new year.  I really have to start thinking about my resolution list and the things I want to change.  It's not as easy as it used to be when I was younger. Now, that I'm an adult and have a rough idea of what I want out of life, trying to come up with ways to accomplish those goals can be quite a task.

I'll keep you posted.