my half BC

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm going natural (growing out my relaxer) and curly. I've tried a few times before but always gave up and just went back to straightening my hair. I've gotta give credit to Nix for staying strong and going natural before me. She's much farther along than me and her natural curls are coming in awesomely! Now that I've gotten a sneak peak of what mine will look like - sort of, because we don't have exactly the same hair - I am much more confident about the process and actually really excited!


On the natural hair blogs they talk a lot about the BC - the Big Chop....basically some people choose to just start with a clean slate, and cut off all the chemically treated hair. Well, I don't have enough confidence to rock that, so I opted for a half BC. I (well, my stylist Perry) basically chopped off the back down to the natural parts and trimmed off some of the treated hair up top. Here's what I'm working with now:

As you can see the back is pretty much my natural, curly hair...the front is the awkward stringy hair :-/ Luckily, though, I can pin it up and it's not too bad. I'm so glad to have the in-between hair gone from the back though! And a huge shout out to my stylist Perry and Bogart Salon on Georgetown. I first went to hum for a huge chop when I had super long hair my junior year at Gtown and decided to cut a good deal of it off. We've been together ever since :-) lol...but seriously, on Saturday he was reminiscing about how far we've come...and all the different phases I've gone through with my hair. Having him do my 1/2 BC make it much easier because I know I was in good hands. I'm going to go back for another trim right before I go home (to STT) in June.


As far as "routine" i don't really have one yet. Plus, as Nix and other have said, it will change as your hair changes. My hair is probably confused as heck right now lol.The key thing about natural hair is to keep it moisturized so it doesn't get all dry and ick looking. It's only been 2 days so I haven't done much yet. In the morning I rewet with a spy bottle with a mix of conditioner and water (lol). I've read good things about Carol's Daughter products - and this video makes me want to buy the whole line lol...her hair is gorgeous!
 Other than that I don't have much yet. My stylist told me don't brush out in the shower, just run your fingers through or whatever. After you get out you can dry a little with a towel, but not too much. Apply a bit of product and basically just leave it so that you don't frizz the curls. You can shake out your hair a bit and just kinda let it fall how it will. Later you can tease it and move things around a bit. Now, this is what he told me but everyone's hair will be different. I know some people like to twist the hair or braid it to get more defined shape when the twists/braids are taken out. Like I said, though, I'm just starting the process so I should have more insight as the weeks go by.

In other news, last night for dinner I made roast lamb with a (homemade) curry/pineapple marinade. I'd never cooked lambed before so I was a bit nervous about that. Aside from the cut of meat we got, which was pretty fatty (lamb is fatty in general), I think it came out well. I wouldn't do that same marinade again though...at least not for meat, maybe for fish, with some tweaks.

By the way, I heart Trader Joe's but their pineapples have nothing on Whole Foods pineapples. The pineapple we got from WF this weekend was AMAZING....So, I also whipped up a lightened version of pineapple upside down cake. I cannot even begin to tell you how good this cake smelled. I was doing laundry and could smell it down the hallway. As far as taste, not gonna lie, I was a bit disappointed. Then again, it's a light version of something so you have to take that into consideration. Nix and I agreed that it was overall more like a big, sqaure cake-shaped muffin than "cake." It was definitely not as moist as we would have liked, so I may add some homemade yogurt next time. I also cut down on the sugar even more than the lightened version called for, so we could probably afford to use the whole amount. I also used dark brown sugar while the recipe called for light brown...but I looked up whether there was a difference and it seems the only difference is in color and bit in taste, but my main problem was texture so I don't think that had an effect.

Having said all that....it was still yummy!! I'd make it again with some tweaks. Oh I almost forgot! I also made sweet potato pancakes this weekend. (Ok all I did was add mashed, cooked sweet potato to our pancake mix.) They came out great! Very moist and thick. I think I'd probably even add more sweet potato next time, to up the flavor.


Coming up this week in my culinary adventures...Nix and I bought a WF rotisserie chicken so we're going to stretch that as far as it goes. Today I used some in a greek style chicken pita pocket (chx, hummus, sprouts, carrots) for lunch. We're also planning to make our own tortillas from scratch, and do a Mexican night this week. And I love making muffins so I'm going to experiment with some more changes to my quinoa banana bread in muffin version.


Today's *big chune* is one of my old faithful favorites. I was obsessed with this song for like an entire year when I first heard it. The video is a hot mess though lol...most caribbean music videos are LOL





:-D