Blogtober day 3 - something I can't live without

Today's #blogtober14 prompt is : one thing you can’t live without...

I could take this a serious route and say my faith, my husband, my family, etc. but hopefully you guys know that I can’t live without them already so I’m going to take it just one notch below that and let you know that I can’t live without these things:

Yes, I went there.

Now don’t get the wrong idea – I would hardly describe myself as high maintenance and I don’t think any of my friends or family would either, but I have got to have these items. My hair has a storied past…

 we're going to have REALLY cute kids.

-Straight and thick as a child-

This is my father in a dress. (not really. he's a man. I just look a lot like him here)

-Ringlet-curly as a teenager-

cousins!

"Sweet band uniform!" you might be saying...I know. I was awesome.

During my junior year of high school, I loved my friend Jenny’s hair so I chopped mine off and started blow drying and straightening it into the ‘flippy-do’. I think it worked better in the context of 2004…

remember ponchos???

Anyway, shortly after that, I moved to east Texas for college and it was HUMID. Like crazy humid. Straightening my hair was a lost cause, so I let it do what it wanted.

In the middle of my sophomore year, I transferred schools to West Texas – a completely different climate. It was DRY and I loved it. My hair behaved (for the most part) and I continued to grow it out and straighten it most of the time.

I had a lapse in judgment and wanted to change things up so I went blonde for a month. It was….weird. I loved getting my brown hair back but – guess what – bleach fries your hair. Don’t do it, my friends. It took me years to get rid of the blonde that would show up randomly and my hair was genuinely fried. After I moved back from college, I was more open to try going back and forth between curly and straight – I mean, all of my cousins can do it!

Nope. Doesn’t work. My hair absolutely refuses to cooperate. It typically does this weird straight/wavy frizz thing with one million flyaways…

my hair - natural - this week!

..but recently it has gotten a LITTLE curlier – praise God. However, it is super weird up against my scalp so I can never find a good place to part it and tame it against my big noggin. It’s like having hair with a toddler’s personality. It’s horrid!

I’m still rarely happy with my hair, but I think taming with heating products makes it a tad better. I’ve had panic moments when my hair dryer sparks and stops working at 6:45am on a workday, and I always have a crappy back-up flat iron just in case my CHI decides to go out.

The struggle is real, y’all. I couldn’t live without my hair products! Getting back to curly is like a 12 step process and I think I’m maybe on step 5 or so. I’m growing out my hair (I say this constantly because my hair grows about ½ inch every year) so the weight will hopefully fix some of the weird scalp curl nonsense and hopefully – HOPEFULLY I will one day master the Bennett curl once again.

Linkup here for #blogtober14!