November is National Adoption Month??

Did you know that November is National Adoption Month? I didn't. Not until a friend posted a quote about it on her social media page. Now that I do know, I feel the need to celebrate!

The only background history we'd been given was that I'd been born in 1973, to a young girl of fourteen years and a boy of seventeen years who had made the decision to give me up for adoption. I spent my first months in a foster home and then was matched up with and later on adopted into my family, my family, the family I can't even begin to imagine my life without. I have heard many horrible and frightening stories of how adoptions have turned out for the worse but that has never been the case for me and I am grateful to be able to say so with nothing but honest and loving truth to back it up.

I've always known I was adopted, from the time I could talk and understand conversation my parents explained to me, in ways I could understand, how it was I had come to them. My parents were always approachable and open and it was always a positive topic of conversation no matter how tough the questions I had. I was assured that I had been given up out of a love so great that I might never come to know the depths that love had carried. As hard as I tried, I could never understand how loving could mean leaving. I grew up safe, happy, healthy and incredibly loved in my family yet still, buried deep down inside my soul there always sat a fear. It was a fear that I could somehow lose my family, that they would perhaps decide one day that I had been chucked away as a baby for good reason and that they would then do the same and I would find myself without. It was a ridiculous fear, I know,  but it was a fear built in knowing knowing that my very first 'someones' hadn't wanted me and had done just that... they hadn't wanted to be burdened with me and although my parents showed me again and again that I was loved and wanted right where I was, I still worried. It's not that I hadn't believed my parents, with their assurances that I had been given away out of love, but the words just didn't ever sit right with me. I never, not even once, judged or dismissed their claims but deep down, I knew that I had never been, by my birth people, as loved as I was by who I knew to be my real, true parents.

I admire my parents, more than anybody else in this world. My parents. Two more selfless, loving people I can honestly say I have never met. It's because of their selfless love that I have lived so fortunately. They aren't my parents because they had to be. They are my parents because they chose to be. They loved me and I knew it. They love me and I know it. To know love without boundaries is a pretty incredible gift, one that I'm not sure I would know had things been different. I can't imagine having been the one to have to make to make the choice to give a child away and hope for the best but in my own case, I'm grateful the decision was made. I have lived my life with parents who taught me what it means to be family and to love completely. I have a brother and a sister I can't even fathom my life without. I have memories filled with happy and still many yet to be made.

Nurture or Nature? If you ask me, I swear by Nurture, all the way. I am my mothers daughter just as I am my fathers daughter... Dad watches over us from Heaven now, but without both of my parents nurturing, I wouldn't be who I am today, that much I know for certain. My parents raised me. They taught me. They encouraged and stood behind me. They cheered me on with every endeavor I began, patting my back in congratulations or helping me stand and brush myself off after a fall; not only did they help lift me after a hurt but they also always helped me to find the gifts inside the lessons.

I wish I had actually told my dad how much he meant to me when I still had that chance.

I still need to tell my mom.

I know I'm safe and I know I'm loved... so why is it still so hard for me to let my honest feelings be heard? The simple reason is that there are fears, no matter how ridiculous they seem, in everything, even in gifts. I was given the greatest gift of my life when my parents adopted me as part of them and it's the one gift I cherish above all else. For some reason, even at forty-two years old, I still worry that it could all be yanked away as if it were nothing but a dream. But more than I fear, I celebrate because I know in my heart that with my family... I'm home.

So, here's to adoption!!!

From the deepest deep of my grateful heart... I celebrate..... my family!



1992... Our last family picture with our dad.

Rag-Bin Hugs

Every once in awhile comes something to cause a personal course to alter and for me, that ‘once in awhile’ was plopped, quite unceremoniously, into my hands one Sunday evening following our weekly family dinner.

I sat there in the rocker glider, quietly for a moment, just taking it in. I instantly knew that I was holding a very special history in my hands, all sewn up and bunched into one extremely fragrant bundle. The smell, I have to admit, had hit me brutally fast but... it wasn’t actually a bad smell, not musty or stinky in any way, but more of a very strong perfume that somehow drew me completely into a different time and to a place that felt like home. The connection I had already felt with this old quilt top I held in awe was overwhelming. I felt an instant longing to know my Great-Gramma and an even more instant loss at knowing that I never would.

The first I had ever heard tell of this quilt top had been only weeks before I held it. I had just opened my longarm quilting business and my mom, just in passing conversation one day, had mentioned that there was quilt top that her grandmother had made for her and my dad as a wedding gift. I’m not sure if my dad had ever seen the top in progress, I’ll have to ask my mom about that one, but, if he were alive today to see the finished product I can guarantee he would have LOVED it... his colour choices were loud and far ahead of the times! This is where it got a wee bit confusing but I’m just thankful the top didn’t end up lost! Apparently, my Great-Gramma Matchett had pieced the quilt top squares, starting in the Fall of 1967 while she visited the family in Nipigon from her home in New Brunswick. Now, my Gramma Matchett had said she would finish the square joining and quilting part of it for her since Great-Gramma had to return home before being able to finish them herself. Gramma Matchett did, in fact, finish joining the blocks but, didn’t finish the actual quilting. My mom figures it got sidetracked because she, herself, had no real interest in the quilt - but I’ll get to that later! From Gramma, it went to my moms older sister, Peggy, who had the interest in finishing the project but not the inclination, as it would turn out. So, then from Peggy, it went to my moms younger sister, Janna, who thought that she might give it a go but, instead it ended up sitting in wait to be finished until it came to me... 46 years from when it had been started. 

My mom had tried to prepare me for the utter ugliness that she remembered the quilt top being but, thought that I could maybe finish it, even just as extra practice with my new machine. I remembered those words she had said as I held this 46 year old beauty in my hands, as I ran my fingers over the still incredibly vibrant fabrics and I felt myself so close to tears that is was actually physically hurting to hold them in. My mom had called this amazingness - ugly.

I had felt touched immediately by the memories of this quilt top, memories that I would never ever even begin to know clutched me tightly and I didn’t even understand why just then. The colours, the patterns, the textures had blocked out everything, everyone in the room. I was completely blown away in this sudden new presence of comfort.

I knew, not just by smell, but also by touch that my first order of business would be to wash this quilt top and even just the thought of having to do so terrified me. Wash a pieced quilt top on it’s own? No way, Dude!!!!! But, I knew that I couldn’t possibly work with it in the condition it now sat. And so I asked my mom...

“Do you think I should wash it first, Mom?”

Of course she agreed with me that it needed to be washed and , as she generally does, she made me feel as though any decision I made would be the right one for the quilt. Knowing that she fully trusted me made it even tougher because I so did not want to disappoint by ruining such a special piece of artwork.

I continued on with the agonizing internal debate, as we all had dessert (cupcakes... my FAV), over washing the top. I had touched those carefully chosen, painfully cut and meticulously placed and sewn strips of fabrics. I had run my fingers along the hand-sewn seams. I had witnessed the pains that had, with nothing but love, been taken to create this stunningness. I also felt the pain that could be the price of having ruined an irreplaceable history.

I turned to my Aunt Janna who has been sewing for as long as I can remember, hoping she could help with my desicsion. “Jan, do you think I should try washing it first?” I asked her. I was searching for permission, well okay, I’ll admit it, I really just wanted someone, anyone else to make the decision for me.

It was my mom who called the answer out from the kitchen before Janna could even start her reply...
"Honey, it’s 46 years old,” she started simply. “ You won’t be able to do anything with it in the condition it’s in. If it falls apart in the wash then... it falls apart in the wash.”

And there I had my answer.

I couldn’t let it go and had sat holding the top through dessert while listening as both my mom and her sister recollected upon their memories of its making. The sound of smiling had taken over my moms voice as she spoke but her expression admitted only to a slight wonder of sorts. She was entirely amazed at and I think even a might ashamed of having denied the beauty and especially of having been so incredibly unappreciative of all that it held.

I saw her eyes as they drifted back to another time while she told us all of how she could remember the quilt being pieced together. She was looking into her own past as she spoke of watching her Gramma sat perched on the edge of her parents bed, the rag bin by her feet. She had cut, with ordinary kitchen scizzors, all of those strips and she had sewn them onto the muslin backing squares, entirely by hand, with whatever bits of thread she had available. And, as I listened, I couldn’t keep my fingertips from running along the stitching lines, rainbowed with colour, and I fell in love with the back just as I had the front. I loved knowing her stitches so much actually, that I felt almost wrong in even the thought of covering any one of them with a backing that would hide her handwork.


Rainbowed stitches

There was one fabric pattern that I somehow knew, it had been the first to catch my eye and the one that I just kept going back to. I recognized this pattern even though I knew I had never seen or touched it. I had to have seen it somewhere though because, I knew it. I felt my eyes glazing over in the figuring and then I made myself speak up about it. I said that I recognized this design and that I could see in my mind an old picture of my own Gramma Matchett from one of the old family photo albums, wearing that pattern and was I being insane? I admitted how ridiculous I knew it sounded but it turned out not be ridiculous, at all. I had seen the fabric in pictures.



The one I knew...

The rag bin had been full of Grammas old housedresses and aprons. And so it had been countless hours that my great-gramma had set upon the side of the bed, cutting and sewing for her granddaughter, a tangible history of her mother. This was a total work of absolute love. I had never been fortunate enough to have met the woman who had carefully stitched these memories together but I had known and immensely loved the woman who had worn each one of these fabrics. My gramma had chosen these patterns, each one of them. She had lived in them, worked in them, dreamed in them. She’d set her famous bread to rise, put baked beans to simmering and had sat to read and record her favourite poems in them. She’d smiled in these fabrics, she’d laughed in these fabrics and I am certain she even shed a few tears in the fabrics.

The weight of the quilt top felt even heavier to me now but, it was a welcomed and somehow nourishing kind of heaviness. It was the heaviness of home. I could almost feel the roots of my own unknown past trying to pull me in, almost pleading for acknowledgement.

I fell asleep that night with an incredibly heavy heart. I had more questions still than answers and I hoped that I would find what I needed in the work that was yet to be done.

Next morning, first thing, I washed that old quilt top. I felt like I did when I was a kid and my beloved pink blankie was being washed; feeling forever pass with each cycle of the machine and panicking that it wouldn’t come back to me just exactly the same as it had gone in. And just as my blankie had always come back, so did that determined old quilt top... WHEW!

Once I had washed and dried the top, I gently folded and carried it out to my workshop, laid it out atop my cutting table and set to checking every inch of it for snags, loose seams and any other signs of damage. It wasn’t until I reached to thread the end of a loose thread through the eye of a needle that it hit me - this very same length of bright turquoise thread had been threaded, 46 years before by the hadnd of my Great-Gramma. And let me tell you, it hit me hard. Tears began to stream until I was completely out of control and in a sobbing, heaving mess.

Was I being ridiculous? Probably so. But, I must really have needed that breakdown.

Once I made it back into the land of sanity (somewhat, anyhow) and had repaired and squared the top, I started my search for a backing fabric. My aunt had told me that there had been an old piece of batting as well as an old, plain and well worn sheet that had been meant for backing kept in with the 
quilt top that just had not stood the test of time in wait; she had decided it best to “pitch them.” This information had left me with the choice of both backing and batting and I felt entirely inadequate for the task. I wanted something that would belong and not just something that would suffice.

So, where does one find the perfect backing for a 46 year old quilt top? Why, the World Wide Web, of course! I took the top back inside the house and carefully laid it out before the garden doors and atop the carpet in my bedroom so I could take it fully in as natural light flowed perfectly over it. I smiled as I cast my eyes over its entirety. It was really the first completely ‘overall’ look I had actually had. To my surprise, there were three colours, out of the MANY, that popped out at me without question... bright blue, bright green and a light but brightly buttered yellow.

I turned on my trusty ipad and typed “vintage fabrics” into the search engine. My tummy fluttered 
with excitement at the many images of lovely vintage patterns that appeared and then sank as I quickly realized that these were merely small cuts of unused fabrics bought by people years ago and couldn’t even begin to cover the 4 full meters I would need. I could have found a number of fabrics from the era and pieced them to create an interesting and era appropriate backing but that just didn’t feel right. I didn’t want for anything to take away even a single glance from all that the top deserved. 

So instead, I cleared my search and typed in “retro fabrics” and I knew I was on the main line to
perfection.

I spent hours looking through the virtual pages of fabrics, saving photos of the ones that I thought could work and also that I thought my mom might like. It had to be of a unified, sixties pattern style but stay muted enough to allow the top the spotlight it so deserved. It turned out that the very first fabric that had caught my eye and I had clicked on was the one I ultimately chose and later that night 
ordered. A late 60’s style, flower-power type design which, as I looked back and forth between ipad screen and quilt top, managed to pull the three stand-out colours to the backing, perfectly! I knew it was the one but I wanted for my mom to have the final say on whether or not she liked it because it was, after all, a quilt made for her. I’m beyond happy to say that she agreed with me because I don’t believe that any other backing could even remotely have worked. I worried, of course, after I had placed the order that the screen colours wouldn’t match the actual quilt colours but once the fabric  had arrived it was as though they had been given to me all together; that’s how perfect of a match that backing was for the top.

Now, onto my next big debate... okay, agonization... Which type of batting do I use?

One of my other aunts, on my dads side of the family, has been heavily immersed in the quilting world for years and I figured she would be a good one to ask about batting that would have been used in the 60’s. I, knowing very little about historical quilting supplies, had no clue and was asking for help. Quite dumbly, it would seem, I had made an incredibly wrong and ridiculous assumption that it might have been a polyester batting - wasn’t polyester big in those days??? I didn’t think it was such a dumb question but I was quickly put in my place that it would likely have been wool. Okaayyy... I asked no more questions. I didn’t want to feel less than while I was pouring my whole heart into trying to do the best work that I could on this one special treat.

I don’t think it’s any surprise in the quilting world of today that many quilters have VERY strict and quite often snooty attitudes about which battings are theeeee battings to use and... to ONLY use which leaves any other batting just in the wrong. I generally try to steer clear of batting debates and choose instead to go with the ‘feel’ of the quilt. I just knew that by choosing the simple polyester batting that had been my first inclination (I’ll give you all a moment to recover from your horrified gasps of choke-worthy air......) I could easily find myself in hot water with the quilting world that 
surrounds me here where I live but that didn’t matter to me. What mattered to me was what the top had been waiting for.

Once I had pieced and loaded the backing onto the longarm frame and still was undecided, I covered half of it with the Hobbs 80/20 (of quilting pop culture fame) and the other half with the Hobbs polyester (unfairly shunned in far too many circles)... don’t get me wrong, I love the 80/20, too, I simply don’t like being told that I absolutely HAVE to use it ... Anyway, I then laid the top across both halves and spent the next 2 days feeling each side in turn every time I happened by. It was the fresh life that the soft loft of the polyester batt offered which won my heart.

Next up was thread choice! This one was easy. The bright blue that most shone out from all of the fabrics, I had figured, must have been the one that Great-Gramma had liked most of all out of that old rag bin for she had, after all, made certain it had reigned supremely across the top. I matched that blue with thread and for the first time I felt no questions, no fear, just confidence that it was right.
Now, the top in its entirety was very busy; long, thin strips having been sewn diagonally onto squares cut from an old sheet and placed together to create a busy maze of diamonds. I now know that the proper name for this type of quilt is ‘String Quilt’ however, I prefer to call it the Strips of Love Quilt. So, in not wanting to take away, in any way, from the living pattern itself, I quickly decided upon a simple circular meandering to offset all the straight lines and add softness to the angles. Most importantly, I had wanted the quilting to stay muted so that Great- Grammas work would be the only shine the limelight would offer.

Great-Gramma's handwork of beauty

BINDINNNGGGG... the LAST step in this agonizingly, exciting and over-emotional undertaking was about to begin!! Honestly, I was at a complete loss with this prospect. I found myself wishing for some long-lost piece of Grammas clothing to fit with the quilt top fabrics but, even as I did, I knew the wish was simply a wish. But, there was one strip of fabric laced here and there throughout the top that answered my dilemma loud and clear. A plain, black cotton with crisp, very intermittent brushstrokes of stick figures peeking out in places was what had caught my eye. It was thanks to the old housedress that Janna had remembered as one of her favourites that Gramma had worn that had solidified my decision.

Binding choice FOUND

And so it ended up that all that was left for me to do was to simply frame in plain, black cotton: 

the gift of a very special quilt
 

THAT
 

my Great-Gramma pieced for my Mom
 

THAT
 

my Gramma helped her to finish

THAT

my aunt Peggy took home intending to finish into a quilt
 

THAT
 

my aunt Janna then took home intending to finish into a quilt
 

THAT
 

at last, found its way to me to finish into a quilt 46 years later
 

FOR
 

my mom
 

A finished combination

It may have taken awhile to complete but somehow, I think this quilt of love may actually have somehow completed me. It was both with humbling reluctance and uplifting joy that I gave my mom her amazingly stunning quilt once I had finished it. I felt the treasure of working on this quilt and it filled me entirely. I was unbelievably saddened at the loss of it even though I knew it would never be lost to me... I can bundle up in that quilt at my moms any time at all when I need to feel the rag-bin hugs of my past. 

A Rag-Bin Hug

Everything's better when shared...

I have a hard time letting people in. I'm trying to change that. I want to put myself 'out there'. I want to live unafraid and out of hiding, free from my debilitating fear of not being enough. But it's not easy for me; it never has been. I don't share my feelings, my dreams or even my hurts with anyone.

Today... I share!

Below are 20 random facts about who I am, good and bad. I want to know YOU, too... so don't forget to leave me a fact or two or more about yourself in the comments!

(1) I don't like stainless steel appliances... at all.

(2) I consciously never let anyone get close to me because of my awful abandonment fears and I still have nights when I  wake up in sweating/screaming nightmares because of those same fears.

(3) I have crushes that last for years.

(4) I have never felt that 'connection' of heartstrings that people talk about but I am okay with that.

(5) Social Anxiety... it sucks... but I have it and I, unfortunately, allow it to keep me, for the most part, hidden.

(6) I like salt. I like salt, a lot; so much so, in fact, that sometimes I wish I were a deer so people wouldn't look at me funny if I were to carry around a salt-lick.

(7) I love green ink pens. For some reason I feel better sharing my imagination with paper if the sharing is done in green ink.

(8) I really want to live in a Hallmark Christmas movie but I want to go through the Stargate to get there.

(9) I am beyond-brutally allergic to cats and I feel very guilty about this fact because I feel I am hurting their feelings in my avoidance of them when I actually would love to be able to snuggle them.

(10) I hate cooking. I do it because it's necessary and I'm not terrible at it but I just absolutely despise doing it.

(11) I am terrified of swimming in lakes and rivers but I spend hours and hours, day after day, swimming in the ocean on rare occasions I am blessed with the opportunity.

(12) I don't like the taste of wine and I don't want to keep trying it to see if I will eventually get to a point where like it.

(13) I really LOVE Dill Pickle Dip but... it was better when in came in the scalloped tins.

(14) I do not like fish or seafood of any kind.

(15) The only time I feel completely centered is when I sit down with my guitar; I don't have to worry about tripping over my words or making a mistake, I just listen to the music as it comes.

(16) My feelings are extremely easily hurt and even an unintentional hurtful tone can take me years to overcome.

(17) Even though I have a home I don't ever actually feel 'at home' and I don't like the feel of walking on egg shells all of the time.

(18) I am still upset that Squirrel Peanut Butter was re-branded as Skippy Peanut Butter and that the peanut on top was discontinued along with the name change.

(19) I love Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup... but all of the mushrooms have to be strained out because I hate the feel of mushrooms.

(20) I love making and decorating cut-out cookies for any and all occasions; I guess I consider this crafting rather than cooking!

One Curly-Girl... and her escape from the neverending BAD hair day!

I'm not kidding when I say I get asked ALL the time, "Is that your natural hair??" So let me just answer once and for all..... Believe me, if this wasn't my natural hair... I sure as heck wouldn't choose life with this mess I affectionately refer to as 'the natural disaster I survive daily'!

Because I also get asked an awful lot about how I deal with my curls, especially from straight-haired parents of curly-haired kiddoes who haven't a clue of how to deal, I thought I would share my own routine here in a post. So, in hopes that it might help even just one more curly-head disaster find their way into curly-head acceptance, here is the lowdown of my hair journey, from curl disaster to curl freedom.

For years, I fought my curls. I wanted hair that flowed straight and shone brilliantly. I wanted to just be able, for once, to pull a comb through my hair without tears of pain mixed with the tears of loss from both actually having lost the comb somewhere deep inside in the rat's nest and from the pain of the hair it had ripped out of my head before getting lost in the tangles I tried to pawn off as hair... Sometimes, if I prayed really hard and I looked long enough, I eventually was lucky enough to find remnants of the lost comb but generally, every comb that tried... disappeared..... forever.

My life was spent washing and conditioning my uncooperative locks with EVERY type of curly-hair specific product I could find, then I would try to dry my hair into the flowing wavy locks that populated every magazine cover I saw by pulling to stretch the annoyingly resistant curls. The end result was always a mess of frizz that was fighting to get back to the stubborn ringlets of it's true comfort. And so I lived mostly in ponytail hell... heavy, headache-causing and frizz-filled ponytail hell. I was always so embarrassed of my hair that I tried desperately to hide from cameras in painstaking effort of allowing NO pictures to be taken of myself, ever... I couldn't get myself out of every snap but at least the few in existance can help me show you all my struggle.

Rat's Nest circa 1992... That's me in the middle,
I think I had enough hair for all three of us!



1994 and still fighting the losing brush-battle...

It wasn't until I was in my twenties and was in hairdressing school, that I learned it was actually possible to straighten hair. None of my gradeschool or highschool friends had been cursed with hair like mine and it was something we just really didn't talk about. Sure, my friends would show me pictures and say things like, "you should try this" or "you would look so good if you did your hair like this". Once when I was about fifteen, before going to a teen dance club, a friend teased my hair and was amazed at how it stood up and stayed UP. Let me just tell you, the pain of trying to untangle the teasing the following morning (it was the 80's when rocker/mall hair was in) had me in tears... not only because it hurt physically but also because a lot of it had to be cut out and short hair is simply NOT a friend to this curly-girl. I survived the short cut even though growing it out was humiliating and seemed to take FOREVERRR and I decided no one would ever touch my hair again. Even now I refuse to let anyone try to 'style' my hair and I don't care what anyone else thinks of it. I still trim my own hair as a result of that teenage trauma and I likely always will despite the fact that it is not exactly an easy feat.

Anyhow, once I had learned about hair-straightening in hairdressing school I eagerly tortured myself with this method for a fairly long while. My teachers and a few of my classmates had, for a time, tried to talk me into chemically straightening my hair but I knew from experience how vengeful my hair could be and I held firm to my NO WAY decision. Everyone, even my family, kept telling me how great my hair looked when straight but the fact that it was a three hour long ordeal to do while crying from the pain of pulling it out with a brush as I blasted it with unbearably hot hairdryer air was just too much horribleness for me to be able keep it up. I think the only other person in my life who was as happy as I was to be done with straightening my hair was my Gramma who, the first time she had seen me with straight hair had said... "Heaven's to Betsy, Child! What in the world have you gone and done to your head!!?" and then followed that glowing review up with, "Don't you ever go and do anything so foolish again... landsakes, have some sense!" I had to agree with her, but for a slightly different reason; Gramma loved the look of my curls as they were but for me, looking better just wasn't worth the agony of getting there. Maybe everybody was right and straight hair did better suit me but like my beloved Doger, from China Beach, once said..."Looks aren't everything."

Painfully straight.

So, when the pain became just too much, I gave up the fight and I went back to ponytail hell.

Ponytail Hell

Okay, so I saaayyyy I don't care what anybody
thinks but when it really comes down to it, I actually DO care. We all care, don't we? We all want to fit in with the current fashions, to be one with our peers of beautiful and unfortunately, our world really does value good looks. My look isn't popular nor is it always comfortable. However, after years and years of trying to tame my hair, I finally stopped fighting and admitted defeat.





And then... this amazing thing called The Internet came along and with it, the introduction of youtube! I finally realized I wasn't alone in my curly hair fight. There were lots of others living with frizz-shame just like I was and tips and tricks were shared freely in hopes of helping come to terms with their own messy heads. I tried every tip I could find, I even tried making my own shampoo and flaxseed gel for awhile but my hair was still not a fan of anything I had found to try. But then, when years later I was still searching, I somehow stumbled upon a hair-plopping video... I know, I know... it sounds totally gross! Because it sounds gross some people refer to it as plunking instead but I like to call it plopping; it makes me giggle because it's just a funny sounding word that can be said with tons of hilarious inflections

Not long after I had started plopping my hair, my aunt actually found the shampoo/conditioner set that wold change my world and bought it as a gift for me. That gift has saved my hair from being shaved to cadet military-style length in my almost-having-done-me-in frustration. This shampoo set has been my hair savior... I kid you not! My aunt bought the set from the salon she goes to and I now buy it from a local beauty supply shop. Don't make the mistake of wasting time or money buying the same name set sold in drugstores; they are NOT the same formula. Yes, the bottles are a might pricey but trust me they are well worth the cost and they last a really, really long time! Seriously!! I have a LOT of hair and I only use two pumps each of shampoo and conditioner with every wash. I try to only wash my hair every third day to keep it healthy so these big bottles really do go a long way for me. I have also learned that condition-combing is the ONLY time my hair ever needs to see a comb. I keep a hanging comb in the shower to comb the conditioner through and that is IT for combing these curls of mine!

Not kidding... a LOT of hair!

Now... what I am about to share with you is the hair routine that has changed my life and eased my pain! I think I was probably thirteen when I started to really care about my horrible hair so, that means it took me about twenty-seven years of trying and failing until I finally mastered the art of giving in. The past two years have been Heavenly-non-stylin' and I see nothing but the same for years to come!

So, here they are... my tried and trusted steps to Curly Head Freedom:

1) STOP! Stop listening to outside opinions on how your hair should look. Stop wasting hours that add up to days and months and years of pain in trying to conform to popular demand. Stop fighting the true YOU!

2)Wash with a low-poo or no-poo shampoo and follow with a light coating of conditioner. I try to wash my hair no more often than every third day which has helped immensely in keeping my curls from drying out and frizzing. Remember to use as little product as you possibly can... your hair will thank you!!!

This is my product choice of perfection.

3) Wrap still soaked hair in a microfiber towel. DO NOT SHAKE the excess water from your hair after rinsing... gently squeeze most of the water out and lightly and without disturbing in a microfiber wrap for a minute while preparing whatever gel concoction works best on your hair.

My preferred gel/cream mixture ratio

4) Remove microfiber wrap and let curls fall as they wish.

5) Gently pat styling product onto still soaking wet hair and either scrunch through or squeeze through firmly to distribute through every strand completely; I prefer to squeeze it through (as firmly as I possibly can). Because my curls are so ringletty on their own, I don't comb or scrunch the product through but if you want to enhance your curls even more, go ahead and scrunch away.

6) Time to plop! This is the link to my video version of my full hair routine.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=w04SFVLRH

The middle section shows exactly what I do to securely wrap my freshly plopped curls and leave myself looking like this for a half hour...

Plopped with a bow for good fortune...

Now, some people like to do this at nighttime and actually sleep with their hair plopped; Itried it once... it was bad..... really bad....... For my curls, thirty minutes seems to be my perfect plop time. It really just depends on your individual curl patterns and how they react to the plopping. Try a few experimental times on days you don't have to go anywhere and you will quickly find your own perfect time just by how your hair reacts. Trust me, your hair won't hold back in letting you know. During plop time I just move on with my morning routine. I usually get breakfast for my two Greyhounds and then breakfast for myself... before I know it, it's time for the finishing steps.




7) Carefully remove plop wrap and let curls fall naturally as they wish. My curls always fall over my face so because I like to be able to see I use tiny clips to pin a couple eye-blocking curls back from blocking my vision.

8) Time to dry. If I have enough time, I just let my curls air-dry and because the T-shirt absorbes so much of the moisture from my hair I am good to go after about and hour and a half of air-dry time... sounds like a long time, I know, but before I discovered plopping, it took at least six hours or even longer for my hair to fully dry without a hair dryer. If I'm heading out early, I dry my hair gently with a diffuser on the lowest setting (NO MANIPULATING) and it only takes ten to fifteen minutes to fully dry after the plopping has done it's job of moisture-taking. Before plopping, it used to take forty-five minutes to dry my hair with a dryer... a whole half hour saved as well as being saved the constant damage of extra dry time. Once my hair is fully dry, I remove the holding clips and I am done and good to go!


My hair starting to adjust to the new routine...
this may actually have been one of my first reprieves
from ponytail hell! 



Peace made and the curly life is good!