Overlooked Customer = Bad Business

Today I went out for the first time in a very long time to go get a pedicure. It was long overdo, trust me I was worried they'll have to bring out a sander for my feet. So I went to a place I've been a few times before. I go in, tell them what I want and sign in my name. The technician tells me to pick out a color while they get someone ready for me. So I pick out my color and sit down waiting for my name to be called. After about five minutes a young lady comes in and tells them what she wants. They asked her if she has an appointment and she says no. They almost immediately sit her down for a pedicure and tell her they'll wax her after her nails are done. "Hold up" was my first thought but I didn't say anything. I just walked out the door. 

Once inside the car I called my husband and told him what happened. He could tell how upset I was because of how much this meant to me. I'm a stay at home mom of three kids. My oldest is 3 and my youngest 2 months old. Every time I try to do something for myself I end up doing something for the kids. So today I was like it's just going to be about me and that experience deflated my balloon a little. I wanted to go home and be by myself. 

After I got out a few tears, I decided to try start the day over. So I tried a new place down the street from my house. This place was fabulous. It had the Law and Order: SVU marathon on mute with captions. Everything was neat. The nail polish collection was awesome. The decor was fab yet classy. My nail tech was very nice although she was pushing for me to have an eyebrow wax. I left refreshed with beautiful feet and cute toes. I am now one happy customer. 

Brooch Bouquet

Hey Everyone,
While looking on Pinterest for some inspiration on my wedding, I came across this beautiful bouquet made from handfuls of brooches. It was stunning. I decided that I had to have one for my wedding. Not only was it beautiful it was very different without being over the top. At first I looked up how much it cost to just have one made. Prices that I found were $300 and up and it was crazy. So I decided to do one myself, so I looked up all the materials that I would need to pull this off. The checklist included floral wire 20 gauge, your choice of artificial flowers, brooches, floral tape, hot glue gun and glue sticks, and finally ribbon. I'll link the tutorial at the bottom of this post. I did take pics of the first steps of my bouquet and the final product. It wasn't easy but it was worth it. I reassembled my bouquet eight times before I finally said it was good enough for me. I wish you luck if you decided to do one for your wedding. Take care.
Much love and Many Blessings,
Kismet

















This was bouquet the first time I assembled it.




Final product



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DIY Wedding #2

Hey All,

If you've read my previous post you know that I'm getting married!

My fiancé and I have been together for seven years. We've always planned to get married but things always made us postpone the date. My fiancé always thought having a wedding wasn't necessary and our money would be better spent elsewhere. So he just wanted to go to the courthouse.

I on the other hand had my wedding planned since I was little girl. I wanted to have a giant ball room dress with a sparkly tiara and my groom to have the tuxedo with the tails in the back.

When I became pregnant with my daughter, I started to see that dream get a little dimmer. I'm a very realistic person, I knew once my daughter was here, all my focus and resources would be going to her. So I started to plan for a courthouse ceremony with a reception dinner afterwards, but my heart wasn't in it. It wasn't how I wanted to get married.

Last fall my fiancé's best friend got married and my fiancé was one of the groomsmen. When he came back from the wedding he realized why having a wedding was such a big deal to me.

We made the agreement that it would be small but nice. He told me to start planning and look at places to give us a ball park of where our budget would be.

So that's how my wedding planning started. In my next post I'll go over how I came up with our budget.

DIY Wedding Part 1

Hey All,

Thank you for continuing to follow my blog after such a hiatus. It's been a super long time since I've written a post. A lot of things have been going on in my life over that period.

As you know, I had a baby girl in Fall 2012. In Spring 2014 we had another baby. So lately I've had my hands full.

To add to this, I've started to plan my own wedding. This is why I've titled this blog DIY Wedding. In this series I'm going to share how I'm planning and executing my wedding basically on my own.

I have used inspiration from Pinterest and from things that are important to me to incorporate into my wedding. My next post will be a background on how we got to the starting point of having a wedding. Until then much love and many blessings.

Kismet

First Retwist

Hey All,

This last week and a half have been pretty good to me and my locs. I haven't had any locs unravel on me and my scalp hasn't been giving me any problems. Usually with my twists I would have to start thinking about taking them down because of my scalp starting to flake or some twists starting to lock on their own.  

I've been misting my scalp and hair to provide moisture and then oiling my scalp  with Alikay Naturals Essential Oil mix and applying my own oil mix to my locs. The reason why I apply Alikay Naturals oils to my scalp is because their oils target the root for growth and my oil mix supplies a moisturizing sealant to my locs themselves. After that I may go without a satin bonnet for about 20 minutes before the thought of lint attacking my baby locs, then I place my satin shield of protection back on. My scalp is very dry so I have to mist and oil everyday.

Today I did my first ever re-twist on my locs and I did them myself (proud moment). I really want to wash my hair but I held off because my scalp was flake free which is very unusual. Instead of washing I used Organic Root Stimulator Dry Shampoo which wasn't too bad. After I applied it to my scalp, I waited about a minute then I ran a wash cloth over my scalp to wipe away any dirt or old sweat. I then misted my hair with my DIY spritz and applied a little bit of Tropical Roots styling gel and palm rolled counter clockwise and held the twist in place with a double prong metal clip. After completing my whole head, I felt pretty good about it, especially after asking my fiancé how it turned out. After about 3 1/2 to 4 hours I took the clips out the back and put on my satin bonnet so I could go to sleep.

Also before I forget, I don't know if I put this in my post before but their was this one particular loc that had a huge part in my hairline and it kept bothering me every time I looked at it. Well I took it down and made it into two locs, which I'm more comfortable with.

That's all for now. I'll see you guys in two and a half weeks with my 1 month update.

Also please leave a comment telling me how did your first month go? Much love and many blessings.

Kismet

P.s. Please check out my YouTube channel Kismetfreedom09

Second Step to my Loc Journey

Hey All,

On Friday morning I had an appointment with Natalie at Natural Trend Setters in Tamarac. The salon was very neat and tidy and the owner Simone greeted me once I walked in and announced to Natalie that I had arrived. Within moments I was seated at the shampoo bowl (getting your hair washed and your scalp massaged by someone else is so relaxing). After she washed,conditioned, and detangled my hair I was led back to her chair and she answered a few questions and explained some info that I was a little foggy about. Natalie used styling foam and a little bit of gel to create the first coil to show me the size that they would be, which was the exact size that I wanted. From my pervious post I might have mentioned that I wanted my locs to be the size of a number 2 pencil, maybe slightly larger and that's what she did. While she created coils all over, I zoned out and just let my mind wonder off. After she finished my coils,she placed me under the dryer for about 45 minutes, and I watched the news. When the time was almost up she took me from under the dryer to her chair and began to remove the clips and tell me how to properly maintain my baby locs. The four most important baby loc care tips are

1) Don't let hair get to saturated with water

2) Keep the scalp clean with witch hazel/sea breeze and follow up with an oil

3) Keep the coils dry

4) If your hair gets to itchy and you absolutely need to wash it before 4-6 weeks then go back to the salon

After all the clips were removed and I knew how to properly maintain my locs. I left the salon feeling like a new woman. Once I got home I was greeted by my little princess who kept staring at my hair. Maybe because it was so flat against my head. My fiancé just kept smiling telling my how much he loved it, he's been a major supporter of my natural hair journey. I couldn't stay away from the mirror for awhile after I got home. I was just to excited looking at each coil. Each one was different than the next one  and I kept thinking of the road ahead of me. I'm still so hyped up about it. 

Earlier this week I went to Whole Foods to get a few things I needed for my hair and skin. I made a tea tree oil, aloe Vera juice and water spritz so I could spray my hair after I go jogging so my scalp wouldn't itch from the sweat. I didn't want to dry out my scalp by using cleansers every time that I would work out. The spritz has been working great and the tea tree oil scent goes away after it dries. 

Since I've had my locs started I've been living in my satin bonnet, except for yesterday for my fiancé's mom's bday dinner. I put my locs in a bun with a bang and dressed them up with a scarf. I did a dramatic look with my makeup to kind of match my outfit and to pull the attention away from the flatness of my hair. I can't wait until my hair fluffs up a little, I'm so use to having volume that I feel like I look weird without it. I'll put the pics at the bottom from these past couple of days. Much love and many blessings.

Please share in the comments if you have any tips, tricks, stories or pics from when you started your locs.

Guess what

Hey!!

Guess what y'all? Nope, guess again. Ok,ok I'm going to tell you. I'm getting my locs started tomorrow and I'm so excited. I have been wanting to take this step/journey for a while and have had many step backs for various reasons. My last step back was because of postpartum shedding along my hairline. Now that my hairline is back and strong, I decided to just go ahead and do it. I made an appointment for a hair consultation and they said my hair was perfect for loc'ing. I did have a little mishap with my hair the night before though :(. While cutting out my crochet braids, I cut off an entire braid by accident.

I was left with about 3-4in long section of about half a finger long shrunken. During my consultation they said it wouldn't be a problem (thank goodness). I scheduled my appointment that day and began the countdown. I just wanted to share my excitement with you guys and try to keep you updated with what's going on with me. Have a blessed one. Ttyl

Kismet

Cinnamon Rolls

Hey,
Since I had my baby a lot if things have changed in my life. First off I can't eat any and everything that I want or buy stuff that's already made without reading its ingredient list. Why you may ask? The reason for this is that my baby is allergic to dairy,not eggs though, and she is exclusively breast fed. So a lot of my favorite foods (eggplant Parmesan) and desserts I have had to give up. Or so I thought until I started researching substitution online. I learned with baking I could substitute milk for soy/almond milk and butter for Crisco. Yay, I can have cookies and cakes again. Everyone who knows me, knows that I have a huge sweet tooth. So lately I have been baking like crazy. Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, mini bunt cakes,etc. Then one day I craving a cinnamon roll. So I look up the recipe to see what all I needed. When I was glancing at the ingredients I became a little intimidated by the fact that you have to use yeast. I've never made raising dough before, but I wanted my cinnamon roll darn it. So I gathered my ingredients and started the beginnings of a great roll. Here's the pics below.

Locs?

Hey All,
For awhile I have been thinking about locking my hair. I've done my research on it many times. I've helped my friends with the grooming of their locs, although they call them dreads. Last year while I was pregnant, I came to dread to style my hair. My go to styles after my first trimester were two strand twists pinned in an Updo. I was tired of dealing with my thick kinky hair, I couldn't do wash n gos or braid/twist out that last more than three or four days. To add insult to injury I'm not a great hair stylist. I could go on and on about my hair. I really want a low maintenance hair style where I wouldn't have to wash and detangle then style, but also without having to cutting off my hair. Time is not in my side these days especially when i have a super active 7 month old, plus I will be going back to school this fall. I love the look of locs. I love how you could create many simple styles with locs and how I wouldn't have to worry about my hair becoming a twa when wet. Every time I wore yarn braids I would fall in love with the look of locs on me. Since talking with my loved ones and friends I'm still straddling the fence to do it or not do it. I believe I might just put in some two strand twists and decide from there. But that's enough of my ramblings. You guys have a good night. Much love and many blessings.😘

Kismet

(Some old pics of me with yarn braids)

Bunning

Hey All,
As you guys know I have a little one whose been keeping me on my toes. For awhile now she has been in this hair pulling/tugging phase, and she has such a strong grip it's a wonder how I have any hair left. So to save my hair I've been "bunning" it. This has been my go to protective style other than wearing my satin bonnet 24/7. My hair is very thick, so it's a struggle for me to use just ouchless hair bands. So to get my hair up into a ponytail, I have to use a leg from a pair of stockings or a scarf to gather my hair up. Then I smooth my ends outward and downward as though I making a sock bun. Once I shape it the way I want it to be I get a stretched head band,double loop it, and place it over my bun to secure it. If any of my ends are still showing, I just tuck them away. This style usually last my about 4-5 days.
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