I’m 21+1 today and feeling all the kicks and punches, stretches, and rolls. My son recently got to feel the baby move and he was awe-struck lol he asked me if I could feel it. Baby hasn’t cooperated for Papa yet but I’m sure he’ll feel the movements soon enough.
Aches and pains have blossomed in the form of round ligament pain in my pelvis. I’m in pain turning over in bed, walking, going up the stairs, basically anything. I’m hoping to buy a pillow to use between my legs to help with this pain.
We did find out that we’re having a girl which I’m excited and nervous about, thinking about all the hair fights I’m going to have to deal with!
Speaking of hair, I shaved my head again, not as bald as I was before but enough that I didn’t have to struggle to take care of it. I was really down about its state after my sickness and just decided a fresh start is what I needed.
I’ve been walking to the park with my son more since he’s on vacation and I think it’s doing me some good. I’m no longer super tired and run down when I get home but I am out of breath sometimes. I try to rest when we reach the house and let my body relax.
Things are going well in the meantime so I’ll end this on a good note.
I know I haven’t shared an update in a while so here it goes.
I’m doing much better HGwise, I’m what you’d call medicated fluffy, I don’t have any nausea or vomiting unless I eat something that doesn’t agree with my belly or I miss a dose of medication. For about 10 weeks I’ve only vomited once after eating a banana that didn’t sit well. The only downside is I’m still suffering from a lack of energy. When I go out I have to sit or I feel like blacking out. If I can’t sit I stoop down until the feeling passes. It’s really unpleasant and makes going out difficult since I don’t go anywhere for the whole week.
I’m now 16 weeks 5 days, on Tuesday I’ll be 17 weeks.
I’m slowly getting there, my belly isn’t that big as yet but I’ve already started wearing maternity clothes.
I’m experiencing round ligament pain and Braxton Hicks which is no fun, some heartburn, excessive drooling especially at night, I wake up multiple times to clean my face and shoulders. I sleep on my back and that doesn’t seem to help any.
Even with all these complaints, I’m so grateful that my medication works and I’m not back to all-day nausea and vomiting because that’s no fun at all.
Yesterday my son went back to school and it was both awesome and horrible.
Usually, I walk him to school, pick him up for lunch, drop him back, then pick him up after school.
I walk for all of this but since I got pregnant I’ve not been able to walk very far or for very long which proved to be difficult for the coming school year so my husband and I decided Naveen would eat lunch in school this year saving me the lunch trip but that left dropping and picking up. In the end, it was decided my husband would drop him and pick him up.
That left me free from doing anything which would be too difficult.
Except now I have nothing to fill my time and I find myself wishing there was something to do. I tried watching a little TV, working on the computer, reading a bit but I wound up just tiring myself and ended up taking naps throughout the day until it was time for both Naveen and Marvin to come home.
I’m continuously in awe of women who manage to work while being pregnant and even more so for those suffering from Hyperemesis. I’ve noticed that without medication I would be starved, dehydrated, throwing up every hour but with medication, I’m in a dazed state like everything is happening around me and I’m watching it happen from behind a gauzy veil. I’m not sure which state is better, to be honest. Aware but unable to do anything or unaware and able to do some things.
One thing I’ll be happy about is these posts, without them I’m sure I wouldn’t remember anything from my pregnancy.
Today I’m going to talk about one of the most common topics of discussion in the Natural hair community, curl patterns.
To be honest I’ve never given it much thought at all because I have more than one type of pattern of you go by the chart that seems to be everywhere.
This chart right here:
According to this chart, the front of my head is a mix of 2c and 3a, the middle is a mix of 3b and 3c, the very back of my head is 4a. Like I said before I have a lot of curl patterns.
The curl patterns aren’t that important though, it’s the porosity of the hair or so I’ve been told.
My hair is low porosity and coconut oil is supposed to be really good for this type of hair but I can’t use coconut anything or my hair will become very brittle and break horrendously.
Having hair that dislikes Coconut with a passion is kind of difficult, to be honest because so many hair products geared towards Afro hair have it in it. There are so many highly favored cult favorites that I just can not use.
I’ve begun to disregard all the suggestions that have been thrown my way because what works for one person’s hair doesn’t work for everyone, sometimes you just have to find what your hair loves.
My hair loves Argan, Avocado, Rice water, and Jojoba. I know this because I’ve had favorable results with them.
When I shaved my head back in 2017 I honestly didn’t know what kind of curl pattern to expect, when I was youngest my mother used the wrong products, and my true pattern was hidden.
You probably can’t see it well but my hair was like a 2b and almost like a straw broom, to be honest, it’s like when I flat iron my hair and take braids out.
I’m pretty sure that texture was because my mother used this grease on my hair.
My hair doesn’t do well with grease at all, it is very heavy and what that does is that it drags my curls down until all you see is limp greasy strands and washing did nothing because as soon as we were done washing my hair with shampoos and conditioners that stripped my hair she would comb it with a fine-tooth comb and it was painful so painful that I’d run away and hide until my hair was pretty similar to a bird’s nest and then the real pain would come when she tried to de-tangle it while it was dry!
All my life my mother said my hair wasn’t as good as my middle sister’s because I didn’t have curls like her but when she sees my hair now she can’t believe how similar my hair actually is.
My hair is curly and coily but to maintain this it needs the proper care.
I’ve developed my own routine and I baby my hair so that I can look at it and feel a sense of pride. My hair is just as good, my hair is my crown.
Hey guys! Today I’m going to sidestep the emotions lol I got a lot of response from it and frankly, I felt overwhelmed and needed to process. I never really meant for it to cast blame on anyone, I just needed to release something that’s been with me for many years. I’m happy to finally let it all out and now I’m going to talk to you about the new Gel Micellaire Nettoyant I bought recently from Le Petit Marseillais.
In this post, I spoke about how much the scent is similar to the 1 Minute Masque that I recently tested and that this was the first Gel Micellaire that I’ve used. It is pretty different from Eau Micellaire but kind of similar to Milk Make-up removers I’ve used before only in the fact that it’s not a tiny liquid. It was pretty sticky and left my skin feeling a bit heavy almost like I didn’t remove everything. It did work really well and got rid of all the everyday yuck but it’s a bit too heavy for me to use on a daily basis. I think I will leave this for those occasions when I have a full face of makeup on. I haven’t noticed any new breakouts since using this which is always a plus but I’ll be keeping a close eye on my face for the rest of the week.
I think it was two weeks ago I ordered my phone and these past weeks were torture, I am not the most patient person and I really wanted to be able to talk to my family without cutting the conversation short to charge my phone. I would just sit and wait and wait for some kind of answer as to just when exactly I would receive my phone. Like a week after I ordered it, or rather my husband ordered it for me 😊 he told me I would get it the next week. The next week came and I was still phone less the date was changed to the next week!
So the week it was supposed to be delivered we got the paper in the mailbox to pick it up at the post office hooray!! My husband went to the post office pretty much straight from work and they were closed! It was soul-crushing because I had been there earlier in the day with my son on a class trip. We’d have to get it the next day and finally on Saturday I got my Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 in my hands and it was beautiful.
Neptune Blue
I bought the 32GB model in Neptune Blue, first of all, let me just say that purple is my favorite color and as soon as I saw that purple I knew this was the phone I would go with. The phone is very responsive but you have to remember that my last phone was 5 years old so my new phone is probably not that fast but compared to the old one it was lightning to me. It charges fast and I don’t have to be attached to my charging cable just to make a phone call, I haven’t actually made a call with my phone yet, I just don’t have anyone who calls me other than my parents and they haven’t called yet so I can’t talk about the quality of a call. I really like the fingerprint scanner, my old phone Huawei P8 Lite 2015 didn’t have one so this is like fancy stuff for me, I also have my usual pattern code and tap to wake. I really like tap to wake when I’m doing something and get distracted for a bit and want to go back to doing what I was originally doing on my phone.
Oh and my most favorite aspect! I found this gem when looking for a way to block a phone number, I get A LOT of calls from unknown numbers and they annoy the hell out of me so this is heaven-sent!
I don’t know why this isn’t standard procedure, if you want to call me you should text me first so I can know who you are, I treasure my private life and my phone number is part of my private life.
I haven’t really gotten to play with the camera too much, I’ve been sick and only to the school to drop my son and back, feels like I’ve been inside for a month, to be honest.
This was the first photo I took with my phone, I didn’t know there would be a watermark until after I took the picture.
If you want to remove the Watermark it’s as simple as going into your Camera Settings and finding the option that says Dual camera watermark. I’m looking forward to going out and finding things to take a picture of, I miss being excited to take out my phone or camera and hope that I can find that passion again.
In case you were wondering, you can find the specs of my phone here at GSMARENA.
It really is a great phone and if you’re thinking of getting one for yourself it’s not too expensive at 199,99€. It’s a pretty sweet deal if you’re on a budget like myself if you’re looking for something with a little more storage I heard there was a 64 GB version but it’s not Globally available as yet.
Alright, then my lovelies, time for me to discover even new features hidden in my phone!
I just want to talk about yesterday and why it was the best day ever.
My husband has so many friends that from what I know of my childhood and my family it seems unnatural, we spend a lot of time with them and it wears me out both physically and mentally. Don’t get me wrong I like his friends BUT I need time to myself to unpack all the stress of the week and it seems like I can never get that time because I’m always home with Naveen or at his parents or friends and that’s like being bombarded with even more stress. The talking, the laughing, the music, the smells, everything beats at me until I’m in a deep dark pit crying. To make matters worse we stay at these stressful events for hours and hours and I’m just tired and want to go home but he’s not ready to go home and Naveen is not ready. So there I am month after month being abused mentally.
Yesterday I decided to stay home by myself and it was wonderful!
I had the house to myself, it was quiet, I didn’t have to concentrate on anything other than watching one of my favorite movies The Princess Bride. I could feel all the stress leaving my body and my mood lifting.
If you have Social Anxiety and are also an Introvert like me never feel bad about staying home and watching your favorite movie, your mental health is way more important than being social because society dictates you must be, enjoy your time alone guilt-free, and don’t make it a one-time thing. When you feel yourself slipping engage in some self-care.
I am ready for the week now and actually thinking about smiling but we’ll see what tomorrow brings huh!
As you guys may or may not know I shaved off all my relaxed hair two years ago and let my natural hair grow in. Let me tell you it was quite an adventure.
While I enjoy my hair in its natural state I wash my hair quite often and it’s getting expensive continuously buying Shampoo, Conditioner, Deep Conditioner, and Leave-in Conditioner. Hair oil can last me a few months so there’s no problem on that front.
I keep seeing reviews of Dry Shampoo and some of them have not gotten very good reviews from other women of color. The one that did have good reviews was the DevaCurl No-Poo Original Zero Lather Conditioning Cream it’s not exactly a Dry Shampoo but it seems the Quick Cleanser is no longer available. This poses a problem for me because of 1. DevaCurl not shipping to France and 2. Buying it on the French Amazon is expensive as hell DevaCurl No-Poo-Cleanser. On the DevaCurl website, the cleanser is just $10, and Amazon.fr it is 38,00€ which is a $32.97 increase. I understand importing can be expensive but $32.97?!
With DevaCurl out of the running I turned to Dry Shampoos that would be readily available in the stores around me, they include the likes of Batiste, Garnier Ultra Doux, and U by Super U.
Yes, I live in a very small town and our offerings are very limited!
I was not going to pick up any Batiste because of all the reviews I’ve seen where it does nothing but makes natural hair greasy and leaves a white residue. That left me with Garnier Ultra Doux and U by Super U, I’m well acquainted with the brands having used Shampoo, Conditioner, Leave-in Conditioner, and Deep conditioner from both the Ultra Doux line and U by Super U, I’ve also used hair oil, Micellaire water, and facial moisturizers by U.
With this in mind, I think I will buy both the Garnier Ultra Doux Dry Shampoo and the U by Super U to test out which one I like better.
What about you? Do you have a brand of Dry Shampoo that you like?
As an aspiring author, there’s nothing I love more than new books, the smell alone can be addictive but the feeling of getting your hands on the next book in a series after waiting for months even years is explosive.
Unfortunately for me, finding time to read these days are slim to none, not only do I have to go out several times to drop and pick up Naveen but I have to battle my depression to even feel like reading a book I not only was so excited to read but waited a long time to receive in the mail. I used to be able to read over 100 books in a year and I have fallen to a little under 50.
I want to enjoy my favorite pastime again, I want to be able to fall into a book and forget everything around me, I want to live and love.
Last month I finally got Vengeance Road (Torpedo Ink #2) by Christine Feehan.
Go zero to sixty in this dangerously sexy novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan.
Breezy Simmons was born into a ruthless motorcycle club—and now that she’s out, she’s never going to be that girl again. But when her past catches up with her, Breezy must go to Sea Haven to seek out the man who almost destroyed her. The man who chose his club over her and left her feeling used and alone.
As vice president of Torpedo Ink, Steele is ride or die for the brothers he lived through hell with. He never thought he’d find something as pure as his feelings for Breezy, or that keeping her safe would mean driving her away with cruel words that turned her love for him to ash.
Now, Steele won’t let her walk away twice. He’ll do whatever it takes to make Breezy his woman again—especially when he learns the real reason she came to him for help, and that the stakes are higher than he ever could have imagined…
I preordered this book back in January and had to wait quite a while since it was shipping from the US to France. Before devouring it I decided I was going to re-read Judgment Road first so that I can have the settings and characters fresh in my mind before continuing the series. Although I already read the book and thoroughly enjoyed it I am struggling to get through it. I really want to read the new book but I want to finish this book first!
To make matters worse I picked up a new book and immediately started reading it. It’s called Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique.
A critically acclaimed debut from an award-winning writer—an epic family saga set against the magic and the rhythms of the Virgin Islands.
In the early 1900s, the Virgin Islands are transferred from Danish to American rule, and an important ship sinks into the Caribbean Sea. Orphaned by the shipwreck are two sisters and their half brother, now faced with an uncertain identity and future. Each of them is unusually beautiful, and each is in possession of a particular magic that will either sink or save them.
Chronicling three generations of an island family from 1916 to the 1970s, Land of Love and Drowning is a novel of love and magic, set against the emergence of Saint Thomas into the modern world. Uniquely imagined, with echoes of Toni Morrison, Gabriel García Márquez, and the author’s own Caribbean family history, the story is told in a language and rhythm that evoke an entire world and way of life and love. Following the Bradshaw family through sixty years of fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, love affairs, curses, magical gifts, loyalties, births, deaths, and triumphs, Land of Love and Drowning is a gorgeous, vibrant debut by an exciting, prizewinning young writer.
I have only read a few pages but I am enjoying it, I feel like I’m home with the use of Creole writing, I know some might struggle with it and pronouncing the words right but it’s my native tongue and it just rolls off my mind’s tongue. I feel a sense of peace in this foreign land.
On another note, I was looking forward to receiving a new phone I just recently purchased but it got pushed back to next week. I had planned on getting acquainted with my new phone this weekend but I think I will use it to read and write.
Crucianize 