Saturday, June 23, 2012

first house on the right

This has been one crazy day. We live near a few vacation homes and are accustomed to the normal noisy weekenders partying away. This weekend the partying started off early with fireworks since Germany won their soccer match. Sorry, I dont know all the details about the game or what the win means, but it's a big deal here. People drive around with their country's flag proudly flying from every crevice of their vehicle.

At 2:30am I was violently awoken from my peaceful sleep by the sounds of a woman screaming and men yelling. But, I truly believe a woman knows when another woman is flirting and when she is screaming for her life. These were screams of fear. I peered through the open windows, but couldn't make out anything. My husband had fallen asleep downstairs so I was headed down the hallway to see if he too had heard the woman. Normally, I would just go back to sleep, but something was very unsettling about her pleas. Though they were in German, they were universal in tone. Before I had wobbled halfway down the hall, our doorbell was buzzing. One... two... three times. Someone wanted in and they wanted in NOW.

I raced down the stairs and my husband met me at the entryway room. I yelled, "Who is it?!" several times, but the responses were all in German. I looked back at my husband for the approval to open the door. He nodded. A young man stood in front of me dazed and frightened. His arm was locked in with his companion. Apparently, this was the young woman who I had heard only moments before. She was visibly shaking and crying. Our exchange was quick, I had no clue what was going on and if there were others out there. I had to think of my family and my sleeping children, but I just knew I needed to let them in. I looked at her and she looked back at me begging for help. We came to the conclusion that my husband spoke enough German and he enough English to communicate. We let them in, offered them water and a seat and called the police again to let them know where they were now. They had already called the police, but from the train station down the road from our home.

The story was they were at the train station when a group of men in a van tried to jump them with bats. The girlfriend took off running and her boyfriend followed as the men chased them. The train station is very close to our home and we've walked and driven through it almost everyday. I think about how long that chase must have felt for her and not knowing when she'd be able to stop. I imagine she saw our home as a safe haven and relief. Everything happens for a reason. My husband falling asleep on the couch with the living room light on was meant to happen. That light illuminated her way to safety. I think how that could have easily been me or one of my girls running and I know that if I had to do it all over again, I would open that door. I just thank God she found our home... the first house on the right.

*Blessings*

Thursday, June 21, 2012

it's growing on me

No, it's not mold. That would definitely be my worst nightmare. I dont even touch molded food items without plastic gloves! I finally chopped off the rest of my relaxer. I actually did it a few days after my previous post. I am 2 weeks post BIG CHOP now. I must say it is growing on me. At first I felt free, then I felt sad, then angry, then confused... but now I'm in love. Many say after you chop off the relaxer your natural hair is extremely dry and yes I completely agree. After a few deep conditioning treatments and playing around with products and techniques, I finally came up with my new regimen. I'll try to remember to update that on the other tab as to not bore you so much here.

I don't think Lilly likes it too much. Lilly is the older of the twins. They are 16months and cracking me up everyday. She stood up behind me on the couch and started playing in my curly fro. Then (I can only imagine this is what happened as she was behind me) her face contorted into a hideous grotesque monster as she gripped two baby handfuls of my hair and pulled with all her might. As she ripped the hair from my head her onesie flew off in shreds like she was baby-Hulk. Yea... it was that bad. The pain... oh man the pain. I admit that I screamed and probably scared some poop out of her. She hates to have her hair styled. I dont use combs on them. I just finger detangle, but she cries every time. Maybe that was payback?

Now that I can't whip my hair back and forth, I've found new things to shake! My pregnant belly. HAHAHA Just joking calm down people. Im not shaking the baby.


image courtesy of kullmans.de

We did try a new restaurant recently. It was nice. An American themed diner in Germany called Sam Kullman's Diner... um ok. So, bottled water costs more than beer in Germany, but it's so fancy. I just love it! The girls were impressed with their coloring pages and pencils. Normally, they receive crayons and just try to bite them. This time they had fancy shmancy colored pencils. The staff were very polite and the food was actually good. I had a grilled chicken sandwich with fries and the hubby had a burger.  We had been out and about that day shopping and checking out some flea markets so it was not a planned stop. All in all a great day.

Until the next time... ciao! 

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

to big chop or not to big chop?

As many of you know, I am on this healthy hair journey. I've stopped chemically straightening my hair or better known as relaxing/perming. This month marks one year since my last relaxer. Yay me! The original plan was to cut off my hair gradually as I embarked on my one year of transitioning from relaxed to natural hair. Well, things happened and I didn't cut or trim my hair as often as I would have liked. Actually, I can only remember trimming it once and then another time chopping a good 1.5 inches off during this last year.

Well, I've been watching tons of YouTube videos and reading hair blogs about all of these women just going into the bathroom and chopping their relaxed hair off. YouTube is the devil, haha! It gets me all hyped up and confident. I feel like I should be jumping up and down and screaming YEAH! Like Lil' Jon. So, after many weeks of contemplation I told my husband of my thoughts. I want to cut off my relaxed hair. It felt like an eternity before he responded. He slowly looked up at me from across the living room and spoke these two words... "That's stupid" hahahaha! I'm joking. He really said, "Do it!" And that's all I needed to hear. I was super excited. I think I feared his reaction to my drastic change if I did cut my hair. I was so worried about his thoughts that I forgot what this journey was really all about. We had discussed my plans last year and he understood what I was after. Why had I been so worried? So insecure? I marched upstairs to the bathroom and began snipping away!

Don't worry, I took plenty of pictures. As I took the scissors in my hand and cut away the first few strands, I felt liberated! I was joining all of those women on YouTube in that secret society of natural haired divas. HAHAHAHAHA! That feeling lasted all of 30 seconds. I looked in the mirror and realized what had been holding me back this whole time. It wasn't my husband, it was me. I wasn't ready. I've had short hair styles in the past, but I'm not mentally prepared for shorter hair right now. I let the hype overpower my plans. I wanted to long term transition and I will continue to do so. Now, I'll just transition with a huge piece chopped off in the back, lol. I will attempt to do more frequent trims to avoid such a huge cut later on. For now, I will continue styling my two textures and dreaming about my head full of natural hair. It will happen, but not a moment before I'm ready. Unless my husband cuts it off while I'm asleep. In that case, I'll be writing my next blog from my prison cell :)

Ciao!

Curl pattern before cutting 


after cutting (left side)