Sunday, September 30, 2007

Keeping it Natural, Not Nappy Headed Article


Say it Pricilla P! My thoughts exactly!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Miss Evans, How much them Sisterlocks Cost?

Every night when I come home, one of my ways of decompressing is visiting Lockitup to see what the ladies and some gentlemen are talking about. One of the topics is the cost of Sisterlocks. Renea did a good job of addressing it in her blog, but since I'm teaching 7th Math this year, I decided to do some quick calculations on my "pre" and "post" Sisterlock fees.

I had a standing appointment every six weeks when I lived in Houston to see my dear Ms. Linda who braided my hair (I'll add a picture of her beautiful work later). I gladly gave her $100 (not including tip days) and the cost of driving about an hour both ways from Webster (Clear Lake City) to the southwest side off Beltway 8 and Fondron. I would spend the better part of 5-6 hours with her each time, according to what beautiful and creative style we'd come up with. I was her guinea pig. That costed me about $860 a year for almost 3 years (not including gas). The hair, which sometimes was synthetic and sometimes human, totaled about $325 for the year. We're at $1185 so far. Ooops, did I mention I was a "hair care" junkie? I wasn't addicted to creamy crack, but I definitely was addicted to all the supplements. That would run me on average about $250 a year. This includes every "new super hair growth" product, shampoo, cream, oil, etc. We're up to $1435 now. I'll stop there.

When I got Sisterlocked. My initial cost almost 4 years ago (the good ole' price days) was $375 which included my consultation, locking session, locking kit, and follow-up retightening. The locking session only took 8 hours.

The 8.6 times a year retightenings came to roughly $516. I paid a flat rate of $60 at that time, which my dear consultant Imani always got me out of there in less than 2 hours. That's about $890. The deliverance from being a "hair care" junkie saved me a couple of hundred dollars a year, so I'd say I probably spent about $100 on SL products, if that a year. So that comes to about $990 for the 1st year and about $600 for the year after that. You do the Math.

In in the summer of 2005 I took the retightening class from my other dear consultant Gigi, which costs me $125. With the exception of only one visit since then, which costs me about $90 and a trip to Euless, that's about it, with the big pay-outs on Sisterlocks. The SL haircare supplement costs are still about the same, but for the most part, I've been saving money, hand over fist.

Now, that I have a lil' income teaching, I plan on scheduling retightenings again with Gigi, so I can get pampered. I also plan on giving some beauticians here in Waco an opportunity to touch my hair by shampooing, rollings and styling it. I may let them do some cute up-dos or a french roll. We'll see. I just need to get through my first year teacher hazing period. I miss blogging, so that's why I had to post about the question, "Miss Evans, How much them Sisterlocks cost"?

I'll be back later to update on my first days of school. So far, so good!! I gotta get dressed and out the door. Laters! Oh yeah, the students at my school know exactly what my hair is, so much that yesterday this girl was telling me my "dreads" were "tight" and one of my students corrected her and said, "Those are Sisterlocks." She was like, "Sisterlocks?" I just told her to "google it."

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Adding a Photobucket Slideshow to your Blog

Sign into photobucket. Sign in to blogger as well. OK in photobucket, when I create a slideshow, I see after it saves, it then it allows me to name it, then appears on the screen. To the right of the slideshow it says, "Share URL, Direct Link or HTML." The one I chose to post into my blog is "HTML Tag". I copy the tag, and then go back into my blogger account. There I sign into blogger and click on "Dashboard". The choices of my blogs comes up there. Where you see your personal blog name and not the LHBE, click on "New Post". The blank new post comes up. Before you paste, click on the link to the right that says, "Edit HTML". After you click on that link, then you paste the slideshow into the post. You know you've done it right when you see the embedded link which will look something like this: embed type="application. shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://wmg.photobucket.com/pbwet.swf?pbwurl=http://wmg.photbucket.com/
albums/v198/maryee09/Sisterlocks/FtWorth81907/b255167c.pbw" height="360" width="480">

After you see this, then click on "Preview". The slideshow should come up. Now if you want to make a comment/message about the slideshow, this is where it can get a lil' confusing. When you click on "hide preview", the slideshow disappears altogether,which gives the illusion that you deleted it. Don't panic, it's still there. Even when you click on "Compose", it still doesn't show up. Don't worry.

Click on Edit HTML again and type any word at the beginning or ending of the embedded file code. Now click on "Compose" again. You will see your word. It's at that place that you can begin to type whatever you'd like to say about the slideshow. When you click "preview" again, you'll see your message. If you want to create your message at the top of your slideshow, then start typing (while in HTML Edit mode) before the embedded code. If you want your message to be at the end, then start typing at the end of the embedded code. You can go back clean it up by adding bolds. links, etc. simply by going back to the "Compose" area after you've typed a few words to find it in the blog post.

Very Important: At the top left of your screen, you should see the name of your blog, and not the Locked Hair Blog Exchange. If you see the LHBE, you've posted in the wrong blog. You don't have to "re-do" everything you've done so far, all you have to do is go back and click on "Edit HTML" and copy everything that's in the post, go back into dashboard and click on "new post" in your blog and then paste.

Here's what I came up with while practicing going through the steps for this blog post:


Hopefully this will help those who want to add some pizazz to their blogs. If you're still confused, let me know. Technology takes a little practice, but once you're up and running, you just seem to fly!!!!! I wish you well in your continued growth in your locks, with technology and your life!