Nia singing Can't Hide Love by Earth Wind and Fire at age 4

I was lurking in my writing group RealSistaWriters that I've been SUPER MIA in and saw the discussion about Nia. Not sure if anyone has seen this seeings how she has 274,000 hits on this one video. She declares her love at the end, which is cute. I'd say someone needs to keep up with her. She is going places.



She sings a ton more and her dad/mom has em' all on YouTube. Rick James, Alicia Keys, Billie Holiday, and more! Check it out!

Locked and Loving It

Is this not a cool picture or what?? My Casio Z750 Camera has it's own internal sfx. This is called illustration. My fellow poet/artist friend Laura Walton took the picture. Man I love this camera.

Here's some more pictures with this cool effect. I think I'm going to work on a mini video with this and see what comes of it.

Bantu Knots and length comparison

Bantu05_06
Originally uploaded by Maryee_pc.

I'm experimenting with flickr and blogger, so I pulled this picture up of my bantu knots comparison in eleven months. Big difference, huh? I may just go ahead and knot em' up next weekend on the 29th so I can see a whole year's difference. With flickr you can email a post to your blogger account like you can with blogspot, picasa, photobucket, and others.

Free Photo Sharing Website-Photobucket

I wanted to share with those of you who visit my blog about one of my favorite on line photo sharing websites-Photobucket. I started using Photobucket at the suggestion of friends from my Ebay groups community of sellers to upload pictures of items I wanted to sell on Ebay. I've had an account for about 3 yrs and stopped using it briefly when I didn't pay for my premium renewal of $25 (when I was not working). When you have a premium account you can upload tons of pictures no matter how large or small and that was the biggest plus in investing in a premium account. You can have a non-paying account, which is what my was reduced to but since I had a few thousand pictures already uploaded I had reached my limit. They didn't chop me down, but they did disallow me to continue uploading more pictures. I still had the ability to share but I couldn't upload anymore.

Well, a few months went by and low and behold, Photobucket changed their tune. It may have been because of the other online photo sharing communities like fotki, snapfish, flickr, picasa and others just to name a few who were catching on to the photo community craze and were giving away more bandwith for free accounts. Photobucket got smart and did just that, but with some restrictions. Check out all their features here.

• Free accounts automatically resize large pictures that are uploaded. No problem here.
• Your account can be private with a password or public, your choice. If it is private you can email friends and family through Photobucket and they send an email out with the password attached. Then recipients can view the album at leisure.
  
• Another great perk with Photobucket is they allow you to resize photos that actually need to be reduced in size for various reasons. For example if you have a blogger or fotki account and you want to post your picture in your profile, you can upload the picture into Photobucket reduce it 25%, 50%, or 75% and then use the html link for the blog or save the picture onto your desktop to upload later to whatever site you want to send it to.
• A major big plus with Photobucket is you can send pictures via the internet with Photobucket by copying the picutes you upload and preview. Tons of pictures are sent either in their original form or as thumbnails that can be clicked on and they only take up like 5kb in your recipient's inbox. No more sending folks pictures that take a long time to downloand and then a long time to send and then they have to download the pictures to see them. Nope, with Photobucket, the pictures can be seen instantly. The only bad part about it is if you as the owner move the picture around from one folder to another, you will lose the direct link. Other than that, you have a feature that allows folks to save whatever pictures they want or just view them and that's all without clogging up their email with large files.
• They offer contests that you can win $2,500 for your best shot!
  
• You can post your pictures like Picasa to your blogs and myspace accounts.
• You can post "Bucket Stamps" which allows you to create a stamp with 4 or 9 picture max at a time. Like this one of my sister and me. I call it "Sisters".
  

Another feature is called Photo Strip. Here the photos are displayed horizontally but smaller. This feature allows you to create a strip with 5 or 10 picture max at a time. With the exception of the nappy sister, all the pics here are my creations from photo software.

Lastly, Photobucket has the Bucket Show. This is a slide show of pics. You can put up to 10 pictures at a time in the show.

There's no controling how fast the photos change, but it is continuous like the others. The only way these pictures would cease to display is if the owner moved a picture, closed the account, or Photobucket was experiencing technical difficulties. One cool thing about sharing your photos in this manner is it reduces the probability of sticky fingers taking your original photos. Plus it adds some pizzazz to your blogs. There's lots more photobucket has, but these are a few highlights. Check it out. It offers a lot for free accounts.

Opps! I forgot one more feature: The video upload!!!!!!!! Upload your own video and share it with friends. You can embed video into your blog without having to upload it to youtube, google video, or yahoo video, which folks then have the ability to leave unwanted comments of your video. You can do this even through a free account. Sweet!! This is Red, the steer. That's me screaming. I edited it and I was saying, "Ooooo, that's nasty!!" Ugh!!!

A day getting retightened with Gigi in Euless, Tx

Felicia who was waaaaaaayyy overdue for her retightening went first. Gigi was gracefully fast and got her done in about 3 hours. You'll see the picture with Gigi crying and Felicia whimpering because this was her first official retightening since getting locked May 1st. She had absolutely no parts and a lot of slippage. Oh yeah, and a lot of new growth. Needless to say we all were happy when she got tightened up.

Jen was next and hers only took about an hour and a half since she has about 300 or so locks. She was concerned that Gigi was gonna be fussing but her locks were in pretty good shape also. Long huh??? And yeah, she still regrets not listening to Imani when she encouraged her to keep the locks small in the beginning. The cool thing about Jen's hair to me and others is how it grows in layers. That's nice!!

Mine took right at an hour and a half as well. She even added a lock in the back for me that I accidentally cut off several months ago. She said my hair looked good seeings how the last time she had her hands in my head was a year ago when she taught me how to retighten my own hair. She is such a good teacher as well cause anyone who retightens their own hair knows that seeing a consultant at least a couple of times a year is ideal and recommended. When my money gets better, I'm gonna do better. Lawd know's Ima do better. Gigi is fast, pleasant and very professional. If you are in the DFW area, go see Gigi!!

Sheriff Strain's views on Trash coming into St. Tammany Parish

Dreadlocks and Che-wee hairstyles, right?

hmmm? Looks like most of the folks they are looking for don't fit this description.

http://www.stpso.org/mostwanted.php?start=0

More on the subject by Jersey Goddess.

Art Anyone? Black Pearls Natural Expression 2006

One of the best advantages of blogging about natural hair is finding talented and unique people along the way. This post will be about an artist who's far, far, far away from me in lil' ole' Waco, Tx, but allows me and others to experience the beauty of an island and culture like Bermuda.
My girl Vanessa George of Bermuda is an extremely talented sistah. I met her in the fotki natural hair community. She doesn't have Sisterlocks, but she is definitely a natural sistah. Check out her Website to learn more about Vanessa. She's got skills. Take a look at some of her work on fotki here! That's one of the beautiful blessings of being a part of online communities. I have had the opportunity to meet so many talented and inspirational women and men. I doubt if I'd ever run into these folks ever in life, but with the internet and friendly environments, we all have the opportunity to connect, spread love, be inspired and go on and do what's in our heart to do as well. I'd say that's good news, huh??
Let her know you heard about her from my blog on when you visit her website/fotki album. Oh, and also, buy some of her work!! Blessings!

India Arie's Video~I Am Not My Hair

With so many locversaries and more movements to totally embrace our natural selves, I had to hunt down the video for India Arie's "Sistah Girl Hair Anthem" I Am Not My Hair. http://www.youtube.com saved the day.

Since I'm like Brunsli and my sister Jen, who do not watch TV, this was actually my first time seeing the video. I heard the song on line and read the lyrics, but tonight was able to see and hear. So, Blaqkofi and everyone else celebrating Natural Freedom, enjoy!!! For the lyrics, Click on Blaqkofi's name.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) The Silent Killer

I was sent an email from my cousin concerning this highly unknown type of breast cancer and after seeing the video wanted to share it with those women out there in blogland. It has graphics because of the nature of the video so be prepared. I, myself had never heard of IBC either until today. If anyone of you is familiar with this or knows of someone who is, please leave your comments. Knowledge is power and detection in this case is a life or death situation. Blessings to all!

View the Video Here

Make sure you release the pop-up because it opens in another screen from the website.

Experimenting and Pondering Changes

I thought I'd add some pictures taken within the last week of me experimenting with my camera's continuous shot feature. It's so cool. It takes 25 shots in 5 seconds. You can read more about the camera here. **I didn't pay that much for it, believe me. I got a major holiday hook-up and paid only $134 for it at The Sharper Image in Baybrook Mall while in Houston after Christmas.
Jen also took some pictures of me with my hair in it's free style state.
I think I'm gonna do something curly coming up here real soon. I just need to retighten one patch that's got me down and out. The root beds are so small and fragile (in my humble opinion anyway) that I am just not motivated to fool with em'. Jen suggested I go ahead and make an appointment with GiGi. I'm really considering it cause I also am seriously thinking about two things: #1 combining my locks so I'll have thicker locks and also a thicker root bed, and #2, coloring my hair. Ree-C got me all "lock envy'd up" with her full color and thickness. It's just beee-au-tiful!!!!
My girl Dread_Princess on Fotki has shown me that you can do major styling with thicker locks. Her locks are just fabulous!!!! I mean it! Well, off to bed I go. I have a much needed dentist appointment in the morning. Wish me well!!

Maryee and Jen updated pics

Taken 6-11-06

Watch out now!!!

Jen and I are at our 30 month (2 1/2 yr) mark. I was locked 11-28-03 and Jen 12-13-03. It has been such an exciting journey for the both of us, mixed with more ups than downs. My stress level has actually gone down considerable since getting locked. Cause I promise you, I've lived a full 30+ yrs of hair care drama until getting Sisterlocks. I am sure I would have had high blood pressure by now considering most everyone on both sides of my family (mom and dad included) have hypertension. If you aren't familiar with it's deadly effects on Blacks, I'd suggest you click on the link above.

As you can see there has been tremendous growth, in more ways than one. As a matter of fact, for me this has been the longest my hair has ever been in my life. I always knew I had it in me (he he), but when you are a child and you have no control over the maintenance of your hair, you well, submit to what's given to you, right? Then when it was time to "take control" of my hair, I was rather ignorant of the "how-to"s of it all. Like India.Arie said in her song, I Am Not My Hair, I called myself getting a perm at 15 and by the Spring of the next year, it had all fallen out, thus forcing me back into a Jherri Curl and only 1 inch of hair for the beautician to work with. I'll have to upload pics later. Not to mention, I'd already suffered during my formative years under being misidentified as a "cute little boy". That does a lot for the self esteem doesn't it?

I'm getting closer and closer to my "summer ponytail", but I shant fret. Patience is a virtue they tell me. It's all good. I do think I need to get one of Denise Reed's loc socs Leighann and others have spoken about. I promise to post some fun and interesting stuff here real soon.

Last week was a major transition week. Jen and I found out we can't substitute teach over the summer because we're not "certified" to teach. With the No Child Left Behind Act and all they want more than just college educated folks teaching today's youth. They want proof you got some kind of training to reach and teach young people. When you read my guestbook of students who've visited my website, you'd have to wonder if certification means expertise. hmmm?? It's all good.

So we've been hanging out a lot at Beatnix Coffeehouse hosting Open Mic Poetry and staying Creative. I need to be listing more stuff to sell at Sweet Pea's Corner on Ebay, clearing out all these books, reading more, working on my soundclick and of course writing more. And I am...day by day.

Well, I'll leave you for now. Check back soon or visit my fotki album. There's some updated pics there, well a few anyway. Thanks B for the nudge!

Lots of Beautiful Locs Collage

OK folks, I know it's been a long time coming, and I haven't gotten done what I wanted, but for those of you who have been patiently waiting, here is the wonderful beautiful collage of lovely locked ladies. For those of you who sent me your photos after March 2nd, I wasn't able to add your photo, but I'm sure we will have another nice collage going real soon. Until then, enjoy the pictures of these fabulous sistahs! Thanks Brunsli for helping a sistah out with the collage while my computer was on the fritz. I have a new computer now, but am a bit fearful with downloading picasa for fear of getting unwanted spyware and adware. Until I add more, enjoy!!!!!

30 Month Mark or 2 1/2 years