OAWE: Final update

****These next few posts were written between the dates of  June 30th and July 17th, sorry they got got posted late****

Written July 11th

My FINAL pre-wedding update is here! I will be getting married in less than 10 days..... No, excitement hasn't really kicked in yet but I know when we are on our way next week it will be boiling over! Here are my last observations.........

Hair:

I took down my twists right before my final exam which put me at 13wks post relaxer. I am super proud of myself because I allowed them to stay up for 6 whole weeks before I took them down! Just remind me to never do that again!! After the take down, I was battling knots from shed hair being tangled around other strands for at least 3 days; It was awful!! Then my hair felt so stiff and hard..... ICK. I pre-shampooed over night, clarified DC'd for hours, blow dried my hair to stretch it out and then basically left my hair alone after that. The following week I got a relaxer (THANK GOD)..... You can check out those results in my other post. It's no secret that my hair is still recovering from damage and when my stylist Amanda asked me what I wanted to do to my hair after showing me what it looked like in the back, I decided to trim it up some just to give it the illusion of being slightly even. So I didn't cut my hair, but it is a bit shorter than it was when I first got it relaxed. I'm okay with that, my mission now is to keep my ends from getting any unnecessary splits while it continues to fill back in.

Body:
I did stick to my working out 2X a week and it is definitely showing!! The seamstress that is working on my dress told me not to lift weights because it expands my muscles in my back and would make it hard for my dress to zip up. I stayed away from the free weights and the arm machines at the gym, but I can't stay away from the weight balls for my ab workout!! I gotta have some resistance for my abs...... that shouldn't harm me in any way..... should it? I guess I'll find out next week when I do my final fitting.......

Face:
I pretty much gave up the dream of having "clear" skin for the wedding. I came to terms with myself that I will still have acne marks on my face despite my efforts. Honestly, I'm okay with that because the actual breakouts have slowed up tremendously; I only really break out during a certain time of the month. I invested in some Mary Kay foundation for the big day just to make my skin tone even and also I went ahead and got the microdermabrasion set to have a scrub element. The fight is not over for clearer skin I'm still going hard, but the scars have won this particular round!

Mind and Spirit:
"Am I really about to be married?" That's what I find myself thinking at times.....I don't doubt for a second that I want to be with Lewis for the rest of my life, I think it's just one of those life questions you seem to ponder at random times. When I got accepted into nursing school I used to ask myself "do you really want to be a nurse?" Performance anxiety I guess. I am out of summer school so there's no stress coming from there! My mind is clear of any school business at the moment Lol....... My spirit is definitely ready to embark on this new life journey I am about start. My prayer is that although this does change things for us, it doesn't change who we are and who we fell in love with. I can't wait to begin writing this chapter in my life with Lewis!