dresses and braids.

I love braids. They bring sunshine, rainbows, and smiles to my day. Back before the great haircut of 2012, I rocked a side braid just about every day. My hair was SO LONG (to me anyways), and I didn't know what else to do with it. It took forever to straighten, so I just braided it. No french braid or anything fancy...just something like braiding a friendship bracelet, except with hair. I can only find one picture from this era, so it will have to do.

Fast forward a few weeks and I can no longer braid my hair. I mean, it barely gets in a ponytail. This "5 minute girl" doesn't like taking too long to get ready. Since it's Spring Break this week, I look like crap and have hair hanging everywhere. It doesn't look too awful contained in a baseball cap, but that doesn't seem to go too well with the black dress (confession: last saturday I changed out of my dress and into shorts and a tshirt so that I could wear a hat to Desmond's baseball game). So, I determined that I needed to do something to help the stray hairs stay back. I found a few braid tutorials for short hair online and got to work. The end result was kind of a conglomeration of all of the tutorials and wasn't a braid- it was actually a twist. On the tutorials I watched, the hair covered the end- but, it didn't work out that way. So, I ended up sticking it back in a ponytail and it ended up halfway cute.

I still have some hairs hanging down, but I think with a little refining this may just work! Obviously, I was just experimenting tonight and I have no idea how long it would stay up, but I think this one may end up in the "keep" pile and replace the side braid while I have short hair. I think that if I parted my hair in the middle, I might could make one of those "crown braid" things. I keep seeing them on Pinterest, but I have no desire to spend hours fighting with my hair trying to get it in a french braid. But, if I could do something with a twist- that might work. Yay for creativity!

Now onto the dresses from the days. As I mentioned in my post earlier today, we have arrived at Day 25! I think I've finally figured out the settings my camera needs to be on to make it take okay pictures in my room! I just look a lot paler without all of the editing! Haha. This girl didn't make it to the beach for Spring Break this year, so I'm definitely not as tan as Day 24 made me out to be. I am wearing that lovely twisty-braid thing that I just told you all about. See the difference with my baby hairs? It's like they've almost disappeared!

For today (since I really didn't write much about human trafficking earlier), I want to link to this article from Vanity Fair. It was written almost a year ago, but this article has probably effected me more than any other article I've read. It's a hard read (emotionally), but it's something that we NEED to know. One quote that strikes me from the article? This one.

“I’d always dismissed the idea of human trafficking in the United States. I’m Indian, and when I went to Mumbai and saw children sold openly, I wondered, Why isn’t anything being done about it? But now I know—it’s no different here. I never would have believed it, but I’ve seen it. Human trafficking—the commercial sexual exploitation of American children and women, via the Internet, strip clubs, escort services, or street prostitution—is on its way to becoming one of the worst crimes in the U.S.”

Human trafficking happens RIGHT HERE in our backyards. I live in Alabama. We're known for football. We're known for our manners and our deep southern drawls (that I STILL don't have after living here for 17 years). But, according to the Women's Fund of Greater Birmingham, we should be concerned about human trafficking. They say that, "forty percent of the sex trafficking major hubs in the US are located in the South or Southeast, the region can be classified as a key area for human trafficking." That's shocking. An area of the country that is known for it's hospitality is also known as a key region for human trafficking. That's why we cannot let our guard down. We have to fight for what we know to be right. We must pursue justice. We have to get educated and passionate about this issue. And that is why I'm doing the One Dress Project. For girls like Gwen and Alicia. So that someday girls like them can be rescued. So that someday girls like them can have a bright future. So that someday girls like them can see the love of Jesus.