The Pursuit of Hair Happiness

Today I have spent a number of hours on the internet lurking on sites, playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook and reading about natural hair. The latter leaves me a little befuddled and confused, because you see I'm not really a hair person. What does that mean, well I like for my hair to look nice, but I am not into primping and constantly checking out how my hair looks.
A good hair day to me is one where I wake up, style my hair and that's the end of it until the end of the day. I don't want to have to keep combing, fixing or worrying about how my hair looks. I have found that this is really next to impossible.
Last August I found myself fed up with my hair. It was just limp, I had worn the same basic style forever and I just didn't know what to do with it. Ultimately, I longed to pull my hair into a ponytail and just go about my day. That however was not possible because it was only about ear length, and short styles weren't my cup of tea because it called for too much maintenance.
I had dabbled for a couple of summers with wearing it natural, but this year the ends just seemed so straight and would not curl, which I really didn't understand because I had not relaxed my hair in about two years.
My mom was attempting to loc her hair again, and I went to the salon with her and talked to one of the stylist who suggested I make an appointment for a haircut and go from there. So, a few days later I came back and cut my hair and started my journey. After that initial cut I could see a difference in the way my hair looked, the ends were no longer straight, but I'm not sure I was totally satisfied with the look. I kept my hair in its natural state for about one month and then had it styled for a wedding. Boy was my husband happy to see the transformation, and so devastated to see me go back to the curly natural state the day after.
Today, fourteen months after the fact I'm still getting used to my hair, but I'm also finding that there is no such thing as "no maintenance" hair. That is a bummer for me, because as I have stated I don't like fussing over hair.
So today I came across the blog Newly Natural, and all of a sudden a light came on. Here, KCurly writes about her journey to natural and she offers tips on products, styles and maintenance. I have read a number of blogs, but I think this is the first time I really had an "Aha" moment. Although I don't like to really play with my hair, in order for me to find satisfaction and achieve my goals I must. I also have to really get to know my hair, which I believe I have done in the last year, but I still have to spend more quality time with my hair and really understand all of the different changes that take place - primarily with the use of different products.
As much as I don't want to be a slave to my hair, I can see that I have a lot of learn and it's still a work in progress.
I'll keep you posted.