Hi Tara, I have lived in Chicago all my life so i guess my hair is used to the crazy weather changes. I had the air conditioning on 5 days ago and today I am wearing a coat an  have the heat on! My hair is pretty strong so luckily it has grown to 50" as of now. I wear buns most of the time and they are really getting heavy at this point. Moisture on the hair adds to the weight too.I just use 6 smaller clips to try and distribute the weight. I do take the bun out every few hours and re-position the clips.( a good time to mist it) I have a good pretzel bun I made and also like the figure eight bun a lot.Im working on more buns that distribute weight. I have lots of buns posted at the yahoo group BUNS and also have a bun page on my personal hair page.
http://www.jjjlonghairphotopage.zoomshare.com/3.html
Without buns i could never survive in Chicago!

JJJ,

   It's wonderful to see you are posting here on Long Locks.  I have admired your beautiful blonde hair for a while and the beautiful pictures on your site.  Looks like Chicago is a good place to grow incredible long hair for you!  You really are a long hair celebrity!

Blondestorm