pms

It started about a week and a half ago, the quite annoying pms symptoms. Drowsiness, cravings of chocolate, a little clumsy. But here's something new I was nauseous the whole time, bloated, extremely tired, and the feeling of carrying rocks on my chest, does this sound like pregnancy to anyone? Well I read that some women get pms symptoms that resemble pregnancy! The funny thing about this is, this just started recently, this past month to be exact. Why the hell my pms symptoms keep changing I have no idea, one month it's extreme cramps the other pregnancy scare. But I'm sure you can imagine I'm freaking out the whole time. So anyway I went to Whole Foods to pick a snack and as I was milling around a saw a natural tablet for women with extreme pms symptoms, and included were nausea, and other symptoms that resemble pregnancy. As most people know I don't take pills in less I feel like I'm going to die (every other month with cramps). Well I'm going to try them next month, to see if they can really block these symptoms including my roll on the floor can't get out of bed cramps. :) I'll let you know if they work. I really hope they do!!

Landry's takes money from the little guy

So I know everyone is tired of hearing about how the one percent is always stealing from the 99 percent, but after I heard this I just could not help myself but to give another example. Recently, Landry's bought Morton's Steakhouse making it the largest restaurant owner in the country. Of course being the largest would more than likely make it the most profitable. So when I heard of some of its financial practices it made a little bit of steam come out of my head. Whenever you work for a restaurant, usually you get about 50 percent off when you want to come in with your family to eat, this is the norm while at work maybe even more of a discount. Well, at Landry's when you go to eat at their restaurants you get 50 percent off it's lower end least expensive restaurants and only 25 percent off the higher end, even if you work for the higher end restaurant, hmmm that's interesting. But that's not even the kicker, if you come in to open and have an employee meal, drink any soda you have to pay Landry's 9 dollars per pay check. If you don't pay you can't eat or drink anything but water and will not be able to enjoy discounts at any of the Landry's locations. What? So basically your paying for your own discount. It would be understandable if this was a small restaurant with a low profit margin, but we are talking about the largest restaurant company in the U.S. I must say I was a little shocked to hear this.

But don't worry that's really not what got my blood boiling, servers in restaurants get paid well below minimum wage, which usually would be made up for in tips. When receiving these 18 to 20 percent tips that's really how servers live. Every company that uses credit card machines must of course, pay a fee.  This fee usually isn't that much for high volume companies one to two percent. But Landry's doesn't have to worry about paying, they just take it out of the servers tips. So if there is a tip left of one hundred dollars, that server is really only getting $98. Now I know this may not seem like a lot on one tip but imagine a whole night or week of this. They are taking thousands of dollars away from hard working servers that completely depend on the tips that they receive when they work. As if it's not hard enough to make ends meet in this economy. I'm even more shocked that no one else has brought this to the public's attention, this is far from being fair. There is no ethical way that taking money from employees is how you pay your bills, plus making a profit on top of that!!! This is crazy, Unethical, and downright unfair!!! The one percent taking from the 99!

The fight against underweight models

 For years now, women from around the world has expressed outcry on the use of extremely underweight models and the altering of pictures to make these young girls look skinner than they really are. The girls that are affected are at an impressionable age, which makes them think this is how they should always look. These thoughts can lead the girls to anorexia and bulimia, diseases that can cause many health and even death. One nation though, is taking action against this epidemic of thinness. Israel has put a ban on women models whose BMI is less than 18%. They have pointed out that models used to be an average of size 38 but now the size has decreased to 24. Israel also has pointed out that 2% of the young girls there suffer from eating disorders that can easily take their lives. This ban has out pressure on several other countries to take action and protect these young girls.



BBC News - Israel passes law banning use of underweight models

Going Natural

In the past few years I have a seen a big hype about going natural, being all organic and keeping those nasty chemicals away from our bodies. I bought into it, after deciding to only shop at Whole Foods or Publix, organic section only, I have noticed a big change in how I feel. I feel much better with more energy for the whole day. So I took it a step farther, not only do I only eat all natural and organic, I started using organic and all natural skin and hair care. My skin is clearer than ever, and stays soft and moisturized. Now even though I started using all natural hair products, I was still going to the salon and getting a relaxer to make my hair straight as possible, and easy to manage. I thought about how I wish I had the choice of either wearing curly hair or straight but I was always told that if I wanted to "go natural" I would have to cut all my hair off. Of course just like a lot of African American women, this idea totally freaked me out, and it went totally out the window.  Then a few weeks ago a friend told me she was going natural, I expressed my concern of unmanageable hair along with having to cut it short. She showed me several clips on Youtube of other women that have taken the plunge and stopped using relaxers. Some of them didn't even cut the relaxer part until their hair was comfortably long enough, laying my fears to rest. Not only did these women have beautiful curly hair, but it was long, thick and healthy. This is what I always wanted for my hair, so as of yesterday I'm going natural no more relaxers or harsh chemicals in my hair.

After I was alone last night, I really started thinking about the psychology behind relaxers, weave, and other products that make African American hair straight; along with other lies throughout the years that we have been told about our hair. One thing is that we can't get our hair wet, we should only wash it every two weeks or longer, it has to be straight or it doesn't look good. It's because still to this day, the society thinks that if our hair straight then we are more presentable, or easier on the eye. It's to keep us in a bubble that makes "them" feel comfortable. What about the stigma that we can't get our hair wet, making water our enemy. I learned that this rumor started because white people back in the civil rights era didn't want us in "their" pools. So they craftily started this rumor. Sadly African Americans still believe this down to this day. What about the "being presentable"? It seems that white and Hispanic girls can wear their curly locks, but when an African American does it, it's immediately frowned upon. This would make anyone feel insecure, and that is exactly what they want, they want us to feel bad so they can feel better. The thing is though, that we should be able to do whatever we want with our hair and our bodies. This shouldn't offend anyone, everyone should have the opportunity to be their natural beautiful selves. That is the exact reason why I decided to go natural, I'm tired of trying to live up to everyone's expectations an leaving what I want to do in the background. I want to be who I am, and if someone doesn't like it, that is just to bad for them. Maybe some of you are reading this thinking "damn girl your kind of late", but I thank all of you that have gone against the grain and did what they felt was good for themselves, not worrying about what other people think; that's what all of us that are being stigmatized or held down in anyway should do, come together and rise up against racism and sexism.