Unnatural Natural

In the last three or four years, Black women have left the relaxers on the shelves and in their beauticians’ cabinets to don their natural hair texture.  The term nappy has been replaced with coils, curl pattern, and maybe kinky.  If the word 'nappy' is spoken, it’s a term of endearment and no longer a term of a jacked up head.

Along with the movement of natural hair comes the movement of natural products on the hair.  Natural oils and juices mixed up to give the natural hair a softer texture and proper moisture.

Fewer and fewer Black women are doing less to fit into the European look world.  They have stopped using a hot comb or skin and tissue eating chemicals to get their locks straight to keep a curl or nap out of sight.  Occasionally, the flat iron is used from time to time to give that straight hair look without using a chemical on natural hair. 

Word to the wise.  If transitioning to natural hair, be careful of flat ironing.  Make sure that the flat iron is not too hot.  Also take note that the natural products mixed with the natural hair texture may produce conditions where flat iron use will permanently straighten the hair - preventing the hair strands to return to their natural curl pattern.  So when the new growth of hair comes in, the ends will be straight while the new growth is in the natural curl pattern causing for maintenance and styling challenges. 

Just because flat ironing didn’t cause permanent straightening of the hair before, doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. All it takes is one time for damage to occur. 

Once the natural curl has been permanently damaged - to be forever straightened, there are only two things that can be done.  Wear the hair in a style such as a twist out, braids or under a wig until the new growth grows out enough to clip the damaged straightened ends OR just do a big chop* as soon as possible.

Applying heat, coloring or chemicals is unnatural.  Mixing unnatural with natural hair and/or with natural products may not be a good idea.  If you want to keep your voluminous natural mane healthy and beautiful, tread carefully when considering heat or coloring.   Even when applied by the best of the best stylists, irreversible damage can occur.

Check out these pictures of damaged natural hair.

http://www.socurlysokinkysostraight.com/tips-and-resources/ - underneath the caption “Beware……..”.

http://www.naturalhairrules.com/ahhh-heat-damage/

Peace.

N

*Term used when cutting off chemically treated or damaged hair at the end of the new growth while transitioning to natural hair.

Online Job Searching

Searching for a job has come a long way. Back in the day, folks hit the pavement, door to door, filling out application after application and trying to be the first to grab the classified ads as soon as they come off the printing press.

In recent years, a person applying for a job online would have to type their life story in little character spaces after character spaces, question after question, and job application after job application.  Fortunately, today some companies are realizing what a waste of time and resources that is and are just satisfied with an uploaded resume.

Employment agencies have made it easier to register with their company to fulfill their clients’ job orders as well with just an uploaded resume and online testing from the comforts of home.  Some agencies send their candidates directly to the clients without ever laying an eye on the candidate.

Online job boards including those sponsored by local, state, and federal government make it easy for the applicant to post their resume with specific key words so that prospective employers can browse for potential candidates to call in for an interview. 

However, multi-level marketers, marketing and sales companies, and scammers also browse resumes and contact unsuspecting and desperate job seekers with no intention of offering them a true employment opportunity.

Here are a just a few recommendations when searching and applying online for a job:

• When posting a resume online to be viewable by prospective employers, only include e-mail address and/or phone number.  Do not include middle initial/name or any type of mailing address.  

• Apply electronically for a position directly to the company.  Some job boards will post a position saying that it’s with XYZ Big Company but when it’s time to submit an application or resume for the particular position, the link to apply is still on the job board site.  Go directly to XYZ Big Company’s website and search for that position on their employment or career page.  If it’s listed, apply directly on the company’s website or to whatever link XYZ Big Company provides on their website to submit an application.  If the job isn’t listed, let it go.  Only time to apply for a job with XYZ Big Company and it’s not on their website is through a bona fide employment agency – especially those with which you have registered.  Applying for a position online is time-consuming.  You can take a chance and apply for the XYZ Company job from the job board, but get ready for an onslaught of marketing e-mail messages about training, more jobs to apply for, and most likely no interviews out of any of it.

• Be careful of e-mail messages or phone calls from so-called agencies talking about they saw your resume on such and such board and that they have a position for you based on your resume and credentials.  If they ask for the last four digits or all nine digits of your social, don’t give it.  If they want you to sign a contract and fax it back to them, don’t sign it.  If they want your full name including the full spelling of your middle name, don’t give it to them – especially if you don’t usually use it in the course of personal or professional business.  Granted some industries such as healthcare, government or insurance companies may need this information to conduct various types of background checks, but do not give that information to these agencies WHO CALLED YOU out of the blue based upon your online posted resume and especially if you haven’t had an interview with anybody.  Check out the agency and get back to them (if proven they’re legit).  Some of these agencies have been found not to pay the employees that they have contracted to work with another company. The agency will receive their money from the company, but may seem to forget to do payroll or have some type of payroll issues.  Then some of these agencies aren’t agencies at all and just looking for information to conduct identity theft.

• Please beware of applying for a job on an online list where’s it’s free to register and post that something or somebody is “wanted” or “needed.”  Some legitimate companies are turning to these lists for recruitment cost savings but there are individuals and bogus groups that may use this type of advertising to lure in folks to conduct criminal activities. 

• Do not go to an interview without verifying that the company is legitimate and that the address pans out to be the company’s true location – this goes from any employment or career site source.

N

Segments on Blog Talk Radio

"Lady Intelligence Live"

on Blog Talk Radio!!

Story after story about girls and women abused or killed by their "boyfriends" in their own home. Story after story about children being caught in the crossfire of violence by men introduced to them by their mothers. 

• Do these girls and women see this coming? 
• Did they just ignore the warning signs? 
• What are the warning signs?  

Isn't it funny how those on the outside always see the warning signs? 

Click Below and Listen to the Archive of This Episode

Listen to internet radio with Lady Intelligence Live on Blog Talk Radio

Alzheimer's

BlackDoctor.org recently reported that recording artist Bobby Womack told a Britain music station that his doctor informed him that he had signs of Alzheimer’s.  This story hit home for a number of reasons.

One, Bobby Womack is one of my favorite singers.  Two, Womack was a favorite of my father’s as well.  Three, he hails from my hometown. Four, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a decade ago and after much suffering passed away a year ago this month.

In this particular BlackDoctor.org article, they posted a list of likely early clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s.  The disease can progress rapidly or it can be a long, suffering, painful, and debilitating progression.

If a person has been diagnosed with symptoms of Alzheimer’s or another dementia progressing disease, the following are suggestions to keep in mind:

1.  Seek legal advice and obtain the following:

• Last Will and Testament
• Power of Attorney
• Living Will
• Power of Attorney Healthcare Directive

2.  Get all credit and loan accounts in order.  It’s a good idea to get disability insurance and credit life insurance for individuals who are over the age of 65 while in good health.  If a disability occurs or if the person passes away, the bills should be paid in full by the insurance in place.

3.  Maintain vision and dental appointments.  It’s a good idea to keep up vision and dental appointments because as the disease progresses, it may become difficult to get the patient to these types of appointments let alone for them to be able to communicate and respond appropriately while being seen.

4.  Keep driver’s license or state ID up-to-date.  Some institutions may need this information to process certain transactions before the Power of Attorney is established on record.

5.  Take advantage of home health care and/or hospice when offered.  These types of programs are helpful to keep the family member home and comfortable for as long as possible.  These types of programs also offer assistance with hospital and bedding supplies and equipment that can be of great assistance to the family financially.  Some of these programs incorporate other therapies such as massage, spiritual, physical and so on which help to keep the family and their family member in good spirits and keeps the family member mobile for as long as possible.

 N

Wanna Buy A Brand New Car?

Someone told me, “I’ve always wanted to buy a brand new car.”  

Well, it’s not difficult to buy a brand new car.  What is hard is buying a brand new car without getting stiffed in high interest, a high car note, a lifetime of payments for that one car, and winding up in negative equity. *

First…Credit Got To Be Right

Do not attempt to buy a car, unless it’s by cash only, if the credit score is less than 720.  720 and above qualifies for $0 down, 0% interest, and a lower monthly payment.  The lower the credit score, the higher the terms. 

Second…Start Planning for the Car Before It’s Needed

Instead of waiting until the current car breaks down beyond repair, begin putting away the dollar amount of the desired monthly payment for the new car.  This will do two things.  1) It will be training on getting the car note on the new car in on time as well as give ample time to get used to that amount of money being gone every month.  2) The money stashed away makes for a great down payment.  The higher the down payment, the less the car notes.

N

There is a detailed chapter entitled “How to Buy A Car” in “Big Girl Little Girl – Everything I Can Think Of Right Now To Tell You About Life, Money, Credit, Boys, Men and Sex.” Information covered includes:

• What should be and what should not be included in the financing terms
• What the dealerships don’t want you to know
• How to avoid negative equity
• And more…

“Big Girl Little Girl” is available on www.ladyintelligence.com.

 

*Based on what I learned as an owner or lessee of six brand new cars or SUVs and as an Automobile Product Specialist large new and used car dealership.

Feet First

I live in tennis shoes for the most part and I love the arch support.  If I don’t have to put on any fashion shoes or boots, I’m good because to me they are not the most comfortable things to wear.  But after searching and searching, I just recently started wearing high heels that I could stand to have on for an hour or two.

Tried on these little ditties a few months ago while the kids looked for boots…the shoe guy saw me trying them on and said that they were just for display and that nobody human could stand or walk in them.  They were actually comfortable and easy to walk in because of the way they scooped the foot. Few months later, I saw a woman at the Cracker Barrel with them on in another color and she was holding on TIGHT! to her dude.  :)

Anyway, I saw this collection of celebrities’ feet pics on the web or in print somewhere.   In this collection,  their toes were on top of each other, their feet had huge bunions, they had pure-dee hammertoes or the toes just went in some other kind of direction other than straight. The commonality in all of the pics was that the toes turned, almost twisted, toward the outside of the foot.

I noticed in my demo pic with the shoes, my toes looked a little like theirs going off to the side but then my toes, when barefoot, pointed straight ahead.  Only thing though is that there is a slight slant to the outer side with the big toes that was not always the case.   

Breaking News!!
High Heel Shoe Wear 
Jacks Up Feet!!!

Those celebrity sisters, assumedly, live in high heels and that’s why their toes have developed side-way joints from trying to support all that weight.

WebMD has a nice slide show about the worst shoes for your feet. Take care of your feet.  If not, they could look like....this

Would you say start the year off on the right foot ???

N

User Password Energy

Oh boy.  How many user passwords on average does one person have?  Between banking institutions, social media pages, e-mail accounts, children logins for their academic record and school lunch account, the many reward cards, online stores, the phone voicemail systems, stuff related to the job and/or business, prospective employer career and job search sites, TV shows…  

Thought I had it down to a science by creating an exhaustive spreadsheet for all user names and passwords (albeit the passwords on the spreadsheet are still yet encrypted and should prove to be a Bigfoot to decipher).

Been doing that practice for almost a decade now.  Started when 12345a could not be used anymore because it didn’t have an uppercase letter and some other kind of character like an exclamation point.  Then it was hard to keep up with the new passwords that had to be created because the old passwords “expired” every 20 minutes.

Well, one practice that fell by the wayside was keeping up with the new passwords.  The almighty “Reset Password” button became a nifty tool and quick fix to get in whatever site or account due to laziness to pull up the spreadsheet.  Didn’t give it one thought that the ‘just get another one’ method would work only for as long as access to the e-mail accounts remained to eternity.

Had been a long time e-mail account holder with one company.  Hadn’t posted in a blog outside of the website in almost a year.  Totally forgot about it. (shrugged shoulders)  When the decision came to return to Blogger, stumbled on the old blog page after the new blog page was created.

And of course...can’t get into it.  The old blog account was created using another e-mail account and no phone number or alternate e-mail address was given for password recovery.  Ugh.  It’s just sitting there untilled with a link error that can’t be fixed.*

But that’s okay. 2013 is too precious to spend excess energy on a simple mistake. The lesson has been well learned. 

Note to self:  Keep list of user login and associated passwords current at all times.

*Already been in communication with account recovery.  Ain’t worth the carousel ride.