Photo Friends

New Pics Coming Soon!

‘

‘

Pamper Yourself!! Spa Week is Coming!

 

Spa Week is coming in April! Book your dates NOW for $50 dollar treatmens! Log onto www.spaweek.com

 

And since Spa Week is on the way, don’t forget to check out the latest news for all of my Spa-nistas!

 

** Brazilian Waxing may be OUTLAWED in New Jersey! What is the world coming to when a woman can’t groom the way she sees fit? The New Jersey Board of Dermatology will be meeting this summer to discuss this issue.  Evidently it has always been banned, but with two New Jersey women claiming to have been infected by improper procedures or contaminated wax, the board feels the need to revisit the issue. Hmmm.  How do you think they will enforce this law? Will they have officers standing guard at the spas? LOL!

 

**Beauty is in the EYE of the beholder! There are two new trends in the area of eyelash maintenance. If you’ve ever spent time curling your lashes or if you’ve spent more than $6 on mascara, you might want to listen up!

            Latisse is a new cosmetic drug that’s supposed to work better than mascara. “They say” it will thicken and lengthen your lashes. I’m always a little skeptical of these claims, because whenever I see the ads it obvious the model is wearing falsies! At any rate, this Latisse is supposed to be better than sliced bread & Botox!  Oprah magazine even has a feature in their April issue!

            Eyelash Transplantation is the other trend that is catching afire in Beverly Hills. I don’t think this is one for the Spa-techs, but I figured you might want the info anyway.  According to Dr. Alan Bauman “Eyelash transplantation does for the eyes what a boob job does for your figure.”  Do you think you would be bold enough to try it? Here’s out it works: doctors remove a single hair follicle from the back of your neck and sew them into your eyelid. Uh, no thanks.  I’ll kindly keep my $3000 and go pick up that tube of Maybelline Mascara!

First All Black Female Flight Crew!!

It was a wonderful day in history on February 12, 2oo9.  It was day that the first All Female African AmericanFlight Crew soared into the air from Atlanta, Georgia to Nashville, Tennessee.  The moment history might not have taken place at all, had one of the originally scheduled officers not been ill.  Though Captian Rachelle Jones had met First Officer Stephanie Grant a few weeks earlier, the SistGirlz hadn’t envisioned working together on a flight so soon!  The women, along with flight attendants Diana Galloway and Robin Rogers have cemented their place in history, ironically during the month February, Black History Month. Way to Go SistaGirlz! If you would like to congratulate the ladies, click on the link below:

 http://www.flyasa.com/contact/crew-contact.php

In this day and age, our young SistaGirlz need as many role models as they can get! It is our responsibility to encourage our young ladies with empowering stories like these. Let them know  we can be and do ANYTHING we put our minds to! Captain Rachelle Jones is only one of 10 Black Female Capatains in the country!  She was a customer service agent for Delta until a friend suggested she become a pilot, and she made that her goal! The airline, Atlantic Southeast Airlines, has hired 3 Black Female Pilots to date.  Awesome! Be sure to tell a friend to tell a friend about these SistaGirlz!

The Snobby Reader!

 

When I was a little girl, my mother would take me to the library as a treat.  We would walk in the doors, inhale the scent of books and head straight to the kids section.  Books became my friend in a way. I can remember talking to one of my aunts about a “friend” who was actually a character in a book. No, I wasn’t looney tunes, I was just an only child (at the time) who found pleasure in the escapism of reading. 

Even if I was on restriction from the telephone or television, I didn’t care because I still had my books.   I devoured everything I could get my hands on from  the Ramona books to Are You there God it’s Me, Margaret.  The Girls of Canby Hall were a favorite of mine because they actually had a girl that was a black character!   You see, this was before the African American teen genre gained the popularity is has today.

I n junior high, I discovered one of my mother’s Harlequin Romances, and I was hooked! I can still remember the name of it “Desire in the Desert”, by Mary Lyons. Sigh…memories! LOL! From then on, I would spend all of my allowance money on romance novels.  I would beg my mother to take me to Kmart or even the flea market, because I could get them for a quarter!  At one point , I had so many, I started selling them at school to my classmates. Yes, I was an entrepreneur way back in the day. 

As I got older my love for books still hovered in romance, but I took time to discover and eventually semi-stalk Maya Angelou. Her book “ I know Why thy Caged Bird Sings”, called to me when I was in 10^th grade study hall. Rather than study for my geometry test, I was journeying with Maya in Stamps, Arkansas.  I traveled down to Eatonnville, Florida when I met Zora Neal Hurston in “Of Mules and Men”.

By the time everyone had started raving about Terry McMillan ushering in a  new wave of African American literature, she was old news to me. I still have her first book, Mama with the ORIGINAL cover.  That being said, I still was happy for her mainstream success.  But as you know,  all good thing scan’t last forever.

With Terry’s success came many other new writers hoping to get an edge in the literary battle.  Some of my favorites were Kimberla Lawson Roby,  Donna Hill,  and Lolita Files.  These divas could tell a story with sass and make you laugh, cuss and cry in 180 pages.  Now, However the storytelling of our SistaGirlz has given birth to the Urban or Street Lit genre.

I won’t sugar coat this: I cannot stand the street lit. No, I’m not trying to stop anyone from being successful , but these stories have changed the entire Black fiction genre to degrading stories of drugs, pimps and hoes! Erotica is one thing, I get it! I own “Erotique Noir”, I put my friends up on that book back in the 90’s! But  what today’s “authors” are calling literary fiction, makes me sad.

The publishing houses are rejecting great stories that move you and make you think, for stories that give little to our imagination with its hood-speak and ghetto plots. I’ve heard of mainstream authors having to write street lit under pseudonyms,  just to get published and sell books.

What effect will this have on today’s young reader? Will it change the industry for good?  Will I have to forever bypass the current African American section in the bookstore, because the majority of the titles will be gangstafied street lit?  It just makes me wonder. Perhaps I am making too much of this whole thing.  Perhaps I should be happy folks are even reading books in this texting, twittering and facebooking age.  Perhaps I’ll just mind my own business and curl up with the latest mystery from Valerie Wilson Wesley.

 

Steve Harvey’s Advice for SistaGirlz! Act Like A Lady….

 

  Okay,  I must admit, I’m late. I have yet to pick up the New York Times Best-Seller, Act Like A Lady Think Like A Man, by Steve Harvey.  I have seen it the bookstore, heard him talk about it on the radio, even saw a clip of his appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, yet I haven’t read the book. On SistaGirlz.com, I am usually focused on women writers, but I have heard more than one of my SistaGirl friends talking about this book. I was at brunch today with a friend who was promoting the book, even though she hasn’t even read it! LOL! 

So here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll pick up the book and check it out, and you do the same if you haven’t purchased it yet. We’ll check back in a few weeks to see what’s what. Heck, if it’s been on the New York Times Best Seller list for seven weeks, old Steve must be saying something like The Truth!

Sony Reader: The New Book Revolution

   Have you heard the latest in book news? Digital is supposedly the way to go. A couple of years ago, my boyfriend asked me if I would like a Sony Reader.  I said no because, don’t laugh, I like to smell the books! No, really I enjoy the whole bookstore experience.  It’s a ritual for me. I am a member at my local bookstore and I get all kinds of discounts, plus checking out all the various titles in person exposes me to authors I might not choose if I had an ebook.  Or so I thought.

  Fast forward to Christmas 2008.  There under the tree was the Sony Reader I told my boyfriend I didn’t want. Why did he get it when I already told him I wasn’t interested is a whole other subject, but guess what?  I was excited about it!  I opened it up and I was in love with the paperback book sized reader.  Mine had the leather cover (purchased separately) and it came with a download for 100 free classics.  There was only one drawback. We found out once I tried to hook it up, that it wasn’t compatible with Macs. What in the LLCOOLJ? Why would a major corporation marginalize their profits with a gadget that didn’t work for all computers?  Who knows?

  Once I finally found someone with a PC I could trust, I uploaded books and I was off to reading!  Most of the ebooks ran around $7-$10, and the Sony Store had a great variety of titles.   The Sony Reader PRS700 has a cool back light feature and it let’s you enlarge the font.  That was one of the things I was worried about. I didn’t want to strain my eyes too much, and so far so good.  SistaGirlz if you’re interested in purchasing the reader you might want to brace yourself for the $399 price tag, but it could be worth it. I’ve found that the reader brings lots of attention from the opposite sex! They are using the reader as a lead in for hittin’ on women! LOL!

Will I give up the bookstore experience? Not anytime soon, but please believe I have the Sony Reader charged up whenever I’m stuck in an airport, dark car or on the subway.

Celeb Sightings!

The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, Mary J. Blige has a new gig! Don’t know if  you heard or not, but Mary J. will be starring in the new Tyler Perry flick, I Can Do Bad All by Myself.  She will be playing a nightclub singer who is best friends with Taraji P. Henson’s character.  Shooting is set to begin in September down in ATL.

Self proclaimed King of Pop is making a comeback over in England! Scalpers are already trying to sell his tickets for hundres of  THOUSANDS of dollars. But that’s not what this post is about.  Word on the street is that the gloved one wants to adopt a baby while he’s there! Lord have mercy on my soul! If the adoption board gives him a kid, shame on them! What do you think?

Halle Berry and little baby Nahla hit the street this past weekend. That baby is getting big, right? Sigh. Time flies!

 

Reebok’s Jukari Fit! Fly off the Pounds!

The things we do to get in shape! SistaGirlz are you ready for a new challenge? Reebok has it with their new Jukari Fit to Fly workout. They have teamed up with Cirque De Soliel, the acrobats. Yeah…that let’s you know this workout is SERIOUS!  As soon as I saw the pics of actress Regina King doing the class in LA , my interest was piqued! Would you take the class?  C’mon, let’s try it! It’s still very new so be on the lookout for it in your area sometime this year.  As for my New Yorkers, Equinox has a class. Let’s go!

Click the link for more info on Jukari Fit to Fly:

http://www.reebok.com/US/#/womens?view=jukariFitToFly

Work those abs!!

Regina King already looks fab, though! She’s come a long way since 227!

 

 

Runway Fashion Trends!

 Have you been thinking of what to wear now that spring is here? I can’t wait to unwrap the layers of thick clothes and show off my arms and legs! Maybe it’s because I’m a child of the summer, but I always feel sexier in warmer weather.  SistaGirl Designer, Tracy Reese has come up with a spring line that will surely have us looking pretty and feeling uber sexy! Check out some of her new looks!

 

Feminine prints are one of the Spring trends to look out for when you hit the shops this season!

Bold blast of color for the Sassy SistaGirlz! Would you have ever thought of those color combos? I don’t know if I would have, but the look is hot!

A look for the summer parties at the Hamptons…

SistaGirl Tracy Reese does us proud as one of the only Female African American designers to break through to the mainstream fashion industry.  Get more info on the designer and her fashions at www.tracyreese.com

Jill Scott is The No1 Ladies Detective!

   Jilly from Philly has just become the first African-American female to have her own show on HBO!  The television adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith’s books have the soulful R&B diva playing detective in Botswana! The The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency was shot on the set in Africa, where Jill Scott, Anika Noni Rose , Idris Elba and a host of others filmed the new series.  Starting March 29tha t 8pm Jill will play the role of Precious Ramotswe, the owner of the country’s first female run detective agency.  

  Unlike most of it’s benchmark shows, HBO is stepping out on a family friendly show in prime time. Be sure to support this SistaGirl Sunday March 29th at 8pm. As Jill gives birth to a new era of her career, she is planning to literally give birth any day.  She is expecting a son with fiance, drummer Lil Jon Roberts.  Be sure to check out the latest issue of Heart & Soul Magazine, Jill is gracing the cover!

Next Page »