Nobody Cares Until You Win, But F*ck Them

Some of the messages shared during the panel discussion hosted by Kelly Rowland for International Women's Day really hit home for me.

The multitalented songstress touched on not shrinking yourself, setting boundaries with friends to maintain your energy, and the transformational moment that turning 30 was for her.

Related: International Women’s Day Celebration Hosted by Kelly Rowland in Los Angeles

(I wrote an entire blog post over a year ago about refusing to keep shrinking myself, that I revisited only days ago. I've been in the process of reevaluating relationships and giving those relationships the time and energy they deserve, based on the fruit they bear. And child, I've been prepping for 30 since hitting the latter half of these 20s. All of these thoughts had been fresh on my mind, and for Ms. Rowland to bring them into conversation so eloquently, it was as if the message was for me.)

Related: Stand Tall Like the Hassan II Mosque, Instead of Shrinking to Comfort Others

I hear You, God. I know You are going to make a way for me when You see fit. I'll be patient and do my best to be prepared.

I'm nowhere near where I want to be, and it seems I'm getting nowhere fast, but in the words of Kelly's former girl group, Destiny’s Child, I'm not gon' give up. I'm gon' work harder. I'm gon' make it.

If you read this, please share with a friend. Encourage somebody today.

Thank you for being here.

I Made Breakfast This Morning.. Yep, That’s It

That’s the post.

One, I need to add a blog post to this personal lifestyle blog every single day, in order for Google to recognize aroundLAwithTK.com as an active website and rank me in their search engine results. Ranking on Google is where the money is (and by money, I mean page views that result in revenue).

For two, getting off to a good start with breakfast upon waking sets a productive day into motion.

I hadn’t made breakfast in a minute, as you may be able to tell from my hideous omelette. My presentation is usually better, but I was distracted this morning by also trying to make a healthy hair growth concoction with the half of the onion that wouldn’t fit in my omelette.

That’s where I am now. Not in a skillet.. I’m in my beautician's chair. I rode over here with a Ralph’s grocery bag on my head.

Okay.. got distracted trying to watch how she was blowing out my hair. Now I’m rushing to LAX to catch this flight home for my favorite holiday, Mardi Gras.

Talk to y’all later!

Whew Chile, My Nerves Are Bad

Now this has nothing to do with you, and it may make no difference in your life at all, so if you clicked on this by mistake, feel free to see yourself to another entry, such as something in the While In Los Angeles section…

But if you insist on hanging in with me here, that’s cool too.

I’m just pissed because I’m headed way out to freaking Malibu on public transit with this trailer-park-trash-looking woman that seems to be experiencing homelessness, talking aloud to herself as I was about to try to edit footage from a roller set I did for the very first time on this super kinky hair of mine, or write a spill about my experience at the Veuve Cliquot Polo Classic on Will Rodgers Historic State Park grounds yesterday.

Okay, that’s not even why I’m upset. I’m accustomed to being around people with a few loose screws. That’s nothing. My nerves are bad because I’m supposed to be clocking into work at 2:30pm, and as I type this, it’s 2:28pm, and I’m an hour away. And I, in a way, was supposed to be there two hours ago.

Wait, I know what some of my girlfriends, or best guy friend, or former co-workers would say… “Now, Tee! Kay! you…”

But let me explain.

I’ve had this wedding gig on my agenda for a couple of months now, and before I even accept gigs, I find out the rough location, then when it gets closer to the day, I look up the location and exactly how long it’ll take me to get there from my house.

Yesterday evening, when I got home from the Veuve Cliquot event, I got a gps estimate on my route to today’s event. The call time wasn’t until 2:30pm and it was right there at Griffith Park. (For the caliber of clients I deal with, it’s not unusual for them to rent out a state treasure for their personal pleasure.)

I set my corresponding alarms and went to sleep. I wake up super early, as my mind tends to do, even when my body is dog tired, I browse on my phone for a bit, then I make myself close my eyes. When I reopened my eyes around 10am, I see a message from a staffing coordinator asking me if I could come in for 12:30pm instead because some people called out.

Being that the event was right there at Griffith Park, maybe all of 15 minutes from my house (on a Sunday, when LA doesn’t have its usual congested traffic), I agreed to the earlier call time.

I get out of bed, start shifting my mane from a high puff ball down to some detangled plaits could throw a hat over, since I knew we’d be out in the sun for hours setting up for this outdoor wedding. I throw my turban and edge toothbrush in my purse, get myself together, and ready to leave right before noon.

Walking out of the door is when I see a message saying, “the venue details have changed.”

I’m thinking it’s going to be something small such as park here, not there, or have Uber/Lyft drop off at such and such.

Oh buddy, was I wrong.

The darn thing said, “make sure the gps is taking you to Malibu, not Griffith Park.”

WTF?! Malibu?!

First of all, Malibu?! I may not have even accepted the gig in the first place if it had said it were in Malibu when it was offered to me because it takes too much to get way out there and sometimes calculates to not being worth my time.

And even if I did accept a gig in Malibu knowingly, I for darn sure wouldn’t agree to an earlier call time on the day of because getting to Malibu from L.A. without a car is a trek!

Then, you tell me this within minutes of the event?! You can’t get from the center of Los Angeles to Malibu in under a half hour by car, let alone by public transit!

And if you think I’m going to spend my money on an Uber/Lyft all the way to freaking Malibu, and you’re not even paying me travel pay, you’re out of your jack rabbit ass mind.

I immediately contacted the staffing coordinator and let her know there’s no flipping way possible I’d make it for that earlier call time, and making it for the later one was unlikely too.

[takes deep breath]

Okay, venting has calmed my nerves a bit. I’m on two stops away from where I’ll then hop into a rideshare because public transit doesn’t go way up into the ultra wealthy folks’ neighborhoods.

Let me put on my happy face and contribute to a lovely day for this union.

Later, y’all.

You see how the devil be working? I just told y’all I was about to hop off the bus and into an Uber. And look. No Uber. I scheduled this ride over an hour in advance, to be here when I’d get here, in order to get to avoid any more delays getting to this darn Malibu wedding event, and also to avoid standing out on Pacific Coast Highway. But what do we have? We have me, delayed once again, standing on Pacific Coast Highway looking like a hitchhiker without a home.

The extra time waiting did allow for a selfie, so the picture you see up at the top of this blog post is me currently in this debacle.

Hopefully, when I return, I’ll be telling you how magnificent this event gig was and how I’m so happy that I still went instead of telling them people to kiss the Blackest part of behind.

It's October! Be Well in This Last Quarter, Even If You Haven't Been All Year

Okay, I added a new blog category under the While in Los Angeles… section of this Los Angeles lifestyle blog. You may be thinking, “girl, won’t you add more content to the already existing categories before you go adding new ones?!” And I’m not even mad at you because that thought crossed my mind too, but let me explain.

My entire brand is to motivate people to BE WELL.

When you look at what I originally named the “things to do” category, all 6 blog entries currently up there are different physical activities you can in places aroundLA. When you look at the “eat” category under While in Los Angeles, the early entries, and the overall majority, are about healthy eating options aroundLA. Even on the beauty page of this lifestyle site, the most recent entry about growing long hair was based on getting the right nutrients in your body, not some miracle oil for hair growth. (I’ve since moved that healthy hair growth article to this “be well” category.)

So, this “be well” category isn’t new at all, really. It simply now has its own dedicated place for topics that don’t necessarily fit fully into the others, but I’d still like to share with you because they speak to my overall initiative.

And now for today, the beginning of October.

Baby when I tell you I didn’t even know it was October until somebody told me it was October, I ain’t lying to ya. As you can see in the picture up top, my planner was still open to a page that says September across the top since we’re still in the last week of September.

I wasn’t ready, but it’s fourth quarter, baby, and sometimes you won’t be ready, but you have to go out there and do it as if you been ready. Bow! Bow! Bow! Just bussin’ [does fingers in motion of gun]. I’m blasting. I’m spraying y’all with content. Bop! Bop! Bop! Bop!

Let’s goooooooooooooooooooooo!

Start your day off with a plan, a to-do list, chicken scratch on the back of a receipt paper, and some nutritious food in your stomach. Then go out there and attack. Go to sleep, wake up, and attack again. Attack the day. Attack your goals. Go at it! Day after day, no matter if it’s exactly what you want it to be or not. Figure it out (and improve) as you go along. But don’t sit there doing nothing.

Note: This is me talking to me as a talk to you.

Let’s finish this final quarter of 2021 strong!

Later. Be well, y’all.

Eat Like Trash, Look Like Trash and Be a Baldhead Scallywag

As I told you all in the story of how I grew my hair as a reluctant, lazy, natural, it takes way more than a miracle cream that you put ON your head; to grow healthy hair, it’s important what you put IN your body.

I was whining about hair loss and dissatisfactory skin once on FaceTime with one of my old co-workers from NM, B. Barry, and she told me, “T.K., you’re in your late twenties and you eat like you’re 12…” You know how we’d regularly eat hot fries, Snickers, and pickles in place of a meal (if our parents let us)? Come home from school, eat ramen noodles, and all the Little Debbie Cakes our hearts desired? Opt for junk or snacks over meals? Yep, that’s me. She continued, “you don’t think that will eventually have an effect?! If I was your hair, I’d fall out too.”

I grew my hair from the nape of my neck to reaching my armpit in only a little over a year, as I outlined in a previous beauty blog post, but I feel as though I hit a plateau. Even worse, it seems I began to regress. Notice the two pictures below, they’re 6 months apart and my hair looks (and felt in my hands) as though it lost density and length.

The picture on the left (black top) is from January 2021 and the picture on the right (white top) is from June 2021. Prior to getting my hair pressed in June, I’d been noticing way more shedding than usual. And when I say way more, I mean waaaaaay more. Every time I ran my fingers thru my hair, even if I did it 10 times in a row, groups of strands would slide out. When I told my girl B. Barry about it as it was happening, she brushed it off, but when she saw my hair pressed out again, and noticed the difference with her own eyes, she was more alarmed than me, “ou girl, uhn uhn, T.K., you need to get that checked out… That ain’t good. You need to get your health together or something.”

I’m improving my eating habits for the sake of my skin and hair.

Thanks to my mother passing down her slim fine genes, I don’t really see the effects of poor eating choices on the physical appearance of my body, but believe you me, oh baby, I see it elsewhere. My face is good for acting a fool, and I told you about my hair falling out, and those woes are only in addition to it feeling like elephants are stampeding thru my digestive track when I really cut up. (I also enjoy riding my bike aroundLA, and eating better means better energy levels.). Of course I have many reasons for a maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but this time it happened to be my skin and hair that reminded me I have to increase my effort towards giving my body more nutrition and well-rounded meals consistently.

They say, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and my stomach is growling before I can even open my eyes good, so I figured, why not start there?!

Lately, in the mornings for breakfast, I’ve been getting up and making a variation of breakfast that includes at least 3 out of the 5 food groups.

  • grains

  • proteins

  • fruits

  • dairy

  • vegetables

healthy well rounded breakfast for hair growth natural journey.JPG

Five out of five would be ideal, but hey, give a girl time. This was this morning’s meal.

Please note, this is not about losing weight. I know we like to conflate losing weight with eating healthy, but let’s not do that here because you will be off to a terrible start in your weight loss journey following behind me; I eat plenty of calories, carbs, (healthy) fats, and (unprocessed or natural) sugars, none of which is marketed to make a person skinny.

Oh, while I’m giving disclaimers, let me also say that I am not a nutritionist. I’m sharing what I’m choosing to eat, based on what I’ve researched, gathered, and been advised will be best for what I want for my body, on my blog. For expert nutritional advice specialized for your body, or if you are struggling with a nutrition-related health issue, you should consult a healthcare professional. (Not an Instagram health guru.. an actual skilled, trained professional, you know, maybe somebody with letters behind their name; ex. Bianca Plant, MPA, RD, LDN.. a Registered Dietician, etc.).

Here’s what you see in the above picture of my quick and easy breakfast:

You’ll notice I threw two supplements into the equation, but I use them as simply that: supplements. The certified nutritionist I mentioned earlier (Bianca Plant, MPA, RD, LDN) will tell you, FOOD FIRST! She encourages her clients and news segment viewers to try to consume as many nutrients as possible by the way of actual food, as opposed to pills and powders. I supplement vitamins into my regimen with moderation.

According to Heathline, there are at least 13 Foods That Help Your Body Produce Collagen, and sure, I eat them, but we’re talking about transforming hair, so I want some extra occasionally. I chose to throw in the daily multi-vitamin (that I’m still working on taking daily) after some research that hair loss in women can sometimes to be linked to iron deficiency. I wasn’t sure that I was iron-deficient, so I decided to get a catch-all vitamin, so-to-speak, that also has iron in it.

Since I made these changes, my hair has stopped falling out the way it was, and I’m praying, wishing and chanting that it won’t look skimpy again the next time I get it pressed out.

All of these items came from my local Lassens Natural Foods and Vitamins store.

Related: Rich B*tch Grocery Shopping (Lassens and other upscale grocery stores based in Southern California)

If you’ve clicked around this website, or met me in-person, you may know that I’m always on my soap box about something. I mention getting all of these items from my local grocery store in aspirations to make you think about shopping at yours. If there’s a Walmart 5 minutes away from you, that’s not what I mean by local. Now if there’s a farmer’s market near you, that’s shopping local. Shopping local means supporting your small and locally-owned businesses, like a family grocer, or limited chain only found in your region (for example: Rouses in South Louisiana).

Related: Click here for reasons why you should shop at farmers’ markets instead of grocery stores!

Okay, now that I’ve done multiple shameless plugs to other pages on this website, I’ll go ahead and close this one out. My original intention was to throw my breakfast up here quicker than I ate it and be gone, but I couldn’t even do that.. aie aie aie! I’ll find a way to more consistently and quickly put out content one day. (Hopefully, that one day is soon.)

How do you see your body affected when you eat like trash?

Comment here on this page (below), send me a tweet on Twitter, or tag me in an InstaStory on the Gram.

This blog post is intended to give ideas, not to be taken as medical advice.

I paid for all of these items out of my own pocket; this is not a paid sponsorship (when it is, though it will not sway my opinion of the product, I will let you know in the spirit of transparency).