Amy Currioman

Lately I’ve noticed that there has been a lot of television stories, and written articles about the terrible pressures that are put on today’s women to be very thin. Knowing that television cameras add five or ten pounds on the person, and seeing how slender the models still look on television, I swear that many models must be anorexic!

I was looking though a catalog that specializes in fuller figured women’s clothes, and noticed that most of the models in that catalog still looked very slender. I’ve heard that many of those models are the smallest size that the clothes come in, and that does not surprise me at all!

I’ve just ordered some plus size suits from a catalog and I’m really nervous that it might not look as good on me as I hope it will. I’ve noticed that many of the plus size clothes for women look like maternity clothes, and I don’t want to look pregnant! I wish more of those plus sized clothes had belts to pull in the waist; that way the women would look more like they have the ideal hour glass figure.

I’ve never tried karaoke myself.  Only once have I been to a nightclub where karaoke was being “performed.”  A lady from the audience was on the stage singing a song (I can’t even remember what the song was) and she was singing off-key.  She was pretty enough, but she was singing off-key.  She was having fun, though, and I’m sure that was the whole point.  She was with a group of friends that apparently had encouraged her to go up there and sing.  They were having fun, too.  As for me, I sat there and wondered about how I would feel if I were up there on the stage.  I’m a fairly shy person, and I’ve been told by many people that my singing voice is terrible, so I’d be inclined to NOT go up there.  I’d embarass myself, and I don’t like being embarrassed.  I wish that I was not so easily embarrassed, though, because it looked like she was having a lot of fun, even though she was singing off-key!

This guest post from Lewis Beck

Being a small business owner is a lot of work but I really found out the true meaning of that when I got mono last year. I was more or less a one man shop and being so sick for so long nearly put me out of business. I learned the importance of having good people behind you when you need them most and also not to solely rely on yourself since it’s hard to really know when you’re going to be out of commission. Thankfully before I even opened the doors of my shop I did a lot of research on things like online billing and small business xo and really had the whole place ready to go for someone to take over so when my best friend Jim stepped in to help out while I was sick it wasn’t too much of a learning curve. He really saved me those couple of weeks and after a few months things were back to normal. I don’t know what I would have done without all his help!

Over the years I’ve learned some interesting things about tricks restaurants use on their customers. A long time ago I read some literature about how different colors effect different moods. For example, red, yellow and orange are “high energy” colors and are often used in fast food restaurants because the restaurants know that those colors will encourage the customers to eat quickly and leave (making room for more customers) and the “high end” restaurants will often use “calming” colors such as blues and greens to encourage their customers to linger longer (perhaps order more alcohol which is their big money maker) and order dessert, relaxing and enjoying their meal and the company they are keeping.

I was just reading an article on the Time.com website about “what makes you eat more food” and was surprised to read that one of the things that makes you eat more food in restaurants is that most restaurants turn their thermometers to cooler temperatures. When the body is cold, a natural reaction to warm up is to eat more food. So the restaurants are trying to get you to eat more food by making their customers cold!

Guest post by Dee Johnstone

I was really glad when the white lab coat that I ordered from the http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/ arrived yesterday. I had ordered for my son to  wear as part of a Pokemon costume at the Pokemon tournaments that he has planned for the kids where he works.

He works at a residential school for “at risk children” ranging in age from six to fourteen, and he has a small group of kids assigned to him. They have a variety of issues (which is why they are there) but he has had really good luck getting the kids to settle down and learn to cooperate and follow rules by teaching them how to play Pokemon and holding tournaments once a week.

Every kid that plays wins cards, but the ones who win the games get extra cards. The kids love it. I’m really glad that he has found a way to incorporate his love of games into his work and that it is helping the kids to learn life skills.