Brighten a Dreary Winter

Brighten  a dreary winter with a beautiful flower arrangement. Buying loose cut flowers is a lot less than buying an arrangement from your florist.

 Making my own arrangements is another way I express my creative side.  I love the satifaction I get when I am finished and get to look at my creation, it's something that makes me smile for days after.

 I enjoy the smell of fresh flowers, it changes the mood in my room.  And the bursts of color brighten my spirit and inspire my art.

Through flower arranging I find many different color schemes that I can use in my paintings and in my jewelry designs.

I Love Flowers

I love flowers and thank God I have a husband who understands that giving me flowers at unexpected times are most charished although they a greatly appreciated at anytime. Getting them just out of the blue is just lovely.  I am Greatful for my husband.

Flowers are an amazing source of vibrant color inspiration, it's funny but I have never even considered a flower to be neon in it's natural color state (no dyes neccessary) grown from the earth... but some are, colors like yellow, green, pink and orange especially depending on how light shines on them.  Purple can even come off as a Royal Blue tint.

The Best Oatmeal Cookie I've ever had

Golden Raisens, oats and dark brown sugar

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This Oatmeal Cookie has pecans in it... delicious!  The recipe from Food Network, it is chewy with a bit of crunch just along the edges. It is easy to make the only thing in this recipe I decided to do different was that I took half of the oats and put them in my food prosessor for a few seconds just to brake the oats down a bit, this makes the recipe a little more cake like on the inside. 

This is my husbands favorite cookie because it is moist and chewy.

My Natural Hair Affair Brunch Meetup

Carmen Veal

This beautiful young ladie has given us, "Hartford Naturals," somewhere to meet other like minded individuals. This event was well organized at the Laetus Restaurant and lounge was a great fit. For this first event, I predict the next on to have even more people.

The day of the event it was snowing a bit and I was running a little late, the event started at 11:30am but I arrived about 11:45 and when I arrived I was greeted by a wonderful ladie. This was a RSPV event so the ladie asked my name and checked the list.  Once I entered the event the founder (Carmen Veal) greeted me.

 TL Brooks and Carmen

I noticed that our hair styles we simular, we had our hair pulled up with the top half fluffed out. Hers looked like it may have been a twist-out and mine was a braid out with rollerset ends.  From head to toe the lady is stylish, as I expected from visiting her website and watching her on Youtube.  And yes,  I did my research because I wanted to get a feel of what this event would be like, especially since I was going to the event alone.

After being greeted by Carmen, I noticed that everyone was introducing themselves to each other as the Mamosa's flowed and the food was being brought out.  It was better than I had imaged and I totally enjoy myself, I didn't feel like I had come alone.  The conversations weren't forced, it almost felt as though we already knew one another. We were connecting on Facebook and Instagram and passing out business cards it turned out that a lot of us had a lot more in common than hair.

These ladies I had the most fun with.

I moved to the Hartford area from California where the Natural Hair Community has a large presence especially in Los Angeles, so it was strange to me that the closest place for Natural Hair Events was New York.  Carmen is smart and a energetic outgoing individual who has brought to Hartford what we were missing.

I look forward to the next event.

Energize me with Beauty.

As I have said here many time before, I Love Flowers. Receiving fresh flowers makes my heart fill with joy. Placing them in a plain vase by my bedside always makes me smile when I wake up and I like to place them in my studio where they often energize me as I work.  Often when I recieve a big bouquet I rearrange them into smaller vases to give me little bits of "specialness" around my home.  Well this summer I had the chance to visit some organic gardens around Hartford, Connecticut. 

I had the great pleasure of meeting a new ART loving friend this summer and she introduced me to her sister's on a horicultural tour by Knox Parks Foundation of which her sister is on the Board of Director's as the Vice President.  

My Photography do no justice to the Beauty I experienced while taking the tour.  While I don't have a green thumb I just admire the people who do.

In the Studio

1. emerging

2. developing

3. waiting

1. I LOVE her so far

2.  Is something wrong I asked her?

Look under the "FINISHED,"  to find out how these developing paintings worked out.

Impromptu Confession

I've been talking about getting Professional photo's taken of me and my art for online use on Facebook, Twitter, etc,etc. But for now I these will do.  My husband was the photographer and for his first time using my camera I believe he did pretty good.  He swears he doesn't have a artistic bone in his body so for him to help me out by trying to do his best with these photos is a big deal. Now I know that they are a bit out of focus but I'm going to use them and besides I think it adds to the Artsy Vibe that I live for.

~ Thanks Hubby for being there for me ALWAYS.

 We were playing around making it fun, he was a little tense cause he wanted to make these great for me.

 Sexy moma... Well I try, "Work It," as they say.

Confession: I've Stalled, I have 40 MORE pounds to loose.

...been stalled for the summer when I should have been going strong.  But committing right now to "Digging Deep" and getting back to being Focused on the goal at hand.

I made some videos of me exercising, talking about the struggle I still have to being motivated to exercise but I have not uploaded them to my YouTube channel (yet), maybe I will get the courage to do so, just to help motivate someone else.  I originally got motivated (to loose the first 40lbs that i lost) through a combination of things one being that I was "tire of being tire."  And the other being straight vanity... I had morphed into the "fat dude in the little suit," not a good look.  And Youtube played a part too with all the exercise guru's along with people like you and me video taping there journey.

Although I feel much better, unfortunately for me that just isn't enough for these next 40lbs I will shed.  PRAYER, PRAYER, PRAYER and meditation is always part of the equation.  But for me I need to mix it up so my physical exercises will be concentrating on learning Yoga and also
Kickboxing with some of my old workout videos thrown in every now and then when I need a change.  I have been researching Billy Blanks, it's funny but before the forty pound weight loss I would have NEVER thought I would consider one of his rigorous workouts but I believe I can handle him now... Yikes!!  And as for doing Yoga in the past, that was a no-go just looked to boring but now I really want the flexibility and the contrast of these two types of work out will keep my body in loosing mode (weight that is).

In my Healthy living, conscious eating struggles I have gained back 5lbs, mainly in my stomach.  And although it is only a five pound gain, I have also noticed I am softer, meaning the muscle definition that I had worked for is barely noticeable anymore.  

Just two blog posts ago I was rejoicing and now I am putting this out there to confess and "Get Right."

Healthy Conscious Eating and Commiting to DAILY exercise is the only way for me, I declare.