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.