Stuck in Traffic..Beauty in the midst of Chaos

Its Friday, 5.05pm...! Time to pack up and get the weekend started! In my car by 5.07pm, Stilettos off (uh huhn, I'm not the only one who drives barefoot), Naija tunez on the ones and twos! (Oya Limpopo #kcee) Shades on! Lezzzo go!

Screeeeech!

But alas, my joy is shortlived, brakelights everywhere! Wande Coal's "Bumper to Bumper" comes to mind..#@!&*#%@! Sighhh ATL Traffic *where is my PJ aka private jet??!*. LOL uhmm can a girl can dream?..In the mean time, time to breathe (yoga style), count to 10, repeat!

I am making my way downtown. #85south (breathing, counting to infinity, and trying not to use the one finger salute) and THEN..! I spot the most breathtaking view in front of me...I had to take a picture because I never want to forget this view, this moment and the calm I felt. Bear with me, I took this with my Blackberry Z10 phone camera but as we say in naija, my BBZ10 camera no carry last, not bad eh?. Even with the craziness of ATL Traffic all around me, I can see the "Beauty in the Midst of Chaos". Enjoy!

New Year; New Brunch Spot!

Hellooo World and a Happy New Year to you!

Anyone who knows me knows one of my favorite things to do is "extreme brunching" with my girls. What is "extreme brunching" I hear you ask? Hehe, I will tell you..Here are the criteria for extreme brunching:

- Bottomless brunch drinks e.g. Mimosas, Bellinis, Bloody Marys

- Brunch lasts at least 4 hours and been known to last 8 hours (once we went from brunch to dinner...LOL!)so the girls clear their schedules accordingly.

- Be prepared to talk about EVERYTHING under the sun - men, relationships, family, shopping, reality shows, gossip...

- It is JUST for the girls, no significant others, kids...you get my drift. #girltime!

- We get loud (yes we do!) so we need our restaurants to be able to accomodate our excitement levels.

- We have a Minister of Brunch Affairs {"MoBA"): Very important role! She starts the email chain informing the girls of an upcoming session, makes reservations, ensures the restaurant can handle the extreme brunchers and sometimes takes the blame for brunch issues e.g not so great restaurant, no bottomless drinks,etc. *LOL*. We LOVE our very own MoBA - Ijeh!

So the girls and I kicked off the new year with a new brunch spot - Midtown West Corner Tavern suggested by Ijeh, aka our MoBA. Check out the highlights below:

Casual, nice looking restaurant with outside seating. It was quite the rainy day so we sat inside.

Pretty informal - we picked our table as suggested by the sign

Pretty fancy juke box - kinda looked like an oversized iphone/ipod. I scrolled through the selections and it did have a wide variety of music.

Funny, handwritten signs throughout the restaurant. I have to say I do agree with John and Oscar #preach boyzz!

Bottomless Mimosas - check! *Pleae refer to Extreme brunching criteria*

Bottomless Mimosas on standby - check! check!! It was nice we didnt have to wait for refills! #critical

The brunch menu is pretty basic which is a good thing - sometimes you just want that! It has your traditional brunch favorites - french toast, pancakes, eggs benedict, steak and eggs. The prices were very reasonable ranging from $7.50 - $12.50.

Most of the girls had the silly chicken - fried chicken topped with sausage gravy, one egg over easy, cheddar cheese & a biscuit. I heard this was delicious!

I had the steak and eggs, served with breakfast potatoes and toast. Quite yummy!

Overall great experience, good service and good food in a casual environment. We were there for about four and a half hours ;-) so looks like Midtown West Corner Tavern is officially approved for extreme brunching! We shall be back!

Cheers to a fab year ahead and of course many more extreme brunching sessions!

Craft 101 for Dummies ;)

I have a confession...I am not very crafty. Ok....fiiiiine I am not crafty at all. I took up jewelry making sometime ago and quit after I made one pair of earrings #notforme! But wait waittt...for people like me with zero craft skills, there are ways around it and "tools" to assist. Here is a mini craft project I did a while ago. I turned several of my pictures into greeting cards!

So how does this work? All you need: - a favorite picture - an online photo company like Shutterfly, Snapfish, etc. I used Kodak Gallery for this project. Note Kodak Gallery was acquired by Shutterfly this summer so you can no longer use this service but the others work just as well.

The picture I selected is one from one of my previous blog postings: Orchids, Barbados

Here is the finished product. All I did was pick a card design, upload my pic and voila! All done. You can pick any colors you want for the background, envelope, text, etc. I made my cards blank on the inside so they could be used for any purposes. I have used these cards for friends' birthdays, baby/bridal showers and the good ole just-thinking-about-you. So you see it's easy - even for people like me with zero craft skills :-)

My girl Lola B gets hitched!

My girlfriend from college, Lola got married a couple of weekends ago and being one of her bridesmaids I was privy to the process of prepping the bride for her big day. She looked sooooo GORGEOUS! Here a few shots I took of how things went. Enjoy and Congrats again to my girl Lola!!

Hair by: Yandi Biza of Salon Vixen
Makeup by: Ud Ogene of Face by Maori

Thailand - Land of Smiles...I say Land of Fab Colors!

I just returned from a trip to the "land of smiles" aka Thailand and can I just say wowwww! Thai culture is full of vivid and vibrant colors. All I could think was designs and prints for clothes, shoes, scarves....I could go on! Thailand is known for exotic fruits, orchids and all things natural, so I thought I would show you a little bit of my experiences. Hope you enjoy as much as I did!

FRUITS FROM THAILAND

ORCHIDS FROM THAILAND

BUTTERFLIES IN THAILAND

Tribute to my favorite black stilettos

So y'all know am a shoe lover and one staple for every shoe lover's closet is a pair of sexy black stiletto pumps! Can I get an Amen! *waving my church fan*. I did a tribute to my very first pair of favorite black stilettos over 3 years ago! I am sharing that tribute with you all because no other pair of shoes have come close to working my closet like this shoes. I love you black stillys!


Tribute to my favorite black stilettos. by Ore Tomori on Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 10:02pm

It’s been five years since I first met you and even though I don’t want to let go, it’s time for you to go to shoe heaven. I have had so many wonderful memories with you and today, I can’t help but reflect on some of these memories:

I wasn’t sure about you at first but when I tried you on, it was a match made in shoe heaven! You were just.......perfect!

You were always down for whatever and it didn’t matter where you and I went: grocery store, NBA games, Waffle house at 3am, Papis Cuban restaurant, post office, Starbucks, chilling with friends, Loca Luna, church, you made me look good!

You didn’t discriminate: you looked good with EVERYTHING: shorts, skirts, power suits, bathing suits (lol…well), jeans and dresses.

You took me from the Board Room to the Blue Room.

We’ve been all over the world together – Lagos, Barbados, Miami, NYC, Jamaica, San Francisco, LA, Houston, Vegas, DC, Baltimore, Columbus, Paris, Amsterdam…

Even when you showed signs of wear and tear, we visited the Shoe Doctor in Midtown and you stayed there for a few days. When I picked you up, you were as good as new!

My only regret is that you didn’t come into my life sooner. You have been so good to me and for that, I am grateful.

There have been other black stilettos but none like you, my love.

So before I let you go, I want to thank you for being you. You will always have a special place in my heart.

I love you favorite black stilettos…now and forever! xxxx

Hi World, I wont even get into the details of why I have been MIA for errmmm quite a while. *No judging pls* I hope this is will be the last of such dissapearing acts. I missed this so much and so I am just going to get right into it!

I do have a teeny update to my profile descrption which used to say: Fun loving, coffee *tea* drinking, shoe addicted chick looking to share her love of all things beautiful with the world. Otherwise am still me! Here's to many more posts to come!