Tag Archives: Houston

Project Row Houses

Life, Things to Do in Houston, , , , , ,

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to go view the Project Row Houses, a collection of historical houses that have been converted into “art exhibits,” so to speak. I had no clue that this historical significant space had been under my nose in Houston this whole time. To read more, check out their website here.

From the outside, all you see are cute little houses lined up on a street. The Project allows several artists to showcase their art in a house. Each house has a different theme and flavor.

House #1

House #2

House #3

House #4

I did not get to view all the houses but I promised that I would share this beautiful art  and life showcase. You should visit, if you can. It’s free of charge and is located on 2521 Holman Street. Houston, TX

Me & some Fellow Teach for America friends

NaturaleChronicles Half Bday Giveaway

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Happy [Half] Birthday to you. 
Happy [Half] Birthday to you. 
Happy [Half] Birthday, NaturaleChronicles.
Happy [Half] Birthday to youuuuuuu. 

Yes, the month of June marks NaturaleChronicles’ 6th month online. I started this blog on New Years day as an attempt to rid myself of the monotony of grown up life. It came at a time when I felt like I was losing myself, my joy, and my purpose. But in only 6 months, this wee little blog built up my spirit and granted me a renewed purpose.

This blog and you all helped me finish off my first year of teaching with a smile. So with sincere appreciation of the past and enduring optimism for the future, I thank you all!

To show my appreciation to you, my readers and online support system, as promised, I am hosting NaturaleChronicles’ very first GIVEAWAY!!! It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Tatus Welle jewelry designs. All the pieces in the Tatus Welle collection are hand-made. I love Lorraine her jewelry and I wanted to share some of her pieces you.

As you can see in the picture below, Lorraine has a variety of jewelry and accessory pictures. I had a hard time narrowing down the items for the giveaway.

#1. Blue Chevron Button earrings

#2. Yellow and Blue “Africa” earrings
#3. Blue and Gold Simmering Button earrings
 #4. Yellow, white, and red Ankara cloth earrings

4 lucky winners will go home with one of these beautiful earrings.

Here’s how you enter:

1. Follow the Blog (via WordPress or BlogLovin)

2. “Like” TATUS WELLE on Facebook

3. Leave a comment on this post with the following:

– Name

– Location

– Top 1-3 things on your bucket list

I’ll give you an example:

Timi (aka NaturaleChronicles)

Houston, TX

1. Become a college professor 

2. Sew & wear my own clothes

3. Hang glide, Zipline, and sky dive.

Pretty simple, right? I want to hear from you. Leave me a comment to enter. The winner will be decided via a random number generator, which will select the winning comment. Everyone has a fair chance of winning. Good luck everyone!


Welcome to TFA 2012 Induction

Hair, What Are You Wearing, , , , , , ,

I volunteered at Houston’s Teach for America 2012 Induction last week. I had a fabulous time! I met some great individuals who are about to undergo intensive training to be transformed into transformational teachers. Being among such high energy, optimistic people recharged my passion for education.

Here are just a few of the incoming TFA Corps Members.

I’m proud that I will be working along-side these individuals in the fight for educational equity.

Good luck at Institute!

These are some of the outfits that I wore that week:

[Thrifted shorts]

[Thrifted shorts]

[Swapped blouse]

[Thrifted pants]

I had my hair in coils all week. At this point, the coils are about a month old. I started experimenting with updos and finally settled on the basket weave technique or the the “lobster tail” that many loc’d individuals sport. All you do is layer strands of hair on top of one another in chunks. I used to do this style with my yarn braids for updos.

People kept telling me they loved my locs, which was very flattering. It seems I have an eye for loc-look-alikes when it comes to hair. Later on in the summer, I may try another loc-look-alike style when I go to New York.

This is what the back of my head looked like:

I know. Ridiculous! Lol.

Good Eats: Grub Squad [Feature]

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Earlier last week, I got the chance to sit down with the Founder of a new food delivery service called “GrubSquad.” Interestingly enough, founder Ogo Ifelayo and I have been family friends for a long time. I had no idea he was sitting on this gold mine of an idea all along.

We met up at Dunn Bros Coffee shop. Check out my “Good Eats” post on Dunn Bros Coffee (link to follow)

Meet Ogo, founder of GrubSquad, food enthusiast, LSU alum , and all-around good guy.

Check out his interview:

Naturale Chronicles: First off—GrubSquad, that’s a great name!
Ogo: Thanks! It’s better than “OJ Deliveries,” and the other names I came up with before [laughs].
NC: Congrats on the recent launch!
O: Thank you. Yep, we launched the site on April 3rd. We had our launch at Sushi Raku. We had a great time.
GrubSquad launch party (April 18th, 2012)
NC: Ogo, for those who know nothing about GrubSquad, how would you describe what you all do?
O: Our slogan is “feeding productivity enthusiasts.” We know that life is busy. There are enough things to worry about. Getting something to eat shouldn’t be one of them. We are an online food delivery service that connects customers with the food they want, when they want it. There are great restaurants that don’t typically deliver, we’ve teamed up with them so they can give you “EXACTLY WHAT YOU, DELIVERED.”
NC: How did you come up with the idea?
O: I used to help out a lot of my friends with catering businesses by taking their orders to big events, parties, weddings, graduations, etc. When my brother got married and we were catering food from all over the city, I thought to myself “What if there was a more effective and efficient way to get the food you wanted?” I talked to a few buddies of mine and tossed around the ideas. I suddenly got organized and started writing down my ideas in a journal.
I always say to my creatives, “Show me your IDEA JOURNAL so I know it’s real!”
NC: What’s your favorite part about being the GrubSquad founder?
O: Honestly, the deliveries.
NC: Really! You mean to tell me the founder of GrubSquad still makes deliveries?
O: [laughs] Yes! We just started up, so I still make some deliveries. I enjoy serving people. I’ve done it all my life with through church, camps like Camp Quality (a camp for children with cancer), helping out friends, etc. I like meeting people and being able to help maximize their day in a cost effective way.
Ogo’s GrubSquad Mobile
NC: If you could name 3 goals for GrubSquad off the top of your head, what would they be?
O: Grub Squad wants to help customers:
#1. Be more efficient and productive with their lives.
#2. Have access to their favorite restaurants and a variety of healthy options.
#3. Explore new good food in a convenient way.

Sidenote: I wanted to check out the ordering process, so I pulled up the website, typed in my zipcode and Grub Squad pulled up their partnering restaurants in my area. I was delighted to see new places I had never been to and many of them at relatively low cost. Once I selected where I wanted to eat, the specific restaurant menu pulled up and I could click and add to the cart what I wanted. Very easy to use!

NC: Do you have a target audience?
O: GrubSquad is for everyone. Our primary market has been those busy professionals who barely have time for lunch.
NC: Yea, doctors, business people, teachers…
O: Exactly! A lot of times, the lunch break is too short to hop into your car, wrestle through traffic, and find a proper meal. We do the hard work so they can eat and still be productive and keep it moving.

NC: So…I’ve been eyeing that GrubSquad tee. Any chance I could get some GrubSquad gear?
O: Of course! We ordered some new batch of shirts. We’ll put them up for sale on the website sometime in the near future. We’ll hook you up!

Bottom line: GrubSquad gets my NC stamp of approval! All the foodies of Houston will love them for bringing good food to a central location. Ogo was telling me that Houston has a great food culture. I’m discovering that myself, and I think GrubSquad can be the tool we need to try new foods and still stick to our busy schedules. Foodies and “Productivity Enthusiasts” are in good hands with GrubSquad.

Order now at grubsquad.com

Find the on Facebook and Twitter

I’m Houston Fashion Bloggers’ “Blogger of the Week”

Features, Life, , , , , ,

Hey peeps! The past couple of weeks have been very busy, with school closing out and a lot has been going on. Just wanted to stop and share my “Blogger of the Week” award from Houston Fashion Bloggers:

I’m humbled to be given this nomination by the talented bloggers at Houston Fashion Bloggers. I’m also excited and encouraged by all the encouraging feedback I’ve been getting from family, friends, and even strangers. I started Naturale Chronicles for people who, like me, who were going through a transitioning time in their lives. Whether it be graduating from college, moving to a new city, going natural, changing up your look, I relate to you in some way. I want to share my experiences with you so we can learn together.

Naturale Chronicles has:

Style- “What You Wearing?” and “Sunday Best”

Food- “Good Eats”

Adventures- “Jump Houston” (co-written with Tobs)

Crafts- “DIY Machine”

Natural Hair- “Naturale Chronicles”

Click the links to check out the posts!

————————More news!!———————–

June 1st is Naturale Chronicles’s 1/2 birthday! To celebrate NC turning 6 months old, I will be having a giveaway!! Stay tuned for more details.

NC currently has 30 followers and 3,000 page views, and that’s just enough encouragement for for me. I look forward to more adventures and collaborations in the future. Thank you, supporters and readers, for letting me be me.

Sincerly,

Timi

Feature: Local Houston Musicians

Music covers, , , ,

At a benefit concert to support Young Life, I had the pleasure of seeing two great artists:

#1. CHRIS CRUMP http://chriscrumpmusic.com/

 

Chris is a singer/guitarist. I’m not sure how to describe his sound but his voice was doing beautiful things. Chris said he grew up on blues and rock music, and their influences were evident in his songs. He told cute little anecdotes between his songs, which made the audience relate to him. Most of us have experienced a heartbreak. It’s rare to see artists be so vulnerable and put themselves out there, because of that I found his openness refreshing.

He was very personable and his set had a couple love songs he had written. I thought the love songs were sweet and endearing. There was one particular song called “Napkin Song” that I really liked the concept of. Chris said he’d heard of a guy who, whenever he was in a restaurant, he would sit and write love letters to his future wife (whoever she turned out to be). The man collected the stack of napkins with the hopes of one day presenting them to his future wife. Chris applied the same concept and began writing songs on napkins for his future wife. As someone whose parents have been praying for her future spouse since she was born, the idea appealed to me. I think I may pick up this cute habit.

This cover of Lovesong almost sounded like a worship song. Love this song.

#2 MICHELE THIBEAUX

Michele started out her set with an awesome mic check song. I was sold at the first note. She had three band members, 2 loc-headed singers and a loc-headed percussion.Their fearless leader, Michele, had a thick top knot of big curly hair. Beautiful group.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that their group was an acapella group. Their percussionist sat on a wooden box with dynamic beats. The acapella group had an eclectic and soulful sound.They had beautifully blended harmonies and some doo-wop rifts. I loved it! In between songs, Michele would talk and drop some knowledge on the crowd. Turns out Michele is a 2nd grade teacher as well. Those kids are lucky to have such an eccentric and energetic teacher. Kids like interesting people, and she is definitely that!  All the while she was speaking, I felt like I was at a poetry/soul slam. All I need was a steaming cup of Chi tea to complete the scene.

Listen to a song from her new cd:

These two are great Houston-based artists. Check ’em out if you get a chance.

Good Eats: Good Dog (Food Truck)

Good Eats, , ,

Tobs and I went to the Haute Wheels Food festival this past weekend. When Tobs told me about it, the inner fattie in me rejoiced! Of all the food trucks we saw and visited, Good Dog was my favorite!

This cute little vintage cutest van, caught our attention! Since we were both in the food for hot dogs, we decided to check it out.

The owners of the truck were friendly and efficient. The food was out in about 5 minutes! It was so good, we had to come back twice!


The hot dog was different from anything I’d ever tasted. First thing we noticed was the bread. It was soft on the inside and lightly toasted. The hot dog was thick, like sausage. And the condiments, which are hand-made, complimented the hot dog perfectly.

Tobi had the Good Dog and I had the Chillin’ Dog

Good Dog- Dog and Bun with your choice of Hand-Made Condiments

Chillin’ Dog- beef and chorizo chili, pickled jalapenos, diced onion and short bus mustard

Bottom line: Good Dog gets my stamp of approval! The taste is unique and delicious. The price for this gourmet hot dog is great. I’ve never felt so bougie eating a hot dog. I felt like I was buying a hot dog in the somewhere in New York.
If I’ve whet your appetite and you would like to hunt down Good Dog, catch them on their website
http://gooddogfoodtruck.com/ where they give you updates about where to find their truck daily or follow them on Twitter at @GoodDogHotDogs
To check out the rest of our Haute Wheels Food Festival adventure, click here (link coming soon).
Photo credit by Tobs

Upcycle Your Style with a CLOTHES SWAP

Fashion, , ,

Are you in need of a fashion makeover but you have no cash to spare? Have you ever wanted to shop in someone else’s closet? Well, you might just be the perfect guest at a Clothes Swap party.

As someone with 2 sisters, I know there’s nothing better than snagging a few pieces from someone else’s closet to complete your look. I have been throwing Clothes Swap parties with my friends for a couple of years now. I love them!

Image

[Benefits of a Clothes Swap]:

One (wo)man’s trash is another (wo)man’s treasure
I have had some people hesitate to come because they’re afraid they won;t have anything anyone will want. Little did they know that someone had been looking all over for some charcoal gray work slacks.

You get to go “shopping” with your friends
You also make a lot of new friends. This is how my work friends met my church friends. My only motto is you’re welcome as long as you bring something.

It’s in a comfortable setting (in this case, my living room)

You can set up mirrors and makeshift dressing  rooms

You get supportive advice from friends on what will best fit your shape

You can donate the remainder of the clothes to a non-profit organization

This is a good way to clean out your closet but at the end of the event your closet will be full again! It’s good practice to take the leftover clothes to a charity. This year, my charity of choice is Mia’s Closet Houston

My favorite benefit is: It’s FREE!!

It’s a great alternative to shopping. At the last one I hosted, I found everything from a zebra print blazer to a Kimono dress. “Free” is a style that works for everyone. Because it’s free you’ll be more likely to try on something you normally wouldn’t.

Although some fancy places choose to charge admission, I prefer to have free admission into the Clothes Swap Party. I highly doubt anyone is going to pay money to sit and try on clothes in my living room. It’s a fun time for my friends and I to mingle and shop.

My goal is to not shop until my Clothes Swap on March 3rd, but we’ll see what happens.

 

sustainablefashion

If you think you’d like to host a Clothes Swap, check out this awesome party guide on how to host one.