Photobook Giveaway

If you are like me and really love photos, the you will be very excited about a contest/giveaway I read about on facebook.


PhotoBookGirl has all the details right here.

With our wedding coming up very soon, there are a lot of creative ideas and ways in which photos can be shared and I love photo books. Technology is amazingly easy these days and you can create so many things that look very professional. She has done all the research for you on her site.

I know for sure that I planning a very special project that I will definitely have completed by October 19 for sure.

Go ahead check out the site & good luck with the contest.  Wish me luck too, I really want to win! LOL


Have a great week !

Beautifully Complex

Blog Peeps, Weekend Wrap Up & Other Happenings

Eh hem........"Is this thing on" ?  Yes I have been MIA & this little blog is quite dusty, but I am still here.

My camera sucks & malfunctioned this weekend, so I was just left with my phone which never keeps a charge, so I don't have any good photos to share, but I had a great time at the Houston Blogger Meetup in honor of Babs who flew in from Atlanta. You can check out her blog for all of the details & great pics. It was a great time. I have been reading her blog since, at least 2005, so it truly felt like hanging out with an old friend. She is one of the first blogs I started reading regularly & was hooked. I could relate to her in so many ways. She is exactly how I imagined her to be & we would totally be friends that hang out often, if we were in the same city.

I also got to see some local bloggers/commenters that have become my friends in real life, that I  previously met in blog world along with meeting some new people that I only know from commenting.

CBean showed up with a sparkling brand new engagement ring, with her new Fiance' in tow. I am so very happy for her.  Tarsha showed up with some baked goodness especially for Babs, but I somehow ended up with a little sample. LOL She throws down. Believe that. And of course TiffanyinHouson  (Bab's blog wifey) and her husband, who has become a good friend of my soon-to-be husband in real life. We had an awesome time. Lots of laughs, great food & of course cocktails.

My love's brother  who is also from Atlanta, happened to come in the same night  as Bab's which is why Mr. Mixologist didn't get to meet her Friday night.

Saturday, I spent the entire day with my honey & BIL, we had a lazy morning, we cooked breakfast in, my BFF Kim dropped by to eat, but she had a bunch of family events this weekend so she didn't get to hang out with us.

We had lunch at Onion Creek in the Heights, which has great food, and a nice patio for the beautiful spring day on Saturday. We had some drinks & laughs there, enjoying the beautiful weather and then picked up a couple of bottles of wine & headed to Stogie's Cigar Lounge, we hung out there for several hours, I brought my laptop & did some wedding planning, in between laughing & chilling with they guys.  We discussed our upcoming wedding in New Orleans & all that we plan to do. My BIL is a complete fool, he is such a fun person to hang out with, we always have blast & he keeps me laughing. I got to hear all the details of Mr. Mixologist's upcoming Bachelor party which sounds like it's going to be epic, LOL. It's going to be  very small, close knit group of guys & the plan is to head to Miami. I am really excited and happy for him.

Lastly, Saturday night, we all headed out to listen to some jazz at Cezanne. My BIL absolutely loved it ! It is truly for jazz lovers. It is all.about.the.music. It is a very small, intimate, place, where the musicians are the focus and given the utmost respect and full attention by the patrons. There are no distractions, no one talks during the performances and it's as if the musicians are sitting in your living room. It is a great date spot for music lovers if you are ever in Houston & this sounds like your scene, you should check it out.

My BIL left this morning after Mr. Mixologist cooked us a big breakfast & let me sleep in until his brother was leaving. I love to see how happy, being around his people makes him. It makes me happy to see him happy.

We have just 6 months till the big day & I am fine tuning right now. I hired a wedding planner who has been an absolute dream to work with so far. She is helping me to tie up everything that we have done on our own so far & has made some great suggestions.  Also, I don't want to get into the details right now, but I have had a bit more stress at work as of late & I am really trying not to let that distract me from the happiness and joy of planning to wed this wonderful man who loves me, but honestly it has been challenging. I know that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord. (Romans 8:28) I may not blog as often because I have a full plate right now, but I will be back periodically with updates on the wedding planning and other happenings.


Have a wonderful week !


Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?

Beautifully Complex

Where in the World.....

.....is Beautifully Complex ? LOL

I am still here. This year got off to a roaring start. I wasn't planning to take a blogging/social media break, but other than a little Fac.ebook here and there, I just needed to focus on a few things with more priority.

First, we got our wedding website up and running in January. I am really happy with it. One compromise that I made with Mr. Mixologist is that it is password protected. It has a lot of personal information about us both. The story of how we met, how he proposed, intimate pictures, etc. not to mention specific details about the wedding. He just doesn't want random people to be able to goo.gle our names and find it. So I definitely understood. He is way more private than I am,  but this is OUR wedding and OUR marriage, so I respect his feelings. I did probably 70% of the writing on the site but he did contribute some and he helped with photo selection and I got the music from him ( New Orleans native Trombone Shorty !). I knew he thought it  turned out nice, but when we sent the link to his parents and his aunts and uncles to preview, his reaction was just priceless to me. His mother LOVED the site & called us both separately to tell us just how much & that she had already emailed the link AND the password to all of her friends (even people who aren't invited LOL) !  My love was beaming about her reaction. You can tell she is very proud and that made him feel proud, it was a blessing to see that in his eyes.


Another big thing that happened recently, is I was involved in a car accident. I was on my way to the Airport to pick up my love's brother, when I got creamed by a little old blue haired lady in a parking lot ! I was just riding along minding my own business coming down the aisle & she was cutting through spaces and pulled right out in front of me, I tried to miss her by swerving to the left, but it was too late. The bad news is that she totaled my car. The good news is she was at fault and neither of us was injured. But I loved my little cream puff  Toyota Camry. It was paid for, clean inside and out, well maintained, never had any major mechanical problems with it and had low, low miles.  However, the insurance company was very fair with me. So I have no complaints. I got 5 days in a rental car after they gave me my settlement money and my love found me a new vehicle with 2 days to spare !  The best part about it is, I took the same money that I got from the insurance company and paid for the new vehicle. Mr. Mixologist did the negotiation with the seller. We both hate car payments & I did not want to have to dip into the wedding fund for a new car. Mission accomplished. We did have to spend gas money to drive to Dallas to pick up the vehicle, but it was well worth it. I love the new ride. It's a Mitsubishi Endeavor,  a sport utility vehicle. It's newer than my other car and has low, low miles (less than 10K per model year) and it's more comfortable and luxurious (leather seats, premium sound system & sunroof)  than my Camry which I truly loved.

I went from this.....

My poor little baby ! 

My new baby ! 

To this.....















We made a day trip to Dallas in the middle of the week to pick up the new car. Of course we had to make a mandatory stop at a Cigar Lounge. LOL  We chilled for a couple of hours at Elite Cigar Cafe  had lunch and my love enjoyed a nice Cigar before we headed back to Houston. It is a very cool spot with great food, nice large patio, lots of inside seating and a pretty large humidor. They even had a stage for live entertainment in the evenings. We had a wonderful Cuban Sandwich for lunch. Mr. Mixologist was also impressed with the prices and selection of the sticks. If you are ever in the Dallas area looking for a nice Cigar Lounge, this is the place. Check out my Yelp review.



January was also the month for the Annual Cigar Event. That's why my love's brother flew in from Chicago to attend with us. It is hosted by Serious Cigars and we invite a bunch of friends to hang out. My love and I met in January, so we jokingly refer to this as our "unofficial" Anniversary party.  Here are some pics...

My love and his brother

My BFF

TiffanyinHouston & her Hubby !

Also this month, my sister and I finally decided on the "Save the Dates". There is a cool site called Wedding Paper Divas that we used.  I couldn't decide on what pics to use, since we are not taking our engagement photos until the summer so I just picked from some past events. We decided to use a photo from the very first wedding we ever attended together (Shout out to TiffanyinHouston !) and another pic from a nice Wine Bar called The Tasting Room that we like to hang out at.  But I was happy with how they turned out. We chose a refrigerator magnet so that people can put it somewhere & keep it on their minds. They sent me the proof for final approval  a couple of days ago & they will be here on Monday. I am sending them out this week, exactly 8 months before our wedding date, so that people can start making their travel arrangements now. There is also a link to our wedding website on the Save the Date so our guests can get information about where to stay and what to do, while in New Orleans. 

Here is the final draft...

Valentine's was very low key for us this year since we are trying to be wedding budget minded LOL. We exchanged cards ( I did get candy and a teddy bear). I picked up my love's favorite dinner (Brisket) and we watched "The Coalition" DVD written by blogger Monica Mingo & Terrell Suggs (Mr. Mixologist being raised in Baltimore is a huge Raven's fan) and just relaxed all evening. We enjoyed the film. It has been exciting to watch Monica see her dreams come to fruition ! Congratulations on a job well done. 

My personal copy 

What is going on in your world ?

Did you do anything special for Valentine's Day ? 

How has your 2013 been so far ?

Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?

Beautifully Complex 

Saturday Matinee - " Soul Food Junkies "

This is an upcoming independent documentary style film that looks like it will be interesting....

Check PBS for times and dates.




What do you think ? Do you like/eat.cook Soul Food ?

Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?

Beautifully Complex

Christmas Rewind

We had a lovely holiday with the family, full of laughs and some surprises too.

While at the rental car counter, Mr. Mixologist get's the bright idea that we can rent the Fiat 500 that caught his attention when we pulled up. I was trying to veto it because, I knew we had gifts AND luggage, but I let him have his way........lets just say it took him over an hour to figure out how to get everything loaded in the car !  It was pure comedy to me & lots of language I won't post on here,  LOL  He was super frustrated and admitted that it was his fault & that he had gotten caught up in the novelty of the car, but in the end, he made it happen. The good part was that we did get great gas mileage, and it was more comfortable than expected and we truly enjoyed the ride. Of course the little ones loved it too !

This is the car we drove a total of 17 hours in ! 

On Sunday before Christmas, we worshiped at the church where  my BIL is the Pastor with our family. It was great to see the kids perform in the Christmas program. My sister wrote the Christmas play and all three of the kids got to show their acting chops. It was great to see them so excited to participate. My niece surprised us all with her Clarinet skills. She did a solo accompanied by a drummer.

We were surprised to hear my niece play her instrument so well ! 

Look whose one of the wise men !

Our Christmas dinner is a small affair with just the immediate family & we get together with other family later in the day. My mother and I did all the cooking together. We had Cornish Hens, Dressing, Gravy, Green Beans, Macaroni & Cheese, Greens, Coleslaw and Yeast Rolls. I even made a Sweet Potato Pecan Pie for the first time and it was a hit.

My pie fresh from the oven

The surprise on Christmas morning was that we had a white Christmas ! Big heavy snowflakes started falling around 7 AM & kept accumulating until the ground was covered. The kids of course were super excited as they were already hyped up about all the presents under the tree !

Before opening gifts

My nieces and nephews have fallen in love my my parents new dog since they got it a couple of months ago. They have bought outfits for the dog, they fight over who is going to take the dog outside, LOL, it is cute to watch and see how they have bonded with the dog. Watching them  has even helped me with some of my dog anxiety, LOL.

They dressed her like Mrs Claus

The last gift they opened from Santa was a bone, it took them a few minutes to figure out the big surprise is that they are getting a new dog of their own, a Boxer that is currently still in the womb. It will be born by the end of January. This was their reaction when they figured it out......

Yes it was dramatic but it was funny ! They were screaming ! 

I love the laziness of Christmas Day, opening gifts, calling your family and friends, having coffee, finishing up the big dinner and watching the men play with the kids and their toys.....

They played this game for quite a while

After dinner we loaded up the little ones and slid around  headed out to visit some family !

My love keeping us safe behind the wheel of the Fiat ! LOL

The biggest surprise of Christmas day came from my cousin and his wife. This is the gift they gave to both of their parents.....

Manifestation of God's Grace 

The reason this is such a Christmas blessing is that they have been married for 15 years and dealt with infertility for all of that time. They adopted two daughters who are now 8 and 4.  She is 39 and he is 41. To say we were surprised would truly be an understatement. We were all just stunned. We watched the video of when my Aunt and her mother opened up their boxes that morning and it was hilarious. I could.not.stop.crying or smiling the entire day !


Reluctantly, we hit the road early  the day after so that we could deal with the icy roads. Mr Mixologist had to remove the ice from the windows AND the locks (we couldn't even unlock the doors) it was so cold. Though I will miss my family,  I was somewhat glad to head back to south Texas where we don't have real winter LOL

Too cold for comfort  ! 

All in all it was another blessed Christmas that I am so very thankful for.


How was your holiday ?    Did you travel or have visitors  ?

Any plans for NYE ?  Are you ready for the New Year ?


Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?


Beautifully Complex 

Santa Came to Town.....

...and I was OUT of town ! LOL  I left Friday to travel out of town for the Christmas Holiday and did not return until last night, which is why this post is so very late. My neighbor across the street always collects my packages, so I knew that it would be safe until my return. I look forward to the Blogland Secret Santa hosted by Psonya for the last few years. I love shopping & shipping surprise gifts as well as receiving them.

My Secret Santa did not disappoint ! When I opened the Fed Ex Envelope, I was happy to see several silver jewelry bags with pink ribbons.  Inside were some lovely necklaces, bracelets and earrings, all in the perfect colors ! I love jewelry

I really like my gifts Secret Santa and I love Charming Charlie ! I can always find something in that store.

I promised myself I would not read the reveal post until I got home, opened my gift and tried to guess who my Secret Santa was. There was no clue inside the bag, so I cheated and used to the tracking number so I know for sure that  my Secret Santa is from somewhere in North Texas. Based on this I deduced that it must be dontworrybenappy !

Thank you very much !

Beautifully Complex 

Saturday Matinee " Temptation "

I love Jurnee Smollett. I have been following her since Eve's Bayou.  She is such a talented actress This looks like it could be very interesting.....






I will definitely be going to see this film.

What do you think of the trailer ?

Beautifully Complex