On being a lady: feminine and sober

I was never a tomboy but I was never a Barbie girl either. I  mean, it's not that I didn't like dolls, including Barbies, I did a lot and I had so many (dolls, I mean) but I was never that kind of too girlish girl, but I was always feminine, that I was, because my exemples were my grandmother and mother. My mother was a girl quite modern but without overdoing it, she liked the last trends and all but she was always so nice dressed and elegant. I remember seeing films by my father's super8 camera. There we can see how my mother was like a model, so beautiful and elegant.

My grandmother was quite young for a gradmother but she was sober and elegant, always prefering navy blue. What a lady she was.

She had a very firm influence in me, in everything, and some days ago my eldest daughter was telling me how I am so much like my grandmother in so  many ways, even the hair, dark and slightely waved.

The same way I use so much of her vocabulary and I have the same tastes, as to sew in the sewing machine, to make crochet and embroidery (my mother was wonderful in embroidery too), and how I like so much the home.

It's for me a great comfort to be so much like my grandmother but, even reaching  this age I am, I still long to be like my mother and her and I struggle to be not as good as she was, which looks unattainable for me, but closer to what she was.

And that is to be a lady: feminine and sober. To be delicate, feminine, inclined to all things home, to dress and talk with sobriety, using delicate words, (never, ever being corse in the language) and in the way we walk, seat and get up, the way we laugh, and liking all things feminine and knowing how to do works with our hands like crochet and so, knowing to work in the kitchen and to keep our homes clean and tidy. Being groomed, us and our home.

What a blessing it is to be a woman and being it, to be ladylike.

Thanks be to God for everything I received from my mother and grandmother.

A new week

I hope that every dad goes to church. 😄

I know that many people take the Sunday to program the week but I don't do that. Sunday I give to Our Lord and, after that, to the family.

We just rest, after Mass, and have a good lunch, we gather around and talk and watch films and series, we eat cakes and good deserts.

Sunday is the blessed day to rest and be happy.

And on Monday I plan my week and, having rested on the Lord's Day, I feel full of confidence and hope. I want to do things and I make plans.

Have a good week full of good plans.

Ash Wednesday

 

Fasting and Abstinence today.

Lent begins.

About colours

What about your colours? What do you like?

I must say that I am not the kind of person that chooses bright colours.

Don't think now that I am against those colours or people who prefer them, I'm only talking about what I like.

Let me tell you first that I follow my own path. I like when people agree with me but I don't mind at all when they disagree and that doesn't make me change my way and my opinions.

So, anyway, don't feel that I'm criticizing somebody by writing what I will.

 So, having that in mind, I will say that I prefer the pastel colours. Cream, beige.

 

 Very light pink and green. 

And navy blue. And dark green. And very dark red, the colour of dark wine.

Brown too. Never black.

I don't wear bright colours not for lack of confidence but for a lot of it, I dare to wear what I find elegant and nice, what is related to me, with the way I am, with what I am.

In the kitchen I like to have orange and yellow and green. And brown. White also.

I must say that I don't like at all grey in the house. At all !

I like this:

No, my house is not that grand 😄, I'm just posting it because I find it soo beautiful. (credits clicking on each picture)

I do wear grey mixed with bordeaux or navy blue, but in the house, like the sofas and such, no, at all, I can't stand that foggy feeling that it gives me just for looking at pictures of houses with that colour.

Well, each person has her own tastes and it's related with the soul of each of us.

So, keep doing what you want and what you like and don't mind at all what other people think of that - that's what I do.

PS: I don't care about fashion, I do what I want.

Talking About It Tuesdays at Slices of Life

Our Lady of Lourdes - 11 February

 

Today is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes, the day of the first Apparition.

For more information you may go to the site of the Sanctuary.

And did you know that the famous chocolate Ferrero Rocher was inspired by the Apparitions in Lourdes? Read about it here.

Laundry Day

Don't be deceived by the title, I don't think it's the best system to have a day to do all the laundry from the beginnig to the end.

Well, for some people it's the best way of doing it and that is right, if for you it works like that, the better, carry on doing it that way, it's just that for me it doesn't work at all.

So, I try to wash a load every day, usually in the night, unless it's Saturday or it's an off work day that I try to have each month.

Now I hear the chorus of people saying: what, to wash in the night? Yes, and now I will hear even more people disagreeing when I say that  I wash in the night, most days - safe saturdays and the aforementioned off work days - and I only dry it in the morning.

Yes, it's my way of doing it: to wash in the night and put on line in the morning before going to work.

In the evening when I come home I take them from the line. If it's something that not needs ironing I fold and put in their places, if it needs it, it will wait till Saturday for ironing. It will wait very cosy in the basket.

Now things have been very bad in that matter because the rain doesn't stop for a moment and if it does and people feel the tempation of placing the washed clothes on the line, it will take just the time for us to finish and the rain will begin falling again.

In my life I had two driers, one each time, 😀 but now I haven't, I decided that there's no better way to dry than putting the clothes on the line.

Ah and when it rains too much ? Patience, we have enough clothes to wait till the rain stops. Only little things will  be washed and dried in small hanging things inside the  balcony.

Better days will come. I can't wait to put our clothes on the line.

Partying at

Talking About It Tuesdays at Slices of Life

Endless rain

Yes, we are like this and have been since November with some intervals, but now we haven't them for more than a month, just rain and rain.

Sometimes the sun shows himself  for some minutes, hours, if we are lucky, but he goes away again.

Everyday we have rain and what a rain we have, night and day, strong and noisy.

The fields are drenched and can't hold well the trees that fall down when a strong wind comes.

We are living as in a film, an apocaliptic one, as many people in some parts of the country have not a house anymore because the wing took the tiles off.

Not here, in my town we lost so, so many trees, but that's all. And walls, because the trees fell on them.

It's too much. We can't wash the clothes as most of us dries them in the line to catch the good scent that the sun gives to the line dried clothes. Not now. There is no sun to dry the clothes. So we dry them inside, in enclosed balconies.

Even the people with driers don't use them much because the electricity prices went too high.

Anyway, for the will of God we live in these times of the end and we will endure it.

But one of these days the sun will come back and I will be happy with it, me who was always happy when it rained. But now we had enough. We really need some dry, sunny days.

Candlemas

 

And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.

2 February - The Presentation of the Lord in the Temple

And after the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses, were accomplished, they carried him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord: As it is written in the law of the Lord: Every male opening the womb shall be called holy to the Lord: And to offer a sacrifice, according as it is written in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons:

And behold there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Ghost was in him. And he had received an answer from the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. And he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when his parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, He also took him into his arms, and blessed God, and said:
Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace;

 Because my eyes have seen thy salvation,

Which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples:

 A light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.

And his father and mother were wondering at those things which were spoken concerning him.

And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted;

And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.

And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser; she was far advanced in years, and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity. And she was a widow until fourscore and four years; who departed not from the temple, by fastings and prayers serving night and day. Now she, at the same hour, coming in, confessed to the Lord; and spoke of him to all that looked for the redemption of Israel.

And after they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their city Nazareth.

It's cold outside

 

So the storm came and went away but left a trail of destruction everywhere. Not like it happens in America, the houses are all standing but even so, for our standards it was quite a storm with destruction and casualties.

Here what we have the most is trees uprooted everywhere, several in the same street, in very many streets, branches fallen and trees cut by the firemen so people and cars can pass, people arriving late to work and school because so many streets are cut and even on foot people can't go there. No place to park the cars, infinite trafic lines, etc.

It was quite a night! The wind and rain on the windows made such a noise that people woke up in fear. In the morning everything was quiet but what a vision! I can't imagine the number of trees that we lost.

Anyway, let's give thanks to God for sparing us, not everybody in this country can say that the problem they had was only a fright, delays of every kind and trees broken. There are people facing serious situations.

I hope we will not have such a storm again so soon.

Now we have rain and cold and a lot of snow in the North (a lot for our standards) but we are in peace.

            

 

Restart

I read at the Afternoon Coffe and Evening Tea a sentence that I agree the most and that I will remember as it is so inspiring:

The beginning is always today

That reminds me what Flylady says:

What's wrong with now?

and

Jump in where you are

Those two last sentences have been helping me for ages and now I will add the first one that says that the beginning is today. Always.

Truly we need to not beat ourselves each time we fall off the wagon because, as Flylady says, there is no wagon, you just jump in where you are.

And I keep doing that, jumping in. Restarting.

Maybe someone who reads this is thinking about times that it happened to her. Maybe it happens often. Never mind, never give up on you. Get up, trust, life is not a reaching point, it's a way of traveling, sometimes we are better, sometimes not so good but after each fall, rise up.

As for me I'm having the intention of getting better in many things and I will do what I can to be like that, even if some days are not so sucessful, there are other that are better.

And one of the things that I want to do is to take Flylady more serious again, even if I do it my way.

Her teachings are not the Sacred Scriptures, we can disagree in some things and want to do differently, but in the whole, it's a good system that I discovered in 2001.

So, what are you waiting for? Just start.

Partying at

Talking about it Tuesday at Slices of Life