22 and counting

Can you see me in that round thing? It's me with my camera and an orange apron. The best we can see is my hand holding the camera.

Most things are ready. Tree is up since the beginning of December. Also the crib. Presents are bought and wrapped - most of them, tomorrow I will buy the remaining things. My mother is in charge of ordering the cabbage to the soup of Christmas Eve - Caldo Verde, a portuguese institution for that Holy night - and also the "grelos" - another kind of cabbage to go with the cod. And because we are a portuguese-english home, she is in charge of ordering the lamb kidneys too, to our Christmas breakfast.

Time now to get off the computer and do some cleaning and tidying.

Today is already 20

So many things to do and so little time.

I'm feeling good

Today it's Independence Restauration Day. It means that's in 1640 we kicked the spanish off once again.
First time it was in the 12º century and then again in the 17. Yuppy!

So, today we are not going to work. Day to be at home and to be a full time house wife.
Ah! That feels good.

Goods things

Yesterday I managed to do some homemaking, thanks God, and my house is going better.
No need to say that I took frequent breaks to go to the Internet and see how things were doing in Rome.
Lot's of pictures on lots of sites, videos, etc. I was happy.
Today the party goes on. Ah, if I could be in Rome.
But that's ok, I can't say nothing after being there for three weeks in July.

Now, another thing.
I leave you with a music I like very much and I heared today.

Being more Mary than Martha

I've been so away of this blog because I've been very active in my This Burning Fire blog, all happy with my fellow catholic warriors.
Christmas is coming and I have still so many things to do and to think about. I've been so emerged on the life of the Church, with so many things happening, like the amount of Anglicans crossing the Tiber and the Consistory tomorrow, I can't take my eyes from the Internet to know more things.
Ah!It's a good time to be a Catholic, with this Pope.
Now, I promised myself that tomorrow I will try hard to put my feet on the floor and be a good homemaker.
We need to be Martha as well, not just Mary. I feel Our Lord could say to me now " Mary, Mary..."and not "Martha, Martha" because I easily forget to be Martha and my home is showing the signs of it. Our Lord wants us to be good homemakers, taking His mother as an example.
See you tomorrow for a report on my behaviour.

I found this picture at http://deusbibliaepoesia.wordpress.com/

It's time for this already !

I find myself now singing this all the time.
And I began to buy things for Christmas already.
I bought napkins, kitchen roll, Christmas tree balls, nice strings and bows...
I'm in the spirit of the season.

What about this one?

A bit of Advertisement

Would you like to see how the place I live is beautiful?

Go to my blog here.

Two birthdays

Two birthdays in my house this month:

Girl nº2, who is now 16

and mine.

22 years

22 year ago it was my wedding. It was the day 15.October.1988.
On the 16 we went to England (Canterbury) and then to Paris. We went also to Vaux-Le-Vicomte.
Then we came back to England and to Sintra.
It was such a happy time.
Thanks be to Our Lord for that time and all these 22 years.

Isn't this a beautiful music?

Alla Notte



Adapted from the Adagio de Albinoni.

You must see and hear the original too.

Magnificent! I like it so much since the beginning of my teen years!

Is this a busy mom?!

Too Busy for Family?

It’s 6 a.m. You begin your day with two cups of coffee, feed the kids, and grab a granola bar as you run out the door to meet the school bus. Then you make a mad rush to do errands. By 10 a.m., your blood sugar is dropping so you stop by 7-11 and grab a high caffeine drink ( never! ) and a couple of cookies (maybe). Then it is home to do laundry and clean up from the morning rush. You have a meeting at the school and the dog needs to be seen at the vet so you run by the fast food drive through, grab a burger and fries (you are really hungry now) and a Coke. The guy in the car in back of you cuts you off and you scream out your window—Jerk! (I would never do that, I just wave and smile as my grandmother used to make when she drived. This makes them crazy!)Back home to meet the kids and start thinking dinner. As you meet the kids at the bus, taxi mom begins her route. ( Well this I what I do all day long) Dinner is out because one kid has soccer, the other has ballet, and the other is in a school play; no one will be home at the same time. ( In the evening we are all at home) You decide to grab pizza on the way home because you haven’t had time to prepare dinner. Everyone eats whenever they are finished with schedules. Homework help is given and then the kids get ready for bed. At 10 p.m., you flop down on the couch exhausted and grab a bowl of ice cream to relax a minute. Your husband asks you a question and you snap at him.( This is bad!) He wants time with you, but you are tired and just realized you need to throw in a load of laundry and pay a few bills. Finally, around 1 a.m. (around 1 am?! ), you crawl into bed and set the alarm for 6 a.m.What’s wrong with this picture? ( A lot! )

The red sentences are my comments .
More at http://blogs.cbn.com/familymatters/archive/2010/10/07/too-busy-for-family.aspx

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Mind that this mother pictured here it’s not an working outside mother and, even so, she is too stressed to give some time of her to her husband and goes to bed in the a.m.!

I wake up at 6 am. I wash and dress and then I wake up my big girl. Then I empty the washing machine ( the dishes washing machine, not the clothes) and iron two shirts or any similar amount of clothes while I wait that my girl is ready. When she is I take her by car to the station so she can take the train to the university. She does that everyday and everybody in the several universities here do the same. I take her by car because I don’t want she goes on foot alone in the dark at that early hour in an empty street to take the bus to the station. We live in a very good and safe place but even so, we never know.

I come back home. Wake up the other 3 girls. While they wash,dress and have breakfast, I prepare their mid morning and mid afternoon snacks – lunch is made by the school.

We enter the car and after dropping each one in each school and taking my husband to his work, I go to work and there I stay till the end of the afternoon, some times till the evening.

Because the two middle girls haven’t the same class time everyday, some days they don’t go in the morning so, because I must have a compulsive hour rest around 1 pm, I run home and take them to their respective school.

When it’s only the nº2 that needs a lift, being a teenager, I let her go by bus.
Usually, she comes back home by bus and so does the older one – in the end of the day. It’s very safe at that hour with lots of cars and people of several ages going around. Meanwhile I went to pick girl nº3 and 4.

If there is a day that the big ones come home earlier, they pick the little one.

Twice a week, after ending my work day – outside working day, I mean – and after picking the younger ones, and taking my husband from his work and taking him home, I go to my mother to stay a bit with her and, on the way, to do some shopping.

Arriving home,  exhausted, I put the shopping in places – sometimes the big ones help me, if they arrived already, and I put the laundry to wash. Later on I need to put the clothes on the line and on the day after take it out of the line, fold and put away - in the morning or in the afternoon, depending on the season and weather.

All the other chores? Hoovering, dusting, washing the floors, cleaning, etc. ? I find some little spaces between arriving home and going out again in the next morning. Most things are made on Saturday. Some little things on Sunday, not much, because it’s the Lord’s Day. We go to Mass.

Meals? My husband makes them to ease my load.

I never go to bed late, otherwise I would be crazy.

Now you are asking: why this woman works outside her home? Why doesn’t she stays at home as she should ? For the money, quite a nice income to a big family.

But I dream about staying at home. One day, God willing, I will be a stay at home woman!

Image from http://www.millan.net/

A day in Florence

Enough of bad things. Let's forget the republic day.
I know it's October but I was thinking about our holidays in July and the day my husband was 50. We were in Rome and went to Florence because it was his birthday.

It was such a wonderful day.
After the presents and kisses in the morning, we went to the station and took a fast train, the Frecciarossa to Florence, Firenze, how it's called in Italy.
It's a wow city, each corner of it. I knew it was like that but I didn't know how much wow it was. The girls were crazy with it.

The girls with long hair are my little ones.

After all the walking and our jaws aching because of so much wow, we went to have lunch. He choose the restaurant and very well chosen it was.

Such a pleasant lunch.

He and I had Aspargus Risotto and the girls had spagetti and pizza. Here it's him enjoying his food.

The arm and a blue and white dress is my big girl. I think the other hand is my girl nº2 - or it's maybe mine.

And what about the italian ice cream, like no other in the world?!

Some fruit.

And other food.

We went back to Rome in the very end of the day exausted but so happy. Happily we went in the Frecciarossa again.
Thanks God my husband doesn't tire easily because, arriving home we had the most wonderful dinner.
What a day!

An ugly thing

Today it makes 100 years that we have to endure the republic. It's not easy.
I posted about that in my other blog. The only good thing is, because of that, we don't go to work today.
So...I will do a lot of things in my home!
That is good.

Autumn is here

I feel I want to come back to my blog. I hope to say something in the weekend.

Where I blog

Centsational Girl is having a party called Where Do You Blog?

So, you can see where I do.



I found the link at Aunt Amelia's Attic.

More beauty from the Vatican and Rome

Santa Maria in Traspontina

Remember that street that I said it leads to the Vatican? In this street, on the right side, there is a beautiful church - they are all beautiful. It's called Santa Maria in Traspontina.

Click on the title and you will go to the page on wikipedia that tell about that.

St. Peter's Basilica

The Papal Altar and the baldachin. It's amazing, its beauty and grandiouseness!

Only the Pope can celebrate Mass there and is on top of the tomb of St. Peter, the first Pope.

See here the tomb. It's below.

It has a lot of significance!

At last!

I know, but it's better late then never. Here they are my holidays pictures.

Do you know where this street is leading to? Our hearts are already burning with anticipation.

Here!
The hapiness that we feel here. The first step is to go through a scanner as in the airports, then we must get between two guards because lots of turists forget they are in a sacred space and dress almost to naked. I saw some people sent away. Not the muslim women because they are always properly dressed.

Going to the Basilica we can see these handsome men.

Inside.
We feel so little. First time I went to the Vatican, my girl that is now 11 was a little girl on my husband's shoulders. The moment we went in, she couldn't help say: Wow! Yes, that what we feel.

It's everything so grand.

Here we only can enter to go to Mass.

It's a special place, even for turists.
Looks like our hearts will burst with that light.

Such a blessed place.

For some days, I will post some pictures of the Vatican and Rome.
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Here is the Piazza Navona.

More tomorrow.

It's coming

Sorry for the delay

Sorry for the delay on posting. I hope something will be done at the weekend. My husband has most of my pictures in his computer and he's not here. When he comes back, he will give me and I will post them - I hope.
Until then.

Home

We just came back from Rome where we stayed for three weeks. My husband rented a home for us in the hill of Trastevere. It's a place very much looked for, full of restaurants but this is more in the lower ground. We were at the high, on the top of Goffredo Mameli street, almost at the Gianicolo which is a place where there are quite a big territory belonging to the Holly See, including the Hospital Bambino Gesu ( Baby Jesus). From our house it was easy to go to the Vatican, which was not realy far from us. So, you can imagine the times we went there.

It was not the first time but it's always such a moment of emotion as we, facing Saint Peter Basilica, felt that we realy were at Home. Yes, that is Home.

We took a lot of pictures, that I will post tomorow and following days.

The big moment was when we went to Castel Gandolfo where the Pope is for his holidays. I knew that he in July always goes to the mountains and I was a bit sad until I learnd that, this year, he wanted to go to Castel Gandolfo since July and until he goes to UK in September. It's the first time he does that and I felt it as a special blessing from Our Lord.

So, we went, so expectant of that imense previlege that is to receive a blessing from the Pope.

It was beyound whatever I can say. It was so amazing that my husband wanted to go again the following sunday - which was received with big joy. Being him an anglican by birth, I didn't want to press my husband but he was so happy there that was him who proposed to return. And everytime I looked at him I could see a transformed face - I can't find another word - looking extatic to the Pope. He, with us, waited in the sun for two hours until the doors opened and before that he went to buy a british flag by his own idea.

If you go to my other blog you can see the flag in the movies You Tube has.

It was a wonderful time and I, that always like so much to come back to my home as I like to go on holidays, I'm already missing the Pope and that Home of us all catholics that belong to that Church that we like so much.

Picture: I think I took it from wikipedia bit now I can't find the place.

Mr. Thornton

I quite prefer this version but it's not possible to post here anymore. You must go there to listen but it's worthwhile. Please go.

Wonderful person that Thornton made by Richard Armitage. Perfect.

Hello

I've been away for such longtime because I can't find the device to download pictures from my camera.
Today I found a way to be with you while I can't find the bloomin thing.
See these beauties of wonderful period dramas.

The beauty around us

I've been seeing, for four days, the visit of the Pope.
As a deeply catholic person, I was in Heaven.
Most things I saw in television but in the first day I went to Lisbon, to Terreiro do Paço, to the Mass said by the Pope. We were happy. It was the most profound hapiness. We saw the Pope near us in a distance of around 1.5m. when he was going out.
So, today, after four days of pure joy, after he went away back to Rome, with my soul like burning brass, I went to listen some music to calm down.
It was then that I heard this sublime music that has absolutly nothing to do with the Pope but it's just so beautiful.
You don't need to understand the lyrics.
Just listen the beauty.

She is a very known brasilian singer and he is one of the biggest portuguese singers, poets, composers. My uncle is so lucky to know him quite well and I like him so much since my teen years.

He's a very handsome man, perfect lips and nose, a perfect arab, like the people in Alentejo are - arabs, I mean.

Ah, the beauty around us.

Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day.

As you can see, I had a lot of presents.
The first one was from girl nº 3.
The drawaing was from my little girl. She says it's me and her in the picture.

Also the magnet, key ring and flower with her picture - those made at her school - was given by the little one.

My big girl gave me a box of AfterEight because she knows I like everything minty

and girl nº 2 gave me that beautiful rose.

Lovely presents.

And my husband gave me this hortensia

and made the lunch:

pork sirloin.



And didn't forgot the dessert!



Cheesecake!