Saturday lessons

** Side note **

I was having mixed feelings about writing a blog. You know, because it sounds like such a pretentious me-me-bullshit to have my life and thoughts written down on an internet page that barely no one reads like I'm somehow important. But you know what? Writing about my days has made me reflect more about them. Something that not many people have the habit of doing. And it's really brought me good things. For one, It's opened my eyes a little bit, in a way, and I've been enjoying my days a little more, paying attention to little details. Besides, documenting my time makes me feel like I've not wasted it, nor taken it for granted. Also, living the present and writing about it helps me not to freak out about the future. That's sort of crucial to me and my mental health thanks very much. lol 

**  Side note **

Crazy sappy bullshit aside, I've been writing about the rain situation in the region where I live. Because of the floods, my cousin's family (not my side) only got to celebrate Christmas today. So we made a little road trip to this beach house where a sort of holiday lunch party took place. They tossed confetti for Secret Santa!

Now, think about a repeat of Christmas. Food. Desserts. That's right, oh God! I didn't touch my phone all day #proud hence I don't have pictures of the food again. It was fun, though. It made me really think of how much I appreciate spending time with family.

Although I really wanted to go for a walk on the beach and play some ball in the sand during sunset, we left early. It was around 5pm when we got home and I decided I didn't want to the day to end just yet, so I invited the girls to come hang out in the pool and listen to some blues music having coffee.

We swam in our clothes because who the fuck cares? The atmosphere reminded us so much of Cayamo (the cruise we did last January) that we felt nostalgic. It was probably the Summer vibe mixed with good music and friends. Sunset was at 7:24pm.

I decided I'd make the girls dinner and went crazy in the kitchen. It turned out quite well and I'm glad they enjoyed. Roast potato with cheese topped with sliced chicken, carrots and cream, served with raw tomato and broccoli.

We watched a film called "The Bang Bang club" afterwards, which was very interesting. I had too much ice cream and I lost my car keys. It was in my brother's backseat. He stopped by during the movie and I got out to give little Alice a kiss. I was so entertained with her that I just dropped it there.

I learned good lessons today: Writing is good, family is essential, friends are important and nieces are distracting.

Bye :)

Bright Friday

Today the sun shone so bright in the sky after being gone so long that I decided to enjoy it. 

So I went in the pool for a.....while. It was very nice and relaxing. I wore this new cute swimming suit I got from Father Christmas.

I threw a pretty dead leaf off about three times and it kept coming back in the water. So I decided it just wanted some attention, why not give it, then?

I was loving how my nails were shining under the water, too.

And I had a mani and a pedi aftwerwards...Now I'm simply in love with the new colour! 

In the evening, some friends and I took a walk at the beach. The weather was pretty fine and the chat even better.

...and it's officially Summer!

Holidaze

Some people may not enjoy the holidays, but I really love tradition and what better than the holidays to bring up the best ones? So I do love Christmas and everything that comes with it. The bad family jokes (which are always the same), the crappy movies on TV, the music, the lights, the smell (in this case it's the smell of the palm tree fruit that grows in my yard - lovely), the stories, the get together, opening the presents and more importantly the food. #ha I imagine that Christmas food might be different depending on where in the world you are, so here's my Christmas meal from Christmas eve dinner:

No, we don't usually eat Turkey because, besides being very expensive here, people tend to find the meat too hard, so we cook a big chicken called "Chester", which is modified with hormones for it to be bigger and fatter. My father, who's the cook in the family, made an orange sauce to spice the chicken with. It was gorgeous! We also have this very nice sort of "ball of ham" called "tender", which is pork ham cooked with clover and passion fruit sauce. Probably my favourite Christmas food! We usually say it's no Christmas without it. The "Salpicão de frango" is some sort of chicken salad that has got sliced cooked chicken, chopped potatoes, carrots, ham, corn, and for those who like to mix sweet and salty (I don't) there's apple and raisins. The rice is made with peas, corn, carrots, ham and raisins. Cod salad made with potato, cod fish, "palmito" and parsley leaves. If you ever visit Brazil, you can't miss our "farofa", which is basically manioc flour stir fried with garlic, onions, bacon and anything you feel like putting in it. It's so good! I didn't get to have dessert because I was so full, but there was fruit salad with cream, ice creams to eat with Panettone, chocolate candies, and we usually have all sorts of pavés and pies. 

Christmas here is also a good excuse to appreciate all kinds of nuts, and Christmas table won't be complete without them. 

So we often have chestnuts, almonds, hazel nuts, Brazil nuts, pistachio and peanuts. Also included in the appetizers are the dried fruits like apricot, raisins and prune. I'm not a big fan, but the apricots were delicious! 

On Christmas day I was dying to eat some leftovers (I really love Christmas food) but my father had other plans. He decided he would cook Lobster thermidor. Anything thermidor is topped with a cream made with potato and soft white cheese. Well, shrimp thermidor is my favourite dish ever and if you look at a lobster, it's like a frigging giant shrimp! I was sold!

Aren't they pretty? Well, yeah, they tasted a thousand times better than they looked. So.Fucking.Good.

I can't say I ever felt more stuffed in my whole life. But then, in the late afternoon, while playing cards with my brother, father and mother, we decided to make some more coffee and eat something. This is what I had.

My neighbor and best friend baked her first brownies ever and made them look like Christmas trees. Aren't they cute? Well, they tasted a lot better too. The other stuff is "Panettone", which is a traditional sort of bread made with rum and dried fruits or chocolate that we only eat on holidays. And "Rabanada", a traditional Christmas dessert which is like a french toast. It's french bread soaked in eggs and condensed milk, deep fried, then sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. Scrumptious! 

Anyway, these were two lovely full of great and very caloric food days. I topped it off with having a few beers and with very good friends. Now I need to get back on my diet!! haha But I leave you with the good news that today we had our first rays of sunshine in over a week! It's officially Summer and here's the sunshine of my life on Christmas day. 

Baby Alice's smile. 

Christmas eve

Despite weather forecast saying otherwise, rain has let up for this evening and it's a beautiful one! It's Christmas eve and I love it. Today is a little special and emotional. It's hard to enjoy tonight fully because of so much tragedy happening all around us, at the moment. Hopefully the people affected by the greatest flood we've ever had will find strength and solace to carry on with their lives and start over.

You see, here in Brazil we kind of celebrate Christmas on Christmas eve. It's Summer and we spend the whole day cooking to have a great feast with family late at night. At midnight it's time to toast and hug each other and exchange presents. It's my favourite time. Usually I'm feeling tipsy by then lol but it's lovely. Then the mass starts on TV and there's the traditional movies, too. Then I go by the neighborhood wishing everyone a Happy Christmas! I shall do a post after about our traditional Christmas food just because I love tradition and culture and knowing different stuff from different countries and I'd love to know what other people usually have on the holidays, besides the famous turkey.

I might have written about how close I am to my family and specially my cousins. Today I received two phone calls in a row that warmed my heart. I have this one cousin who grew up with me who moved to London two years ago. He left his six year old son behind because he has shared custody with the mother and so it had been two years since he had last seen him. Today my auntie arrived for the first time in his home in London, taking his kid as a Christmas surprise. I can't imagine a better gift than having your family with you after so much time. He called me to tell me about it and said he almost had a heart attack. I couldn't control my grin. No sooner had I put the phone down, it rang again. It was my cousin from Rio saying he had arrived safely after picking up his three year old daughter here. It's going to be their first Christmas together after facing legal action to gain a right to see her. That made me really really happy.

Also, this time we have a new addition to the family. My niece, Alice, who's three months old, arrived in this world bringing so much love and happiness this year.

I can't not address the great musicians I follow who have been gifting us with Christmas music this week. They have surely made this day a little brighter and I'll link a few in the end of this post.

So, although we aren't all together this Christmas and there are so many bad things happening around us, it's like almost all is right with the world and my heart is swollen with love tonight.  For this holiday, I wish everyone's hearts are filled with love and care and music. Happy Christmas!


Bobby Long God rest ye merry gentlemen (click the player on the right)
Rae Morris 2000 miles
Foy Vance Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Marcus Foster w/ Sam Bradley Christmas island

Bittersweet Sunday

So, a little update about the rain. It's still been raining nonstop and forecast says it'll keep on until Friday at the least. I'm already feeling claustrophobic and I never thought I'd miss the sun this much. I posted a video today on my instagram (http://instagram.com/p/iPMFVsrqcD/) and it'd look pretty nice if it hadn't been going on for over a week. Like this. All the time. No break.

Roads are being closed, airport shuts down at least twice a day, hills are coming down, landslides are happening and I can only wish for people to be protected and for this rain to give them a much needed break at least for Christmas.

The good thing about all this is to be able to witness a side of people we rarely get to see. (thank fuck these things don't happen very often where I'm from) The side that worries, cares, gives and shares. I don't know if it's only because of this time of the year or what, but it's quite lovely and inspiring to see how many people are up to standing up and doing something to help those who are less fortunate and sadly have become victims of this crazy weather. I wish none of this were necessary but it raises my hopes on people.

Still about good things and Sunday and the rain, today it was an Alice kind of Sunday. We stayed inside because it was pouring out, and hung out with the family playing cards and drooling over my precious niece.

Brother and SIL paid us a visit and brought their little beautiful baby girl, Alice. She's 3 months old.

She was so happy

She played cards with us

Messed around with her grandpa

Concentrated hard on holding a bottle

Gave my brother luck

 ...and we lost. But I'm not a sore loser and I ended up winning anyway. :)

My own asylum

Well, I just thought I should give this blogging thing a shot. I know I have the habit of starting things and not ending them, but I'll try. I do have a tumblr (http://insomeessentials.tumblr.com/) but I noticed I started reblogging stuff more than writing. So I'm going to use here to try to exercise some writing and speak my own mind for a bit.

I'll be posting things I see or feel or think deserve sharing. Personal or not. I'll do that either in Portuguese or in English, depending on my mood on the day, so there'll be no rules.

If you know me, you know how much I ramble and that's basically what I'll be doing here.

Have in mind I go by a different name on social networks for a number of reasons, so if you're interested in knowing who I really am or just my real name, send me a message. :)

Anyway, here we go.

We've been having nonstop (literally!) rain for the last 6 days or so, here. It's pretty common in December, but I think it's never stayed this long or done this much damage before. There are several places that are completely flooded and even my neighborhood was, for a little while. We've had the largest amount of rain fall in the world in the last week, according to NASA, and we are bound to get twice as much until Tuesday, which is pretty scary. Thankfully I'm quite safe where I am, but over 21,000 people were left homeless, which is really fucking sad. Especially at this time of the year. The government has already arranged some damage control settings and I'm thinking of going on Monday to donate stuff and try to help someone. It's pretty much all I can do, at the moment.

Having said that, I thought I'd end this first post on a lighter note. Today was the first day of Summer and this is how it's been...

...wet.