More Holiday Fun

*Don`t forget to turn the music off!!!*

Our Christmas night was so good! We usually have a lot of presents because everybody gives at least one gift for each other member of the family(although some years were hard and only the kids could get them, but the fun and love were the same). We never cared for expensive gifts, just things that showed our love and care. This year was over the top though, because even our older nieces and nephews wanted to give somthing for everybody. That`s why the tree looks so piled up!

Since my older siblings were little kids, my mom has the habit of taking the children to one of the bedrooms while gathering the presents under the tree, then someone would say "ho ho ho!" with a deep voice and the door wuold be opened and we, kids, would see what Santa left for us. Mom still does so, and Lucas, Maria Clara and Bruna (the oldest grandchild, who was sick, porr sweetie, but she`s fine now) could hardly wait to see the magic once more.

It was a beautiful night, with joy, laughter, fun and a little prayer for our Dede. My mother`s sound of laughter was priceless.


Tomorrow we are going to Minas Gerais at 1 pm. It will take me some time to have Internet connected, so I`ll be offline. I`ll get online once or twice a week at a lan house as soon as possible, though, in the meantime, to post photos showing how things are going and how the house`s construction is progressing.

Thank you all very much for the lovely words of support! I do wish you all a wonderful New Year night, and I hope we keep our friendship along the next year and further more. See you soon!!!

Holiday Fun

*Sorry for the "imposing" song at the slideshow! It came like that and I only noticed it after posting. But you can turn it off by clicking on the trumpet on the left of the slide window!*


After some days of heavy rain and tonsilits, we are finally truly enjoying our vacations. Last Sunday the sun showed up in all its glory, and we went with my older brother Arnaldo and my little niece Maria Clara to enjoy the Crystal Palace and its holiday decoration, to take photos. Then, we went to Santos Dumont's house, the airplane creator, where we took some more photos - they loved the crazy stairs!

It was a good way to celebrate the solstice, under a beautiful weather! In the evening, I lit a candle, said a little prayer and that was it. Lucas was already asleep, exhausted after the long dy of fun. I hope you all had a wonderful Yule night, and tomorrow night you have a sweet Christmas among the ones you love!

In rainy Petropolis...

Hello, everybody!!  This mountain city is under water! Gods, it`s unbelievable how non-stop this rain is right now! Oh, I miss you guys! I miss visiting your pages and talking to you. But here we are in Petopolis, at mom`s, spending great days, our first real vacations for years! On Friday, my Rodrigo went to Minas Gerais with his dad, who came to fetch him and Baruck - who was a chapter apart, how hard it is to make a cat to get into a travelling box?! Poor cat, he was so stressed and frightened that it took us almost one hour to make him simply enter that damn box. He was meowing as if the worst spirit was trying to possess him... But in the end he calmed down, with his favorite lion toy and blanket. Rodrigo said he`s doing fine and adapting well to his new place.

On Saturday my aunt Sandra took me and Lucas to Petropolis, with tons of luggage, among clothes, personal articles, toys, my magick stuff, handcraft things... It is really good to be here at my mom`s house. This is the very first time I can stay more than five days straight (we`ll go to Minas on the 29th), due to my tight working schedule. The only negative note is that, with the drastic change of weather (and life), as Rio is rainy but hot, and here is so chilli and rainy as well, Lucas got his old tonsilits back, and the fever is haunting him since Sunday. But medicines are being given and his mood is great, he loves being here with his fun grandma.

I already set a little altar on my bedside table, and while I chat and "gossip" with my mom and brother Evaldo, I take the time to make little witches for Carioca Witch and some handmade gifts for my relatives. The Summer Solstice ins approaching and I`ll have to make something discreet to celebrate, since my family is catholic and you know... They respect my choices but I wouldn`t feel comfortable celebrating the sabbath like I do at home. Oh well, I`ll find something to do at our bedroom, lit a candle and thank the coming warm season.

I just wanted to let you know how things are doing. I hope you are doing fine, in good health and good spirits. I`ll be back as soon as I can. Take good care and keep me posted too about you!!

Bright blessings & kisses from us.

PS: Oh, and don`t forget to stop by the great 2Witches quartely giveaway! They`re offering one of my Goddesses this week! Take your chance if you like it! ;o)

Blessed I am

All I can say is that you, my friends, keep spoiling me... But I promise that I'll spoil you all back soon! LOL

This time was my dear friend Dragonstar, who sweetly sent me these beautiful gifts for the Pay it Forward! A gorgeous calendar with breathtaking Irish landscapes that will be proudly hanged in my NHTB (new house-to-be), a cool shamrock magnet promptly placed by Lucas at our fridge's door - of course - two awesome postcards, and this cute red dragon for Lucas. He loved it so much he wanted it to be placed over his bed's head, along with his dreamcatcher! The day after he took it for school for the Brazilian show-and-tell's version.

No thanks will be enough, Miss Dragon! I always considered my life as blessed with love and care, but the blogland gave this notion a new dimension.

Blessed be!

A beautiful gift

Rodrigo decided giving my Christmas gift in advance, after watching me drool over this gorgeous candle holder from Turtleheart's Into the Dawn Etsy shop for days. It's a lovely piece of handcraft so well-done and appealing with these sweet color shades that I couldn't resist.

It will be delivered to my mom's place, can't wait! It's our first purchase using Carioca Witch's sale profits (*breathing deeply & proudly* ;o) She has many other fantastic items that worth a attentive look, I get lost there.

These wonderful friends

Last Friday I had another beautiful surprise at the mail. Seems like Christmas arived earlier to me these days. Today I could finally post them here.

First I got a mail from Blue with a beautiful postcard of her historic city (Lucas tried to find the statues there!) and a fun, great book with photos of Oxford's gargoyles for Lucas. He loved turning the pages with dad paying attention to each detail of the gargoyles - he's not afraid of the faces, much the opposite, he laughed and chose his favorites!

She also sent me this gorgeous, elegant cat statue that is now honouring our shelf, she knows I love black cats! ;) Thank you so much, sweet Blue, I know how long you were trying to make these gifts get to Lucas' hands! They arrived just in time! :o)

***

On the same afternoon another package came to me, from Holly. She offered me some time ago to send me a batch of wools for my crafts, which I happily accepted. Now imagine my surprise when I found out that, along with the wonderful wools, there were also delicate beads for crafting, and cool little gifts for my little witch, (below having fun at challenging his brains to work when building the fun Z-cars):

She even sent her priceless prim cats! For those who don't know, my Etsy prim cats' patterns are based on her great creation, that I got at her former Skullblossom blog - so they have a special meaning to me - thank you, Holly, you're a sweetie!:

I feel very thankful and blessed to have such friends here. That's why I say that everyone on my blogroll is there for a special reason. All of you are sweet, strong, fun, crazy and great individuals who bring light to my life in many ways. I hope to soon be able to return this love and heart-warmth through mail!

PS: and I haven't forgotten the Pay it Forward, by the way! I'm soooo late, but you know why! :o)

Updating

I'm sorry that I'm not posting nor visiting my friends' blogs as I should and wanted - I do miss our "chats"! - but things here are getting more and more hectic, with moving time so close now - too many things to do and prepare! We decided to spend Christmas at my mother's place, after all. I'm really worried about her and I wouldn't feel well being away from her at this delicate time. Rodrigo was sweet to agree with me, so I'm going to Petropolis on the 15th to spend some time with my family (while he goes to his parent's to take care of some things about the house to be built and retunring in time for Christmas)  and on the 26th we go to Minas (in January we return to take care of the apartment's rent and other things). Brrr!!!! Rodrigo's father called yesterday and told us that the ground is levelled and the area was all cleaned up. I can't wait to get there and see how it is and take some photos!

Yesterday we went Christmas shopping. Well, at least we started it. We bought a couple of gifts for our 4 nieces with reasonable prices, and between today and Friday I want to choose my siblings' gifts. We still have to decide what to givew to our respective mothers, and I still don't know what to buy for Rodrigo... Maybe a kit for his homeopathy remedies that he's starting to prepare. I'll have to think about it today, sometimes is hard to decide on this, we have already given each othe so many different gifts that the list is shrinking after ten years together! LOL

Our Spring is still that mess: sunny weather, then suddenly cloudy skies and raining a lot (like right now!). We've never had such weather here as far as I remember... I can't even believe that Summer will start next month! I wonder how it wil be...

Still about the moving: I want to spread sea salt over the ground where the house will be built to give it an extra protection, but Iwonder if this would be wise. Any opinions?

Getting ready fo Christmas

This Saturday we spent Saturday rainy morning decorating our little Christmas tree. Lucas always love doing this. I'm Pagan but I love Christmas, it's a family tradition, getting together to spend the night and share gifts, so there's no conflict inside of me. But I add my Yule ornaments to our little tree, so the pagan spirit is ther. IN the end, I only fixed the tree into a vase, and Lucas did everything else. It really looked cute, didn't it? Next year I'll try to have a huge tree, always wanted it!

This year maybe things will be different. We'll probably spend Christmas at Rodrigo's parents house. It will be my first time away from mom's place, hhmmm... Let's see how it goes. Ths is somethign that I still want to talk about with Rodrigo, because it's the first year without Dedê, my sister who died last April, and I don't feel comfortable being away from my mother exactly in this delicate date for her. Well, whatever we decide, it's going to be ok in the end.

On Saturday afternoon we went to a local mall with Lucas' best friend so they could play a bit (an awful weather raining hard again... Holly, our Springtime is definitely not warm this year!). They had so much fun in the mall's park that when we got back home, Lucas fell asleep without dinner and only woke up the morning after.

2Witches giveaway!

2Witches, the wonderful blog by Mama Kelli and Lady Rose, is hosting a monthly giveaway. This time is this gorgeous card from Moonspirit. If you want a chance to win this, leave an entry letting her know your favorite item at Moonspirit Etsy shop. Soon one of my prim Goddesses will be given as well. Let's play! :o)

Monochrome Monday

Today is Mono Maniacs day in the cool meme hosted my our friend Aileni.

Here's my first lavender's flower in a dramatic appeareance! :o) It took a long time to finally blossom!

For more monochrome photos, visit the meme's Mr. Linky page.

A sweet surprise

Lately we've got such good surprises coming from mail, but this one was one of the sweetest. When  coming back home after picking up Lucas at school, we've got mail fom Kris! She sent an awesome CD for Lucas, with Harry Potter songs (that he absolutely adored listening to while dancing and playing with dad with his little metal cars), a gorgeous card (not by coincidence, exactly the one I thought it was the cutest) and surprise! Three amazing magnets and one pendant with photos of myself and my men! How cool is that?! I got taken with her generosity and creativity, they are made out of bottles' caps! I'm wearing my pendant right now. The magnets are above Lucas' Goddess at the fridge, he said they would look nice there. I just loved everything, Kris! Thanks for making a little witch happy!

New Moon's Home cleansing

Last night we had Sacred Suzie's group home cleansing, when several good witchy friends around the world worked to banish negative energies at their respective houses and welcomed good ones. I decided performing the same ritual I did last time at New Moon. So I went through the whole house with my white candle set on a layer of sea salt, with Lucas following just behind me drawing pentagrams with the smoke of a patchouli incense (HE decided this was the best for cleansing...) while I blessed the rooms with the light. Then we went through every room again with salty water, sprinkling it at every corner, sending good vibes and banishing whatever bad vibes that could be stuck in the house. As I passed through each room, I drew a pentagram over doors and windows, while Lucas, as usual, acted like a crazy priest franticly blessing every inch of wall and floor with his sprinklings and pentagrams.

To finish I thanked the Gods for protecting our place and let the white candle and the incense burn at the altar. I felt the house clean and refreshing after this.  I highly recommend doing this to protect your home, it's great.

Next time, I'll use a little bell - if I find one here to buy, it is really hard to find such thing even in esoteric shops around here, I don't know why. I guess my little witch will love to ring it while banishing negative forces - he loves everything pro-active.

And our last giveaway arrived!

On Sunday we got this other surprise on the mail: Rodrigo's amazing Celtic Goddess Jewelry pendulum he got at Mrs. B's Halloween giveaway (oh I miss that fun!) finally arrived! Just in time as an extra Birthday gift!

"This pendulum was designed with the goddess Hecate in mind. This pendulum should be used for heavier energy work and I recommend that the user is familiar with working with the energy of the goddess Hecate. This pendulum contains lava rock, bone skull, black onyx and black angel hair quartz. The bottom is very clear quartz, a very good quality with little to no inclusions to the eye."

This is a very powerful tool and it will be wisely used. Rodrigo wanted a pendulum for a long time so it was perfect when he got it. But (there's always a but), he's not used of dealing with this kind of tool, so before anything he'll study it a lot so it will be really right when used.

By the way, we'll need a lot of protective spells and rituals for our move. We want our place to be cleaned from negative energies before having our house built! So suggestions are more than welcome! My Magickal House book (love it), by Scott Cunningham, has a large range of ideas, but I want to cross check them.

Helping to fight fright

What a cool surprise I had last night when I got home from (un)work: this cute plush toy had arrived for Lucas, for free, from The Shrunks!

Some time ago I registerd for their site on the 'join the fight' section, because they're a very cool and creative company that sells toys that help children face and fight their fears through turning them cute instead of frightning, and I wanted to keep track of their new stuff. I had no idea that by doing it I'd get this free toy. Lucas simply loved this Alien monster. It says on the tag: "Afraid of being taken away, to a far away place? Alien is not afraid. He travels great distances, making fear disappear. Alien knows just what to say, to help his friends overcome their fears. Be calm, Alien is here. So, what are you afraid of?" Now talk about timing! Exactly when we're on the verge of moving, he gets this cute toy that deals with... distance places! Couldn't be better. Lucas slept with it on his pillow all happy.

If you check this site you'll see how cool their produts are,  if I could I'd buy that super-fun air bed for him!

It would be fun if this kind of thing existed when I was that frightened little girl years ago...

Hectic weeend

This weekend was busy! As Rodrigo is in Minas for his monthly course and also already taking care of things for our house to be built - our litle piece of land was being leveled today! :o), I spent the whole weekend alone with Lucas. How demanding a little witch can be?! Gods, his energy is endless, and I played a lot of football with him in our building's corridor (my legs have muscles, I forgot that until they started aching today...), since the weather was so instable, heavily raining most of the time with the sun visiting us for just some moments. It was challenging to play hide-and-seek in this tiny apartment.

One beautiful moment was that Rodrigo bought a DVD with my favorite childhood' TV Brazilian series, "Sítio do Pica-pau Amarelo" or 'Woodpecker Ranch' for Lucas to watch. he adored it! It was touching to watch that with him, the same old one from 1978! I knew he would love it, it's perfect for children of all ages (and some nostalgic adults too...), so we spent a couple of hours eating popcorns and having fun with these litle guys' adventures.

As tomorrow is Rodrigo's birthday, we went to the mall to buy him a gift, bermudas and a tshirt chosen by Lucas, with a beautiful card to go along with them. I'll make a chocolate cake today so tomorrow when he arrived in the early morning, it's ready for the day.

I even managed to finished a few new items for my Etsy, and there are others waiting to be ready!

I hope you all guys had a great weekend as well, and this week treats you kindly!

Monochrome Monday

Today is Mono Maniacs' day, in the creative meme hosted by our friend Aileni.

I chose this originally b&w photo simply because I love it. My late dad when he was 83.

For more cool photos, visit Monochrome Maniacs' Mr. Linky page!

ABC Wednsday - R

We reached again letter R and I1m late!  This letter goes for my Rio de Janeiro city, where I was born and live (at least until the beginning of next year!).

Guanabara Bay, at whose shore the city is founded, was discovered in 1502. I just love Rio. Its nature is so exuberant, and there are so many attractives to visit and enjoy!

We have Corcovado Hill, 780 meters above sea level, where is the 38 meters high Christ Statue (inside of it there's a spiral stairs up to Christ's head, but only for its cleaning). This sculpture is really impressive and beaituful, specially his face. And of course, the view from there is fantastic!

Sugar Loaf is another jewel. This 393 meters high granite and quartz mountain is probably Rio's most famous spots, with its cable cars (considered one of the safest in the world) running along the two peaks. It was used on James Bond movie Moonraker, for that  famous fight scene with Jaws.  Shame on me, I never dared to enjoy it so afraid of height I am (funny enough, I love rollercoasters...), but Lucas is dying for the adventure, so I'll have to take a deep breath and go some day...

And of course, there's my beautiful Copacabana beach. I just love this beach. It's just enticing, and in the Summer, many music concerts, national and intrnational are held in its sands. Not to mention the famous New Years' eve firework show, that brings thousands and thousands of people to celebrate the turning of the year in a peaceful event. Its wave pavement is also another hit, and from which I took the background for my Etsy logo.

For more cooler ABC photos, visit here and here!

Early changes...

I planned to talk about it later, but due to the last events in my working life, things are going to be faster. It's been some time that Rodrigo and I want to move to his parent's rural piece of land. We've been talking about it for years and I was always relutant because the town is really a tiny one. I watched its improvements along the time, though, and this year I understood I was ready to go. There are better schools, a hospital, markets popping up, the necessary infrastructure to live without freaking out at every tummy ache. I felt safe to move with a small child.

Now that I was officially fired last Friday ('bout time...), the money I received will not last more than two months in Rio, but in Minas (the state where we will live) it will be the starting point to start building our house. I really got sick of working at offices as a sacretary, it's been a long time already, with no return. I'm almost forty, I don't want to serve coffe to bosses and pay their bills, enough by now. Nothing against the job itself, I worked as a secretary for almost 20 years, met great people. It's just that, if I have a chance to change this for better, why not? I'll live even far from my family, but visit times will be longer, not only fo a weeekend. My son will have an overdose of Nature to enjoy and play at, without all the stress and dangers a big city increasingly has. I'll have a quieter life, which is perfect, once I'm not a night kind of woman. We'll lead a cheaper life a well, once most of watc we eat will come from our garden. We wll with less, in material terms, but with more, in spiritual and peace terms.

Sooooo next year, anytime between January and February, we'll be moving to Alto Jequitibá city, to live at Rodrigo's parents' house while our own little home is built - it's supposed to take two or three months to get it ready to live in - it's really a small house plant that we chose. It's going to be a challenge for me, I really don't like living in anyone's house, even my parents-in-law being so sweet and kind to me as they are. But it will only be for some time, and then we'll have our own place.

Bear with me, so, because from time to time I'll talk about it here! :o)

Tremendous storm ever

Yesterday, around 5pm, when I left office to pick up Lucas at school, I had a surprise (my office is like a bunker, so I could listen to the rain but could not measure its intensity): the streets were all under water! A tremendous, huge, awesome, scaring storm was falling from the skies with such violence it was impossible to cross the street - and this after a sunny morning, so everybody wasn't ready to face it! Luckly his school is exactly beside the building where I still work, so I only had to walk ten steps to get there, and it was enough to let me soaked as if coming out from a pool. We had to wait almost one hour until the rain cooled down so we could leave. It's been a long time since we had something like this in Rio, but at least once a year, a really heavy rain gets the city. I get so upset, because it couldn't need to be like that, but unfortunately there are so many people who throw garbage in the streets that the storm drains get overloaded and, like giant covered sinks, they overflow. And authorities never give the proper treatment to the drains, and it becomes a surprise to them when the rain damages the city like yesterday...

All I know that Rio was chaotic last afternoon, and we got home one hour later than usual due to this, with water at our ankles. For Lucas everything was fun, of course, on dad's lap, covered with his raincoat that Rodrigo brought (poor sweetie, he got all soaked too after I called him to bring our umbrellas!), and watching the streets look like a weird river. I could hardly wait to get home and give him a warm shower and take one as well!

Monochrome Monday

Today is for Mono Maniacs, in the creative meme hosted by our friend Aileni.

I picked this old photo from my family before I was born. This was taken at my father's family's big farm, where they all lived back in the 50's. Here you see dad, mom, Arnaldo, Dedê, Delcio, Claudia, and baby Evaldo. I was still stardust.

For more cool posts, visit the Mochrome Maniacs' Mr. Linky page!

Baking weekend

On Saturday Lucas helped me with this delicious recipe from Sacred Suzie: Bonnie Stern's Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies.  Oh-my-gods. It's the most delicious cookies recipe I've ever made! So easy to prepare that is almost ridiculous. My only problem was to find the chocolate chips. Usually it's the easiest thing in the world, but gods know why, this time I simply didn't find them anywhere! So I replaced the chips for a chopped bar of chocolate. The result was the same, awesome!

It was so good that the batch disappeared in the same afternoon we prepared it (we had a friend visiting us to play the guitar with Rodrigo who also loved it!), so yesterdy I made another batch. Actually right now I'm at the office eating one. This is definitely on my favorites... It's so worthy a try!

Feeling pampered again

Sometimes people put a smile on our face on the right time. So this happened again. Lilith, the super-cool friend from Crunchy Gren Lovin Mom, passed on me this cute award along with a fun single-word-meme. Thanks, Lilith, it made my day!

Now I answer the following questions with single word responses. Then pass on the award to 7 other bloggers:

1. Where is your cell phone? home

2. Where is your significant other? home

3. Your hair color? brown

4. Your mother? fun

5. Your father? lovely

6. Your favorite thing? book

7. Your dream last night? forgot

8. Your dream/goal? relax

9. The room you’re in? office

10. Your hobby? blogging

11. Your fear? spiders

12. Where do you want to be in six years? country

13. Where were you last night? bed

14. What you’re not? tall

15. One of your wish list items? laptop

16. Where you grew up? Petropolis

17. The last thing you did? breakfast

18. What are you wearing? jeans

19. Your T.V.? on

20. Your pet? cat

21. Your computer? LG

22. Your mood? anxious

23. Missing someone? yes

24. Your car? none

25. Something you’re not wearing? hat

26. Favorite store? Renner

27. Your Summer? Hot

28. Love someone? Yes

29. Your favorite color? green

30. When is the last time you laughed? morning

31. Last time you cried? yesterday

Passing on this sweet award again and the meme to 7 cool friends among the cool friends I have here, the hard task (guess next time I'1ll pick up the names from a bowl, as they are all equally precious to me!):

 
Boho Mom - she's always trying to put things in the best perspective, it's inspiring, and fun!
Turtle - Another inspiring soul, a sweet and creative friend.
Holly - one of the best graphic makers I've met, with a golden heart
Suzie - she created a new, beautiful and cosy blog to help you feel home at home!
Tori - she's kinda new and already got our hearts with her beautiful, honest words.
Maebius - sharp mindee and always with something interesting to say!
Patty - a cool paranormal hunter whose intriguing and exciting posts are on my top list
Dragonstar - the sweetest Dragon soul of all.

It's raining hard in Rio in the last couple of days. Last night we had a huge storm! Thunders rolling, lightnings crossing the skies. I just love when it rains like that! I love to feel the electricity in the air, the darked rooms being lit by the lightnings... Lucas woke up in the middle of the night by the sound of one of the thunders, and called me to stay with him for a while. As he knows how I love storms, he tries to be brave and to enjoy it as well. We kept listening to the rain falling outside, thanked for being safe, and asked for protection to those who are homeless. Then he fell asleep again.

The ugly side of the story is that Baruck's litter box was full of water in the morning, although we keep it under the veranda's sink at night, with the winding storm it wasn't enough to protect it. So I had to clean it up, arght. Grrr... A good way to start the day, eh? I'll start training this cat to do these things by himself.

Award & tag

Some time ago I was tagged by Randilin, iGoddess and Tori for the same meme, Six random things about me. Tori also passed on me this beautiful award.So today I could finally post it here!

Does anyone out there wants to know more junk about me? LOL

1. I attended classic ballet classes for two years when I was a kid. I just love to dance. Then, when I was 12, already in Petropolis, I attended olympic gymnastic classes. I knew hot do a mortal until 10 years ago. Now with this "flexible" body of mine, I can't dare to jump one feet high!
2. I was Dopey the dwarf on a play at scool when I was 4 (hhmmm... this character still fits me like a glove...)
3. And I was Tinkerbell in another play at school when I was 8 (a brunette, skinny, roman-shaped nose Tinkerbell...)
4. My second name is Maria, like all the women in my mother's family - seven generations of Marias.
5. I'm myope like a mole, 5 minus. Without my contact lenses I can't walk in the streets safely - I can't differ a bus from a mamute at distance.
6. In '86 I was extra on a teen Brazilian movie filmed in Petropolis. That was fun! A lot of Brazilian famous artists and musicians around,  1950's style's cool dresses and makeups to wear, and getting paid for that.

Now I should pass this meme on 6 friends, as well as the award. But this time I'd like to offer this award to all my bloggy friends, because they're all  so creative in their own way! I simply can't name only 6. So please do take it as yours! The same goes to the meme, I have already passed this fun before, now whomever wants to play, just do it! :o)

November dreamboard

My Sacred Suzie's Full Moon dreamboard to this month is the same as the Soul Coaching's Soul Mission Collage. It fits both perfectly.

Back to school!

*UPDATE: Everything went well on his first day. He complained a little bit on our way to the school, but once there, with all the big mess the teacher and little friends made when meeting him, he smiled and went ahead, all ok. He's a brave little guy when he needs to be! :o)

After 18 days of itching, Lucas finally went back to school this afternoon! He looks all confident here, but actually he didn't want to go back, poor cutie. Last night before sleeping, he cried, saying he would miss home and us, and it took me some time to calm him down, after a looooong talk and lots of hugs.

What made him feel safer was that he was with his sword of courage, and also a bull's eye and a tiny prim cat in his jeans' pocket. He said he would like to feel them ove the jeans if he felt bad. His teacher is a lovely woman who really care about the little kids in his class, and it also helped him a lot, as well as having a little friend back a few days earlier who was also with chickenpox. They could exchange experiences! :o)

ABC Wednesday - P & Q

Last week I didn't join the fun created by Denise, so today I'll have a double post.

P is for Petropolis, the Imperial City in the forested hills of Serra dos Órgãos, where I lived for many years (from '82 to '97) and where my mother and brothers still are. It's about one hour and half away from Rio, and it's a charming place to live. The town's name ("city of Peter") honors the Emperor Pedro II, the nation's second monarch. The city was the summer residence of the Brazilian Emperors and aristocrats in the 19th century, and was the official capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro between 1894 and 1903.

There are beautiful, historical places to vist, like the Summer Palace of the second Brazilian Emperor, which is now a museum, specializing in Imperial history and memorabilia. I used to spend long hours reading my books in its gorgeous garden:

The Crystal Palace, created for exotic flowers and birds exhibitions during the Imperial time. Its structure was inspired by London Crystal Palace, now used for classic music concerts and art exhibitions. Tisa is where my mom used to take me to sunbath when I was a baby:

The aviation pioneer Alberto Santos Dumont in 1918 built a small house there filled with imaginative mechanical gadgetry including an alcohol-fueled heated shower of his own design. He used to spend his summers there to escape the heat in Rio, and affectionately called it A Encantada (The Enchanted), after the road, Rua do Encanto (Street of Enchantment). The stairs, designed for easy climbing, make the visitor starts with the right foot (he was notoriously superstitious):

For Q, still in Petropolis, there's the Quitandinha Palace, built in 1944 to be Latin America's biggest Cassino-Hotel. A lot of Hollywood stars had fun in the cassino, like Orson Wells, Lana Turner, Henry Fonda. When gambling became forbidden in 46, the Hotel had to be sold and became a luxurious apartment group. Its halls now hold commercial and cultural events:

Its beautiful main dome (with extraordinary acoustic) is the second biggest in the world, with 30m in height and 50m in diameter:

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