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:

For more ABC posts, visit its Mr. Linky page, and its no-comment page.

Monochrome Monday

*UPDATE: Sorry for esterday's lack of photo! Here's my Pretinha! :o)*

Today is for Mono Maniacs, in the creative meme hosted by Aileni. I chose this old photo from my cute Pretinha, a sweet cat I had 18 years ago when I lived with my parents. She decided that our house was the perfect place for her to live and simply stayed with us for almost 8 years. She was the sweetest kitty in the world, always quiet and gentle, seldom meowing, unless the moon was full and the charming male stray cats were around, then she was scandaly loud!

After having her first brood killed by an awful opossum, because they were in a large paper box outside the house one afternoon, she lived in my bedroom when her second one was born. She would stay inside all day with her babies, and late at night, I had to open my bedroom window, so she could run free for some hours - after that she would scratch it until I opened it for her to come in again. Later the kitties were given for friends, they were four and we couldn't keep them all. One of them stayed, though, and became Talisma, another good furred friend I had.

For more cool posts, visit the Mochrome Maniacs!

Lucas picking up the winner

Prim cat keyring's Winner!

Lucas helped me on this. I wrote down the names in separated pieces of paper, he folded each one, and put them on his Bob Sponge's tin can. With closed eyes, he picked up a name (everything duly filmed with the camera, I'll post it on Monday, it was fun!), and the winner is... Tori!

Congrats, Tori! Email me your mailing address and how you want your keyring to be!

Thanks everybody for participating, and for all the sweet words of support, you guys rock!

Kisses from Nydia.

Finally there & a giveaway from me!

*CONTEST OVER! I'LL ANNOUNCE THE WINNER IN A FEW MINUTES*

 

Hello! Have you noticed that I was a little silent? Besides diving into Soul Coaching (simply fabulous!) and pampering my little "chickenpoxed" witch, I was working hard these days on my crafts for opening the Etsy shop - now there's a little window on my sidebar *proudly pointing out*. And today, after an afternoon of typing, editing, copying and pasting, phew! It's finally open!! I invite you my friends to take a look at it and tell me what you think - but please, no pressure! I don't expect anyone to buy anything, all I need from my friends is a moral support, really!

To celebrate my little victory, I'll humbly giveaway a customized prim cat keyring (it doesn't have to be exactly like the one above, I mean) this Saturday. The winner will choose from the following colors in felt: black, ice, brown, green, red, grey, and any appliqué for the tummy. Just leave a comment here and on Saturday noon, I'll pick up a name. Is anyone willing to try? :o)

Kisses!

Skulblossom's new blog!

The cool graphic creatix Skulblossom (from whom I got these cute owls and cats on my sidebar) has just created a new blog, Penniwig's in Winter, with awesome Thanksgiving art, poems and delicious recipes. Take a look and you'll not regret it!

She's got a marvelous open heart and although not a pagan, she loves creating graphics of all sort, including pagan art! She kindly asked me for tips on what she would make that would please an Old path's soul, and I would like to suggest my pagan fellow bloggers to leave your ideas at her new page, to inspire her creativity too! There are so many things that can be made out of pagan symbols and lore, let's help her - I can't wait to see what will be born out of it!

Monochrome Monday

Today is for Mono Maniacs, in this creative meme hosted by Aileni.

I took this photo at mom's, on my brother's bedroom. The windows are redish and the flowers, purple, but I like the way it came out in black & white.

For more cool posts, visit the Mochrome Maniacs!

Getting better

Updating... Lucas is getting better faster than I thought. The red spots are drying, the fever is gone and the itching is less annoying, and his appetite is back. He still needs to rest, but looks like now it's a matter of time - this weekend I didn't even need to stay with him while he sleeps, so I feel less stressed as well. Now I only need to cross my fingers not to get it too! But alea jacta est, if I have to get it, I will. Hope you had a nice weekend!

Quiet Beltane

I don't know why the photo came out so blurred! Beltane this year was an nusual quiet one. Lucas was so sleepy that he went to bed really early, so I simply lit my altar candle and the new one (oh the scent, terrific!), and said a little prayer, thanking for what we've got, and asking for strenght. Very simple, very quiet. Things will soon go back to normality...