December giveaway party

Oh, have you guys seen how awesome it is that Mrs. B.'s creativity became so inspirational that other people want to make their own seasonal giveaway party following her example and pattern, even the guidelines and words?

After her awesome - and already a classic I long for every year since 2008 - 31 Days of Halloween Take 2 giveaway party , now there's this Yule party, hosted by the Soccer Mom's Guide to Wiccan. I'm even donating one of my Wheel of the Year (don't know yet when it will be given away yet).

It's always great to see that when someone is so creative, smart, hard-worker, brain-storming and cool, she becomes a trend! :o)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just stopped by to wish you all a Beautiful Thanksgiving with your families and/or friends!

We don't have this holiday here in brazil, but the feeling is in me for you all. Have a great weekend! :o)

Still my cramps

Oh, about my cramps... I went to the doctor yesterday (the same nice one I used to go to about 15 years ago!) and he told me to make an ultrasound. Maybe it's my kidney, maybe it's my spine, but obviously he cannot say anything without analyzing the pretty inside of me. *sigh* Please keep sending healing vibes, I'm better but still feeling those slight pain on my side. I'll end up getting drunk with this absurd quantity of water I'm drinking!

A little story about a dream pillow

Today I finished my first dream pillow to list on Etsy. I remember reading about it at Mrs B.'s page (of course! :o), and some time ago, when Lucas started waking up ni the middle of the night - and after being sure everything else was okay, including his little mind, I decided creating my own version of a dream pillow using felt, using his fav colors, blue and red. I hand-embroidered protective symbols, as well as his initial and a waxing moon on both sides, and stuffed it with my three favorit herbs, lavender, chamomile and rosemary, plus tiny amethyst, rose quartz and cat's eye. I left it on my altar, and on a full moon night, I charged it with the proper intention. It worked just fine! Lucas sleeps all night long until the next day.

Then it was funny. My sweet catholic mother came complaining that she was waking up every morning exhausted, because in her dreams she was always busy cleaning the house, doing the dishes and making the laundry, poor soul!! LOL I had to laugh, she told me her dreams in such a funny way... So I also created another pillow for her, following the same process I used in Lucas', only changing the hand-embroidery and felt color. Three days later mom said she would send people carrying torches to burn me, because her nightmares ceased! LOL

Then I thought, "why not making one for Etsy?", and I created this one, it ended up so cute! If it sells, I'll make more:



Thanks, Holly, for the wonderful felt supply you gave me (remember??), all pieces are the perfect size for this project! I knew I would have the right, honoured thing to use them :o)

By Lucas

Lucas found this cute stray cat on our way back home ter playing in the park this weekend. How to resist?



Today I got weird cramps, seems like my old kidney tiny stones are back. Great news since I was born with only one kidney (still considering suing my mom for this...). SO I'm drinking tons of water, and preparing some psyllum tea to help me get ride of them. If I dont get any better unti tomorrow, i'll have to go the doctor. Damnit.

Monochrome Weekly

I bet you can't guess what it is! :o) Just a detail I loved while in the park with Lucas.

For more Mono photos, visit its main page, hosted by Aileni.

Have you all a great week!

PS: Yes, that's right, it's lichen on a tree! Just love the pattern, always have.

2 Witches giveaway!

The great 2 Witches blog is giving away a gorgeous 2010 Seasons of the Witch Calendar! Check it out! As usual, greedy me is crossing fingers and toes for this! :o)

A photo by Lucas

My talented witch photographer took this one yesterday, right in front of our house, just before the storm began again:

Seems like he'll follow my brother's steps...

Something so simple like freedom

I've been reading for some time already the Generation Y blog, written by the fantastic woman Yoani Sánchez, a Cuban blogger who tries to keep her right of free speech in Cuba. While for us to have a blog and freely post about anything, at anytime we want to, is so simple, for her this is something that needs to be carefully planned, since there's no home Internet in Cuba and cyber cafes charge exhorbitant values for people to be online. She can't leave the country, even being awarded by international newspapers for her well-written blog and book - she was awarded in Brazil, and despite efforts from our authorities, she couldn't be in person to receive her prize, only able to send a virtual thank you speech. About two weeks ago, he was kidnapped for a couple of hours and beaten by Castro's policemen, who threatered her because she was going too far with her criticisms against government.
Courageous as she is, she started taking photos of the policemen and policewomen who follows her wherever she goes, and posted such photos on her blog.

It always makes me feel so mad when I read about this kind of abusive way of leadership. Dictators should never exist. Shame on them.

Monochrome Weekly & ABC Wednesday - R is for rainy skies

Today I'll post both memes with one photo, if you don't mind, I'm so behind! We had such weird weather lately, with sunny days and stormy afternoons and nights! I took this B&W photo of a Rainy afternoon, I guess it shows it all!



For more Mono photos, visit its main page, and for the ABC photos, click here.

Updates 2

This weekend I took Lucas downtown to buy a present for Rodrigo, since his birthday is on the 25th. I let Lucas choose from the store, the gift, to the card, so he chose a beautiful t-shirt with a beach on the front side, and a pair of socks. He also chose a cute card with a kitty holding a birthday cake, and wrote a message, adding sweet drawings of smile faces, and of course, pentagrams (LOL). I'll send everything today, so it will arrive him in time - it takes longer than usual for the Mail to reach the tiny town of his. It's important to keep this tradition of choosing presents for his dad, and I would never deny him this pleasure. My relationship with Rodrigo ended, but he'll always be Lucas' father.

Yesterday we had the awesome surprise of receiving a package from Sabrina, from whom I had bought this delicate Hestia:


Along with the gorgeous altered card, guess what came? This super-cool castle for King Arthur, Lancelot and Nemo (yes, my brother-in-law gave him another fish...)! According to Sabrina, a king must have his castle, and although mad at her at first because the expense she had, I had to agree that they got happy and all curious with their new ornament, and Lucas got excited and proud of it!

Thank you again, girl! Lucas told everybody about it and how the fishes love the castle (specially Nemo, that tries to get into the cave all the time! LOL)

The weather here is still the weirdest. Most time sunny days with ncredibly rainy afternoons and nights, hug storms that make fetching Lucas from school a pain... We had a total 4-hour blackout last week that let in darkness 18 states!!! Government is still trying to explain what happened to that super-complex energy system to get down that way...

I'm busy creating new goddesses and gods, and it's been fun to imagine new embroideries. SO this week will be a short one for posting again.

Wish you all a wonderful week!

Quickly Update

Helo, everybody!

This week I didn't blogged as much as I use and love to. But for a good cause, I've been all busy these days with orders from my Etsy! :o) That's simply great, and surely makes me feel a bit better about Christmas for Lucas! LOL I mean, since I know my ex won't help me on this, it's perfect to get some income right now.

Next week I'll be back with my boring posts for your torture! hehehe

Only one thing: I'm so, but so pissed off with our Brazilian President, Lula. Can't stand this man no more. He's so desperate because after two consecutive mandates he'll have to pass his power to someone else next year, he's now trying at all costs to stay, and travels all the time around the globe with his false image of a good President. Arght. I'm sick with it. Maybe another day I'll post more deeply about it. Hate politics.

Hope everybody have a great weekend, in case we don't talk then!

More support!

... That's what friends are for. Mrs. B. was such a sweetie and made this cool button for my Kimberly post, and added toher sidebar! I'll keep it on mine as well, so I can go on blogging and keep the help!

Thank you girl, you know you rock! :o)

If any of you blogger friends wants to grab it to your page, just go ahead!

A blogger friend in need and my way to help

This cute hand-embroidery was made by the awesome artist Kimberly, from Tea Towel Creek.
She was diagnosed with an incurable bladder disease, and is going through serious medical issues because she has no insurance. I know first-hand how hard it is to deal with medical issues when money is too tight - or non-existent, when my late older was ill, and we were lucky to get generous donations from friends and family. I learnt about her sad story via Mrs. B. The good thing is that we can help her by purchasing her beautiful prim patterns by $1 each. Why not visiting her shop and choosing one of her exclusive patterns? That's what I did yesterday, and I love them!

Also, I decided making something else to try helping Kimberly out a bit more. If you buy one my spooky keyrings at my Etsy shop , I'll redirect the money to Kimberly via Paypal. I'll send an extra little gift as a thank you, and an email with the Paypal invoice, so you can be sure the money went to the right hands!!

Crafty Chick is selling her Creations!

Danae, aka the Crafty Chick, is about to open her first Etsy shop, and is displaying many of her super-cool art on her blog, where people can already choose and buy directly via Paypal!

She's got many beautiful item, from jewelry to greeting cards and scrapbooks.
And you can help her to choose her Etsy shop's name as well!

Go check it out, it's really worthy!

The hands of a wonderful artist

Early this morning, when I opened the newspaper, I had the grateful surprise of meeting the art of a Brazilian 85-year-old lady, whose hands create beautiful, expressive women in clay, using natural colors from the earth. Izabel Mendes, aka "Mestra Dona Izabel", started creating kitchen tools in clay to sell and help raising her kids after his husband died when she was young, back in the beginning of last century. Soon she had the idea of making dolls recreating ordinary scenes that she watched in her life, like weddings, funerals, births.

Not by chance, her skills developed to a form of art that became famous beyond her tiny village in Minas Gerais state, Vale do Jequitinhonha (now try to say this word out loud! LOL). Turists from abroad would travel hundred kilometers by bus just to see and buy her awesome ladies. She was generous enough to teach many people in her village the art of clay moulding, so that they could survive their hard life.

Now there's a Prize for new artisans with her name to help Brazilian artisans.

The happy end for this lady who, in the beginning, used to walk 11 kilometers to sell her tools at popular fairs, is that she will have her first individual exhibition in a famous Sao Paulo Gallery, and her clay ladies got an upgrade becoming real art - with equable sale prices.

I'm in love with her!

Petrópolis almost 40°C

People, it's hard to believe that it's so hot here! If it's like this right now, I don't want to think how it's going to be when Summer actually comes, in December...

Sleeping with open windows, super-light clothes, drinking tons of water, taking two or three showers a day, wow!!

On the other hand, Nature is gorgeous now. Such exhuberant trees, a bright blue sky with no clouds. It's a pleasure to walk in the streets (as long as you carry a bottle of water in your hand, of course...) and feel the wind on my face - yes, this an advantage of living in the mountains, there is always some cool breeze around.

Nights are beautiful, starry and clean. I take some long times just being alone outside the house, meditating about my life and which way to go. Sometimes everything seems so blurry and uncertain. But I'll keep the faith.

Irresistible giveaways

Now you tell me, how to resist when two cool blogger friends decide giving away, each one, a set of handmade runes??

Mother's Moon's Message is giving away this gorgeous set of willow runes made by herself:


And Domestic Witch is also giving away a wonderful set of rose quatz runes:


You have to join these! :o)

ABC Wednesday - P is for Penguin

Penguin is such a lovely animal, and it's my little son's nickname at home (pingüim, in Portuguese). I nicknamed him "penguin" when he started walking, those clumsy steps that only babies know how to do. And it stayed for life! I even want to have one tattooed on my ankle as a reminder of that funny time.

For more P photos, visit the ABC page.

Cemeteries...

I've never liked cemeteries. Mind me, in Brazil 99% of them are ugly, with no nature around, nor trees, not even a bit of grass. Only concrete under, above, on the sides, as you can see above, Petropolis' (those sparse trees don't count, they're there before it was built!). And the smell of dead flowers in the air. Thus, I never ever go to a cemetery unless there's no other way, like when my dad, my gradma and my older sister died. After funeral, I never return for leaving flowers or whatever. Not my stuff, I respect those who like going to, etc. I just don't feel comfortable there, too opressive.

So imagine my surprise when my sweet little witch asked me to visit the local cemetery on our way back from the park! Yesterday was Dia dos Mortos like in many other places, and he was all curious about it.

As we walk almost in front of it, I just couldn't say no, and of course, I managed to sound natural when accepting his idea. And there we went, walking into the place as if goin to a zoo. Lucas would stop at the first line of graves and ask me, "who's buried here, and here"?

We walked along the lanes, until getting to where my dad and my sister's graves are. Thre we stopped and Lucas wanted to pray a bit (after confirming with me that the Goddess would listen to him even into a catholic cemetery), then we left the place and went home.

The experience was good in the end. It made things look as they are, it made his imagination calm down, and it obviously quenched his curiosity. This way he won't imagine that skeletons and ghouls (...) are around, and it's a place where we can go and leave safely.
He knows I don't visitng these places, but it was important for him. But I do hope this was the last time, for a long time from now!

Monochrome Weekly

Okay, I just can't resist posting Lucas' photos, so bear with me!! LOL

Here's him when 15 days old, asleep after "taking part" of his first quick full moon ritual in my arms while being breast-fed, in an originally b&w photo taken by my brother Evaldo:





For more cool Mono Maiacs, visit Aileni's meme page.

Celebrating Beltane

This year we celebrated our Beltane in our simple way as usual. This time I couldn't afford to prepare any special meals, but we did our dance around a improvised maypole, using three colored satin ribbons and my mom's line handle. Of course, this was one the best part for Lucas.

In the afternoon, along with my sister Claudia (who was spending the weekend in Petropolis with her family, is not pagan but loves my son to death), we decorated our white candles with colored pens, inscribing magik symbols representing the sabbath, like flames, mayoples, pentagrams, suns an even an Algiz on Lucas', just because he knows this is my favorite rune.

In the evening, we both wrote our good wishes on pieces of paper, to be burnt on our cauldrons during the ritual. Another best part for Lucas, since this was the first time he did write his own wishes by himself with his cute hand-writting. When he finished writting, he asked me, "what else can I wish? I already have everything I need!" Obviously, that melted my heart.

Lucas prayed in silence after opening the circle, in front of his altar, and then we repeat the whole process in front of my altar. We watched in the dark until the flames in both cauldrons starved, while focusing in all the good things we wish for our lives, hoping they'll come true.

After that, we simply went to bed, and that was our Beltane night! I thanked for being blessed with my sweet son, and asked for strenght to keep in motion.

I hope you all had a good Samhain & Halloween!