What May Be Missing

Today,

I had to keep kicking the homesick monster in the head
but he kept rearing up to take another bite. 

Holidays... he's much stronger this time of year, so sometimes he wins and I'm a miserable cow.
It's the children I worry about. They seem to be doing so well with their transplant here in a new country. Is that normal?

And then...

Miss Ky said, "You know what we haven't had in a long time?"

There it is, she ISN'T fine! She's missing some part of our traditional English lives! A Panto? Mince pies with double creme? Cadbury Advent calendars? Celebrations chocolate? School Nativity play or Christingle? Mounds and mounds of Christmas cards to carry to her school friends?

What could this child be reflecting on that has been ripped from her life in the past 6 months?


"Head lice".



Oh, that. Hmph. Yeah, forgot about those (recurring) traumatizing experiences...
I'm not so homesick now.



What's missing (but maybe not "missed") from your traditional celebration this year?

C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat

Please put a penny in the old man's hat

If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do

If you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you!

Miss Ky will be caroling tonight with the Girl Scouts. We received the lyrics to one of the songs and it's almost enough to make me keep her home and just bake cookies.

"We wish you a happy holiday, We wish you a happy holiday, We wish you a happy holiday and a happy New Year. Good tidings we'll bring...". Recognize it? It's "We Wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS".  

CHRISTMAS!

WHAT other holiday are they singing about if the words "happy New Year" are included? Hannukah is over, Kwanza? 

And speaking of Kwanza, our family was introduced to the holiday by Steve... or Jo... somebody on Blue's Clues years ago, so I've always respected that there is another holiday to acknowledge in December. 

However, the Wiki definition of the foundation of this relatively new holiday is that it will "give Blacks an alternative to the existing holiday and an opportunity to celebrate themselves and their history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society."

Seems a little misleading. 

Are we saying Blacks couldn't possibly be Christian and have only been practicing Christianity because the dominant society forced it upon them?

Does Jesse Jackson agree with this?

My daughter, whose eyes still sparkle at the mention of anything Christmas, is going caroling tonight. She will sing songs about a neurotic reindeer and a snowman nearing meltdown and belt out a bit of a Brenda Lee favorite, but before she goes, she will learn the lyrics of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and which holiday OUR family is preparing to celebrate this month.

For those of you who are celebrating anything other than Christmas this month, Happy __________ to you. Wishing you peace, good health and happiness. May you always have the freedom to enjoy the things that are dear to you, free from persecution or hostility.

And to the Merry Christmasers,

Bom Natal e Feliz ano novo from our home on this tiny island in the Atlantic.

quiet

Ahhh, quiet.


I have given the gift of silence for the past month. Yeah, that's it.

Strange emotions during the holiday periods. I know everyone's experiences are different.

We've just hit that 6-month mark that supposedly means one is beginning to acclimate to the new surroundings, but with goodbyes to new friends and the uncertainty of when and where we'll go next, I think I need another 6 months.

As we prepare for Christmas in the U.S.A (first time in 8 years), there's no trimming the tree, baking goodies, wrapping gifts (or buying for that matter- airlines restrictions) and no planned holiday meal or Christmas morning waffles on the calendar. It feels really strange.

A Glimpse into the Island Experience

I was hit by the Island crud- a terrible case of flu/cold/ pneumonia that was being passed around. My fault really. Knowing that all of my kids "besties" had it, I dosed them up with all things germ-fighting, but kind of neglected myself. 

The worst part of the illness was being abnormally tired. Three or four naps a day were not enough.

All said, I didn't get it half as bad as most, so no complaining.  

Nothing like a good illness to make you appreciate your health!

We're all better and enjoying the things Terceira has to offer. Rather than rambling any further, I'm just putting a couple of video clips on here instead. Enjoy.

 

Sorry for the poor quality on this one! 

Put Terceira on your bucket list folks.

Boa Viagem!

When Vision and Reality Collide

October is such a wonderful month, isn't it? Beautiful red, orange and gold leaves glitter in the foggy morning, cinnamon and pumpkin goodness-as well as popcorn balls, caramel apples and apple strudels-assault the senses and favorite Fall-themed movies finally exit the cupboard.

That's the vision.

Our reality now consists of an October birthday party for the one girl of five children. Girl parties can zap the life right out of a previously joyful month.
Boys: "Hey, it's your birthday, let's go bowling."
Boys: "Hey, how about three paintball parties in a row?"
Boys: "Oh look, I bought a cake- Happy Birthday Son."

Girls: "If we start now, that gives us 10 months to plan and coordinate..."

Without the England-style disco-complete-with-lights-and-dj option gone, one can really find themselves at a loss for party ideas. October weather here is just bipolar enough not to plan outdoor parties, and filling our house with a bunch of 6-7 year-olds didn't really appeal to me. But we had to do something.

A Tea party seemed like the trick. How easy would that be? I talked the daughter into it (manipulation is my middle name).

So I went onto Pinterest.
Evil, evil Pinterest.

Did you know that there are some really ambitious party-throwers out there?

One idea in particular really caught my attention:

A Cupcake party.

The kids could make and decorate cupcakes! Yes!I can do that. Talked the daughter into a Cupcake party with a Tea party twist.

One Pinterest find was this: 

Taken from A Little Loveliness found HERE

Aren't these awesomesauce-nessly adorable?! 

I could do this too! In pinks and greens and turquoise! The girls would LOVE them. The parents would bow down to my craftiness. The nagging "Ahem, remember that you don't know how to sew?" came to mind, but in my Pinterest-fueled enthusiasm, was quickly brushed aside.

Cue the YouTube videos!
Search: "How to sew an apron when you have no idea how to sew" and come up with Tea Towel Apron demos. Tea Towel Aprons in 30 minutes. I can do that! "Ahem, remember that you don't know how to sew?" 

Off to do some fabric shopping...on a Portuguese island, where everyone speaks a different language than I do.
Still, I managed to bring home meters and meters of ribbon and fabric in beautiful colors; some color coordinated thread and some tea towels."Ahem, remember that you don't know how to sew?"

I envisioned ruffles. Lots of ruffles. 

Cue YouTube videos!
Search: "How to  make ruffles when you don't know how to sew".
Discover this really cool gadget, a gathering foot just for ruffles. Convince the husband that one day, in my future Apron-making stardom, that I may need that.

Out came the sewing machine. I read the manual so that I would know how to turn it on. I Began by cutting super expensive material...

measurements, shmeasurements- they're just ruffles....

More super expensive material was cut, this time in larger strips-and don't worry, the table was already looking bad from previous Air Force moves, so the new rotary cutter slashes will blend right in (note to self: must order a larger cutting pad "Ahem, remember that you don't know how to sew?" )

The husband never even questioned me. Bless him.


Here's the final product. Two weeks later (30-minute aprons my hindquarters).

Feeling empowered by my new-found craftiness, I went back on to Pinterest (evil, evil Pinterest) and found a cute idea for treats to "Boo" some people with.

I saw this:

Found at CrazedPhotoMom HERE

and thought, "That would make adorable cupcakes!"

That's after burning a few batches of cookies.
Martha Stewart's job security is looking better and better. Be glad if you weren't on our Halloween "Booo!" list this year, it wasn't pretty.

I may just stick to sewing. "AHEM!"

A Little Lost in Current TV

I should start a review blog and call it A Day Late. You know, a review blog for people who have been living under (or in our case, on) a rock.

We just finished Seasons 1-6 of Lost.

Yes, I know. 2004-2010, where the heck was I?

About the time I finally heard of it (I'm holding all of you accountable), the rest of the world was several seasons in, so I was completely confused by the one show I watched.


Now I'm cool. Hip. In the know.

All I kept hearing (and bless everyone who did SO well not to give me ANY information that I might use to figure everything out) was how angry everyone was with the ending. 
 I heard about the disappointment, the unanswered questions, the disgust with the finale.

I felt none of that. Completely satisfied.

There's nothing wrong with the fact that my mind continues to churn around certain episodes, spitting out questions, "If this was this and that was that, then how did he...?"
Doesn't bother me one bit.

Usually, if given hints, previews or any foreshadowing whatsoever of a book or movie, I tend to speed ahead and figure it all out, (the DH says it 'must suck' to be me, but I can't imagine not thinking that way) so what I REALLY liked about Lost is that even though I may have had the mini plot (inside the plot) wrapped up beautifully and tied with ribbon, I never had the whole package.

I did get a speaking ban for several episodes because I kept blurting out my discoveries as they came to me, when the foreshadowing apparently hadn't been so obvious to Sexy Guy. 

Personally, I'm thinking that because of this, he'd better choose me for his side if we're ever stranded on a mysterious, time-traveling, good vs evil sort of island, because he is SO going to be cut by the first season without my help.

So here's my review- with no spoilers in case there's still ONE person on the planet that hasn't seen it.

42: The ending was great. It explained all of the unexplainable stuff. I could easily have watched at least 3 more seasons.

23:In case anyone else missed it, no one had a great dad. It was a terrific message for anyone who wanted to argue the impact fathers can have on their children's lives.

16: I still don't like Kate, despite the fact that she's the reason there was 6 seasons (the show could've ended by season 2 if she had JUST STAYED PUT WHERE SHE HAD BEEN TOLD TO STAY-just once).

15: Locke continued to be my favorite even though he took up smoking...

8: What on earth happen to Claire's hair? Did someone go a little bonkers with the peroxide?

4: If Walt was so 'special', why didn't he have more scenes? I think his dog was featured more than he was.

108: What did you think of the show?  (if you can remember back that far) Who was your favourite messed-up character?   And when do you think...

***spoiler alert*** 

...they died for reals?



até logo!

Favorite Foto Friday

I thought it would be fun to post the favorite photo taken in the week... and then I started sorting. I take hundreds in a week, but on this particular week when I chose to do this post, I only had a handful- and most of those were "drive-by's.

And then I remembered... I had grabbed my camera as I heard my children getting closer to the house after their long, hot walk home from school, so I pulled out my memory card and found one.

This week's winner is not because it's the best photo technically, but because it reflects the joy that comes with turning 7. 

One look at her face, and you know she was made to feel special all day at school. I love that.
Little Miss Ky is seven. How did that happen?

What Do Drive-by Shootings and Government Shutdowns Have in Common?

Nothing.


This current government shutdown has probably left a lot of folks trapped in homes all across the nation, timidly drawing back one tiny corner of the drapes as they fearfully await the riots and chaos (that will in no doubt ensue). With no PBS to watch or National Parks beckoning, many will be lost as to how to productively spend their days. **

I will fight the urge to say, "I told you so".

I told everyone not to let their blogs die. 

I cried out against Face-lessbook's "declaration of nothing" status style: "Worst day ever", "My kid did it again!" "Well THAT was disappointing" (which leaves most of us wondering what the heck the poster is even going on about) and Tweeter's fly-in-and-out conversation style: "Wolf at the door", "Some cookie guy just ran by", "doing the congo behind some dude playing a flute #inatrance #wherearewegoinganyway? "

You lot are lucky I stuck around and didn't succumb to the blog-killing, story-teller silencing social networks. Stories and/or photos = Tax-FREE entertainment.

You're welcome.

What's not free is gasoline. Although our island is very small, we somehow manage to go through quite a bit on our little weekend jaunts, and since starting and stopping eats more gas, I take a lot of photos on the run (I am not above sticking my slightly expensive and very heavy camera out the window and shooting blindly).

Today, I present for your government shutdown entertainment, 

free of charge, 

Terceira Island, drive-by style:

The well-trained husband took the roundabout nice and slow for this one. One must say "Moooo!" when passing a vaca.

These ladies were awesome for being so conveniently placed!

Coming up on a Holy Ghost house. Must photograph every one- doesn't matter if the photo isn't any good.

 This Holy Ghost house was on the route of a "pilgrimage".   

"Festa da Nossa Senhora dos Milagres" is held in September.  People walk miles along the coastal road towards the village of Serreta to participate in the festivities centering around ‘Our Lady of the Miracles’.

We were lucky that one of our friendly commisario workers had told us it would be on, so we didn't have to wonder why there was a mass exodus occurring (especially since everyone was walking back toward the way we had just come).
There's a little too much "zombie viewing" in our house, so it doesn't take too much to get our minds rolling in an unnatural direction.

Ooooooh, ahhhhhhh

Speaking of zombies, am I the only one who is always calculating the best place to hide when the zombie apocalypse happens?

cobbled street of Angra

 Truth is, the theory of any safe place went to pot with World War Z.   

As many times as I pass this church, I will never again get a drive-by where the sun is perfectly placed

I love cobblestone. My tires and suspension don't care for it much, but I like it.
A few years back when Portugal made the horrible decision to join the EU and change it's currency to euros, a lot of money was dumped into the island for "improvements". Some of those improvements were to pave a lot of these beautiful, hand-laid roads.

Why am I never consulted about these kinds of changes?

Cobbled roads of a village

More churches and ugly paved roads

Traffic jam (now you say it, "Mooooo")

Yes, the camera is out the window, facing behind us. I don't care. It's Terceira's tallest church

Another camera-out- the-window-behind-us shot of Sao Mateus

 This shut down could take a while, but that's okay. I've got hundreds more where these came from...



wait, where are you going?



I was just getting ready to tell you about the bullfights!




Até outro dia.

**before anyone whips out their poison pen to berate me for being flippant about something that is SERIOUSLY affecting a lot of good people, please keep in mind that we are military. Also know that even though the POTS so proudly stated that we will get our paychecks this month, there are other ways we feel the cuts, the shutdowns, the whole craptasticness of it all- and have been for a very long time. October 1st didn't mark anything new.

Humor Me

I am THAT person who giggles at inappropriate things (and times).
Maturity has obviously passed me by.

So, that stated, it won't be much of a surprise that I laughed out loud when I saw this...
and then took a photo...
and then continued to giggle through the store just thinking about it...
and then when I got into the car, I texted it to a friend to ask her to laugh along with me...
and am now sharing it with you.

Because I am THAT person.

 

 

 

 

 

everyone grows up wanting to be a pap star

Have you ever lost it over something that's really not that funny?




Here's something you may be relieved to know (or not): The "Keep Calm" craze has apparently hit everywhere.

Keep calm folks (for today we BBQ), keep laughing (consider throwing your own Pap Star party)
and have a great weekend!

Até logo!!

Forever Friends

A sad fact about The Grockle Family (still sticking with the British terminology), is that once we've got our sticky fingers of friendship wrapped around you, there is no escape. Like gum on the bottom of your shoe.

No getting rid of us.

Well there is, but don't expect ME to tell you how it's done.

If you don't believe what I'm saying, ask the poor couple we met just before leaving England- we're planning their next five holidays for them as we speak.

One family who knows this better than most is the Lopes Family. I wouldn't normally include names on this not-so-private blog, but Narciso is a Carpenter of very high quality and has a business here in Terceira- so a little publicity won't hurt.

The white house on the right of the photo was ours

We met Narciso and his beautiful daughter when we lived in this house, 13 years ago.


They knocked on our door and introduced themselves- well, she introduced them both since she was the only one who spoke English.
Through her, Narciso was able to tell us that he had done all the wood in the house we were renting.

Later, we learned that all of the wood in his house was crafted by him-EVERYTHING. Cabinetry, stairs and bannisters, beds, dressers, tables and chairs. Incredible.
He's done church doors around the island and if my old photos weren't so bad, I'd pull those out.... oh what the heck-

Here's a mix of old and new (translation: don't judge me for the poor quality available 13 years ago).

This is his shop. It would be hard to work with this view, wouldn't it?

In his shop he was working on this for a local church.

 

 

We decided that we needed a custom-made bed... with night stands...

and a step (since I wanted it high off the ground)... and while he was at it, a telephone table and some tapestry bars.

We gave him the measurements for American-sized furniture, told him how much clearance we wanted at the bottom and left the design to him...

church door

Now, I worried about my bed for a little bit, because I had seen some of his really intricate work and thought, "Holy cow, it's going to take me hours to dust my bed every week".   

BUT, he surprised me with a simple, elegant design. 

I was SO happy.

 

  

Baby A1 with Senora Lopes and daughter C

Senora Lopes, baby A1 and J1

Before staining...

and after.

 

telephone table. Check out the REALLY old answering machine (it used mini cassettes!)

We were so pleased, that we did something REALLY stupid.  

We told others about him and the orders started rolling in. He wasn't just "ours" anymore...

and let's be honest. A lot of Americans can be real jerks when they're living overseas- the DH has worked with plenty of people who get downright indignant that other cultures don't do the things the way they're accustomed to. So we were concerned that our friends would now suffer from the publicity. 

Neighbors had bedroom furniture made and these friends (seen above) commissioned an extra long dining table and chairs.

The Portuguese people on this island are not large in stature. They are smaller, so worktops are built at a shorter height and doors, gates, walls, fences are all built for an average 5.3 person. These American measurements must have felt like a joke to the poor  man.

After all of these years, we have kept in contact (apparently no bad experiences with other business have spoiled our friendship) and promised that one day we would make it back.

After arriving back on Terceira, I sent a message to A's daughter (who now lives on another island) to say we were going on a tour out where her parents lived and that we'd be looking for her Mom's shop (she does textiles). She phoned her mom and so, A opened up her shop HOURS early, hoping that she might see us...

The poor people we were traveling with were trying to look through her shop when everything came to a complete stop as she spotted the DH and squealed (I then threw myself across the counter, but it wouldn't do- she came out and got a proper hug).

13 years gone like it had never passed.

She hasn't changed a bit

BTW, I did eventually step back and let people look.

Dinner with the Lopes Familia

They've taken an English class since we were here last. "A" can say a few things, but Narciso has only mastered, "Yes, please"- but it's very good and we discovered it can be used in multiple scenarios and always gets a good laugh from all.

Some of Narciso's latest designs:

This is SO lightweight! I think he said this piece won a contest...

Coolest Nativity ever

He's like a big kid. Showing the kids how to spin the top

A and N Lopes, our forever friends

** If you're interested in anything you've seen in this post, email me and I can put you in contact. Custom-made designs don't come cheap and is paid in Euros, but SO worth every euro cent.**

His FB page can be found HERE

Or better yet, have you started considering traveling to Terceira for yourself yet?


Until next time,

Adeus!