Just four....

A young cousin posted this on Facebook:
Love it!

First Light

From Minas, a short hop to our Sun....
Courtesy Nasa's Sun Dynamics Observatory - SDO First Light

from Solar Dynamics Laboratory

The Heart of Minas

Below are links to two videos, both with the music of singer-composer Paula Fernandes, Seio de Minas (Heart of Minas). Paula is a young artist from the nearby town of Sete Lagoas, who now becoming better known.

The first video is a promo for the state where I live by the local tv affiliate.... beautiful.
The second is the same song with other photos, from around Sete Lagoas, I believe.

Seio de Minas
— Paula Fernandes

Eu nasci no celeiro da arte
No berço mineiro
Sou do campo da serra
Onde impera o minério de ferro

Eu carrego comigo no sangue
Um dom verdadeiro
De cantar melodias de Minas
No Brasil inteiro

Sou das Minas de ouro
Das montanhas Gerais
Eu sou filha dos montes
Das estradas reais

Meu caminho primeiro
Vi brotar dessa fonte
Sou do seio de Minas
Nesse estado um diamante

Neste estado amante...

Dreamily Debrina

From roses&cottages through crafts&vintage, music and onwards, my feet — my mouse, that is, — brought me down the Road to the dreamily beautiful art of Debbie Price-Ewen at Debrina's Diary.

I love the textured collage-craft feel of her work.

And... *si-i-i-igh*... envy her very neat studio! Suffering from a serious case of studio-envy!
Mine is always resorting to its Mr. Hyde persona, turning into a stuff-deposit room.
Let me be inspired by her example!

Debrina's very neat studio... and nice sunset view!

Manu ~ Denia

Organizing my mp3 files, many "inherited" from my sons who also use(d) my comp, I came across Manu Chao's albums. I knew some of the songs, but not this one, that soon became my favorite: Denia.

A haunting melody, and true to many of his songs, a comment on suffering violence. In this case, the civil war in Algeria, a decade of violence from 1992 to 2002 with a death toll around 160,000 includinig many civilians. This song is from Manu Chao's 2001 album Próxima Estación: Esperanza.

Manu Chao (born José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao on June 21, 1961), is a French folk singer of Spanish origin (Basque and Galician). He sings in French, Spanish, English, Arabic, and Portuguese and occasionally in other languages. 

Chao was born in Paris, France, to Spanish parents. His mother, Felisa Ortega, is from Bilbao, Basque country, and his father, writer and journalist Ramón Chao, is from Vilalba, Galícia. They emigrated to Paris to avoid Francisco Franco's dictatorship — Manu's grandfather had been sentenced to death.  

— from Manu Chao at Wikipedia

From some of the Youtube sites there is this translation:

Poor Algeria
Life beats in the rhythm of your dismay
Life itself is a lie
My heart aches to watch you
Poor Algeria
Life through your eyes
Life as lie
Life swarming with police
Life soaked with
mothers' tears
Life racked with madness
Poor Algeria
Who really cares
in America about
what's happening in Algeria?
Who really knows?

Smileys are from Mars!

I love smileys!

Both the traditional ones with the yellow faces, and others that soon followed.
With the advent of msn (there named "emoticons") they have proliferated and have become delightfully animated.

I've been collecting them for a while now — I know, I know: a totally infantile pastime. I guess it nourishes part of my inner child. (I do hope that's what it is!)

What I didn't know until recently:

The First Smiley is from Mars!

Just goes to show that the War God has a lighter side... or smileys a meaner.

 The iconic Smiley

(the Earthling version!)

The Martian Ancestor

The First Picture: 1976 Viking I Mission

Originaly called "Happy Face" Crater, the Original Smiley is the Galle Crater on Mars.

Frisky Poles

I read recently — I believe from Philip Sedwick — that the cosmos not helping with cyberstuff. Well,  I certainly haven't been desirous of blogging, facebooking... etc... for a while now. Thus the abscence of posts, I believe. The non-virtual world's call is stronger right now.

As here my pongáio, let me put this on a shelf:

It's so unkind of science

To go and interfere!

What if the poles should frisk about

And stand upon their heads!

I hope I'm ready for the worst,

Whatever prank betides!

                                       — Emily Dickinson

Rather up-to-date, considering the magnetic poles' movement with the Chilean earthquake.

Seasons

Today is the our Autumn Equinox, exact at 14:33.
The Earth will slowly slide into longer nights, shorter daylight.

This year I'm rather relieved at this, as we'll soon be having cooler weather.
Also, with the colder nights, "cold" for us that is, The Very Noisy Neighbors tend to quiet down, much to my relief.

When I read about the reasons for the having seasons here on Earth, many explanations say something like "the tilt of Earth's axis changes, thus receiving more or less sunlight in the southern or northern hemisphere". But that is rather falacious, implying that the Earth changes its tilt, that it "moves about", from an angle of 23°plus to one side of a "vertical axis", swinging to the 23°plus on the other side.
The axis does not change: it always "points" in the same direction. It is the Earth's movement on its orbit around the Sun that causes the effect of more sunlight in one hemisphere than the other.

Below, a very cool interactive site that lets you "play" with the perspective, the viewpoint, and the Earth's orbit, which makes it very easy to see the mechanics of the seasons:

This is an image of the flash site. 

Click HERE to go there: 
http://astro.unl.edu/naap/motion1/animations/seasons_ecliptic.swf

We can help each other. We can create and hold a space of safety and support for those who think for themselves instead of avoiding them or calling them weird. We can be informed instead of uncomfortable when someone declines a burger for lunch. We can back off on threat and aggression. We can be less demanding. We can listen without judgment. We can give authentically with no expectation of return. We can receive genuinely with no assumption of debt. 

— Len Wallick Who woulda thunk it? , Planet Waves

Note: my emphasis

Good Sunday

After the rain, some sunshine and better weather — out of the emotional doldrums also.

Spent the last few day out of the house at my latest project, the new appartment of good friends, getting measurements, taking pics, and trying to figure out how to use the old furnishings, fit them, in the new apt. After a few cad (drawing, that is!) sessions in between, starting to have a glimmering!
The decorator-angel is helping.
The client has some 60's sofas, 80's sofas and tables, older fashioned pieces, some made of now forbidden rosewood.
(and lots and lots of romantic doodads, souvenirs, little paintings...)
Have to get everyone talking harmoniously to each other.

I've added a "real-time" Earth and Moon gadget to my side-bar.
I love the Moon, quite a lunatic, in fact.
I hope it doesn't make the loading here too heavy.

Under the Weather

The weather changed this week.
In the last weeks, except for a few days here and there, we were roasting, or melting, at ±37°C temperatures. At night, it would cool off a bit, but sometimes in the middle of the night, or at dawn, it would heat up again. Not conducive to sleeping well.

Since Monday, though, it's been cooler... and raining: drizzling, misting, sometimes something a little thicker, but not really rain, as it usually rains here. And on and on and on, all day long. And grey. Light grey, dark grey, grey, grey, grey.
A welcome relief.

It does make me want to hunker in at home — having usually beautiful, dry weather, rain feels like a blizzard: me no go out.
Buuut, today I have a lot of errands downtown.

So...
garner up my courage, my umbrella, my carry-all,
prepare to get wet, and go catch the bus. *sigh*

I doesn't help that today I'm having a faint recurrence of a panic attack; just enough to make me really not want to go out!. That deserves another *sigh*  [this time in italics! : )))) ]

Hey Ho! Hey Ho!
Here I go!

Update: Here I go, que nada!
The drizzle turned into a downpour.
While getting ready, everytime I looked out the window more, more, and more, water falling out of the sky.
Argued with myself severely for being such a wimp, but caved in and cancelled my 11 o'clock appointment.
Still have the 4 o'clock. Till then the rain may stop, but will have to go, any which way the rain may fall.

Update #2: Lunchtime — the secretary of the 4 o'clock appointment just called: cancelled!
Sad and happy. Sad not to have the session, happy to be able to stay in, while the rain now pouring buckets outside.

Masks

To quote Nathaniel Hawthorne from The Scarlet Letter, “No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

— Len Wallick, Choosing to Survive/Choosing to Live, Planet Waves

A Clock! Finally!

Ever since last year,I've been meaning to add a clock gadget on my blog(s). I don't know what happens, but something certainly does, that I do not get to finish the process, e v e r y single time.

Weeeelll... finally, I managed to get from A to B... and the clock is in my sidebar!
I chose this one, although many nice ones there:
A clock in a delicious, roundish-shaped drop of water, dewdrop, or smooth crystal — and I love delicious, roundish, smooth shapes (just check out all the rocks about the house!) as well as transparencies; just too lovely to resist!

I also love watermelon... and pears!
Oh! how to choose?!  

 
All clocks above from ClockLink.com

At ToolShell there are also many cool clocks, as MM can attest:

Have a great day!

From an email sent by a friend, and a good start for a Monday morning:

.....have a 
GREAT Day!!! 
And Enjoy Your Daily Blessings!!!! 
Life is short! 

Forgive quickly!
Love truly, 

Laugh uncontrollably

and

Let your Light shine brightly

for all the world to see!!!!

(Original font size! To have a really, really great day!)

Earthquake

Yesteday I awoke to the news of the earthquake in Chile.

I called my friend who's son is at his girlfriend's home... in one of the most affected regions, Maule.
She hadn't heard from him yet, and of course, the whole family very worried.

A few hours later, he managed to call that all was well.
Thank the God/dess for him and his family, but so many lost family: my prayers go out to them.

With spending most of the week out of the house, running errands, etc, then this tragedy, not much in a blogging mood.

Yummmmm!

Here are some photos of food, and a recipe, that I organized last year for my facebook.

This one below, from a trip, a cavalgada (calvacade-trail ride), that Hubby and I took in 2007.
While the others rode horses (8  h-o-u-r-s!!!), I went by delicous, wellsprung, airconditioned pickup — the 3 minute try-out on the back of one of the horses was proof enough, again, that definitely I DO NOT know how to ride!

 Hot pão-de-queijo in the very early morning sunlight, 

at the stop-over fazenda

* * *

Bread! I love bread!

I didn't bake these though... (I wish!)

these are from a bakery near our home; photo at our table

My cousin Karen's pumpkin pie recipe that I begged for!

I made up the graphic presentation below... the pie in them is the actual pie she made/makes!

( I wish she lived nearby........)

click images for legible size

Ah... sleep!

Last night I finally was able to get a [better] night's sleep for the first time since having a bout of the flu,.

It left me with a very annoying, pesky, irritating ... you can see the drift... cough.
cough... cough... cough... cough... cough... cough... cough... cough... cough... cough... cough...
It has been geting better — at leats during the day; but just lie down, and there it was again.
Poor Hubbie. Poor me.

Just having this one night of sleeping better made me wake up with a whole different disposition and energy!
To celebrate, here is this video that just came in the mail for me:

(I'm here...)

I've been doing some fall-cleaning here at my blogs; and tweakings fonts, etc.
So, though not "appearing" in posts, I AM here! Have been during this weekend.

Yesterday was the last day of Summer Time.
I do love Summer Time, but I'm always happy when it's over... and then anxious for its return when the end of the year comes around again.

Although still very hot during the day, especially in the sun, at night it's beginning to cool down.
Lovely!

Enough of computer and cyberland for today!
I'm off now some food & movie: new dvd's are in the living room.

The Detective and The Sugar Bag

I grew up reading detective, or mystery, novels.

Every year, my father would bring home the new Agatha Christie, as well as any oldies that we didn't already have. My mother also grew up reading Agatha Christie, so I guess it was already in the dna.

Of all the different authors/books we had, and still have, I think Margery Allingham's, and her "people" — gentleman detective Albert Campion and the all — are my favorites.

Sometime in the early sixties, my father found and started buying Allingham's detective novels; I still love them. Every once in a while, I'll go on a binge, a marathon, and read them in chronological order, or whatever order.

Being true to their period, and of a time and and age that basically doesn't exist anymore, and of another country, many a times I come up against expressions and... things that I know nothing of, but have had to wing it in my imagination.

So, much to my surprise, a little while ago looking through a catalog of vintage miniatures, one mystery was solved! My thanks to Google!

     The soft light spread feebly over the small room, making the bed a pool of colour in the dark surround. On it, stretched diagonally across its wide expanse, was sleeping a sandy man. His compact and powerful body was fully clad save for his jacket, and his cheek was cradled against his shirt-clad arm. He had removed his shoes, and his feet, in discreetly checkered socks, were folded over one another on Minnie's print dress for the party.
     'Tonker!' Minnie stood staring at the apparition. 'When did you come back? Tonker wake up.'
     He opened one eye, as blue as a sugar bag, and smiled with singular sweetness.
     'Hullo, Minnie darling. I'm having a zizz.'
     'Tonker! What have you done with the child? Where is he? Tonker, wake up.'
     A delighted giggle behind them settled the main problem. Rupert, with Choc behind him, came in from the larger room whose fresh decorations Emma had displayed so proudly earlier in the day.

— page 70

     Mr Campion caught a glimpse of popping sugar-bag eyes as Tonker fielded this gift from God.

— page 123

from: The Estate of the Beckoning Lady, by Margery Allingham, my well-loved, dog-eared Macfadden paperback edition, 1972.    © 1955 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Sugar-bag Blue

Carnaval II

On Monday, Hubby and Middle Son took the afternoon off, and we went to his friend's parent's sítio, country place.
Lovely people, lots of laughter, and a... cottage!!!

The wife, two years younger than I and also an artist, remodeled the run-down, simple house into a cozy, beautiful, welcoming cottage.
They have there all I've been collecting information/pictures/desires about the last years...
   • pink dappled walls
   • white washed beams and panelling
   • roses, real and pictures
   • lavender bushes!!!
   • stone balls!!!
   • Neem trees!!!
   • and on... on... on...
Mama, I waaaaaaaaaaaant a sítio just like it, tooooooo!!!

Roosty with young galinhas d'angolas — guineafowl (Numida meleagris)

Leo The Brave facing the Guineafowl Gang
Who will run this time???

Lavender!!! My dream!

* one of them... ; ) *