Countdown complete, welcome to limbo land

It feels like forever since I gifted you with my ramblings, which is has. My sweetie looked at my countdown clock and said it was time to move on. The clock is just too sad without moving numbers. The sad part is that there is no there to move on to. We are looking for a house, but are daunted at every turn. I know, it has only been two days, but aren't we a microwave society? I just don't want to stand out.

I hope that next week can prove to be miraculous and that we can get the shaft of light from heaven and follow it to our perfect home.

*warning*warning*warning* feeling a pity party coming on

I am a social person and I miss my friends and familiarity.

AND I HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN TO WAL-MART, JoANNS or MICHAEL'S YET!!! (but the trip to Target was a refreshing breath of fresh air)

I miss being able to randomly cold-call friends and chat it up or run out to do some random shopping together.

I know it will all come with time, but just as with everything else in life, it is more intense when you are in the middle of nothing.

Later.

Already?

My not-even-five-year-old was in her room "putting on her jammies" for a long time tonight. I went to go check on her and saw that she was drawing and coloring instead of getting ready for bed.

I was getting ready to yell at her when I saw what she had been coloring. She had her name and the name of a boy in her class with hearts all around it. His name is Vinicio and each I had a heart above it.

I was totally boy crazy, but am pretty sure that it didn't start this early.

And she is so much prettier (and petite) than I was.

And she loves to dance and swing her hips.

WHAT AM I TO DO?!?

Sassy Sisters

These girls are WAAAAYYY in to modeling these days.

Here they are with the hand on hip pose. Leia's favorite.

Here is a scary Leia. She should have tried this one on Jabba.

Here is Belle's hands on hips with belly button shirt shot.


They reclining hand on hip pose is also quite common.
Notice Indiana is interested.

Here is the abstract in the fireplace shot.


In this one she is a little focused on the camera not so much on the position of the baby.

Here is my sweet smiley girl.


A flower in the hair can add to any photo shoot.

And then there is the hair. Usually not done in the elevator on the way to the bus or not long enough to get a picture.

Belle found a bunch of new pretties and decided to use them ALL!

I thought it looked pretty cute myself.

I'm a little sloshy in the brain right now so this is all you get. A commentary on random pictures that the girls took of eachother and a couple more by me that seem cute. I may get over it in about three weeks, but don't hold me to it.

Oh, and I found an "old" film camera today with 12 shots left. I gave it to Leia and she asked where the picture was. It was so cute watching her figure out how to close one eye to look through the view finder at the same time as pressing the button. I can't wait to see how old the first 12 pictures are, if they come out at all. Any guesses?!?

OOOHHHH!!! Contest! I need predictions of year and subject and whoever is closest gets a special prize customized to your personality.

Tchau-tchau!

This is Dancing Princess Leia. She and her sister are currently into a modeling phase. Here she is in her authentic Guatemalan dress before church.

Here she is, striking her favorite hand on hip pose.

And here are her beautiful locks.

Here is her hair again after a long day and much screaming about not wanting to brush even the little bit that I put in a braid.




And here she holding that braid that I had just cut off.

See, it has been about three and a half years since her first haircut. The ends of her hair were deliciously curly, but were fine baby hair. And no, I hadn't cut it since. Leia loved the idea of mommy cutting her hair while sitting on the kitchen counter.

So we went down the hill to the salon to finish off the job. She has been asking for a haircut since her friend got hers all cut off in December. Mommy finally got the guts to do it. We walked into the supermarket and up to the salon and then she started pulling back on my hand. She picked a barbie car chair and I lifted her in.

This is the most expression she had on her face the entire time. She said not a word, just staring at herself in the mirror and the stranger who was brushing (*oh, the agony!!*) and cutting her hair.

Remnants of her hair on the floor. The stylist asked if I wanted to keep it before throwing it on the floor. I said no because I already had some.

Leia does this thing where she stays perfectly still and looks at nothing and basically pretends to be invisible when she is around strangers or in an awkward situation. This is what she did the entire time she was in the chair. She didn't even talk to me, but being the good mommy that I am, I kept telling her how brave she was and what a great job she was doing. It probably didn't help that there was a 9-month old screaming his head off in a neighboring chair.

She really did seem to like the blow dry and brush part. She was smiling a bit and maybe even made eye contact with the stylist. As you can see, I wasn't brave enough to make it short, but it is a lot shortER. She says she likes it.

As we were walking down to the parking garage, I didn't even recognize her from behind. It must have been the new shoes that threw me off.



She got a sucker for her bravery and struck a pose while waiting for the elevator. Notice the favorite hand on hip action again.

I tried really hard to get this shot of her face and back of head at the same time in the elevator. Not exactly what I wanted, but close enough.



I told her to smile normal and I got squinty eyes and a tight mouth. When I told her to open her eyes I got bug eyes and constipated mouth. This was the best of the results.

I think she looks totally cute, but in a new and different way.

OCD. Seriously.

So I went to unload the dishwasher and saw that a little silverware fairy had visited. Everything was again organized according to utensil type and material.

I love my little fairies.

A couple of things I won't miss...

A dryer with a three hour setting. Now that's just wrong.

No hot water in the laundry room. How does anything get clean? It doesn't.

Very few pork products. Did the swine flu arrive here early?

Cheese that goes bad on the way home from the store. And no jack and expensive cheddar.

Long lines and slow checkers at every grocery store. 30 min minimum just for checking out.

HUGE construction vehicles EVERYWHERE!!! Especially when I'm in a hurry.

Not being able to make a coherent argument when I am angry. Crazy Chinese lady alert!!!

Mosquitoes. Mosquitoes. Mosquitoes. And my physiological over-reaction to bites. (the bee sting last week was nothing in comparison)

Downstairs neighbors and their parties. And their complaints.

Laundry that has accumulated during a week-long vacation taken without the kids because we have a maid and then her getting sick and having to do said laundry because I am out of bras and socks. And pants. And everything else.

Missing tennis because my maid is sick. I will really miss tennis when I don't have a maid. : (

Having a pool on our balcony and not being able to us it because it is infested with mosquitos because the pool guy neglected to tell us that he wasn't going to come any more.

Having a pool guy that comes but not being able to swim because it is too cold. Yes, 75 is too cold!

Sharing an elevator with seven other apartments. And two garages, two entrance levels, a service floor and storage floors.

Intermittent, nonexistent and unreliable telephone and internet service. And poor cell phone coverage.

Windows without nets. And the bugs that enter through said windows.

Yelling at a three-year-old to stop running everywhere. She has that much energy.

Having awful visions of small children falling out of windows and down 13 floors. Thank goodness they never hit the ground in these visions.

Having a toy/play room that is too small to play in. And not enough boxes, shelves and tubbies to hold all the dress-up clothes and Legos.

So that is a little more that just a couple, but I am still totally in love with this place.

Come on! I have a maid! And an awesome view of the city!

OCD a little bit?

Yesterday Belle helped me load the dishwasher. I had her put in the silverware while I rinsed and loaded the big stuff.

She was so excited to be helping.

And I was so excited that she wasn't bugging anyone.

When I went to close the dishwasher, I noticed that Belle had grouped all the silverware. There are 18 slots in our silverware holder and only about seven had anything in it.

There was a slot full of silver spoons. Totally spooning- a no-no in my world.

There was a slot with the plastic spoons for cereal.

There was a slot with the tiny plastic spoons for yogurt.

There was a slot with the silver knives. (I kept the sharp ones for me to put in.)

There was a slot with silver forks.

There was a slot with plastic forks.

And a slot with a plastic knife.

I laughed and then un-spooned the spoons.

I guess OCD goes both ways.

Gotta love it!!

It's an ant!!!

It's a hippopotamus!!!

It's a cootie!!!

It's... it's...

Belle!!!

She returned from school yesterday with this Uniqua hat (from the Backyardigans).

It was part of the give-away bag for a friend's birthday. I think it is totally cute. It's made out of those foam sheets.

I think the blatant disregard for copyrights here is awesome. Birthday parties are so much more festive with non-officially licensed merchandise.

She must be related

In an applauded attempt to avoid going to sleep, I was called into Dancing Princess Leia's room and asked the following question:

Mom, do I look like a four?

Laughing, I replied, "yes sweetie, now go to bed."

A very little while later, I heard this:

And this is a four, too?

SO CUTE!!!

What do I do? I tell her to wait. Go get my camera. Turn on her light and take pictures of her number four poses.

Mission accomplished.

We all use math every day!

I am so proud of me for cutting up a watermelon this morning. Not only because I promised my sweetie that I'd cut it up as soon as we got home from the grocery store (on Saturday) but because of my awesome new method of slicing and dicing.

A few preliminary details:

It was a quarter of a watermelon. Sliced in half the long way, and then sliced again the long way.

It was a watermelon boat.

My kids don't like the seeds (not many do) and refuse to pick them out. So, being the *best mom ever* I do it for them. In times past, I have cut slices (quarters if you will) thin enough to pick out the seeds, or just cubed the whole thing, removing seeds as I went along. Both methods make a big mess and have lots of loose garbage in the end.

This time I did something a little bit different
(and totally awesome, if I do say so myself).

I wish I had pictures because I am afraid that my math geekiness will not allow the general public to understand fully. But, here goes.

First I cut from the red down to the rind all along the melon perpendicularly to the central axis (the corner of the red sides). But I did not cut through said rind. So, now I have non-separated quarters.

Then I cut parallel to one of the flat sides in three/quarter inch increments down to the green, but still not through the rind.

I turned the melon around and cut parallel to the other flat side in the same manner as before.

Now comes the MAGIC!!!

I flipped the whole thing over my rubbermaid bowl and perfect cubes fell out of my watermelon boat. I was left with just enough attached to the rind for my morning snack, so I got myself a spoon and pried out the few remaining cubes.

MMMMmmmm.

AND!

I only had one rind to throw away

One small puddle of watermelon juice

One tiny seed all alone on the counter.

Now, this is not a seedless snack as I have presented to them before, but it sure makes the food much less daunting of a task to prepare.

No knife needed.
No HUGE mess to clean up.

Just a few seeds to pick out, if they haven't fallen to the bottom of the bowl already.

Go me!

Announcement

I guess it is about time. I am past the denial phase and can finally come to grips with reality.

We are moving.

We are being sent "home" from Brazil.

We will be moving to the Doylestown, PA area.

Our last day here will be June 22, 2009.

I am leaving in six weeks.

There. I said it.

I don't want to go. I love it here But I am not the boss, and really, no one asked me. I have been happy everywhere we have gone and expect to enjoy life in Doylestown as well as anywhere else, but I am so sad that my time here is ending. I have learned so much and experienced so much and have enjoyed all the differences that life here has to offer.

I have awesome friends that I will miss horribly.
I will miss the spontaneous adventures with fun friends and the awesome vacations exploring this country with my sweetie and family.
I will miss beans and rice and feijoada.
I will miss the melodic nasality of Portuguese.
I will miss fumbling over the language and learning that I am more fluent than I realize.
I will miss the sweet testimonies given by the Primary kids in Portuguese.
I will miss door to door school transportation.
I will miss date night without having to pay extra for a babysitter.
I will miss my maid, my friend.
I will miss day trips to the beach (but not the sand).
I will miss my cute little car.
I will miss the traffic.
I will miss the fashion.

I will miss Brazil.