Looking back in life is most of the time a great thing.  We can always learn from our story.  I was cleaning my picture files on my computer, when I came across this picture.  Instead of me interpreting it as a sad memory, it triggered in me a retrospective of how far I have become in my journey.  It gave me a sense of the type of person I have become.  Strong, decisive, so very self-confident, and knowing when to choose to be by myself.  There’s strength in solitude.  Did I drink the whole bottle of wine?  Frankly, I don’t remember.  I do remember it was a good German Riesling.

I always dress myself and my table even when it is a solo affair.  I am the most important person in my life.  Sounds selfish, but really, it is not.  Self-importance is an indication of your inner and outer strength.  It is the best education you can give your children, so they, in turn, become self-confident and self-reliant.  Very important, because we are not going to be around forever.  Always do what you want to teach your children,  They do what you do, not what you say.

It was the best of times and it was the worst of times.  It was the best because I had Thanksgiving the way I wanted and it was the worst of times because I had all the anxieties and excitement of being by myself in a new city.  Life is always like that.  Our lives are a tale of two cities, just as Mr. Dickens would say himself.

To the philosopher in each one of us.

To all our memories.  I am grateful for each one of them.

Happiest Thanksgiving!  There’s something to be thankful for.  Always.

The center of our Universe!  She is that magical essence that when I think of her, it brings a smile to my face that I cannot describe.  It is so much love, tenderness and at the same time my heart is swollen with so much gratitude.

Yes, she has both socks on.  I was checking on her to make sure she did not make one disappear.  She is this little bundle of joy, happiness and suspense.  When Juliette Isabelle is happy, all of us on Planet Juliette are happy.  When she is not, all of us are rattled.  She is very powerful, and she doesn’t even know it.

Why there’s not a picture of me holding her?  Long short story.  I just forget everything when I am around her, and frankly, I look like that other version of myself from a parallel universe that does not allow pretty people.  Get the drift?  I am totally concentrated on Juliette, not on my good-looking self.

I had a marvelous time with the family and when Juliette is around, everything changes to a magical, marvelous, wonderful, and happy time.  That’s when she is not crying or wants to socialize after midnight.  She’s all awake and very engaging in keeping everyone awake.  Then I look like a zombie before she finally decides that all of us should go to bed.

Happy times are here again!

Abrazos, Hugs,

I have some free time between now that I am listening to my favorite playlist and going to exercise class at 11:30 am.  Then I thought, after preparing my salad for when I come back home, very hungry, at least I will have something waiting for me to launch at.

Romaine lettuce, spinach, one apple, some green pepper and mango.  When I am ready to eat, I will add EVOO, salt and some nuts.  It’s a humongous salad!  It will keep me chewing until my jaw gets kind of tired.

I am making progress…93 words up to now.  I just ponder, what do people from Russia, and other countries I didn’t even know existed read on my words.  How do they interpret some of my ever so nothing words.  I just don’t know, but my fingers are pressing on the keyboard, meaning, I am typing, and some people will be reading.  Amazing!

Don’t you ever misunderstand me.  I love it that all of you read my stuff.  A lot of effort and pondering goes into it.  This one is extra special, because I had nothing to write about to start with.  190 words.

I know I owe you a picture of my nietecita (baby grand-daughter) and me, but when I visited recently I forgot to take a nice dress proper for the occasion.  Next time I will be super ready!

She is so smart, only five weeks old and when I am holding her, she wants to impulse herself like wanting to walk.  I could tell you gazillion stories, but I am stopping while you are reading with a nice smile on your face.  She is just so precious and so beautiful.

Well, not that bad for having nothing to say.  Must get ready to go and move the skeleton.  Must.

The above picture was last week when I was getting ready to visit my nietecita and her family.  I am taking the train again next weekend.  One of the ladies on the train staff gave me a hug and said “welcome back, good to see you.”  Yep, my mileage account is doing pretty good.

O sole mio….beautiful song by Il Volo….so romantic!  Listening to that one right now.

Abrazos, Hugs,

It happened!  My priorities, and my whole universe have been shaken to the ground.  I am a grandmother!  Abuelita in Spanish.  That’s how Juliette Isabelle will be calling me.

I am so in love with my nietecita (grand-baby).  When I have a recent photo of the two of us, I will share.  The first thing I do now is take out my cell phone and put it in front of people’s faces and show them her picture.  She is in every screen saver there is in my tech world.

The  questions are:  should I let some, or more, gray hair show, should I behave a bit better, stop wearing stilettos, etc., etc.  The answers are, no, no and no.  I want her to know that age is just a number that is processed by the haters out there.  My age is determined, on most days, by my private world of thinking that the universe rotates around me.  Isn’t that the way it is?

Now, when I go into any store, I automatically go into the Baby’s Department and go “awwww, awww, and more awwww.”  Then I remember that her little closet is already looking fuller than mine.  Nevertheless, she does need to wear certain cutest ever little dresses, and matching socks.  She is a specialist at misplacing socks.  She is so much fun to watch.  Oh boy, don’t I sound like a “certified totally nuts about her grand-daughter’s grandmother?”  Yes, I am.

Now, I have to keep maintaining my good looks because being a hot-hip-grandmother is not an easy job.  It is not that easy when the clock is ticking and your body is listening.

Totally grateful to be an abuelita.

Hugs, Abrazos,

Life is just like a camera, but with a modern twist.  The cameras now have a count of megapixels.  The more the megapixels the more the details.  Is that a good thing or a not such a good thing.  It depends.  Let me explain…Megapixels are the little extra terrestrials inside the camera that decide how good or bad you are going to look.  It’s good not to set them in a very bad mood, because you may end up looking like a vision from down there, you know, hell.

I used to love my little camera with 14 megapixels and I still do, but not when I am taking selfies anymore.  I found out that if I use my telephone camera, with just 5 megapixels, voila, I look fantabulous!  It erases my wrinkles and other stuff that I just don’t care to bring up right now.  I am in a great mood so far.

So…what does this have to do with life?  A whole lot!  When we have a challenge be it a good thing or not such a hot thing, if we have 14 megapixels neurons to interpret the situation, Oh goodness…we can torture ourselves to death analyzing and over interpreting the subject at hand.  Then depression takes over or too much euphoria that then becomes a thing to worry about.

If on the other hand we just interpret the situation with just 5 megapixels neurons, we really could care less what the outcome may be, because it becomes not such a drama thing.  Are we together as of now?  Are you following me, or you are in the 20 megapixels mindset?  Don’t do that, please.  Stay with as little megapixels as possible.

Trust me on this…it works so much better.  Do you see how nice I look?  At least I think so.  Megapixels, dude, it’s all about megapixels!!

Sending you a 50 megapixels hug and abrazo,

This quote I heard today on Super Soul Sunday…it hit a place in my heart, because we think our lives should be lived the way society or those around us decided when we were babes, that’s the way things should be.

Even when we become adults, our limitations continue and we keep on living the traditional way doing the traditional things.  Nothing wrong with that…BUT…things are always changing.

We meet someone, get married, have children and all the things that come eventually…homeownership, jobs, relationships at work, hopefully you are getting the picture.  But, that’s when the paradigm shifts.  Children develop their own wings, we move from one place to another, husbands or wives die, oh yes, that’s part of the deal, even though no one mentions it at the beginning of the fairy tale stuff.  That’s a big one, when your husband or someone pivotal in your life just disappears, meaning, they go to Heaven.

That’s when the time comes to give yourself permission to re-write your story.  Yes, we, as individuals have stories galore to tell, just that for some unknown reason, we don’t see ourselves as a complete package when we are by ourselves.  We always feel that something or someone is missing…it takes time to adjust, re-calculate (like the GPS), always re-calculating, and then we realize that’s ok to continue to re-write the story by ourselves.

It is not easy or joyful at the beginning, but when you give yourself permission to continue the writing, the light at the end of that tunnel shows up.  Many tunnels, many lights in life.

“It’s ok to re-write your story…”  so meaningful.  Grateful for the light to continue to shine on my journey.

Abrazos, Hugs

This is all new to me…my host site has changed my whole format…my day was going perfectly fine until right now!

It is Friday, so I do my exercise class every Friday, and I was feeling groovy when I left the house, you know, I felt totally with it.  Whatever “it” is.  It is like when you feel totally in control and you are walking on Cloud 9.  Is there a Cloud 10?

I always walk a mile before I go zumba like dancing and lifting weights, so there I was on the inside walking trail when this so adorable little old lady, mind you, I am a little somewhat old lady, but she was a bit more senior than me.  Mid-eighties perhaps?  Oh well, she is coming behind me and says…”You look like a little dolly walking on the trail, you are so pretty!”  Well, I just mumbled something like “thank you so much, God bless you for your kindness and have a wonderful day.”  I wanted to say so much more, but my arsenal of adjectives ran dry.

Then, and this is a big then…drumrolls, please!  There he comes walking towards me and the whole place disappeared in front of me, except his “he is such a hunk” image.  Oh goodness, the day was perfected!  He either forgot to shave or meant to not shaving today, so he was so irresistible looking!  I am old but still recognize beauty when I see it.  He is such a darling.  Not revealing anything else, let’s say…no…let’s leave it to the imagination.

Every Friday he is my incentive to look cute and like a “little dolly.”

It has been a fantabulous Friday, so far.  Yes, for the curious ones, we did have a cute conversation and then to my dancing I went.  It is better just to have this kind of flirtation relationship, because it gets too complicated and then guys are very needy.  More than we women are.  I like it the way it is now.  No commitments, etc.

Life couldn’t be better right now.  Having my cake and eating it too.  With vanilla ice cream too!  Had to share this such a magnificent day…

Abrazos, Hugs

Ta ra!  Checked out of the list…yes, I have an ongoing list of things I want to do, dreams I want to see become reality (some of them date back to my childhood), conversations to deal with, in other words, put the period at the end of the sentence.  That sentence will be coming for each and all of us one day or another.  I am doing very good, so far.

Well, there you have them, my two masterpieces…One of them goes in my living room area, “Joy and Contrast,” that’s the geometric red with black.  Red is the meaning of joy in our lives, and the small black line is the contrast or challenges we face in life.  Joy always trumps the other.  Deep and powerful meaning.  I thought about it when I was painting it.  The Blue and pink, titled “Second in Blue and Blush,” is just the beauty of the blue sky, with a touch of the delicate things in nature.  It hangs in my bedroom.    I really enjoyed doing these paintings and finding or giving meaning to them.

So…now I have become an Abstract Expressionist artist.  Besides doing the castanets, playing the guitar and dancing Flamenco…oh yes, studying French, German and Portuguese, sometimes life gets on the way.

I need to find an artist name to sign my creations…my name is not exotic enough.  I thought about “Carmen de La Ronda”…I just made that one up.  I need to come up with a better name for posterity.  The wheels are in motion.

This picture (I am a photographer also) I took before going to my exercise/dance class on Friday mornings, so I remembered I had to show you all my creations.

Hugs, Abrazos,

Well, I already ordered my castanets, which will be coming priority mail, so I better hurry up and do this “Abstract Expressionism” painting I have in mind for a very special place in my living area.

I am into Minimalism right now, so today that took a down because I had to buy a canvas and some paint for what I have in mind.  You, my very special audience, will be the first ones to see what’s been missing from the art scene in the whole wide world.  Lucky me, I found in my cell phone a 50% off coupon on the regular price of the canvas.  Fantastic day!

In 3017, when one snoopy curator at whatever museum it is, will try to investigate into my background to add to the non-existent information about me…but…surprise!  They will find out that I was a very prolific and reigning queen of selfies in the early 2010’s.  Also, they will find out that I played the guitar, las maracas, danced Flamenco and played the castanets.  Spoke around five languages, loved the idea of falling in love, and so many other things…oh yes, my name was written on the walls of the “Broken Relationships” Museum in Croatia.  Thanks Lucy!

I am so inspired right now, but just had lunch and I need to finish this post, exercise after a while…one more thing…loved to dance like crazy.  Singing was kind of decent also.

Going back to the painting…Da Vinci is going to be so envious…my fame will totally opaque his.  My ego size?  Off the charts!

Good hair day, fabulous weather…I may say…it is wonderful to be alive at this moment!

Abrazos, Hugs,

I am sure you have had one of those days where every thought, well, almost every thought is about the so many wonderful blessings you have.  About being in a circle of pure gratitude.

Hot water, opened my eyes this morning, can breathe, can talk, have people who really love me, my sense of humor, opportunities galore given to me to continue to evolve into this incredible miracle that has always been me!

Just imagine what kind of Creator has the imagination, capabilities to create wonderful, unimaginable things, such as nature, the universe, but the crown of it all is…us.

I am grateful for everything in my life…the good, the great, the challenging, the opportunity to fall in love, to be loved and all of it!  Even for my wrinkles…that’s evolvement!

Thank you God for this and all my days…wow…it is very windy out there…can hear the garbage receptacles doing their dance outside.  Yes, it is like 29 degrees outside, with winds maybe 30-40 mph…but it is an unbelievably sunny and beautiful day.

Thank you God for allowing me to exist in your incredible universe and creation.

Abrazos, Hugs,