Noury's Creative World…

That phrase, the signs are your friends…Ron used to use whenever we would get lost and would be trying to find our way out.

This morning in order to take a break from the world of boxes, I went shopping to get a few items that I have convinced myself will help the place look pretty.  My ego just corrected me, will make the place look prettier.  Have to honor that super ego.  It is good for you and very healthy sometimes.  As long as you keep it under control.

Among other things, I saw this print and I thought, I like it!  I will put it in the bathroom where people are really at peace and cannot do anything much, and can ponder on the phrase, courtesy of a D. Brant.

The reason why I liked the print was because it reminded me about the importance of living and staying in the moment.  Coach “K” once said in an interview that he tells his players when they are down and only a few seconds left on the clock, just that, to stay in the moment.  Don’t look back, don’t focus on forward.  Don’t I need to laser that into my disappearing neurons.  Probably you are thinking that I am bowl of contradictions.  I am already thinking about my next place, and on the other side of my mouth, I am saying “stay in the moment.”  I am a work-in-progress.  Perfection will be achieved when I convert back to invisible energy.

Today I am keeping it short to give you time to ponder on D. Brant’s phrase.

So it was today…27 July, 2011…a day of opening boxes, cooking spaghetti and looking forward to my first home-made meal.

Your Happy Contessa

“The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life.”  Robert Browning, English poet and playwright.  7 May, 1812 – 12 December, 1889.

The much-anticipated “stuff” made it finally all the way from North Carolina to Florida.  Now the drama of opening the boxes and trying to shove things into shelves, drawers, and wherever the mood feels like, has begun.

Frankly, the next time is going to be as Miss Lucy said.  Car keys and purse.  But knowing how we humanoids work, probably I will be dragging my “stuff'” along to the next adventure.

But wait a moment, I just got here.  My mind works like this; the moment to start thinking about your next move is right after you have moved to the new place.  In that way, you have plenty of time and choices.   Contessas’ logic.

Right now, one of my neighbors just knocked on the door.  She wanted to help, but I didn’t say anything much,  just by the way I looked, as if I had no sleep in months, and could hardly utter a word, I think she got the message.  She did not make a move to get through the door.  I looked as if my body was just hanging from a clothes hanger.  Going through the motions.

I am tired right now, but still opening boxes.  Type A syndrome.  I just took out some winter clothes, yes I know, but it gets chilly sometimes here also.  So the clothes are going back in the box and I am placing them in a corner of the already crowded closet.

Need to make the place look pleasant to myself, otherwise, I feel restless.

There you have it in a boxshell…

So it was today…26 July, 2011…another day of nice breeze in Florida and facing the invasion of the boxes.

Your Happy Contessa

“Time is the least thing we have.”  Ernest Hemingway, an American author and journalist.  21 July, 1899 – 2 July, 1961.

Now you see this…my very comfortable bed for the last week +, and my two night tables (two suitcases)…and hopefully after tomorrow all of this very minimalist look will fade into the sunset, very hot one I may add.

Left is my temporary entertainment center, where I have learned to convert people from being short and heavy to people being tall and part of the head missing.  No one is perfect.  So it is.  Right is where my magic happens and I communicate with you and the world.  Not that bad.  It works…but no, tomorrow the invasion of stuff is coming into my humble Florida condo and is going to take over, and maybe I will feel a bit suffocated after all this simple way of life.  But I miss my stuff.  I wanted to share with you the transformation that will be happening.  From 1,500 sq. ft. to 871 sq. ft.  Love it!  Probably all of it will look short and heavy.  Contagious it may be.  But I am sure I will know how to handle all of this.  Besides, my back will be very appreciative of a table and chair for me to type, and not from sitting on the carpet.  Right now is a killer.

This was my dinner today, Monday.  Chicken breast and fried ripe plantains.  I couldn’t believe it when I saw them at the deli counter of my now favorite supermarket.  I could have these plantains daily, twice a day if possible.  I am getting closer and closer to all that Caribbean food I so love, but that will make me look like the people on my tv.  Have to watch it.

Well, my friends, so it was today…25 July, 2011…a day getting closer to be inundated with “my stuff.”

Your Happy Contessa

“Paradise is where I am.”  Voltaire, French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher.  21 November, 1694 – 30 May, 1778.

Not that bad…after all.  Remember that the first intended set up was sold before I had a chance to go back and claim it.  So I had to come up with Plan B.  Believe it or not, I like the alternative better.  I love this room!!  I can see into the gardens, it is so bright and I am all about sun light.

I already did my first entertaining…a lunch date with a very dear friend and her husband.  See my humble table setting below…Martha, eat your heart out!

This was made possible with some curtains I brought down with me in case I needed to cover some windows, and the yellow tablecloth I used to wrap a painting I brought down with me also.  Very resourceful I am…I must say.

I am so touched by all my friends that already have me feel very welcomed.  Thanks to all of you, the ones that I have already seen and the ones that are on my ever-growing list to visit with.  This “welcome basket” is full of goodies, one of them almonds covered with chocolate!

Let me give you an incredible scoop.  One of the ladies that I have met is a 90 year-old sweet and hip lady.  When I met her, she was wearing skinny jeans!!!!!!!  I have met my match!  Someone to look up to if I make it that far ahead.  When I told her that she was sooo cool, she said that what did I mean by that.  I have to bring up to date her lingo.  I told her that she was with it.  Finally, after explaining, she got it.  I take so many things for granted.  Have to start a mini-dictionary to make myself understood with some of my neighbors.  I like all that I have met so far.  No gray-haired guy yet.  Thanks God!

So I adjusted the settings on the 32″ tv.  Well…now half of the head of the people is chopped off and the bottom information is missing.  Their bodies look ok now, but there is no perfection in life.  Do you think a 37″ will do the trick?

So it was today…24 July, 2011…a day of receiving my first newspaper delivered to my door and trying to organize things I need to do…change of address, etc., etc.

Oh, oh, there comes the train…there comes the train…one of them.  Can’t wait for the others to come through later.  C’est la vie!!

Your Happy Contessa

“I feel good, ta ra ra ra..so good, so good, that I just do.”  From the Happy Contessa way of life.

Well…Miss Lucy, one of my most devoted fans, snapped me out of the sultry, hot, humid vacation I was having and demanded to know what’s going on with the Contessa.  I don’t know if I can cope with the price of being so popular with the five or so readers I have.  Well, in honesty, I have a little more people interested in my babbling.

So last Friday I left North Carolina in the morning and around 4 pm arrived in Richmond Hill, Georgia with my car fully loaded.  You cannot imagine the things I put in the garbage at the last moment, because there was no one around to give it to and no space in the work horse (my car).  But the less I have the lighter I travel.  Once at the hotel, had a chance to catch up with my soaps (no tele for 2 days, or was it one?), my brain is having some sort of foggy weather up there.  It is so hot and humid, but that’s what I wanted, right?  I am taking naps at 4 pm.  I really don’t care if I don’t sleep later, I am just so drained of all these events, emotions and etc., etc.

I left Richmond Hill on Saturday around 7:30 am and was in Florida around 11:30 am.  A bit of my driving experience.  I don’t know how many times I listened to my favorite cd.  I figured that it took around one hour to listen to the whole cd, so the more I listened to the cd, the closer I was getting to my destination.  Cheap logic, but it worked for me.  I still love all the songs.  That’s why they are my favorites.  Plus a friend gave me another cd for variety.  Nice!  And a bar of Godiva 72% chocolate.  How did she know.  Thanks.

I don’t have my furniture yet.  I even don’t call the company that has my furniture any more to find out when I am getting my stuff.  I refuse to listen to their rationalization of why I was not told from the beginning that it was going to take this long.   Up the creek with no paddle.  Sometimes it is better to just keep on sleeping on an air mattress than to talk with “It is not our fault” people.  The other night I almost fell off my bed.  Not a big distance between the bed and floor.  Man, and there are about five trains that parade through the tracks every night.  But…I wanted to live here.  I am not complaining.  I love my new town.  Really.  I live right now in a 55+ community.  Lots of nice people.  Beautiful gardens.  Have to be very quiet as night approaches.  But I wanted  live here.  Did I already say that?  Flushing toilets very late at night, not such a good thing.  But I wanted to live here.  Oh…the fringe benefits of living in a 55+ community.  More on that as I continue my experience with these wonderful people.

I have a sun room that looks into the gardens.  How lovely.  Went to buy furniture, but when I went to get what I had envisioned, it was gone.  Plan B.  Pier 1.  Pictures later when the room is finished.  You should see me dragging the stuff, because it is just me against pounds and pounds of stuff to get in the condo.  I just asked the Lord to give me some guidance as to how to get the stuff inside.  Dragging it is!  Also, I watch when the clouds are covering the sunny sun to go out and take my stuff out of the car.  The games I play.

I have done my duty for today…Oh, before I forget, just bought a 32″ tv.  Everybody look short and heavy.  My soaps are not as fun to watch any more.  Even my good-looking guy does not look so hot now.  What is one to do?

So it was today…21 July, 2011…another day of being waken up by the sonic boom of Atlantis.  Good to have them home.  Thanks for the great ride the shuttle program has given all of us.  Last sonic boom of this era.  Glad I was here to experience it.

Until next Monday it is…Have a cooler weekend than probably I will be having.  But I wanted to be here…

Your Happy Contessa

“Arguing with reality is a losing battle.”  Me

I’m so glad we had this time together…Just to have a laugh and share a write-up…Seems we just started…And before you know it…Comes the time to say “So long.”  Most of these words are from the song Carol Burnett used to sing at the end of her show every week.

The time has come for me to take a break and blast off in my quest for happiness, new adventures, new experiences, to find out what life has in storage for me, but most important…to take a moment and express my gratitude for all of you that have motivated me every week to find something to write about.  And thank you for giving me the opportunity to connect with each one of you.  That’s what life is all about, connecting with each other, learning, sharing, loving, releasing and as for me and my blog, I am grateful for you.

I will be back as soon as moving, getting settled and all else allows me.  I am already feeling sad.  I am sometimes a very emotional person.  And that’s a good thing.

On that note…I shall return, hopefully soon.  In the meantime, European vacation for everyone!  Translation, a long well deserved vacation.

Love,

Your Happy Contessa

“The beauty of connecting with each other is the world of opportunities we have to be amazed at the miracle of being human.”  Me

The gravy train of inspiration has left the station.  The muscles in my back are all twisted, the eyes are closing and not interested in opening again, the legs begging for rest, and the neurons in my brain all shut-down.

Today is a hard day for inspiration.  I cannot even think.  I had to resort to taking a picture of me with a scarf and sunglasses to make it look decent.  The muses are at this moment non-existent.  There’s a lot of boxes, so I thought, why not to be the queen of the boxes.  By now we have a love relationship.  I know their measurement by heart and even name them.  You must be thinking right now that I am losing it.  Very close in that neighborhood.

When I sat on that box, I almost made it collapse.  Packing by an amateur.  Moi.  It gives.  Whatever happens, happens.  I am taking my makeup, undergarments, and a few pieces of clothing with me so that should suffice.  And there is…Walmart.  I don’t remember life before this giant octopus.

On another note, tomorrow is the launching of Atlantis.  Around 11 am, so watch history in the making.  I know I will be watching it in my computer from NASA TV.

My beloved readers, friends and everybody else, today is a day getting closer to me contemplating taking that European style vacation.  I am tired from the moment I get up.  My life on the fast lane of packing.  If I sound like a cry baby, I am.

So it was today…7 July, 2011, another day of working hard packing for my next adventure…and the muses having a field day without me.

Have a very lovely weekend.  I will see you on Monday.

Your Happy Contessa

“It is what it is.”  Someone very wise and practical.

How much undergarment can one have?  Do I think that maybe one day I will be going to Siberia, where probably I will have to take my own food, my own folding chair (Hi Lucy), and a bear to help me keep warm.

This is a partial picture of suitcases, canvas bags, overnight bags, and any other name you want to baptize a piece of material sewn together and give it the name of luggage.  Color is irrelevant, brand, weight, how many wheel drives it has and does your flip 360 degrees?  Two of mine do.  Big deal, yes it is when you want to show off.  See, I can turn wheels around and you cannot.

And it just doesn’t stop there.  Cars, toilets, houses, diseases, and a whole entourage of things that we think we cannot do without.

I am even making excuses to hold on to most of them.  Maybe I can put all copies of my tax returns, receipts, photos, and even myself in case of an emergency.  You never know where I may go that I may need some cover.

Oh, oh, someone just knocked at my door really hard.  Careful there, do not chip the paint.  Need to deliver this house in top condition.  A young man selling pest control service.  First I told him that he should be more subdue when he knocks on a door.  He looked at me as if I was a Martian.  Close enough.  Then I told him that I already have a service and to be careful with the lightning out there.  He told me that probably he was going to get zapped, because he was going to be all night out there selling this service.????  I told him, well, that’s too bad, because you are not going to have a long life.  Then I send him off with a good luck and enjoy your short life.  How bad can an aging woman, so tired of packing boxes and annoyed at his knock can be.  Very, very bad.  But, he asked for it.  Being cute at this time of the day.  Don’t I sound like the perfect grouchy old lady?  Need a break.

Ok.  Going back to the excess thing.  I really don’t have any wisdom on this one.  I am going to continue probably to be a bag lady for the rest of my life.  I will just shove my suitcases, bags and myself into some boxes and live forever happily in wrinkle city.  Florida here I come!

So it was today…a day of nothing much, but of packing the heck out of my stuff, and sending a young man to be zapped by lightning.  It does not get any better.

This was good.  I had a good laugh.

6 July, 2011.  Different format.  I like surprises.

Your Happy Contessa

“The more you have, the heavier it gets.”  From the book of wisdom of happy contessas.

I remember when I was growing up in the Dominican Republic, every day there was a lady, Dona Gloria, that used to come and visit my mother for one to two hours in the afternoon.  They would have coffee, and talk, talk and talk until it was time for one of them to go to the bathroom to discharge the liquid and then Dona Gloria would go to her home which was maybe 100 steps away from our house.  I was thinking where from they got their material to talk about for so long every day.  Today I was not going to show up.

I didn’t think I could do a posting.  I was so tired and drained.  And couldn’t think of anything to talk about.  Then I went on to describe a part of my day.

Miss Raylene tried to help me to send a pdf file from her house, because she has a higher tech printer/scanner with all the bells and whistles.  But in the process, I am trying to get access to her wireless service so she could send me the file,  my computer took over her entire internet access.  Even her phone went out of commission.  I almost had a neck breakdown.  I didn’t have any liquids in my system, otherwise, I would have needed a Pampers for big gals like me.  I was deep breathing, went into meditating, prayed until the rain started to fall instead of the answer to my prayers, and the right side of my head is still trying to recover from the stress.  And to think I thought I was a total master in controlling stress.  Do I live a very sheltered life.  My apologies to all of you worker bees out there.  I couldn’t survive in the real world.

Miss Raylene spent almost two hours on the phone with her internet/router providers.  I have to hand it to her.  Grace and poise under pressure.  I just wanted to leave her house so bad, that the agony was almost unbearable.  But she kept on insisting that she was going to complete the favor, even if our computers went into a heavyweight championship with each other.  I shut mine down trying to minimize any casualties.

Finally…she comes out of the other room, and declares victory.  I just grabbed my insignificant not so high-tech computer, gave her a big hug, and lots of apologies to her and her husband and took off in the middle of lightning, and a slight rain.  I couldn’t drive fast enough.

I came home, plugged in my computer to see if it still had any life left for me to just do my humble things and voila, it is still breathing and functioning.  It is somewhat bruised, her ego, but it is kicking.

There you have it, and I thought I was not going to be able to blab for today.

So it was today…5 July, 2011…a day Miss Raylene showed me how tough she and her computer are…and glad mine’s still carrying on.

Your Happy Contessa

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent.  It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”  Charles Darwin, English Naturalist.  Author of “Origin of Species.”  12 February, 1809 – 19 April, 1882.

This is as close as I am getting to a beach right now.  I love this painting because it gives me the feeling of peace, tranquility and serenity.  Same things, just sound different.  It is a big painting, that probably I will have to depart with because I won’t have any space for it in my new digs.  Two chairs, did you notice…, that was supposed to be Ron and me enjoying the sun at a beautiful beach somewhere in paradise.

I have been thinking about taking an European-style vacation.  Vacation in that continent, or most of the countries, is for 30 or 60 days.  Low productivity, but high yield in enjoyment of life.  We need to learn that art in the brave-new world.  Popping pills to calm stress has become our national emblem.  Need 30-days of relaxation, and chillin to recharge the depleted system, our fragile human body.

This translate to my being absent from entertaining you and myself with my interpretation of mundane things and making them sound interesting.

I need to give it some more thought.  Really, I am up to my eyeballs in packing boxes, getting stressed about having to depart with a lot of “our” stuff.

As you can see, things are just being packed or in boxes for the Salvation Army.  I feel sometimes a bit with “la depre” (down), because having to depart with stuff is harder than you can imagine.  But then I think about the lack of space I will have in my new apartment, and then is easier to let go.  Do not believe in renting space to put stuff.  A tightwad.  I love making my money go a long, long way.  Less stuff, easier to move and move again.

My neighborhood display of fireworks…I watched the fireworks from Charlotte, NC, Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C.  Love the Boston Pops with Keith Lockhart conducting.  1812 Overture, my favorite.  The ones from Washington, D.C. are majestic with the monuments as their background.  Unforgettable.  I felt as if I was there.

So it was today…4 July, 2011…celebrating another year of independence in our beloved country.

Your Happy Contessa

“I am a great believer in luck, and find the harder I work the more I have of it.”  Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, 3rd President of the U.S., and an influential Founding Father.  13 April, 1743 – 4 July, 1826.