Snow

It's official! Winter in the south has definitely changed. January 29th 2014, first time we had snow in Florida in over 20 years.

Yesterday, it was such an horrible day for me. I woke up with a terrible muscle ache in my upper arm and couldn't figure out when or where I hurt myself. 

Then, I got news that my grandmother, my mom's mom, passed away in the early hours of Italy time. 

Here I am, hurting physically and emotionally, stuck in the house for a winter storm, road closed, screaming kids in the house......I so wanted a do-over! 

But today, I woke up and there was white, fluffy stuff all around.It might be cold outside, but something melted inside me for sure. 

I like to think that it's her, or a sign of her, snow all around, a way to tell me she's always around me even if I can't see her anymore. 

Might be silly but I like to think of that. 

Good bye grandma! 

You never were the warm and fuzzy kind of grandma, but you did show your love to me, you thought me to be strong and I will never forget that. Fly away to you husband and to your child that you lost way to early, you were so strong to live until you were 90 years old, carrying inside you the burden to have lost at child when he was barely 20. I never met my uncle, but through you, I loved him just the same.

 I can't imagine how hard that could have been for you, that's why I always squeezed you twice when I left your home. Once for me and once for the child you no longer had. 

From you I take my green eyes, my dark brown hair that make me different from everyone in my family since that are all darker. I'm picky and have high standard just like you were and I'm proud of being like you.

Goodbye

I had a fun and light little post planned for today, but truth is that it's a very sad day for me as I received a bad news from my family in Italy: my grandma (my dad's mom) died. 

You have to know that I'm the oldest of my siblings and I've been away from my birth family for over 5 years now and of course when I was told that my grandma was really sick with Alzheimer, the scenario of receiving this news crossed my mind several times and I told myself that I was old and strong enough to receive the news with grace and without too much emotions at least the time necessary to end the phone call with dignity. 

And I did. 

For about 2 nano seconds. 

Then tears, gulps and sigh took over and I had to tell my mom a very quick: "Can I call you later?". 

Without dignity. 

Of course, having hubby standing right behind me asking what the hell happened over and over, helped me to pull my self together. 

For about 2 more nano seconds. 

Just enough to give him the news than dive to cry on his shoulder. 

 I'm crying so much my head hurts. 

For my grandma, for my dad, for my aunts and uncles (my grandma had 8 awesome children, 4 males and 4 females). 

Because I'm 10K miles away and, for reason I don't care to explain publicly, I can't even make a quick run over there to see her one last time and give her a good bye. 

So, I'm crying some more. 

Then I picked myself up and thought to write about all this, as writing is therapeutic and always makes me feel better. I realized with the most hurt in my heart that I have nothing about the woman, not a picture to show, just old memories of my childhood closed up in my head....

except: MY NAME. 

Well, my maiden name anyway, it's the same as her married name as I was born in the core of the South of Italy where the tradition to name the first born after the dad parents is still going strong.

 You also have to know that growing up, every time I've heard of my friend's grandparents dieing, I always imagined the day my grandma would and in my preteens years I always thought that I wouldn't be able to attend the funeral as I would be creep out to see my name on the headstone. I remember vocalizing this concern to my parents and never in a million years I would have thought that I wouldn't be attending her funeral after all. 

Be careful what you wish for I guess. Meh. 

 Maybe it's better this way, it's better that I remember her still happy and busy in the kitchen, where she made the most delicious meals for whomever happened to show up at her door. Happy to open her door to children and grandchildren whatever we needed, happy to listen to us, to spoil us and every time we left just say: "The important thing is that you're ok". Never tired, always putting herself after everybody else, she lost that joy when my grandfather passed away more than 10 years ago. 

Now, at least, they are reunited for ever, while I cry for a little while longer....

Sad day :(

Do you remember my pet fish BOB?

Well, this morning I went to his tank to feed him and well...he was gone :(

We knew it will happen eventually, but he was with us since July and we were taking pretty good care of him and it was just.so.unexpected!

The kids were told, we showed them the "body". Gabriel wanted to know why and how. Michelle just started sobbing hard saying that it was her fault for not playing with Bob yesterday. She seems ok now and she agreed to have him buried tomorrow.

The funeral will be held tomorrow evening on our porch. We are going to gently put Bob in a tiny box and buried him in a pot with potty soil. We will plant wild flowers on it so when spring comes and the pretty flowers will bloom, we can look at them and remember our little friend.

The rapture

Have you heard?
Tomorrow (well actually in 2 hours lol) should be some kind of end of the world or the new Messiah coming to punish the bad people.
Hare you ready?
I'm not sure what to be ready for.
I know some people hurried up to put their affairs in order or do a last act of redemption....
Personally, I don't think it matter, 'cause if the world ends nobody is going to to be there to "see" if you're affairs are in order lol
I do believe in another life after death, but in my opinion wouldn't really matter if you left all you inheritance to your lost cousin or what.

I plan to got to the post office tomorrow to mail out some items I traded for in the last trade event on Artfire, then go to work. And I do have plans for Sunday too, so I guess ultimately I'm saying that nothing will happen tomorrow.

But just in case, let me say that I love you all......

Rest in peace LadyHawk

Some of you might remember me posting about a very ill lady on ArtFire few months back, Lady Hawk.

It's with the heart filled with sorrow that I got to know yesterday that she passed away the day after Easter.

All she wanted was to get to see spring and then fly away as a butterfly.

Even tho I know that wherever she's now, she's in peace and no suffering, my heart swell at the thought of not seeing her posts in the ArtFire forums anymore.

This post is dedicated to you, Jean Love, as many of us use to call you. Might you rest in peace and bless us all from up there.

2 major losses the past week....

.....that I think deserved to be mentioned and remembered.
The first one to go was the famous actress Elizabeth Taylor

People whom saw them in person, swear that her eyes were purple....should have been interesting to see. Purple eyes or not, I think she was super beautiful, may she rest in peace.

The other loss is about Geraldine Ferraro, first female Vice Presidential candidate representing a major American political party.

While I'm not really involved in politics, I read about her and I thought she had some pretty good ideas. She died of cancer, after battling it for 12 years. Might she rest in peace as well.

September recap!

A little recap about this awesome month: September.
A lot happened, happens and I hope it will keep happening on September.

The month start with my dear daddy birthday and a week later, my brother's. Don't see them from almost 4 years, miss my daddy encouragements and my brother's jokes.
In between this 2 occasions, there is also a painful occurrence in my family: my grandfather (my dad's dad) death. This year have been 10 years. I didn't make a blog post entirely for him because I know that I wouldn't want to be remembered in a sad light, but rather for his strong spirit and for the fact the he was the bond of the family, with 8 children and 16 grand kids. He wasn't lucky enough to met my Gabriel, his first grand grand son. He also suffered of asthma and that's how he passed away in a cold night of September of 10 years ago.
I was there, with my father. We got a call in the middle of the night from my grandma asking for help and my dad asked me if I would accompany him. Was like 3 in the morning but was wide awake, so I went. I'm glad I did it because I had to drive my poor destroyed father at home.
I think my dad misses him terribly, but we always laugh thinking of my grandpa, because this is how he wanted it.

2 years after that cold night, I started dating my husband as I already write about it here.
I couldn't believe he wanted to date me too, I watched him from behind the ice creams that I used to serve him for over 2 months, thinking he was sooo out of my reach.
I'm glad I was wrong about that ♥

This month also is special because Gabriel completed his first year of being on a gluten-free diet with major results.
He's now wearing a size 8 without me having to fix it anything with my sewing machine, which I'm glad because he looked very skimpy in a size 6 pants what was just right in his waist, but too short on his ankles.
One more year to go and we'll be ready to slowly reintegrate some gluten in his diet to see if he can tolerate it. Life would be easier if he could, but still I'm just happy he's growing good on this diet.

I call September the purple month because is grape time.
I'm enjoying the fact that hubby's grandma has a vine and donate us lots of grapes and I had the ability to try my hand at making grape juice. Didn't get to make any jelly, but I did get some from my mother in law that was very good.
Envious?? Don't be! Here some grapes for you!

Grapes

Curated By: Crochetedlitt...

ArtFire.com

Handmade Gifts

In Italy September is also back to school month: until i was in school I enjoyed so much going to shop for school supplies, the smell of new notebooks and used school text books, finding the right memo book to keep up with my million things to do.
Now that I'm a parent of 2, back to school is a lot of headaches, infinite waiting for school buses and this year a very big delusion with the school system that has Gabriel in care at the moment.

For a month that goes, another that comes! Stay tuned for October topics, like Halloween, Breast Cancer awareness, getting ready for holiday season and a little surprise, something a bit different from my "usual" me ;)

Randomness Saturdays

Here we are for another randomness Saturday!

♥ Today I went to take my last 2 tests needed for my child care training. I'll have the results by Monday, but I think I did ok. I treated myself with a Starbucks coffee (3 years since I had my last one) and....some NAIL POLISH. Sounds silly, but it's been ages since I put some on! The only aching note is that I woke up with a stiff neck and back pain.....arghhhh!

♥ I want to thank you my first subscriber to my youtube channel: THANK YOU Mandie from Taking Time for Mommy: I was starting to get lonely on youtube land, but you came to my rescue!!

♥ And with the first subscriber, along came the second one and a blog feature on Andrea Wagner blog! Thank you so much Andrea for picking me up after a lousy month!

♥ I was handpicked in an awesome treasury: Cafe Light by Deborah from Moonlightphotography

Isn't that beautiful?? Thanks Deborah!

♥ Don't forget to enter the giveaway for a sweet cupcake mold from Shop Sakura! I got mine and I LOVE IT!

♥ We had a death in hubby's family: one of his cousins died after 19 years of pain. Your prayers are needed for this Mother and the half brother (Hubby's aunt and his other cousin), thanks!

♥ All in all I feel grateful for this past week and that's why I choose the song: Thank you from Dido (I love her!). Enjoy!

What Happened?????

Well, I must say I had a very busy week, studying for my test that I took yesterday and while I'm there studying hard and pulling my hair out for the stress, the news stroke!!!!
The sweet and beautiful blond "Charlie's Angels", Farrah Fawcet, passed away

and yes, I'm really young, but my mom is a big fan of her and she showed me the show when I was a little girl.

And then, the king of pop, Micheal Jackson.......not words to describe the sense of emptiness.....

He was a very controversial celebrity and just God knows what was true and what's not, but there is not doubt that his music and his moves were above artistic and marvelous......

News like this really put everything is the right prospective, doesn't it????