Is Blue Your Favorite Color?

Blue may be the favorite color for the majority of the population but I have to admit: I have a problem with it. I know, this is very strange, I don't understand it myself. I might even be afraid of this color and I really don't know why. This feeling goes way back to my childhood. Being a little red-haired girl with freckles I remember vividly shopping for clothes with my mother (it was in Trieste, Italy, sigh!). The nice lady wanted me to try out a blue sweater and I refused saying that I didn't like blue! She was very surprised and said to me: "If I had your hair and your skin I would wear only blue!" I went trough many color phases in my life but I never had a "blue phase". I've been trying lately to incorporate more blue in my wardrobe and I ended having some nice pieces. Mind you, people who know me noticed it and gave me compliments - I guess it was so obvious that I never wore blue! But I still have nothing blue as decorating element in my house with the exception of my sons's room where he could choose for himself. You can find here a nice explication of the meaning of blue color, and other colors as well. Here are some pictures from my decorating file named "Blue Goes": 

Is Blue Your Favorite Color?

Make Your Own 'Keep Calm and Carry On' Poster For Free

Tell me something: do you beat yourself up over mistakes made? Well, I don't know how to stop sometimes! I just had my third exam tonight and I wasn't able to respond to one question, only one, but two other responses were related to this one. I felt my blood pressure going up while I was trying to find the answer. I was on the verge of tears when my husband came to pick me up after the exam.  How ridiculous is that? As if life isn't demanding enough already...

Anyway, back to the blog title: I saw in my Google Analytics report that some visitors came to my blog searching for a "Keep Calm Carry On" poster as a  free download, probably because of this post. It looks like the frenzy over this poster isn't over yet so I decided to share the information about a Keepcalm-o-matic Website. You can enter you own text and choose between several interesting options (color, font, image, size). So go on and try it out, it's definitely fun. You can save your poster as a jpeg image if you like, and do as you please with it after that. Enjoy!

Make Your Own 'Keep Calm and Carry On' Poster For Free

Very Special Family Portrait

I woke up one day and my children were gone...somebody took my little princess and my smart little boy and left me with two troubled teenagers I didn't recognize at all. They were not bad in pretending to be my children so I played the game and pretended to be their mother for several years. Nightmare! I'm so glad it's over... I'm now a happy mother of two wonderful young adults! My princess lives in her own castle far, far away from us. My smart big boy still lives with us for the moment but I can see his wings getting bigger and stronger. They're both working, studying and dreaming... Soon I'll be left with memories and photos wondering where the time went. We actually don't have so many family photos, we have lost almost all of them fleeing from the danger of war in our country. I learned only much later that that was the most prized possession we had. Even after that, we  didn't take so many photos. I guess we humans have this fascination for capturing moments in our lives, whether by camera or paint. So I was very pleasantly surprised when my son gave us a very special family portrait, made by him, as a Christmas gift.

Several days before Christmas, I couldn't help but notice that something strange was going on, my son was very busy with something. Any attempt to learn what was going on failed miserably. Till the day we saw a very mysterious big package under the Christmas three. What a nice surprise it was! My very talented son created a "warholish" family portrait of our family using individual pictures, framed it nicely and made a gift for us. We just instantly fell in love with it and decided to expose it permanently in our living room. We placed it strategically  in our home, so we can all constantly be reminded of each other as we hectically chase through life. The value of the portrait my son made for us can be measured only by hearth. 

"A heart is not measured by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others." — Wizard of Oz

Very Special Family Portrait

Playing in the Dirt

Normally I wouldn't even dare to think about gardening at this time of year. Upon arriving to Canada, it took my inner clock several years to learn that there is nothing green before the beginning of May and even then you have to wait till almost the end of the month to begin to work outdoors because there is still a danger of frost. But this winter, so mild and with so little snow... I started dreaming of playing in the dirt, sinking my hands in the soil, moist and velvety to touch, and spending hours incredibly happy, forgetting time, worries, everything...
I discovered gardening only several years ago when we bought our first house in Quebec and I wanted to plant some greenery because there wasn't any. Creating my flower beds and planting my first annuals and perennials made me discover a whole new world, it was a very therapeutic experience for me, I was truly happy for the very first time in Canada. I could spend hours working in my garden, preparing the soil, sowing, planting, weeding, I don't feel fatigue nor pain. I can't wait to start playing in the dirt again this spring, I might even try to grow some vegetables this year. Till then here are some pictures from my Canadian garden:

What about you? Do you have a garden or even a balcony? Do you like playing in the dirt?

Playing in the Dirt

Back to Comfort Food

It was an incredibly beautiful sunny day today in Quebec. We've been in Canada for almost twelve years now and we never ever had such a nice winter. As we took a walk  today on Plaines d'Abraham, snow was melting and water was running downhill... Normally, in February we would have one snow storm after another, temperatures between -30 and -40 grade Celzius, the hardest part of  the winter. I'm so grateful for this winter. But it's still winter, right? And you newer know when it's going to turn ugly so you must be prepared. One of my favorite weapons against harsh winter is comfort food. I'm not going to start to elaborate on this as I believe that everyone  knows what a bowl of homemade soup can do for the poor winter plagued soul, right? I have a long list of comfort food worthy meals but I make very often one simple thing I've learned from my mother. Remember my first and my second post on my homemade bread? It's my mother who taught me how to make bread and how to make this little sweet "by-product" from the bread dough. Very simple and very yummy!

 All you need is a bit of  a bread dough, oil, icing sugar and vanilla sugar. You can also eat them with sour cream or other things you like if you don't like or don't eat sugar Watch the pictures bellow for instructions and if you have questions don't be shy. Bon appetit!

 

 

Go ahead, make them, you'll become an addict!

Back to Comfort Food

Coucou, c'est moi !

Isn't that cute? Yes, it's in French and if you wonder what it means it's a very simple " Hello, it's me!"

So, here I am again. I've been busy last week and in the beginning of this week preparing my second exam in the series of eight. It must have been 15 years since I've had my last exam. I'm always very nervous before an exam  no matter how well prepared I am. To be honest with you, I'm very demanding of myself and I can't help it, this is the way I've been brought up. I had my second exam last night and it went very good again, I was actually very pleased with myself, if I may say so. And the best of all, I received the result of my first exam and it was 95 %! Well, yes, that's what I was looking for! Even better, as I was bragging about my note in front of my son, he told me that this means A+ at his university! I'll take it any time!

 I must come over as an incredibly arrogant person, sorry, but I'm soooo excited about it. And I love being good at things I do. Following these exams,  in April 2010 I should have my diploma that will allow me to find a better job and eventually earn more money. I'm so looking forward to it after many years of stress and work under pressure in chaotic conditions. But on the other side, I'm also very grateful for these years because I've learned so many incredible things that are hopefully going to serve me in my next job. Change is good. Change is chance. Chance is hope. Hope is life.

Coucou, c'est moi !