Merry Christmas with -Lucy Attic 24 little Christmas bird

Hi everyone,

I know I know I have been working hard, been through good and bad times, we are alive and life consists of experiencing all sorts of emotions. What makes me tired though is that sometimes all of them or a large amount of them tend to happen on the same day. Yeah, but then again this is me and my life as it is.
So my dear ones I know I have been away for too long, it does not mean I haven’ t written whatsoever, it is just that I never finished a text or even worse, never revised the ones I did finish writing. This time it is different I will publish what seems to be the last text of the year.
And we did celebrate Christmas, as I once mentioned I love the idea of Christmas mind you it is not Holidays, but Christmas and all there is to it, the food, aromas, magic, feelings and the very notion of Peaceful Love .
It so happens that even though I had worked to my extreme -long hours- when both my arms felt sore from flipping each and every item I sold -at work-, scanning them, entering the few commands we have to at the till; my cheeks were sore from smiling and wishing Merry Christmas to each customer, my head spinning with my nonsense small talk while doing all that. God was I ever creative.

The following day was 24th already we were to spend with nice friends. After all my plans for dessert failed  I decided to stitch up this nice little guy I saw in Simply Crochet magazine, a pattern by Lucy at the Attic24 since there came all the material in a  packaging and this was my Friendship bird. I must confess I did not follow the pattern closely because I got astray but I followed the shape and picture and liked the result:

Scandi Bird -Lucy Attic 24

Scandi Bird -Lucy Attic 24

Hope you like it too, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year,

Drikka

Flower Power

Hello my friends,

Well most of you know about my love for Canada and the Snow from my “odes” last year in my blog, it is still true. As I come from a hot steaming country, I do look up at snow and its beauty.

We are ever so glad to be able to extand our stay here until next year.

Now I am beginning to think that it might be time for some colors, other than white. Anyway the birds are coming back and they bring more life to what was once in a pause so to speak.

Along with the birds, at school we are working on Spring projects and people at my local mall the Londonderry Mall  across the street are starting to purchse and wear more daring colors other than black-white and brown.

Bearing that in mind I started with my Summer projects I found this pattern on line :

flower pattern found on line

 

And did this little flower,  just added some edging  to them to make them more ruffled. After I’ll make sure to find a good use for it.

I sure made others later on, just need to take some pics.

Pink flower by Glaser Crafts

Hope you like it,

 

Take care,

 

Drikka.

Easter bunny is here, I mean it!

Hello my friends!

Starting with the Valentine’s day in the middle of February we go on with our lovely projects into the so expected and already mentioned Spring.

Let just say Spring is in the air, last year I thought the Easter bunny had come by night to visit us, the paw prints have proven to be of a cat in reality, well this year I saw the bunny, sneaked behind the curtains and Voila! No one can think it is a mistake, here is the pic for you.

Up above there him is a bird house, and because these birds (sparrows) did not migrate, we kept on feeding them, so all through the Winter they had a place to come,

sparrows in Glaser Crafts backyard

so did their friend the bunny. This made my daughter really happy, she knew now the Easter bunny had been well fed, so he would like to come for Easter and make sure she was glad too!

bunny in GlaserCrafts- backyard

So I thought you would like to see,

Take care,

Drikka

Getting ready for Christmas

Hello you,

Following up one of my posts I would like to start wishing you Merry Christmas. Start getting ready for Christmas, is it here at our doors! I am so very happy, for this year I really won a few of my internal battles, and feel ready to knock down a few others!

So I would like to share with you a nice song, that is constantly coming to my mind And that is quite how I feel too!

We all have dark hair! -even though she is blond…

I love kids so much, that I have the feeling they know it ’cause mostly everywhere I go they end up gathering around me, and engage into a never ending conversation.
We all know I would volunteer at my daughter’s new school too. It took me a few weeks to do so, but I eventually did.

Thanks to the fact that the teacher understood my will to do something, and add  it to her urge to have help with the kids. I now have a place to go every week at least twice a week, and work with them.

Some times we do some Science Projects which mainly involves painting- hooray colors!
In other situations I help out alphabetizing some of the kids who were not exposed as much to the world of words, and therefore do not know much about them -yet.
It took me a little bit more than 4 visits to get more familiar with them, now I always get tons of hugs, delicious ones!
What made me so happy today was this small moment, a particular event when the following took place:

As that group composed of 3 girls came in, one of them looked at me, as she usually does and kindly said:
-Hey look we all have dark hair!

I was caught by surprise I confess, remember I am mulata? She on the other hand is blond, green eyed, we have absolutely nothing in common.

“Do you mean I have brown hair? I am supposed to you know?…- she interrupted me- ‘No I mean we all here in the room have dark hair you see?’, then she lifted hers in order to show me a thin layer of dark blond hair. Coincidently Betty was in that group, and quickly tried to explain her friend better:

“She means we all have dark hair because her hair is not as light, as the other girls’.”

The third girl in there -the fairest of them all said:

“Yeah we all have kind of dark hair!”-Fact is none of them does…except for Betty and I.

There they were, so happy about and resting  their case! I had to admit that they were right, and went on with the project, as I still had many more kids to work with.

…                                           …                                  …

I learned once again that kids see whatever they want to, because they do see things in their hearts.

It does not mean they are too naive or even stupid, and do not realize the skin color, it means that they do have the inner ability to see past that, and in the attempt to make a connection  that would validate the fact that despite the differences existing between us every thing is OK. still we like each other, we are friends.

What once was odd, segragate and strange to them, is now connected by the bridge of ‘we care about each other kind of love‘. The once different and apart is now similar, close.

She needed now to bring the abstract -love, care- into the material world so that she could materialize her feeling. What went through her mind was: Why can’t we simply like each other if we are all the same? Are we the same, she might have asked herself, yes we are. Look our hair!

That girl kind of escaped reality itself and brought from the imaginary world the only similarity she was able to find and manage.

This is something only kids can see, work and live with the fact that:

WE ARE ALL THE SAME.

take good care,

Drikka

Early snow and a rainbow crochet hat

Hi everyone,
Yes, it is snowing, I kind of liked it, and part of me is mad at me for not having renewed my driver’s license, luckily the cold weather is above Zero -just above.

thin layer of the early snow in the Fall

Well in the midst of that I managed to make one more cap that I called Rainbow cozy -because of the ear flaps, and hope you like.

Gotta go to bed, it is kind of late you know!

Rainbow Cozy crochet hat

Take good care,

Drikka.

All we need is love

Hello there,

I have been away a bit, but for a good reason.

My family and I arrived in Canada this past September, it has been such an enriching experience, and for more that I could expect something new, the experiences we are living here are above and beyond our expectations. Read me right I didn’t mean better or worse, I meant far different from what we expected.

My husband is not only doing his post-doc researches, but also teaches 2 subjects at the University of Alberta, my daughter suffered so much, cried, and went through real difficult times as soon as we arrived here, her first month was awful, mainly for both of us, because I was the one to take her to school, knowing she would spend the next 6 hours of her day struggling to make sense of what she was listening there. And for her because she was the one who had to live all that. She got a few viruses too!

Fortunately she did great, and learned in no time. Her teachers are the most wonderful creatures and I owe them a lot, I can’t help but saying all the school was very supportive! Being a teacher myself for over 20 years I could realize that the educational system up here is really alert towards child needs and that made me strong enough to give her a time, while helping her out with her daily difficulties. I tell you it was tough, the same as I tell you it paid off, and within a period of 40 days she was so happy in Canada, that she keeps asking me if we can get to stay here for a longer period. Up until now she does not miss Brazil.

Well I do have my job back home, I also have my dear “Glaser Crafts” down there, which I can honestly say is much more profitable than up here, my husband is a professor there too and took a one year leave on the account of the post-doc. Even tough we are considering staying here a little longer because …what wouldn’t we do for the sake of the kids?…

I told her if I could get a job, and Daddy too we could put some more thought to the matter. Last week I did, I actually signed a contract on the very day of my birthday!

It does not pay much, but I deal with people all the time, and guess what? Don’t I feel great?! When I first got here people kept telling me about the differences between Canadians and Brazilians, and what sometimes might appear a simple conversation to me, might sound as a harassment here. So I haven’t been myself for the past few months. On Monday in my shift I gave it a shot and tried to smile a bit more, show that I cared, and occasionally engage into some sort of a small talk. Wanna know what happened? My boss congratulated me!- in secrecy when I went to get my next week’s schedule just because.

– I showed the costumers I cared.

In the end what I am learning in this beautiful journey is:

All we need is love.

No matter where we are, the world is sick and tired of negative things, and people are willing to receive some attention, talk about themselves, and maybe go home happier than they were when entered in the building.

Have yourself a wonderful weekend! Take care and show you care!

Drikka.

P.S.: Forgot to mention yesterday it snowed tons! So we are back to trying to make our first snow man ever!

Snow is all around

Hi every one,

I must say I had the most interesting morning as a volunteer at my daughter’s school. We went on a field trip to a place called John Janzen Nature Centre. As we entered there, the first thing we did was to visit the wood. Allow me to remind you it snowed considerably this weekend and this is mid-winter now. So there we went into the frozen wood.

There is something really magical in a winter wood I only learned here. You can see through the trees. One may even be sorry for them as they seem to have lost all  their mighty beauty but, as we look twice, after a snow fall there is such a beauty in the way those  bare branches nestle the snow, such delicacy.

At this very moment we  understand there is no way of knowing what is really going in there, we do not realize most lives are in state of suspense. Gaining strength, gathering energy for the Spring time. We were able to hear a few birds as we cracked the snow under our feet. Kids loved it.

Small things grow slowly into our hearts, and will live there forever … I had no camera with me as I was there to help with the kids.

A nice person asked me a photo of the snow, and I selected these ones. In the last one, the river is frozen. Hope you enjoy! Please bear in mind I am not much of a photographer, and my camera is a bit old.

Snow near my home.

Snow on a pine tree at the back of my home.

Snow on my boot as I took the pictures,

Edmonton skyline city centre at the back.

That is all for today, tomorrow I come with some shots of the blankies for the doll house.

Wait for you then,

Drikka.

It’s snowing, it’s sunny: It is Alberta!

Hi everyone!

Yesterday we just took it easy, went with little B. to redeem a few gift certificates she got on her birthday, as we did that we also took her piggy bank, and traded everything for the biggest dollhouse she could possibly get! It is a dream house  and I believe every girl at least once dreams of one day having a big dollhouse, (that includes me, and I never really played much with dolls as a kid) so while my husband spent the rest of the afternoon building it, I made some supper. After that we played a little and the day was gone.

It certainly snowed a lot this weekend, but sunny Alberta never let’s us down so yesterday even though  there was like 40cm (about 15.7 inches) of snow around and on our car, there was the most gorgeous sun to bid us good afternoon!

Driving on slippery street sure demands a lot of attention, I myself early December skidded on black ice and did not crash because it just was not meant to be, or as I believe God intervened. Our van has an extra traction and it sure helps a lot.

I also fell a lot too, basically on the ice, it hurts, last week I hurt my knee so badly as I fell on a rock of rough ice that I couldn’t even cry! But let’s face it Nature is self-sufficient, and it is either love it or leave it. So if I fall or skid it is my entire fault. The snow is not less adorable, charming or lovely because we can’t control it. As a result I prefer to embrace it and enjoy every step, every day of our stay.

I gotta go now, must do several doll blankets for “a party” they are  having as B. comes back from school.

Take good care, tomorrow I’ll show them all, as for now take a look at this picture I took 2 weeks ago:

Drikka.

The eye of the beholder…

As crazy as it may seem, I now got to the point of falling in love with the snow.

Getting to know it has changed my life and my family’s to the extent that I tell you now:

“Winters will never be what they are supposed to be once they do not come with the snow.”- It is a bit sad, since in Sao Paulo we are never able to experiment this, not even for a day.

This morning as my little one got up late for school (and to be honest with you she tried everything she could to avoid going) you have to understand she was lazy after our special long weekend.

Despite all that her whole spirit changed once she felt fresh snowflakes falling on her instantly cold redden cheeks as they were bravely facing chilly gusts of wind, the very moment we stepped out of our front door.

She smiled deliciously saying almost laughing: –“Mom today is not too cold, and we will have fresh snow to play with at the recess time! Hurry up Mommy let’s get quickly to school!”

Indeed my dear ones, it is not as cold, this mere -5C, opposite to -28C that reached us here no longer than 2 weeks ago, and they were not allowed to play outside. Today it  was a blessing! One of those delicious, lovely winter days kids tend to long for, not only them, but also pretty grown ups who had never lived it before!

Who would have thought?! Me loving all this! Who would have thought…

Take care,

Drikka.