May Jesus be the Guest of Honor in your Christmas

Communion and Liberation

For us God is not some abstract hypothesis; He is not some stranger who left the scene after the “Big Bang.” God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. In the face of Jesus Christ we see the face of God. In His words we hear God Himself speaking to us.
Benedict XVI  

John and Andrew had faith, because they had certainty in a perceptible Presence. When they were there ... seated at His house, toward evening, looking at Him speak, there was a certainty in a perceptible Presence of something exceptional, of the divine in a perceptible Presence. ...
Instead of Him with His hair in the wind, instead of watching Him speak with His mouth opening and shutting, He arrives through our presence, which is like ... fragile skin, the fragile masks of something powerful, which is He who lies within.
Luigi Giussani

William Congdon, Nativity, 1960.
©The William G. Congdon Foundation, Milan www.congdonfoundation.com

A blessed Christmas to all!

Os 16 Piores Produtos de Farmácia

The 16 Worst Drugstore Makeup Products

Esse é o link, e observe que a farmácia em questao é a americana. A lista nao é minha, é do site totalbeauty.com, e serve como indicativo para quem vai viajar ou fazer encomendas para alguém que está com o passaporte nas maos. Lembrem-se sempre: nao é porque é importado que é melhor. Aqui fora se produz muita porcaria também.

Make Up on Youtube

I'm hooked! This guy is brilliant! Why I haven't met him in London while I was still there?

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Moving on Past Laziness

Sometimes it is just boring to write a post in English.  People don't get jokes, have no sense of humour, don't accept different views or are just plain politically correct bores.

Eventually I'll be back to write something.  Right now, to write in Portuguese is a lot more rewarding.

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How Creative!

This is simply brilliant! Or, as you say in the US, awesome!  Those guys took all (very) easy (& boring) listening songs and built this very funny and intelligent piece:

Not Always What it Seems

Congratulations!

On your beautiful pot of tulips.

Or, have you thought the first pic was a birthday cake?

I did.  :)

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Last Night I had a Dream

I was wearing the most beautiful dress.  How can a dress look so much like me?

Afff...  Vitória! Go back to sleep. Keep dreaming, keep dreaming...  You are in NM, not London...

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If You Like Coffee, You Must Read This

I'm Brazilian, I have drank coffee since I was born, I love coffee.  Brazilian style, filtered and strong. I dont like bitter or weak coffee. In Brazil it is easy to find it the way I like, of course, but this is not down to how it is made, it is mainly the quality of the beans used.

Living abroad I had a hard time to find coffee the way I like, but in Italy I found a dream, Illy coffee.  It is always a great taste, it doesn't matter how it is prepared.  In Europe it was very easy to find Illy anywhere, but now in the US I needed to acquire new habits as I could not find my preferences on market shelves. Well, I've searched the internet to try to order my fave things online and I've found my favourite coffee being sold as if it were made of gold, an extorsive price.  Coffee is not like a spice jar that takes a lifetime to finish, I need a lot of coffee powder everyday to make my favourite beverage the way I like. 

Espresso is not my thing, and it sounds very silly to me that I need to be attached to a certain shape of pod for a machine, when it is sure that the maker will be always altering the shape of it, making your current $500 espresso maker obsolete in 2 years just because a "new shape of pod" were developed to "extract more flavour and aroma from the beans", bla bla bla and then the pod for your machine sudenly disapears from the market.  This is marketing pitch, not "technology development" or good quality coffee.  I don't want to compete with anyone's coffeemaker, I want a good drink in my cup, period.  A good coffee will taste good whatever your prefered brewing method.

Then I received an offer for a subscription of Gevalia Coffee and a free coffeemaker as a gift for trying it.  I thought there was some catch in there afterall, I've never heard of Gervalia Coffee before. Well, they were offering me a money back guarantee if I didn't like their beans.  Usually I don't take up this kind of offer, but I was searching for a new coffeemaker anyway and if it were for me to receive one for free plus a suply of coffee, why not?  I decided to try.  (This is all sounding like a bad infomercial, I know, but it is true).  I'm so pleased I did it. The coffeemaker is perfect, the coffee is divine, even the first one, when I used more water than I should have, Gervalia Coffee tasted fantastic.  I can drink an entire carrafe by myself, it is so good .  And their subscription programe is fantastic, I can set it up for anytime I want, instead of receiving more than I can drink and having to find where to store it, or giving it away so it doesn't become old in my cupboard.

My hubby doesn't drink anything with cafeine.  I don't even know if he ever tried a cup of coffee.  Well, he doesn't know what he is missing.  I've even found some lists of food that boost brain functions and coffee is always there...  Coffee is good for your health and I don't even need a doctor to tell me that.  The person that invented that coffee is bad for your health, and started with that decaf bla bla bla certainly was a great business man, launching a substandard product twice more expensive than the real thing, trying to make you replace your daily beverage and driving all baristas nuts around the world .  If decaf anything were "healthy", nature would produce it, but if it is obtained only from chemical processes in a factory, I'm suspicious.  I want my coffee BLACK, FULL and REAL!

If you want to try for yourself, just click on the link bellow and you won't regret.  Why not coming over again and tell me what you think?

Join us for our special Friends of Gevalia offer and enjoy a premium coffee kit including a stainless steel coffeemaker, scoop and a pound of Gevalia coffee-Just $12.95 (a $100 value!) Gevalia’s guarantee-you’ll love your coffee or it’s free!

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There is Nowhere like Home

One year and three countries later, we are now finally at HOME.  There is nothing like our own place.  It is ok that I come from a big city, then I lived in an even bigger city for almost 10 years and now I find myself stranded in the middle of the desert.  Now I will have to learn how to drive, something that I never needed to do in my life.  Food is a problem easily solved with a good supermarket (thanks, Trader Joe's!), internet buys and lots of cooking websites from all over the world - now I have my own kitchen again!!!

My Desperate Housewives Gloveables Gloves

Everything is rated according to the point of view of the viewer.  In Brazil, even on a big city, I was used to big spaces, big houses, lots of storage for things you will never touch again (i.e. clutter).  In London, the biggest place was a joke compared to what I was used to back home.  So I went on to live in very small cramped spaces, learned to throw away all that was not necessary anymore, lived on the bare minimum.  It is true that I first arrived there with a backpack, and for my last move I had 15 boxes packed to be shipped to "the new world", but this is another story.  Our house in Albuquerque, NM, used to be hubby's bachelor pad and it was rented out while we were in London, UK.  He always complained that it is too small.  Well, now I kind of have Londoner's standards, it is a palace compared to many places where I had to live during those expat years.  It is not small, it is cozy :)  I couldn't love it more.

 

My cute little helpers (and highly effective)

It has been a great pleasure to find the right places for each of our belongings, to clean every spot in the house with all love, imagining where we will fit our furniture.  We are fortunate to be able to move little by little, as everything is stored in the in-laws basement.  And that is how we decided to do things, one load at a time. Everything gets cleaned and organized, then another load, etc.  We haven't brought any furniture yet, only cleaning stuff, some kitchen and bathroom basics and little food.  Yet, I don't even feel like I'm camping anymore, I couldn't care less about sleeping on the floor, it feels so much better than the most luxurious hotel in the world.

Best bed in the world!!!!

Now I can't wait to use my crockpot, my coffee maker, my oven, bake an orange cake, prepare my kibes and coxinhas, eat rice everyday, have lots of garlic and onions on my food, buy real bread at the French Bakery, yumy!!!

THANK YOU, GOD!

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Sean is Now Home - Dateline shows it all

If you missed Dateline that showed how this case ended, please check this link on Youtube.  The quality is not great, it is divided into 12 parts and it was done by someone who is not familiar with video recording/ editing, but only a simple person commited with the truth and justice.

This is certainly a beautiful testimony of Love.

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Happy New Year

May 2010 be a lot better than last year.  I personally need it.  Desperatly.

It will certainly be better for Sean Goldman. He was finally reunited to his father last Christmas Eve. It won't be easy, David will have lots of issues to address after all those years of Parental Alienation suffered by Sean. God will guide them through this difficult time, as He did during those past years. I won't post any pictures or links to their new situation as I believe there is enough avaiable in the news. They need privacy and time together, although it will take a while until the media leaves them alone.

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