Of Snow and Snowmen (and Exercise : )

This post is over three weeks too late, since the snowstorm was three Sundays ago (2/12)... but, better late than never, I guess! I am long overdue posting some pictures, so I'll do that here as well. (note: I started writing this post on 2/22 so you can see how long I take to finally get to post things - my desire to post multiple pictures doesn't help much : )

I love snow, it's just so beautiful! For me snow makes all the cold of winter "worth it" in a visible manner, since we don't have it often (not even in Massachusetts we had snow very often during the winter). The first time I saw snow was in October 1996, when I was 24 years old. It was actually only some "flurries," as they call just a slight dusting of snow here, but we took tons of pictures! Then, in time I learned to dread driving in the snow, cleaning our car, walking on slushy, brown and dirty looking streets and sidewalks, and I thought snow was troublesome some times.

Every year, however, I couldn't wait for the first snow to fall. I marked my calendars, wrote down the dates in my diaries, took pictures and filmed sometimes: October 20 1996; early December 1997; December 30 1998; October 13 2000; January 11 2002; OK, I can't remember anything from them on, because becoming a mommy ruins your memory completely!

So, I was very happy when there was a forecast for a big storm, and right on the weekend too, Saturday night and Sunday, when the whole family could be cozy at home! With my husband recovering from surgery, I had to be the one to shovel, so I went outside, already a bit late in the afternoon, as you can see from the pictures, which are a bit dark. I thought it was funny how the snow piled in a gravity defying way in the back of our minivan (the strong winds did that). My son soon joined me and started playing with the shoveled snow.













I really enjoy shoveling snow! Now I have to confess that I am a very sedentary person, I don't exercise at all and feel very ashamed about it because I know my body needs to be active, etc... Thing is, I can't do it on my own, I need to belong to a gym (something I never did in my life) or sign up for classes at the YMCA (we plan to join this summer). The only times I had some kind of regular exercise were the 2 semesters in college I took a gymnastics class, and the two semesters in grad school I signed up for figure skating class (I'm no good at either, but I love these sports). Oh, yeah, I do like hiking, rollerblading, and riding a bike and we'd do those things once in a while in Massachusetts, but never regularly. When I am outdoors doing something useful, however, gardening, shoveling snow, or even mowing the lawn, I just love it!
Too bad those things don't provide enough exercise for me... Can you see how happy I am shoveling my driveway?

One last thing, can you believe I had never made a snowman in my almost 10 years living in the U.S.? First, we lived in rental apartments for 5 of those years and then, we owned a townhouse with only a small cemented patio, and I didn't think it was fun to make a snow man in the lawn at the back of the house. This is the first time we have a front lawn and backyard, so I decided to make a snowman (motivated my the neighbor two doors down who was making one with her daughter). But one was not enough, and I went ahead and made two! My son helped a little bit, but not too much - he really wanted to go and smash the snowmen to the ground because that's what he did all summer with any sandcastles I tried to build, but I told him he COULD NOT do that to my very first snowmen, that they'd melt and he wouldn't need to smash them.

Here we are with the finished snow men, the sun was almost setting then, and it was getting pretty cold!

Two Three more pictures, OK? I have really gone on a picture-posting-binge today (and there'll be more later, probably tomorrow, so watch out!).

Here they are basking melting in the sun of the next day.

This is the view from our front door, on the day of the storm and the next day (I'm just mesmerized... every. single. time. by the beauty of snow and blue skies...)

Note: Did you notice that earlier this week I added a Flickr badge to the blog's sidebar? I'd wanted to do that in ages. I was also able to put a "goals" and "to-do" list there as well...

Literary Mama Blog Book Tour Poem

I remember the time I first encountered Literary Mama in the web... I had recently given birth for the second time and just discovered blogs (several of which I started reading because they were linked to in LM the site). When I saw the site I breathed a deep sigh of relief… My pregnancy had been a lonely time for me, a graduate student working on my dissertation proposal and caring for a toddler, all while being a teaching assistant at the university and I longed to read about other mothers, particularly mothers who were interested in literature like I was. Amy Hudock’s Mothering in the Ivory Tower columns and her blog fascinated me. The mere idea of such a group of “literary mothers” made me joyful!

Of course I jumped at the chance of participating in the Literary Mama Anthology blog tour. I wanted the book very badly, because I had not read most of the pieces in the web. Even though I enjoy reading blogs, and using the internet for email and a research tool, I still prefer real books for literary pieces. Now, however, after finishing the book I want to go back and read as much as I can from the site!

I have to thank Andi profusely for getting me on board so late, this book was a precious gift that I have enjoyed immensely. When I read the introduction online I was convinced that if I had to start over my dissertation I’d write about literature and motherhood, I’m sure I’d be most passionate about this subject.

Since mine is probably one of the very last reviews and by now most people have already read many, many ones… I want to leave you with something different: a quickly written (no, it took quite a while, particularly for the links) “review poem,” partly inspired by one of the most amazing pieces of the book (for me), the “concrete” poem “Pregnancy” by Lori Romero, which actually opens the book and looks more beautiful in actual print than digital print.

Note: (I don't think the text will look like I want it to look like, I'll try, but I don't know if it'll work. Edited to add: It doesn't really work, and I'm kind of sad, since it took me a while to type it the way I wanted it... oh well... It originaly wasn't meant to aligned in the center either, but it looks a bit better that way. Some of the lists of words were meant to look like shapes, square, diamond, circle, "stairs". Does anyone know how I could try to keep the formatting I want? I started to play with colors and sizes, to try to make it better)

mothers come in all
shapes

sizes colors

feelings

happy
blue
bright
dark
naughty
gray
neon-orange

just like their children:

not yet

girl

boy

no more

above all they are mamas

creative mamas
broken mamas
prospective mamas
poet mamas
adoptive mamas

all of them children themselves
trying to come to terms with their
childhood, their parents, grandparents
storms
cancer
blueberries
Alzheimer
ashes

mothers
falling
awakening
unraveling
grieving
struggling
seeking

mothers writing
to heal
to survive
to live

The State of the Dissertation - Update #4

I don't know if the title sounds good, but I'm "stealing" it from 11D who had a few "The State of the Blog" posts a while back (and I thought it was a great title).

I am long overdue posting about what's going on here... in all fronts, but I guess I'll start with the most important thing this year for me - the dissertation. The last update was soooo long ago (last November - it's fun to look back at previous months, I like some of the posts I wrote that month...), and even though I haven't done much since then, I want to update you about my current "dissertating."

Well, picking up where I left off, I wrote first drafts of 3 chapters in the first 3 weeks of November, but then I didn't work at all after Thanksgiving and until my parents got here this February. I still have a new reader for my work (the professor from Brasil), but it doesn't look like I'll be able to defend when she is due to come to North America (late May early June). Right now I want to finish as soon as possible, but I know I have to play by the rules (that is, I can't force my committee to let me schedule a defense date without having them read at least two or three very solid chapters), and I also don't want to feel pressured so much that I start hating the dissertation, so I'll take my time, even though I do want to finish before June if possible.

Because... right now, it's amazing, but I'm enjoying working on the dissertation SO much! I'm taken by surprise sometimes about how I passionate I feel about the subject I have chosen (and it was not my first choice!). I decided not to really talk about the subject in the blog anymore (I deleted a comment with the prospective title a while back, and I think I will go back and edit earlier entries to eliminate the name of the university and my department, etc... just in case, you know... I think I'll try to apply for jobs in the fall, so I need to be more careful). [so if you want to know what I'm doing and where I'm going to school, hurry, go read those first entries before I edit them :) Just kidding, if you really want to know you can email me and I'll tell you all about it]

Now for what's been going on... I just spent two full weeks finishing chapter 2 (chapter 1 was approved by my advisor last November, but I think I'll need to edit it a bit, but it's probably safer to finish my analysis before I do it) and I sent a new draft (3rd) to the advisor on Friday. It's a really long chapter, in which I do a historic overview (and "review of literature") of the subject. When I started to work on it two weeks ago it had 44 pages, now it has 67! I'm afraid my advisor will want to divide it in two chapters, but I hope not, because it won't make much sense, I think. I want to keep the different "takes" on the history of the subject all together. (Hey, Alice, if you want to read this chapter, you're welcome to, I think you'd enjoy it!).

Anyway... my writing is pretty bad today, I should go to bed now, and maybe this week I can work hard and save some time for blogging after I'm done. I don't know about that, though... If you read the previous post you know that I have TONS of things to do! The hardest one will probably be the upcoming birthday party... (sigh).

To-Do List

I really need a to do list right now because there are so many deadlines coming up for me, so since I've seen some blogging friends do it (and until I can figure out how to put one in my side bar), I'll post one as well.

I know it must be boring, to read other people's lists, but after this post we'll go back to our regularly scheduled program, OK?

Things to do:

- Make to-do list
- OK, now, figure out how to cross items out (I know, I'm really stupid, can anybody help?
- Call to schedule doctor's appointment for Kelvin (Only after March 20)
- Mail invitations to Kelvin's 4th birthday party
- Finish reading the Literary Mama Anthology and write blog post for blog book tour - coming up on Feb. 28.
- Cook and prepare decorations for Kelvin's birthday party (March 5)
- Buy present for Kelvin
- Submit bibliography fellowship application (due March 1st)
- Write abstracts for conference (due March 1st and 15)
- Write birth story birthday post (March 9)
- Write paper for conference presentation (March 23-26)
- Write and submit article for publication until the end of March
- Continue working on dissertation (more on that in an upcoming post)

Wish me luck!

Edited to add:
P.S. Thanks to Amber at American Family for crossing our words in her blog posts, so I could go look at the source code and figure out how to do it!!

*Brand New* Technology and Innovation Meme

Edited to add a question about wireless networking to question 1 :)

I had been thinking of creating a meme based on my Valentine's Day post. . .
(by the way, I forgot to mention that we don't really celebrate this American holiday, like most other ones with the exception of Thanksgiving, because were didn't grow up here. DH and I did go out for dinner the next day, though, and like Alice, I should say it was fun to do something without the kids, except that I kept worrying about them, since we were running late - we didn't get home until 8 pm)

. . . and then I enjoyed so much reading some of your comments, particularly Kate's that I decided to go ahead and do it, in spite of the fact that I have been tagged by you with a few memes (the book one and the four things one) and didn't respond yet (I will, though, 'cause I think those are fun).

This will be an easy meme to respond to because most of my answers are already posted in the aforementioned Technology and Innovation = Love post, so all you have to do is cut and paste the questions. [I ended up responding to more questions that I thought I would]. Naturally, you can add new questions, and change the ones I have suggested:

1. Do you remember when you saw your first computer? When did you actually use one? What about having your own? Do you own a laptop? (PC or Mac?) Have you gone wireless at home yet?
(We use PCs, but really want to get a Mac, particularly for video editing). We went wireless last year in June and I even blogged about it, but I had forgotten to ask about it until I read Alice's response to this Meme. Having a wireless network is really cool, particularly when we have guests with laptops so everyone can go online at the same time. There was one time when we had 4 or 5 computers online, counting our desk and lap tops.

2. When did you first go online and/or use email? Who did you email back then? How did the internet change your life? When did you discover blogging? What about your home internet connection - is it dial-up, DLS, cable?
I can't live without internet access nowadays, and have become completely addicted to blogs and blogging. The main way in which the internet changed my life is that it made it easier to be an expatriate and be in touch with family thousands of miles away. The other thing is the access to knowledge and information. The internet has really helped a lot in my dissertation research, even though of course books are still the main source. It helps (or used to help) with teaching too. This post is all about blogs and blogging, a bit outdated, but still relevant regarding my own experience. We had free dial-up access to the university (in MA) until we bought a house and then it was no longer a local call (1997-2001), then we had cable (2001-2004), and now we have DSL because it's a bit cheaper (I liked cable better, though).

3. Do you remember your first VCR? What about a video camera (there were some bulky ones back in the 80s and 90s) and home videos?
I didn't write about this, so I'll respond now. When I was a baby and young girl (until 7 or 8) my parents had this Super 8 video camera, too bad their super 8 player has been broken for years now, and we have to put those movies in DVD (it's probably expensive). Our first VCR was bought in 1986, and it was a USED one (really bad). I loved to go to video stores and check out movies, particularly for "girls only" sleepovers with romantic movies (our favorite at the time A Room With A View - I still like this one, the other corny ones, I won't even mention :). My husband's family bought a C-VHS (that small tape that fits in an adapter to play in a regular VCR) video camera in our trip to the US back in 1993 (I was not married yet then, but I travelled with his family). My parents only bought one in 1996 when my brother came to the US to visit me. Me, DH (boyfriend at the time) and our friends shot some home movies back in 1991-92, but we had to borrow a video camera to do so.

4. When did you switch from VCR to DVD? How did it change your video viewing experience? Do you use TiVo or any such "contraption" to tape TV shows? Do you use Netflix or some other internet-based DVD "renting" service?
(this is the main subject of my previous post about this)

5. What about music? Did you enjoy listening favorite music in Long Plays or did you prefer cassete tapes? When did you buy your fist CD player and switched to CDs? Did you abandon them (and turned to dowloaded music) for MP3 players or Ipods or do you still buy CDs? (I'm not going to ask or comment about "illegal" music activities in the internet, even though it was an exciting innovation, lest one of us gets arrested for it :)

5. Do you own and use a cell phone? Do you think it's useful or just annoying?
(Did you always have a telephone in your house growing up? Did you have a phone in your own room?)
You don't have to answer the last part, but it applies to me. Since I grew up in Brazil and lived for many years in a rural area, for the most part, I grew up without a telephone. We had one for 4 years when I was 4-8 years old, but then, even though we moved to the big city of São Paulo, we didn't get to have a phone until 1989, I think, when I was 18. Then, we had only one phone and sometimes two (one for downstairs, another for upstairs), and I never used the phone much. During high school (when we didn't have one) I usually called my best friends from a pay phone. When I got married, we didn't have a telephone or a car (should I include a question about cars? Maybe).

6. When did you first buy a digital camera? What kind was it (3.2, 4.0, 5.0 mega-pixels or better)? Did you start taking more pictures or were you a photo afficionado before then? What about a digital video camera?
Our camera is a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-F717, 5 megapixels. Really bulky, but we like it. We already took tons of pictures before we went digital. Now we save $ because we hardly ever print our pics.

7. What about televisions? Have you already embraced the new technologies, such as HDTV, plasma, and flat screen? (On the other hand, you wouldn't remember black & white TVs, would you?)
We didn't have TV growing up until I was 4, then when my uncle got a brand new color TV, he gave us his old one. It was b&w, and it took a few minutes for the image to come to the screen. I watched Prince Charles and "Lady Di"'s wedding live on that TV :) We bought a color TV when I was 11 (1982) - my parents still have it, but since then they've bought two better ones. We bought our first TV when we came to the U.S. in 1996, and we still have it. It's a simple 19', stereo.

I'm tagging EVERYONE in my blogroll, and even those who aren't there (I should add a few more links, I know) and just lurk here. Of course some people in my blogroll don't read my blog, but that's OK :)
Could you let me know in the comments if you decide to take up this "meme"? Feel free to adapt it at will.

Happy Birthday Cake for Midlife Mama!

(recipe slightly edited, see note below post)
This cake was baked to wish a Happy 45th Birthday to Libby (Midlife Mama), a fellow blogging mother, academic, and children's literature lover (did I forget to mention food lover?). Unfortunately I can only offer it to you virtually, but the recipe follows below.

It doesn’t look perfect, not even that pretty, but I just made it myself
- and it is still warm.

-------

Brazilian Chocolate Cake

A “healthier” chocolate cake, but still yummy!

Ingredients:

4 eggs, whole
2 cups of sugar (use less sugar if using Nesquik - like 1 1/2 cups or less)
1 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup of water – boiling
2 cups flour
1 ½ cup cocoa (Nesquik) - - or unsweetened cocoa (1 cup only)
1 pinch of salt
1 tbs baking powder

Utensils: You will need two bowls, one with a spout if possible, a mixing spoon and a fine sieve, this batter is good for a 13X9 in. (22X33 cm. or 20X30) rectangular baking pan or pyrex or a large bundt pan.

In a large bowl (with a spout) mix the whole eggs, sugar and vegetable oil. Pour the boiling water and mix, adding to it all the flour and the cocoa and mixing it quickly (so the flour doesn’t “cook”). The batter will be very lumpy, but when I was a young girl I devised a way to make the it smooth (the original recipe tells you to use your hands to help eliminate the lumps, but that would never work for me) – simply pass the whole batter through a sieve into another clean bowl!

Then, add the pinch of salt and the baking powder (it’s very tricky to mix the baking powder without big lumps again – just spread the powder slowly over the batter with a spoon and mix slowly, or whatever way it works for you). Do not use an electric mixer for this cake. Pour in the prepared pan of your choice (oiled and dusted with cocoa),

and bake in a 350 F (under 200 C) oven until it’s baked (use the old trick of the toothpick – stick it in the center and when it comes out clean, the cake’s done :)

Easy Chocolate Frosting

1 ½ -2 cups cocoa (Nesquik)

2 tbs milk

2 tbs butter

Right after the cake is done, put all ingredients in a glass or plastic bowl and warm for 30-40 seconds in the microwave to heat the milk/melt the butter and then mix it with a spoon until it’s smooth. Just pour over/ spread on the cake while it’s still warm.

Enjoy!

Edited to add: this cake is good even without frosting, because the top crust is hard and crunchy. You can definitely use unsweetened cocoa as well, and I just realized that if you use sweetened cocoa, the ideal thing would be to use less sugar. I edited the recipe above as well.

PS This cake is also dedicated to Alice (from Jabberlingual), who has lately been frustrated in her chocolate cake making :)

Technology + Innovation = Love?

This post has been in the works since Oct. 16 05, can you believe it? I thought today would be a fitting day to finally go ahead and finish it, since it's Valentine's day.

What do technology and innovation have to do with love? Well, at least in my personal life there's a small connection, but let's go back in time a bit before we get to it, shall we?

Do you remember when you saw your first computer? (my good friend Marco asked that in his blog last year :) Oh, yes, do you even remember your first email? I recently found out that "email" "was born" the same year I was born: 1971. Exactly 34 years ago last October, according to some newstories.

Anyway, I don't really recall the first time I saw a computer. I don't think it was too long before my dad bought our family's first computer, in January 1994. It was a 386 ( or would it be 486? ) and I immediately started using MS Word (absolutely clueless in the beginning, since I never read a manual or took a class). The computer was very useful, because 1994 was my last day of college, and up to that point I had only handed out handwritten papers (!!), and I was finally able to type and print out my papers. It was also great to organize the list of people to invite to our wedding, in December that year (we sent out over 400 invitations!!). Well, as you can imagine, I was astounded once when I learned that my Californian department colleague who had a geeky dad had received her first computer as a birthday gift around 1984!

It took me two more years to "be introduced" to the internet. It was only in 1996 when we moved to the U.S. that I went online for the very first time. It was some day in early September 1996, and I was delighted to be able to read newspapers and magazines from Brazil and send email to my brother and a handful of friends in Brazil who already had email accounts. The most thrilling moments were those in which we were able to talk "live" with my brother and my husband's best friend in a DOS program, affiliated with "Pine," a world-wide system of communication between universities (I should say that I used my university email in "Pine" until 2001, when I finally started using the web-based university email). It took us another two years to buy our first computer (a Gateway that cost us almost 3k!), in September 1998, the month I started graduate school. We still use the same monitor, even though we updated the computer when we moved to Philly 1 1/2 year ago.

Some other technological or innovational "developments" in our lives in chronological order are (so you can see, we're slowly leaving the status of "technologically challenged" behind):

Mini-DV video camera - we got one on April 2002 to be able to capture our newborn in video.

Laptop - February 2003. We still have the same one, though now it's way too heavy compared with the new ones. We badly need another one.

Digital camera - on May 2003, before a trip to the Grand Canyon and 6 other National Parks. I was not that "late"– but we were without one for over 1 year of 1^st son’s life). It was the best thing that happened to our finances, since I'm a photo fanatic, and would develop several rolls of film every month :)

Cell phones - it was only in April 2004 (before our second son's birth, and our move to PA) that we finally succumbed to cell phones. I have no idea how we could live with them before :)

DVD player - 2004, before then, we watched DVDs only in our computer(s).

OK, and now I get to the "love" part... even though I'm sure this will be completely silly, and it doesn't really have to do with technology and more with internet-related "innovations."

When we lived in MA, there was a very nice local video-store where we could get tons of international films, in addition to the Hollywood staples, and they even had a 5 DVDs or tapes for 5 dollars for 5 days promotion for old releases (awesome, no?!). After we moved, however, we never watched videos anymore. Of course having a young baby who didn't sleep a long stretch in the beginning of the night as our oldest son did was not very helpful either :)
But then last October we decided to sign up for Netflix for the first time, and I was delighted to discover wonderful, marvelous films that I had never seen! Most of them have to do with love (see?).

The very first film we got, I had wanted to see for over a year (just too bad I didn't wait until Christmas) - Love, Actually - I liked it was OK (I'd thought it would be a more "serious" film than it actually is), but it introduced me to a WONDERFUL singer, that I didn't know both because I grew up in Brazil and because she's not from my generation: Joni Mitchell. I bought the very same album that the Emma Thompson character got as a gift in the film: Both Sides Now and I've been addicted to it ever since. I'm listening to it as I type this, together with Sting's ...all this time (which's also awesome - particularly the DVD, coincidentally shot on Sept. 11, 2001).

Now for my favorite films EVER (until now, that is :) Again I have to thank my friend Marco for writing about these movies in his blog: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004). Talk about great, awesome films about (romantic or not) relationships, love, and related subjects. They're not movies for everyone, I guess, since there's not much "action," but if you like dialogue-based movies and intellectually challenging and tought-provoking conversations, these films are for you. So, now you have my film picks for Valentine's Day, and you know how come I think my own "technological" advances have brought me to LOVE-ly movies (and music)!

P.S.1 Technological advances that we have not yet embraced: ipod or mp3 player (we really want to have one, though), TiVo (OK, we don’t even have cable :), and the new breeds of tvs (we really don't value TV too much, so those will take a looong time to get to us).

P.S.2 I forgot to mention CDs (I grew up with Long Plays, "LPs" and later, when a teenager, cassete tapes). Me and my husband bought our first CD-player and CDs when we visited the U.S. for the first time in 1993.

Bilingual Families site - I have been linked!

I have been recently contacted by Corey Heller, the founder of this Seattle-based and very interesting website: Bicultural Family. She wanted to include a link to my blog in their first newsletter, and here it is. I am delighted and honored to have been included in this list, together with my blogging friends Alice (from Jabberlingual), and Clo (from Multi Tongue Kids), and some other truly interesting multi-cultural bloggers.

Well, I want to welcome any visitors that may visit from the Bicultural Family site, but have to say upfront that we're not yet a fully bilingual family! My sons are still mostly monolingual, but I'm sure they will soon learn English (and at least one or two other languages). Actually, yesterday I was talking a bit in English with my almost four-year old, and I'm planning to do this more often.

I have also posted a link to (and requested to be included in the directory of) the Expat Blog, the self described "The online expatriate community." You can find the button/link directly below my list of expatriate/multi-cultural mama blog list.

OK, now I'm going to try to post a Valentine's Day themed post, hold on :)!

First Week Back "Home" in the U.S. (The "Eaten Post")

[Original post "eaten" by blogger. I tried to write the unsaved "itemized" part again below... It was started on Thursday 2/2, posted on Friday night, 2/3 and re-written/re-posted today, over 2 weeks since I got back]

Let me start by saying that even though I missed home a lot in my last weeks in Brazil (I even blogged about it), this time I was not happy to come back at all...

Back in March last year, when I came back from 2 months in Brazil, I had Spring to look forward to, with wonderful weekly visits to Longwood Gardens, warmer weather , a happy reunion with hubby and daddy. Our little family of four was getting back together after almost 2 months, and we longed to spend lots of time enjoying each other's company and anticipating the warmer weather that was to come. I had vegetables and herbs to plant, as well as my now blog famous morning-glories to look forward to.

This time, in addition to the cold, dreary weather (OK, as an aside, the weather has been unseasonably warm these days...), the prospects are not very good, as I have already whined enough about what this year has in store for me. But that's not really it, I mean, the reason for the unhappiness about returning. It's not that I dread having to work on the dissertation or anything like that (and, for that matter, I still have spring to look forward to, and my garden, they're just a little farther off in the future), it's just that I have come to the conclusion that I don't really like my life here, it's a mixture of living in "limbo" for too long (not good enough sallary, steady, "real" job for hubby, living in a place we wouldn't choose to live permanently, things like that) and other things. Actually, as I will further explore in posts relating some of my experiences in Brazil that I promise to write, we don't really have "a life"... or at least meaningful, intellectually fulfilling friends, social life, etc... [I just posted what I wrote in Brazil, as you already read]. This always hits me when I come back, but sometimes I am actually glad to leave Brazil and enjoy "the comforts" of living in "America"* again. (I missed my cell phone a lot. They do have cell phones in Brazil of course, but no nationwide coverage or free nights and weekends. In addition, my parents forgot their battery charger when we travelled...)

Well... the aim of this post was to update you on the things I have been busy with since we came back.

1) Cooking
I haven't eaten food cooked my myself in a regular basis in months (almost 5 months!!) so I was dying to cook. I'm a good cook, and I'm not very modest about this, I should say. My mom always says that I cook much better than she does (it must be tough for her to cook for me all these months, I do recognize). Anyway, the day after I got back I cooked several Indian dishes (I love Indian food!), and a few days later, I some Thai-style noodles. [I originally wrote about the food in more detail, but I just can't get it right again...]

2) Shopping
I not only had to buy food and other items to refill our refrigerator and pantry, but this year I had planned to shop for clothes for Kelvin for next year in the winter clearance, and I suceeded! Why spend so much more money in clothes when I can plan ahead and buy everything 75-80% off? So I bought him several corduroy pants, turtle-neck shirts, fleece pants and tops, sweatshirts, and a heavy winter jacket... I guess if I had a girl I might have to think about styles, but I have to say that I simply despise fashion and its trends - I think it's just a ploy to make people consume more and more. Consumerism creates such a waste of goods, and this country is all about consumerism (Brazil too, particularly where clothes are concerned - fashion is even more of an issue there!).

3) Sister-in-law and nephew's visit
The day I arrived from Brazil, my brother-in-law left for Germany, where he spent a week, so on Sunday morning, my sister-in-law drove from Maryland to our house to spend a few days with us. My nephew, who's 4 months younger than Linton, was missing his dad a lot, but he was immediately happy to be with his cousins. He loves older toddlers/kids, and he giggles just looking at his cousins. The weather was pretty nice on Monday (18 F - 60sF) and we went to the playground together. We also talked and talked about our time in Brazil, our families, etc. It was great to have her here until Tuesday night, when she left because my BIL was getting back on Wednesday.

As you already know... we had a week for ourselves and then my parents arrived (my thoughts on that in a future post). Now I HAVE to work. I'm going to post my To-Do list in my side-bar so I can be held accountable to my blog readers as well, what about that? Other fellow ABDs do that, and it seems to help them. Well, now let me post this, 9 days late, thanks to Blogger...

* OK, here I mean "United States of America", but I want to go on a tangent now... I have a pet-peeve about this continent thing. My non-American readers, may I ask you how many continents are there in the world (according to your grade school teacher/book/ whatever)? I was taught there are 5 - like in the Olympic rings: America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and "Oceania "(I suppose Antarctica was not included because it was not really "inhabited"). Well, well, well... the American friends I've made since I came here have always answered 6 continents, the sixth being South-America, of all things!!! I'd be slightly mad every time, and saying, "Hey, but the Americas weren't even separated until you build the Panama Channel!" This separation thing is meaningless, I know, see Europe/Asia/Africa, all linked - I'm perfectly aware that this whole continent thing is absolutely arbitrary, but still... I "can't swallow" 6 continents... My country is in America as well, we're all "Americans"!!
Edited to add: it was very amusing to read your comment, Alice!! I'll tackle the issue in another post, I guess. (and I'll add the comments myself, since I have them saved in emails).

This Post is 1 Month Old (from Brazil)

On January 7, I wrote this in my laptop computer while we were at some of our best friends' house for the weekend. It was a Saturday morning and I felt I needed to write this (and much more, which didn't get written). Even though it's half-finished, and unpolished, I want to post it anyway. I hope to have time to go back to this later (I have actually already blogged about some of the things in this "old" post)...

07/01/06

I have to write in English, mostly because of the blog. First I’ll write thoughts for a blog post, then, maybe I’ll go into Portuguese if there’s time. [there wasn't]

It’s not even 7:30 am and Linton’s been awake for half an hour or so, which is absolutely normal. Problem is, we went to bed at 4 am…

These days I’m not blogging because I’m finally “living” instead of just pretending I have a life, which I is the case most of the time when I’m not in Brazil, particularly because I when I’m in the US I feel the need to be online a lot, it’s the only semblance to “having a life” that I can find in our lives there, my only way to interact with like-minded people, to meet new friends, etc. Depressing, isn’t it? I wanted go online but I couldn’t possibly exchange real moments with dear friends for “the internets” as Jo (Leery Polyp) or some other people would say…

I finally don’t feel jealous of Jo(e), who’s one of my favorite bloggers, particularly because of her wonderful, moving posts about her family and her rich, fulfilling life experiences. And I feel like I can finally identify with many moments described by one of my favorite mama writers, Catharine Newman (e.g. I can’t even begin to describe here Kelvin’s budding relationship to our best friends’ daughter Beatriz, I can finally appreciate fully when Catharine writes about Ben and Ava. Too bad we’re going away in just 2 weeks).

OK, and I know what all of you are probably thinking. It’s clear to me and probably to you that our place is probably here in Brazil, why don’t we just move back here right now?

Oh, how I wish life was simple like that! There are so many factors involved, the main one is my husband having a job that he enjoys, and that fulfills his expectations, since he’s spent so much effort to get the Ph.D. and working on the postdoc. This is a very complex thing, given that we only want to live in a specific area, the state of São Paulo, which is where our friends and my parents live and also one of the most developed parts of the country. In addition, it would only be fulfilling for him to work at a handful of institutions here (also some of the best in the country). Apart from the tight competition to enter one of these universities, there are some complicating factors, e.g. the fact that his specific area of specialization does not exist here in Brazil (only in theoretical physics, not experimental) and he’s applying for positions in related areas, which does not help much. The hiring process is also extremely different from the U.S., super bureaucratic, and involving an actual exam that one must pass with the minimum required grade! This is why we need to keep all of our options open, we’re not ruling out jobs in the U.S., and DH will probably enter the job market in earnest in the fall, in addition to participating of three concursos (competition for a job opening) here in Brazil (which will involve at least two trips to Brazil that we’ll have to pay for ourselves).

We’re both tired of having our lives “on hold” for so long… It’s even more unerving to know that getting out of “limbo” won’t depend as much on our decisions about in which country to live, which kind of schools we’d like to work for, as on how the opportunities and openings present themselves to us. We’re aware that we may even have a situation in which DH gets may get a job offer in the U.S. without knowing whether he passed one of the concursos or not!

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I hate to leave this hanging, but I need to go to bed. DH always complains about me going to bed too late :) Oh, yes, he's feeling better, he's even back upstairs tonight. He stopped taking the pain-killer (except for Tylenol) because he vomited last night and didn't want it to happen again. The arm only hurts if/when he moves it, so I guess it's not too bad.

Update on Latest Events (and some whining about US healthcare)

Everything went well yesterday in my drive to the airport in NYC. I'm lucky because my kids are used to traveling and behave really well in the car. Kelvin's starting that phase in which he asks "Are we there ye?" and "When are we going to get there?" a lot, but nothing too bad. He was actually awake the whole time (since 4:14 am!), eating apples and cheerios, and he got so excited with his grandparents' arrival that he didn't sleep on the way back either - he chattered away the whole time, in his high-pitched little voice. Linton slept both ways... My dad drove most of the way back, and I was able to take a short nap, which helped a lot.

After we had lunch, my parents stayed with the kids and I drove to the hospital to see my husband and pick him up. I don't like hospitals at all (particularly for childbirth - I wish I could have had both of my boys at home - but that's another subject), and it was a shock to see my husband so weak when I first saw him. He didn't have general anesthesia, just a block to numb his arm, and some sleep inducing drug so he wouldn't remember anything that took place. He was feeling a bit dizzy, so the nurse let him rest some more and get more fluids in the IV before letting him go home. We were both shocked when we saw the X-ray of his arm, because the metal plate they put in is HUGE and has 6 screws into the bone - yuck! (I could never ever be doctor or nurse...). When we came home, he decided to sleep downstairs in the sofa because Kelvin still comes to our bed almost every night even though he has his own toddler bed (my parents tried to get him to sleep in their bedroom, but he still came in the middle of the night).
DH's pain wasn't that bad yesterday because he still had some of the anesthesia in his arm, but this morning it's really, really strong, and it was tough for him to come upstairs to the bedroom (he had to because the kids will be making too much noise in the living room and other parts of the house). I had to go out at 7:30 a.m. to get some Ibuprofen [Motrin], for him to take in between his two pills of Percocet (a mix of narcotics and acetaminophen [Tylenol]), because the nurse had instructed us to do so if the pain got too bad. Another nurse called this morning and said he was doing everything right, and that the pain is supposed to be very bad in the first 24 hours.

My mom says that in Brazil he'd have stayed at least one night at the hospital to receive pain medication through the IV, but here they send people home. I guess it's both because they're otherwise fine and shouldn't run the risk of getting an infection and because hospital care is ABSURDLY, UNBELIEVABLY expensive in this country. They charge well over 1 thousand dollars per day for their bed, crappy food, and a few visits from the nurses (and very rarely, a doctor) - I can't be more angry about this, it's unnaceptable - that's why so many people can't afford healthcare in this country and the healthcare companies make so much money. After I stopped working at the university and having our great student plan (which I didn't have to pay for because of our wonderful Grad Student union - I'm so thankful for that) now I have a "catastrophic" health plan, so if I get cancer or something, I will ONLY spend 5 thousand dollars a year, and then the plan will pay for the rest of the treatment. If I want to see a doctor, I pay 40 dollars (I don't need to have referrals, though), so I never go to the doctor here, I go in Brazil, and there I pay half that amount, and the exams are pretty cheap (I did a check-up last March and my PAP smear now). Oh, and do you know how much I pay for this plan? 94 dollars a month. Just in case, you know, I get a really terrible illness like cancer...

OK, I'll stop whining. It's just that I feel really angry about this. I forgot to explain that my husband's plan doesn't cover me or the children (he's only a postdoc after all), so I'm thankful that we're poor enough and we happen to live in a state that provides free health-care for children of families below the poverty line (yes, I'm "proud" to say we're below the poverty line for families of 4 in this particular state - it does vary from state to state). I don't even have to do a co-payment on their doctor's visits and prescription medicines. Well, it's about one of the few things we like about living in PA (I know that's mean, but for some reason we don't like this state very much... we're getting used to it, though, maybe with time our opinion will change :) .

Question for my lovely readers: how's healthcare in your state or country? What are your opinions on this subject? You can respond in my comment section or even post about it in your blog and let me know in the comments about it, so I can link to you.

Tomorrow (Almost Today)

The post I lost on Friday and was trying to rewrite will have to wait (it is an itemized discussion of the things I did in my first week back home and some other stuff), because in a few hours I'm going to have to leave to NYC to pick up my parents at JFK airport. They arrive at 6:30 am, so I'm leaving home at 4 am to try to be there by 7. I'll go alone. With the boys... (and I hardly ever drive on highways, even more rarely on my own). You won't be even able to wish me luck (except perhaps for those in Europe), because by the time most people read this, I'll probably be safely back home, or so I hope. But why do I have to go alone, you may wonder?

Remember the accident in France in which my husband broke his arm? Well, he's going to have surgery in that arm tomorrow, that's why he can't go with me. It wouldn't fit anyway, and we were actually wondering how we were going to pick up my parents, because he's not driving right now. When the surgery was scheduled last Thrusday, DH had forgotten about my parents' arrival (he did call me right after scheduling it and I reminded him, but then, he found that the doctor only operates on Wednesdays, and of course he needs this surgery now, before the bone heals in a completely wrong place).

Anyway... that's what's happening right now. And when my parents get here I'll need to concentrate in the dissertation, so I won't have as much time to blog. I'll let you know how this went, though...

Sunny Day (in both senses of the word)

Today Kelvin my almost 4 year old (his birthday is a month from Thursday) was so agreeable, so sweet, with a really sunny, radiant disposition that I just had to write about it to record these childhood moments that pass so quickly.

I talk a bit about my motherhood in this blog (it's in its name after all!) but not enough. I wish I could be disciplined enough and write a monthly newsletter, like the "star blogger" Heather Armstrong (from dooce) does for her daughter Leta (I wasn't going to link since she's "famous enough", but thought this was just stupid "blog jealousy" :) - go chedk her out if you already haven't, she was fired because of her blog, 5 years ago. Interesting story... )

Anyway, this morning I went to my third La Leche League meeting, and I actually became a member. The boys behaved well (last time I went in November was a DISASTER), but I was surprised when Kelvin said in his sweetest voice on our drive back home - "Mama, I loved that meeting, that nice conversation..." I was surprised because lately he's been anxious to come back home when we go out. On Sunday we had a dinner with folks from my husband's department at UPenn, it was in celebration of the Chinese New Year, and we enjoyed the dragons and fireworks in the streets of Chinatown afterwards (I had never seen that - we were told it brings good luck to the businesses, so they do it in front of every restaurant and store), but towards the end of the meal Kelvin was already super anxious to come back home (well... maybe it was because he was eager for the train ride back - he loves trains. Oh, yeah, in 1 1/2 year here in Philly, with hubby taking the train everyday for work, this was the very first time I took the train to go to the city!).

Actually, after the LLL meeting, Kelvin asked to eat at the natural food market where the meeting is held, and we had some samosas (Indian pastries), chickpea(garbanzo) stew, rice and chili. In the car he also said, "I loved that food that we ate there, thank you mama because we ate there! I looove chickpeas, and also rice and beans..."

I haven't written about this yet, but sometimes I feel frustrated because Kelvin doesn't eat any vegetables. He used to eat ANYTHING until he was almost 2, but then he became quite picky - he eats well (I mean, big portions) and he eats rice and beans or lentils, and pasta (all the time if we let him), but no green salads or veggies. I guess I didn't write about this because I didn't really stress out, I looked at it as a phase. He did eat fruit, and cereal, and lots of soymilk, regular milk and cheese, and he loves eggs...

So... having said that, tonight I made Pasta and Fagioli (beans) soup with carrots, cubed zuchinni, chopped brocoli, and, of course, navy beans and pasta. Kelvin had just eaten quite a bit of rice and beans just a couple of hours earlier, but he wanted to eat the soup. When he tasted some of it from his brother's spoon he said "Oh, I love chickpeas!" I thought to myself, do I tell him these are white beans, and not chickpeas? Will he still eat them? But I told him, and he responded that he liked those too. Then he sat and ate with gusto. When he ate soup he'd usually set the veggies apart and complain about any specks of parsley or other green seasonings. Not today! He kept saying, "Oh, I adore zuchinni, see? I'm eathing all of these! I adore broccoli! Mama, this soup's delicious, thank you so much for making it for me! I adore everything you cook!" As I sat there, almost open-mouthed, I thought... "Well, I deserve it, the day everything looks so perfect is the day it's going to end, since my parents arrive tomorrow, and I won't enjoy as much time with the boys from now on as I enter dissertation mode..." And I even asked, "But sweetie, I'm so happy that you love what I cook, but tomorrow your grandma's coming, and she'll be ccooking for you most of the time." "No problem" he answered, "I'll love her food too!"

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, hoping this sunny streak continues. But we never know. 4 year-olds are very unpredictable!! Well, as long as he keeps on eating his veggies though, I'll be happy, even if he's grumpy! ;)

Children's Literature and... the Super Bowl/ the Movies

I generally don't watch television, much less sports (except for soccer in the world cup and some other competitions I shall mention shortly), even less American Football, a game about which I know absolutely NOTHING. However, tonight we happened to turn the TV on for the beginning of Super Bowl and... we were met with a paraphrase/parody of Dr. Seuss - of all things! Actually I shouldn't be surprised, because Dr. Seuss much loved here in the U.S. and his books have been made into movies and are known by everyone. I really like the book they used, Oh, the Places You'll Go! but I had mixed feelings about a children's literature book being appropriated that way. I mean... sure, it's great for the genre, which is often relegated to a "second rank" as far as literature is concerned, but on the other hand... I don't know... it's great for Dr. Seuss's estate, they're making tons of money from this venture. Whatever, I guess I don't really have an articulate opinion, but I still wanted to blog about it. It was very fun to watch, but I'm always critical of TV, particularly these huge "events" that mobilize millions of people and are mainly an outlet for the advertisement of products and the enrichment of big companies... (I was never the same after I watched the documentary about Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, I'd go so far as to say that it is "life-changing").

I'm saying this, but there are a few sporting events that I love to watch. This year I will be watching the soccer World Cup, as I have done every four years ever since I was a child... (I'm sure I'll blog more about it). I've been so "out of it" that I only found out about the Winter Olympics in an NBC program the last flight I took coming from Brazil -- so in the next few weeks I'll be watching (mostly taping) some figure skating, which I love. I also enjoy the Olympic games, I mean, the "Summer Olympics" (I'm from Brazil, we usually don't follow the Winter Olympics there :) - or I used to enjoy until I came to the U.S. and got extremely MAD at NBC every four years for not broadcasting ANY collective sports (such as volleyball, basketball - only pieces of the games are shown). Anyway, I love to watch gymnastics, for instance...
I do watch, but I try to do it with parsimony, keeping in the back of my mind the analyses that Chomsky does (that most media, these sporting events included, are there to distract us from the really important issues, that are kept at bay -- war and suffering throughout the world, etc...).

OK, I'm really, really rambling today, am I not? One last thing:


We also saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on DVD tonight. I love Roald Dahl's book, and didn't like too much the old movie version from the year I was born (even though I think Gene Wilder is hilarious as Wonka).

What did I think of this one? I hadn't really read any of the reviews (I only know that people didn’t like Johnny Depp too much as Wonka), so my opinion is quite neutral, I hope…

[No spoilers ahead, I promise]

Well, of course book lovers will always complain about the changes, particularly additions, and this film is no exception. It is no doubt much more “faithful” than the previous one (down to the cute squirrels!! – that part WAS amazing!), particularly with the inclusion of the Oompa-Loompa songs. The main additions that bothered me were – Charlie saying he wants to sell the ticket (this one didn’t even make much sense, I thought!), and, of course, Willy Wonka’s flashbacks and the totally made-up ending. It’s an interesting guess at his reasons for being so weird, but not completely convincing. The emphasis on “family is important” was off (with another addition I didn't like, Charlie having to choose between two things), I guess, and I don’t know exactly why I thought it was weird since the book does put a lot of emphasis in the “lovingness” that Charlie feels for his family. I can’t analyze much more without spoilers, and it’s getting late, so I guess I’ll stop here, OK? And I'm saving this entry, in case it gets eaten as well!! (I'm still working on the other one; I'll try to get it out tomorrow).

Edited to add: Libby asked in the comments: "I actually watched the game, but missed the Dr. Seuss. Which was it? What did they do with it?"
And I responded: "It was the opening of the broadcast. Harrison Ford (and some other Football celebrities I don't know) read quotes from the book while animated images from the book appeared in the background. Of course they added a few images, in each scene there was a little TV drawn in the style of Dr. Seuss with corresponding football images in it. It was great, actually, I wish I had taped it...
This morning my son saw the book in the floor of his bedroom and told me, mama, this is the book that appeared on TV yesterday while we were eating popcorn!"

Blogger Ate My Latest Post!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know what happened! Blogger was "off the air" this evening and I simply couldn't open my blog. When I was finally able to do it, a few minutes ago, I realized that the post I had finished writing last night and posted (around 11:30 pm) was GONE!! The saved version in Blogger, that I could edit and post again is an old one, and I wrote the rest last night and didn't save it as a MS Word document or anything... I'm SO MAD!!

I know the post was here before because Alice read and even commented on it twice (I have the emails to prove it).

This is absolutely frustrating... too bad I can't afford to pay for a more reliable service (like typepad). I'm still hopeful the post will turn up later, but... I actually don't think it will (then I guess I'm not hopeful after all :)

I'll come back later to post something I wrote in Brazil about a month ago...

Amazing T-Shirt Folding Technique!!

OK, since I mentioned t-shirts in the previous post, it seems fitting to link to a recent post by Andi (from Mother Shock) which is indeed a "gift" to anyone who hates to fold laundry as much as I do. She's right -- it is completely mind blowing, and you've got to try it!!

P.S. I feel like posting 3 times a day now, and I'm actually keeping myself from doing it for fear of overwhelming my readers (since I usually write only once a week, or at least every few days), but I guess I've got to do it as a "farewell gift" to myself before I start working-like-a-crazy-woman-who-needs-to-finish-a-dissertation-or-die next week after my parents get here from Brazil. I'm so not looking forward to that - can't you tell?

My Very Own "Blog Cloud"

I saw this first at ABD mom, and then at Scrivener's I found a link to where I could get it too (it's a site that sells t-shirts with this "cloud" from one's website printed on them).

I think it's pretty coo! (it would definitely look good in a t-shirt as well as being meaningful to the wearer) I like how the highlighted words are really key words in my blog and how different versions of the word mother come up. I also like the last words "work worth write writing years." I hope it'll be worth writing my dissertation, it's definitely the work of many many years...

P.S. if you want one too, you need to follow the instructions on the link above (you can change fonts and colors) and then before hitting the finished button, you should right click and save the image to your computer. Then you just upload it to the blog as a picture.

Happy New Fear

In this last day of January I want to explain why I didn’t even attempt to write any New Year resolutions.

I fear this New Year…

Because this year I need to finish my dissertation, and I’m terribly afraid I won’t be able to. It is a huge responsibility, not only to me, and my desire to finish what I have started almost 8 years ago, but also to my parents who have spent so much time and resources to help me. My mom has postponed a serious thyroid surgery to be able to help me one last semester, and I just can’t fail her and my dad who so graciously take care of my boys, my house, and do everything for us.

I fear this New Year…

Because I have never felt such a weight on my shoulders or faced such a challenge that seems well beyond my abilities to conquer. Spending almost two months in Brazil didn’t help much, because now I’ve lost precious momentum, and it’s much harder to start working again.

I fear this New Year…

Because I know my limitations, I know I am a terrible procrastinator, I am disorganized, and I can’t work in a systematic manner. I’ve never been able to plan anything, even though I did write a timetable for the months of October and November and abided by it (let me say that it worked only because I cut myself a lot of slack stipulating that I’d send to the advisor whatever I had written for a certain chapter by the Friday it was assigned).

I fear this New Year…

Because just thinking about the work ahead gives me the chills, swarms of butterflies in my stomach, and an irresistible desire to just sit and cry. I want to run away, to flee, to give up, and every single “escaping” verb there is. I’ve never felt so powerless about something when I know I need to be in control because only I can do it, only I can write it.

I fear this New Year

For a myriad of reasons related to this dissertation (including fear of my committee members, of getting negative feedback, etc.), and to add up to these fears is the underlying fear of not knowing what will happen to us in the near future. If my husband “passes” the fierce competition (concurso) for a job at a state university in Brazil, we’ll definitely go back; he’s also just applied for a job in California. Chances are none of these things will materialize and we’ll remain here one more year for his last year of post doc, and entrance in the job market in the fall. I’d prefer the last option only for the predictability, but who know what’ll happen? (On a side note, the phone interview I mentioned in a past post will probably not happen – I missed my chance because I was not at the MLA).

I fear this New Year…

Because, as for any other year, I want it to be a good year, and particularly, a landmark year for me, the year in which I defend my dissertation and prove to myself and the world that I can do it, that I was able to do it. Oh, how I long to be able to say that. In the past tense! And then I’ll just smile and say, oh, yeah, I feared this New Year, but it turned out all right…

Brazil and the U.S. (intro)

I'm working (at least in my mind so far) on a post about the main differences about my home country, Brazil and the U.S., since whenever I'm fresh from travel there I always think of tons of things related to this issue.

Meanwhile, though, I'd like to direct you to my sister-in-law's interesting comments (OK, "comparative study") about both countries at her relatively new blog The Sporadic Post (which may soon need to be renamed if she starts to post more than just sporadically :) -- welcome to blogging, sister, I'm glad I inspired you to post again!).

For those who can read Portuguese, my Brazilian friend Ricardo's "photoblog" has a hilarious post with the opposite point of view of my SIL regarding toilet trash :) (he moved to the U.S. last fall).

Sick in Chicago

Yes, guess what, during the last 2 hours of our 10 hour and a half flight I started feeling a bit sick. For the first time in my life I vomited in a bag, and it was not in the airplane either, it was after I had already gone through immigration, put 5 heavy bags (the heaviest two had almost 62 pounds each) and 2 carseats on two carts and gone through customs and then re-checked the luggage, when we were waiting for the airport train that took us to terminal 1. It was not that bad either. I survived. And once we were actually airborne, out of Chicagoland I started feeling much better. It was probably something I ate in the plane (I did eat a lot). Otherwise the trip was excellent, uneventful. We left Brazil at 1o pm and the boys slept before dinner was served and through most of the flight. They woke up quite early, I would guess 2-3 am Chicago Time (6-7 am in Brazil, which is the time they actually woke up there too), and then it was hard to keep them busy during those last hours of flight and when we arrived in Chicago (before 5 am) because by then Linton was getting sleepy again and very cranky. Oh, and of course he nursed all night long and I barely slept (partly because I decided to watch a movie, corny but interesting, Where the Heart Is (with Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd).

Anyway, here I am, left to consider one more time how TINY our house is. It is very cozy, and I enjoy stepping on soft carpet after walking on tiled floor for all of my stay in Brazil (more on Brazilian houses later, at least I hope to post more on Brazil in the upcoming days), but it is extremely small. When I got to Brazil in December this was one of the first things my mom said about the boys - they were happy there, she pondered, because they were enjoying all the room to run and play (in spite of the fact that there were less toys). Here they're cooped up, and I guess they just get tired of their toys. Of course right now they're really enjoying the house and the toys, they've been playing non-stop since we arrived, that is, Linton napped for 1 hour (me too) and Kelvin for almost 4 hours. I already did one load of laundry (my poor husband, the other traveller in the family, was running out of underwear and other clothes), and removed the suitcases from the living room (no, I did not unpack the clothes, only the food and books I brought (which was a lot). I also made bread in the bread machine (Dawn's/This Woman's Work recipe, I should link to it sometime).

OK. More later. Let me know if you have any questions. (I do feel terrible because I never answered Alice's question about Brazilian Christmas and New Year's - I still want to answer, OK? It was just very rough to blog from Brazil - I'm sorry about that Alice!).

Edited to add: I flew to Chicago then took a connecting flight to Philly. I did start feeling better in the second flight, thankfully.

Thank You! & It Was/Is Worth It

I want to thank heartily all the readers who commented, I definitely feel encouraged to continue blogging. I t was worth "complaining" a little bit, even though it's not very "elegant" (ha ha ha, I've never been really "elegant" in life, and I'm a major complainer, ask my poor husband - this is what he hates the most about my personality traits - but I'm getting better, am I not, sweetie?) and I think it's definitely worth it to blog.

I even heard from new people! Welcome Dalian Moon, hello Sarah Sometimes, thanks for adding me to your blog roll!

See, this is what I mean, I like it when it is a dialogue, a conversation, that's why it's fun frequenting (do you have this verb in English?) more "famous" blogs, and participating actively in the comment section... I am an extrovert (OK, how do you say that again? In Portuguese it would be "extroverted"), and love talking to people even though I usually stay very quiet when I am in big groups of people I don't know, or meet groups of new people. Like I just said in a comment over at Dalian Moon, it took me around 6 months to get comfortable in my "blogging skin" and start posting more often, and commenting more often in other people's blogs. It does take persistence to make good "friends" in blogosphere, and I already have several, which makes me really happy.

OK, I have to go now, but I hope to be back soon. I have a couple of memes to do (you probably already forgot about it, Kate, and thanks Alice, yours looks very interesting) , but I think I will do them at home, so I won't make my mom's phone bill even costlier (she pays for phone usage, it's not a flat rate)...

I fly home tomorrow night, and I'm trying to finish packing today so I won't leave it for the last minute like when I came in December. I already have one of the large suitcases packed, so I guess I'm making good progress towards my goal. I still have some shopping to do, and I wanted to scan some old pictures of my parents as young children, but maybe I won't be able too.

I hate the days before major travel, they are super stressful. Until now I'm really calm, though, let's see if I remain that way until tomorrow!

Blogging Crisis

Sometimes I feel that blogging is almost useless to me, since so few people read this, most of them merely lurkers, as far as I can tell from my sparse stats checking. I'm writing this right now, but it's not how I feel at this exact moment. You know when I feel that keeping the blog is worth it? After I spend sometime reading other people's blogs. Of course reading "famous" and prolific bloggers like Jo(e), for example, easily motivate some "blog envy" (in a matter of a couple months, her visitors went from 50,000 to almost 95,000, while I've had 2,000 visits in one whole year -- of course in one year I've posted less than 100 times and my writing is not brilliant at all, so I need to keep things in perspective :)

I always learn so much, though. First, about writing itself, because there are so many talented writers out there! Then, about feelings, truths, and experiences that make me grow as a human being. I like to go out of my "niche" (the wonderful expat mamas and multicultural families out there - hi everyone, I feel I "belong" to this group and love to read your blogs!!) and learn from other people's experiences, so I read a few infertility blogs, some adoption blogs, and birthmother blogs -- those are some of the saddest and deepest. There's a new one that I need to link to, because this woman writes so beautifully that I can't even begin to describe it. It's inspiring, even while it's utterly heartbreaking: Speaking For Myself. I found her at Dawn's blog -- I always learn tons from Dawn, who's an amazing person, so incredibly open, the most "experienced" blogger I know (since 2001!).

Anyway, I didn't come here to write about these women, even though it is important to keep linking to them because they are references, they should be read, all 3 of them and many more. Something that "Speaking For Myself" said a few times in different wordings stuck to me (and I'm paraphrasing here) -- it is very important when a woman tells her story, it can change the world ("split it open" I think). I think writing/reading can also change ourselves, because we learn so much when we express ourselves and when we read other women's experiences.

What do I have to contribute? I guess I have summarized it well in my blog description. I am a "divided" person, I am torn between my academic life, which by no means is the center/core of my life, which makes it extremely difficult for me to just go ahead and finish this PhD and my family life, my desire to be able to pursue things that I love, like children's literature, like trying to write someday, my home country and the friends here and the country where I now find myself in (even my two main languages, English and Portuguese - my sons only speak one of them so far...). So many things... Being the mother of two young children, loving it, enjoying every moment, every time I breasfeed, every time I play with them, but being torn because I desperately need time for myself, to try to find out who I am, and still HAVE to work on a dissertation, which is a task so difficult I feel overwhelmed just to think about it, let alone work on it...

Juggling all this is not easy. And that's why I think I need the blog. Even if nobody reads (I mean, I know some wonderful people who do and always give me lots of encouragement - Alice, you're great! Stella's mami, I know you're there too, and some other great people like Kate, Sandra, Ana, Marco, etc - this is not meant to be an exhaustive list of readers OK, folks?), even if my writing is not the best there is or even merely good... I need to express myself and share my story and that's all that matters. Even if it's extremely hard to find the time for it (this is one of the main reasons for my "crisis" -- is it worth it, I ask myself, to take time from my sleeping when I know my kids will get up before 7am just to blog? I think it is... because it helps me). Reading blogs also makes me learn a lot about writing, and hopefully that will show here in the future!

Anyway, I won't give up, at least not for now. There's so much I want to write about this visit to Brasil, there are fears I want to voice about the upcoming year, but this will have to wait, because I do need to get some rest.

As I was typing this last paragraph, I felt something was wrong and heard screaming from downstairs. I had not plugged the baby monitor, and my son needed to pee and woke up screaming, which, in turn woke up his baby brother. Luckily the situation was quickly resolved, but it's a very up to the minute example of what happens when mothers try to blog :)

Here in Brazil #5: My Parents' House

Before I go back to the US and it's too late, I wanted you to be able to vizualize where I am, so here I offer a couple of pictures (I wanted to upload more, like a series of houses so you have a better idea of how Brazilian houses look like, but this would take forever on this internet connection... sorry).

This is my parents' house:

And before you start wondering, wow, this is such a big house, they're rich, or something, let me explain... My parents saved their whole lives to be able to build this house. They moved in when it was not even finished yet, so they could save on rent to finish it. I think they lived on it for only a year before they both retired. It is pretty big, and it has a third floor "lookout" (where my dad's "office" is located) because my dad wanted to be able to have the best view possible.

This is the view:

The sunsets here are incredible, if you want to see some, I have them posted elsewhere, and you can ask me for the link (again, I could post a picture if it didn't take so long :( The trees are orange trees, this is an area of the Sao Paulo state countryside famous for that. The tiny town you can see in the background is called Engenheiro Coelho (that's where they live). Even in a mostly rural area like this, a condominium with houses that look beautiful like my parents' (even though most of the residents are just middle class people who used all their life-savings to build a house) is a target for theft, so they had to go and build this wall, which is almost 10 feet tall, (3,40m) - sad, isn't it?

The boys enjoy being here, my dad put up a swing in a tree in front of the house, and they have plenty of space to roam. Too bad they're still very young, so it keeps the three of us occupied all day long just to know where they are and what they're doing. Oh, yes, and it's extremely hot here, with temperatures in the 90sF (35C), so I wish my parents also had a pool - but see, they truly aren't rich, or we'd have one :)

Random Updates and Thoughts (in lieu of New Year resolutions)

I've been constantly thinking about posting here for the past week, I have even an almost ready post that I typed a week ago (last Saturday morning), but it's been tough to run after two little boys all day long in the hot long days of Brazilian summer. There are so many things I want, and actually need to write and think about, but it's just not happening right now. So I'll try the itemized approach...

- I'm still here in Brazil, but more than any other time I've been back here, I want to go back "home" (to my house, since home here could also mean my home country, and I am in my home country).

- I'm getting frantic about getting to work and finishing this dissertation. I am hopeful this WILL be the year I'll finally put this behind me. It needs to happen, or else... or else what? Or else my parents won't be able to help me anymore (they're getting tired), or else I just won't be able to stand it anymore, or else my life will never ever start...

- I miss my husband, I miss my house, I miss... No, I don't really miss the US, I miss something I can't have - a life out of limbo, where we know for sure we're going to be living at a certain place for a long time, where we have real jobs. I want our future to start SOON, 'cause I'm tired of living a life of simply looking forward to something I don't even know what it is. It's been 10 years (or it will be, this coming June), and I think this is a bit too much.

- I want my sons to have friends, they need socialization and the joy of sharing their lives with other people they love. I want/need to have friends, if not the cherished old ones (I mean, we'll always have these wonderful friends who are here in Brazil, but if we don't live close to them, we won't share our lives with them), at least new friends that we can spend time with, get to know, and learn to love...

There are so many things I need, and even though I feel perfectly happy with my wonderful family (marvelous husband, gorgeous sons), there's no denying that my life has been incomplete for a long time now. The bad part is that it's not easy to solve these problems. Many things need to happen. I need to finish the dissertation, DH (dear husband) needs to find a job, we need to live in a "permanent place," and not just live "temporary lives," if you know what I mean.

I need to come back and elaborate more about these not so random points... maybe it'll be easier once I'm back home and the boys have their "honeymoon" period with their old toys :) What about that?

Delurking Week

I copied the picture from ABDmom, and only after I had uploaded it I thought I didn't like it that much. I'll post it anyway, though, since it's hard enough to upload things on a dial-up connection, and I'm planning on posting again soon, so it won't sit at the top of the blog for too long. Today I'm spending a lot of time reading blogs and trying to catch up, since it's the first time in almost 3 weeks I'm not in a hurry online... It's amazing how blogs have become indispensable for me, almost as much as email, I'd say!

Any lurkers out there? I'd love to hear from you :)

Vacation Accidents

I haven't been able to post lately but there are tons of things to post about, so I'll start with what I think will yield the shortest post so I can get going.

I can't recall a vacation period with so many accidents in years and years... First, there was the mirror accident (or perhaps more adequately, incident), which could have been much more serious but which was not, and which in the end cost us only 100 dollars.

Then, something else happened while we were at the beach two weeks ago, this time with Kelvin, our almost 4 years old son. In one of the afternoons, the women in our family (my MIL, DH's grandma, my two SIL and I) drove to a town 2 hours away where there are several clothing factories and factory outlets to shop. DH stayed with both boys, and my BIL stayed with my nephew. Everything was going well until dad decided it was a good idea to take both boys to a playground to keep them entertained until we got home. The boys were having fun at the see-saw (the old fashioned kind, which I have never seen in the US since I started going to playgrounds, the one that goes all the way down and not only leans on a huge spring/coil). DH was holding Linton, who's only 17 months old, while Kelvin was holding on by himself. Then Kelvin didn't want to go anymore, and climbed down and started "helping" daddy to lower down his brother. Linton was enjoying it much more when the see-saw went down really fast, so DH started to do it faster, and, accidentally, the wooden see-saw hit Kelvin's front teeth when it was coming up. I can't imagine how poor DH dealt with two screaming boys, one bleeding profusely, but he managed. He washed up Kelvin, put both boys in the car, and drove to the nearest dentist (Linton screamed all the while, and only calmed down later, at the dentist's office). The dentist cleaned up Kelvin's mouth, prescribed a pain-killer/anti-inflammatory, and asked him to come back the next day for an X-ray. Of course I was heart-broken when I got home, especially when DH told me that Kelvin was very sad when it happened because he was just helping daddy, and not doing anything wrong. The end results? One, and probably both of his front teeth "died" (one already changed color), and he'll probably need a root canal in each of them not to compromise the permanent tooth behind them, can you believe it? Too bad this can't be done here because his teeth are still too 'soft'... this may end up being the costliest and hardest to solve accident of all.

The third one happened yesterday and not here in Brazil (that's why I didn't use that in the title). DH is in France participating of a winter course in his area of specialization. He was looking forward to skiing there, but he won't be able to. Yesterday as he walked to the ski station to ask about prices he slipped and fell in the ice fracturing his left arm... (This is a guy whose only fracture in life was a foot in his 7th grade, and only because his school bus driver made a sudden curve and he kicked the seat in front of him too hard). I felt very frustrated because he won't be able to ski, and even more because he'll have to write shorter emails :) The cost of this one? Apparently 150 Euros, thanks to the socialized health system in France (oh, yeah, I could go on and on about of how terrible I think the American health system is...).

Anyway... the hardest part for me is the realization that as far as the kids are concerned, this is only the beginning. I know I have to brace myself for much more serious accidents; they're an intrinsic part of childhood (and sometimes even adulthood... :)

Edited to add:
1. You may have noticed I’m a bit worried about money. It’s just that we’re on such a tight budget that any unexpected expense, however small, worries me.
2. Did I mention we were on vacation? Vacation my foot! There's no vacation when you have two young children. My husband and I were talking that in this situation it's best to vacation at home, but this subject is another post in itself.

Here in Brazil #4 Quick Update or Travels, Birthdays, and Weddings

I’ve been very busy over here. After a week at the beach (we had wonderful weather and enjoyed the beach and each other’s company), on Monday we spent ½ a day at my in-laws’ house (where I got back online for a few minutes), traveled for 4 hours to Curitiba where we spent the night. Then on Tuesday me, my dad and the boys drove for 8 hours to get to my parents' home in Sao Paulo state. Brazilian cars are tiny, so my mom used her miles to fly, and my husband took a bus (and the car was still completely packed with stuff). We all met again here at night.

After only a day here we're driving to Sao Paulo (the city) this afternoon, and we'll be back on Tuesday. There we'll stay at our best friends' house, and on Saturday we'll celebrate my husband's grandmother's 80th birthday, since her whole family is here from all over Brazil and also the U.S. for the two weddings (my BIL's and a cousin). Her birthday is actually the same day as mine, July 7, but we're celebrating ahead of time. On Saturday night, hubby flies home, missing his cousin's wedding on Sunday because he has to go to France (!!) for a course - lucky him! (coincidentaly, Saturday is the grandmother's sister's birthday, so we'll have a celebration for her 73rd birthday as well during lunch).

Sunday will be a crazy day, because we have two weddings to go to, and Kelvin will be a ring-bearer at both of them. The first (my husband's best friend) is at 11 am and the second (hubby's cousin) at 4 pm, and they are in different cities, 2 hours away. Wish us luck with this marathon. I hope to post again on Sunday night because our friends have high speed internet.

I'll try to be back soon, but meanwhile, I'll post this, because I'm using my mom's phone line right now...