I Want My Mommy

This refrain that I echo whenever I feel especially sick, is sure to provoke laughter from my husband. It is my pitiful cry when I feel frustrated and helpless against germs! Yesterday as I fought to breath against a lousy cold, I repeated it several times. He was sweet to rub my feet, fix me hot tea, and bring me meals in bed, but I didn't feel better. I mostly just had to sleep off the fever. Today, even though I have a cough, I feel better sans fever and able to breath through my nose! Still felt crummy enough to stay at home from church, the first time I've done that in a long long time (I can't even remember when...) With all the elderly people at our church, I don't figure I needed to spread my germs!
In fact, I probably did that on Friday, at our church's anniversary. We celebrated 123 years. Our church has the tradition of all day prayer meeting, starting at 6AM. And yes there are a lot of people there at that hour - probably the most well attended hour of the day, as people come before work. Anyway, every 30 minutes a new person leads the prayer time, so it is quite varied. And people come and go. João started the day at 6 AM and I ended it at 6PM. Then at 7PM we had the climatic closing worship service with a reasonably full house (Friday is just a horrible traffic day and many people arrived late). Since so much was happening, I lead the worship for João, as having to remember everything and preach is quite difficult. The service was full of many events, like the Lord's Supper, a long choir presentation, a wonderful sermon (by my husband of course) and brief presentations of our church's work through its 9 different departments (missions, education, music, social work, recreation, culture, administration, school (with 270 students) and communications. The highlight, came at the end when the coordinator of each ministry area stood at different points on the auditorium and we asked each every member of the church to go and stand in the area of ministry where they would be involved in the coming year. To see a thousand people making their way to the various ministries was very moving.
After the worship there was a gigantic cake that everyone seemed to enjoy. Me, I went and collapsed as I was feeling the effects of the fever by that time. Funny, when you are in the midst of the event you feel nothing, but by the end you are drained!
People kept joking, funny you don't look 123 years old. But by 10PM, I felt it. Since, however, I am on the road to recovery, guess I'll make it to 123 and not stop at 55!

Motira it is

Yesterday was quite a day. We drove across town to chose a cat. I suppose I could get any old cat from anywhere, but I have grown picky in my old age. I want a cat that is vaccinated, spayed, etc. I had a particularly bad experience with a very sick animal I adopted and don't want to repeat the experience. (She had ringworm, which I caught, my neighbour caught, my neighbour's dog, my friend's children, etc., etc.). Anyway, Motira it is! She is a sweet little tiny black shorthair - british shorthair champion here in Brazil. She's and older cat and very calm and sweet. She stayed in my arms the whole time. The white persian hated me and I wasn't too fond of him either. But with the paper work and all, looks like it will be a couple of weeks til she comes home. That gives me time to prepare the house for her.
From there we went to meet with an old friend of João's, who is a missionary in South Africa. Then we picked up another pastor friend (they were all collegues in seminary) and off we went to lunch. From there we went to a very sad funeral of one of their former teachers from seminary. He died while teaching. I guess that's how we all want to go. But here in Brazil everything happens so fast, it is still shocking to me after all these years. He died in classes on Thursday night and the funeral was Friday afternoon. I hardly had time to digest the news. Since he had been a denominational leader and pastor and seminary teacher the Baptist community was there in mass. Consequently we had a hard time even getting away as we had so many acquaintances. I find such experiences oh so tiring, from the emotion of the day, in addition to the crowds and noise and heat.
From there off I went to the pool to do my aqua fitness. I am at a new place now, that has the most modern of equipment. You are admitted as you punch in your member numer. Your picture flashes up and then you touch the finger print machine (or thingamajig) and voilá - the gates open. My class on Wednesday was on bicycles in the pool. Last night we were jumping on the mini-trampolins in the pool. That was fun. But I sure did drag home at 7PM, in the dark, 10 minutes stretched into 15 minutes as I drug myself up the hill to my house. I could hardly hold my eyes open. I finally gave up went to bed at around 9:30. I hope today is calmer, but more productive. I'm off to the market to get some healthy food. Want any melons, pineapples, papayas or tangerines???
P.S. Her name is pronounced differently in Portuguese. It will be like this, phonetically: Moe-CHEE - da, although spelled Motira. Her father is: Von Wagner Count Basie and her mother is Nashville`s Crazy For a Kiss.

Maybe, just maybe

I just might be getting a cat. In a few minutes we will be visiting a cattery to see the possibility of adopting two retired breeders. The one to the left is a male persian, named Gold. To the right is a female British Shorthair. Both are adults and the breeder feels they need more attention than she can give them. I am keeping my fingers crossed that all is well and healthy and I will like one of them. If I do, then she will have the one I choose, castrated and then in a couple of weeks he or she will come to live with me. Sissy and João already are voting for the Persian. Me, I like the shorthair, for obvious reasons. But their personalities will determine things. I will keep you posted and let you know which one I chose. By the way, I really wanted a ragdoll, but the price was in the thousands! So these being adult cats, I only have to pay for the spaying or neutering, which helps! So let's hope for the best.
P.S. I am writing this some hours later. As we were driving across town to see the cats, Sissy called and had locked herself out. So we drove home to let her in, since she would have had to wait several hours otherwise. Then it was too late to drive back across town. As it turns out, the breeder had a crisis with a kitten and had to rush to the vet anyway, so today was not to be. We will set up for another day really soon.

Puritans, Pirates and Pilgrims

I think this will have to be the title of a book that cries out for me to write. It will have to be a novel about a woman who is researching her family history. Periodically there will be digressions of moving back and forward in time as she moves into the lives of her ancestors (no not new age stuff, but just dreaming of what their life must have been like).
(To the left is my paternal great-great grandfather whose name or image we never knew a thing about - he disappeared one day about 1870 according to a cousin of my father. She had the picture.)
Since May, my newest passion has been putting together my family tree (with lots of help). I am stunned at how much help the ancestry.com site offers. Fortunately I had lots of help from my mom and other relatives and a lot of data several generations back, that all make it possible to keep on digging. Several times when I have been at a standstill, I have just kept on digging and found out a lot of stuff. Of course, being in Brazil, I am limited to what I can find on the internet and I am in a very preliminary stage, needing to verify lots of the data yet.
Still what I have found so far is fabulous. I already have over 1500 names in the tree (like I said, some yet to be totally verified), including an apparent direct link to Charlemagne. Wow!
But we have all gotten the most fun out of a pirate ancestor (Philip Babb) who was hired to bring law and order to the colony (Isles of Shoals) in 1653) and managed to side with the pirates. The legend says he was so bad, even his grave smells of sulphur. How's that for an ancestor?
Ah, but I can go you one better... still on my paternal side - around 1692 Mercy Holbridge was tried as a witch in New Haven, Connecticut. She was found guilty and sentenced to death. Fortunately wiser heads prevailed and because of the extreme travesty of justice, she was pardoned. Seems she was just too upfront as a woman with her opinions for the puritans.
Closing out this trio of illustrious ancestors of the 1600's, is Edward Doty, who had the distinction of being a participant in the first duel ever fought in New England. He was on the Mayflower and a signer of the Mayflower compact. He was, however, no religious man like the others. He was constantly in trouble, the only rogue "pilgrim" aboard the Mayflower. He was actually a servant to one of the real pilgrims! He, I am proud to say, is on my maternal line. So both sides of the family have their fair share of scoundrels.
Because of the relative "fame" of these three ancestors, I have been able to trace a direct line and there is no doubt that some of their blood runs in my veins.
Fortunately there are also preachers who suffered persecutions, Quakers who were exiled, and lots of Methodist and Brethren preachers/pastors/chaplains scattered around. It's definitely not just "genes", but who you chose to give your heart to.

Before, During and After

For the last few weeks, I've been working on redoing the dining room furniture.It's a really nice piece of furniture that I bought sight unseen from the former owner. But, with the brick red walls, the slightly reddish furniture just doesn't do the job. It's like it disappears into the background. People keep telling me I needed to have it antiqued, but I was reluctant. Finally I bit the bullet and decided to have it done. So a friend of Marilene's, who is an artist, agreed to come and do it here at the house. So we took the two pieces apart and she began to sand and sand and sand.
After sanding, she began painting white. Well the painting is quite a job, as the wood just drank it up, so four coats were not much! It was days of work for her.
Next step, sand, sand and sand! Sawdust everywhere. But look at the results. Now you can really see the china cabinet and the wall as well.
Today she finished and I cleaned and cleaned and waxed and now all the stuff is back in it (to my immense relief, as I had dishes scattered all over my kitchen).
As you can see, we took the glass top off the table and she began sanding it. But we will not do antiquing on it. Just sand it down to the wood and then wax it, to give it some shine. The chairs, however, will have to wait, as this is an expensive operation! As well as messy and time consuming. I would like to be able to use my table again and do some entertaining. She suggested that we sand and wax the chairs (a natural finish) like the table, and then recover them. She even said she could paint the cloth (well, paint isn't the right word, but she designs and decorates material professionally) so we could do something interesting with them. We are thinking of stripes in shades of orange and yellow with an ochre or cream background. I think that would jazz up the room. Then, of course, my rug will no longer match. ARGH! IT's a never ending process. And of course, I really need to frame some pictures for the wall... As I said, this is a long process. I guess you never really get your house the way you want it, unless you are rich (let me clear up any doubts you might have. I am not!).
Thought you'd enjoy my decorating journey.
So you who are decorating divas, have any suggestions?