Going With the Flow

Tonight I learned about something new for me - how to work with a bluetooth adapter. I know bluetooth tech isn’t new. I just didn’t know how to hook up an adapter to my computer and use it to transfer files from a cell phone. Actually not too hard at all, but as my husband said, it makes you feel old when you have to work so hard to figure out something that seems to come naturally to those who are young. Just as proof that I did manage it, I am posting a photo João took of me (with the cell phone) as I was painting, while on vacation. I love the photo, by the way, but I didn’t even realize when he took it. I look like a real artist, eh?

It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with technology, as there is so much. Bluetooth, Twitter, Podcasts, have been added to my list of conquests. It was always so much fun for me to figure out something new. Still is fun when it’s figured out, but it’s getting hard to figure them out. Do you ever feel the merry-go-round really is turning just a little fast to keep up with?

Yesterday,Sunday, we had a special celebration of the 35th anniversary of of our women’s choir. As part of their celebration they invited two other women’s choirs, so it made for quite an interesting service with the different voices and styles. I wasn’t sure ahead of time how much I would really enjoy it, as I am not always a huge fan of women’s choirs. When the men join together, it seems so big and booming and nice, but for some reason women’s groups are often strident and trembly. This was not the case and it was a great service. As you know, we have trouble with attendance Sunday night. Our church falls to less than half of the morning service. To see the church reasonably full is always fun. We are struggling to know what to do with this problem. There were a number of decisions to follow Christ at the end the service, so our hearts were really full by the end of the day.

Wanna Make Me Cry?

Today, as I was preparing my space and material to draw (I don’t have a permanent space for my art work *sigh*), I decided to put my computer near me and put on some music. Now that is unusual, because I am not one to “need” noise. I need silence. But today I wanted music, maybe to help to drown out other sounds, since I wasn’t alone. Strangely enough I struggle to concentrate when I know there is anyone else around. I began to dig through my CD’s and found

my Carpenter’s double album. I haven’t listened to it for years, but from the first notes, I felt like I was in a time machine. I literally felt transported back to my college days. I could see where I lived, smell the smells, see the scenery and feel the feelings. I felt absolutely transported. As I drew I sang lustily, remembering the lyrics and probably driving the family crazy. Their song “Yesterday Once More” described perfectly my feelings.

When I was young
I'd listened to the radio
Waitin' for my favorite songs
Waiting they played I'd sing along
It made me smile
Those were such happy times
And not so long ago How I wondered where they'd gone
But they're back again
Just like a long lost friend
All the songs I loved so well

They made me cry and laugh and be happy too. Mostly I just felt so nostalgic. When I listened to “I’ll Say Goodbye to Love”, I remembered how true I thought it was. I was so certain I would never ever find love and now I’m looking at my wonderful husband of 16 1/2 years, realizing how blessed I am and how things never turn out like we expect.

I did get more done than be sentimental, however. I made progress on Eduardo, our minister of music. I work from left to right on my drawings so as not to smudge them, as the graphite is very soft, so he came last because of pl

acement, not priorities. His tie is polka-dotted, but I am thinking it might just stay solid. I was going to paint on the white dots, but I am so afraid of messing up and ruining the whole thing. Does the solid tie work? I think his teeth came out looking fine, considering I had to make them up since his braces hid them. At any rate I am now far enough along I can take the art to my class and get my teacher to help me with corrections and the background. I’ll be glad when I get it framed and I can stop dreaming about it. Or maybe I should say, stop having night mares about not finishing it in time. Surely am glad I don’t make my living doing this.

Hope you are having a good weekend. Put on your favorite “album” and relive your past. It’s nice and cathartic.

PS: I "stitched" two scans together so you get an idea of the whole picture.

The Family that Sweats Together

Today Sissy and João and I went to a nearby gym (here in Brazil they are on every other corner) and signed up for the “family plan”. Finally after 7 months João and I are getting back to exercise. I have decided to try out weight lifting and a treadmill instead of the pool, so as to avoid sinus problems. I may even do some stretching classes. We start on Monday, although the gal tried her best to get us to start today. We thought it was enough of a leap for one day to go out and sign up. Hope we’ll all like it.

On Tuesday we celebrated Sissy’s 23rd birthday. Can you believe how time flies? We had a nice luncheon at Outback to celebrate.

Today I spent my time reworking the graphite portraits I am doing of the three ministers. In a fit of anger and frustration and I simply ditched the first attempt. After hours and hours, it just wasn’t quite right. I kept erasing, but couldn’t get it right, so felt it was better to start again. You know the old saying about the fact that it’s better to sew a new dress than to try to alter an old one. I was SOOOOOO frustrated, and not sure I would do any better on the second try, but I think maybe I have. To my eyes, it looks a lot more like Joào and Hélio. I still haven’t worked too much on Eduardo and since the whole drawing is too large to fit on the scanner, I’m showing you only the two of them. I have decided to do their suits in charcoal, when I have finished their faces. The charcoal will be dark and rough enough to represent the clothes better. I hope I can finish in time for the art exposition the first Sunday of August. In addition, I have to leave time to have it framed. The problem is, of course, that I get tired after about 4 hours of work. These two faces have easily taken 10 hours and there’s still a lot to go. Wish me luck!

Long Time No See

What a ride it has been the last two weeks! Hectic is kind of an understatement. If I wrote about everything, I think many of the things would be boring to you, so I’ll just hit a couple of events. One of our high points this past week was receiving our friends from Canada, Tereza and Patricia. Patricia was very much a little girl when we left Canada three years ago, but now she is a beautiful young woman. They were so much fun to have here in our home. It was like having family here. They left yesterday to travel to Maranhão, to visit Tereza’s family, and we already miss them here. Some people can just walk right back into your life and it’s like you’ve never been separated. That, to me, is the real test of friendship!

In addition to their presence with us, this week is the state Baptist Convention here in the city of Rio. Unfortunately the convention site is REALLY far away. In good traffic conditions, about an hour. In bad, about three hours. So João has been rushing back and forth to those meetings. On Wednesday, he was the preacher and the men’s choir from our church sang (you can see some on them in the background of the photo of João). João did me very proud with his message. I think what he had to say was very significant and I hope they take to heart his concerns about ethics and integrity. They voted to publish his message and several references were made to the message during the business session the next day.

On a very light note, last week I had a beauty consultation with a Mary Kay rep. (Who just “happens” to be our youth minister’s wife.) Do you remember when Mary Kay makeup was all the rage? I loved it back in the 80’s, but when I came to Brazil, I stopped using it, since it wasn’t available here. Now it is, albeit everything is very different. I was impressed with quality of the material and its affordability. Although I had invited several friends from church, only one was able to make it. She thought she looked a little too made up, but I thought she looked polished. At any rate we laughed and giggled and had a lot of fun doing our make-overs. I remembered how much I need “girl” fun. Since Marilene moved two years ago, I just haven’t invested in that. I suffer from a chronic fear of rejection, so I tend not to call people or invite them to things, as much as I enjoy them. I always wait for people to call me, but because I put up such a good front, folks assume I wouldn’t be interested in being with them. Since I don’t call, they don’t call and I end up in my own lonely little vicious cycle. We’ll save the analysis for another day.

I have to leave here in a bit and pick up all my test results at the lab. Doing the exams was another part of my week. Now I just have to schedule a doctor’s appt to talk over the results, which from the indications at the time of the exams, are all okay. As Momma always says: “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken”.

Old Dog, New Tricks

Last night I did something new. I went to a choir rehearsal. No lightning bolts, please. I know I said I was done with singing, but this choir is a temporary thing, formed to sing the cantata for the anniversary of our church in August. It’s not that many rehearsals, so it’s not a big commitment. Plus they are actually singing with sheet music so I can learn the music pretty quickly. (Most choirs learn by rote which means endless repetition that bores me to tears) In addition, the directors of rehearsals are professional musicians and actually working on breathing, tone and learning to sing correctly. I LOVED rehearsal. I learned more about singing, I learned a new song, made friends, got some exercise (singing counts as exercise, doesn’t it?) and had FUN. You are never too old to do something new, right? Speaking of which I am seriously considering buying a digital piano (no way an acustic piano would fit in our elevator) and studying piano. Wouldn’t that be a kick?

I am on the anniversary committee of the church. Our 125th anniversary will be on August 24th. Our theme is “TOGETHER”. One of the events is an art exposition and I was “volunteered” to participate. My very original idea was to produce a portrait of our three ministers, showing them united, or “together” in ministry. I just started yesterday, but made progress, although there is something wrong with the youth minister’s eyes. Everyone always says he looks like Barak Obama and now I see the resemblance. João and Eduardo look like themselves, but I have to do something with Elio’s eyes to get him right. But look at their ties. It’s the first time I’ve drawn clothes and I think I made good progress. I think I have discovered that for portraits I prefer pencil. I tried ink and that was horrible. The nice thing about pencils is that I can carry them anywhere and work on the drawing, although this is a fairly large drawing and is hard to carry around.

Things are quiet around the house. Sissy is on vacation and Mia has entered into depression as she misses Sissy so much. Don’t those eyes just say: “Come home Sissy”? That’s the most pathetic thing I’ve seen in a while. That is Sissy’s bed, by the way. Mia stays there all the time now. Soon things will be more agitated around here, as Theresa and Patricia will be arriving from Canada. They were members of our church in Ottawa, but are Brazilians. Can’t wait to see them. I suppose I had should clean and grocery shop and get ready for the visit. Oops… there goes the quiet.

Saturday the 4th of July

Today is NOT a holiday in Brazil, but I decided to celebrate anyway by inviting my English speaking Sunday School class to my house for a 4th of July “mini” celebration. We had a brunch and we all tried to dress in red, white and blue. I couldn’t find blueberries to go with the strawberries, but at least we had lots of red for our breakfast. I have never tried doing anything like this before, so it was the first time in 20+ years I’ve had any celebration of the fourth of July. I am not sure if it was a busy day for everyone, or people didn’t like the idea of the brunch or an American holiday, but I only had 3 people come. I was thrilled they made it, but wondered what happened to my other 10 classmates. Since I prepared for 15+ people, needless to say I had TONS of leftovers. We all had a great time talking and eating. I really enjoyed myself AND I won’t have to cook for a while. I don’t think they were too sure about the “deviled” eggs, but since those are one of my very favorite foods, I ate them all for supper! Since everyone asked why they are called “deviled”, I had to do a little research. Do you know??? According to the ever famous Wikipedia: “The term "deviled", in reference to food, was in use in the 18th century, first known print reference appearing in 1786. In the 19th century, it came to be used most often with spicy or zesty food”. You learn something new everyday! And now I am off to eat watermelon to finish off my 4th of July. Hope you had fun too.