Monterey pics + my new hair color

Seals!

Clam chowder

Sweet Potato Pie

Thanks to Mandy for the recipe! Its the best pie I've ever had.

2 cups sweet potato

1 stick melted butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 can sweetened condensed milk

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

¼ tsp nutmeg

¾ tsp cinnamon

-boil sweet potatoes until soft, let cool remove skin, mash.
-combine all ingredients
-makes 2 pies
-bake at 350-375 for 30-35 min

Bakes inside one of those frozen pie crusts you can get anywhere. I haven't done it yet. need to go get some ingredients. its highly addictive.

Outside and in

Prima e outros curiosos, esta eh a vista para fora de casa. Nao eh bem no meio duma floresta. por acaso fica a um quarteirao da avenida onde tudo acontece -Blackstone. Mas eh muito sossegado. Aqui eh um complexo de apartamentos como se ve na foto, mas fora sao casinhas lindas com arvores, que agora estao coloridas amarelo, vermelho... No dia da foto choveu, o dia estava cinzento, mas eh rarissimo. Tem estado briol mas sempre sol.
Sim, eh um pentagrama na cortina. O meu housemate eh um sacerdote pagao, nos tempos livres. Meet Ken...


Kens pride and joy is his hair, which I braided for him. He is awesome. Stellium em sagitario na casa 12. lua em scorpio.Belo mix. Conheci-o em Julho, quando andava a procura de pessoas com interesses em astrologia e afins. O primeiro encontro foi na Revue, o meu hang out preferido em fresno, foi um nico desconfortavel como tds os primeiros encontros, com algumas moscas a chatear. Nunca imaginamos que estariamos a viver na mm casa 3 meses depois. A vida dah voltas. E aqui estou eu em grande plano na TV do Ken. O video do youtube. =)

Free Hugs in Lisbon

Danse des lutins - FULL VERSION

kitchen and my bedroom!

:D :D :D I love that the windows have upclose views of trees!Besides the ocean I couldn't ask for a better view.

Mais duas

La pièce de résistance!

Updated pics

Soon I will post picture of the kitchen, which is really nice and of my bedroom! I love the place!!! :D

en chantant des vieux airs

E. Marchelie

One of the attempts to get a video on youtube!
Has to slice it in half because it was too heavy.
En chantant des vieux airs, from Erik Marchelie! One of my favorite ones!

3 pics of new place

This Cat Betrayed His Girlfriend

New painting

The first one is the one i painted! the second is the original. I saw it in an art gallery with a friend and he loved it, so I decided to paint one for him :D
I like the end result. Its not my kind of painting but was fun to do. I need to paint more. This gallery exposes paintings of new local artists. Maybe one day i will have enough paintings to show there. I need at least 15.

Life has been hectic and weird otherwise. With some good moments. I'm depressed again but avoiding getting back on medication for now. I will have health insurance soon, so will try to see a therapist.
I'm going to move to a new place with a roomate, we will share a 2 bedroom place, which should be awesome and cheap. We are excited about 2 places now. We will apply for both and see what happens.
Hope you like the painting!
Love and miss my friends in LX!

Connect / mono retreat

Not sure what to call it. I'm going on a retreat with the purpose of: connecting. First with myself, eventually with others. My method: monotask. I will not multitask. I will be in meditation, prayer, and doing reiki to myself daily. I will go about my normal life except i won't have my phone connected and won't be using the messengers online. That will give me ALOT oof free hours during the day to exercise, meditate, ride bike, etc. Do things that energize me and not drain me.
Though i will be online a limited time a day and will check emails. Won't watch TV mostly. But if i do I won't be using the pc or eating at the same time. I will meditate/do reiki about one hour a day at least. I plan on going to a local church too. Need to check their schedule tomorrow.
So, it will be very simple. Basically i wont be chatting online or multitasking. And the free time i get from that i will be doing good things for myself, meditation being a priority. I will try it for at least a week.

I went to the meditation on monday, and got 2 interesting messages. One directly to me from my Guide: question->how do I heal myself? Answer: Connect.
The other message was that intention without action leads to nothing. Action leads to success. Action implies structure, saturn, limits. ACTION. to act. to move. to do things.

meditation meetup

Today the ideal opportunity to finally attend the meditation meetup came up.
after meditating for half an hour we read parts of a book and then discussed it.

I've been very out of it mentally, for lack of proper rest, for alot of stressful events, heartbreak, toxic people too close, depression, getting off depression medication, and not being able to cope very well with any of that. Being here away from people and places i know makes me disabled to deal with stuff it seems.

Whatever.

What i was trying to say is that because of this, i only retained a few ideas from the meetup and i thought i'd write them down here. Randomly:

Quote: If you want to be a light in the world, prepare to be burned.

In a book about an interview between the dalai lama and a scientist the later asked if the Dalai Lama regrets anything in his life. He responded that he regrets what he said when an aging monk came to him agonizing about not being to do the hardcore exercise he had done all his life, he wanted to know what he could do to be able to do them again, and D.L. suggested he moved on with his life, accepting he is now old. That monk went on and killed himself. Then the scientist asked : how were you able to eventually leave that event behind you? The D. Lama replied: I haven't.

Note to self/moral of story: we can carry all the bad events with us, not forget /ignore them and still have space for all the good things in life. The soul is big enough for all of it. Bad things don't need to take over the soul, they can be remembered and relived, not good to dwell too much, but not good to forget it either. Its easier to forget it. But then you loose a bit of your soul, a but of who you are.

i needed to hear that.
Another thing, off topic, that i needed to hear and came to me last night through an email is:
"What other people think about you is none of your business". I love that. so true. Other people can project whatever crap they want on me, but it only informs about who they are, what they have inside. Always healing to remember that.

We also read a book entitled Places we Fear... but I wasnt able to take much fr0m it, i'd need to read it and re-read it as i have saturn-mercury on top of all the things mentioned above. I look forward to going next week again.

my best side pictures @ Palácio da Pena

At Palácio da Pena, in Sintra, Portugal. Wearing a hat the wrong way. Wearing some unexpected bunny ears.

My other side doesn't look as good, I'm glad i'm right handed. This palace is my favorite in the world. It's so moon conjunct neptune in sagitarius: the ocean theme, neptune, sea shells on the walls, and the international decoration of each room. which we couldn't take pictures of... the colours are awesome. yellow, magenta, chess paterns.....

this one was in Bairro alto. Its fuzzy , but i like it.

lisbon + faial, August 2009

Polyamory

POLYAMORY: Love—Poly Style -Newsweek

:) Neptune-Jupiter conjunct my mars = Poly!!!

Happiness obsession

I hope Bruno and Devil Mood give me permission to copy paste their comments to the last post:

Bruno said...

Hi babe! I think being happy can have multiple setups but generally it depends on two things:

1. Having a purpose for your life.

Most people have a purpose like having kids, others to fulfill professional objectives or reach certain goals, others to help / service the community, etc.
So the first thing to do is to figure out what purpose you want to give to your life.


2. Being Yourself and growing inside

Many people live to create a superficial image to show to others and even though they might seem happy, they are actually miserable inside and can't stand being alone.

When we are ourselves most of the time, we tend to feel security. Our concepts our ideals they should all come from within and not from other sources. Only then we are truly ourselves.

Finding someone to share your life for example relies a lot in the ability of being able to be yourself with the other person. I had the luck of experiencing such feeling and swore never to forget it so I can recognize it when I find the right person.

Being ourselves also protects us from external negativity and social pressure. It means we have a mind of our own and stick with our beliefs.

Do realize that even though being ourselves is great, we have to be open to change into growing and improving our ideals & concepts.
Sticking with our beliefs is fine but not if the behavior ends up to be self-destructive.

I learned to avoid self-destructivity and try to improve myself solely based on that concept.
This means when I feel like reacting negative, remind myself to stop and think "Is there a better way to react? How?" and then react the better way. This greatly improved my relationship with others and my professional attitude.

As a general rule, any negative emotional reaction is bad. Sometimes I feel revolted about unfair things and just feel like blowing but at the same time know it won't take me anywhere good neither it is a good way to react.
Lack of self-control is a weakness.

I hope my ramblings enlighten you.

Kisses

Devil Mood said...

It can be a constant struggle for some people, while it seems to come naturally for the rest of them.
Anyway, happiness is an american obsession. Obviously everyone wants to be happy or to feel good, at least, but the obsessive pursuit of happiness is not the way to go, I believe.
I was reading a book about that but I gave it up..haha ;)

Bruno said...

Yep being obsessive about it is not a good thing either.

Well... being obsessive about anything too I guess... :)

I think most people only find up to a certain level of happiness.

If you focus on following a constructive path in your life, you should find happiness somewhere along the way. Or shall I say... it should find you!

Me: Hi Bruno, i'm trying to figure out if I know you or not, can u give me a clue? Thank you for your input. Devil mood (((hugz)))

I think maybe happiness has different meanings for people. I have this intuitive theory that fire signs are naturally happy. and by happy I mean they are ALIVE. everything they do has alot of life. They're Here. They're enjoying being here.
And it seems to be as natural as breathing. Its just a theory. I dont really know alot of fire signs deeply. The ones i know have actually been depressed at times, but when not, they're back to being the way i described.

For a Pisces like me, that doesn't happen. At ALL. Being on earth at least half the time feels wrong and uncomfortable. and weird, unfamiliar. some rare moments it feels good, when im allowed to be oblivious and free and comfortable physically, then i'm able to be in a different place in spirit. So, its not about being obsessed about being in an ideal state of perfectness. By happy i mean satisfied, content, alive enough to function in a way that doesn't bring other people down. Its much more of a practical thing. If u have to be incarnated, its very practical to be a somewhat happy person, stable. I'm not too stable, I'm fighting to keep sanity and control of basic stuff, mainly in relationships with others, that's the area that hurts the most.

The ways to have a fulfilled life certainly have to do with goals, as Bruno pointed out. At least for most people it does. I think Buddhists say its the other way around though, having no wishes is the best way to not be disappointed. But I think for me, at my level of conscience, it works to have goals, to keep me motivated, like the donkey that walks to get the carrot in front of his nose..( i think this is a reference to "dom quixote")

Anyway. Its a practical matter as well as a philosophical point. I've heard and seen many times in my life that poor people are happiest. Except in countries with big extremes of poverty and richness, like the US and big cities in Brazil, there the poor can be angry and revolted because they see closely what they are missing. That keeps them from being grateful for what they have, and that's what was happening to me, not being grateful. And there's where lies the choice to be happy or not.
Happy people are grateful and they appreciate little things.

The other point Bruno made was about being yourself. It reminds me of Carl rogers idea of being congruent as a basis of healthy psyche. I've always agreed with him, even though some people say its too naive. I have no doubt that my peace of mind and self esteem depend on being true to myself, and once you give up on it you're lost, living a lie, totally disconnected from yourself. And that's how most people live. Some people have social masks which they live intensely, and then are able to go back to being their true self with people they trust, I imagine, I can't really do that. Not enough social intelligence. not enough cynicism, and not enough motivation to do it. I don't understand those people at all, they scare me, to be honest. Not saying they are bad people, at all, just different essence and history.

I'm sleepy and tired. I had morning insomnia all of last week. waking up at 5 am feeling fine. Now that i'm back to sleeping i feel really tired. think i might be getting sick. So I hope this post made sense, I'm not editing it much, as i usually do. Need to go to bed. Thank u for commenting!

Being grateful

I was laying on the couch... after another works day, feeling bored and like life doesn't make a whole lot of sense...
I decided to get my butt of the couch and of the house and go for a stroll on my bike. Going around the corner i saw a 2 year old boy running naked and his mom after him, i smiled. The boredom started to lift a bit. I started realizing I don't feel happiness. And i started to wonder why. I finally have everything i need to be happy, dont I?
I am confortable with my body, my weight, after a life long struggle with that. I am able to live by myself in a nice place, able to ride a bike in a beautiful place, with nice houses and lovely trees... the temperature is perfect.. I see cats laying around on the grass... I start feeling better. more relaxed. I start to worry that if I cant feel totally happy right now, i never will. I am sure of that. Then i realize / remember the secret to happiness is to be grateful for things. Its all about perspective.
I start singing "give thanks with a grateful heart" as i stroll in the bike... -"wish i had a nice voice.. wish i could actually sing... then i'd be happier much easier. ugh, back to being thankful for the good things.." - I start giving thanks for the nice weather, the bike, my healthy body, for cats, for birds i see, for my blond arm hairs... for the trees...etc. I realize i will never be happy by having material things, if thats all there is in my life. I need to learn to be happy. This insight has been building up in the last days. And it was a bit scary to realize it because for a few minutes it seemed it was out of my control to be happy or not. I felt alot better after doing this exercise of gratefulness.As I strolled around looking at the houses, sometimes glimpsing people inside them doing whatever, or watering their lawns, i wondered if they are happy, and I wondered if i would be happy having that life, by that i just mean having their house which is all i know about how their life is. No, I wouldnt, i realized. If that's all i had, i'd be even emptier, i'd be desilusioned and farther away from it. I wonder if u understand what im talking about. I think people that have dreams and wants are the happiest. I guess its because once u get it, it soon looses its power to make u happy.
I asked myself how do other people do it. how are they happy? they have famillies, was what came to mind imediatly. they have kids. and I pondered on that notion... kids are happy. u can be happy for them. happy for making them happy. happy to ignore your saturn, your "age", your lack of life outside of them. thats a totally valid thing to do. it really is. life is what you put your mind to think/see it is. There's saturn, but theres also jupiter, sun, etc, they are all part of life. none more valid than the other.
I think i would be happy if i was able to have friends over at my house alot, and being involved in my community.
I'm happy when im making other people happy. When they enjoy the food i make and being in my house. Happy when i have puppies and sometimes cats. Happy around beauty. Happy when i'm growing and learning, becoming better.
I'll keep working on it...

album monterey