Making our house our home

Last month has been all about getting shelves up and stuff out of boxes and slowly making our house our home. This house is a cream-white box. On a friend´s suggestion I accepted it as a frame for all the color me would bring in. I started with swaping fridge-cold light bulbs for their warmer yellow version, got in some circles and curves among the canvas of perpendicular bars, grids and tiles, and we did some doodling too, with friends.

haircut

There came a request for short hair, coming from the girls, and because of the little inhabitants on our heads and those of many schoolmates, I did not think twice, grabed my scissors and water spray and started the fun on our little balcony. I was not alowed to come close to Coline´s fringe - "big girls do not have short fringe" - as she recently found out that you do not get rid of it by cutting it down to the scalp, you actually have to let it grow. This is exactely what she is in the process of, becoming a big,  fringeless little girl. Cutting their hair is for me a slightly stressful experience. I am generally granted a maximum of 3 snaps before they start moving around and running away, but I did manage some sort of symetry and even a drop of creativity on Leila´s hair. When requested again, I will abide.

and we´re back! except, we moved

This is it, our new home, big, white and square. One thing for sure, THERE IS GOING TO BE SO MUCH LIGHT, and so we are loving it for that. 

We had no regret at saying goodbye to the mold, although it did come along with us, in every page of every book, in the heart of our bed mattresses, in the wood of our wardrobes, which a carefully selected bunch of amateur geologists took down so many steps from the morro down to the sunny side of town. Slowly the sun and the air of September dried it out, hopefully for good, or at least for most of each year. 

The tropical forest that I squeezed in a few car trips has not found its way out the pots yet, the soil is still too dry, and to my dismay, covered in a roundup ready thick grass coat (can you believe MY own garden will have to grow over a pesticide contaminated soil?) So for now the kids are sliding it down until the carboard boxes get thin as paper, or the dogs tear it down to pieces. One shelf, one breakfast, one silly dance, one homework on the big table, one moonrise at a time, we are inhabiting this new home.

{this moment}

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A Friday ritual inspired by Soulemama. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

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browsing through October pics, with love

Rain at last

The first day of rain is a happy day. To truly understand why, let me introduce you to the view from our house for most of this month, a fire a day, from one hill to the next, until the sky was thick with smoke, and the sun set red behind clouds of ashes. The hills around Ouro Preto have all caught fire, including ours, and many of them burned down to ashes. It was a sad and unhealthy month of October this one, as the skies did not seem to ever want to launch this year's rainy season.

And finally today, the first proper rain finally came, the one that starts before we get out of bed and goes on until the next, or almost, and it was a happy one. We found a few dry frogs in the past few months, and today they are loud out there, along with the gigantic snails that graze by the dozen the plot around our house.

Leila, Coline and I put on our boots as the sun came out just before setting and found out how much has already grown. We had a feast with the first few pitangas, jabuticabas, raspberries (going fat and strong this month even though this one magic plant has not stopped giving fruits since last year, literally) and (juicy) wild strawberries. And for the first all-indoors day, we dug out many forgotten ways to spend some time together out of the pula-pula, which included recycling wax crayons, making our favorite pancakes, reading tens of children's books, hugging, watching She-Ra on youtube (the girls and Cris) while knitting (me), tea and hot chocolate (separate), paint and drawing on some treasured scratchboard cards and all these little things that happen in 5 min or less and make a full day of being at home active and lazy at the same time, a rainy sunnyday as Coline puts it.