Cadeaux de Noel

Tomorrow another market "Craft and design", the forecast is a cloudy but sunny day with temperatures around 13C which is ok considering the wave of low temperature in europe at the moment. I still have plenty of unfinished albums at my studio but running out of time to complete them so i will relax today as everything is ready to pack, must be my german side! I can say that the previous year was a determinant one for me despite my tiredness i manage to create a lot.
With insight 2010 was a determinant year for me:


I am proud of me
I love myself inside in an out
I am an artist
I  was able to create  
I have a place to create
I have plenty of new ideas
I am truly blessed
I love my life
I accept the up and downs
I engulfed into them
I love my albums
I love my spoons
I love notebooks
I love my necklaces
I love my art world
I love being alive
I love my nests
I love the circle of friendship around me
I love to give
I accept to receive
I am happy
I am blessed to be in good health
I love being who i am.....
I feel fortunate
I feel abundance
I feel enpowered
I am a woman in love
and now i can say

I LOVE MYSELF each day further and deeper
Gratitude for the constant gifts i receive
I am blessed
Have a good week end
xo

Presentes de Natal...

I am really enjoying being in my studio, savouring each moment, creating the albums above that i would like to receive for christmas! I will not decorate either my home or my mom's  this year as i haven't last year, time is short between work and the studio and i need at least a full week to decorate both houses in a very american way with almost every corner full of angels, candles etc.... it has always been pure excitement so i come up with this crazy idea (if my mother is ok? ) i will decorate the christmas tree in january and store them in her the garage, we will be ready for 2011! In the meantime, she and her friends will do the honours this years again!
By the end of october, i start thinking in cool gifts to offer and now that i'm creating them the question, will they like it,  will they treasure it, arises. It so easy to offer another scarf or perfume for aunt Lili the same sweater for Dad...know the feeling searching for a different present, something that really matches with the person...that has to be different each year!
Have a good week
I will post more  and cross my fingers that it won't rain saturday
Have fun
Xo

Christmas presents

This is for you

 Feira "Craft and Design"
4/5 and 11/12 december  

jardim da estrela

Come and enjoy

        

Looking back

L'avenir

Dream big

Once upon a time...

Just made this new album that i truly love. Love the real nest found under a tree in a friend's house (merci Emanuelle), love the old buttons of the typing machine, love the vintage pages made out of resin ( my father is a quemical engineer worked his whole life with different kinds of resin so i guess it's in my DNA) love the wool pocket handmade by my mom who's a real knitter, love the door knob found in the oldest Lisbon flea market "feira da ladra, love the vintage photos that i have already used in others albums who have this nostalgia energy...LOVE my "Once upon a time" album. Hope you'll like it too, i sense he will leave me soon as being so special and unique.

Started my day with another session of therapy, who's going very well , i can already feel the small changes and am comitted to make the huge ones, each day at the time. One of my dearest friend who's  abroad for the moment, ask me what is ok to write in a blog page? I guess it various on the country and culture, for example i love the openness of my americans friends, they exposed themselves which I believe to be brave but receive it as a valuable gift, I sense that here in Portugal mabe my authenticity may be too much not to speak in distant Japan (but i guess i don't have much japanese fan's!) I won't write about my marriage for instance as my husband is concerned, it's not just about me but about us yet sharing that i'm on a therapy may represent a lot for certain people, who don't believe in it or think it's for nuts or.......The point is i write what feels ok to me and mostly what i like to read in others blogs, LIFE  with all is ups and downs, sharing fears,  hopes,  victories,  blessings, joys. I don't have any power on others peoples beliefs and thoughts, my goal is to relate to ohters, sensing that i'm in my modest way i too belong to the craft and art world, wow! I'M HAPPY WITH THAT and HAVE BEEN BLESSED TO HAVE READERS AND FOLLOWERS. 
THANK YOU FOR STOPPING BY IT MEANS THE WORLD TO ME and lightens my day so many times when i'm jet lagged and feeling too tired just to get into the studio.

Enjoy your sunday
Xo

On passion

I read all the biographies about Amadeo Modigliani. His intense and tragic life has all the ingredients of a major hollywood film. There was this film with Andy Garcia and the french actress Elza Zylberstein who held the role of Jeanne who loved him so much that she commit suicide a few hours after Modi's death and she was nine months pregnant. What a tragedy, him dying at the age of 35, so young, so full of life and creativity, and she out of despair killing herself.
He was beautiful
He was tormented
He had an enormous talent
He was starving and must today return on his grave after this naked painting being sold 69 millions dollars! Is the world going nuts? 
He was a courageous man unlike the arrogant Picasso though extremely talented of course!
I had a huge crush on Modigliani in my youth...seing myself as Jeanne, living in Montmartre but their reality was not a pleasant one as alcohol and drugs were their close friends.  

He lead a tormented life filled with doubts about himself, about his huge talent, about how to love, how to give... He was a perfectionist never happy with his drawings, paintings, eager for learning, throwing away, starting all over....in a vicious circle of unhappiness which lead him to die too early.
Have a good week end...I am on holidays cool...still jet lagged but i will be for the next 15 years till retirement
xo

Dream big

Dream Big...I cherish the idea to be able to dream not to surrender to the pessimism that currently lies everywhere. I know there is a major crisis, we all have relatives and friends touched by unemployment,  drastic cuts in salaries but to dream and to feel deep inside that the wheel will ultimately turn out for the best, that there is a solution, that we will find the way no matter how difficult it seems is what i choose to believe everyday.
Life is a struggle, we all have one moment or the other major issues to deal with, how we choose to face them is our own personal choice some will become bitter others will still smile to life an remain Happy. My last flight was an example, i flew with a stewardess in her thirties who from Paris till Delhi spit out all her rage, anger, deception and frustration...towards her employee, the world.....
Do i consider it to be rudeness?
 Are we punching balls?
 Are the world responsible for her problems?
 How come if good things happened to us we feel responsible?
 How come if bad things happened to us God or the world is responsible?

It was a very instructive flight as I kept thinking" hopefully I will never turn out that way" but there was no way I could escape from it either. I imagine when you have to work every day, year after year, with  toxic people the effect it has on your nerves and mood. 

Yesterday, light some candles, Al Stewart ...... dancing with my love 

It was a great evening!

Remember to dream big

Have a good wek-end

Heading to Hong-Kong 

XO

On laugh

I was feeling kind of sea-sick, being the victim again "poor me" i want to be home, i want to sleep in my own bed, bla bla bla...... and my husband called me on skype and that was so good because he didn't enter my bad energy at all, instead he just make me laugh and laugh and laugh.....there's a clever man! I'm on the right track again LOVE HIM  MOI AUSSI
I AM BLESSED TO HAVE THIS MAN BY MY SIDE
Just started a new book on dreams and coincidences "the three only only things" by Robert Moss how strange that my husband just called me when i am supposed to be sleeping already. ......
xo

Light at the end of the tunnel

Two months ago, i had a very deep session with my therapist, i felt light and enpowered afterwards. I realized now how deep we went into my inconscious because i felt reluctant to get back, there's one side of me who really wants to heal but of course there's the "dark" side who is terribly scared of the unknown, of being unprotected which is the other way around of course! So i am comitted towards myself to pursue my therapy especially when i don't want to go. Human behavior as always fascinates me! How we tend to repeat the same patterns over and over again.
How we keep habits and thoughts that we know are definitely not good for us. Very strange our way of functioning, others  superior beings outhere must regards us as aliens!

 Tomorrow heading to Shanghai, i travel with a very light luggage now, never know what i can find there! Very excited of course but today i will stay in my studio regaining energy, creating, listening to cool jazz, drinking hot tea with plenty of milk, being relaxed.....
Have a good week end, despite the bad weather here in Lisbon, enjoy and have fun
xo 

On healing

I haven't posted this last weeks as i have been living like a nomad! Staying at friends house in Paris as due to a fair there are no hotels available. That made me feel very uncomfortable and vulnerable but i'm happy to have reliable friends. It was a huge step for me asking as i fear more than anything in the world the rejection! I'm in the middle of heavy turbulences again feeling like i should be more, do more, improve myself....blabla what comes out of it is my self esteem in on the bottom again. Thanks God i have a appointment with my psy this week, have skip it for two month see the result! I don't know for you outhere but for me it seems that everything is always very difficult to obtain and i'm just getting very tired, the urge to struggle is fading away at high speed. I know that we all have a mission but no clue for most of us on what is exactly "that mission". Am i in the right track? Is there a right track? What are my patterns that i fail to see? Why am i evolving so slowly? Am i evolving? I'm forty one, what have i achieve? See heavy turbulences! At least there's one thing like Jean Gabin used to say in one of is famous movies "i know for sure now that i don't know nothing". In my thirties i used to believe everything is possible if one keeps thinking positive, a very new age attitude! Life as teach me to be humble, of the importance to open up to others, to be blessed in being alive, in good health and most of all to be able to love and be loved. 
I choose everyday to laugh even if i'm bleeding from the inside. Will i make it? Will i stop repeating the same errors on and on? Will every cells of my body start believing that i'm okay that there's nothing to be ashamed of. If i had right now a magic wand i would ask " I WANT TO LOVE MYSELF INCONDITIONALLY NOW AND FOR ETERNITY".
I do sense that most of the time we humans are in the state of "i am a victim, poor me!  " which i know is untrue but tend to adopt the same unconsciously attitude most of the time. Rereading at the moment the extraordinary and powerful book "Radical forgiveness, making room for the miracle" from Colin Tipping where he explains that whatever happens in our lives is our wonded souls trying to heal that attracts all situations. Nothing like writing and putting outside our bad vibes! The issue is stop being the victim now, the step is recognizing and integrate when we feel that others are responsable(which of course they are not) so one can evolve towards our own  responsability, big and challenging task, old habits die hard

With all this "light" thoughts i fly to Beijing...and absolutely love it. It's quite different from Hong-Kong, Bangkok or even Tokyo but Paris is also different from Lisbon or London! I had wrongly assumed as they being so many that i would found the same "organized" confusion that i love so much about Bangkok for instance but forgot it is not a democracy so therefore everything is contained. I couldn't open my blog or any blog for that matter, either you tube, facebook.... The information is censured, we know it but experienced it is quite disturbing . I have read a lot about ancient China and it is there at every corner the wisdom and culture of the former dinasties, i find them very friendly and maybe because i was so excited to be in Beijing at last, connecting with them was very easy despite their poor english. Next flight Shanghai...needless to say that i'm also very enthusiastic and curious about the old "concession française". 

Above are some ancient notes that i found... very poetic (of course i didn't check and they are...false notes but who cares that's part of the bargain, one can win all the times!)
Just called a dear friend who was telling me that the most important thing is really to love oneself because when we deeply love ourselves we attract mutual love, abundance, happiness in our lifes.
Have a good week ...
xo

On power

I'm like the bird above ready to take off...another day spent on duty, in the airport, without being called.  It gave me the opportunity to stay with friends last night  that i don't see as much as i want, not living in Paris.
 LOVE  was our main discussion. How to find it, how to keep it, why love seems to run away from friends that we think have everything...and endless talk while sipping a few bottles of my favorite wine in the world, bordeaux "Château margaux" with various cheeses! There was this mutual friend who's still single, feeling guilty that she quit at the age of 21 her first love who happens to be "prince charming". She never forgot him always compare him with the other guys in her life, feeling deep inside that HE was the one and she had let it go. She started a search to find him after all those lost years and we cross our fingers that this will end " they live happily ever after".

 The other friend feels emprisoned in a relationship where he gives more than he receives and where his liberty remains a struggle, being assertive is a day to day challenge for him. 
As the Dalai Lama says being a couple takes effort, patience and comprehension

I have just been told that i'm on duty ...again....tomorrow. I have always found fascinating to observe how human like to be in control and when you are powerless how much effort it takes not to fight back when facing an injustice because you'll be even more powerless and...they win over you. Each company has his own rules and the goal is making profit each day more and more profit but....without considering the emotional side of his employees is doomed to fail. Daniel Goleman has written this very astute book about "emotional intelligence" where he explains about the importance of being motivated and recognized in our own company and when this fails to happen how the losses in money can be quantified. One needs to be heard and understood, we are not machines and numbers!
I think i will have another bordeaux tonight..."A votre Santé" 
Enjoy the week end.
Tomorrow hopefully i'll be heading to Shangai or Pekin or i'll run nuts...