And Now You Are Ten...

Justina

Twisting and turning,
Like a butterfly twirling,
You gracefully slide
With the breeze in your eyes.
You skate through the sky,
It's like you can fly!

Everybody glances 
As your silhuette dances
Through slippery lanes,
So happy and gay,
While freely you wave
Your frothy brown mane!

Jasmine

Sweet smell of summer night.
Soft blend of blooming light.
Both clad in gowns of white,
Brides enchant their patient grooms,
With velvety crowns of palest bloooms
Wrought in silky beams
Of creamy moons.

One of my favourite painting by my Granny,
Sicily Emily Owen

Fiery Fairies

I want to celebrate the first cherries of the season.

Welcome “Fiery Fairies”!

Oh, Cherry Tree!
You are such a delight!
When you offer your flowers of white,
You welcome and make Spring look bright.
In summer, 
Your heavy branches ignite,
When your Cherries,
Like fiery fairies
Are ripe!

Let us celebrate these luscious love-red hearts and thank the Lord for giving them to us.

And thank you darling Miss Scally, my 7th grade teacher, for showing me, through poetry, the wonder of Cherries Ripe❤ 

The Seed Pod

A tight, pretty pod,
Ready to burst,
Eager to spit
With an abrupt pop
Its precious seeds.
Seeds that will assure
Heavenly mirth.
Seeds that will ensure
Sublime rebirth.
Seeds that will grant
Irrefutable beauty,
Once the seed pod has done
Its venerable beauty.

Gifts

Please, be aware, 
For God has gifts for you everywhere.
A friend.
A new life.
A smile.
A tender touch.
Please, be wide awake,
Don't let them slip away...

After The Rain...

Right after a rainy afternoon, when the swift winds carry the clouds away one by one, and the sun peeps and stretches its yellowish beams across the sky; when colours begin to blend and collide in dramatic contrast; when the stunning rainbow paints the heavens with magnificent beauty; we grab our raincoats, clad in wellingtons and, out we go!

We squelch in mud and splash in shallow pools and follow frogs that sing their joyful songs! The gardens and fields are fragrant, fresh. The air's as pure as can be. The sight of trees, with their branches heavy with fallen rain... Flowers are bowing, dotted and spotted with crystal raindrops. Bushes of electric green look so overwhelming! The sight is so nourishing...

As Mother Nature offers her brightest colours, Her most astonishing skies and Her most fragrant perfumes, we laugh and we splish-splash-splosh, without a care in the world!  

🌈

Home Is Where...

The Queen of My Garden

How to describe the joy of a Rose!
It's purity of colour, it's texture
And, of course,
It's delicate perfume!
It is fragile,
It is strong,
Protected by faithful thorns.

How to describe the joy of a Rose!
When envisaging the first buds.
All my senses react
In expectation and, I wait...
To admire her colours,
To caress the velvet petals,
To smell the most delicious scents.

How to describe the joy of a Rose!
When it slowly unfolds
Into the most delightful
Of God's creations,
Whose allure invites
Extatic contemplation.

How to describe the joy of a Rose!
A Rose enhances my senses.
It makes it worth the wait.
Many months awaiting
That miraculous momentum:
The most beautiful sight!

The Queen of my garden
Has finally come!

The Jam Jar

Inside a homemade jam jar you may find the sweetest taste of fruit, glistening, in spicy, heavenly jam. And, you may also find the love, care and devotion of the mother who made it, for her most valuable treasure: her family.💖💖💖

Ooops!

My Favourite Thing

Books are the most common items at home. You may find them almost everywhere: books on almost anything.

Our collection includes old books, new books, books in English, books in spanish, books for every age and taste, books to read and books to merely look at, books we will never actually READ, but feel we MUST have them, there, resting eternally on our bookshelves. (I couldn't possibly  go through life and consider myself a proper human being if I didn't have my one volume Shakespeare's Complete Works sitting proudly upright on a privileged spot of the mahogany bookcase).

Some books are whims that couldn't be resisted, (such as my collection of pettit cookbooks with the most exquisit of pictures, recipes and colours). Other books are novels or sagas that usually fall into two major categories: the ones I can't even approach (and I suppose I never will), and the ones I read and re-read voraciously, time and again, (such as Rosamund Pilcher's memorable 'Coming Home' or the hilarious Noël Coward's 'Pomp and Circumstance').

There are also books that constitute our family hertitage. They are special: they bear and reveal traces and imprints of those beloved hands and fingers that held  them and that we'll never get to see or touch ever again. Those... like  Grandpa's 'Martín Fierro' (a Carneghi gift) or Granny's 'Sarum'... well, those carry fragments of enjoyment of our loved ones...

Some books are subjected to sheer worship: every time we pick them, we blissfully open them and caress their glosssy pages and experience a renewed, physical thrill and admiration (for instance, my 'Maps of the Reinasance World' or my extra-large 'Savouring Italy'.)

Every member of the family has their own favorites. Every book enchants each of us with its particular texture, its smell and its unique and wonderous content... We deeply relish our little expeditions to the bookshops, eager to browse, always in the hope to find a new treasure to add up to our collection. And, from time to time, we face in wonder and amazement when we strike gold and discover a new favorite: a brand new paper jewel for our shelved crown.

What's for supper?

-What's for supper, dear?
-Lentils.
-Or?
-Lentils.
-Yes, dear.

Wouldn't it be lovely?
💖😃😃😃💖

Party of 5

Living in a household of 5 is not an easy task, but quite an interesting one, I must say. At this stage in our lives, we live among lunchboxes, backpacks, school uniforms, hockey sticks, tennis racquets, golf clubs, horseback riding helmets, rollerskates, toys and... NAPPIES and MILK BOTTLES...

Since our littlest one is 18 months old, we are crossing out the days till we reach a mild independence: no more nappies, no more milk bottles, one kid less to bathe and dress. But then I think, little ones are so cute and cuddly, so dependant on your loving arms that it is simply disarming. When they look at you with those puppy dog eyes, you just drop your arms and submit.

I would do anything for those puppy dog eyes, tiring as it may be...

💖😉💝🍬

My Three Offsprings

This is María Belén, my sleeping beauty. She is absolutely sure that blue blood runs through her veins (I'm not sure how that could have happened...). Anyway, she is right, she was born to become a princess.

Sleeping with her white veil

This is Bianca, the little one. She is Peppa Pig #1 fan. She is also our dancing queen, but the cheeky, naughty version... By the way, "Bianca! Where are you socks?? Put your shoes back on, will you?"

Happily watching Peppa

And this is Justina, the eldest. Justi is a book-worm. She reads, and reads, and reads... When we need to get her to do something, we simply go "Justina, if you don't set the table we won't let you read!" (Really?? Oh, yes...)

Reading in her pyjamas
 (before going to bed to read a bit more)

Have a great day!

To Leave or Not to Leave

Today is Saturday, the sun is finally shining, so I decide to slip away from my morning duty of delivering breakfast, and decide I need to look like a WOMAN.

So I silently leave the bustle of the kitchen to plunge into a painful half an hour that is supposed to make me feel better. This implies leaving my poor husband with the three devils all by himself. "But darling, it is for YOU that I'm doing it!", I say. All this sounds very ambiguous, from top to bottom. I take a deep breath and dissapear.  

While I strive to look pretty and show my legs (in a mere half hour), I begin to sense an weird silence. When you have kids, silence may mean peace and relief or absolute, major mayhem in progress. So, I wonder: "What is going on out there? Has he locked them up in a dungeon? Has he sold them to the gypsies?" God, I must leave this nonsense of looking like a woman and get down immediately!"

I dress up insanely quickly, rush downstairs, dodging toys and tripping over a lost slipper only to find them all in the garden, each playing or pottering about in the sun, happy and oblivious of my absence...

Have a great weekend!

Note: Here in Argentina, we have a saying: if children don't behave properly, you threaten to sell them to the gypsies... no offence! Just an old joke 😊💖

Welcome Home

I get home after a hard day at work. The sun has finally decided to appear from behind the thickest clouds I've seen for ages. Spring is near, but most of the bushes are not in bloom yet. It's been such a cold winter... All I wish to do is to slump my exhaustion in my garden chair with the warm, soothing, nourishing, healing sun on my face, and have an nice n' easy chat with my husband... two mugs of creamy latte, the smell of wet soil, buds about to burst all over the place...

Ahhh... Yess... I am back home again!

Latte tastes good! The sun is shining, the birds are singing and chirping and... what's that?? Are the chirping birds also crying?? Or is it...? Ah... the spell is broken... It's not exactly chirping I can hear: it's a "Mom-what's-for-tea" cry!

Ah, well... I must confess I love the sound of those little daily claims as well... I have an incurable disease: MOTHERHOOD. I'm a mom and I love it...

Welcome to my kitchen, my garden and my home!