3 Down....

I should have known that it was just wishful thinking on my part LOL

But here we are, 3 of us down with this cold. Nicholas is starting to get better, the fevers are all gone with him, now it's just the sniffles and a bit of a cough remaining.

Jasmine and I however are still going through the first few days of it, so to say I feel awful is just an understatement.

I can't stand the fevers, the way that they make me exhausted and hurt my body and leave with me no energy for anything. These are the days I miss being close to family and being able to turn to someone for help, even if just for an hour or two during the day so I can crawl into my bed and shake the fever chills away.

At least we're all sick at the same time, well, except for hubby and we're going to try and keep it that way. Needless to say there's lots of hand washing, soup eating, juice drinking, vitamin C popping around here. It's like a little clinic LOL

Thank the Lord that the kids are on Fall break today and Monday. It worked out just perfectly, this will give us 4 days to rest and heal up.

Boy it's been a tough cold season already, it's pretty bad around these parts and from what I'm hearing, around the country too. This flu season has come in with a bang and I'm just praying that we can all get through it minorly scathed, needless to say we need to pray and pray hard.

So what have I been doing? Well, I've been wearing PJ's all day and sweaters. IN.ARIZONA! LOL

You may laugh but that is how you can tell that I'm really sick cause that hot weather outside is definitely not conducive to sweater wearing. *snicker*

The kids and I have been watching tv and relaxing as much as possible and I've been blog reading and book reading and catching up on my Supernatural, I'm almost done with Season 4 and this way I can finally catch up to the new Season on TV.

I had to put my Little House on the Prairie on hold for now because the last disc I received was broken. I kid you not, it was cracked down the middle, actually broken, I don't know if it happened at the Netflix facility or in the mail on the way here, but it happened and even though I have the last two discs for Season 6 here, I can't watch them until I get a replacement for Disc 4 that I never watched.

Are you confused yet? LOL

I've always been on Facebook looking at the pictures my sister in law Lilian, posted from their trip to Portugal with my parents last month.

They actually went to Povoa de Santa Iria which is where I grew up and oh my goodness, it was so wonderful seeing the old building we used to live in and the aquaduct that we used to walk on.....yes you read that right.....walk on. I can't believe we did that and now I'm staring at the pictures thinking....UH??? If only my parents knew at the time what we were doing, we would have gotten a spanking LOL

Now see there, we used to walk on that thing, I mean really.....what were we thinking?

That's my oldest brother Paul....the buildings behind him on the right....not the first door, but the one to the left, that was the entrance to our apartment building. I have SO many wonderful memories from this place.

This road LOL Oh my goodness. My brothers and I used to build go karts and then race down the road, see how it dips?

Well on the left side in one of those buildings lived this annoying lady that hated the kids playing on that road, so actually used to put sand on the road so the go karts couldn't ride over....but my brothers and some of the older kids in the neighborhood would go and sweep it away LOL

See that yellow car? To the right you have a black one? Well right behind it, in that little corner used to be a tiny little store we used to buy food at. It was so small but I remember my brothers and their friends messing the crates at night LOL

They would hook up a rope to them and then pull them up a few stories and then BAM, let them go LOL


Another view of the building we used to live in.

Those days were so wonderful, I have nothing but the best memories from my childhood :)

Nowadays I will talk to my children about the things we did and the fun we had and they're actually jealous that they will never be able to experience the same freedom that we had. Times have truly changed and not for the better.

Anyway, thank you to my sister in law Lilian for uploading these pics, they brought back so many wonderful memories and even brought tears to my eyes, it makes me miss those carefree days.

I'm off to scrounge up some dinner and count down the minutes until I can get into bed and sleep LOL

Have a wonderful friday.

The things that nourish us....

For the past few weeks I've come to realize that the things that nourished my soul as a young child, have dramatically changed.

Things change, WE change as we grow. The things that we once loved and thought were all we needed to make us happy, are now the things that we don't even consider or remember at the end of the day.

I don't just mean food wise, although my taste has changed over the years, but I really mean everything around me, the way I am, the small things that make me extremely happy and overwhelming with joy.

Growing up, I remember that coming home from a day at school, I would find my greatgrandma in the kitchen, a snack waiting for us at the table. I would eat, go change out of my school uniform, and then indulge in some play time. Either playing cars, cowboys and robbers, hospital or just being silly with my brothers.

At the end of the day, I would lay in bed with the biggest smile on my face and thinking....this is wonderful, I feel completely happy. My soul had been nourished!!!

As I became a teenager, I would come home from school just long enough to drop off my stuff, and head back out with my friends. In search of that cute boy we had seen the day before, the local hang out, the night clubs where we dressed up pretending to be older than we really were. We wanted the attention and if a cute boy smiled at us, that was enough.

I would get home late at night on the weekends, lay in bed, and I could still hear the music pounding in my ears. Again, just like years before, I smiled, overwhelmed and nourished, just by those few things.

I truly believed that materialistic things are what nourished my soul.

And then I became a mother and everything started changing. I fought it at first, I wanted to hold on to every little piece of my past. My weight changed which in turn changed my clothes size, which in turn changed the way I saw myself.
For the longest time, I was just FAT...or so I believed, I cursed the food I put in my mouth, almost hating it for turning me into what I was.

There was no more "me time". It was all about the house, the kids and the husband, the budgets and trying to make it work. By the end of the day, I was tired, tired of running around, tired of being touched by the kids and just tired in general. I wanted to run home, back to my childhood, I wanted to say "I DON'T feel well", and have my stepmom come up and tuck me into bed, off to take care of dinner or another house chore. I wanted it all back, I certainly wasn't enjoying the responsibility. This thing of playing "grown up" was no fun at times.

But then as the time went by, I slowly started realizing that I'm a beautiful, intelligent woman.

My body changed but I have two beautiful children to show for it. I have responsibilities as a wife and mother, and that is good, in fact, that is wonderful :)

My tastes changed, foods I didn't enjoy before, are now some of my favorites. Movies I never would have dreamed of watching, I know loose myself in, and books I found boring, are now the most riveting and exciting I have ever come across.

My views changed, where once I believed that in order to have a really "amazing day", it had to be filled with some sort of expensive gift, elaborate glamorous party and tons of activities, I now realize that if I take all of that away from it, I'm left with what really matters. MY FAMILY!!!!

The day we had on saturday only helped to reiterate it all. We didn't spend money doing expensive things, we took a walk around the neighborhood, collecting leaves, we created art together and we laughed and laughed and enjoyed it all. Soaked in all the blessings and all the beauty of being a family. Now THAT is what I live for.

Nowadays, all it takes to nourish my soul is simple....after a great day in the company of my kids and husband, I pick up the Bible or another book, or watch a favorite show on the tv, and I smile, I smile just as fervently as I did when growing up, for my SOUL HAS BEEN NOURISHED!!!