friends of a certain age

Joanna Goddard's husband Alex has just written an article for the New York Times, Friends of a Certain Age, that I really relate to:  making friends as an adult. This article really hits a nerve.

Moving to Atlanta and turing 30 made us realize we need friends, local friends. That's why is was wonderful to have Michael and Halef over at my "massive" birthday party. They made us feel at home.

The article says that adults have a hard time making new friends because marriage, work, family, kids, narrows people into a tighter network, very often closed off to new comers. Aside from this, Alex says that "Self-discovery gives way to self-knowledge, so you become pickier about whom you surround yourself with" and easily set someone aside for very selective reasons. 

According to the article, we must return to our 20's where we would met anyone just because! And we have, at least we've been making the effort to do that. I really feel the need to have people over for dinner. Sitting around a table with food is always a perfect way to makes friends. 

frankly, my dear, i don't give a damn

Last night I spent 4 hours watching Gone with the Wind. The movie portraits the Old South during the Civil War and the reconstruction that followed. It takes place in Atlanta and though it's a bias white american's perspective, it helps visualize that historical period. I especially enjoyed the overly romantic dialogues and the way Scarlet raises her eyebrow when she turns on her manipulative character. Very close to the end, when Rhett finally gives up on Scarlet, he says that magnificent phrase: "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn". It was worth waiting the whole 4 hours to get to that part. 

mercedes sl380

I almost forgot to post about this!

After much car searching we bought this beauty a couple of weeks ago, through craigslist, a Mercedes SL380. We wanted to buy a meaningful car: it's from 1982, the year we were born and we bought it the year we got married and turned 30! We've been spending the last few weekends putting on a new soft top and tuning it up a bit. But above all, tem muita pinta!

2 months, 3 days

It's been 2 months and 3 days since we moved to Atlanta and we are still slowing finding our way.

We've meet really nice people, been to couchsurfing meetups, visited different neighborhoods and festivals, attended social events, become members at an amazing indoor climbing gym, bought a really cool car that we've been fixing up, and did a whole bunch of other things. 

I'm still waiting for employment authorization to come through, so legally I can't work. But as a good housewife that I am, I've been baking and decorating!

Recently I also applied for a tour guide volunteer position at the Atlanta Preservation Center and so I'm reading up on the whole 160 years of Atlanta history. This way I can feel a bit more connected to this new place we call home. 

Next step: look for more volunteer positions and buy a sewing machine! 

blueberry jam

A few days after we went blueberry picking, I made jam.
Simple recipe with no measurements: blueberries, brown sugar and apples for pectin. 

hero and villain

Have you ever noticed that in super hero movies, the hero, being a the personification of good, never really "kills" his arch enemy, the villain? Even though the hero has this thriving urge to aniquilate the bad guy (and we all do too when we're watching the movie), he'd rather catch him with life. If, by chance, the villain dies, he simply dies in a way that was impossible for the hero to prevent his plunge to death.      

Have you ever thought about it? It´s a matter of principal: if the hero actually killed the villain then he would be nothing different from the villain. 

here

We don't have television, so we don't watch the news. Which sometimes makes me forget that I'm even living in the United States.  But the other day we were listening to the radio in our car and the local news comes on: this man is going to be executed on July 18th, here in Georgia. An then I'm remembered that I now live in a country were there is no difference between hero and villain. 

blueberry picking

This past weekend, aside from being volunteers at the Youth National Sport Climbing Championships, we managed to go blueberry picking at a local farm. I had this romanticized idea that it would be fun... it would have been lots of fun but not under a 40ºC heat picking teeny-tiny berries one by one from the bush!! We were exhausted and sticky after almost 2 hours of picking. 

We picked about 6kg of berries (around 2 gallons in american metric system - a thing I will never figure out...). It's all going into smoothies, homemade jam, pancakes, bread, salads you name it, it'll have blueberries in it!

welcome back (part three)

To know what we (Sandra, Helena and I) did in Toronto and what Helena did to her hair, you can read all about it here, here, here and here. I don't care what anyone else thinks, her hair looks awesome!

The best part of revisiting Toronto was seeing friends from elementary school again. Though I didn't get the chance to see everyone I initially wanted to see... for which I'm sorry and promise the next time we'll all get together! It was nice remembering the dumb stuff from when we were kids and catching up on life since then.  It turns out that I have a terrible memory and they remembered so much more. 

Loved it! 

Thank you so much for making this a "welcome home" journey! 

PS: I did forget to mention one thing: I crossed off 2 more items on my list, # 16 and #55. I'll be making a new list soon...

homemade pesto

I've always wanted to make homemade pesto. I love the taste of it with pasta, salads or smudge potatoes with it before roasting them. So good.... 

In our last trip to the farmers market we bought 3 bundles of basil, Parmesan cheese and walnuts (you're supposed to use pine nuts, but walnuts are just as good). 

You can find hundreds of pesto recipes online, but read up on 2 recipes and based on what they said, I did my own pesto: with no accurate measurements, a blender, a bit more garlic than usual (cause I love garlic) and not too salty. It probably won't preserve for long, but I doubt it will last long in the fridge, because it tastes so good. 

101 cookbooks has an amazing pesto recipe straight from an Italian grandmother, but she chops it all by hand... which I think it really does make a great sauce, but I had no patience, so Just tossed everything into a blender. The other recipe is Jaime Oliver's pesto. No secret here. 

Honestly, it takes about 10 minutes to make and the flavor is just wonderful. Try it and you'll never want to buy supermarket pesto ever again! Oh, and the bread was also made by me: cinnamon, raisin and cranberry bread. 

welcome back (part two)

Toronto seemed smaller than I remembered. Years ago the buildings were huge and the distances enormous.  Today everything seemed as though it is walking distance. Oddly enough, it also felt like a cozy city: it must be all the old brick buildings that give it a more feel-at-home sensation.

We  roamed the streets until our feet were sore but I loved every minute of it! I'd love to come back and live for awhile in Toronto. It would be nice.