Healthy Living Challenge: Day 36 – Happy Romanian Easter week!

May 3, 2013 5 Comments

I know, I know, even my blog didn’t recognise me as its owner today and needed me to sign in. Total neglect would be the feeling it would have, if blogs had their own feelings :-)

Anyway, I am back to say hello and enhance your cultural knowledge by informing you it’s pre-Easter weekend in Romania. Meaning that from Monday this week people in Romania have been cooking up a feast. Mentally and literally.

As a child I experienced mixed feelings during this week. I dreaded the Monday before Easter because my mum would have gone into a (totally uncharacteristic for her) cleansing frenzy involving lifting carpets, washing windows (with a mixture of soapy water and vinegar and drying them with newspapers until they squeaked!!), dusting every crook and cranny in the house, washing curtains…etc.

Tuesdays were generally reserved for beating the carpets. Oh yeah, that was waaaay before we owned a vacuum cleaner(by the way, she owns one now but she’s told me this week that she still doesn’t know how to use it…) and they had to be dragged outside and beaten into shape with a “carpet shaker.”(a plastic rod with a hand-like shape at one end). Aha, before you roll on the floor laughing, imaging me doing the beating let me tell you the work of carpet beating was not for the faint-hearted. My dad was dragged outside alongside the carpets, huffing and puffing and in a couple of hours the carpets would have been beaten, brushed (again with vinegar, we seem to love the stuff in Romania!!) and left to get the fresh air while we scrubbed the floors and primed the house.

Wednesday would have typically been “curtain day.” By this time the curtains would have been washed, dried and smelled nice and then it was time to get them ironed. Again, not an easy task as they weighed loads due to the heavy fabric and were terribly long (to fit the tall rooms). My mum would have been assigning tasks: mine was always to do the interminable ironing, my brother’s to hang the blooming things. My dad would have been un-draftable by this point due to imaginary injuries caused by the carpet beating sessions…He would have usually escaped the chaos cleaning frenzy by going to the open air market to source fresh products like eggs and cottage cheese for the cooking in the days to come.

Thursdays things took a more religious turn. Because mu family was Orthodox and attending a local church Easter week evenings were dedicated to attending services. Thursdays marked the beginning of the festivities with the reading of the “twelve gospels”, twelve readings from the Bible, all related to Jesus’ last week on earth. Thursdays marked also the beginning of the baking/cooking for my mum, with the kneading of the sweet bread (locally known as “cozonac”). Oh my, I LOOOOVED Easter Thursdays. I loved the anticipation of the celebrations to come. The subtle smells wafting, seeping through the open windows, coming down the block’s staircase: fresh milk, raisins, cinnamon, cocoa powder…the magical making (for me as a child) of tons of cozonac that would be consumed in a few days by every living soul in the land till satiation…

017813-pasca-4

Fridays took a more sombre tone. It was Jesus’ death day. There would have been a morning service my mum always took time off from her now full-steam ahead cooking to attend. A public display of sorrow for His death. Mournful songs, the epitaph carried out, covered in flowers, meant to soothe His bruised and bloodied body. Subdued voices. Silence. Intense praying. That would have culminated in the evening with a full mourning service that involved singing and praying. I still remember the tunes. The solemnity. The sorrow.

Easter Saturday meant cooking madness day in my household. By now my mum would have worked herself into a state fuelled by the late night cozonac baking, service attending and house cleaning order marshalling. Saturdays meant dying dozens of eggs. Cooking ahead at least a three-course meal for Easter Sunday. Changing bed linen so that we could sleep in fresh smelling, starch-pressed linen when we came back from the Easter night service. It meant a lot of effort for my mum.

A lot of effort that she thought went unnoticed. But it never did, really. We’ve always known she was doing all these things for us. Showing love through serving. Creating memories… And they will probably stay with me until the day I die. Or I get Alzheimer’s.  And no matter how fancy or glam a life I will live, it will never be able to replace my mum’s genuine efforts to create living memories with us and for us.

I miss Romanian Easter. ..And I miss the cooking, the eating and the celebrating together. Maybe we’ll make it next year…

Filed under Baking and Cooking, Entertainment, Photography, Special Days Tagged with

Back from holidays

September 15, 2012 5 Comments

At least, for a while :-) . It’s been a great summer and because I have been too busy enjoying myself promises have been broken(what, PostADay?, yeah, I know,I screwed up!) and Alexa numbers have dropped. Oh well, not to worry, I have the whole winter to make it up to myself, to Alexa and to PostADay.

What have we been up to in the last three weeks?

1. Had another set of family visiting. Brothers in law, to be more exact. Precise on diets but not very good with keeping the time…yeah, I prefer girls, thanks!

2. Spent time with a friend who goes way back to my student days. Reverted to the careless, silly and giggly girls from back then for a whole of two weeks, can you imagine???

3. Visited more of Greece and loved every minute of it! Greece is gorgeous and I am glad I married a Greek man so O have a lifetime to discover it!

4. ATE!!A lot of good food. Became almost a connoisseur. Which is good when you’re in places like Thessaloniki, where they know how to cook(I can give you an extensive list of places to eat and sweets to try :-) . And bad when you’re heading back to places where Indian is the local speciality.

5. Spent a lot of time outside with Emma. Walks and open markets. Evening swims.

6. Tried to fill my batteries with good memories as we prepare to head back to Ireland at the beginning of October.

Right, enjoy my gallery and talk soon!

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Filed under Entertainment, Greece, Photography, Travelling

What to expect when you’re expecting

June 20, 2012 Leave a comment

I can’t remember last time I saw a movie in a cinema. Oh wait, something vague is coming to mind…it’s been a few months at least. Anyway, last night I just decided to go solo, left toddler with hubby for the last half an hour of her awake time and fled the house. Quite literally. Gooodness knows when I’ll be able to do this next, with us travelling to a different country and all…

I didn’t have much time to check reviews on what’s good of all the movies that are out at the moment. What to expect had a cute trailer. Although seeing it I didn’t expect much ,to be honest, as I know trailers generally contain the best bits in the movie and I wasn’t particularly impressed by it.

Okay, it had a large number of cliches ( all American movies do, I’m afraid): the rich and famous father who married a slut much younger woman and the scarred for life by his father’s behaviour son; the clueless father-gang thing protecting each other’s back sides(Daddy Day Care popped to mind); the bitches more fortunate women for whom pregnancy means a healthy glow and an almost instant delivery;  the mother/monster type of woman whose life centers around baby and keeping husband on tight leash.

It also had a lot of truths in it and as a woman who’s been through pregnancy, delivery and the lot I was actually impressed by how accurate the movie was in pinpointing them:

1. Forget about what all the pregnancy books say you should look, feel and expect when you’re expecting. Every woman is different and she will look, feel and process things in her own unique way. Some have it easy, some have it tough, it’s the way life is!

2. Becoming parents doesn’t happen only one way. The movie follows a couple through the emotional(and a tad hilarious) process of adoption and very candidly includes them in the parenthood gang. As I see it, adoption is way underrated as the less acceptable way of having a child and the movie manages to raise awareness on the subject in a very natural way.

3. Losing a baby during the first stages of pregnancy is another almost taboo subject because of its delicacy and intricacy. Another point from me for including the couple who loses the baby and their pain and struggle amongst the other couples until the end.

4. For those of us who had a “normal” pregnancy and delivery, the girl who “calls pregnancy glow for what it really is: bullshit!” is highly inspirational. You can have it worse, girls, we, at least, didn’t pee ourselves throughout the pregnancy :-) . But we got everything else, from tiredness to hemorrhoids to…okay, better stop there, right?

5. For those of us who had a “magical” pregnancy and an easy delivery, well, it’s not like you did anything to deserve it, right, it’s the way your body worked!!!

I was surprised that an American movie designed for a very wide audience offered a bit more depth than expected. And it probably offered those giggling teenagers in the audience a better view of what it really means to become(or be unable to become) pregnant, with all its array of joys and deep issues. Although judging by their careless giggles later on in the toilet and by the instances they chose to recall(“I peed myself, I peed myself!! Hihihihi”) I had this overbearing feeling  it didn’t really sink in. It never really does,anyway, does it,  not until you’re there :-) ??

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Book Review:The Girl Who Came Home – A Titanic Novel

April 13, 2012 8 Comments

Okay, I was going to hold on with this till Sunday the 15th, to commemorate 100 years since the Titanic sank. But I am planning on a trip to the new Titanic Quarters in Belfast this weekend so why not start the commemoration now with the hope of adding pictures during the weekend?

Right, I came upon this novel on Kindle and I was skeptical at first. I mean, is there anything else to be said or felt about Titanic after Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet’s rendition of the tragedy? Plus, with this year marking 100 years from the sinking, we have been literally bombarded with Titanic themed series(ITV I’m talking about), expositions(Ulster Transport Museum in Cultra, county Down has opened one recently, called Titanica) and now the re-release in 3D of the 1997 Titanic movie.

I was impressed with the book. Okay, we all know what the story line is so the author had a very delicate and difficult task at hand to begin with. As I said, I felt we have been somehow desensitised by the abundance of emotions in the Americanised 1997 movie version. I for myself felt all my emotions regarding the sinking had been spent with the movie and I was plain curious of how Hazel Gaynor was going to make me “feel” again. And admirably, she managed very well!

I loved the way she intertwines historical facts with fiction and brings it all to light as a very credible story. I loved the complexity and the decency of the characters she creates starting from names of actual survivors. Loved the Irish wit and twang resonating almost audibly through the book, making it regionally plausible, not only historically credible. Loved the delicacy of feelings and emotions captured and the imagery she faithfully used to draw us back to the actual Titanic and recreate it vividly in my mind’s eye.

My favourite bit? The scene of the arrival of Carpathia and its emotional depth. Brought a tear to my eye.

My least credible bit? The parallel story of Grace Butler. Quite an endearing character herself and a lot of emotional maturity there as well but not essential or necessary to the story line’s development. The book would have done well without it as I felt it didn’t add much to its emotional depth.

All in all, a very enjoyable read with a lot of historical data to get you in tip-top shape for all those Titanic conversations around the dinner table!

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Easter pics-past and present

April 10, 2012 34 Comments

I am reminiscing today through pictures about what Easter looked like before we had a child  and how it is these days for our wee family. Enjoy these memories with me!

Easter Monday, 2008. Short stay in Dublin before we headed for Greece to celebrate it with hubby's family.

Easter 2008- day trip in the mountains with two of hubby's brothers.

Easter 2009- I must have been three months pregnant. I was looking forward to her arrival!

Easter 2010- baby at four months, having a go at an Easter egg! A preview of the days to come, little did I know!

Easter shots, April 2011- matching hairbands and happy girls!

Nom, nom, Easter 2011- that Easter bunny was tasty!

Easter eggs, 2011- I had help with those from teenagers in church.

Easter 2012

Oh, I almost forgot! This Easter I discovered a Romanian grocer's here in Northern Ireland and bought all these goodies to remind me of home! My daughter and my hubby were even more eager than I and we finished a big, massive Cozonac(Romanian cake) in 10 minutes!

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Movie Review: Rabbit Hole

April 4, 2012 2 Comments

The only way out is through

It’s established: Saturday nights are movie nights in our house!

Last Saturday this movie jumped at us in the video shop. We were in a rush, toddler was amassing  chocolate star bags and Peppa Pig DVDs off the shelves at an alarming rate so we didn’t even have time to read the clippings on the back. It was enough to see Nicole Kidman was in it, we knew we couldn’t go terribly wrong.We did expect complexity of plot(which we got) but we didn’t expect a message of hope out of such a sad case.

Storyline? A young couple who have it all going for themselves (big house in an affluent suburb, important jobs,the kid and the dog!), face indescribable loss when their six-year-old boy is hit and killed by a car in front of the house. The movie observes the aftermath of the tragedy and the very different  coping mechanisms the parents resort to. It’s almost a clinic observation of  techniques on “How to deal with the death of a loved one.” The only thing that surprises the viewer is its conclusion.

Let me expand on it a little bit. Mum completely shuts herself off, even from her own mother and sister, and lives an a recluse having occasional outbursts of rage at whoever catches her eye. She is furious with God to the point that she stops believing in His existence. Dad has a totally different approach to the situation  and he clings to everything that reminds him of his son: the car seat, the boy’s drawings on the fridge and his toys. But things need to change because the human soul was not created to contain and sustain such an amount of pain and devastation. So they try to find solutions to pain: the mother(Nicole Kidman) finds the teenager who killed her son and tries to get some sort of closure. The father thinks he can have an affair with another grieving parent but realises last minute that it would be a mistake.

The title of the movie comes from the comic book the teenager who has killed their son puts together. It is a parallel world story in which a father has to get through a rabbit hole to try and find his way into a different dimension where his son has gone. Symbolically for the bereaved parents, this father finds his son but “not really, because he’s in a different dimension now, he has taken a different form.” Just like the parent in the comic book, they would have to dig their way out of the rabbit hole in which they buried themselves and live with the pain of losing their son as a substitute for the real thing.

I found the moment when the parents reconnect extremely touching. No big formulas to their pain, no magic wands to make it all better. Just learning to live again, baby step after baby step, re-learning to be part of the world without their son. Extremely touching.

What I learned? To have a lot of respect for people who have experienced a loss and are still together. A loss carries so much emotion with it that the “natural” response would be to disengage from all meaningful relationships which remind one of it. To stick with it and see it through TOGETHER involves a lot of courage, especially when the spouses’ responses to it can be dramatically different.

Filed under Entertainment, Reviews Tagged with , ,

Movie Review: Doubt

March 28, 2012 5 Comments

Doubt…

We watched the movie last Saturday and it kept us awake into the small hours of the morning.

The story line is quite flat, just like bad gossip: a superior nun,who’s also the principal of this Catholic school, suspects a newly appointed priest of inappropriate behaviour towards one of the pupils. She doesn’t have any evidence, only a few incidents brought to her attention by an eager and easily impressed young nun. But she convinces herself and everybody else involved that the priest has wronged the child somehow and makes him leave the school and the parish.

The movie is on the other hand brilliant in exploring the human mind and its intricacies: it makes the viewer aware of how easily a “reality” can be created out of suspicion and self-justification.  As, indeed, nothing is explained in the end and the viewer is left battling a sea of endless possibilities and scenarios. Was the reality Sister Aloysius Beauvier constructed veritable or was it all in her head and she  blamed an innocent man? Or were there clues one has missed  (there is a very confusing conversation between Sister Beauvier and Donald Miller’s mum, the pupil in question) that were there to incriminate Father Flynn? Is there more to the story than what meets the eye?

I have been in similar situations myself, when somebody interpreted the reality from their perspective and then declared my acts as intolerable. The devastation doesn’t come only from the complete and utter destruction of that relationship but also from the doubt that is left hanging over the “accused” person in everybody else’s eyes. People are, I’m sorry to say, much easier influenced by bad reports than by good ones.

What have I learned from my past experiences that Doubt reinforced in my psyche?

1. Petty people are to be treated with respect as they can cause a lot of damage.

2. There is always another side to a story, be wise and listen to it carefully before you pass judgement.

3. Always gather evidence before throwing the stone.

4. If you look to find fault in people you’ll always find some dirt to dig out. A more applaudable approach to life would be to look deep enough in everybody’s soul to find something good to bring to light, despite “obvious” evidence!

5. Never base judgement on feelings, either yours or anybody else’s, no matter how heated the argument is. You are not in the right just because your feelings tell you so!

The movie ends brilliantly with Sister Aloysius doubting her judgement and treatment of Father Flynn. For me, it’s an open end movie, the best I’ve ever seen. Because if Sister Aloysius was right but acted too hastily and didn’t allow herself time to gather evidence then she might have released a child molester into a much bigger community and school…If she was wrong, her actions still deprived a child of the support of a vitally needed father figure  and possibly left their mark on Donald Miller’s destiny…

Conclusions? It’s sooo, sooo easy to feel self-righteous and justify an act of meanness. So easy to wrong back when we feel we’ve been wronged. But meanness is not to be taken lightly and made use of easily because it will always affect someone’s life, to a smaller or a greater extent. Use your influence wisely, girls, that’s all I’m saying!

Filed under Education, Entertainment, Reviews Tagged with , , ,

Weekend fun

March 25, 2012 5 Comments

The weather has been surprisingly good the last few weeks so we made the most of it, by going to a farm and a museum. Have a look at what Northern Ireland is like in the sunshine!

Open Ark Farm, Newtownards

Buffaloes enjoying the dry weather(and hay). Same farm.

Ulster Folk and Transport Museum,Cultra

Taking off in an antique tram. Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

Toddler spotting airplanes

It's warm but not that warm yet!

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50 Things That Make Me Happy

March 16, 2012 10 Comments

I wrote in my last post about things that relax me. This morning I went grocery shopping(another thing that relaxed me, especially when done on my own, on a Friday morning, looking for good deals in Tesco’s!) and then the thought came to me: can I find 50 things that make me happy? I did this exercise several times in the last six years but I never did it with such a big number…Anyway, it will be interesting to see what the epiphanies my catharsis will bring. Just bear with me, that’s all I’m saying, this is gonna be another random order list!

  1. I like the rain. Its sound relaxes and soothes me.
  2. I love rustling autumn leaves.
  3. I like good quality ice-cream. Movenpick and Mauds come to mind.
  4. I like studying. To the point that when I signed up for my Master degree my dad pulled me aside and told me the story of this very smart PhD. student who lost his marbles from too much reading.
  5. I’m interested in photography. I’d like to get a good camera and attend a photography course one day.
  6. I’m interested in other cultures(well, I married a Greek and I live in Ireland). I love learning new words, cooking in new ways, talking to people who have a different background than mine.
  7. I like blue and red and purple(can’t choose only one, sorry!).
  8. I like artisan work and I’m always on the lookout for pretty things for the house or for Emma.
  9. I love bargain shops!
  10. I love snow at Christmas and good weather at Easter, they make the celebrations kind of…perfect!
  11. I love weekends away when they include a full Irish/English breakfast, the morning paper, a relaxed walk and shopping in Penney’s/Primark.
  12. I love barbeques! I don’t care what it is(sausages, burgers, chicken and veggie skewers, fish), everything tastes better when cooked on an open fire.
  13. I love hyacinths( my dad used to bring hyacinths every Mother’s Day for my mum and myself when I  was a child.)
  14. I love flowers, actually, when they sit pretty and brighten my living room.
  15. I love trees in blossom, I always associate them with love…
  16. I love watermelon and have missed eating it messily and carelessly since I moved to Ireland. It’s best in August but we are normally back by then from our sunny holidays…
  17. I love babies, they get me all giggly and soft inside.
  18. I love dressing my little girl in pretty things.
  19. I like looking smart/sexy from time to time. Gives me a boost.
  20. I like driving when there are no distractions from the back seat. Puts my thoughts in order.
  21. I like doing crafts with my wee one but I’m never happy with the results. Let’s just say, I’m not very artistically endowed myself. But I’m trying!
  22. I love coffee mornings with friends.
  23. I love well fitting jeans, make the start of my day so much brighter!
  24. I love nice smelling hand creams, lotions and potions!
  25. I love to collect Emma’s “art”, I have a big folder in the garage bursting with drawings, cards…etc. I want her to see them when she grows up and feel appreciated in this way, too.
  26. I love to travel and I’d love to see even more of this world. I’d like to do the tour of Romania, go back to Australia and see South America.
  27. I like planes.
  28. I like having my photo taken and taking photos of others.
  29. I like balloons.
  30. I like going to the movies and eating nachos.
  31. I love Diet Coke at the moment.
  32. I like teaching when the recipients are interested in learning(I’m a teacher by profession).
  33. I like horses. They are in my opinion majestic animals that deserve my respect.
  34. I like reading. Romantic Christian novels at present.
  35. I like cooking. I’m useless at baking though.
  36. I like having my nails done.
  37. I’d like to believe in people’s goodness and genuineness.
  38. I love seeing old couples in acceptance of each other(I wouldn’t say in love because it’s much more than a rose tinted view of each other.)
  39. I love observing older people, how they talk about/deal with the mundane.
  40. I love peaches and cherries and pineapples(I can’t really eat much as I get all these sores in my mouth if I touch the peel).
  41. I love my mum.
  42. I love knowing what’s ahead of me, be it for a week, a month or a year.
  43. I appreciate the power of routines but I have a hard time staying motivated when in one.
  44. I love McDonald’s cherry pie!
  45. I used to love cycling as a child, should give it a go again one of these days.
  46. I love going to the beach with Emma, even on a not-so-warm day.
  47. I like trains.
  48. I like many capital cities but Edinburgh is the one I’d like to revisit soon.
  49. I like to wear slippers when inside, my feet are always cold otherwise.
  50. I’d love to have some mackerel  for lunch, what about you ?;-)

Filed under Entertainment, Parenting Tagged with , , ,

What’s haven for Mama’s Haven?

March 14, 2012 2 Comments

I’d love to say that I am sporty and I go running, swimming and Zumba dancing regularly…But I’m not sporty, I can’t run more than 90 second intervals and 15 minutes in total on a treadmill, I can’t swim and the first(and last) time I went for a Zumba class I almost had an apoplexy.

So how do I relax and stay healthy?

Thank goodness, hubby has been into super healthy eating since baby was born(as he explains now, he needed a project himself, since I had mine:raising the baby!) so I haven’t had many opportunities to pig out and pile up the weight. At the end of the day, I’m the one doing all the super healthy cooking! I enjoy cooking, theoretically and it used to relax me. I say it “used to” because almost a year ago baby went through a phase when she refused anything to eat except, well…crap food. I started to stress out so much that every meal time became a nightmare. She’s past the exclusive junk phase but I still find myself cooking two different meals most evenings since  she’s stayed hooked up on a select few: scrambled eggs and spinach, lasagne, spaghetti bolognese, fish fingers and corn on the cob; tons of rice, pasta and chicken(plain), couscous and…strawberries.  Oh, pizza but she’s not allowed to have it more than once every other week! And cooking is not plain sailing as it used to be pre-baby. Now it’s all about choosing easy recipes, planning ahead and finishing before she starts looking for attention. Which never happens, by the way…Despite it all, I still enjoy cooking, theoretically ;-) and would go on a cooking spree from time to time(last night I made fish tagine and Greek spinach pie in the space of an hour, just for the love of it!).  I will try and take photos sometimes and post some of my recipes, if I can figure a way to squeeze photography in the kitchen…

My favourite way to relax has been and still is READING. Hubby got me a Kindle for my birthday and I must have read around ten electronic books since January. I intend to write reviews once I can make a list of what I’ve read recently. I am constantly looking for good reads so if you have any recommendations, drop me a note, will you?

Oh, and I love watching documentaries and programs when home alone and toddler in bed. The Biggest Loser, You Are What You Eat and My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding sort of programs…

Relaxing…

Well, enough of it for tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow with what tomorrow brings. Have a relaxing evening, I know I will…

Filed under Entertainment, Parenting Tagged with , , ,

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