travel preparations

I've been doing a million things, very productive day today. I'm preparing for Florida.
I still need to go to the pharmacy to get vitamins for the month, and some Dramine, for the air sickness I get. I hate flying due to it. And go to the bank and exhange euros to dollars. The euro is exactly 1.536 dollars right now. Not bad, for me.

I need to do alot of laundry, which I HATE.

I'm really sleepy. I bought decaf coffee and i think it makes me sleepy. I sound really boring when i'm sleepy. I'm just forcing myself to write today.

If I have easy access to the internet there i'll try to keep a diary on the blog of each day.

I'll leave lisbon on wednesday morning, arrive at Newark, stay there for 5 hours and then fly to Fort Lauderdale, i'll arrive at 5 am lisbon time. I hope to sleep alot. I'll take a book too.
And some music would be nice. some self hypnosis mp3. I love those.

I went to the american embassy today with my boyfriend, to ask about working visas and fiancee visas. It would be alot easier to get married in order for him to be able to live in the states. I feel ready to get married, I want it. I love my BF so much. and more everyday. I hope i don't burst soon. He's pretty perfect.

I have jupiter conjuncting venus next saturday, and a few times later this year. like in November, and venus trining my north node in the 7th at the same time..... I have a feeling I might be married later this year.
My saturn return in the 7th will be exact on the 21st August. so after that I guess it's safe to marry, right? The golden rule will not be broken. :)

With the fiancee visa we'd have to be married 90 days after being in the states...
I need my birth certificate. i can't find it anywhere. I've had a big trip down memory lane today, going through old stuff trying to find the birth certificate. Old pictures, old love letters, penpals, friends....seems like past lifes. I've found pictures of me really big, 60 kgs bigger I'd guess. I kept some. I threw alot of stuff out. I don't like to be attached to the past. It's not time for that now. Once I move out of the country most of my stuff will be left behind. It's ok though. I can deal with it. I just want my books and some objects I brought from other countries I've been to.
I'm trying to find a friend i used to talk to on ICQ. remember that? We were really close, and then I came to lisbon and didn't have internet at home for almost a year, and she was busy with a new baby and we lost contact.... back then there was no messenger. we never knew what we looked like until we started exchanging pictures through snail mail. good old days =P

Anyway, I'm rambling alot. I wish my blog had a theme. it's too miscelanelous.
I learned today that Bush vetoed the anti torture law....."alternative questioning techniques" will continue to be used. That means alot of people will be treated inhumanly and alot of people will be confessing stuff they didn't do in order to not be tortured. Bush is such a criminal. I don't see any diference between him and saddam hussein. His imigration law will make illegal imigrants into criminals.. it won't be just a civil offense, it will be a crime, and people that help someone in that situation will be a criminal too, that means humanitary help too. If they are dying...of thirst, you can't help. if they are children.. there are lots of possible situations where this could be particularly tragic and unhuman.
My mind is blank. I guess i'll go now. I'll try to update and post pictures often. thank u for reading.

oatmeal bread :)

This recipe was too wacky. I have no idea what quantities I used.

It was some warm water with some dry yeast. a couple of eggs. a spoon of sugar.. it could have used a bit more. A bit of salt.

a big cup of oatlmean.. maybe half a cup of corn flour..... then some wheat flour until it was hard enough. then i remember i should have put some fat, such as butter, olive oil, etc.. so i put some olive oil, and some more water. because it had too much flour.... it was messy.

then i left the dough to rise for 30 min.. then mold 3 balls and put them in on of those muffin shaped things you can see in the photo. that's how I got that shape.

Anyway.....i just ate a bit with butter.. yum! I feel ready to settle down now and have a bunch of kids. Or maybe I could just feed other people's kids.

cookies

So I made these cookies, and I wanted to show you and post a recipe - a kind of recipe at least.

i don't have alot of time cause i'm baking bread, oatmeal bread, my favorite. i need to get it into the oven in 10 minutes.

On second thought, i'll go do that now!

Back...in a more relaxed spirit now. Having saturn opposite mercury means requiring alot of time to write and edit.

These cookies are really good. I've been trying different things and these were the best so far. This is what I put in:

2 medium eggs

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of wheat flour - the non self rising

and then

1 cup of self rising flour

1 cup of corn starch

(OMG the bread is smelling wonderful now...i'm near the kitchen)

The flour measures are aproximate and I don't think it's too important that they are exact. If you don't have self rising flour be sure to put baking soda. maybe 1 spoon.

then I put some coconut, maybe 1 cup.

Then i made small balls with the dough in my hands, then flattened them a bit, and put a roasted almond in the center. Then I baked them for maybe 20 min in average heat.

The bread is wonderful too. :)

My housemate says "this cooking phase of mine is wonderful" hehehe.

My camera is out of batteries, so i'm using the camera on my phone.. and them emailing the photo to myself. and it takes forever.

I hope to get the bread photo soon.....

update

Hi.
updating... I'm going to Florida for a couple of weeks this month =) To check it out and meet some friends.
i'll need to get some documents meanwhile. since my wallet was stollen last week.

I'm sick again. I have been sickish ever since 2008 began almost. I've had a flu 4 times. I have weird symptoms this time. I'm itching. not sure it's an allergy or a bug. seems like an alergy on my upper body and like a bug on my legs. I have low fever today.... and it hurts a bit. also I cough non stop for almost an our every night in the past 3 days. then I'm normal the other 23 hours. Feels like I have water in my lungs ticking inside. I'll try to go to a doctor tomorrow. hope that works out. I've started to hate doctors...
I've had other strange symptoms . I hope it's nothing serious. I don't feel much like dying at this time in life.

turns out the cooking craze isn't totally gone. I was just too exhausted before. I didn't sleep much due to the iching so i'm very tired today. too tired to cook. I'm glad it's not gone. it's not such a craze now, but it's entertaining.

Wish board

This image is definetly part of my "wish board". things I want in my life.

I'm getting very psyched about going to florida. I google-earthed it yesterday, and saw some pictures of the Keys...... tropical islands in the south of Florida. I never knew that existed outside far away pacific islands like Bora Bora, where i'd have to fly 29 hours to get to.

I'm a tropical island freak.

north node

Hi,
just thought i'd share how exhausted i am
i left the work, cause it's not compatible with a class i need to take this semester. today was the last day. i'm relieved and emotionally unstable.. i feel psychically contaminated, or at least that's what I think it is. it happens everytime i'm in contact with large groups of people for a long time. i suck all the bad vibes i guess. bad thoughts keep coming to my mind making me feel bad and i can't seem to fight them off. a salt bath is supposed to help.
this happens when i'm tired too. i keep thinking people don't like me. they think i'm bad. they don't get me. i'm alone.
there's no rational reason for this. I just see the negative side of things when i'm tired.

I've been taking a natural calmant sometimes.... makes me feel confy and have confy thoughts as i drift to sleep. Today i think i need a bath in candle light..... wish i could listen to some music too while bathing. *sneeze* life sucks.
i want another job. i like having a shedule. I applyied for a 20 hour/week job answering phones in a support line for domestic violence. that would be pretty nice. it's 4 hours a day and it's not a physical job. i should be fine there. living in a bigger city is nice for getting jobs, there's more options.

I'm planning on moving to Florida by the end of this year, me and ben. we'll get jobs and start a new life. and we'll swim and be in the sun. maybe become vegetarian. that's a long term plan for me. I imagine having a vegetarian familly. we might eat fish though. just not eat mammals. that would be enough.
I want a simple life. I want to cook and do gardening, have fruit trees and pets. I might have a baby, and ben would take care of him. he adores babies. me not so much. but being a mother is one of those things that is just part of being incarnated, one of the big lessons. right? I think it could be wonderful. it could be terrible too. I might risk it.
have u noticed how lots of people never thought of how terrible it can be to have a baby? I know mothers that never had imagined a baby would cry all night long, and get sick so often, or even be born with a terrible sickness of whatever, become an addict, a teenage delinquent.. etc. I'm very aware of all that and not really aware of the good things.
*cough* ugh. hate being sick. bye.

Persepolis Movie Trailer

this movie is so worth seeing. it's so funny and sweet.

solar return

I'm exhausted.......my wallet was stolen today. I'm just.....ready to check out. so tired, so unmotivated....tired tired tired........my whole body hurts.
I hope the next days are better. the new job is hard.
i just want to sleep. goodnight.

Rainy Sunday

it's a rainy day around here....
I've been recovering from a nasty flu.

Tomorrow will be my first day at work officially. I'll be stoping people in the street to talk to them about human rights and asking them to be a supporter. This would be fine in most places, but doing it in lisbon is kind of spooky. People aren't happy. They are poor and have too many problems of their own, kids and husband to feed, and dealing with traffic, that sort of thing. who cares about female genital mutilation and darfur when you have all these things going on. it won't be easy.
I think this will be a big part of my saturn return in the 7th. And a big part of my life in general. My development as a person. I'll need to learn to get up by myself, over and over. What saturn in the 7th has taught me so far has been to find peace inside me after being let down by other people. It made me feel ok by knowing i'm a good person, doing my best, it's ok to not be perfect as long as you are trying your best and not being mean or having bad intentions. But I wonder if i'll be able to do this everyday.
I feel sickish.....
my cooking craze is gone. i'll still cook, because i want to eat. but it's not very joyous lately.

Pray for me.

My birthday will be this week, by the way.

About Amnesty International

Fun fact about the AI: it actually all started back in 61 when an english journalist wrote about 2 PORTUGUESE students being arrested for toasting to freedom.
fun fact about portugal: we only become a democracy in 1974, 25 of april, after a peaceful revolution. meaning no one was killed during it. It was known as the flower revolution, because a woman put flowers she was carrrying in the guns of the soldiers.

Amnesty International

BULLET - THE EXECUTION

Lots of people are being sentenced to death, or life in prison for decades for speaking their mind. Go to the amnesty internationl site to find out what you can do to help. A simple letter can save lifes. http://www.amnestyusa.org/JoinUs.html

http://www.amnesty.org/ http://www.amnistia-internacional.pt/

Ask and you shall receive

Remember when I wrote this a couple months ago:

I beleive the Universe conspires to realize your wishes once you put them out there, so this is me doing exactly that.My perfect job would be 30 hours per week, using my skills in psychology or astrology, or translating, or all of the above and maybe some other skills I might have, maybe computer skills or driving skills! And i'd be payed for it, a fair amount. I'd be happy with that.Thank you Universe, in advance.

Well, I got a job! The coolest thing is they called me and offered it. And guess what, it's 30 hours a week! a fair pay! AND I'll be helping save lifes fund raising and informing about the work of Amnisty International. :) I totally identify with the ideals of the AI, I feel happy and blessed.
Thank you Universe, yet again. :)

I plan to soon post some more info about how you can colaborate with the AI and more info about what they are doing and etc. It's really inspiring and powerful.

Iceland

This was alot of fun, for 10 minutes. My face was freezing.

I went back to the car and dreamt of a tropical beach. The snow is delicious though.

Lusa, the cocker spaniel

LUSA, my favorite dog in mainland portugal.

I look really good eating snow with that thing on my hair, don't I? That black spot behind me is Lusa!

Snow and stuff

Bennie and me. I love being outside the city.

Today's carbohydrate creation. I figured out how to make them with the hole. Happy day.

Frozen grass

Butter & Co.

Forgive me, I just can't help myself....I just baked these for that dinner this weekend. Waiting for those beauties to cool down so I can freeze them.

A Randam Fact about me I just remembered: as a kid my grandmother used to crush an aspirine and mix it with sugar so I would take it when I was sick. Didn't taste bad at all.

I'll be away from home for the next 5 days and I'm afraid I'll miss cooking so much I won't be able to sleep. This is what I do lately, I'm in bed planning to cook things the next day and fighting the urge to get up and not sleep at all..... Is there a Cooking Addicts Anonymous ? Maybe I should start one. This as lasted for 3 weeks now.

I've always liked to cook ocasionally, but especially because I wanted to eat something special.

Another Random Fact: I started cooking when I was 7 years old, pancakes.

I made some great oatmeal bread yesterday. I had some fresh baked bread with real azorean butter : Ilha Azul. (translation: blue island) It's made in my island, where all the cows are happy cows.

There's pictures of the cows a couple of posts below by the way.
So, back to the cooking, I think this adiction is very interesting. It's fueled by the fact that people compliment me on it. It makes them happy. And that makes me happy. Cooking itself makes me happy lately, that's the real mistery. I think of the combinations I can make, the improvements, how things would taste if I do it another way... I'm looking for perfection. That's the ultimate goal. Makes me feel more independent, powerful in some weird housewife way.

Lately I had been feeling traumatized with dining out... since meeting my boyfriend 6 months ago I started to eat at restaurants all the time with him, and even though he usually insists in paying all of it I am shocked by how much money one spends, and then the food sometimes is so not worth it. (by the way, I've done some great pizzas at home now, that's so cheap to make an so much better then when u buy them here. I make one with pesto and buffalo mozzarela and cherry tomates, and thyme or basilic, not sure now, it was great) It might have started when I paid 1.10 euro for a Brigadeiro. I can make 50 of those with 1.10 euro. It's a tiny ball made with condensed milk and coccoa. neither of those ingredientes cost more then 70 cents and can make lots of those balls. Also because I have a tiny stomach I usually feel sick eating out because I try to force myself to eat a whole plate, then spend 40 minutes feeling very sick.. maybe all these things amounted to my compulsive cooking.

Anyway, it's not a bad thing at all, just weird.
I'd like to say my computer is packed with trojans lately. And they make my keyboard very slow. It's much better today, maybe all the adawares I installed are working, but it's still not normal. So the lasts posts are full of typos, which I won't correct unless someone asks me too. I think it's readeable like that.

Hope u enjoyed my pictures. Have a great weekend/Carnival!

PERFECT!

Mission accomplished!

Perfecting the art - the sequel

Ok, I'm back.
This weekend we're having a dinner party with my bf's friends at his mom's, and I've been required to take at least 25 cinnamon rolls. I've decided to take some filhozes too, so my mother-in-law to be will try them, because she's nice, and I think they will be apreciated. So I've decided to cook them today and freeze them. because I won't have alot of time tomorrow to cook both the rolls and filhozes.

I just put about:
2 cups of milk,
a big spoon of sugar and
half a cup of vgetable oil in a hot pan and let it almost boil. It actually boiled a little.
Then to make it colder faster I put it in another container and etc. You can just wait till it's warm and not HOT, and then get a little bag of 11 grams of yeast in, and let it get moist and foamy. Stir.... then add flour until it's a ball of dough.
Let it rest, go take a shower or something. I've decided to not add any igredientes now, so they don't interfere with the yeast's happyness. I'll add them right after my shower. I'll let it rise for a little over half an hour.

I'll be back later to tell what I added next. Only God knows, so I won' try to predict.

Part II

Back. took a shower, did some streching...
I added :
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking soda
a big teaspon with baking powder
zest rom 1 big orange, and half of the juice from it
1 big spoon of port win
8 egg yokes

I mixed if with my hand. It had lots of noodles, but they were dissolved after some stirring. Then added more flour to make it harder. I don't want it too hard. they are easier to mold if harder, but makes them more compact and we don't want that. I'm tired by now.
The dough will rise now for a while. 1 to 3 hours. See ya then.

Perfecting the art

This is a portuguese pastry people usually cook around carnival. It's called Filhoz or in the plural: filhozes.

Pronouned fee-low-zeys hahaha. No. I don't think the LH sound exists in english. It's like the double L in spanish, if you can relate to that. Like in amarillo. I'm not good at this, nevermind. You might as well make a new name for it.

It's not even possible to explain how to pronounce things like this in english, I don't know why dictionaries bother to try. I was just making fun of that. It's how a dictionary would explain it problably.

Anyway, they're gooood.... but they have to be done properly. I've been trying to perfect how I do it, and I'm excited. I'm getting closer to te perfect Filhóz. This is a science project of mine.

So I'm posting the recipe of how I will do them the next time I do them. I will use as less milk as possible and more egg yokes and more orange skin.

So I'll use milk, sugar, normal cooking vegetable oil (or olive oil or butter, but I think the oil is lighter and doesn't interfere with how the other ingredients taste), white flour, yeast, Port wine, orange or lemon zest, baking powder, salt, baking soda.

First, put 150 ml of milk in a pan, with 1/4 cup of oil, and 2 table spoons of sugar - the theory is still untested, but i think the less sugar you put the better, because it they'll have sugar coating in the end already....) But anyway, i'll do 2 spoons of sugar. Heat the milk, oil, sugar mix in the pan until it ALMOST boils. This part of the recipe I copy exactly from the cinnamon rolls here http://www.thepioneerwomancooks.com/2007/06/cinammon_rolls_.html except i use much smaller quantities of ingredientes she's using there.

-> Turn the heat off and let it cool untill it's not hot, just warm.

-> Then it's safe to put 1 bag of yeast, or about a table spoon of yeast. Just sprinkle i on top and let it be absorved for a minute. Check the photos on the website above, they're very enlightening. Then give it a stir to help the absortion.

-> Then I'll add zest from 1 orange and maybe a bit of juice from it. I'm keeping in mind I want to add as less liquids as possible because my plan is to add as many egg yokes a I can later on. My theory is that will make them yummier then these from today.

today I learned, I think, how to make them light and fluffy as a cloud. I'll share that later along the recipe.

-> Mix. Start adding the flour now, 2 cups of flour to start to make it pasty. Maybe 3 cups. I want it to be very pasty, then I'll add 8 EGG YOKES!!!!! yes. Maybe more if I go crazy enough. I want them to be bright yellow, because the best Filhozes I've ever had were bright yellow. Maybe even 10 egg yokes. If that doesn't cut it I'll give up and just use food coloring alogn with half the eggs. I'm not using the egg whites because it will make it necessary to add more flour, and that will make it whiter and less flavourful (I want to enhance the orange and port wine flavor....keep in mind this is my theory. I'm learning from trial-error here, along with some reading and some experience. )

Now.... I'll dd the port wine sometime along the recipe. maybe when i add the orange zest. Most people use either the orange OR the port wine, or even lemon, or nothing at all. But his is my recip and I want both orange and port wine. They're not incompatible at all. But one of them might be enough if you want to keep it simple. That might be the best actually. I really want to enhance to egg yokes flavour too. so I might skip the port wine altogether if I have the heart. I'm to attached to it. it's good. I'm hoping all the flavours (orange, port wine & egg yokes) will be present. That's my goal in this recipe. It's very yummy in my imagination.

So, supposing you add the orange zest and port wine (about 2 table spoons by the way) together, now you'll just keep adding flour untill it's a roll of dough that you can punch around.

-> Make a big ball now and let it rest for an hour and a half. The bigger the dough is the longer it should rest. 3 hours is the best. Keep it in a warm place, so the yeast can grow and prosper, with a towel or two covering the pan.

-> 2 hours later it should have tripled it's size. Now...today it didn't. This is why cooking is so challenging. I think it might have been either because of the port whine...the alcohol migt have been to agressive to the yeast (this is also why you don't add the salt yet, it hurts the yeast!) or, it was because the milk was still hot when I put the yeast in, and it might have killed it a bit. Or less likely, it wasn't warm enough in the kitchen. But experience tells me unless it is extremely cold, 2 hours would be still enough time for it to rise. The cold makes the yeast slower. So I think it was the hot milk... Anyway, this mistake made me discover how to make them really light and fluffy, this is what I did and what I'll do next time, (because I've been reading bread recipes and this is what they do too), I'll share the secret in a minute:

->I'll add 1 teaspoon of salt, a pinch of baking soda, 2 teaspoons of baking powder. Then, I put olive oil all over my hands and punched and stirred it around a bit, and then - here's the secret to fluffly: let it rise AGAIN! Wait for a couple of hours. I took a nap and then went shopping, and when I came back the dough had risen! More then double it's size. I also heat the pan a bit before leaving. to make the yeast happy.

-> then you just heat a high pan half full of vegetable oill, and deep fry the dough. but first snap the dough into litle balls, flatten them and strech them out like a mini pizza and put them in the very hot oil. when it turn golden brown turn them around. I fry about 3 or 4 at the same time.

-> I was mind set about not having them be greasy, so i wanted my hands to be very oiled so I could mold them without any pointy edges that usually end up burned and greasy, and I wanted the oil to be very hot, so it wouldn't take long to fry and so not absorve alot of oil. Learn from my mistakes: flatten the dough so it won't be raw in the inside and burned in the outside. That's that very hot oil will do.

I flattened mine, streched them actually, like a medium high pizza or less and turn the heat to minimum and they were perfect from then on.

After thy're all nice golden brown take them out into a bowl will lots of white sugar and cinnamon, maybe one or 2 table spoons of cinnamon to 1 big cup of sugar. and roll them around in the stuff. One by one. Then put them in a plate with napkins on the bottom, so they will absorve excess oil. They're not hard to make at all. Frying them can be a pain, because it's usually big quantities of dough. But they're delicious. Great for lunch and even breakafst, or middle of the night. or...the sky is the limit :)

Writing this was more tiring then the baking! Feww...