All things Pink

Well we are finally in October and it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.



So today, my post is about all things pink, and with this I would like to honor; first of all my Mom as a breast cancer survivor along with many other women (even some men) that have being through this horrible disease, fight it and lived to tell the story.

But also I would like to honor those that have not being as bless as the survivors as well as those that are going through it as I write this...Hope all women reading this DO NOT take their health for granted and the best way to move forward against Breast Cancer is awareness and early detection. I am going to be wearing a pink ribbon pin every day of the month, to remember and honor this important cause!

Happy Friday!!!

A little bird told me...

actually, I haven't heard anything from a bird but just their wonderful songs.

But lately it looks like my life is filled with this beautiful animals and I'm not sure if this has any meaning or not.


Like I said in one of my previous post about Woody (the woodpecker) I had a pretty close (the closer so far) encounter with him and I was able to capture the moment with my camera.

This morning I was having breakfast and coffee with my husband in the back terrace and all of a sudden he said "did you see that red bird?". So we got up and we were able to spot it, a beautiful cardinal-looking bird (but a cardinal in the Caribbean, naaaah!). I manage to go get my camera and took some pictures of it, unfortunately he was quite far away and even with my zoom lens I was not able to capture a very clear picture of it. Then when I got to work I manage to find the species on the internet and it is a Summer Tanager, here it is:


Finally when I came to work today as soon as I was walking to my desk I realized that a little bird had come through the doors and was flying around like a maniac trying the find his way out, (this is not the first time that this has happened). As before I was able to grab him and set him free, unfortunately this one little one probable hit his head in one of the fans cause he was bleeding. I hope he survives!

Happy Thursday!

Over the Top Award

Yesterday I was very honored to received my 3rd award from an awesome fellow blogger, Maggie at Moonstruck.
Now, it's my turn to pass it along and to tag some other blogger that deserve such a nice compliment. So here I go...

1. First of all I have to say Ooh La La, because my first tag goes out Heidi. She has a very nice blog with lots of visual posts about design and decoration, but she also manages to include some very nice, deep messages that make me think and uplifts my spirit.

2. My second tag has got to be for my favorite male blogger at First Time, not only cause he is the man I love but also because he is the only that inspired me to start a blog so without him I would not exist here!

3. My 3rd mention is for Janelle, I just love reading her blog and I just find so beautiful the way she shared the Days of Five Lives!

4. I cannot help myself and also tag one of my favorite blogs which is Gods Little People, I love every single one her posts and I love that we share our love and appreciation for animals. While she was away I really missed her posts, I'm glad she is back!

5. There is a blog that I really enjoy I haven't really comment much on it, Krista at my life as i see it, I really like reading her blog, besides she has a beautiful daughter and a wonderful way with words, also thanks for your comments on my blog.

6. My last but definitely not least tag goes to my favorite female blogger at This Life Is Mine. Jess not only is so much fun, knows how to party, drink, dance and even sings karaoke, but she is definitely somebody that I would like to hang out with in real life (besides on cyberspace). Her blog is most definitely Over the Top!

And now I'm supposed to answer the following questions:

1. Where is your cell phone... in my handbag,

2. Your hair.... curly.

3. Your mother..... at home.

4. Your father......at his home.

5. Your favorite food....Sushi.

6. Your dream from last night....about me swimming with my brother and sister in law.

7. Your favorite drink..... Red Wine.

8. Your dream/goal.... to always be happy and positive.

9. What room are you in......living room.

10. What is your hobby......photography and diving.

11. What is your fear....... to loose my loved ones.

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years......alive and kicking.

13. Where were you last night..... at home.

14. Something you are not.....quiet.

15. Muffins?....sure!

16. Wish List items..... travel, travel, travel.

17. Where did you grow up.....Costa Rica.

18. Last thing you did......sent an email.

19. What are you wearing......shorts and top.

20. Your t.v....... turned off.

21. Your Pets...... 2 dogs (Ditto and Sheba)

22. Friends........a few, many acquaintances.

23. Your life....... Make the best out of it.

24. Your mood.....tired and a little tense.

25. Missing someone......always, my family and close friends from back home.

26. Vehicle.......1 Mitsubishi Pajero.

27. Something your not wearing.......bra.

28. Your favorite store.......Forever 21.

29. Your favorite colors......red.

30. When's the last time you laughed...... today.

31. When's the last time you cried.......Sunday.

32. Your best friend.......my mom and Trudy.

33. One place you go over and over.......work (unfortunately, lol).

34. One person who emails me regularly.......my mom and dad.

35. Favorite place to eat?......Thai Orchid.

Well, that's it... Happy Hump Day!

Still life with the Woodpecker

Today's post is not about Tom Robbin's book, but a series of pictures I've taken in the past few days of Woody, our resident woodpecker that lives in our back yard and it's interacting with used to us.

On a previous post "3rd time is the charm" I managed to take a picture of him for the first time when he comes and to eat bugs out of our roof gutters. Well this time I took some good shots of him on the Mahogany tree...

Now, yesterday I had a very "close encounter" with him in our back deck. I was coming out of the shower and I heard him signing but closer that ever before, so I grabbed my camera and walk into the back deck trying to find him, I kept hearing him but couldn't see him, until I looked down and I spot his little head just poking up and staring at me... I really think he was curious and maybe even likes his picture taken, LOL!


On another note... I am keeping the new image for my blog as I received good reviews and nice comments. I also just read that I have an award from Maggie waiting for me at her blog, but I haven't had time to read about yet, so I will post about that soon, so for now, Thank You Maggie!!!

Blog Makeover

What do you guys think about my new blog image? Like it or not? Should I just go back to my previous one with the starfish? Please give me your opinions, o.k???

Here are some picture of yesterday beach time, it was short but sweet, because after about an hour it started raining like you won't believe it, so I took the opportunity to jump on the water (which got pretty warm cause of the rain) and took some pictures while I let the rain wash all my worries away.

myself and the beach through my husbands sunglasses

the rain is coming

raindrops

raining hard

Schizofrenic Saturday...

The weekend is flying by so fast that it's Sunday already.

Yesterday was a pretty bizarre day, in the morning got a text from my boss only saying;

"I just got one question: what did I ever do to u?"...

So to me, this is a joke! I mean, if you have a problem with somebody and you want to confront this person, you have to do it either in person or over the phone, cause what's the point of trying to confront somebody via text message, uh? So I obviously ignored the text and went on with my day... But this made me think that there was already something going on at work.

After some shopping we ended up having lunch at a new Tex Mex Restaurant (and the only one on the island, can u believe it, on an island with more than 30k people!). It was good, and I had a very large Margarita... which kind of got me through the rest of the day...

The reason to say the Margarita got me through the rest of the day is because when we were waiting for our meal, the assistant manager at work "J" called me to tell me that in fact it was the end of our manager at work, that she got fired that very morning, which probably explains the reason I got that text...

So, later on in the evening I got another text, this one explains the fact that not only she is bipolar, she has this paranoiac personality, and I'm sure what she meant is that the assistant manager which she refers to as "my friend" is the one that calls me that. I'm sure the reason why she is saying this is because she saw us talking on Friday (about random stuff) but I'm sure in her head it was all a conspiracy meeting against her... so her text this time said:

"I hope you are happy to know what your friend calls u, a short, fat, b*#%h. I am".

Nice, ah? Very classy of her, and probably the result of a very depressed and drunk afternoon. Oh boy I tell you, I've been working with this woman for almost 3 years now and I always knew her last days at work were not going to be pretty, and even though I tried to stay away from this whole situation, I knew she always had this time about me and it's call envy.

So, obviously ignored that other text and when I see her, if I ever get to see her again, and I probably will, cause she refused to sign the letter that was giving to her yesterday, and left saying she was going to talk to her lawyer (yeah like she can even afford one!).

Anyway, like I say before, I really don't wish her any harm and I'm sure that she will be a lot happier somewhere else if she hates us all that much (specially me!).

On another better note, it's Sunday so now I'm off to the beach... will post some pics tomorrow!

32 yrs ago...

On a day like today, but in the year 1977, my birth mother Gilda passed away of an aneurysm.

She was 23 yrs old and I was only 6 months, so unfortunately I don't remember my time with her.

This last time I was back in Costa Rica I went to see my grandmother (Gilda's Mother) and got a hold of some old pictures that she still had. My grandma used to always have tons and tons of pictures, but I guess with her being sick and having lots of different nurses and helpers the pictures as well as a lot of her stuff has gone missing, I was glad to be able to get some of my mom's pictures as well as some from when I was a little girl.

I can't really say I miss her because as I say before I really don't remember her, plus like I mention in a previous post (my two moms), after she passed away God and my dad gave me the opportunity to have another wonderful mother that has being more than I can ever imagine in my life.

But I know that mom Gilda is always looking out for me and although she was very young when God called her to his side, and we did not get to spend much time together, she is always in my heart and I live each day thinking of the best way to carry her memory and legacy of love!

Here are some pictures of her through the years...

2 years old

first grade 6 or 7 yrs old wearing a CR typical dress

Graduation Pic. Aug 4th, 1971

She did a little modeling

circa 1976 @ work

our last picture together Sept. 1977

Fateful Friday

This is kind of how I feel at work today...


...things are not good and it's been like this for a few days now. It's really nothing directly related to me, but with our Manager.

Sometimes she is a very unstable person when it comes to problems and confrontations (maybe because of the fact that she is bipolar or else). Unfortunately she took some bad decisions in the past few months and besides that she has changed her version of it a few times as well. Now upper management has found out about the whole situation, so the future at the company is not looking very bright for her.

Next week things might get worst because the Vice president of the corporation is coming down to sort things out with her or maybe to give her to boot for good.

Meanwhile her attitude towards everybody at work is horrible, it's like she blames everybody for her mistakes and I'm sure she thinks we are all conspiring against her, but this is not true...

I really don't wish her any harm, I know she is got a lot of issues in her personal life and with her finances but that doesn't give her the right to give grief to everybody at work because things are obviously not working for her, right? Also I think that the fact that she is pissed at everybody and is walking around the place with a horrible long face doesn't really make her look like a positive leader that can handle a staff, never the less manage a store.

Personally I am being affected quite a bit and the stress is really awful, this morning I even woke up with a cold sore on my lip, which I get every now and then for various reason but I'm sure this one is 'cause of stress...

So as I'm writing this, then only thing that keeps me going is the fact that it's Friday so it means I will be out of the office for 2 days, hopefully things will get better next week and we can have the harmony walk into our place again... Have a wonderful weekend or at least try!!!

My shower buddy

It was at a friends house the first time I saw you...

At first I found you very intriguing.

But then, we took our first shower together and that's when I knew there was a reason why our paths crossed that day.

My first reaction when I realized our destinies belong together was to take you away for good. But then I thought, if my friend is a real friend, she will understand love at first sight and would let me depart with you.

So I told her, that I wanted you, that I have being looking for you all along, and because it took me this long to find you, I couldn't let you slip away like that, and then grieve your lost and the opportunity to have you in my life, for as long as we both shall live!

And she understood and wished us farewell.

Now we are together, so today I want to dedicate this post to you.

Thank you shower buddy for being with me on my daily shower and not only untangling my hair but at times even my ideas... You are awesome!

Wednesday Movie Post

Today's review is about a movie that might not appeal to many but it's definitely an animation jewel, and the reason I say this is because it is an animation movie but not the same old computer animated characters but a type of animation with figurines hand carved with clay, and this wonderful movie is not other than

"Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit".

If you've never heard of this wonderful duet which is Wallace (as the leader and inventor) and Gromit (his loyal assistant and friend), you are definitely missing a lot. I was first introduced to them by my husband that have always liked them and has a few (maybe even all) of their episodes, which are mostly short films.

Anyway, back to the movie and the review. This one feature film is about Wallace & Gromit owning a very respectable and efficient pest control company (Anti-Pesto) that deals with pest control but in a humane way. But just days before the big vegetable competition in town, all of the crops are being affected by rabbits that are eating the competitors precious produce.


So that's when W&G had to come in and help, but by using one Wallace's many inventions things take a bad turn and they end up dealing with a were-rabbit (instead of a were-wolf, get it?).


I think this movie is very unique and the animation is awesome, it is very british but that gives it even more character. My favorite character by far is Gromit, I specially like it when he knitts, but I also love that he is a dog and can do anything humanly possible but talking.


Maybe another reason why I like this film so much is because I'm going through a very strong phase of Farmville addiction (in case you don't know this game it's a facebook thing), so I'm all about farming, vegetables, fruits, animals, crops... but that is just going to have to be left for another blog post, LOL!

So far today...

It's Tuesday, there are going to be 3 cruise ships on the Georgetown port today (Carnival Valor, Carnival Legend and Disney Magic) each one of those ships with and average capacity of 2k passengers but lately it feels like they are not even half full.

Work is being horribly slow and I don't even want to mention the sales of this month. It's so depressing for me to think that today, I made the first sale since Sept. 10th, that's 8 business days!

At this point I'm trying to convince myself that this just another low season on the island, that the economy is picking up and people are just being cautious about spending as Christmas is aproaching, right?

Besides that, weather is slowly going back to the normal rainy season but without any threatening storms or hurricanes around. What I really like about this time of year is that you can see patches of clouds and rain all around and sometimes it's raining out on the sea and you can see some beautiful scenes around...

Just the other day I was driving home from work and got to see one of these nice scenery and managed to stop and take a picture.

West Bay public beach

Also in the past few days, I felt like dressing up one of my dogs (Sheba) for the first time, just to have a laugh, so I found one of my shirts to put it on her and I knew that this was going to drive her off the wall, here is the result... she was quite annoyed, LOL!

Sheba is very annoyed here

She is over it...

Also last night we went to a very nice Italian Restaurant (Edoardo's) to celebrate our friend Ben's 40th birthday, it was a surprise party organized by his wife through facebook with a secret event page and all.

It was really fun, specially because he really had no clue of the party and he was truly surprised and happy to see so many people there to celebrate with him and specially on a Monday night. Here are some of the highlights of the night.

Ben (bday boy) and Jenn (his wife)

the best looking couple @ the party, LOL!

I got tattooed!


we had some good Italian coffee


when they brought the cake, she almost throwed it at him!

don't even know what's going on here...