Tag Archives: celebrating life

Birthday, Bagels and Chocolate Cake

29 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by in Daily Life

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My sister and I celebrated our birthdays today (March 28).  We turned 54 years old.  It is just so strange, so foreign to verbalize (write) that I am that age.  It doesn’t fit.  It doesn’t feel right.  Yet, that’s how old I am.   

No matter what age I am, I will always gratefully celebrate the gift of life.  The gift of another day.  We didn’t do anything special, we are choosing to observe the quarantine and stay inside.  Being alive, healthy and safe is special enough. 

We spent the day cooking, baking, watching movies.  We did some yoga poses and answered the several phone calls we got.  

For breakfast my sister made bagels from scratch.  She loves bagels and eats them every weekend.  We didn’t have any and didn’t want to go out to buy it.  So she got a recipe online.  It came out pretty tasty.

Homemade Bagels

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh

I haven’t baked a cake in a long time, but wanted to make one for our birthday.  I made a chocolate cake with two fillings.  One filling was a coconut cream and the other was a chocolate cream.  I covered it with chocolate ganache. 

Chocolate Cake

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh

It was a combination of 2 of my favorite Brazilian cakes:  Bolo prestigio (with coconut filling) and Bolo Brigadeiro (with chocolate filling).  The pictures don’t do justice.  It was absolutely to die for.  I wish you guys could taste it. It was not overly sweet.

Slice of heave, I mean chocolate cake

“Around us, life bursts with miracles–a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings. When we are tired and feel discouraged by life’s daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.”― Thich Nhat Hahn

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One is alive, the other is boring and I am getting old in the process!

23 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Daily Life, Dating, Finding Me

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Guess who I saw online on Friday night?  Yes, you guessed it!  Mr. disappearing act was online.  So now we know that he is not dead, in prison or lying in a hospital with amnesia.  Now we know that he stopped texting/calling because he wanted to.

I will never understand what makes a person do that.  The honest approach is so much better and civil, why just disappear? Why let people wonder what happened?   Well, I totally believe I dodged a bullet and I thank my guardian angel for this narrow escape.

I didn’t contact him and I am glad that he didn’t contact me and tried to give me some excuse.

The bottom line is whatever is/was going on in his life that caused him to disappear has nothing to do with me.  It is all about him! I was just on his path.  I was just another casualty.

I am filing this under lesson learned.  I am free from him.  I am free from the issues that being his friend would bring.  Drugs are not for me and anyone that needs drugs to be happy are not for me.

“Being honest may not get you many friends but it’ll always get you the right ones.” ― John Lennon

***

I just came from another failed date.  I hate to use the word failed as I think everything in life leads to success and there are no failures only lessons and stepping stones to a better place. But for some reason this one feels like a failure.

He was just a bit too overwhelming to me.  Normally I am the overwhelming one.  Normally I am the one that talks too much.  I wanted to give him some constructive criticism but I knew he couldn’t handle it.  At one point I just sat back and listened, I didn’t bother to disagree.  Well I attempted to but I could see him getting defensive so I gave up.

Of course he liked me so much that he couldn’t stop telling me that he had a great feeling about this date.  He now can’t stop telling me how smitten he is with me.  It seems he says the right stuff but it just rubbed me the wrong way.

I don’t like when people assume they know me.  I don’t like when people assume that they know what I am feeling.  I don’t like when people think they know what I am about to say.

He is a very nice guy, great job, worldly, smart, but something rubbed me the wrong way.  He is an Aries like me maybe that is the problem. May be he is too much like me.

Truth is that if that is what I am like, I hated it and I need to change.  It is not fun being with someone so opinionated, so know it all, so full of assumptions.  I need to watch myself and tone it down.

The main problem is there was zero chemistry for me.  I guess when there is chemistry is easier to put up with some things.

He just texted to tell me he wants to do something special for me on Saturday night to celebrate my birthday.  His birthday is 2 days later.  The worst part is that I am considering it.

I didn’t say no yet, but I know I have no other answer for him. I was tempted into accepting just because I have nothing lined up for my birthday. I know, that is an awful reason to go out with someone! This blog of mine is all about honesty, so I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that I thought about accepting his invitation so that I would have something special to do on my birthday.

The truth is I would feel miserable if I accepted knowing I would be using him. If I thought there was a chance of liking him more on a second date I would go, but I don’t think so.  So I will find an easy way to let him down.

As far as my birthday I will make it special no matter what.  I always celebrate myself!  I believe there will be champagne involved!

I will be celebrating possibilities!  My life is so full of hope and possibility!  Some times I just have to smile to myself for seeing all the invisible beauties and blessings in my life.  I am alive, do I need any other reason to celebrate?