A Year!

We're leaving in a few minutes. The husband should be arriving any moment for us to go. And here I am writing this. We're going for our little-second-honeymoon, because tomorrow it will be A YEAR since we've started this adventure together. It has been a year of joy and struggle, for we're starting something important here. We've promissed each other never to give up on what we believe, never give up on the love we have, and never give up lightning the flame. Love is a never ending construction.

This is another journey in our lives. We'll be back on wednesday with photos, stories, and lots of hapiness smiles.

24 of July. Our day. Because thats how we think love should be, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Wish all of you all the love.

**

photos by our dear friends Rita and Pedro

Pumpkin goes bananas in the oven

I woke up not in a such good mood yesterday. I mean, is kind of hard to have a good mood when you have something ringing loud at your hears, telling you to get up, and the bed screaming even louder for you to go back in. So I told everybody to shut up and dragged myself in to the kitchen. And there I was, swallowing a glass of light pinnaple yogurt*, and there she was looking at me. The banana.

You see, I'm not that fond of bananas. I like them plenty if they are not that much ripe, just like that, pretty natural, fresh and peeled at the moment. But any other way I pass it out. No bananas in the fruit salada, no bananas in my pizza, no banana pie, no banana flavoured yogurt, not even banana ice cream. Nop, none of that. And that banana was pretty much on the ripe side, and asking me to do something with her. Now I'm struggling between my hate of banana flavoured stuff, and my pledge not to throw out good food.

I went to the computer, tryed to do some work, but that mood I woke up with was not helping, and even there in the living room I could hear that banana calling. Yeah, I'm weird like that. And well, if nothing else works to brighten my mood, cooking and baking always does. Back into the kitchen. A brief look into my recipe notebook... hum... oh... lovely pumpkin standing there on the counter, you're going bananas! Pumpkin biscuits with smashed banana and chocolate chips it is.

By the amount of pumpkin compared with the banana, I was hopping the flavour would be disguised. Anyway, someone (read, the husband) will eat it. The recipe was really easy. My mood changed right away. And the house smelled like christmas. The way I like it!

The smell was great but it tasted better. They are soft, more on the cakey side, but I already knew that, so I was not expecting something crunchy. When warm, they almost melted in the mouth, and no signs of that banana! It turned out better than I anticipated cause I got to impress the husband's granny. Score! The thing is, granny is very picky, like very very picky. When it comes to sweets she only goes for simple sponge cake with no cream, no icing no crunchy bits, no nothing. Plus, she is a non-chocolate lady (I know, how can that be?). I can see your eye brows frowning over the chocolate chips, I'll get there.

The other day she was bragging how about in her young days she would bake a bunch of cookies and fill a box to have at home every other week, and as nowadays no woman does that. The sweet husband told her right away that it was not true because I happen to do that at home. Score for the husband. Sweet, right? Not that much for me, cause I was not really sure she bought that. She made that smile, like... yeah, right, if you say so...

When I started to line up the spoons of batter on the baking sheet, stupid me, noticed the lack of chocolate chips. They were lying quiet over the counter waiting to be added. Ok, I said to myself, this ones are going to granny, lets see what she has to say about it!

There's no need to say that the husband jumped right into the plate with joy when he came home from work. He's easy to please. Thank God for that! And granny? Well, she ate the first one without chocolate and seemed happy but said none and just threw a naughty smile. Then, as we were talking and distracted with the tv I could see, from the corner of the eye, her sneaky hand disappearing on the paper bag and into the mouth went another, and another biscuit. And those had chocolate chips. Double score!

So here's the recipe for you to impress your granny, your lover's granny, someone else's granny, or simply indulge yourself.

Pumpkin biscuits**

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/2 pureed banana

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup pureed pumpkin

1 tea spoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 tea spoon baking soda

1 tea spoon baking powder

1/4 tea spoon salt

1/4 tea spoon cinnamon powder

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350º. Beat the eggs with the sugar, then add banana, oil and punpkin. In another bowl mix the dry ingredients, except for the chocolate, and, carefully, add it to the punkin mix. Do not over beat. When done add the chocolate, and then line tea spoons of batter on a baking sheet with 2 inches between each coockie. Bake it for 10 to 12 minutes. Enjoy!

**

all photos by me

*I'm in a kind of pre-summer-weddings-regime. it sucks... I'll tell you about that later
** I have no idea where this recipe came from, it was just a handwritten scratch on my recipe notebook with no info from where I got it from. If you happen to know the author of it, please let me know!

Good memories don't need 10 megapixel

"Don't bother pulling out your phone camera, those pictures are gonna look like shit."

Yeah, I hear you. Back in my head there's a little voice saying "did I asked for your opinion?". I know, I have evil voices in my head, and they also whisper me things like "since when everybody has become such a photography expert?". (sometimes I don't really know if they're in my head or coming out of my mouth, but that's a whole other story...)

Me, being me, just take the pictures anyway.

More and more often you see people pulling out their fancy cameras - witch they can afford, congratulations! - and think of themselves as photografers. And suddenly everything else is crap. When did we get so picky? Don't get me wrong, I have wild dreams, I mean reeeally wild dreams, about cameras but they're nowhere near being in my budget at the moment nor in a near future so I have to stick with my bridge cam and be happy with it. You say maybe I'm just jealous. Well yeah! Probably. But thats not the point.

I say, do you remember when you were a kid and your father had a weird plastic kodak or olimpus camera, with manual focus (or no focus at all, and no zoom!) and a blinding flash? I do. I remember my father also having a polaroide and I loved it more than candys! I love to get those albums out of the dusty closet and laught at those old pictures and remember all those happy moments. And some pictures I really wanna magnify them and hang them on the wall, because they have such a unique beauty! And you know what? My crappy cellphone camera has more definition then those cameras had. So, there's my point. When did we get so picky? Good memories don't need 10 megapixel, zoom 15x nor ISO 6400.

This pictures were taken in the new year's day. We had forgoten our battery charger and, as it happens on that day, there was not a store open where we could buy some. So, out came the cellphone.

For me this are happy pictures. They make me smile every time, and they make fly back in time. And I can feel the cold in that day, and the fog around the city. Even though they are noisy and blurry, I love them.

And they are beautiful. I say so. That's what they make me feel. Good pictures also don't need 10 megapixel.

And here's other things I say:
A good camera does not make you a photographer, and it's not enough to make a good photo, it's the person behind the camera that makes it. It helps having a good camera, and if you can take the most out of it and can afford a really good camera, nice! Not everybody has to be a photographer, and you don't have to be one to take happy pictures, but I guess you already knew that. I'm not a photographer, nor pretend to be one. I probably would have gone that way if I were not to be a designer, still, even though I've not learnt much about it, I love to take photos, capture moments... and I don't have a fancy camera. I just try to do the most with what I have in hand.

So, go ahead, pull out your not so fancy cameras and take happy pictures!

And there will be times when you may surprise yourself by loving especially the most weird ones, because they have some special thing in them, or then thats just me who's the weird one. You can say that too.

Oh, and if you have time take a look at this place. You'll find a girl who knows a thing or two about happy pictures.

**

all photos by me

A sunday afternoon

 

Just driving... as we were looking for a place to walk or stay cool (witch we never actually did). But we spent it together, driving away from our busy lives that keep us apart so much time.

Is it just me who has this thing for capturing things in movement?

The afternoon ended on a terrace bar over a small river. There was beer, coke and lemon, the sun reflecting on the water, and the quiet. And then we droved home. Back to life as it is.

**

all photos by me

fields between Soure and Coimbra

Why do I love my husband?

Need I say anything more?

** 
photos by me
comic faces by the husband 

Just a peek

  

No decent pictures of the complete outfit yet, I leave you with just a peek.

Oh, and that was my date. Am I a lucky girl or what? (shhhh... don't say a word, I know I'm still crazy in love!)

**

all photos by me 

Beach Cottage Ruche Giveaway

Do you know Beach Cottage? If not, you should, really! It's the most beautiful blog written by Sarah, a british girl living an aussie adventure with her family. Go check it out now! Trust me, it's a lovely place. And you'll find out in a minute you cannot stop browsing the whole blog to see all of her DIY home decoration and her inspiring pictures from Australia. You'll get addicted, because she is just sweet.

And, since you're there, check out the giveaway. It involves scarfs, bracelets, and hair pins... just telling you.

wedding at the weekend... what to wear?

So... I bought a dress. It's a little cocktail dress.

It's emerald green. It's short (maybe too short...). It's strapless. It has a vintage feel in it's rockabilly shape. And it has stripes on the skirt!

It's the kind of dress you can really dress up or dress it down. So, I could grab a pair of black heels from the closet, and maybe a little black jacket and get away with that, and look sharp and polished. But... I'm more into looking sweet than sassy. There for I've decided to wear my wedding shoes (or maybe I was just waiting for an excuse to do it...). Just because they look sweet and they complete the outfit less sharper but more vintagy. Or so I think. Plus the husband is taking his linen light brown suit*, so I don't want to end up looking like Carrie Bradshaw datting Noah Calhoun, if you know what I mean.

My wedding shoes

So, now what should I wear with that? Hair up? Hair down? Curly? hum... Jewelry, acessories, or not so much? I'm thinking to go easy only with a statment necklace, but not so shure of that either. Don't want to go over the head with green, but don't know if it would work adding other colors. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of using color, as long as I don't look like a traffic light!

I know. It's the day after tomorrow. Any advice??

**

Photos via here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

*Just for the record, I bought the husband a cute tie, and thats it. He is ready to go. Easy to be a guy... That just makes me mad!