Beautiful Brazil

I often get asked what we miss from the states, if anything. Since this is our second assignment, I like to think that I try not to miss anything, and to minimize the things we get in the states to bring back, but it’s difficult. We do miss things. We’re so used to some of the standard items back home, it’d difficult when you suddenly have to do without.

I think in general, we miss Target. I also miss JoAnn Fabrics (or any fabric/sewing store) and Michaels, since I recently began feeding my Pinterest addiction. As I mentioned before, I can usually find what I need, but I have to go to 4 stores on average to find it. I should mention the at the ideas on Pinterest usually call for you to use “old t-shirts” or things people have laying around…well we moved here with clothes for 2 months, and since we move every few years, we really keep the “extra” things to a minimum. No old t-shirts here! No mod podge sitting around, or craft paints in my cupboard (yet anyway ) It’s a great way avoid hoarding things, moving every few years . In short, I miss how easy it is to get things and get things done in the states.

All right, here is a short list that we have thus far of things that we haven’t been able to find/aren’t common here.

• sour cream
• Greek yogurt
• peanut butter (I’ve found some, but it’s different from the States, much sweeter…we were excited to have some JIF arrive in our tote bag, and when my food processor arrives, I’ll be making my own peanut butter again)
• milk alternatives (they are big on soy here, but we all know soy isn’t good for you, so I’ve returned to using dairy milk when I need a milk like product. I’ve found rice milk, but at $14R ($8.5o US) for a pint, it’s much too expensive for my taste)
• true cheddar cheese, feta cheese (although they do have many other varieties here as we have in the states)
• Epsom salt (needed it for an art project, couldn’t find it anywhere. Finally found it in small SMALL jars labelled as magnesium sulfate in a pharmacy, to be used orally. I got a few jars and just used that for my candle holders )
• Chili sauce
• Hula Hopes (for another project)
• Swiffer/steam mops/anything that makes cleaning easy. Instead, they use a bowl that you mix water and your cleaning solution in, and a rag and a pole with a squeegee on the end and push the mop around on the floor to clean. It looks ridiculous, and I’m sure it’s not a great way to clean the floors, but it’ll do until I get my cleaning supplies. Sometimes I wonder what they would think if we introduced the Swiffer to the Brazilian market…

Pinterest. Need I say more? Since I don’t love housekeeping enough to do it 24/7,  Pinterest has helped me fill my time in semi-creative ways making decent enough home decor! I love it.

For those of you not familiar with Pinterest, it’s basically a virtual cork board where you can save images and links to for later reference. You can pin almost anything you want, from cars to quotes to recipes to home decor ideas to clothing ideas (Polyvore, anyone?) to DIY crafts. It’s practically endless. There is some concern about giving credit where due and plagiarism, but my theory is if you avoid pinning photography (or if you do, quote the source and make sure it’s ok to pin) and pin from the source, you should be good to go. You can follow other people’s pin boards, and they can follow yours for inspiration. Your pin board shows up as a screen with a bunch of smaller photos and a short description you’ve created, and when you click on the photo it will take you to the link that originally displayed the item. When you first sign up for Pinterest, you install a little button on your bookmark bar that says “Pin It”, when you find something you want to save you click that button and select a photo that will represent the article or item on your pin board.

I’ve gained so much knowledge from here, from recipes to try to home cleaning tips, to vacation ideas and crafts. I visit it everyday, at least once a day (I have a lot of time on my hands!)

Without further ado, here are some of the crafts I’ve completed thus far.

Utensil Holder (made from rope and hot glue gun)

Toy Basket for Avery (made from rope and hot glue gun)

Epsom Salt Candle Holders (made from drinking glasses, mod podge, epsom salt, food dye and clear fixative varnish)

Latch Hook Shag Rug (original source had a rug made from dyed t-shirts, but since we don't have old t-shirts I went and bought a cotton/jersey material)

Ok so the rug isn’t done yet, not by far, but I’m very excited to get it finished. It’s a great thing to do when watching tv, as Corey likes to do in the evenings. I’m going to get another color and make it a neutral stripe rug, and I’m really itching to see how it turns out! The source of the rug said it took them over 100 hours to do a much smaller rug (34″x36″ and mine is roughly 60″x78″ or 1.5m x 2m), but I don’t think it will take me quite that long. I’ll post a photo once it’s done!

I’ve got a few other craft projects lined up to make for some simple home decor item such as this one:

Click on photo for link to website, from www.centsationalgirl.com

So easy and you can do in any color! Also very cheap, just some cheap artsy glass vases (can get from craft store) and craft paint, swirl it around inside and voila! Instant decor!

The one frustrating thing about Pinterest for me is I see all these great things to do, and they say to just use old t-shirts, or get them from a thrift store/goodwill and dye, or  ”use mod podge from the craft store” and these things don’t really exist down here! Mod podge doesn’t translate to portuguese (believe me, I tried going into a small art store in town and asking…nope, it doesn’t work) and as far as thrift stores, they may exist but I’m guessing not. Anyways, it’s just an extra challenge to find things down here, but more on that in another post.

If you haven’t already, check out Pinterest if you’ve got some spare time on your hands (or if you you’re just wondering what to make for dinner tonight)!

Until next time, peace and love!

Amy Corey and Avery

Monkey!

MONKEYS MONKEYS MONKEYS! We finally got some great shots of monkeys that were on the electrical cables in front of our house! Avery barking like mad and I finally went to get her in the house, scolding her for all her fuss. When I got to her, I saw what she was barking at and called to Corey to “Get the camera and get out here!” We had 3 little monkeys hanging out by our house! Avery was not terribly impressed I guess.

It was a fun reminder that we live in a tropical area! We’re so lucky to live where we do and have fun neighbors like this

On the downside, we live in a tropical area and have megasized cockroaches…

MegaRoach

Yesterday I opened the silverware drawer to grab a spoon and almost had a heart attack when this guy was crawling around. These suckers are FAST! Plus with their long antennas and their legs extended they look much bigger when they’re running around (apparently they curl up when they die, and look smaller). Ugh. We need to get pest control in here soon, to eliminate the surprise factor of opening cabinets and drawers.

In other news, I finally started my portuguese lessons this week! I’m taking lessons twice a week for an hour at a time to start. There aren’t too many people in the Brazilian countryside that need to learn portuguese (it’s a smallish town with 60,000 or so people, not many expats) so I have one on one lessons. You know how people say that english is one of the most difficult to learn? I don’t buy it. In spanish, portuguese, french, etc they have masculine, feminine, conjugations for the verbs and adjectives depending on the noun, several verbs that mean the same thing but only differ in whether it’s a permanent state or temporary (for instance, the verb to be has two verbs in portuguese, ser and estar, but ser is for permanent characteristics such as I am a girl, and estar is for temporary characteristics such as I am tired, and the verbs are all slightly different depending on who you are talking about  such as I, he, she, you, they (girls)/(boys), we, etc. There is probably also a different conjugation for past, present and future tense, but I haven’t gotten there yet.) A full hour of being talked to in a foreign language and being expected to respond in an unfamiliar language…keeps your mind moving. They operate on complete immersion, in other words, the instructor doesn’t speak english with you during the lesson (although she’s been able to help me understand meanings sometimes with english translations).

Phew, anyways sorry for the long description of lessons! I’ve got some other interesting posts coming up, so stay tuned!

Until then, peace and love!

Amy, Corey and Avery

It finally happened. After over 3 years of owning an iPhone, the other weekend I accidentally dropped my phone on the asphalt and the screen shattered. We were on a family walk up this huge hill in our neighborhood (it’s about 3/4 of a mile uphill the entire way) and we happened across a stray dog. Stray dogs are pretty common here, and they tend to leave you alone, or at most follow you around. They are mostly non-aggressive. Corey decided to scare this dog away so it wouldn’t bother Avery (she can be very skittish around other dogs), and in the process of turning around he bumped my hand which held my phone and it fell.

Such a bummer.

So we sent it back the MN with a new sales’ rep of Corey’s to get repaired at an Apple store. Thanks to Jim (Corey’s dad) for helping us with this! Because we were expecting another friend to come down on business a week later, I was thankfully only without my phone for a week.

I didn’t get a photo of my broken phone, but I got this photo from the top of the hill in our neighborhood.

Rolling green hills of Vinhedo, the view from the highest point in our condominium

So pretty. I love our town, it’s full of colorful flowers and well maintained streets, beautiful plants and green green green everywhere. Gorgeous! The people here are so friendly too…but more on that later.

Along with my phone getting fixed, our friend Nate was also able to bring a few items in a duffel bag for us, a little Christmas in April if you will. Our Christmas included a few basic tee’s for myself, a beach towel for Corey (if you can find them here, they are expensive and the quality is terrible terrible terrible), 6 bottles of sunscreen spray (since it’s so expensive here), 3 cans of Hormel Chili (easy food/do it yourself food for Corey is hard to come by here, no soups, easy meals, etc), 2 jars of peanut butter (they have some down here, very rare, and it’s not the same, it’s really sweet and a different texture), 2 more curtains that we needed to complete the curtains on our sliding doors to the patio, and a few other various things from our stash in the states (lotions, shampoo, etc).

Our goods

Curtains are hung

It was a fun afternoon putting our new things away! It’s funny, when you’re in the states, buying sunscreen is kind of a chore, something you don’t really want to spend your money on, and Hormel Chili? Nothing to write home about. But when you live in a place that is as expensive as it is here, and void of some of the comforts of home, little things like this are exciting. Thanks to everyone back home that helped!

We took Nate out to dinner to thank him for his willingness to carry out stuff across borders, and to celebrate his birthday, which was the next day. We had dinner in Sao Paulo at a pizza/pasta restaurant called Rascal’s, which was really good! It was nice to see a familiar face, and exciting that it was here in Brazil! We’re working on setting up the first visits from our family and friends to Brazil this summer (well, winter here in Brazil) in June and July, and we couldn’t be more excited! On top of that, by that time we should have our furnishings here and have it feeling more like a home!

Until next time,

Amy, Corey and Avery

I won’t pretend that I’m good at this blogging thing. I’m terrible at keeping this up on a steady schedule. What I really should do is just get to writing several posts at once, and scheduling them to post at times in the future. I’ll attempt that this week.

Two weekends ago, Corey and I were invited to a birthday party for a business partner’s daughter. So we got in the car and drove almost 2 hours to his house, stopping on the way only for a birthday gift at the local Carrefour. Let me just paint a picture…this was the Saturday before Easter, and here the local tradition for Easter is that everyone gets a hollow chocolate egg with more candy/treats inside. They are EVERYWHERE this time of year, hung up on racks that cover the aisles of grocery stores. This store (similar to Wal-Mart, but a little higher quality, however still nowhere near as nice as Target) was INSANE. The line to checkout with fewer than 10 items had probably 30 people in line ahead of us. Pure mayhem. So after a 40 minute detour to pick up the gift, we were on our way…

The party itself was pretty impressive! For a 7 year old girls birthday, they had hired 2 pool lifeguards/entertainers that kept an eye on the kids, and played games and sang songs with 12 or so kids. To further help the hosts, the food was catered, and really good! They had salad, salmon, herbed potatoes, steaks, rice, as well as fruit and ice cream, and later cake (we left after the fruit and ice cream since we had Avery at home in her kennel and we’d already been gone for over 5 hours). This really allowed the hosts to enjoy their guests (many family members and some close friends) without stressing too much about what the kids were doing, preparing the foods, etc. The party had started at noon, we left around 4:30pm, and from what I could tell it would go on a few more hours. They do take their partying very seriously here!

Corey and I at the birthday party

All in all, a fun afternoon. We were kind of a highlight at one point since we were “real” American’s that spoke english, and the kids kept coming over to ask us the only question they all seemed comfortable asking in English, “What’s your name?”. It was quite funny.

I’ll have more stories in the coming days!

Until then,

Amy, Corey and Avery

I know it’s been a little while, but I’m back now. Last weekend we were busy celebrating our little girl’s birthday (she’s now 2, and officially not a puppy anymore, even though she’ll always be our “puppy”!). We brought her to the local pet store, Cobasi, in Campinas and picked up a “pool house” for her (a cedar dog house) along with some bedding for it.

Avery in her new pool house

She isn’t using it a ton yet, but we think she’ll get used to it and use it more. When Corey and I are in the pool, we play ball with Avery and sometimes she gets tired and lays down on the brick patio in the shaded portion, we figured this way she could have a more comfortable spot that’s all hers to lay in. Crossing our fingers.

Then on Sunday last weekend, we drove to Guaruja, a beach town about 2 hours from our house. We left about 10:30am, and got there around 12:30, had  lunch ON the beach with Avery, saw the water, took a few photos, and were on our way back home. Since we weren’t sure if Avery would be welcome on the beach, we figured this first trip would just be an exploratory trip. I think we learned a few things:

• Dogs are allowed on the beach in Guaruja
• Clothing is VERY VERY casual (I was in a cotton maxi dress with a cardigan and Corey was in a t-shirt and shorts, and I’d say we were a little overdressed for the area) EVERYONE was in their bathing suit walking around the beach
• Beware of stray dogs and “stray” people…we were walking past this woman and she was clearly not quite clear in the head, and she ended up turning around and calling us “Allemand” (meaning German in portuguese, but also in general a slang term for blondes) and then she proceeded to throw her water bottle at us after yelling at us for a minute, all the while we were ignoring her. It was an interesting few hours on the beach.

All in all, we’re excited to explore the beaches here more, especially since some are so close! I’ve read that there are some small waterfalls around Guaruja as well, we’ll have to find them.

Amy and Avery at the beach

Enjoying a beer and lunch on the beach

When we got home from the beach, I got to work making Avery’s birthday cake. I was inspired by the cakes that were made at the Dog Cafe we used to go to all the time in Mexico City. It’s made out of a layer of hamburger, a layer of mashed potatoes, another layer of hamburger and the entire thing is frosted with mashed potatoes. I was pretty proud of how it turned out for her!

Avery's Birthday Cake!

Hope everyone had a very Happy Easter!

Until then,

Amy, Corey and Avery

Most of the housing here in Brazil is in gated communities, it’s just the norm here. Our community happens to be pretty large. We can easily go on a 2 mile walk via several different routes, include hills or keep relatively stable inclines, etc. There is quite a lot of greenery, and the houses are all very different. We went for a family walk on Sunday, and I caught some photos along the way. Enjoy the pictures of our neighborhood!

View of the lake (I guess it's more of a large pond ) in our neighborhood

We came upon an owl on our walk!

A typical Brazilian payphone, located everywhere

The path around the pond, it's got little posts with lights that keep it lit at night. It's 1 Km around the pond for reference

Brazilian Capybaras, a rodent in the same family as chinchillas and guinea pigs. There is a family of them that lives in our neighborhood near the pond, and at any give time you'll happen upon about 15-20 of them, babies and adults, all together. They make sounds like a dog bark, and can stay underwater for up to 5 minutes. Tend to be very timid animals/non aggressive according to Wikipedia

View from the top of a hill near our house, towards our town, Vinhedo

Stream running through our neighborhood

I’ll post more photos later, but thought you’d enjoy seeing some of where we live! 

Until next time, 

Amy, Corey and Avery