Family Heirloom

My mother and father had two daughters, Nuria born in 1941 and me, Maria Josefa, born in 1943. Our paternal grandmother, yaya, lived with us.

When I was born, my family lived in a beautiful house in one of the best areas of Barcelona. We had a car and a chauffeur, a live in maid and a nanny. We were wealthy and had a great life. My father decided to capture those good times with a portrait of my mother with my sister and I. The painter's name was Ribot.

That painting was hanging at the library of our first house. 5 years later  in a reversal of fortune, my father lost most of our money on an ill fated business with a "friend".  We were forced to give up our life style and moved to an apartment in an area called El Putxet. Even though almost all the furniture and art objects stayed in the house (which was rented out to friends) the painting came to the new apartment with us, it hung in the living room area.

The painting was part of my life when I was growing up. After I got married and moved to the States I often thought about it and rejoiced when we  went back for vacations and it was still there.

Time passed and I am not sure what happened with the painting. I remember one time when we went to Platja D'Aro where my sister and her daughters lived, we talked about the painting and Marv and I wanted to bring it to the States, but it was too heavy, too hard to transport and too expensive, so we sort of gave up on it.

Last September my daughters and I went to Spain, after several years, It was an emotional and great trip. The day I met my sister Nuria, she surprised me by giving me a rolled up package

It was the painting! She had kept it, minus the frame, and just rolled it up and kept it all this years.
I was surprised and thankful and mailed it to our home in California. When we got back we couldn't wait to open the package with the painting. When we saw it, we were sad :(

Being rolled up all this time, the painting was brittle and much of the paint had cracked. It was also badly damaged with humidity and had dust and dirt. It look dull and sad.

After talking things over, Marv and the girls and I decided to try to have it restored. Lizzie took it to San Diego and found an artist that did art restoring. It would take time and money, but we went ahead with it. That's a picture of the painting after the artist patched the spots that had lost paint and covered the scratches

She then cleaned the painting filled in the white spots, and did her magic. It was many hours of painstaking work, but now it was restored, vibrant and beautiful.

Today Lizzie brought it home, and here it is with the frame. It will hang in our living room.

WELCOME HOME

BENVINGUT A CASA NOSTRA

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Today my first born child turns 50 years old!

How time flies...

                                                           

                                                           The cute redheaded baby

Turned into a beautiful red haired woman

Love you very much,

Mama

May recap

I didn't realize it's been so long since I last wrote!

Here's May's recap:

May 8 - Mother's Day. Had a surprise visit from Lizzie!  :)

May 14 - To El Torito in Long Beach with Norbert. 

May 18 - To see my doctor about the bite? on my leg. He prescribed some more antibiotics. Met N for lunch at Slapfish in HB.

May 24 Lizzie came over and we're ready to leave tomorrow to Utah :)

May 25 - N came with us to the airport and he took the pickup back home and will come to pick us up June 1, We had a good flight and enjoyed the extra leg room in the first row seats. Upon arrival in SLC Lizzie went to rent a car, Sandy was waiting for us and we all went to our Hotel to rest. Dinner at Sandy's yummy Atlantis burger and fries.

May 26 - To South Jordan for M's dialysis, Very nice place. Lunch at Les Madeleines :)

May 27 - GRADUATION DAY.  Everything went smoothly. Great day! Celebrating at Sandy's with some of his friends. Toasts, food, gifts.  Sandy wrote all about it in her blog, I will write and put some pictures later. Tristan left the next day to Lake Powell with friends.

There was so much stuff happening the last few days in Utah that I sort of lost track of the days. Lizzie slipped on a piece of ice at Smiths market and fell and injured her hamstring and knee, Painful. M had to go to ER for a transfusion as he had lost a lot of blood. Lastly while going back to  Les Madeleines to get some more Kouing Aman I tripped getting out of the car and fell on my knees and hit my right arm with a metal sign, it is still very black and blue right now.
Sandy took us to the Red Butte Gardens and it was wonderful. Lizzie stayed at home recovering, but M came as he was feeling better after the transfusion.  Sandy cooked a very good chile verde pork. We gave Sandy her birthday gifts since we wouldn't be there on her BD June 5.

And then it was back to California.

Books I read in May:

Movies I've watched in May:

OUCH!

When I woke up this morning I felt pain on my foot but didn't think much of it. Then I got up and the minute I put my left foot on the floor I screamed in pain. My foot was swollen, red and tender and hurting like hell.

GOUT?

I had trouble walking because it was very painful, so after going with Marv to the clinic, I came home and took an Ibuprofen and went to sleep. Of course Lulu slept with me.

I got up in time to make myself some lunch, chicken salad sandwich, and shortly after that I went to pick Marv up. After we got home I napped again.

Tomorrow I had a doctor's appointment so he could check my leg bite again, and now he can check my foot as well. Same side of the leg.

Right now if feels OK, no pain :)

Mothers and Daughters

Today was a pretty quiet day. It rained quite a bit yesterday but today it was cloudy and later it got sunny with big white fluffy clouds, the kind we do not see around here very much.

I texted with my girls a while, and saw pictures Sandy took of Tristan and his date and friends that were going to the senior prom :)  They all look wonderful and happy.

After dinner (Trader Joe's orange chicken) and Thai veggies, I decided to watch a movie.

I chose "Mothers and Daughters" given tomorrow is Mother's Day I thought it was fitting.  Mothers and Daughters is a 2016 film just released today. Originally it was called Mothers Day, but there's also a movie with that name (with Jennifer Anniston) also released this week. So they changed the title to "Mothers and Daughters" so as not to confuse people :)

It is one of those ensemble movies that are kind of interwoven, it was OK. It had  Susan Sarandon, Sharon Stone, Courtney Cox and Mira Sorvino as the mothers. 

Paella Sunday

I just read Sandy's blog about making paella and how she was pretty satisfied with the results. I made mi paella on the same day as she did, Sunday.

Paella cooking skipped a generation, mine.

I am  sad to admit my paella was pretty inedible.  I used the paella pan, the oil, the rice, chicken, pork, seasonings, pimientos for garnishing, etc. It looked OK, but the rice in the edges were quite hard, and the middle was quite mushy. I give part of the blame to my stove that won't let the paella lie flat so the liquid didn't quite reach the edges. But I like to make excuses when I totally should take the blame.


I used to make a fairly decent arroz con pollo, which is basically rice with chicken. But the last couple of times I made it, it wasn't as good.  Maybe I should put away the rice for a while, although my chinese fried rice is still on point.

Chicken with rice (2011)

A test

A few days ago, Tristan posted the results of a personality test in Facebook. The test is called  "How Your Personality Impacts Your Life."
 I like tests or quizzes, so I decided to take it too. Here are my results:

As you can see, I scored the highest in SELF RELIANCE and the lowest in ORDERLINESS and RESERVE.   I'm surprised I scored low in orderliness since I am a bit OCD  (by the way I had to check the definitions of the words jsut to make sure they are what I think they are. Also I think if I had taken this test a few years ago it would have come out somewhat differently, but I guess that  would happen to everybody, one changes with time.

If you want to take the test, I will be curious to see your results :)
By the way I didn't pay for the more specific results,


https://personalityfactors.net/en