How to make a piece of art for your kid’s room.

If you are a DIY MOM and have an artsy kid at home this is then the best piece of art your child can have in his/her room.

You will need a canvas the size you like, acrylic paints, an apron to avoid messing their clothes, a humid cloth to clean their hands once in a while, a brush, and painting tape.

First with the tape, make the shape, letter or number you want to make for the room. We choose the M because with my daughter we used her initial as well which was part of the decoration I used for my baby shower a year ago.

Once it’s done, start by painting one hand only in the softest color you have. We used all the shades of colors from yellow to blue. With one hand we did yellow, orange, red and pink and with the other hand we did brown, green and blue. I was cleaning his hands sometimes if the color was to different for example from brown to green.

Then we pushed the hand with paint against the canvas no more than 3 times and trying to go over the taped area so when removing it you will have a clear shape.

Once you finish let dry completely and then take out the tape.

As you can see my son is very proud of his work and it’s already in display on his room. It brings color and life to his room and we all love it.

Hope you like it too and if you do it please let me know to see it and enjoy your wonderful work.

Renovating myself

It’s been a long time since I write mainly because I have been going through so much that I haven’t had a time to sit and write.

When the year started I wanted to do so many things and so many projects were in my thoughts, but also I was holding on to stuff that didn’t let me go through. I was a bit anxious, lonely, depressed, stressed, overwhelmed, tired but with a positive attitude about overcoming all this and succeed.

I had to break up with these things and reorganize my thoughts about myself, my projects and let go.

When I finally said goodbye to what was holding me, I felt free. It wasn’t a one time thing, I had to quit to projects, I had to take decisions, I had to let go of friendships and accept my present, my today, myself as I am and look at the moment.

Motherhood has been hard for the past year and some months. Life has been busy, I had let go of myself and I was drowning. I had to recover myself in order to serve my family properly. In order to put my dreams into actions.

It’s happening people. For some time now, I have felt free, I am rediscovering myself, I am accepting who am I now, and also working on my own personal projects. I’m learning from my mistakes, I’m maturing and growing into a better me. My children are more relaxed, cooperating, feeling loved and I’m enjoying them as I used to, not feeling overwhelmed by what I think people say or react towards them or my parenting, but just focusing on their needs and prioritizing them. It made a difference. I’m busy growing my business which is something I love doing and it’s my thing, it’s my moment when I feel myself, and looking into how can this become a real full time job and generate a proper income to modify it from a hobby to a way of living.

Everything that led to this moment was meant to be. It took me in the right direction to look for God and search for help. I have been for the past 2 or 3 weeks working on renovating my home but if I’m being honest, the renovations that take place and can be seen on the outside are happening too on the inside. Every time I rearrange a room, a box of utensiles, every time I clean a shelf and organize the stuff on it and get rid from the ones I don’t need or bring me bad memories or simply doesn’t serve to any purpose, I realize, that I’m feeling lighter. It brings a sense of peace and order in my mind and therefore in my house so it’s kind of a two way action.

I won’t lie and I’m not yet in the place I want to be but I’m working so hard on setting the right atmosphere at my heart to reflect it in my home and in what I do and viceversa. I’m working extra hard on keeping my mind in line and not letting anything disturb it. I’m working in not loosing myself but in bringing me back and don’t let the past haunt me and stop me from being the chatty, sparkly, high energized always doing something woman, creative dreamer and extrovert I normally am.

I always think, if I were in Mexico, would I be going through all this? My answer is no. So this is kind of part of the expat life for me. It never hit me this hard until now. Being alone, without help, without my family and tribe makes it even harder cause I can’t have a day to just rest and be me. I’m a mom 24/7 and can never get a chance to send them to grandma and just reset. It’s just hard. I slowly started to go out with my friends for dinner recently but I took the youngest because she just doesn’t drink formula and would scream bloody murder until she cries herself to sleep if I don’t nurse her. I need to go out, I know if I were in Mx, I would leave her with my mom and go for a drink with my friends or my husband. I haven’t been me in a while and recovering myself will take time, self love and lots of patience from myself and from the people here who really care for me. They have been supportive even though actually no one knows I’m going through all this.

So I’m in the process of renovating the house but also myself. And here is a photo of how it is coming along.

Blue corn Tacos

Today I’m sharing with you 2 very easy recipes for tacos. One is a vegetarian recipe and the other is not.

Today I was gonna make meat with something else for dinner but then the post man arrived with a surprise: blue corn tortillas made by my friend Angie. She sells the best tortillas in my opinion really. I’ve been buying from her for like 2 or maybe 3 years now and I’m always happy with them. But now I wanted to try the blue ones and they are amazing… So yummy.

So I changed my menu and made ‘Rajas con queso’ and ‘carne picada’. Here is what you need.

ingredients.

4 punt paprika’s

1 big onion or 2 small

1 small can of corn

1 bag of shredded cheese.

A piece or meat that doesn’t have lots of fat.

Tortillas from La Tradicional

Salsa (I use the red salsa from La Morena)

Lemon

Onion and coriander finely chopped.

Salt and pepper

Preparation

First, prepare the punt paprika’s the same way as we did for the Pastel Azteca. So, burn the skin completely, rest in a plastic bag for 10 minutes, take off the burn skin and cut in stripes.

Now, while the punt paprika’s rest, cook the meat. Look at the photo to see the kind of meat I used. I honestly never look at the names of the pieces but I just know how they look. This one is like a steak but has no fat and it’s also not used for shredding. You can grill it and then leave it to rest until you are ready to mince it in the food processor.

Also saute some onions like in the picture below.

By then the punt paprika’s should be peeled and cut. Add them to the onions together with the corn and mix. Add the cheese, lower the fire and cover with lid until the cheese has melted.

Season everything to your taste with salt and pepper.

Heat the pan (I have an authentic Comal) and warm up the tortillas turning sides until they are soft.

Serve in the tortillas, but see, here is how…

the ‘rajas’ which is the name of the vegetarian dish, you just serve it like that on the tortilla and add salsa if you like.

The beef tacos, you serve the minced meat, then add the mix of onions and cilantro, squeeze some lemon juice, add some salt and salsa and enjoy. These last ones are actually street tacos. Delicious! They really were delicious. My son ate 3 tacos!!!

If you like the recipe please make a comment and share with others the joys of Mexican food. Don’t keep it to yourself! 😂

33 years

Today is my bday.

I’m 33 years old now… I don’t feel 33, sometimes I feel 21, others I feel 35. I get a little philosophical when it’s my bday, you know because it’s an end of something and a new beginning.

In 33 years of life I have been incredibly blessed with so many things and through so many people. I have also been challenged by so many situations, by so many people and some of these challenges I overcome, others I don’t and I keep going through them probably cause I haven’t passed the test.

All of these experiences of life leave me something. I consider myself a very positive person but I do have a depressive side of me that sometimes pulls me and want to take over the normal, positive, happy, dreamer, everything-is-possible-me. Normally this area of my personality comes through when a challenge of life becomes too much for me or its emotionally too hard for me to overcome. I’m going through a challenge I keep having every certain years and each time I do learn something but apparently I need to learn more. The last time was almost 12 years ago. It’s about relationships and every time it happens it hurts me and shakes me.

Today is my birthday, I’m 33 and while I nurse my baby to sleep, I keep thinking on these past experiences because they do something inside of me. I need to learn once and for all the lesson because I don’t want to go through them again in 5 years or 12 or 20 years and also because I need to prepare my kids properly for the world. I just want to stop this cycle and be mindful about my friendships, my reactions, and just have peace in my mind and heart.

A birthday is like a personal new year. I did make some new years resolutions but never put them into paper. So I want to write down my new year/birthday resolutions. They are in no particular order of importance. I want to do them all.

1. I will do anything I have to do to be emotionally healthy.

2. Focus on my personal goals including being the best mom I can be to my 2 kids, be a better wife and woman and treat myself gently.

3. Organize myself better to accomplish these goals and keep track of my plans.

4. Be healthy physically, emotionally and spiritually.

5. Shake off the bad experiences and negative comments about myself, my family or what I do. I can’t control how people think or talk about me but I can control my reaction to them.

6. Do more of what makes me happy, that is baking, crocheting, reading novels, watching movies, working out, blogging and basically anything that keeps me busy and happy.

7. Use my talents to help others.

8. Be creative

9. Be kind and gentle first to myself and then to others.

10. Do more outdoors activities with my kids.

11. Get into a routine for my social online life to achieve my blogger and networking goals.

12. Get back into my biblical Journaling and personal Bible study.

13. Invest more into my positive friendships.

14. Administer my business better to grow it and enjoy its fruits.

15. Get closer with my family.

16. Write on a journal.

17. Enjoy alone time with my husband.

18. Don’t let the hardships of life turn off my light.

19. Put everything in the hands of God and let things takes their place and time to work out everything. That means not rush into anything

20. Worry less about what people will think or do or say or feel, if I’m not doing it with a bad intention or to hurt anyone, specially if it stops me from being happy or doing something I like or just being myself. If they can’t handle me, then they are not good for me.

I think those are mainly the things I will work on and hopefully this new year that I start will be better than last year and that this challenge Im still overcoming can be passed and I won’t ever have to go through it again.

This birthday had some bittersweet moments but I will take the sweetness and print it in my memory and therefore I will only say the positive, I have had 33 wonderful years and for real I’ve had one of the best days today with my family in a long time. They showered me with love and spoiled me and I received some very special treats from very special people too. God even gave me snow for my bday and I spent the best weekend with my 2 cubs and my loving husband.

Happy birthday to me, may this year be even more blessed than the one I just ended.