Posts Tagged ‘coffee’

So we went to meet up with Luschka and the cute Kyra (from Diary of a  First Child) today to have some coffee and have conversations about all and nothing.

The idea was to leave TB at school and make it to South Kensington to meet them up at 11am. Of course we were fashionably late but it was an immense pleasure to meet the 2 ladies. It is awesome to meet someone what has been through kinda the same things I’ve been as a child. Luschka is a military child and has been all over the place more times than she can count… I know that feeling being a Missionair’s kiddo between my 6 and 14 years of age. Even after they settled down (ish) it was difficult to create ruts… and it still is for me today, but we work on it.

This was also Mr.A’s 1st Tube trip, and while me and @glowstars were so very excited for that he really couldn’t care less. LOL!

The adventure continued as we decided that after having coffee we should go to Harods and get more coffee… this time for our fancy Nespresso machine. Poor Vic wasn’t quite impressed for not being able to go in the Chocolate Cafe (she’s giving it up for Lent… ) I’ve also learned a very important lesson today: Always tip the dude that stands in the toilets handing you towels to dry your hand. If you don’t the lifts will electrocute you one the way out… This is no joke… It happened to me… and it wasn’t a mild shock… So I could only assume it was vengeance!

Because we got there fashionably late we also had to leave fashionably late so we were a bit late to pick TB up from school… woops… good job I am really easy to make friends… hehehe… The mum of one of TB’s friends picked him up and we met up with them at the park later. It was freezing!!! But they didn’t seem to notice playing like there are no problems in this world…  hehehe Bless them

Didn’t get anything that NEEDED to be sorted done today, but it was a great day away from it all… We’re  reviewing life at the moment and taking big decisions, so I suppose we REALLY need this day out…

Fish and Chips closed our day with Golden Key…

wow… 2:40am… better try and get some shut-eye… Tomorrow is back to business as usual… WITHOUT letting the wife sidetrack me with other stuff… (yup… all here fault hehehehe)

zya!!

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, When 24 hours in a day is not enough; remember the mayonnaise jar.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him..

When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and start to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured it into the jar. He shook the jar lightly.

The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded With an unanimous ‘yes.’

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively
filling the empty space between the sand.
The students laughed.

‘Now,’ said the professor, as the laughter subsided,
‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things – God, family, children, health, friends, and favorite passions Things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the things that matter like your job, house, and car.

The sand is everything else –
The small stuff.

‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.

The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, You will never have room for the things that are important to you.

So…

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. holeheartedly worship your God, Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner.

There will always be time to clean the house and fix the dripping tap.

‘Take care of the golf balls first — The things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.’

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled.

‘I’m glad you asked’.

It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.’

Now go on… share this with other “Golf Balls”

I just did……

zya!!

I’ve once heard someone say that life is what we make out of it.

If that is the absolute truth then I must be the biggest self saboteur in the world!

And yet, somehow, I get by…

The truth is that I seem to be always in waters that are deeper than my footing… I can hardly remember a day in my life where I’ve been in a situation where I have been 100% comfortable with a situation or another. And as I grew and became an adult things seem to have intensified.

For a start, I never had a 9-to-5 sort of job. I don’t really think I could have survived the boredom of one. My family has 200000000 political connections in Brazil and my grandmother and grandfather (RIP) used to beg me (and all the new generation of the family) to get into the public sector, an idea that I would probably like if it didn’t involve spending a few years working for some senator or deputado (same as an MP) to “acquire experience”… The fact is that a desk job would probably kill me.

But what does one do when a stressful one would probably have the same effect?!?!

I am here sitting at the Starbucks in Wimbledon and looking to all these people walking and going to their offices and living their routine-bound lives… routines that some time bring so much excitement at something that from someone outside their circle might look like a small achievement or a huge one for others… and I can’t stop to think “how do they do it??” and a bit inside of me can’t stop to wonder in amazement and to wish I too could have a life like that.

I have dreams… loads of them… but I also have a family to provide for and that fact alone makes me realize that I can’t achieve most of them. I am eternally grateful for my wife. She even started working  and became the pillar of the family providing for the basic needs of the family so I can get out there and pursue these dreams. It would have worked too… I had a contract with an agency to be a glamour photographer and a career that seemed to be lifting off… And  I dropped it to become a minister of religion… a religion that I am not completely sure I completely subscribe to anymore.

Does that prove my self sabotage theory???

And of course re-lifting myself as a photographer is proving harder than last time… all a question of opportunities and well… luck I guess. The perfect circumstances that had presented themselves favourable to me at that time are not so favourable this time around and the contacts I had then seem to have all but disappeared from the face of the earth!

Yeah… and there is the family business factor too… One that I can’t JUST walk away from. That would be admitting defeat   and that is just something I don’t know if I can do again if I am to EVER have some cred with myself again.

I am SO complicated…

Life is what we make out of it alright… It is all about the decisions we make and the ways we take.

I am nearly 30 years old and having to start all over again…

That’s NOT what I had imagined my life would be when I was younger…

But a men has got to do what a men has got to do!!!

How about you?? Have you ever considered what would have happened if you had taken a different approach to one of these infamous opportunities that present themselves to us? What would YOU have done differently???#

Zya!

And What a day indeed…

We had the dry-run for the Metanoia Cafe at the Merton Abbey Mills in wimbledon today.

Everyone was stressed… I wanted to be open since the morning (even if just to sell coffees and whatever we had ready), my mother didn’t want to open at all till we were 100% ready, my sister was didided in the middle (yup… it is sort of a family business… hehehe), we didn’t have an internet connection (appart from my vodafone mobile internet card) and the food wasn’t perfect – at least not to my standards because everyone else that tried the stuff LOVED IT! (we gave away free samples!!) – and I had to force an oppening at 2pm (ish) which gave us only a 3 hour open-to-the-public-test-run…

Even so and against all expectations, people loved the coffee (I now know how to do a mocha! And a Latte, and even a Machiato using a big commercial machinne! yayyy), absolutelly LOVED the food, can’t wait for the workshops, and for us to be open with all the optionals Included (studio, Lan-House, etc)…

Weirdest of all, we ended the day with some proffit (liquid but proffit all the same)!!!

I have WAY too many ideas turning round and round in my head…

I am (A LOT LESS) stressed!

I am tired as shit!

I am surprised that with all the variables the day was a relative success…

I am in shut down mode…

BUT I AM HAPPY!

Time to reavaliate some things and reacess others and plan ahead and fix the lil problems that are still on the way…

BUT I AM HAPPY!!

I also need a VERY HOT shower!!

BUT I AM HAPPY!!

Reccorded a vlog that sort of sumarizes the day today, straight from the Merton Abbey Mills!… Will edit and post tomorrow if you don’t mind…

I just fell I need to record the events of today for posterity… 

… Anyways…

The shower awaits me! (yayyy)!

zya!

Do you ever hear noises around the house when there is no one around?

Did you ever have one of these moments when you could swear you’ve seen someone standing (or sitting) near you just on the periphery of your vision scope or feel like there is someone watching you… a presence you just can’t explain?

Do you drink instant coffee???

The BBC has published an article about a research that says that “People who drink too much coffee could start seeing ghosts or hearing strange voices…”

My first thought was: “Oh no… I am screwed!”

I spend the whole day drinking coffee… some times instant (the article says: “People who drank more than seven cups of instant coffee a day were three times more likely to hallucinate than those who took just one, a study found.”) some times not.

That would explain a lot! Why I hear crying or people asking for help or just laughing and some times steps when clearly there is no one around.

That would explain a lot if were not the fact that I feel this presences, and hear/see these things since I was a wee kid. WAY before my caffeine addiction started.

I was VERY happy to have found an explanation for things I’ve been through for my whole life. Something that made me feel less of a weirdo… but the the facts had to come and hit me like a hammer…

“YOU ARE A WEIRDO YOU IDIOT!”

Some call it a gift… I wished some times whoever gave me that gift would shove it…

Then I remember how many times that gift was useful…

All in all once you get used to it it is not AS bad as one might think.

That’s just one more bit of weirdness you find out about me… heheheh

How about you? Have you aver got any experience with the “supernatural” of the non coffee induced kind???