OK, this time it's for real...

Long story short, Dubai had put a block on Blogger blogs due a few pupils that had decided to write blogs about Dubai and about things that were basically not approved by the government here...and those that administer and govern the internet use and users.  Silly people!

Anyway, so I am back, hopefully writing as often as I used to...hopefully being the key word there. I have an interview tomorrow and hopefully a few more lined up, and am starting my on-line class on Wednesday, and have been working hard on Pulp (more on that later), soooo....

Yeah hopefully I write often!  You know, with all my free time.

So, basically I just found this really great organization on-line today, called Freecycle, please check it out and join your local group (they're everywhere!) and see what you can do, find, and how to be part of the earthy goodness that is Freecycle.  

Enjoy...

As my lovely sister likes to say, Peace from the Middle East...

xoxox d:)

Test Post

I am having trouble with blogger for weeks now, I can't access my spiritedspace.com blogspot...i may have to switch to another blog server, so please comment if you can read this, it would help me a lot, i am going to contact google now!!

d:)

It's been too long...

Ok, first of all, sorry for the much to long of a break...I guess other things had my attention.  I suppose I will just look at that as a good thing, considering there was a time when I had enough time doing not much else to write many posts a day....so yay for being busy!!!

Let's see if I can sum up what has been going on in a shorter version than what I would usually write...so much.

So yes, we shopped at DSF.  A lot. More on that later.

Florence, Venice, Rome and Calabria were all wonderful places to be, a bit on the cool side, but it was refreshing, come to think of it, to be in scarves, coats, Uggs, etc. rather than flip-flops and tanks...although, don't get me wrong, I am overjoyed to once again simply be in cotton tanks with my little toes free from shoes!

Our hotel on Ponte Vecchio couldn't have been in a better location, simply wonderful and not too touristy and just lovely morning, day and night.  We found our own little favorite stomping ground at Golden View and O Bar, and were sad to say goodbye our final night after dinner.  We will return, for sure.  We saw all the essentials - Il Duomo, Piazza della Signoria, Santa Croce, Ufizzi, Piazza della Repubblica, etc... - and some non-essentials, which we luckily just stumbled across.  Those are the best.  We took tons of pictures and videos and can't wait to share our journey with our families and friends in April back home in Boston.

Calabria was surreal, for me at least.  Being able to experience in some small way, the way Giuseppe and his family lived before moving to the States, their friends, family, experiences, surroundings, etc.  It is an imperative piece of knowledge for anyone to know their loved ones history and upbringing, and this brought much to light and also just reassured me of the many things I love to much about Giuseppe and his (now my) family.  His town is in the mountains, way up in a little place, seemingly cut off from the world, and yet, so beautiful and simple and organic, what an awesome place.  I am sure I will have to more to say on our experiences at a later time...

Venice and Rome were some quick pit-stops for us, and for al intents and purposes, were lovely small mini-journeys to have as well.  We got to family in Rome, which was so great, and some historical sites, like the Colisseum, which was awesome.  Old Rome is lovely, New Rome, not so much, but still an experience.  Venice was foggy and cold, but such a cool experience and had lovely pizza and went to San Marco, etc.  

All in all, I am in love with Italy, and will go back, and also, I am soooo happy to be home in Dubai, warm, warm Dubai.

Back to the DSF, we won.  We won 10,000 dhs. which is so great, considering how much we spent trying to win!!!  Yay!  We received raffle tickets for every 300 +/- dhs. we spent and one of our tickets was the winning ticket!  We were so excited, neither of us has ever won anything, so that was all worth the pain-staking stress of buying things!  Oh darn it, I LOVE SHOPPING!!!!

That is all for now, I will be sure to be back soon, like tonite or tomorrow, right now I am painting, and not feeling 100%, so just taking it easy.  Hope everyone is still checking back....please do!!!

xoxox d:)

Check out some new Italy pics on flickr!  

Shop around the world...

I just can't seem to stop...it is awful.

If anyone is still wondering where I have been for the last few weeks, well, here it is:

shopping.

Not all the time really, I have also been at the gym, eating, walking, just out, painting, exploring and investigating Italy, Munich, etc.   But all in all, I have to say that I have spent about 50% of my/our time shopping. In fact, I am tired. I AM TIRED OF SHOPPING. At least for now.

Now, arriving in Italy, that is a totally different story.

There are outlets, like lots of them, and not GAP or J.Crew outlets, but rather Gucci, Fendi, YSL, Balenciaga, Marni, oh my, oh my!!!!  This trip I have a feeling is going to leave our bags a bit heavier on the way back to Dubai then on our way out...not to mention all the paintings of Giuseppe that we have to pick up!  Wow!  Italy, here I come!  

Write more later, off to pack and work out!

xoxo d:)

trouble...

i can't seem to post all my posts to blogger right now, i have contacted them, so...

i am keeping my fingers crossed.

keep checking back...who knows if this will even post.

d:)

Santa Ana's in Dubai...??

We are having the most insane winds here in Dubai...I think even the workers were sent home...some of them at least.

Banners are blowing, temporary barrier walls fell down completely and I think the trees are just about uprooting outside our balcony!  We heard it last night and it hasn't stopped all day/night and now we are reading that the wind should stop by Monday, bringing on temperatures around 13 degrees! (celcius, not fahrenheit).  Giuseppe has just informed me that yet another barrier outside the wall of our building has fallen completely (being that our area is under 24/7 construction, we have tons of these temporary barrier walls, basically to block off the construction work areas from the finished areas)!

Anyway, that is what is going on here...things are slow moving on the creativity front, I have been working mostly on my sister, Melanie's, yoga brochures and marketing materials.  I have also been drawing and shopping...ah, shopping.  How I love this Dubai Shopping Festival! They should really have this in every country...brilliant!

I will post the stuff I do for Melly when I am done, before we head off to Italy in 12 days...yipee!

Oh yeah, and SKYPE rules!  Finally, got to see my mom and dad today, and Luna too...she thought I was there b/c she could hear my voice!  Cutie!  

Ciao Italia!

It is official - Giuseppe and I are heading out to Florence on the 13th of February (Valentine's Day a'la Italy!) for 17 days, with a few quick stints in Munich (yay for Bavarian chocolate!).

This is very exciting for us for a number of reasons:

1. This is my first time to Italy.

2. This is Giuseppe's first time home in almost exactly 11 years from moving to the states (March 3 will be 11 years).

3. This will be the first time I get to meet Giuseppe's other family members that don't live in the states.

4. This will be the first time that Giuseppe not only goes home to Italy but more special, and the most special of all the exciting reasons, Giuseppe gets to go home, like his house home in 11 years.  The house where he grew up, the town he lived in for almost 21 years, the place where his paintings have been, where his entire family history resides, perfectly in place and preserved since the day they left.  The hair on my arms is standing on end...

5. Oh yeah, this is our honeymoon.  Not bad, eh?

This will be a very special trip for us...we will be staying in Ponte Vecchio, Florence the entire time, with trips to Calabria, San Marino, Pisa and Sienna, but we are just excited to be together, experiencing such a lovely place, Giuseppe's home, and just traveling together.  The weather is to be cool, but hopefully sunny.  I hate the rain, so I am hoping for not too much of that, but who cares....really, we'll be Italy!!!!!!!  Yipee!

PS.  G got new glasses, fancy and fashionable glasses-I'll post pictures on Sunday when they come in!  So H-O-T!!!!!

Love d:)

NYE 2008 & Amsterdam, Part 1

Well, I am more than happy to let you all know that the pictures of NYE 2008 (mostly Zareena, Zareena, and more Zareena!) and our first of 2 trips to Amsterdam (we hit the city again in April on our way home) are up on flickr! (Giuseppe finally found a card USB to transfer the pics...good hubby!)  I will be posting some Christmas pictures too of Carmela & Jason's in Wisconsin, and although I unfortunately didn't take any in RI (bummer), please know that we had the most wonderful time in RI this year and my family was really understanding about having a December 29th Christmas morning this year...now be prepared for our 2009 Christmas plans - we are hopefully heading off somewhere like Paris for the holidays!  F*#k the gifts, we want to go and have fun!!!

NYE 2008:  We went to Zarak & Fatima's in Salem this year, they just moved into a new townhouse in a nice area, and we were thrilled to be there with them, and other friends, including Mr. Wayde!  It was a rather low key night (although I hate to say, we are not NYE party-goers, so you will most likely not glimpse too many of those occasions!), with good food, music, dessert, wine and champagne and Zareena, who partied on with us until the wee hours of the morning...with a quick nap in there for about 20 minutes.  Oh, and many, many cell phone calls.  She is one popular - and chatty - little girl!  We left at around 2:30 am and headed back to Billerica, and then chilled the next day and headed back to RI the 2nd, due to some snow!  It was nice, next year, maybe we will try and live it up!!!  

Amsterdam:  This is a great city. We didn't have even good weather to view it, but even in the wet and cold, it has this chic Euro-punk feel to it, the most pedestrian friendly city I have ever been to...really neat to see all the bikes...I mean, ALL the bikes.  I think I saw 1 car for every 100 bikes.  That is one moving city.  It has a feeling of carnival with all the lights, signs and people, and yet feels really old and historical like London does.  We walked around all morning, and got to experience the city as 2 people and then as part of a crowd of thousands of strangers, as the city awoke.  

We took the tram a few times, viewing the city, and also headed to the Reijk Museum and to wander around the park, eat some dutch waffles, drink tea...it was a nice time.  Unfortunately, we were beyond tired (to the point where my bones hurt) and so we headed back to Schipol and slept for a few hours, before heading on the last leg of the journey to Dubai.  Home, sweet home.  And our plants were still alive, to boot!  Yay!

Check out the pics at flickr!!!!

Bye..d:)

Shop 'til you drop...

Dubai Shopping Festival is upon us (that is right, we actually have a 32 day stint where shopping is even more publicized than usual to, you know, get people to shop more than normal-is that possible???).

The entire city turns into one big festivity of shopping, entertainment, raffles, games, etc.  It is crazy, I think...I haven't taken part.  Yet.

Giuseppe and I were at the mall the other night and I noticed that there were tons of sales (not something you see often here at all), like 60-75% off at Topshop, ALDO, etc.  I just passed it by.  I was not there to shop (I know, shocking!), but now I know...it's DSF time!

The festival is actually a time that the government started as a way to bring up the economy some 10 years ago, to bring tourism and trade into the Emirates.  I am thinking they have been successful.  I can't imagine they are still doing it for the "economic boost."  We need no more boost here.  

So, I am off this week to take part in, well, the festivity of SHOPPING!  I think every country should have this...it makes you feel better about shopping a lot but saving, and here we really save because we are a tax-free nation, so....

Hopefully we will check out some of he other things too, like the games, rug festival with all handmade rugs from Kashmir, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan.  I bet they are just beautiful...and we may try and make our way back over to the souks for this thrilling time...it is sure to be crazy.

Love d:)

***Note: There is still no images up yet.  We can't use our secret weapon for downloading, we will have to go and buy a USB card holder, so we can just remove the card from the camera and insert it into the computer that way...sorry for the wishful thinking on my part yesterday.  Perhaps none of you even care, but I really look forward to sharing with you all our Amsterdam trip and Christmas and New Years festivities.***

Back to my old self...

(Note to self: be prepared next time.)

I am here!  I am back!  I finally have the gusto and peace to write again, regularly.

I guess I needed more time to readjust than I thought...

The jet lag has been terrible and Giuseppe and I have found ourselves getting up anywhere from 7 am to noon, with naps in between at times.  Crazy.  But little by little, I feel whole again.

So, hello!  And hello 2008!  

Dubai has welcomed us back with big, open (at times, wet) arms - the weather is cool, well, 60's and 70's (sometimes, even high 50's - gasp!), but when you get used to 80's at night, you can see my point.

The city is still booming, never stopped despite our venture back home...I guess it lived on without us.  The sky has been more cloudy than usual, but I suppose it is refreshing - and a nice touch of reality - that this place is not always fun and sun in the sky, no clouds, just perfection.  If this is winter, I can handle it.  At times, it even feels good to have to put on a hoodie to go outside, just a little nip in the air that runs through you enough to give a chill.  Feels, well, good.  

Other than that, lets see if I can catch you up with everything that is going on.

First things first, before I forget, I will be uploading images to flickr today (yay!) - although we haven't found our USB, we have found an alternate route, so stay tuned for that.  In addition, I will posting another post here on Blogger, with images, for those of you who are fans of reading my babble, and seeing pics too.  They will include a recap of our last weeks in 2007, and our trip to Amsterdam, in some fashion...maybe a few posts will handle all this excitement.

Second, Giuseppe and Wayde have been hard at work on their brochure mailer, and updating the site, some renewed design ideas for both, etc.  Their building was accepted - with a respectable and firm handshake - by the first committee and it is now moving forward until it reaches D.M. (Dubai Municipality).  We have no doubt about this process going very well - perhaps with a few changes here and there.  I am just really, really proud of them.  Not bad for their first BIG commission.  Not bad at all...

In lieu of not having major work during this period, the three of us have decided that this is a grande time for some traveling.  Giuseppe and I will be taking an overdue honeymoon to, well, somewhere.  There are a number of places we have researched, including going to Italy and visiting Giuseppe's hometown, Spain, South of France, and some islands as well...we have also looked into going nowhere at this time.  The latter not being my favored option, but...

I will keep you posted!  Any trip is a great experience, so I am up for some travel right now!

So, today, we are headed over to hunker down in the Tardif flat for an afternoon of computer-geek business - website, brochure, iTunes, syncing, etc.   We are a bunch of plain ol' tech geeks. Sometimes, we all sit together, on 2 laptops and our iPod Touches, man, we are consumed by technology.  Oh well, sue us!  

I will be back in a bit with some more images for your viewing pleasure - yay photos!

Bye for now...

d:)