Family don’t end with blood — Betta!

Family is the most important thing in life, of course, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the only truth.
There are so many realities out there, so many point of view about it, I find it no short of amazing. And today I want to express my thoughts.

I’ve never been very close to my family in general, a part from few exceptions.

Lately, I’ve cleared some long stand misunderstanding, so I could get closer to some of my relatives – which is something I love a lot – but there is also another truth.

Because of my character and my attitude to get attached and care for people, I found no issue or even difficulty to include some special friends in my mental family.

I’ve never been that kind of person with so many friends I could lost the count. I’ve always been rather that person with two or three very good friends I could trust with my life.

For some of them, the next natural and inevitable step would be to be considered as a real brother or sister or mother!

I would like to introduce them to you here, from time to time.

This post is dedicated to Betta, whom also my daughter considers as her big sister.

She came over during the weekend to play and dine with us. She’s also a great chef and was kind enough to bake focaccia for Maya who was craving it and was absolutely happy.

A very nice and tranquil day, with that flavour of home and family that for us expat, the most of the times, seems like a mirage.

We had our ‘merenda’ made of focaccia and mortadella, we played Cluedo all together and then had dinner.

Simple things are often the best, right?

One of my favourite characters from “Supernatural” TV show said: ‘Family don’t end with blood!’ and I totally agree with that, this is why I put it also as the title for today’s blog.

What do you think?

For you who’s more important? Do you agree with me? You don’t? You do to some extent?

Let me know in the comments below!

Why I won’t post today!

Hello my dear readers, I hope you’re all fine and had a nice holiday!

I’ll just show up today to say hallo but I won’t make a full post.

I was lucky enough to have two bank holidays around the weekend and I used them to stay with my family and dedicate to the management of the house, although with scarce results. You see, it’s unfortunately also true that my insomnia keeps bothering me and I ended up dedicating a big portion of time to rest more than I usually do!

I however relaxed a lot, I played with Maya, we made a nice treasure hunt on Sunday morning – not the fancy treasure hunts I usually make for her, but work load didn’t let me to do more than that this year – and I cooked a lot….I mean a lot, a lot, a lot!

I love cooking but I haven’t batch cooked for a while now. The plus here is that at this stage my freezer is fuller and it will be a great help during the days I’ll go to the office.

And what did you do during the weekend? Have you celebrated? Have you done any treasure hunt? You just ate tons of sweets?

Let me know in the comments below!

E-arguing!

Thanks to my child, to le me use her Lego set!

Hello my dear readers, I hope you had a nice week!

Before I continue with my news, let me take a break and share with you some thoughts about human interaction.

So, the other day I was having a look at my social media pages and I came across a few posts that made me think. It seemed they wanted to help me to write a new post, hence today I want to talk about something I call e-arguing.

Nowadays the majority of people’s lives are fully on social media.

Children are put online from when they’re conceived until they open an account on their own. People put out there the most important event sof their lives, their milestones, what they eat, what they drink, what they wear and even more. We could see the family, friends, coworkers, neighbours or pets of people we haven’t talked to in all our lives and whom we’d probably never meet. Uh, yeah, also pets have their own account.

I’m not here to judge, no worries, I’m here to brainstorm really.

Personally speaking, although I understand the importance of a social media and using it daily to keep in touch with other human beings, I limit my output to blog posts and pictures associated with it. Private events and happenings, like my anniversary or my daughter birth or whatever my partner tells me or present me with are staying private.

The same goes with the fight I had with someone, the death of loving ones and other unpleasant events. Everything that is private stays private, unless I decide to share a portion of it in the net.

But I’m one of the few black sheep out there, I realize this with a bit of sadness.

What I don’t understand it’s the daily, almost hourly, display of your own private lives and feelings to the content and the judgment of other people, who are often too unhappy with their lives to leave a nice or even neutral comment!

Hence we get to my point.

Every day I see and witness discussions, arguments and even plain fights happening online. From the almost harmless rant post directed to nobody in particular – but that particular person will manage to get it for sure, and in the worst case scenario will reply with the same style…they can actually go back and forward for days like this – to the severe attacks where they go to mean downright shaming, bullying and doxxing.

My question is: is this really necessary? Wouldn’t be better to get a cup of coffee and speak straightforwardly to the counterpart?

Why do we have to display our feeling out there, do we want to be told we’re right? Comforted? Who does it really care if an unknown person passing by on our post and living in the smallest and most remote place on Earth tell us “hey bro, I agree, your friend/partner/name a family member is a real joke!”….is that only me?

What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

Going out after two years! – The office!

It’s been two years I’ve been working from home and not interacting properly with other human beings.

Last year, when the situation seemed to be improving slightly, an arrangement was made so we could start slowly to return to work in presence.Then another surge in numbers forced us to step back and work fully remotely, before we’ve been allowed again to go to the office.

Despite my huge anxiety level and fear of catching the virus, I forced myself to get out and join my colleagues.

You’ve read about my first night out with them, but what you don’t know it’s that, from then, the team got three times bigger, three leads were hired, and here it was finally my chance to meet them all…or, better, a part of them, as there are still restrictions in place. At the beginning they allowed us to return at a 20% capacity, then raised to 60%, so it really depends on who is showing up on the day.

What I find reassuring is that, at least until now, the team members who were with me since the beginning or I met outside work, were in the office with me alternatively. On the top of that, I got to know some of those I’d never met before and I loved it. It was nice to finally to get to know new faces, to go somewhere for lunch – finally someone else was cooking for me and I was having a different sort of conversation during meals – and to relax interacting with someone who’s not my partner or my daughter (don’t get me wrong, I love them, but after two years it looks like having a conversation with your imaginary friends!)

During one of these visits I had also the pleasure to meet ‘live’ the big boss who hired us and she’s as fantastic as I thought, other than being a beautiful woman!

If I’ll ever advance in my career, I would love to be like her!

With this second wave of ‘being allowed out’, I finally met again my lovely Tamara, whom I saw only on our night out as team egg! It was a pleasure to see her finally without a screen in between us. She’s one of the people I couldn’t work without, as she’s turned out to be a dear friend.

From now on I’ll try to go to the office at least once a week to begin with and then increase the number of times. There are still several things to adjust to this new routine and I would love to talk to you about it, and little by little I will.

A final consideration before I leave.

Working from home is nice and handy in many situations and occasions, but I also miss my free time, my ‘me time’ I used to have during the commuting and chat with people different from my family. I realize now I needed some times to myself, to do something only for me. It doesn’t matter how small it is, it’s always appreciated.

What do you think? Which one you prefer? Have you been working from home until now or not?

I think a mixed or hybrid way of working from office and home would be ideal!

Let me know in the comments what you think!