Monday, February 28, 2011

Summer's Hope - English

Greetings!,
I would like to share with you Summer's Hope campaign.
Summer is a Yoga Vista teacher and a wonderful person. Please, take a little bit of your time to check it out this incredible gesture of kindness, love and compassion.


http://summershope.com/indexm.html
Love your life, love yours, that is what I have to say.
Djana

Be the change that you want to see in the world. -MAHATMA GANDHI

Friday, February 25, 2011

Fun Friday - English

Have you ever felt the feeling that you don't belong anywhere you go? I do sometimes. Maybe it is because I've moved so many times. Even when I was living in Brazil I felt that kind of detachment.
I didn't realize I was experiencing this detachment here until my sister visited us for 45 days by the end of last year. Actually, I realized a lot of things while she was here. But I won't go that deep. I just wanted to explain my reasons to start what I named: Fun Friday.
My first attempt to Scrapbook: An wedding anniversary gift to my husband - Not bad!

I love when I am creating something but let's be realistic, I have a lot of art supply that I don't use so often. It seams that one trillion other things will come up for me to do before I have a change to enjoy my 'stuff' and explore my creativity. I thought other people would be suffering from the same "Disease": lack of time to enjoy making hand-made goodies.
Tags
So, I decided to invite some of my girlfriends over to make art & crafts. We met one Friday, before Valentines' Day and we made cards and party favors to celebrate Love. By the end of the night, we all agreed that we should do it again. We decided to meet twice a month: the first and third Fridays. We would bring whatever project that we had forgotten in our cabinets or depending on the occasion, we would start new ones.
Gift Boxes

I think our Fun Friday it is more like a "AA" kind of group but for creativity and for friendship. These are the two main reason why I keep inviting over 60 people every other week to come over to share our interest for crafts, to share some food and to learn each other skills. Yes! That is right. I love to learn new things and I really like to teach, I just can't help it, I am an art teacher. So, by the end of our second meeting, I launched the idea that every Fun Friday, we should teach each other something. The first guest was Yvonne Metz. I found Yvonne searching the Internet. My sister (again) introduced me to Stampin' Up. I loved their stuff at the first glance. I looked up for a demonstrator in my area and I found Yvonne. I start to look her blog almost everyday and I felt in love with her creations. Then I called Yvonne and invited her to come to our Fun Friday and teach us something. She did. It was so much fun. Thank you Yvonne. We appreciate  your time, care and love for what you do.


Fun Friday with Yvonne Metz

Next Fun Friday I am going to be the guest. I am planning to show my friends the art of 'quilling.' The cool side of card making and scrapbook is the possibility you have to incorporate other art and crafts techniques into your artwork.
Greeting Cards

Well, I guess what I really want to say is, if you feel you are missing something in your life, try to have your friends over and make something with your hands. For me is some sort of therapy. It fulfills my need for creating something. It is really cool!


Folded Tag

Folded Tag Detail



Be the change that you want to see in the world. -MAHATMA GANDHI

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Celiac Disease. Why Gluten affects so many people? Are you aware of this digestive problem? - English

First things first: What is Celiac Disease?

Accordingly with the Celiac Disease Foundation (http://www.celiac.org/) Celiac Disease (CD) is a lifelong inherited autoimmune condition affecting children and adults. When people with CD eat foods that contain gluten, it creates an immune-mediated toxic reaction that causes damage to the small intestine and does not allow food to be properly absorbed. Even small amounts of gluten in foods can affect those with CD and cause health problems. Damage can occur to the small bowel even when there are no symptoms present.

Gluten is the common name for the proteins in specific grains that are harmful to persons with celiac disease. These proteins are found in ALL forms of wheat (including durum, semolina, spelt, kamut, einkorn and faro) and related grains rye, barley and triticale and MUST be eliminated.

I am 37 years old and I was diagnosed celiac a few months ago. I've always ate wheat and other grains that contains gluten without any symptom more apparently until I moved to the U.S. We all believe that something different in the way wheat is produced here made my body say: no more!

I don't want to extend myself here. My main point of writing about this is mostly because gluten intolerance is not something doctors think about when we go seeking their help. In the past the statistics showed that the percentage of people with some sort of gluten allergy was 1:5000 people. Today the reality is different and it is probably more like 1:130 people. That number is probably more realistic and that is my main reason of bringing your awareness for this problem.

I was suffering a lot before being diagnosed. There is no cure for this disease. The only thing I needed to do was remove gluten from my diet. As simple as this. The hard part is to realize the amount of products available in the market that uses wheat. The other day I wanted to drink a juice made with fruits from Brazil and reading the label I saw that the company uses wheat as a thickening. How sad is that???

BTW, that is another characteristic about gluten intolerant individuals: we need to became a label reader. We need to be more patient while shopping for groceries. Safer is to buy products that has the gluten free label and to return to the old fashion cook your own food. That is another positive change since my discover. I've been cooking more and enjoying even more to eat my food. I've been feeling healthier and happier.

Well, as far as for ordering pizza, so far I couldn't fill the necessity, but I will. Even that I need to make my own crust, I will suppress my graving for pizza.

Sending your way peace and light.
Djana
Be the change that you want to see in the world. -MAHATMA GANDHI

This Blog will become Bilingual!

Hello everybody,
I always want to keep this blog an active one, that said, I am not doing a good job! Let's face it, my last post was back August 201!!!! Not good.
I don't want to give excuses but I get frustrated when I try to write in English and I make mistakes both grammatically and spelling. So I decided to make this blog bilingual. That means, when I feel writing in Portuguese I will do so, same for English. I know that the World Wide Web technology is well developed for you to be able to translate any posts easily to any language. To make easier, I am going to add a link to Google Translator: http://translate.google.com/#
Now that I have my decision exposed, I will write another, short but important, post.
Thank you,
Djana

Be the change that you want to see in the world. -MAHATMA GANDHI
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