Category: just life

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in the usa just life one second everyday

may 2026 — one second everyday

aaaaaah! half of the year is behind us already and i haven’t even done may’s recap video… without further ado:

we closed the house in tavira and moved ourselves and a few of our things to aveiro, to a tiny apartment with big windows, where everything feels new. we spent about a week there catching up with family before packing our bags and flying to boston. and after that, every day was very busy at the stamp show, with events taking place everyday — including the launch of the Postcrossing stamp! 😱

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just life weeknotes

weeknotes, 26/26

week 26 of year 26 was a happily mundane week in the north.

spent time with little niece at the swimming pool and also at the “marchas populares” of her parish. all the bigger kids from the local kindergartens and schools “marched” and did little choreographies, and even the seniors joined in the celebrations. there was street food and some live music after the kids’ bedtime. it was cute — the kind of stuff summer is made of in more rural areas. they technically live in aveiro, but once you’re out of the center-center, everything feels very countryside-like here, the houses low and spaced out by corn fields.

otherwise, we just did the normal stuff of life: working, exercising, procrastinating on the ikea trip to get the million little things this house still needs… 😩

we went to torreira with friends on one of the days, and saw them offloading the fish from the boats. sooooo many seagulls! i’m amazed we didn’t get pooped on. the day after, they came to visit us in aveiro and we walked around town, doing the touristy thing and dodging the occasional rain showers. thankfully, the weather has been pretty mild here, compared to the extreme temperatures in the north of europe.

i finally finished leviathan wakes, which took me much longer than it should have and i’m not even sure why… i do like a good space opera, but this one somehow didn’t really click with me and i ended up dragging it around.

i started i deliver parcels in beijing, which tells the story of a courier in china and is a kind of behind-the-scenes glimpse into what happens when you order something online. i’m planning to build a kind of “china curriculum” for myself (made of books and online courses), before i decide if i want to enroll in the “china studies” masters at the local uni in the future.

then on sunday, we loaded the car with the small one and the boy’s mom and went to visit my parents (and his dad). the trip is a little long, and the kid almost always ends up falling asleep, after asking a million times for the bread song, her current favourite.

my mom uses these weekend trips to offload all her zucchini and other summer produce (strawberries, cucumber, green beans, plums…) on me, so our fridge is bursting right now. not complaining though! :D

we’re halfway done with this year, and the speed at which this first half passed is a bit dizzying… i’m hoping summer will slow things down!

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just life

the summer of boredom

some months ago, i randomly saw a video of a musician who is doing a year of “no smart screens”. it was a bit extreme and the person made her life really inconvenient in many ways (eg, going to the library for emails and meetings, etc). from what i gathered, she was very much addicted to social media and perhaps that was what was necessary for her to break that addiction. 

but by doing this, she eliminated the majority of distractions and things stealing her attention for hours every single day. on her reflections after a few months of this change (recorded on a camcorder and uploaded by a friend), she was realizing that one of the things that changed in her life is that she’s bored a lot — and because she has no easy escape from this boredom, she ends up using the time for reading or doing stuff she needs to do (or even wants to do!) but previously “didn’t have time for”.

it all sounds so logical and simple that it’s even a little silly to write about it… but i think i’m now realizing that in order to have time (and also to have the feeling of having time), you need to be bored and not be constantly chasing away that boredom with quick distractions. and it feels like we sort of killed that kind of boredom these days, in the era of smartphones, internet, social media, netflix, online gaming et al. hence, we’re never bored and we never feel like we have time for the things we really want to do. it’s even worse if those things are a little bit time-consuming or slightly difficult.

i guess i got a glimpse of that during the blackout last year, when i actually did other things for once — things like putting together a video that i’ve had on my to-do list for years, but “didn’t have time” to do. when the internet went away, i was stuck with what i had in my computer or around me, and worked within those constraints to fight the boredom and make something. 
it’s kind of wondrous, to have time to be creative and do things like that — or just time to reflect. i think this is the first long blog post i’ve written in years, and it’s part because of this realization that i need the boredom and the constraints more than the quick hit of a distraction. honestly, it’s been a little bit game-changing.

anyway, i’m rambling but i do want to turn this summer into the “summer of boredom”. i want my phone (and the internet) to become a tool instead of a toy that i use to distract myself. i want to be so bored that i read books and long articles, do crafts, clean the windows, research stuff, write letters, draw, take pictures with my dusty analogue cameras… the things that make me “me”. i want to be less distracted, and more looking for things to do.

so… let the summer of boredom begin!

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aveiro just life

weeknotes, 18-19/26

two very full, very busy weeks. week 18 was just tidying up the house and getting it ready to leave for a bit. paulo finished hacking the bamboo that we’ve been trying to get rid of for some time, because it just keeps spreading everywhere… it was a whole thing and a hard lesson learned. never plant bamboo, kids!

we walked around town, saw birds, met friends, played games, got prescribed some more vitamin D and iron…

… and then packed the car with all the things we might need for coming north because we’re kind of moving to aveiro!

moving is not an easy decision to make, but it slowly became clear it might be a necessary one, if we want to see little niece grow up and also help out the parents without so many exhausting north-south trips. so we’re giving it a try for some time, to see how it goes. we found a 1.5 bedroom apartment in the center of aveiro, negotiated a rental contract (while stunned at the price of everything) and just drove here with our stuff.

the new place is small and central, sparsely furnished and with huge windows. there are supermarkets and all kinds of shops within walking distance, a bike sharing system, cafés that open early in the morning, the university… it feels like such a novelty to experience life in a city again (after 10 or so years in the quasi-countryside of conceição), so many possibilities and things to explore! i’m a tiny bit excited about it.

being closer to the parents also means fresh produce, like strawberries and cherries that we pick ourselves from trees! i foresee a lot of deliciousness in our future. :P

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just life

52 good things in 2025

i wanted to have posted this much earlier… but then life happened, etc etc. last year, i kept a note of happy things as they were taking place, as a way to notice and be thankful for them. i wanted to post them here — a kind of archive of sorts. so here it goes:

  1. a speedy surgery and speedy recovery
  2. not having cancer!
  3. every time we’re back home for a stretch of time, after being away
  4. winter days with crisp blue skies
  5. our comfort foods at natsu
  6. so many pizzas
  7. my new treadmill
  8. some unexpectedly cheap alpaca mohair wool
  9. finishing the big algarve hike
  10. almond blossom season
  11. being able to run 10k
  12. matcha lattes
  13. riding our bikes together
  14. a few quiet days in comporta
  15. sharing books with laura
  16. sauna at the new gym
  17. affordable chinese classes
  18. art classes
  19. the novelty of a blackout
  20. a tuscan getaway with friends
  21. gelato, picci & laoganma
  22. farmácia de proximidade service
  23. running around kungsholmen
  24. cycling in aland, eating pancakes
  25. swedish cardamom buns
  26. new birds!
  27. laura saying “maínha”
  28. a bounty of yellow tomatoes
  29. mom turning 70

  30. strength training, getting a little stronger
  31. seeing paulo finish a half-marathon again
  32. being able to swim freestyle for many pools in a row
  33. saying no to stuff we don’t want to do
  34. doing a product from start to finish
  35. the university library in aveiro and its cantina
  36. easy game nights with friends
  37. seeing a very big important thing taking shape
  38. laura running to us with open arms
  39. a more efficient new AC
  40. celebrating the boy running 1500kms/year
  41. a nice christmas postcard to send to family
  42. laura recognizing the moomins
  43. seeing the parents join and enjoy the local gym (after years of our pestering)
  44. cheaper and unlimited mobile data
  45. tree planting
  46. celebrating 20 years postcrossing
  47. enjoying murderbot and attorney woo
  48. meeting friends we hadn’t seen in over a decade
  49. the nice ferry to aland
  50. laura saying her name “lau-ah” when poked on the belly button (a trick we taught her)
  51. warm july nights with events in town
  52. being confident handling a barbell

maybe “happy” is not the right adjective for these… it’s more of a list of milestones and small joys, with some other stuff that gave us perspective or helped us grow. there’s a lot of connection and everyday pleasures there, but also big important things. 2025 veered very sharply at the end, but i think this helps us remember it also had a lot of good in it. :)