ABC WEDNESDAY: K for Koulouri

As you already most of you know I live in an island named Salamina.
It's a big island near Piraeus, with 90.000 habitants.
The thing you don't know is that my island has a nickname!
It's Koulouri!
"Koulouri" is the greek word for a bun.
And if you watch the shape of my island you 'll see clearly that it's like a bun!

This is Koulouri of old times...

...and this is today's photo.

Our traditional costumes are richly decorated with gold coins and needlework with gold threads.
They consists of three different dresses which overlap each other.
That's why the costumes are very heavy!

Do you want to see or learn more about Salamina?
If YES - click here...!
If NO - thanks for visiting...!

Today's Flower: Oleander

Oleander (or pikrodafni in greeks) is a famous bush in my country.
Its flowers are white, pink or red.
They don't smell but they are beautiful.
These bushes often adorn streets and gardens.
It's a hardy plant to all the weather conditions.

ABC WEDNESDAY: J for Jenny...

A few years ago we moved to Thessaloniki to stay for a year.
During that time I enjoyed the company of a woman named Jenny.
Although she was funny and full of life, she sometimes was cheerless.
I knew that something was wrong but I hesitated to ask her.
One day she asked me if I had noticed that her hair were very short.
I answered "why not, if you like them like that...".
"It's because of the chemotherapy..." she said and looked at me with her big, brown eyes full of tears.

I often wonder why after so many years scientists can't win cancer.
It's a chronic disease which must be defeated.

In Jenny's memory

Today's Flowers: Flowers from my garden... *)'...'(*...

My garden has many kinds of plants. You see, my mom loves to plant in every piece of ground she sees. This season there aren't many flowers. However I found some blossoms.

This is the "night flower". Its peculiarity is that the flowers are closed during the day and...

...open again as the sun sets, giving a sweet scent to the air!

I love the "jasmine". It's the first plant of my garden and we almost "lost" it when snow covered it up last winter. Luckily, my hubby's care saved it!

This is "mint". We have a lot of that and we use it in our cooking continuously.
It smells and tastes great!

Finally, I want to show you this orange flower which is called "....".
Oh... I totally forgot the name!!! Please help me if you know that kind of plant!

Thanasis, my "borrowed son"!

Last week was very busy for me!
I started winters' housecleaning, my girls started their lessons in English, German and French so I had a lot of driving to do, our computer wanted a "doctor" and I had to get my oldest daughter to the orthodontic to see her aglets!
However that week had happy events like my birthday and anniversary (thanks everybody for the wishes and love) and ofcourse Thanasis!

Τhanasis was my "son" for four days! He's my brother's-in-law real son ( that means my nephew) and he stayed at my house for a few days because the rest of his family went to aggregate his oldest sister to the university.
At last, our house had a boy...imagine the picture: five girls and one boy!

And he was really a very good boy! He was doing all his homework, eating whatever I was cooking, went to bed at the proper time. He even gave me two flowers as a present for my birthday! So young and yet so gentleman.
Now he's home again! Girls and especially the 3 years old Antonia, misses him. She really liked him! She's waiting for him to come again and play the bo-peep!!!

SkyWatch Friday : Airplanes tracks on the sky !

It was a beautiful and calm sunset.
Suddenly two airplanes appeared. Their noise was loud. The windows moved like the leaves of a tree in the air. I took my camera to take a picture but...the airplanes had disappeared.
Their tracks were what it was left behind...!

Happy anniversary sweety!!!

I can't believe that 15 years of marriage are behind us! Years of happiness and love! Beautiful and sad things has happened in our common life but we're getting through everything together!
I wish the next years will bring us more tenderness and felicity! I love you my sweet hubby!!!

ABC WEDNESDAY: I for I...was born on this day

Greek pizza's reciepe

Lets make something tasty for our family and friends!

What you need for the dough are:

- 500gr of flour
- 5gr of salt
-8gr of sugar
-8gr of instant-dry yeast
-220gr of water
-125gr of olive oil
-5gr of baking powder

Put the water (hot at about 50 C), the sugar, the salt and the oil in a bowl and mix them. Then add the yeast and the flour (you must have mix the flour with the baking powder first). Mix them well. You must have now a very soft dough.

Leave the soft dough to puff and thicken for 30 minutes. Meanwhile prepare the stuffing.You can use whatever you like but I used the following for my greek pizza: ketchup, pieces of olives, tomatoes, peppers and onions, grated feta cheese and origan. Put the dough in a baking tin brushed with olive oil and add all the stuffing as you can see in the photos bellow. Preheat the oven and bake over 180 C for about 30 minutes...

...and THIS IS the resault!!! Ofcourse there are three pizzas in the picture. That is because there are three women in the house with their tastes! The recipe is for the one in the middle.

Try to make it! I'm sure you'll love it!!

BUON APETITO!!!

Thursday was one of ...these days!

My family was looking forward the 11th of September with justifiable eagerness because school was starting at last. But it turned out to be an unlucky day for me.

We woke up at 7 a.m.. While the girls were drinking milk and were dressing up, I went to the market to buy some fruits and vegetables. We went to their schools and after two hours we came back home.

I left the girls home and I went to buy a pair of shoes!!! I was in the shop for ten minutes and as I was going to take my car, a traffic cop was there to fine me for unlawful parking. I tried to convinse him not to give me a ticket because it wasn't a no-parking area and four other cars were behind me without a ticket. He didn't listen anything. I was pleading him for 15 minutes and finally I managed to convinse him and went home shaking in one's shoes.


Two hours later my parents came to my house and they asked me to go out to my balcony in order to tell me a "hi". As soon as I compacted the floor of my balcony a sound like "crack" was heard. I couldn't believe what had happened: the tiles were up from the floor and as I pushed them they broke in pieces!!! I was shocked!!! It was such a big shock for me that it had to pass three days to tell you my story! An craftsman came to see the damage and told us that he'll fix it next week. He explained us that he has to pull out many tiles and then pick them up with tiles glue.

After all these I believe that Thursday was the "black day" for my wallet!!!

SkyWatch : A strange animal made by rocks!!!

What does a pig do in SkyWatch?
It looks very old and tired!

Paralympic games

Greece is proud of all the athletes who chose to compete for a medal or a good position in the Olympic games. But I believe that each one of us is more proud of the paraolympic athletes. They're fighters of life and they deserve the gold medal for that! Congratulations to all, either they won a medal or not.

ABC WEDNESDAY: H for Hobbies

My first hobby was collecting napkins! I collected many of them and when I was tired of that my family used them in a big birthday party. I was very happy for that ,like sharing my collection with everybody. After all it was an eight years old girl collection!

It was the winter of 1978. I was ill with the flu and I couldn't go to school. I was a ten years old student at that time. I was very bored and didn't know what to do. When my father returned home from work he had a present for me: an envelope full of stamps from all over the world! That was it! The next days I became better but I never got better from the microbe of the philately. I managed to collect thousands of them, put them in books, exchange my similar with other collectors. As the years went by I started a coin collection too, but not so passioned.When I got married I found out that me and my husband were sharing the same hobby so we add the two collections in one and had about 2000 stamps. We were thirteen months married when thieves got into our house and stole our collections (stamps and coins). Probably they would have thought that they were valuable. In fact their value was unimportant but not for us. I haven't collect any stamp or coin since then...


My hereditary hobby is kniting. Everyday I try to do my houseworks fast in order to have time to do my handicraft. It's relaxing, creative and...thieves don't prefer it!!!

I'm looking forward to hear about your hobbies...beside blogging ofcourse!!!

A greek tavern named " Marina "

The latest weekend was exausted! Guests everyday and sometimes twice a day!!!

FRIDAY:
After housecleaning allday long, I prepared a dinner for sixteen people. I cooked "fisherman's spaghetti", cheese pie, stuffed peppers with feta cheese and greek salad. Fruits for dessert.

SATURDAY:
Lunch for six with roasted fishes, greek salad and boiled herbs.
Although I was invited to a birthday party I had to cook something for my teenage daughter and her friends. She didn't want to come with us. So I made three pizzas.

SUNDAY:
I recleaned the house and prepared a dinner for eight people. I cooked snails with onions, spaghetti "carbonare", roasted meatballs, greek salad and small cheese cakes. The dessert was chocolate cake!!!!

When everybody had gone I sat down with my feet up on a chair! I was really tired. Then my hubby had a..."brilliant" idea:
"Lets call our house 'Marina's tavern'. After all what's the difference between us and a real tavern?"
"The money" I said. " You spend in the first, you earn in the other!!!" We're still laughing...

Just a window !

It could be a painting of an artist! But it's not!!!
It is just a window which welcomes automn...

I won, I won an award!!!

" An English Girl Rambles " gave me an award for my blog! I'm very ecxited about it!!!Thank you so much Denise!!!
When I started blogging, I wanted to find friends around the world, to know other countries customs and life, to see what people think about everything according to their surroundings. I didn't know faultless English but I was determined to make a blog. So here I am now with little help from my dictionary and my hubby.

The rules accompanying this award are:


1. Put the logo on your blog;

2. Add a link to the person who has awarded you;

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs;

4. Add links to those blogs on yours and

5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.


These are the seven blogs I think deserve an award and the reasons of my choices:

Maria at: http://haniadailyphoto.blogspot.com/ (she put me in the "game" of blogging )
Ayamlin at: http://acomfortablevacation.blogspot.com/ (she always write sweet things to me)
Maria at: http://mknoche.blogspot.com/ ( she writes like she knows me for years)
Jenny at: http://cottageonfoxhollow.blogspot.com/ (she's my very first blog-friend)
Tamara at: http://thegreenhousediaries.blogspot.com (we have the same age and sensitivenesses)
Anette at: http://krakilette.blogspot.com/(she loves travveling and so do I)
Antigoni at: http://antigonisdiary.blogspot.com/(she's my beloved sister)

I also believe that blogs as Leslie's, Louise's and Mrsnesbitt's deserve an award!!! Don't forget them girls in your choises...

Meet my sis!!!

We're two girls in the family: me and my sister Anti (or Antigoni in the full version). She's three years younger and has three daughters. She lives under my apartment so we're together all day long growing up our children-girls, sharing joy and sadness.
Somehow I managed to pass her the germ of blogging (LOL). So I invite everybody to meet her in her own blog : "http://antigonisdiary.blogspot.com"

Welcome Antigoni!!!