Milan is one of my favorite cities in Italy.  It’s artistic, modern and the architecture is beautiful.  No wonder it is Italy’s fashion capital.  One of my favorite places was hands down Fundazione Prada.  The architecture of the Founzione feels like an otherworldly place emanating from the past.  Everything feels pretty surreal, especially its restaurant that resembles a Wes Anderson movie.  Fashion houses are leaving their marks in more forms than just fashion, commissioning amazing architectures that represent their brands to house their foundations.  This article lists 8 Architectural Wonders of the Fashion World.  It’s inspiring to see these fashion-forward structures.

Louis Vuitton Store at Place Vendome

Even when I don’t consider myself Catholic anymore ( I am more spiritual than anything else), there are certain teachings that I still live by very strongly. One of them is to not eat any animal that is considered impure. So no crickets, or snake or anything of that is “considered” not good for our bodies.  When I read this article about foods nutritionist won’t eat I felt more confident about my choices on food. I steer away from everything artificial.  Growing up I used to love coffee mate until I found out that nothing but absolutely nothing in a coffee mate is made or derived from nature. Every single ingredient is made in a laboratory.  So since I stopped consuming coffee mate with my expresso, I’ve been using almond milk instead.

Steven Volpe Design

If you are remodeling your home, chances are you might have encountered one or two unscrupulous contractors.  Read here about how to find the good ones, how to choose one, what you should stipulate in the contract and if things go south, how to file a complaint. Learn more about how to avoid remodeling nightmares.

Success is liking yourself,

liking what you do,

and liking how you do it.

Maya Angelou

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If you are like me, you discover a new favorite wine only to forget the name the next time you want to buy it.  What if I told you there are wine apps that do that job for you.  Vivino app allows you to either scan or take a photo of the bottle label to find out the rating and price average.  With Delectable you can learn about any wine and get expert opinions by also taking a photo of the bottle.  Although I always prefer a cocktail to a glass of wine, my favorite wine is Riesling and at the moment I’m obsessed with Fetzer Gewurztraminer.  It took me a while to spell it.  Its name looks a lot like algebra to me, but after seeing it often I learned it.  Lol.  Try to pronounce it and it’ll only get worst.  Fetzer is a sustainable winemaker from California.  You can find this Reisling basically anywhere but the wine industry and culture have changed and modernized so much that you can find good wine in unexpected places.

Cocktails can miraculously convert any grump into a happy smoochy human being.  Once the weather becomes more enjoyable I’m planning to try one of these Spring cocktail recipes.

Alcohol and sleep don’t match.  The first one hinders the latter.  Tha’s why I keep drinks to a maximum of three to four per month.  I’ve always had trouble sleeping, either waking up in the middle of the night – always around 3:00 AM and can’t fall back asleep.  Evren, my husband is always suggesting me to go see a sleep doctor.  Until I wrap my head around being observed while sleeping, sounds freaky, doesn’t it… I’ll look into these suggestions about how to have happier dreams.  Its effectiveness in my difficult case remains to be seen.

A couple of weeks ago my sister got a very scary call from a useless individual who claimed to have kidnapped her son.  I’m just glad I learned about the scary call hours after.  Thank God it turned out to be a Phone scam.  Learn more about these Phone scams and how these jobless people can steal your money, so you are prepared in case it happens to you.

I’m reading three books at the moment.  One on Audible for when I’m on the road, one before going to bed, and one that I read during the day whenever I have a chance.  I’m always looking for new interesting books to add to my library and this Spring there are a bunch of interesting ones I can’t wait to start reading.  This list of the 10 of the most anticipated books of Spring 2018 sounds like a good place to start.

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On technology I vote for less cellphone software updates… it doesn’t serve much purpose anyway.  Give us these software updates every six months and we’ll be fine.  It’s not impacting positivity the phones storage or the camera capacity, which is what we all want anyway.  I love technology,  however I feel that the world is great as is.  Who needs autonomous cars?  Or self-flying planes… and why?  Flying is terrifying for many people as is… Besides if you’ve been paying attention this artificial intelligent is proving not to work more than the opposite.  Sadly this time at the cost of an innocent female civilian who was killed by one of Uber’s silly self-driven cars.  Furthermore I think all this investing and researches should be directed towards more meaningful causes as how to cure cancer.

Not all is ill with technology.  On the positive side, social media has brought a great deal of opportunities, awareness and exposure when it’s not used for negativity such as body shaming.  This latter one only adds to the lack of self-confidence that we, women, historically have struggled with.  Women are known for having a lower appreciation for themselves than men.  We have our entire past of patriarchal culture to blame for that.    ‘Confidence takes root in childhood but also can be internalized in adulthood, through experience, hard work or practice. “It requires really paying attention to the small wins and not being so quick to overlook, downplay, dismiss and diminish your accomplishments,” ‘ says Aimee Cohen, a Denver career coach and author.  To learn more about how to overcome this sense of limitation go here.

CNN recently wrote an article about The Kennedy’s “curse”.  We are all familiar with the family’s sad history of accidents and tragedies.  Of course I don’t believe in curses or anything of that sort.  If that was the case then anyone could have the potential to intervene in other person’s life’s purpose and that is senseless.  Having said that, I remember growing up where the elders around me shared the belief that the patriarch of the Kennedy family had done some sort of evil contract with the dark side in order to acquire success and prestige.  Now, these are part of Caribbean tales, but if there is someone who can potentially intervene in our own life, it is none other than ourselves.  By our own doing and choice not because someone else decides our destiny.

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