Time certainly feels as though it gets away from us sometimes, doesn’t it? Over the last few months, you may have wondered where we’ve been and where we’re going with this blog. The simple answer is that we are still here. The longer answer is that life threw us a few curveballs that derailed our focus a little bit, including the death of our beloved fifteen-year-old chihuahua, Pepe, that left us broken hearted.

If you follow us on Instagram, you’ll also know that we have been knee-deep in renovations both in Portugal and in Toronto (photos to come!). That, of course, has come with its own sets of ups and downs. As many of you know that although we’re in Toronto, we have our family home in Portugal, which was left in a decaying state, and we’ve been trying to restore it ever since. So say that the bureaucracy in Portugal is time-consuming and difficult would be the understatement of the last decade. And in Toronto, we had a leaky roof, which translated into it snowing inside our living room so we had to jump into a renovation we’d been putting off. Both are coming along, but wow. It has been a lot.

We’ll be sharing some of the behind the scenes details about this in our newsletter. Have you signed up to receive it yet? You should – you can sign up FREE here.

You know where we’ve been, so where are we going?

If you’ve followed Letters and Lipstick for a little while, you know we love to share the meaningful and the beautiful with you, and that’s exactly what we plan to continue doing.

Where we’ve been wasn’t always worth writing about (did we mention the bureaucracy in Portugal?) and at times we were exhausted and frustrated and didn’t have the bandwidth to write here. We’re looking at the past few months as having been our hibernation season. But as with all seasons, there is a beginning and an end. That end often creates a blooming of sorts. Let’s bloom together.

What you can look forward to on the blog soon:

• Life in Portugal (Hint: It’s not what you think!).
• Our first trip to Cuba in over a decade.
• Renovations in Toronto.
• Our new apartment in our pink barn (Yes, we have a pink barn).

Here’s a sneak peek at what our pink barn looks like:

Did we mention this barn has old wine vats our paternal grandparents used to use? We’ll share photos of the inside of the rest of the barn soon, as well as many more photos of all of our renovations. Look out for these, plus a few more items we’re working on.

Have a favourite topic you’d like us to cover? Let us know in the comments below.

Here’s to less distractions and to more mindful living.

-Isabel and Marilyn

Share this post: