La Nostra Vita in Umbria

Nuovi Inizi, Nuovo Stile di Vita….New Beginnings, a New Style of Life

April 29th, 2008

It is hard to believe that we are already through the first four months of 2008. We have celebrated my Dad’s 80th birthday, my brother and sister-in-law’s birthdays together, John’s birthday, my 15th year of being cancer free (yahooooo!), and we still have more fun things ahead of us. We are feeling settled in our house again and more than eager to begin our research of other places to live in Washington state…for now.The yard is looking great and John is enjoying being a Master Gardener again.  Their huge plant sale is this weekend and he will help set up on Friday and then work the sale on Saturday and he has all of his dates for working the Farmer’s Market in the University District so he is back in his groove of gardening.

I am still in the throes of doing my research for writing our book which is a long and tedious process- for every 10 emails or letters I send, I get 1-2 answers back.  We are offering ourselves up to speak anywhere and everywhere…showing photos and speaking about our incredible experience of living in Italy for a year. Surely that will open a door or two hopefully.  We are discovering new things in this city once again, we will begin our Italian lessons next month (yahoo again), and have found some great websites to practice our language skills with. It all seems to be coming together for us as learn to live in the US.

We have re-connected with almost everyone as we blend back into Seattle life again but we do not live the hectic, crazed life we did Before Italy and that is by choice. We told ourselves that we wanted a better and more gentle lifestyle when we returned and so far, we have been able to keep that promise we made to ourselves.  For those of you who knew what our calendar ALWAYS looked like, it is funny now to see that we have blanks in many dates and months once again. We loved our lifestyle in Italy with a pace that as slow and enjoyable and we are taking time to weave that into our life here.  We take little trips like going to the Pike Place Market to just amble about, we visit museums and art galleries in the middle of the day, and we go out for lunch occasionally, and I just ordered a Yoga tape and will be doing that for myself.  It is a nice way to take care of ourselves and each other. 

Work looms on the horizon for both of us but we want to put it off as long as possible. John will substitute teach again and I have no idea what I will do yet. I am looking at everything and know that I would like to work part-time, 3 days a week, and work enough hours to be part of the benefit program.  I would love to do something where I can interact with people, ideally where I can use my new language skills and brush up on my Spanish skills too, and possibly work in a ”Green” type of environment.  Not sure what that would mean but will see where those thoughts take me.  I am also joining Women in Communications again as it is an excellent organization and it has some awesome women in it.  It provided me wth a great sense of my communication skills in the past and I  am sure it will once again.

We plan to take the summer off and will be taking two weeks in the middle of the summer to go to Hawaii to celebrate Richard’s (our good friend) 50th birthday on the Big Island of Hawaii, we decided to take an extra week and just go see how much things have changed there since Mom and Dad lived there. That will be another grand excursion we are truly looking forward to.  We also will be going to Whidbey Island for our House Hunting Excursion #1 and that should prove to be very interesting.  We will also be looking in other areas of the state too and then can make a decision of where to begin being serious about moving and living. That will certainly bring another new beginning!

If anyone has any good advice or helpful hints of how to go about telling our story, please let us know. We would love to hear from you all.  Ciao for now.

Entry Filed under: Our life in Umbria