La Nostra Vita in Umbria

Sei mesi sono passati così in fretta ….Six months have gone by so fast

June 16th, 2008

It is hard to imagine that six months have gone by already and that are half way through a year again.  We are both taking life so much more in stride since we came back and have learned to take each day, piano, piano…slowly, slowly…the way Italians feel life is to be lived to the fullest.  This is something we fell into step with really well while we lived there and are finding it easy to do here now. Yes, we still have a calendar and it still has things listed on it, but we are not jamming many things back to back like before.  We promised ourselves that we would come back and live our life the same, as much as possible, as we did in our wonderful Italian Way.

The garden is alive and bursting with color thanks to the skillful eyes and hands of John.  He really loves to tend the garden and it is lush and lovely once again.  He continues to do his Master Gardener stints each month and has worked the Annual Plant sale and a Saturday a month during the summer at the local University Farmer’ s Market.  I am still working on my writing and will be submitting two articles hopefully for print.  I continue to do research about writing the book and have contacted several authors and some have replied with some great advice…read a lot , don’t stop writing, and be persistent! John has submitted some photos for Festa Italia, which takes place in the later part of September and may be able to work a booth at Festa with some of his photos.  We will keep you all posted on how that works out.

We have made some good contacts on Whidbey Island and continue to look at houses and areas.  With John’s brother and sister-in-law already living there it makes it nice to have them as our advisors about good areas to look for a house.  We have decided that Eastern Washington is out…so I will not get my grapevines but our neighbors here are growing some grapes on a trellis in the adjoining yard, so that will have to do for now.  We will look a bit more south and then just wait until the first of the year to make our decision.  We are in no big hurry with the economy and home sales what they are.  We are just enjoying this house for now and looking forward to being in a new spot.

We have made some great road trips and just got back from a grand visit in Portland.  That is such a great city and so many good restaurants, museums, and so much to do there. We saw our good friend Kate and really enjoyed being together again.  We had dinner at a wonderful small Italian restaurant and found some Montefalco Rosso wine there so had to drink that!  We will be going to Hawaii for about three weeks in July, In August, we will be taking a nice trip over to Montana to spend some time with my brother and sister-in-law and then who knows where we may decide to travel.  We like having so many options.

We will both look for work in September…it will be time to go back into the workforce and earn some money again.  I have no idea what I will do but know that I do not want to work full-time, if possible, and would like to be work in a field where I can make a difference in people’s lives somehow.  That was the great part of working at the Commission, I always felt we did just that.  So, we will see what is meant to happen for me. John has notified the school district that he has returned and can substitute teach when and where he wants to again.  It is easy to watch each day go by in such a gentle way while you are at home so we both know that going back to work will be a jolt to our senses, for sure.

We continue on with our Italian lessons and have learned so much practical and useful parts of the language.  Our tutor, Susan Wolf, is a dream to work with and she is an excellent teacher.  Patient and calm, helpful and guiding us all the way.  Our goal is to be able to speak better and easier when we return to Italy next year and shock all of our Italian and English speaking friends with our new language skills!  And I, hopefully, will have learned some French along the way.

We continue to keep the blog alive as it keeps our life updated for you, our dear friends, and for us too.  I enjoy writing and we will try to remember to take photos of this area too so those of you far away and who have never been to Seattle or the areas around Seattle can see how beautiful it is here. Thank you for staying in touch with us and for reading our blog.

Entry Filed under: Our life in Umbria