Exploring our new town

Say Cheese!

This is Sirio.  He is our new friend.  He is Italian.  Not, in a my grandmother was born in Italy way, but in a born and raised in Rome, his whole family still lives there type of way.  In his house in Rome, he was the cheese maker, the brew master, and the pizza/bread/pasta maker.  And he is a knowledgeable, fun, funny guy to hang with.  This is our afternoon session of cheese making with him, his girlfriend, Courtney and their two year old son, Luke.    

In the words of Edward Sharpe. . .

Home Is Where Ever I'm With You

Playing catch up again!

       It's the second month of 2012 and I am still needing and wanting to blog about things from the end of 2011.  Part of me wants to just skip the past events that I have thought of as "blog worthy" and start writing about what I did today and try to stay some what up to date on my postings but another part of me wants to document the events of the past few months.  Although I am not naturally inclined to stay current with posts, I like the idea of a blog, of sharing our lives with stories and pictures with our friends and families back home.   While I was home a few months ago I was visiting with a good friend of mine and we were chatting up a storm when I realized that I was dominating the conversation and giving her close to the third degree about what was going on in her life.  When I mentioned this she replied that she feels like she talks to me more than she really does because she reads my blog.  She said reading my posts makes her feel like she just got off the phone with me.  That comment made me so happy.  I love that my friends and family back home like to check the blog and leave comments and, essential keep in touch with one another even if it is more one sided.  Another reason I think I have slowed down on posts is that our lives have slowed down.  We are no longer jumping from one interesting port to another every few weeks.  Our lives seem less exciting to write about considering we started this blog as a documentation of our travels sailing through different countries.  But, as long as our loved ones at home still like checking in, then that's the whole point, right?  

       Conor recently asked me, after a series of actions on my part annoyed him,  if my mantra of life was "It's the thought that counts" and my immediate reaction was irritation at what a not nice thing to say and then I thought more about it and realized that perhaps it rubbed me so wrong because I really don't want it to be true.  Of course, I didn't pick that as my mantra, who would honestly pick that as their mantra of life? but if I am honest with myself, I do have a little bit more of "good intentions" instead of "good actions" in my life than I would perfer.  For example, I buy thoughtful birthday/anniversary/mother's day/etc cards that never get sent, I have grand ideas of buying indigenous crafts for wedding gifts for friends back home through out my travels that I have never actually purchased, I collect sea glass and drift wood and shells to make ridiculously awesome jewelry/mobiles/art projects  that are still just creative ideas in my head, AND I think about things to blog about, sometimes actually sit down and write them, but I don't get around to actually posting them with pictures.  The good intentions are there, I want to be this creative, thoughtful person that also has an up to date blog that people at home check because they know there will soon be new pictures and funny stories.  Like I mentioned before, perhaps I need to change more thoughts into actions.  So, in 2012, along with many other personal goals, I am going to change the balance of my intentions vs. actions scale.  Well, at least I have very good intentions to do so.
       These next few posts have dates on them that are within a few days of when the event actually happened.  Hope the back logging isn't too confusing!
M.