It is Wednesday in Venice and when I awoke at 7:30 I could hear the sprinkling of rain on the window. The Hotel Monaco provides a continental breakfast like none in the US. The tray was delivered with my selection of cappuccino, a basket of breads, including fresh croissants, two type of muffins and small…
A page from my personal journal dated June 15, 2010 Tuesday noon.. As I write this I am sitting on the train from Roma to Venezia, Santa Lucia, which is a three and one half hour trip. I am happy to return to Venice as it was my favorite city when Tom and I brought…
A page from my personal journal dated Thursday, June 10th, 2010 It is already Thursday and our one totally free day here at Casa Ombuto. Awoke a bit later this morning for no particular reason other than…..I could! Showered and readied for our adventure with Kelly and Elizabeth, who were waiting in the cantina eating…
This blog is my Journal for June 6th, 2010 Yesterday was a day of planes and trains stations. Kelly and I flew thru the night to Frankfurt and , although we had taken off more than one hour and a half late from the US, made our tight connection to Florence. We decided to hitch…
Sometimes I look at her and see a familiar face, the lines of her profile, the shape of her nose. It is as if I am reliving a tiny piece of my past. It might be an expression she throws out in conversation. It might be the way she tilts her head. It takes me…
Every once in awhile it dawns on me that life has spun out of control. It happens slowly, bite by bite, day by day, a missed workout here, a french fry there. Suddenly, I realize I am avoiding my daily weigh-in knowing, deep down, the scale has to be tipping in the wrong direction. The…
To most cooks just entering the world of food preparation, the thought of homemade pasta is threatening. It congers up glimpses of large dark haired women in ruffled, tomato stained aprons standing for hours in front of a marble topped table endlessly kneading flour, eggs, water and salt into a pliable dough. It would be…
Olivia Ann and Thomas Scott, our eight year old twin grandchildren will be celebrating their second sacrament, First Holy Communion on May 1st, 2010. This is a blessed event. At least it is for Olivia, I am not so sure Tommy shares the same level of enthusiasm. First holy communion is the second of seven…
As a Mother, I dreamed of a “…happily ever after” to my “Once upon a time…” Most Fathers dream of an entire baseball team of their miniature selves running bases and hitting balls out of the park. Rarely does the dream-team include offspring of the female gender. God blessed Tom and I with two athletic…
While attending the Oprah Winfrey Show a few weeks ago, we were asked to sign a pledge for Oprah’s cause to eliminate cell phone use and texting while driving. If you have tuned in to the OWS recently you would have noticed Oprah concludes her show each day with a “Bob Barker-esque” plea to stop…