Tired as a Mother

Today I come to you all with a story. A story with good news. And a story with bad news. I typically prefer my bad news first, that way the good news cheers me up. So here it goes.. Bad News: My wallet got stolen by a gypsy :'( Good News: I still have my wallet (: Gypsy steals my wallet + I fight gypsy= This chick..still has her wallet (: So the story goes, One rainy and dreary Sunday, Corey and I take the metro to church. We make the walk down to the metro station, buy our tickets, scan them, figure out which direction to go and wait for the metro to arrive at the station. 15 or so minutes pass, the metro arrives, absolutely crammed full of people. Like a sandwich. Imagine fitting 50 people into a VW bug. Got it? Alright that's what I want you to picture, now instead of a bug it's a bus kind of thing so everyone is standing and everyone is pressed up against each other complete popping everyone’s personal bubble. i.e. if you're claustrophobic, you would die. As ...

As I begun staring at the empty white page before me today, I pondered how to convey all of my thoughts into words. Obviously, this is not at all possible, but what I can and try to do is if give you a piece of my mind and a taste of my life in Italy. I hope I am not too brutally honest in some of these posts. I typically write about 4 or 5 different posts before I finally come up with one I am comfortable sharing with all of you. Today, I'm going to do this a little differently... Let's start by playing a bit of deal or no deal. Today right now, someone comes to you and says, "How would you feel about moving to Italy for a while???" My guess is the first thought that would run through your head would be "NO WAY!!!?! Italy??!" Visions of pizza and pasta, Italians and Tuscan buildings, along with Venice and Rome and a beautiful language run through your mind. Sounds like a dream come true eh? Next, let's say you are interested in the offer, you ask ques...

Alright, you might think I've lost my mind by the title of this post..and maybe I have. But the fact of the matter is, I entered this country American, but I'm going to exit it something much different. Once you get thrown in this culture, there's just some things you pick up very quickly. Italy has ruined me in terms of food, fashion, and some just plain cultural differences. Once you go Italian, you never go back! Granted, I'm stuck in alot of my American ways but there are many ways in which now I now act as an Italian. I'm a blonde. I'm a Mormon. I'm a Sister. A best Friend. A problem Solver. A student. I've had my share of trials. I'm incredibly blessed. I'm American. I live in Italy. AND I'm Italerican. Before I left America, I was able to speak English, fluently, but as the days pass I swear I'm losing more and more English! And now don't give me wrong, I also wouldn't even come close to saying I'm fluent in Italian....

I have had quite a number of people tell me I am not posting often enough. So here I am. Yet, normally when I begin a blog post I have something in mind to write about and therefore, I try not to blabber on and on about useless things you really don't want to hear about. :) However, today I'm just going to write and whatever ends up on the page is what you guys are gonna get!   In America, typically you can have what you want, whenever you want it, wherever you want it. And can see people when you want to. In Italy, nothing is available that you want or need when you need it. It's never where you want it and the people you want are typically sleeping thousands of miles away. But that’s part of this journey! Realizing the American way of living is not the only way. and while, for me someone who has been raised in America there entire life, to be thrown into a new culture has been life changing! You realize, those people you have gotten so irritated with in America that don’t...

Just another day in this perpetually sleep deprived life of mine. Why can't I sleep you might wonder...well tonight...My oh so lovely father is snoring in the other room, sounds like a freight train is coming through..or maybe a tornado just hit on the street next to us. I can here every time my brother turns over in the room next to me because the floors squeak. The lady in the apartment above us likes walking loudly in heels right above my room. The guy in the apartment next door to ours must be rearranging his entire house, the cars are honking, the dog down the street is barking, our neighbors have decided to have a heated discussion outside the apartment building, it's cold and rainy and as I already mentioned above this beautiful house....squeaks, creaks, snaps, pops, it might as well talk! But honestly it's kind of nice to have some alone time to think at night! Ah...the thinking. Wouldn't it be just exquisite, if our brains came with off switches!?!? But unfo...

Ah Milano....we have an Apartment! :D Wahoooo! What a relief! No more living out of suitcases, smelly, wrinkly, smushed clothes, sleeping on "porch like cots", or sharing 5 square feet of space with 4 Americans! That’s something to celebrate in and of itself!! The apartment is actually very pleasant, w/ 4 bedrooms! :) Room for quests, as well as Corey and I to have our own rooms! Yet, there are some things we have found quite intriguing to say the least, such as the washing machine! Picture, four American people squished into a closet i.e. the laundry room) like sardines, crisscross-apple sauce, scratching their heads trying to figure out how in the world the washing machine works as of course...it’s in Italian! Surprise, Surprise! And the only thing we have to go off of is the millimeter size pictures next to the words, a leaf, a tree, a racecar, and a caution cone. What do those mean exactly?? Needless to say we still haven't really figured it out..After 4 and a half ...

Ah, we have arrived, in uhm...well...the UK/The United Kingdom/ England/Great Britain, it's all the same! So you can call it whatever your heart desires! As Churchill once stated, we're two country's separated by a common language.   We may speak the same language but we are defintely far from the same! While we drive on the right (yes, right as in right/wrong;) they drive on the left! And as we all have seen in the movies they actually have their steering wheels on what would be our "passenger side", the right side. So, as our plane landed, and we collected our baggage, we saw our nice British driver standing with the sign with our name on it. Once again yes like the movies. But as we approached the car..and he went to the passenger side, I kinda wondered if he was expecting one of us to drive ourselves to our hotel. Alright, Alright, I'm totally exaggerating but it did take my brain a second to remember, that that is normal! First we started in Cambridge w...

SO now I'm up at 1 a.m typing this....why you may ask?? 3 reasons. #1. I spent the last hour and a half typing up this entire post, only to, as I hit spell check have the entire browser close, and 2 page long blog post, fall somewhere into outer space never to be returned again. Lessoned learned though! This one was typed in Microsoft Word! #2 reason why I am up at 1 a.m, I can't sleep because it's the middle of the day in the U.S and clearly my body isn't quite adjusted to Milan time. It better hurry up though or I'm gonna start drinking Benadryl through a straw until I chemically induce myself to sleep so I can function. And reason #3. My oh so lovely brother can't sleep either and is playing Angry Birds with the volume as load as it can go, so I can hear Birds, chirping and being flung through sling shots across a screen...gotta love that noise.   Alright, more about Italy I know! Let's start with the people..everyone dresses very nice to say the least, ...

As most of you probably will know, in less then 48 hours, I will be leaving  the lil', pleasant, city of Peoria, for the Up-tight, Milano, Italia for a year. This has been a LONG time coming and I now have mixed emotions about leaving :). In February, my parents came to me with this Idea, and I immediately rejected the Idea, stating I would do anything, as to not leave home. I was more than upset with the idea and began for the next 6 months to pray, that something would happen and my parents would change their minds, or monkeys would fall from the sky and all flights would be suspended forever! As my parents continued, to speak of nothing other than, Italy, and how wonderful it would be....and blah, blah, blah. But as you most of you will come to find out, my praying clearly did not work, and God had an entirely different plan for me, than the one I had developed for myself. So in preparing for our journey, we have spent months in government offices, we have gotten ...