What We’re Eating and Drinking: Pasta and Wine!
This week’s schedule has been impossibly packed and that goes for today too! I have about 10 minutes to get a few words down here before things start moving, so please excuse my brevity! Dinner tonight will have to be made by someone else! We have to be at school around 6pm for both kids to perform for ISB’s tenth anniversary, so afterwards, we’ll head into the Centro and find a table outside on a piazza somewhere to enjoy the sunset and warm air… we’re in the mid-80s this weekend and 90s next week!
Christine: Oh, pasta, My Love. I think that will be my first food out of this cleanse! And if somebody else makes it, all the better. Also I’d like to eat it at the piazza but since that’s not possible at this moment, you’ll have to send some photos next week. I’d love to see Bologna in summertime–it was magical when it was 40 degrees so I can’t even imagine it now. I’m SO glad that summer is here, too. After such a long and freezing cold winter, we’ve enjoyed the gift of summer temps coming to the northeastern U.S. early. It’s been in the 80s for the past several days and the weekend promises to be a warm one, too.
What We’re Talking About: Busy, busy, busy
So…I don’t even know where to begin but I see the clock ticking in the upper right hand corner of my screen… Zoel went down to Rome and back yesterday on the Freccia Rossa (Italy’s fastest train), while Leeloo went to school, presented her end of year projects in art class and hopped over to a 2-hour ballet recital rehearsal (and she has two more 3-hour rehearsals to go!) Stefan is working away on the launch of his new projects, so Momma spent the day out running the errands and chauffeuring the kiddies. I did have the amazing midday treat of a home-cooked pranzo (lunch) at my Italian teacher’s apartment with him, his wife and a few other students. It was so lovely, I’ll have do a post about it next week. Oh… the minutes are passing! Zoel is waking up and going on about a belt he can’t find and how quickly can we get to school because the fifth grade is hosting assembly… he’s playing a Count (of course)… must dress in black with an ascot (of course)… doesn’t have his lines because he was in Rome all day (poor baby)… Oh my, he’s gone from zero to 5th gear in seconds. Well, I’ll have to wrap up by saying there is more of this on the docket for the weekend and next week. If we’re not all weeping uncontrollably in a corner by FND19, we’ll be almost at the end of the school year (June 20) and much more chill!
In the meantime, I read this a while back… It’s paraphrasing someone named Brene Brown, who ironically I haven’t had time to google, but in any case, just this one phrase switched my perception of weeks like this one:
For all of the chaos and wildness and busyness that is going on around me is good. It is full, yes….but it needn’t be resisted, for it is beautifully full of family, and passion and life.
It’s not chaos, it’s fullness. Much better.
Christine: Brene Brown rocks! You definitely need to google her. She writes a monthly column in Oprah, but don’t let that deter you. She has several great books out about vulnerability and shame and they are just so good. One lives on my bedside table. Can you get American podcasts there? If so, look up a talk she did with a woman named Krista Tippett on the NPR show “On Being”. It’ll give you a great sense of her and her work (and you’ll want to sit down for a cup of tea with the woman–she sound so fun). We totally get the busy–luckily we live very close to school so bringing Noah up and down the hill four times/day isn’t that much work. I can’t imagine how much driving you are doing. Thank goodness you have your license again! Imagine if you still and to bus it everywhere? We’re looking at two four hour long play rehearsals (tonight and tomorrow afternoon) and a baseball game tomorrow morning. I’ll be thinking of you whilst running around!