Life on the Vine

By nature I'm a bit of a homebody.  I like being home with my honey and the fuzzy kids.  Whether it's cooking in the kitchen, sitting around reading, or watching things on YouTube, I'm perfectly happy just being home.   But my desire and comfort with being at home now has to be counter-balanced with this amazing time in our lives when we have the opportunity to live and and work in Italy.  It's incredible and we are so blessed! I truly believe that we all need to recharge and relax so I don't feel guilty one iota if I spend a rainy Sunday in my jammies.  But I've just got to make sure that doesn't become my default on the weekends. I think Tom and I have been successful so far in setting an intention every weekend to do at least one new thing whether it's visiting a new store, going to a winery or taking the boys on a new hiking trail. This past week has been particularly full of fun, new adventures and great fellowship with new friends so I thou

So, here's the thing.  When people ask about hobbies, what I like to do in my spare time, I've always wished I had something more "fun", interesting or athletic to say.  Oh...I bike 100 miles every weekend or I rock climb.  I'm on a roller derby team or I perform at the local playhouse.  Or I make ceramics or grow vegetables that I sell at Farmer's Markets on the weekend; I paint, play piano, sing in my church choir, et cetera.  But, the honest, simple answer is -- I like to read. When you find out I got my undergraduate degree in English you're probably not surprised by that fact but reading has been my constant love since elementary school.  There have been definite phases in my reading life.  I think it's certainly gotten a lot more diverse as I've gotten older.  Thank goodness! I'd never read a non-fiction book (excluding school textbooks) until college but reading Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman permanently changed

I'm thinking once a quarter might be just right to take inventory.  We still need to do our research but it sounds like we'll be able to take somewhere between 400-600 bottles of wine home with us when we move back to the States.  So we are fully committed to amassing our European wine collection.  We might actually need to slow things down.  It all might blur together so I'll try to take a pause periodically to capture the wineries we've visited.  So far we've visited 10 wineries...primarily here near Vicenza and in the Soave and Valpolicella wine regions. Moving over here we were hoping there would be a Wine Club we could connect with and thankfully early on we learned of the Wine Club attached to the Vicenza Community Club .  They do a monthly wine trip and I've done every one so far except for the trip in August and the long weekend trip they did recently over Columbus Day weekend. Tom's using an iPhone app to log the wines we have purchased and he