We woke up to rain (again!) this morning, but finally around 4:30 PM we've had a few minutes of right before sunset. The forecast says it's going to be rainy for several days. We are extremely sick of this gray, foggy and rainy weather!

Just wanted to post a short note letting y'all know that we're going to be away from our sites for a while. For the ones of you that are wondering why, well, we have a few things going on in our life right now that need our attention. We know that no-matter-what good intentions we have, we won't be able to keep up with everything, so we better "give-up" our offline life. No, nothing to worry about, just (almost!) regular life. Besides, our 'puter is acting up and we have to figure out whether it depends on the connection or what. Anyway, can't say for how long we won't be able to be online, but if we're lucky it's going to be just a few days. Keeping our fingers crossed, of course!

We're so sleepy tonight so we spare you our ramblings, LOL! But before we go, we want to wish a very Happy Birthday to our dear friend Suzanne! Tomorrow is your special day, sweetie-pie! Hope you finally got our e-mail with birthday gifts. Have a bee-utiful day with your beloved ones!

Happy Birthday / Buon Compleanno also to Imbi (27th) and to our cousins Agar (26th) and Valeria (28th)!

Later gators, have a blessed week ahead! See y'all ASAP!

I've just talked on the phone with my mom. It's a beautiful sunny day in my hometown so she and dad went to the Lago (Lake) Maggiore for a walk and a coffee this morning. Good for them, the Lake is just beautiful! I love all the charming cities located along both the main shores, with beautiful beaches, swans and gardens growing rare and exotic plants. The Lake is only 20 minutes driving from my hometown and as a teen I used to go there for little excursions or picnics during spring weekends. Since Zeno and I got married, we didn't have the chance to visit the whole Lake, but a couple of years ago we visited Arona, Stresa, Lesa (three small towns on the shores of the Lake) and the Rocca (Fortress) of Angera. Since the early 20th century, the main source of income here has been the tourist trade. All these locations on Lago Maggiore benefit from spectacular views as well as areas of historical and architectural interest. It's just a pity Zeno and I have lost all the photos we took in the past when our computer broke down a couple of years ago.

Ok, enough babbling about the Lake, I'm so happy it's Friday again 'cos I have another weekend to spend with my hubby. Right now we have nothing planned for this weekend, but we'll come up with something. It also depends on the weather conditions. If it rains we'll take the opportunity to catch up on computer-related things. So much to do, so little time!

It looks like we are in for another rainy day, the sky has turned very dark and foreboding. I’m sick of this gloomy weather. I’m becoming a lazy bum and this depressing weather doesn’t help. And yes, I've been lazy today, I didn't want to run around to do any kind of errands, except for cooking. I've pretty much vegetated in front of the TV all morning, while cutting the vegetables needed for the soup.

I think I won’t watch “CSI” anymore after yesterday’s episode. I wasn’t able to watch it till the end ‘cos I got revolted quite soon. I do not understand why all those disgusting scenes rich in details might be so important for the story. Talking about TV series, I can’t wait to see the new “NCIS” and “Heroes” seasons! They are utterly charming! And I also want to see the final season of “Gilmour Girls”.

Lately I haven't felt much into wanting to blog or draw. So strange ‘cos while I was on vacation I really missed both these activities! Seems like a lot of people on the Net are dealing with the blahs. I think it's normal every now and then, especially after the thrill of the holidays.

I've just visited my friend Sonia's blog. She has been busy making sweet little crafts. I like the cuties she has created, all very sweet! I haven’t stitched in a while, dunno why I’ve never been very attracted by doing this kind of things. Anyway, I want to wish her best of luck with her new project on Etsy! Hope it's a huge success!

I'm going to close for now, my soup is ready. Take care and stay cosy and warm.

Hubby and I woke up to another cold morning, but it shouldn't last long and by next week we should have a "taste" of Spring. BTW, Happy Tulip Day to all my Sweden friends who celebrate it!

I had a boring day, just went grocery shopping, cleaned the kitchen and did some hand-washing laundry. I've also cooked a huge pot of vegetable soup for dinner, to help us warming up. I'm realizing how much work it is staying home, there is always something to do in the house! I hope I can get the house in really good shape in this coming weekend, 'cos my MIL will be here on the 25th to spend a few days with us. Tonight I've been working on getting a few winter photos up on our Photo Album. I've only just begun, but I'll announce when they're up so you can take a peek. Here is a sample:

I had the chance to blog-hop a little today. I visited my sister site Elizabeth's blog and was happily surprised she posted. I'm so happy to read that she is safe and sound from her road trip to her new home in the South of the USA. Hope she will like living in Mississippi. I've never been there, but a few friends told me it's a beautiful State. I'm also glad her beautiful dog Buddy travelled well and likes the new home! Can't wait to see a few photos! I've also visited Erin's site after over a month, and got very surprised to read the hot news that she and Jasmine are moving to Germany. I had no idea! Woohoo! I am so excited for her and so happy she finally found love! She sure does deserve it! On the other hand I'm terribly sorry she permanently deleted all her web pages. I will miss her colourful personal site and Adoption Shop.

I have seen many of you have beautifully remodelled their sites. I want to redecorate all my sites, too. Maybe I'll be able to start soon. I've seen a few wonderful websets available for purchasing here and there, but I must save money these days. These are times when it's better to think twice before buying anything that might be "not useful". Sigh!

Some of you may remember we had (and still are having!) lots of problems and arguments with our landlady. It's been a year now since we were supposed to sign a new contract and get a refund of about 800 euro, but we're still waiting to hear from her. She does drive me crazy! I always get stomach-ache when I have to call her or meet her. But tomorrow Zeno will call her again 'cos we are sick of this situation. Wish him luck! LOL!

Okay, I am rambling so I think I'll stop for today. Plus, we just received a few scanned photographs of our new baby cousins and we're trying to download them on our 'puter.... hard thing to do with a modem! Argh!
Before closing this post, I want to show you our new winter decoration:

Hubby and I really like it! Good night and sweet dreams y'all! Till we blog again...

First day of the week, first entire working week after vacations. After a long, busy and slow day, we finally got to the evening. We enjoyed preparing our dinner (oven baked pasta) and while waiting for the yummy food to be ready to be taken out of the oven, we thought we might write a post for our blog. No more rain today and not even very cold (around 13 Celsius degrees), but it is supposed to be just a little pause before a new storm hits Italy, probably tomorrow, and it might rain till Friday.

Dinner is ready and we are going to eat while watching "Fantastic Four" (2005) on TV. We will continue this post after the movie…

…one of the things that made our coming back home after vacations a little less sad, it's the fact that we received a special gift by snail mail. We've been very happy to get a package from abroad with a wonderful Christmas gift even though that poor little box might have been not as happy to deal with the Italian Postal Service. LOL! The little package had to suffer a delayed delivery due to a strike of the truck drivers. So, even though it was sent on December 10th and arrived in Italy on December 24th, the postman rang to our door on December 31st while we were out of town to spend the holidays with our family. The postman made a second attempt on January 2nd, but we were not at home yet, so he left a note on the main door of the building where our apartment is. As we wrote yesterday, we were supposed to come back home on January 5th, but we had to delay our trip to January 9th for health related reasons. When we finally got home we found the postman's note which read that after 2 unsuccessful delivery attempts the package was brought to a depot across town. They would have kept it there for 10 working days waiting for someone to claim for it otherwise they would have sent it back to the sender. So we rushed to get the package and found such a wonderful surprise. It would have been a pity to miss it because of a series of unpredictable delays!

Another reason why we are mad at the Italian Postal Service it is because they ruined the wonderful stamps that were on the package. We like collecting stamps from all over the world. They attached a mailing form on the box placing scotch tape across the stamps. We were able to save only one out of four. It's incredible, the quality of the postal service here in Italy has gone down instead of up compared to the past.

The cute couple of Polar Bears you can see in this post has been lovely made by our talented sister Susan and can be found in our Adoption Shoppe. She is indeed getting amazing as a graphic artist and you may want to pay her a visit. You won't be disappointed, believe us! Until we blog again…

First day of the week, first entire working week after vacations. After a long, busy and slow day, we finally got to the evening. We enjoyed preparing our dinner (oven baked pasta) and while waiting for the yummy food to be ready to be taken out of the oven, we thought we might write a post for our blog. No more rain today and not even very cold (around 13 Celsius degrees), but it is supposed to be just a little pause before a new storm hits Italy, probably tomorrow, and it might rain till Friday.

Dinner is ready and we are going to eat while watching "Fantastic Four" (2005) on TV. We will continue this post after the movie…

…one of the things that made our coming back home after vacations a little less sad, it's the fact that we received a special gift by snail mail. We've been very happy to get a package from abroad with a wonderful Christmas gift even though that poor little box might have been not as happy to deal with the Italian Postal Service. LOL! The little package had to suffer a delayed delivery due to a strike of the truck drivers. So, even though it was sent on December 10th and arrived in Italy on December 24th, the postman rang to our door on December 31st while we were out of town to spend the holidays with our family. The postman made a second attempt on January 2nd, but we were not at home yet, so he left a note on the main door of the building where our apartment is. As we wrote yesterday, we were supposed to come back home on January 5th, but we had to delay our trip to January 9th for health related reasons. When we finally got home we found the postman's note which read that after 2 unsuccessful delivery attempts the package was brought to a depot across town. They would have kept it there for 10 working days waiting for someone to claim for it otherwise they would have sent it back to the sender. So we rushed to get the package and found such a wonderful surprise. It would have been a pity to miss it because of a series of unpredictable delays!

Another reason why we are mad at the Italian Postal Service it is because they ruined the wonderful stamps that were on the package. We like collecting stamps from all over the world. They attached a mailing form on the box placing scotch tape across the stamps. We were able to save only one out of four. It's incredible, the quality of the postal service here in Italy has gone down instead of up compared to the past.

The cute couple of Polar Bears you can see in this post has been lovely made by our talented sister Susan and can be found in our Adoption Shoppe. She is indeed getting amazing as a graphic artist and you may want to pay her a visit. You won't be disappointed, believe us! Until we blog again…

Having a cup of hot coffee here and thought we'd post our entry for today and then have dinner. It's freezing here in Trieste! We don't mind the cold weather and the rain, but the wind drives us batty! Yep, we're finally back blogging; did you miss us? We hope that the year 2008 has begun at its best for you all. We're back to our daily routine, dear net friends. Won't say "finally" 'cos we truly enjoyed being away from this gray and trafficked city and being spoiled from our family and friends. But on the other hand, we missed you all and we're glad to be able to catch up with your lives and news after so long.

We were supposed to get home on the morning of January 5th, but we actually got here a few days later because we both got a cold and Zeno had a painful inflammation of the Trigeminal nerve, that will require a visit to a specialist in the coming future. Anyway, it has been nice staying a little longer with our family, even if we could not go out.

How did your holidays go? We hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year's Day. Our holidays have been very nice! Together with Kia's parents we went to Torre Mondovì, in Piedmont, North-western Italy, 9 hours by train away from here. It's a little and lovely village and we hope that someday we will be able to find a job in that area so that we can move there. We met many friends and relatives, received many beautiful presents, cooked and eaten very tasteful things. The weather was chilly and snowy, but not enough to make a snowman or a snowball fight and this disappointed Zeno that was looking forward to at least 2 meters of snow, LOL!

On January 1st we moved to Kia's parents house (still in Piedmont), but when we got there in the late afternoon we got a nasty surprice: the heating system, which was programmed to turn on in the morning, didn't start for who-knows-what reason, so there were just 5 Celsius degrees. We turned on the heater manually and thought that while the house was warming up we might first go to the cinema (we've seen "Bee Movie" and we really liked it), then go out for dinner, in the hope that it could be enough to find a warm place when we would have come back. Unfortunately, when we got back around 9:30 PM, the temperature barely reached 12 Celsius degrees, so we decided to go back to the cinema and see a second movie ("National Treasure: Book of Secrets"). It has been a strange but nice day, after all! Not to mention the fact that it had been 20 years since the last time Kia's parents went to the cinema.

Hum, we had a bunch of other things to tell you… let's see… Like at the beginning of every new year, here we are trying to make some sort of evaluation of the year we just left behind our back. 2007 wasn't a very good year for the two of us, not even for Italy as a whole if we consider the increased number of death at work, the problem of trash disposal in Naples (Campania) and the increasing cost of life, while the purchasing power of stipends and pensions keeps diminishing year by year. The consumers' associations estimate for 2008 a general increase of family expenses around 1600 euro. Luckily (or not?!) Italians usually are very optimistic people in spite of everything and stand up against the worst adversities of life.

We would like to mention some good news we had recently. Right before Christmas, our cousin Michele and his wife Nicoletta have become 1st time parents to two baby twins called Ilaria and Eleonora. Both baby girls are healthy and pretty! Also, our cousin Davide and his wife Sabrina welcomed their second child, a baby boy called Matteo, on January the 2nd. He is a very peaceful baby and looks a lot like his 2 year old big sister Isabel. So far we have seen all these newborn babies only in pictures, but we hope to see them in person very soon!

We will also finally get to see Zeno's mom. She's going to come for a visit on January 25th.

Since we got back from our vacation we've been very busy getting our lives back to normal routine and we've used our little spare time to relax and watch movies on TV or DVD; we just want to mention the one that seemed more interesting among them: "Michael Clayton" starring George Clooney.

We didn't have time to blog-hop or update any page of our websites yet. The only thing we did, besides this post, it's uploading the new prices in our "What's Your Price" page. We will do more when time allows. Until next time. God Bless!