Exhale! Inhale! We’re back in Italia. And Sleeping Beauty Slumbers No More.

We opened the door and the house exhaled. As though it had been holding it’s breathe since we closed the door last fall.
First things first, we flung open the windows and let in sunshine and fresh breezes; in the process we woke up a few sleepy spiders and sent dust bunnies flying.
Finally, it was Kitchen Assault day.

We opened the door and the house exhaled. As though it had been holding it’s breathe since we closed the door last fall.  
First things first, we flung open the windows and let in sunshine and fresh breezes; in the process we woke up a few sleepy spiders and sent dust bunnies flying. Raffaello dello Spillo was reintroduced to his kitty-hood home and he has settled in very quickly.

It takes a few days to wake up a house like this. All the living room furniture is shrouded in dusty sheets and I half expect a medieval Miss Havisham to be napping under one of the drop cloths. Our office studios  had been dismantled to accommodate the geranium pots that came inside for the winter. And the leak in the skylight still leaks. Good thing we left a large bucket.

Under the influence of jet lag, we cleaned enough to set up our computers (How long can you be disconnected from Facebook and Twitter without becoming ….unfollow-friended?) Best of all, we cleaned our bedroom so we could finally lay down, horizontal.

For 48 hours, our cupboards remained bare and we had no car. Jeff’s trusty pickup truck (which I do not trust for one minute…I hope it falls off a cliff)  was still vacationing at a friend’s house. My poor injured car was still not ready to come home. After months at the car repair/spa, they waited until the last minute to get it over to Dannieli, who found there is a battery problem. Of course, this would be the exact same problem we told him about before we left, but it’s now being looked at….and it’s all so typically Italian. You can only shrug your shoulders and laugh.

Finally, it was Kitchen Assault day. We had gone grocery shopping and it was time to wake the kitchen up and get it going. Is there anything more desolate than a cold, dark, empty kitchen? It’s like the heart of the house hadn’t begun to beat. 

Rest assured, our house is now clean and stocked and we’re back up and running! Looking forward to a season of good food, good wine and good friends. It’s good to be back!