Italian Adventure 2009

Fiat Ulysse

Eurhotel

more info

This might sound ridiculous considering people keep telling us we’re so lucky we get to do this (travel as a family with hubby)… but I’m really looking forward to learning to do without. That looks like a nice van up there but it is WAY smaller than the American van we are used to — hubby calls it a microvan… I see it as an opportunity to learn how to get along and be patient with each other in a really confined space.

We will stay at the nice hotel for the first couple of months, come back for maybe a week here, then back again until the assignment ends… I will bring my knives (as per usual, the chef and paring anyway) but nothing else in the way of kitchen paraphernalia. So I’ll be missing my pots and pans and all the stuff I’ve come to depend on all these years.

Homeschooling will be very different — I’ve tried to stick to the one book per subject rule… so right now that’s looking like this:

• The Holy Bible
• The CCC
• The Liturgy of the Hours for the season (so this will be our saint book as well)
• no “reading” books per se — we’ll have to do that online, I don’t know yet how accessible English books are where we’re going to be, I mean the classics that we love and use in homeschooling
• one Math book per child
• Handbook of Nature Study
• a bunch of classical composer CDs loaded into my dd’s laptop’s iTunes software
• Artistic Pursuits

I actually have a bunch more books that I want to bring but I have yet to seek dh’s approval as he has limited our luggage to 2 large suitcases, 2 small ones, and backpacks. At confession today I told my priest that I’m having a hard time submitting to dh on this issue — 7 people / several months / 3 seasons / not enough space ??? … and he teased that I probably need 3 suitcases for all my clothes. I guess Father doesn’t know me well enough — I told him I was content with half a suitcase — it’s the BOOKS I can’t seem to part with!! Aiaiai…

But really… I’m looking forward to learning to do without. Living in the US has really spoiled us — everything is accessible, most things are affordable… it will be a lesson for the kids and myself to learn to get by with much, much less. I suppose it sounds almost hypocritical to write this out since we are — in essence — going on “vacation” for almost a year … but it will be a trial in patience and endurance as well… hopefully much purification will come out of it. Most of all I look forward to doing without regular Internet service, the company of friends whom we love and run to all the time, the many conveniences of a life here… not because I’m not going to miss those, but because we really need a big dose of reality (including me) and that’s not always easy to obtain in the good ol’ US of A. And the biggest plus is that we get to cocoon again — just have each other and not much else — last time this happened we really GREW.