Monday, May 20, 2013

The thing about blogging is you never know what sort of response you will receive from readers or if you will even gain people interested enough to continue reading. So where have I been? Ive actually been blogging but have since stop publishing them for several reasons.


1. If there is a non-significant amount of people interested in reading what’s going on then why share the details and intimacy of your daily life online? I have no idea who actually takes the time to read…as there are no comments or replies and this site doesn’t really give me an idea of how many people read it…so my assumption would be only 3 or so persons…meh

2. Sometimes it can be quite difficult to be respectful of others feelings as well as be open and opinionated in your own private space. If anyone knows me at all…you will know that Im as blunt as it gets however I do have a general respect to those around me. I make every effort to refrain from stereotyping and generalising but sometimes you miss the mark and say something that hurt others. Or sometimes you forget to recognise someone when thanking others …or sometimes you mention your despise for something that involves someone close to you...and then the shit latterly hits the fan and you never hear the end of it. I hate that feeling of hurting others when I’ve actually tried my best to be sympathetic. But reality is that a lot of people are insecure, a lot of people are hurting and broken and defiantly there are a lot of people in this world that are judgmental. So in the end you can’t please everyone.

Why did it take me 3 months to come to the conclusion that I really just don’t care??

Who knows, but I’ve come to the decision to start publishing my blogs again...(Thanks to a few messages from friends who basically slapped me around email style to say they would like to know what’s going on with me) So in that case –you know who you are- if only for those who want to know…here we go again…..
To save you from back reading and trying to catch up…here is what I’ve been up to in 10 simple points..

(jess’ catch up guide for the last 4 months)

1.I love my house.
Yes you heard me correct..I never thought I would have a 5 bedroom house and a large garden to myself..and believe it or not I am growing veggies and fruits, oh no watch out! Let’s hope I don’t kill everything before they produce fruit. The soil here in Italy is very different and obviously I have no idea what Im doing...thanks be to dear neighbour Vando who reminds me over and over that Im doing this wrong and that wrong..siggghhh…Ill get it right one day!




2.Livvy’s school rejection…
So finally we signed Livvy up for school as Preschool starts here at 3 years old. Although we have to pay at this age we really don’t mind the few hundred a month that it cost to interact Livvy with some other children her age. It took us ages to choose a school….private or public? Mandatory catholic service or opt out? So many choices. After having a long think we decided on the local school just 10 min walk from home. I figured that if we didn’t like it can put her in another school next year. We opted to keep her in the catholic studies at this age even though we do not want her praying or worshiping anything other than God. But the school was kind enough to let me in on what they did for the pre-schoolers regarding their religious studies and it was all very basic generic things that were in line with our Protestant believes. So after a long hard translation of the forms ect. We signed her up. I was very happy to get the call 2 months later to invite me to our first parent/teacher meeting with other parents…ummmm they neglected to mention that this was a special meeting for all the kids that were left out of the school roster...hahaha imagine my face when I finally got that bit of translation.. rimasta fuori....I will never forget this translation now..
The good thing is that she wasn’t left out for some of the reason as the other students…and let me tell you, it was pure gossip as they announced it to the entire group whilst your child had been left out of school…

-signora so and so…your child has been kicked out because you lied about the father of the child and since the man who is the legal resident in your house is not the father of the child then then you need to get official residency for the child first…ouch.

-signore such and such…your child is left out because: no we will not give you only two days of classes so that you can take the other 3 days to send him to isreali school in Mantova. Either he stays here for 5 days our you are out…ouch…(that family was not happy and even though I don’t know their native tongue I'm pretty sure the F bomb and other naughty words were incorporated as they yelled at the headmaster whilst walking out)

It really was entertaining…but sad when they finally got to Oliva’s name and mentioned that she had been left out because of her age (she is 3 in December and school starts in September). So since she was 2 months too young they gave her spot to someone who is already 3. I actually think that is a fair reason to be kicked out of her spot. There really is no rush to push a small child into the school environment and really the only reason was to integrate her with other children. But if the display from parents who were left out are anything like the kids who actually attend the school…I think Ill pass.




3.Pregnancy scare
Yes pregnancy scare...and if you know anything about me...it was truly a scare as we definantly do not want any more children….so waiting 2 weeks with no show of any signs we were a bit worried...not to mention how high risk my pregnancies are. ..was not looking forward to that...but in the end ...my dear old friend came to see me ..Better late than never!



4.We are completely broke…
Well to us its completely broke, maybe not to others, but when you are used to having a certain amount of money all the time, you sort of get use to having what you want when you want it...and now we have to think about what we do and how we do it. No more trotting off twice a year on a cruise or holidays around the world…however we did go to Australia in February, but we have reduced our oversees holidays to only once a year…Living in Italy is like one big holiday and we intend to make the most of it. I’d like to see so many things and whenever we have the free time we are usually taking a long drive to discover our surroundings within a 3 hours drive away…after the summer we are thinking of a longer drive down south…Puglia, Calabria...who knows..skies the limit! Unfortunantly I don’t think we will be on our next cruise until next year




5.Italy hates our car…
So far we have had two busted windows in our car…sigghhh...oh how we love our car…but how can Italy not love her as much as we do? On our return from Sydney and driving back from Milano Airport, a huge rock smashed into our windshield whist on the autostrada..and if that wasn’t enough, about a week ago someone or something…or whatever smashed our side window whist I was parked in front of the library...let’s hope this is the end of our window smashing reign.




6.I lost my grandfather, and two old friends…
It was a very strange two weeks. First I went through the process of grieving the loss of a friend... Well he didn’t pass away but he left his life behind by making the decision to not talk to anyone from his past. Not just myself but including others, but for me it was a very painful reality that our relationship wasn’t important enough to keep. That was a very harsh reality. Then a week later I had the pleasure of my mum visiting me, but sadly two days after her return to American her father died...my dear grandfather. The worst feeling as an only child is the inability to be there for your mother whilst she is hurting. I rustled with the thought of flying to American to be with her but in the end I didn’t. Then. as things begin to come around, only 5 days after that another old friend died. I actually knew her since our school days and we had been through a lot of ups and downs within our relationship. There were times when we weren't speaking to one another due to hatred for each other and other times when we shared our souls between the two of us. So news of her death was unexpectant, quick and difficult to handle during this already delicate season in my life.




7.I’ve taken my hair to a new level…
Curly it is then…for those who know I suffer from a few health issues that left me with pre-cancers tumours and have had 4 removed so far. Also had part of the lining in my uterus removed and in the process lost 85% of my hair, most of my nails fell off as well. But I’ve been well for 2 years now and since then my hair has grown back, for the most part. For 2 years I had special wigs made for me ...which I loved …but now have decided to give them up…and then to cut all the relaxed ends of my hair off and go curly..eeekkk have never done this in my life...so was a huge step for me...but I actually like it...however the rain is no longer my friend…those are the days I wish my hair was relaxed again so that the frizz would not exist...well a girl can’t have it all can she!




8.I stopped working on my novel due to grieving
Since losing two of my friends (who happen to be main characters in my novel) I couldn’t bare to continue writing the story of my past as those feelings were hard to drag out of the dark. I would have never guessed that writing would be so difficult when thinking about all the things that happened so long ago. I would say my biggest issue was the regret from all the stupid and irresponsible things I actually did at such a young age...but that’s the point right…to grow and tell your story to help others. Well let’s just hope I can’t get back to writing again son.




9.Ive lost 20lbs since moving to Italy
I assumed that once I moved to Italy I would gain a few pounds of weight back. But since moving here I’ve lost about 20lbs...which means I’ve lost about 128lbs so far…definanlty a shocker to me. Not to mentioned I’ve gained a 2 year old during the process. I’m happy that I’ve lost weight however I know that I still have a little ways to go. 20lbs more to be exact and then I think I might be happy...but the worst thing about it all, is when you lose a lot of weight there is this nasty little thing called stretched skin leftover. I think my biggest worry at the moment is the hot summer that is approaching. I know that it will be very hot and I will want to wear cool fitting clothes, sleeveless or shorter dresses. But Im really not that comfortable with showing off my body full of extra skin. Yuck. I never had this issue in Uk since it was never hot enough to show things off…uggg how will I manage this in a few months. Stay tuned!




10. FINNALLY….We’ve found a new church…
We have been looking for a place of worship since before we even moved to Italy. We tried one church in Milano and although the church was lovely and the people were very lovely...we didn’t feel quite at home...and it was also about 2 hours away from our house...which makes things a bit harder as well. I’m not sure how we actually found the church we are attending now, but it must have been destiny as one night I had a quick search on my phone whist waiting for …ummm something I really can’t remember at this moment. But I ran across a Baptist church in Reggio Emilia. Then I found a link on their page to their partner church in Mantova. We are not from a Baptist background be we were keen to have a go and visit this church. Turns out we loved it. The church consists of about 80% Brazilians which was something we had not expected, however very refreshing. We have made a few new friends as well at church now that we have been there for a few weeks now. The only thing that holds us back is that everything is in Italian of course, but we have come across one lovely woman who speaks English and helps us with everything we might need or any help with translation if we have any questions after the service.





Okay there you have it the 10 points ..now that you’re all caught up...I promise to be more diligent...well can’t really promise we all know how wishy washy I can be...but I promise if you ask for it...or you comment or respond ...Ill keep posting...how’s that!

5 comments :

  1. Thanks for the updates. I enjoy following your journey.

    Paolo.

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  2. Un passo alla volta tutto si sistema. Happy to have you in my life !
    Sally

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  3. Hi Jessa!

    I decided to check this site, for I too wondered what happened to you after your move. So glad to know you are fine, busy and immersed happily in your life in Italy. So sorry about your losses. That hurts.

    Leah (lifeinitaly)

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Wish I had an edit button...

    I wanted to add you look fabulous with your natural curls and recent weight loss. Amazing! Plus your baby girl is always cute!

    ReplyDelete