New studio

Since the rest of the house is in order now, I get to play in my new, old, new studio.  Not as big as the last studio but the light is better and, well, hell, the rest of my house is way more awesome now.  I traded up.

Given the smaller size, I've needed to economize...or just get a little clever with storage.  In a word...wheels.

I did this

to get this...

Yep, that's a library on wheels.  Mobile books. 

My knitting books just barely fit in this double-wide...

So either I have to stop buying knitting books, or drink more wine...you know, just for the boxes.  Umm, yeah, that's a no brainer.

Other cool things in my new studio...

my window seat....

And my rubber ducks' window seat...

(Thanks, Mette!)

upstairs tour, finally

Hey, come on...let's go upstairs.

Check out them new stairs.  They're (relatively) the same height and that black stuff is new slate.  A little lucky strike extra from Augusto.  I'm sure the cost of those were covered in the bomb that we paid him for his work, but, heck, doesn't everyone just feel good when he can pretent to give me a gift and I can pretend to get something for free?

Come on in the room....

Look left...

to see David's new office, the new stairs and all the old shit we still haven't found a place for yet.

Look right..

Well, you don't see anything because we are standing 2 inches from a wardrobe..

Look up...

That's the underside of the new loft.

Come on, let's go in the loft...

through the living room....

and up the new stairs... Careful you don't slip on those, they tilt in 2mm.

welcome to the new bedroom...

At night we can stare out this window from bed and see the stars...

'Course during the day you can just see all the white trashy goodness that is our backyard.  (Note to self:  clean that shit up before mom and dad come to visit)

Let's look down on the living room...

Let's look at our feet while we sit on the end of the bed...

Ok, that's enough of that.  Let's go back down.

I'm particularly fond of the new floor, not just because it's level but because it's frickin beautiful...

Augusto left his signature on this work of art...

Yep, a beer ring stain right there in my frickin beautiful floor.  Thanks, Pal, nice touch.

And finally, the newly couch-free kitchen...

That's about that.




I'd like to thank several people who brought you this blog post:


1.  mom and Wayne for their gentle nudges to post

"Are you lost?" wayne

"Ok, we'll get off skype now so you can go blog." mom

2.  The nice man at the computer store who got me re-connected to the internet and didn't charge me for it.

3.  The nice lady at City Hall who just stamped my Italian Identity Card, allowing me to stay here for another 5 years.

4.  And a huge thanks to David who is working his ass off to pay for this beautiful improvement to our amazing little house.  Thank you, Love.

Wondering why I haven't posted any photos of my new upstairs?  Yeah, well, that's because it was just finished SATURDAY.  Yep, 3 weeks after I was promised it would be done and 4 days after the arrival of our house guest.

Having just bitched about it, I want to say that I can't really complain....I LOVE IT!!!!

Just a glimse for now because it's been so hot here that I have been hardly able to move any part of my body, including my index finger to click photos.

So, when you do work on your house while you are living in it, it's inevitable, you learn something about yourself.  By now, I should know myself inside and out, however, it seems there are still uncharted waters.  Here's a few things I found on this go around...

1.  Living in disorder for an extended period of time will make me certifiably insane...I mean, like, you know, more than before.

2.  I believe that people who choose to live their lives in a one room housing unit, like folks who find NYC cool even when they aren't millionaires, are fuckin' nuts...more so even than I am after an extended period of time in disorder because one room living sucks serious black water.

3.  I'm a little too trusting of people's word. For example, like when someone says they'll finish a job in my house by a certain day because I've explained to them that I have house guests coming and I need their work to be done, and they've had a month and a half to do the work, and I've reminded them of the deadline, and reminded them, and they promised and they promised, and I called them today and they told me that the work will be done at some random time in the future, and they seemed shocked that I expected the work to would have been done last week when they said it would be, and they can't tell me when it will be done. For example, like that, I still trust people's word.

4.  On a related note...I've learned that I find it IMMENSELY empowering to be able to break someone's balls in a foreign language.

So, it hasn't rained here in Italy for something like 3 months.  I know we're not alone --places all over are suffering from drought. I can't really complain. I still have the city water in my house and for the front garden (which hasn't always been the case) and unlike others, I don't depend on my orto crops for my livelihood.  All the same, I've been doing a rain dance everyday for a week now.  I even washed my car... that always guarantees rain, doesn't it?

I can't complain but I will anyway.  The scarcity of water brings out the worst in the Maberghini (people of Maberga), myself included.

A nameless neighbor ran my vasca dry over night about a week ago.  F**ker.  So it's fighting time.  Someone has to stand up for my tomatoes, which can't do for themselves since they are totally wilty from lack of water.

So I went to the Self...the place for everything you need for DIY, except the knowledge to actually do it.  I, once again, arrived there without having any clue what I needed to buy to fix my problem.  Instead, I had a vague idea that I would get a "piece that would connect my hose to a tap".  I did know that the tap was female and that it was the size of my thumb.

Damn if I didn't run into a really really nice friend who I hadn't seen in years.

L:  Ciao Aldo!
A: Ciao Leeeennnn!  Che ci fai qui?!  (what are YOU doing HERE)
L: blah blah blah, water war, blah blah blah, some random piece, blah blah blah.
A: Come on.  I'll help you.

Half an hour later Aldo was doing this to the random piece that I needed to buy.

Apparently most taps to which hoses get attached are male, not female, like mine.  So I needed a male instead of a female piece, and I needed that male to have the diameter of my thumb.  In italian, they measure in metric, but they also use inches sometimes.  In italian an inch is called a pollice (which translates as"a thumb".  perfect!) So we....ok ok ok, Aldo found said random 1 inch male piece.  But it had an extra little bit on the end that I didn't need, so he cut it off.

Going home astonished at my luck at running into Aldo and very enthusiastic to DIY some water works for my poor tomatoes, I headed up to the orto only to discover....

I have a 3/4 sized thumb.  

Yep. My circumcised garden hose piece was too big.

In the time since I've last posted...

I've had a few thoughts....

thought 1.  I think there would be a lot less divorce if the Olympics happened more than once every four years.  

Watching women's gymnastics today (streaming on my computer via a Canadian broadcast), I suddenly understood my husband's completely rude, illogical, and totally pointless March Madness behaviour.  Ok, maybe the divorce rate would not diminish but, for sure, David and I would have fewer fights during the month of March if I were reminded more than every leap year that I too can scream at the computer, cheer and cry for people I've never met before, and be completely oblivious to anything and anyone in my presence....while watching a sporting event.

thought 1.b.  I will never watch another Olympics if I can't watch the Canadian broadcast. 

Trust me, try it.


thought 2. Who actually does that?

Drop their car key down a street drain.  Who does that?  As it turns out, me.  I do that.

thought 2.b.  I need to buy a strong magnet to keep with the string I already have in the trunk of my car.

You just never know when it will happen again.


thought 3.  either my zucs are getting longer, or next year my hand will be growing directly out of my shoulder as a result of my shrinking arm.

thought 4.  F**K

 Yeah, ok.  I think that thought a lot.  But this time it has to do with my going on week 7 of living in the kitchen while this is happening upstairs....

my new stairs are not level...by 2mm.  Given that the floor used to be uneven by 17 centimeters, 2mm is not so much but, still...  F**k.