Latest Sewing Project

I recently discovered this new craft blog and I've fallen in love with it! Larissa, the blog author, seems to be an amazing person as well and truly has a heart for the Lord. 

In two days I followed her tutorial on making a messenger bag and this is the result! 

I'm very chuffed about the results :) You can ask Zeno - I made him admire it completely! However, if I do it again, I think I will make a few changes - add a zipper (to keep thieving hands out), add more pockets (for all those items that tend to get lost and disorganized in the bottom of my bag) and probably shorten the outside flap (both for looks and practicality). 

However, over all, I'm very pleased especially considering it's made almost completely out of scraps and recycled fabrics (old pillow cases, table cloths, hand towels, shirts, etc). 

I find I'm really loving the time to work on a few crafts here and there :) 

Psalm 37:5

Does anyone else find that being peaceful and still is sometimes the hardest work? It sure is for me!


These past two weeks I feel like I've done a million things but then nothing at all... Conquered a "new" room in our house, junked a lot of junk, made myself a stylish messenger bag, almost adopted a pretty abandoned kitten, thought of ideas for two kids books.... and the list could go on. And yet, some of the big hurdles I see before myself haven't moved. And now, because I'm tired out and not completely myself, I feel impotent in the face of my life's goals, dreams and hopes.
As much as I want to control everything and make things turn out and proceed according to my wishes and plans; I know I just need to wait, quiet and patient and trusting - "... and He shall bring it to pass".
Amen


Goodnight all those I love! I'm so glad I have you <3

Our New Stairs :)

Check them out! They're pretty sweet :) And this makes our hallway nearly complete - just a few last finishing touches left!

BIggest Hail Storm Ever in Milano

At the beginning of June, we spent a weekend with Mum and Papa in Tuscany - gorgeous weather! Sunshine, warm, full Spring so flowers blooming everywhere. We were even picking cherries - YUM!

When we came home to Milan we found that a hail storm with golfball sized pieces of hail had destroyed our little backyard garden. As promised long ago, here are some quick pics I took of the destruction:

Tomato and Strawberry Plants

White Striped Hosta

Colorful Flowers

Green Hostas

Hydrangeas

Lavender

Most of our Window-boxes were on the ground...

The window boxes

Our Emma Flowers

More Hydrangeas

Final Hydrangeas

I'm VERY pleased to say, that now it's mid July, our flower-boxes and garden have made quite the sprightly recovery!!! Especially with the automatic watering system Z rigged up for our flower-boxes :) I'll take some updated pics soon. We even have a few tomatoes, strawberries and peppers peeping out that will be ready to harvest further into the summer. 

Tall Biking in Milan

When I was doing circles in EtaBeta, our car, trying to find my way out of the maze that is downtown I was suddenly shocked to se a man's head looking over the tops of the roofs of cars in oncoming traffic! It turned out he was riding a "Tall Bike" similar to the one I found a photo of below except a bit taller. 

I admit, I was rubber-necking to see how he managed to bike so high especially given the uneven cobblestone streets and the tramtrack lanes... from an emergency nursing perspective I envisioned disaster if he got his wheel stuck. 

And how do they stop at red lights without falling over? 

Falling in Love With Z's Mountains

Yahoo!!! My longest visit to the Dolomites! We spent 4 ½ lovely (even if partially rainy) days in the Trentino-Alto Adige area of the Dolomites a few weeks ago. Being in the mountains is so liberating. This is our special place in the mountains because it's where Zeno always came as a kid.

Here are a few pictures from our time of relaxing, hiking (including an 8-hour hike), via Ferrata (no pics! I was too busy climbing!), and white water rafting. We went biking into a beautiful valley one day as well, unfortunately my bike rental seat gave me an awful time which took a bit of the joy out of that journey… note to self for next time... However, once we’d biked to the top of the valley we had a lovely nap in the cool grass. It’s just too much to tell, so I’ll let the pics do their own talking:

Next time you might be here seeing it with us in person :)