My indoor garden is growing furiously!

The zucchini and parsley are doing particularly well.

I planted two types of tomatoes, hot peppers and chives a couple weeks after the zucchini, parsley, basil, & lettuce. The tomatoes are growing already, but the others haven’t popped out of the ground yet. Eventually I’ll transplant them into the garden at our new apartment, but it’s still too cold outside. I also procured a raspberry bush and a rose plant that’s yellow with pink edges. I’m trying to decide what to do to hide an ugly fence that borders one part of the garden. I’m thinking of planting either bushy flowers (like hydrangeas), a wall of sunflowers that will grow nice and tall, some sort of pretty grass, or a couple of grape vines that I could attach directly to the fence. I’m going to put in some strawberry plants too. Yumm! I can’t wait for summer!

Signing in from Operation Missing In Action. It’s SO beautiful here today. The sun is shining and the sky is clear– you can see the snow on the Alps!

Have you all read or seen the movies Anne of Green Gables ? (oh god how I miss them!!) Well, the story is set in the early 1900s and is about an orphan girl who goes to live with a new family and finds only one really good friend–a kindred spirit if you will.

Anyways, there’s a part in the film where Anne and her only friend Diana have the opportunity to take special lessons after school that will prepare them for University. Anne (a bookworm with a real craving for knowledge) decides to take the classes. Diana’s mother, however decides that Diana’ should spend her time at home learning how to maintain a household.

When Anne discovers that her bosom friend won’t be continuing her education, she says something along the lines of “OH, Diana, I feel as though you’ve tasted the bitterness of death,” with such depth of feeling that you want to weep for poor Diana who will never discover the wonders of the scholarly world–doomed as she is to stay at home cleaning and ironing for the rest of her life.

Anyways, I feel a little like Diana today as I wax floors for the first time in my life. Keeping this place clean is a never-ending chore! At least I haven’t completely renounced the educational part of my life. Last week I got extremely fed up with not being able to read (hellow, why don’t they have libraries filled with books written in English in Italy?!). I’ve read every book I brought with me at least three times, I go through my same 20 magazines everyday and have memorized not only the recipes but also all of Dr. Phil’s helpful advice. I was at the end of my rope, so I decided to buy some romance novels in Italian.

Oh Nelly! They are STEAMY. I must say that my new endeavor into the Italian literary world has jump-started my language skills quite a bit. I’ve always been a strong proponent of reading, but hesitated to start reading in Italian because I figured it would be ridiculously tedious, having never properly studied Italian grammar. I’ve discovered however, that since I speak pretty fluently, reading isn’t that hard! Yay!

I mean, don’t get me wrong here folks, I definitely don’t open a book without my trusty English/Italian dictionary open and ready to go. And yes, I am pretty slow, but at least reading is enjoyable. I’m learning too! Okay, so maybe the content isn’t optimal, but I figure once I’m familiar with the basic writing styles, I’ll be able to graduate to books with more substantial content.

And you might not think so, but the words I come across in cheezy romances are surprisingly useful in everday life.

The other day I came across the word scopare, which I always thought meant “to sweep” (as in to sweep the floor with a broom). However, I found it odd that the couple in my romance novel would decide to take a break from their romantic schenanigans to sweep the floor, so I looked up “scopare” in the dictionary.

Well, it turns out that scopare does mean “to sweep”, but it is also a vulgar way to say “have sex.”

Surprise!

So, in conversation now, I’ve taken to using the phrase pulire per pavimento (clean the floor) instead of scopare so that there are no misunderstandings…

I’ve learned several other bits of useful information as well. For example, you needen’t translate dormire fra due guanciali literally. It’s actually a saying refers to something being “soft as velvet” and has nothing to do with the literal translation which is “to sleep between two (aged) pig cheeks that have been heavily seasoned with salt and pepper.” I’m sure that someday these little tidbits of information will come in handy.

In any case, waxing floors is quite the lavorone (pron. LAAH-VORE-OWN-AY; big job). We have two different types of flooring here at the agriturismo, one is parquet and one is a special type of marble that is crushed in little pieces and then pressed into the floor. First you have to vacuum, then mop, then apply the wax, then lucidate it, then buff!! Ai yie yie! Speaking of which, I better get back to the grind. Hope you’re all doing well!

Well, I’m officially 25 years old as of the ninth. This is the first birthday I’ve celebrated in a foreign country. Kind of a quiet year since I celebrated Christmas and New Year in a big way. I unpacked from our almost month-long vacation, mopped the floor and had dinner at a restaunt whose name translates to “Three Wheels” in English with Luca and his parents.