Category Archives: holidays

Hello my peeps – Thanks for visiting and being inspirational.

Posted on December 26, 2009 | 5 Comments

Protect from sun, snow and rain.

I started blogging two months ago and my visitor hits are over 1,100 now. What is going on? I love it. Blogging has taken over my life. I think it has to do with the novelty aspect of it. It’s just a strange and wonderful idea called a blog. I know some people have been blogging for at least five years. To me it is all new and fun.

I’ve got this incredible fear of failing so I keep reading and reading what makes successful blogs. I don’t want people to laugh at me. I have my family and my students to do that. Now I will have the whole world laughing at me.

One of my great readers brought up a funny story about traveling that got me thinking about when I first moved to Italy nearly 15 years ago. I was struggling over the language and we came up with some doozies. In particular I remember asking for preservatives for my toast and mistaking the Italian word for condoms.

Show us your what?

I remember a friend of mine having her picture taken by Italians and she thought they had said show us your teets rather than teeth. These are all rather embarrassing moments but still funny to look back on. There was the case of an language learner who in class accidently said floppy dicks instead of floppy discs.The list can go on and on. As a teacher you try not to laugh visibly.

The longer I’ve been here though the rarer those misunderstandings happen. It is still fun though when mistakes are made. That’s one of the reasons I love traveling.

Italy these days is lovely. Truly beautiful. I have a friend of mine from high school who is a reader here too who unfortunately had kidney failure and is immobile. If you noticed on my last post about 36 Ways to be a Better Person I wrote to spin in your minds. That was for my friend Kelli because I was thinking of her when I wrote it. Not everyone can stand up and spin. One day she and I were joking around on a facebook conversation saying we were going to take the other around with us the next day shopping.

You inspire me.

We live miles and miles away so going shopping is out of the question but in our minds everything is possible. It’s like having a coffee with my mom on skype. Skype is like a telephone on the computer where you can see the person you are talking to and it’s free. The world is changing drastically and quickly all do to this crazy thing called internet.

Today I’m using Kelli’s story for inspiration to write. I’d like to write to her what it’s like to live in Italy during the holiday times and just like you might imagine it is truly beautiful. Each and every little city that I’ve visited seems to be more beautiful than the last. Italians seem to have a social habit of visiting cities with their families on their days off work.

Smile. You're beautiful.

You can often see a family strolling through the city center on the weekends to get an ice cream. You can also see a lot of people walking up or down the walkways shopping outside. The city I live is Bologna. It is famous for it’s porticoed sidewalks. I fell in love with these covered sidewalks for many a reason. I should be offering some historical facts about their length and construction but suffice it to say they are beautiful.

The reason I love these porticoes – or covered sidewalks – is because you can walk the entire city without an umbrella if it is raining. These porticoes protect you from the rain when it’s raining, the snow when it’s snowing and the hot sun when it’s burning.

In Italy these days you can see beautiful lights strung over the main streets. Around dusk they are turned on. I love the lights. Sometimes there can be so many people walking up and down the main street the taxis and buses can’t get through. People are well dressed from head to toe with hats, jackets, scarves, gloves and boots. And usually a smile. Sometimes. Not all the time. Actually. I think Americans are more famous for their friendly smiles. I don’t want to generalize here though folks.

Just smile.

Be the change you want to see.

Thank you for visiting with me in here Italy during these days. Hope your days are lovely where ever you are.

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Posted in holidays, Inspiration, Italy, journal, motivation

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All I want for Christmas is you, baby.

Posted on December 25, 2009 | 3 Comments

I’ve had a lot of visitors from round the world lately as my visitors are about 80 percent from USA. A special HELLO and welcome to India, Japan, Cambodia, Philippines, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, UK, Uguanda and Turkey.

Wishing you all the best this holiday season and all year long. Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all the best this holiday season and all year long. Merry Christmas! Jules

Hey guys. Don’t you just love classic Christmas songs? I do. I love Christmas songs.

My favorites include I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, We Wish you a Merry Christmas and The Little Drummer Boy.

In Italy, I have taught all of them the repetitions for Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, so they are all repeating, Reindeer, Like Monopoly, etc.

My all time favorite is Silver Bells.

Now that is the happy camper Christmas spirit I was hoping for. I have a better attitude. How about you? Are you still managing? The countdown to the big day has begun. I have bought WAY too many gifts. I feel like someone who has eaten too much.

I don’t know how your relationship is with buying and shopping as some people just love it. I have to FORCE myself to buy things because I’m so darn indecisive. Then I get home and wonder if I made the right choices. I think it is because I’m a libra. I balance all decisions.

Love you sweety!

Love you sweety!

Maybe that is why my last status update on facebook is that I’m freaking out. I wrapped all of my presents again under a pressure I put on myself to get it done EARLY. I felt like I was Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy in the episode where she eats all of the chocolates. They just kept coming and coming.

I told myself just keep going until you can. I eventually ran out of wrapping paper and in fact am running out to get more the minute I hit the publish button staring at me to the right of this window. I had to laugh because I didn’t take the time to READ the wrapping paper I had bought and one roll says Happy Birthday on it.

Any hints on how to handle the stress out there? I wanted to write a post called the 12 Days of Christmas Gratitude or something where I offer advice on dealing with these stressful days but unfortunately I haven’t got the answers.

Let me know if you happen to.

Nonetheless, I hope this post finds you happy, lovely, smiling, lucky and in love.

God Bless,
Julie

Oh yes. I also like Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow.

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Posted in happiness, holidays, Italy

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Swim AWAY from the Cake – updated motivational technique.

Posted on December 23, 2009 | 7 Comments

I am putting every ounce of myself to becoming a better blogger, writer and communicator. More importantly is that I am trying to make a positive change in life. Thank for visiting if this is your first time here. Welcome back visitors, feel free to leave comments.

What motivates you?

My best friend Anne Marie kicks my bum in tennis and probably anyone else’s. When we were playing at university we were great partners. We spent our time between matches actually doing cartwheels on the court. We were paired up with a couple of Chinese guys who were so serious about tennis. One day our coach pulls us aside and assigns us new partners. ‘Not the Chinese, Not the Chinese’ we chanted – they’d kill us at tennis. Sure enough, Anne Marie and I found fantastic new partners.

I’m building bridges here.

Stay with me folks. There IS a reason I’m telling you this.

The reason is this. When I am in the class room in front of my students I ask them ‘What motivates you most?’ Is it someone who comes over, puts your hand on your shoulder, smiles, and says good job, or is the person who gets behind you and yells ‘DO IT!’?

When I was on swim team in high school, my sister was my best motivator. She’d follow me back and forth across the lanes and scream ‘Go Julie!’ Her coaching strategy was swim toward the chocolate cake and away from the shark.

Just pretend

Be a kid and pretend you are the best. Walk across the room at this moment as if you have a cape on your back, I don’t care if anyone’s watching – all the better. Our mind will literally follow suit.

When Anne Marie and I were back playing singles tennis, she’d say ‘Julie – You’re going down’ with such conviction, I had no other choice then to let her win. Ha ha ha, Anne Marie, who’s getting the last laugh now?

Point is, get out there, do your best. That’s all we can ask, isn’t it?

Have a nice day and thank you for visiting.

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Posted in family, holidays, Inspiration, journal, motivation, teaching, travel, writing

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I’ve got a feeling that today’s gonna be a good day.

Posted on November 22, 2009 | 4 Comments

It’s Sunday and I’m sitting at home with my family. i couldn’t be happier. The anticipation of Christmas is in the air. I’ve downloaded a bunch of songs that I love for Christmas and it makes the mood warm. My husband and children and I have been sitting around the living room table drawing pictures for the last couple of hours. We have the fire on and the cat is in her little round red bed in a dream like state.

I’ve been thinking alot about the upcoming holidays and people who are by themselves. To be honest I’m a bit worried. I think about what it means to be alone during the holiday times and how important it is to have your family around you. My two boys were playing with their dad on the couch and I was beaming with joy thinking how it is the simple things in life that give us the greatest pleasure.

I have a habit on the computer of checking two sites. The first is facebook to see what my friends and family are up to and the second is this site. I put the word ‘blog’ in the title because otherwise Google wont be able to recognize this. When I check on my blog and see the number of hits steadily rising up from 100 to 330 in the last week, I wonder who is reading this. I have a feature on my computer called stats that tells me how you were referred to me. Mostly my visitors are coming from facebook, from my blogroll and wordpress forum.

Thank you for visiting and welcome to my blog. I’m happy to have you visit. Like I was saying I’m worried about people being alone for the holidays. The main reason I moved to Italy was because it represents the family still united. It is true. In Italy, family values are still high. We eat together as a family. Our social life revolves around visiting other families and just hanging out with them. We have a emphasis on food, wine and conversation. Italians luckily have found a way to consume wine in moderation – for the most part.

Please if you are facing the idea of spending the holidays alone, make active plans to assure you spend the holidays with friends or family. It’s important. Do it.

If you are lucky enough to be surrounded by a loving family, count your blessings, hug your children. One of books I read recently was Leo Buscaglia’s Living Loving and Learning that focused on how important it is to hug. He started a class at UCLA called Love. What a free thinker, I admire him. I can recommend it if you haven’t yet read it.

Last night I went out with my class to the center of the city to the theater to see a play about Italy’s history. It was horrible. I hate to say that but I went with 22 9th graders, about five of their parents and another teacher. The theme was about Garibaldi as Italy is currently celebrating 150 years of unity. It’s hard to define. The two actors read alot about Foscolo, Liberation, Unity, Napolean and the Resurgence in the 1700s.

I’ll set the scene for you: Imagine 22 kids front two rows in a small theater that perhaps holds 200 people in a semi-circle with about eight rows of chairs. The kids were all excited to go out on a Saturday evening with their friends.

To their surprise, two actors actually READ about 40 pages of Italian History. I had a hard time staying awake as it was way past my bedtime. I didn’t mean to but I did laugh when watching my poor students heads bob as they tried to stay awake, poor kids. When the show ended at 11p, there was a huge round of applause. I think it was because they were glad it was over. The kids were so disappointed, they asked for a refund because they had paid to have another history lesson when they have plenty of history at school. Some of you parents might not agree with me but that is my opinion.

That is my news for this week. Thanks so much for visiting and reading. I’m trying to keep the content real and personal. I hope you have enjoyed this. Please feel free to leave a comment and have a great week. Julie

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Posted in happiness, holidays, journal, motivation, relationships, teaching, writing

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