jbulie’s blog | an online journal

Vision boarding.

I believe

that half the task of getting a job done is making the first movement. Do you know what I mean?

Say for example, you need to clean the house. You look around and think,

I don’t know where to start.

The way I do it that works for me that I have repeated to my poor children so many times is I go left to right.

I’m weird like that but it seems to work. I have a total system that I repeat almost daily and it’s left to right room to room, first the kitchen, then the living room and on and on. In my mind’s eye each room has been given a number so there you are. I think each day I have about ten areas to clean.

Do the dishes, she said.

So I do. I do. I don’t mind for the most part.

Simple Sweet Thoughts.

I’d like to share one of the biggest differences I’ve found about living in Italy that I really love and that is the habit of eating together around the table as a family.

I think I took it for granted when living in America that food was inexpensive to eat out at restaurants. In fact, when I lived in my Santa Monica apartment, I remember quite well that my fridge contained no more than four items, that included Italian non oil dressing.

How funny now that I think about it.

Here in Italy, believe it or not, there aren’t any salad dressings in containers, or spice packets for that matter. There goes one supermarket aisle.

Like I was saying living in LA, I ate out nearly 90 percent of my time. I had breakfast at work, lunch across the street from work, took half home, or met a friend for dinner out.

Now nearly 90 percent of my meals are around the table at my house with my family. This means going to the grocery store often.

Tea? Yes, please.

I’m not sure if it has to do with the fact that when I lived in LA I was single and now I have a family. I am not sure if my question is location oriented or a question of family.

What I am trying to say is that I quite like having meals sitting down at my house with my family cleaning or not.

The first time.

I remember quite clearly the first time I was invited to one of these meals. I was studying abroad through my University’s international program in Florence when I was just a kid.  By the way, hats off to California State University International Programs for their great organization. What a fantastic program, every little detail was organized from housing, to food, to holidays, to academics.

Making a house a home.

In particular, shout out to Jane, our school’s secretary. Hi Jane!

It was during this year abroad that our group met some local kids who were actually hard to meet given to the influx of foreigners coming and going every year. I met one amazing family. I can’t even remember the circumstances, but I became friends with two girls and we’d just hang out together after school.

Silvia, who in my humble opinion, continues to be an angel, invited me over for lunch. I didn’t expect such a beautiful scene. I can see it clearly actually. The big table, the big window, the smiling mom, the sister, the dad, the dog. The mom. Loved the mom.

And the cheese! All you want. They did this every day. The abundance of delicious food continued to fill the table and the conversation flowed as it should with a family. The dad is a doctor, funny man, keeps everyone laughing. The girls as most siblings do, either loved our fought. They had good fun teaching me the difficult verb to miss. It’s the exact opposite of my beloved English.

It translates as you are missing to me. So if you miss say, your brother, you have to translate it as my brother is missing to me.

It’s confusing but we all had a good laugh, good food and lovely conversation.

Did I grow from the situation?

Have some green tea with me today?

Apparently yes. I’ll tell you why. When I was just a kid growing up in LA and we all helped ourselves to what we wanted from the fridge, I can only remember one time actually sitting around the table as a family.

I have a picture and I stare at it for hours trying to believe it is true that we actually all sat together. There is a cake, so apparently, it was someone’s birthday. Perhaps mine.

I am not saying this to put down my parents. In fact, I think they did a great job raising me. I think they did the best they could with the knowledge and understanding they had. I respect them for this. In fact, I even think society in US as far as meals go, continues to be rather individual.

I don’t want to start a discussion on food since it’s been such a huge debate for me while living here, often having to respond to the question of America’s weight problems. I’m trying to focus on the idea of building a society on sharing a meal with your family.

Beautiful Home.

It’s hard work. It’s much harder actually to go to the market, buy the food, unload it, learn to cook it, prepare a table, with a table cloth that has to be washed dried and put away daily. It is. Do I sound like I’m complaining?

It’s difficult? Do you think so? Is it worth it? What do you think?

As always I hope this post finds you lovely, lucky and in love.

Julie