Signing the Book Contract!

   As of five minutes ago, Our Sunday Visitor and I are under contract for my manuscript, A New Kind of Motherhood: For the 21st Century Woman Discerning an Extraordinary Vocation." 
   The book is for young women who want to do something great with their lives and wonder whether  motherhood may detract from their success. The book makes a case for motherhood in the life of the 21st century woman.
    Our Sunday Visitor has been wonderful to work with, and I cannot say enough about Mary Beth Baker, their Senior Acquisitions Editor. What a blessing!
   Jacob is photographing me signing the document, with Sebastian in my lap and Clare by my side celebrating. Wahoo!
    Jake said, "Mom, I'm so happy for you. I remember your first few manuscripts side by side in binders on a shelve in our old house on Lane Street. You've been writing on motherhood for most of my life. I am really happy for you!"

Home Life In Italy

   I marvel daily what it takes to run a home--a home with an Italian twist. It's the first time I've had to focus so much on running a house, and thank goodness, I have the time to devote to it. When my kids were little, I taught part-time. Then I stopped teaching at the university and began homeschooling. It is a very special kind of work. Although I was home all the time, and still cooked and cleaned, my primary duties were educational and my mind was on executing lessons and overseeing schoolwork all day long. Then I went back to teaching at the university. And then went back to homeschooling once again.
    Now here I am at 47 years old, and for the first time in my life, all my 6 kids are all in school. I do not have a work visa here in Italy, and so teaching is not a possibility right now. Homeschooling is illegal in Italy, so that is not an option either. It is amazing to me that after I drop the kids off in the mornings, I have their entire school day, until 1:30 pm. alone.
    First, I go grocery shopping. Because our kitchenette has no storage and is the size of a postage stamp, I go every day and get fresh food just for that day. I work all morning toward the 2 pm lunch that is the biggest meal of the day when all the kids come home. I put away groceries, clean breakfast dishes, and put on laundry. Then I scrub and chop vegetables, brown meat, and start a pasta sauce. Each lunch usually consists of a pasta with a homemade sauce, then a meat and a vegetable and fresh bread from the bakery. Or else it is a big stew like chicken cacciatore, coq au vin, beef and vegetable stew, or tuscan white bean soup. I also make one or two vegetables each day, like huge platters of roasted cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, artichokes or zucchini. These meals take between one and two hours to prepare, just because the kitchen is so small that you can only do one thing at a time, there is such little counter space, and you have to clean everything as you go. It's like making quasi-gourmet meals on a sailboat, motorhome or campground site.
      Then, I have to vacuum and mop the floors every day, because Charlie, our 100 lb. Golden Labrador, frolics in the vineyard all day and tracks in dirt and mud. If you measured how much dirt he brings in on a given day, it would probably be at least a cup full. It hides in his paws and fur. Plus he sheds. So, on a good day, we leave him out all day, and then bathe him when he comes in for the evening. But many days, he sneaks in and out with people entering or exiting, and then we do not get to his bath in the evening. So we live with a constant layer of soot, just good, clean dirt, coating our floors. I fight a losing battle every day cleaning them.
      Then I rotate the laundry and try to get three loads in. The washing machine is tiny, and the shortest cycle takes 1 hour and 4 minutes. Then the dryer, equally as tiny, takes 2 hours and 17 minutes. So I run the first load and then put it in the dryer. Then I run a second load that will get air-dried, and then run a third load that will get put in the dryer after the first load. All that takes 4 hours and 34 minutes. That is almost exactly the amount of time I have from the time I get home from the grocery store to the time I have to go pick up Sebastian and Annie.
    All that takes until about 11 am. While the food continues to cook and the laundry to run, I then have about 2 hours to myself. I exercise, check emails, run errands. Last semester, I had enough time in there to write a 40,000 page manuscript.
     This semester, what will I do with my free time? In addition to working with the press on revisions, I want to write the Metaphysics of Motherhood, essays on this topic that has interested me for 10 years. I also want to write a book, For Mothers Who Fail, because so many mothers struggle with failing at their job and the Christian message, I think, has a strong message of consolation and seeing the situation with a different lens. I want to take some classes in theology at the Angelicum so that I can eventually write a theology of motherhood. I also have to study for the Italian driver's license, the patente, which is a monster and so should be very time consuming. It seems like a lot to cram into hours a day. But I've never had so much time to follow my interests in my entire adult life. What a pleasure it is to be a one-of-a-kind philosopher-writer-blogger-ministry founder-housewife in Italy.
 

Guardian Angels in the Bathroom

   Sebastian is having typical 5-year-old nightmares. All of our kids went through this phase. Well, one of his nightmares was that our master bathroom was the throat of a monster and if you enter the bathroom, you'll get swallowed up. So he has refused to go in the bathroom alone for 2 months. We have discussed, explained, cajoled, insisted, yelled, begged, and commanded. To no avail. One of us always winds up standing guard at the bathroom door. Sebastian checks to make sure you are there, but then asks you "not to look." Obviously! Why would I look? Very complicated, micro-manager he is.
   The other day, Sebastian had stayed up too late the night before and woke up exhausted. I said, "I will let you stay home from school, on one condition: If I put up a picture of a guardian angel in the bathroom, you go to the bathroom by yourself."
    "Deal."
    So we searched online and found great pictures and I printed them out on our very poorly-functioning Italian printer. Even with new cartridges it is pitiful. Anyway, I printed out a discolored and striped reproduction of the first guardian angel picture. Sebastian took it into the bathroom and taped it up. "Another one!" he shouted. I obliged him. Then another. Then another. Soon, from the waist down, the wall was covered with photos of Jesus and guardian angels. Sebastian immediately went to the bathroom by himself. I told him if he asks me to go in there next time, I will take away all the photos. So now he won't let me near the bathroom when he is in there.
    Poor Ron when he came home from work and saw the bathroom. "What happened!?!?!?!" He assures me that going to the bathroom will never be the same for him again.

The Alps

  Words cannot describe how much we enjoyed meeting Mom, Dad, Leah and Hunter (and Malcolm!) in Davos Switzerland.
    It was really fun spending time with Leah who had us laughing the whole time, and Hunter is doing incredibly well. It was great to hear about his work and life. Dad and Mom are doing so well with their Safe Conversations and Relationships first endeavors, and we are so happy and proud of them.
   The sub-plot, however, was skiing. While many of us are skiers, we are US intermediate skiers. We heard that the Alps are much steeper and harder. So, on the first day, Jacob and I decided to do a reconnaissance trip on the slopes. As we ascended the gondola, I prayed for a complete cleaning of my soul from all stain of sin, performing as close as I could to Last Rites on myself.

The mountain was incredibly steep and we struggled to find beginner slopes. But we jumped right into our most experienced skiing skills, and braved the "pistes" for two hours until we came upon a beginner slope. We knew we could bring family members there the next day and they would be safe. We celebrated a job well done, and the fact that we were still alive, with weissbier and weinerbrats in a chalet lodge on the slopes.

Meanwhile, the girls enjoyed the spa at the hotel! Smart women!

The next day, Leah and Mary conquered the mountain with Jacob and me, while Ron got the others instructors and ski school. The deal Ron and I made with them was that a legit instructor had to say, "Yes, this person is ready to go up the mountain." And so they worked toward that goal all week.

And by the end of the week, Clare and Leigh and even Annie were on that mountain!

Meanwhile, we had wonderful dinners and fun conversation with all the family in the hotel. Aunt Leah took lots of the kids ice skating and we had a wonderful dress up time getting ready for a New Year's Eve party. (Look at those eyelids!)

Leah wore a dress that was Granny Ruth's--it must be 50 or 60 years old and is more gorgeous than ever. . . on Leah! What a beauty! 

    It was great to be with so many of our family. There were so many joys and we are so grateful! Thanks to Mom, Dad, Leah and Hunter for the trip and for coming all the way over here to meet up with us! What a privilege and blessing! Love you guys! 

Highschool Mania

   The high school situation here continues to boggle my mind. While it is true that we are incredibly fortunate to be at this particular school with a warm and loving community, it is still daily mayhem for our kids.
    One of my high schoolers hardly ever knows when her tests are. Last week she studied for four hours for an Italian grammar test that she was not actually slated to take. This is a normal occurrence for most of the kids.
   Another one had an oral interrogation scheduled on a day that was loaded with other assignments and test. So she approached the teacher to double check that she had to do the interrogation. The teacher had completely forgotten, and they decided to reschedule it. My daughter said to me, "I would have studied for hours tonight on a presentation I did not even have to give!"
    Yet another one says he always gets a 6.5 (out of 10) from a particular teacher. "When I study like crazy and try to break a 7, or even an 8, I still get a 6.5. But on the other hand, when I deserved a 5, I get a 6.5." This teacher has just pegged him for a 6.5 and that's that. But it's passing, so no one's complaining.
   One great thing is that they are turning the corner with the language. One of them spent the night at a friend's house and said she understood and participated in the family's dinner table conversation. Another one said he no longer Google translates his text books but just reads them and prepared for oral interrogations all in Italian. That is just incredible. Quasi-fluent in 6 months!

January in Italy

  One year ago, Papa Ronnie and Jane came to our house in Texas and watched our six kids while Ron and I flew to Italy to find a place to live and schools for our children for our upcoming move. Exactly one year later, it is almost impossible to comprehend how much has changed: the sweetest nuns in the world have moved into our house in Dallas and turned it into a convent; our family is settled in our farmhouse on a vineyard in Frascati; our 4 older children are passing most of their classes and performing in the upcoming talent show at their school; Annie is doing great in her school and has a boyfriend, Tiziano; Sebastian plays with the kids in kindergarten and his best friend is named Paolo; Jacob just played his first game with the Frascati soccer team even though his documents had not all come in. . . the coach was tired of waiting and so called him up to play; we are getting our car situation in order and will soon be driving our own cars here instead of campus cars; I have a book contract I am working on with Our Sunday Visitor. How grateful I am for this astonishing season of life that is replete with so many blessings!