Time…

I’m afraid I’ve lost track of time – AGAIN! It’s been a couple of weeks since the last time I posted anything.

I’m down to only about a half dozen boxes now to unpack. Since there’s no charity shops here, I just started giving things away. Since my neighbor, Francesca, has 4 daughters I know all the kitchen stuff I had will be put to good use. I still don’t know what I’m going to do with the clothes I don’t need but I’ll figure that out at some point.

I got one of the bookcases with doors put together and moved all my pantry items into it so the kitchen looks a lot better. As soon as I take down my little Christmas tree I’ll have room for the other bookcase which has half glass doors. That’s where I plan to store my glass cookware and dishes. I have a third bookcase being delivered on Thursday for my actual books! That one will have to go into the 2nd bedroom. It’ll be a little crowded but it’s the best I can do right now. Roberto has offered me to also rent the apartment that adjoins mine on the ground floor. It’s been empty for almost two months and if I don’t take it he’ll have to rent it out soon. It’s quite nice, one bedroom, living room, bathroom, but also has a kitchen with cabinets and a pantry, as well as another washing machine and it’s furnished. It’s really tempting to have the entire ground floor to myself. I could use my spare bedroom strictly as my art studio and still have space next door for visitors and storage. I just can’t decide if I want to nearly double my rent for both places. The other option is to buy the entire house, which Roberto has offered to me. it would give me two apartments upstairs as income, (both are currently occupied) as well as the stables cum storage and the small amount of land surrounding the house. The apartment next door could be an AirBnB. If I eventually decided to move, the entire house would be rental income. I have some big decisions to make soon in the NewYear.

I’m able to walk both dogs off lead now, as soon as we get to the woods. They really love it! They get to chase each other and really stretch their legs with some good excercise. I had no idea how fast Henry can run! It also gives me a bit of a break not having to walk at a trot to keep up with the two of them. They run way far ahead of me, but usually they’ll stop at some point and look back to make sure I’m following. Or, when I can’t see them, they’ll cut through the woods and come tearing past me from behind. So funny and cute.

We haven’t seen the sun here in a couple of weeks. It hasn’t rained, just been cloudy but not too cold. We’re supposed to get sun on Sunday – yay!

I painted bottles for Roberto, Francesca, Francisco and my driver Piero for Christmas . The joy on their faces when they saw their bottles made me so happy!

That’s about it for now. I hope everyone has had a blessed Christmas and is looking forward to a fabulous New Year!