close relationship

we had wonderful painting weather, the house is completely painted, new edges and window frames - now all white and it makes the house so much prettier. we just need now the right buyer, someone just like us... somebody asked if it would suitable for 2 kids. i guess that is a question of time. the family who lived here before the old lady who sold the house to us had 13 children. i guess it was ok for them, they all turned out decent people. so who knows what is suitable for people. an interesting article in the nytimes talked about a couple who vowed never be more than 15 feet apart- that is mmh - i have to check...4.57 meter... that is a close relationship.. i love to be close to my partner, but right now he is gone putting the "for sale signs" up. 3.4 miles away. i miss him.

so if anyone wanna come and have ice-tea; open-house 1-4 sat and sun.

see you then.

house for sale!

die zeit rast, where does the time go. we are sooooo busy with finishing this house in iowa. tomorrow we will get the sign out: "for sale by owner".


seems i got the slides show up!
we were just painting painting... in the morning checking if the temperature is over 10 C and if the rain does not come for at least 4 more hours. rain does wash paint off. in the morning after a night rain the brown covered green gutters appeared again.
more later....

Eckhart Tolle !!!!!

awakening to your life's purpose...

this is our new way of thinking, learning, understanding. we got the books and are reading this so wise, easy instructions. we did not know when we started this, that the whole world is already doing the same: OPRAH has Eckhart on a special show every monday and is talking about his book: a new earth. i am not a tv watcher, we do not even have one, so things like this have to be discovered - and we did......, click on his name Eckhart Tolle and this is the link to the oprah side.

we did get a realtor to look at the house and we decided to try sell it ourself. the money we put in to make it so pretty will just go to him.....
we will have a site to see pictures and the description of this place. i counted the wildlife and trees we have around here and found out we have at least 39 different birds around here. (the neighbors chicken not counted) - we will try to find someone who is a nature lover just like we are.

before & after

wir fangen an zu packen, i am not very good with that, i cannot let things go very well. i still remember when i through my skies in the big garbage container in muenchen, and they stuck out and the neighbor just broke them in half. but i was moving to iowa and iowa is FLAT...there are no mountains - that is what Bruce said and he is a native. i did not need the skier, even there was a little hill with a lift and floodlight at disco-night. i was jealous because i could not go(if i wanted). what is it with just being able to do something, even i would not really want to slope down there. what is it with things i carry with me through 3 moves and i never unwrapped it and used it? we are listening to a wise man on the computer and his thoughts about life/love and the now. i am not in the presence when i am looking at an old magazine / picture etc i am in the past - thinking about the time than, with the pain and joy whatever i connect with this *thing*. to be N O W in this single moment not in what was will be - that is a very easy smart concept to be happy. listen to Eckart Tolle what might change your life, worth the 10 minutes! i will go with this, get myself back from sad thoughts about the losses i felt here in usa and the worries about my future in italia. ich finde vielleicht auch eine deutsche version, der mann ist wirklich sehr gut.

back in snowy iowa

we are back- wir sind wieder in iowa - and snow greeted us when we woke up. that's not a nice welcome after this fantastic start of spring in gualdo. there was snow too - after all it was easter. but just 1 day, so we learned how that feels like. after signing and carrying huge checks around and shake hands we are now the owner of a house in italy. (at the end of the road peeking through the trees) i cannot believe this really. since i lived in muenchen and had all this trips to all kind of beautiful places in italy, i was dreaming of living there. now it fullfilled. we have a place in the most pleasing landscape, just 1 hour from the sea and 1 hour from snowy mountains. but the very best is - we even have some olive trees. we did not know this. they were totally overgrown with vines and thorns and on my birthday i pruned my first olive. the most wonderful present. i love trees and we have a LOT of them - actually the whole 12 acres are somehow woody, in some places is nothing else growing because it is so steep, but with big oaks - and probably the truffels right underneath.
our time in the house was actually a camping vacation. not the kinda temperatur for this, we had 13 degrees C in the kitchen in the morning. the electric water heater flipped the fuse before there was any warmth. so sponge bath - camping. and the water pressure for the radiator was not high enough to get the heater going - camping. i like camping - for a while. but this tells you how much we have to do there. and the previous owner who lived there all his live, seems to be in great shape, so it cannot be too bad, but we did not try the bed-warmer. (i guess you fill the pot with glowing coals, put it in this thing - there are some burned spots , and push it underneath the covers). we had very warm sleeping bags, i said we were camping?
we figured out the little kitchen cooking stove and had some very cozy warm times in the kitchen, with italian wine, cheese, olives and fresh crisp fennel, peppers and more. i feel so blessed to share all this with this wonderful partner and friend Jon. we are so happy to have this opportunity to start a new live in le marche.
you can see they like tiles in italy i did not count how many sizes and colors there were. but we all know since "under the tuscan sun" that is the womens job to get them chipped off. btw we did try the fireplace you can see in the back, the smoke in the room was thick like fog. we will get an insert in it and feed it with all the wood we can have for free. isn't that the most prettiest landscape?

Ahornboden - Maple Floor

our floor project is almost done.....

my sweet husband / Mann / marito ist fast fertig mit dem fussboden verlegen, was fuer eine arbeit; back braking job, but not for my Jon, every 20 cm of the board got a nail hammered in. i did not count how many these were but it took us 3 days or around 18 hours together, just to get the the maple floor down. all the preparation to make the floor sound and straight was much more. he was cutting the sub floor by minus degrees outside - oder bei -18 grad celsius. i just hope that the Gualdo house is not that hard to fix up.







when we were tearing the third layer off, i saved all this newspaper they laid underneath: the date is from 13. july 1952. the advertisement also shows how the thinking in people changes. i was sitting and reading all this wild stories about the socialism is taken over and that the taxes should only be use for defense, the government right now is for sure cutting a lot of social programs and spend a LOT on defense the freedom in irak.

SPRING in GUALDO!

yes, we are spending 2 weeks around easter and my birthday in ITALIA. we have to, for the signing and getting my papers started, may be find an accountant with some german or english knowledge to get things cleared about our farmer status. it seems it will be not that easy to accomplish this. and i have a chance to take several thousand pictures of the house and the surroundings. i am so excited. we will come through munchen, nein, nein, keine zeit fuer den biergarten, and with alitalia down to ancona. renting a tiny car and stay somewhere for a night, signing next day the contract at the notario and than ---- camping in our own house. there is actually a bed in the attic.
i talked with my dear friend Mark and we figured he did something similar when he was in his twenties. restoring a house somewhere in the country and start a simple live with a garden and own grown vegetables.
Jon says that wishes come true, you just have to beleave in it and than let it happen. so here we go, we let the italian dream become reality.