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To All the Parents Whose Children's Holiday Vacations Start Now

To all the parents whose children's holiday vacations start now, I wish you great endurance, patience, and some peace somehow - somewhere - within your holiday vacation. And to all of the single mothers out there doing this alone, I bow down and kiss your feet . . . May you have a strong and loving community to assist you through those moments you are being attacked from all angles and want to pull your hair out and have visions and sweet dreams of strapping your child in a straight jacket with tape across their mouth while you do your hair and paint your nails while talking on the phone to your girlfriends like maybe you used to do the pre-terror ages. Somehow writing this, though albeit not 100% accurate tale, made me feel very warm inside. On a more PC note -- let us truly try and share our love and warm smiles, and find the strength within us to teach our children something more about this holiday season than just receiving gifts and having us parents jump to their every whi...
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Inspired to Be More Italian

There are days when I am inspired to be more Italian. "To try it out" even when there is no one around to witness me sitting alone in the gloom of a winter day, with my two-month-year-old daughter, without having turned on a single light. It’s not dark, but it’s not bright and cheery. In the beginning of December I was quite hopeful that I might even make it through the winter without turning the heat on during the day, but I guess I’m not Italian enough yet or broke enough. We already “only” do the laundry before 8am because the energy cost is half and I can barely stay awake past 7:30pm so after 8pm laundry is a lost option.  We are not broke, let me clarify this. Not at all – these are just logical things to try and do, no matter how affluent you are. Mindful of waste, something I was not raised to be like – something my American culture rarely participates in – and I’m not going to lie, it’s not the easier way. It's not the more joyful way.  I’d rather walk aroun...
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An Annual Recap of Things That Are Just Different Here in Tuscany

Italians don’t “jerry-rig” things, they know how to fix them – and they keep fixing them until they are absolutely unfixable. Not only until then will they throw them out, no matter how many centuries old, or out of fashion they may be. The Italian food police are real, and they are taking inventory of how much you eat and how much water you drink. Italians don’t use paper towels for everything. ESP when it comes to cleaning the house and windows. They use old clothes that couldn’t be fixed or that they couldn’t convince their children to wear anymore. They still use homemade and homeopathic remedies for colds and sicknesses, and the paraphernalia in the medicine cabinet is impressive – and it works. Doctors will advise you with their honest opinion, not with the interests of big pharma behind them. Even in the winter you open the windows of your house daily to let fresh air in – and when it gets cold you deal with it and put on a sweater. You hang your comfort...
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