Getting ready, getting set...

Bought two bags of catfood for our wonderful neighbor yesterday so she can feed Mr. Jimminy Whiskers in our absence. Then descended upon both front and back stairs this morning with assorted scraping tools, prepped, painted, and unwittingly burnt my backside in the 85-degree sun. Still have a lot of packing to do before we leave in a week and Gio and I are trying to make the most of each day senza bambini by attacking our respective to-do lists with gusto. Giulia and Giorgio are no doubt getting more TV and lollipops at Nonni's in two days than they get in a month, but that's the price we've chosen to pay for the luxury of being able to clean unmolested. Plus, we're cashing in our caretaking chips now while we still can. We check in every morning to see if Nonna & Nonno have grown weary serving as our children's footmen -- so far so good I'm told.

This is my first ever blog post so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to keep friends, family, and perhaps even the "Shouts and Murmurs" editor at the New Yorker entertained over the course of the next year while our family relocates to la citta eterna and basks in the addictive blend of beauty and chaos that is Rome.