Thirteen days to go...

Another beautiful sunny day here in Southern California.  It's almost nine, there are surfers and joggers, people walking their dogs-- it's hard to believe in another two weeks we'll be leaving for Italy.  

It doesn't help that they have had one of the coldest winters, and it is still snowing!  Not quite what we were expecting when we began to plan for this.  

It's the first day I have had a reasonable excuse to sit down and write something, I have been planning to do so for weeks now, but to actually take the time to do so in another thing.  Currently I am waiting for a carpet cleaner to arrive (he said eight...) to give us an estimate.  And as long as I look out the window instead of looking at the house I can pretend that I really have nothing better to do right now than sit here.

Two weeks sans job has been incredible.  It's hard to really grasp how much time we spend "at work".  Not just the eight hours spent physically there (plus a thirty-one minute lunch!) but the hour in commute, the half hour spent pulling myself together, ten of which are spent finding appropriate shoes, and later, the hour after work spent trying to forget where that whole day went.  So... forty hours spent at work, five hours in transit, three hours spent packing lunches and getting ready for work, and five pretending I don't need to return the following day-- fifty-three hours of my life weekly! Oh well, no time to sit here and dwell.

I think that is the greatest gift my Mum is giving to me.  The chance to have a year to really live, to wake up with the sun, read, learn what I wish to learn, to spend quality time with her, the dogs, myself, and eat of course.  Except for summers when I was young, I have never had that chance to really wake up with nothing to do.

Here is the link to the apartment we will be staying in for the first three months:

http://www.apartmentsflorence.it/articoloT1.asp?ID=ART00097

It is by no means their most beautiful apartment, but it was open, and even with each additional agency fee they tack on, still cheaper than the house we're renting here in Oceanside.

Alright! Back to the packing!