Bucket List Number 12

                            

So . . . in less than 20 hours, I will be boarding a plane and heading to Rome, Italy, where I will officially be able to cross off number 12 from my bucket list. 

Number 12 reads "Travel to Italy", in case you were wondering. It's right before 13, "Color my hair bright red like Lucille Ball, just once" and right after 11, "Run a 5k". I'm kind of glad I haven't had the nerve to do number 13 yet. I am not sure I'm cut out to be a red head, but the thought always lingers each time a walk down the hair color isle at Target. And while each New Years Resolution has me thinking about number 11,  I'm not quite there yet either.

So I'm glad I am trying number 12 first. 

Yes, Italy it is. 

It's about 12:49 am the night before I leave, and I find myself sitting here typing this post at my kitchen table. I went to bed at 11 pm, but tossed and turned for over an hour . . . then I developed the absolute worse stomach ache I've had in years. So I decided to come downstairs and calm my nerves with a little can of seltzer (my "go-to" beverage in stressful times, remember?) and thought it's high time I let you in in my big plans! Yes, it's time to write a blog post. It's been way too long since I've written anything here. I've been in that 'multi-creatively challenged' place again - working on oodles and oodles of art work for an upcoming craft show and finding myself SO Mixed Media focused that my mind is having a hard time finding space for anything else to form (especially words for my blog). But this evening, I felt like I just couldn't leave the country . . . . (holy cow . . . I am actually leaving the country) without a little stop here. So, here I am.

Italy has been a long time dream of mine. Long before I read Eat, Pray, Love, long before I had my daughters, long before I met and married Phil, and I can venture to say even long before I made art . . . I dreamed of Italy. I remember taking art books out of our local library when I was about 10 or 12 and seeing the amazing work of the Sistine Chapel and thinking, "Someday . . . I'm going to go there". I must have strolled through the galleries of renaissance art at the Art Institute of Chicago at least a thousand times in my life, and studied the brilliant work done by the masters. I've been lost in movies like Big Night and Under the Tuscan Sun, and spent what has felt like a lifetime dreaming of someday visiting this country. 

And tomorrow, my darling husband and I are heading there. Rome (the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum  and Pantheon, the Galleria Borghese and Campo Di Fori, the Trevi Fountain, the piazzas, the wine, the gelato, and oh-dear-Lord, the pasta.) After a few days there, we are heading to the Amalfi coast and Sorrento (Pompeii, limoncello, cooking class and cheese tour). 

Oh, there is more, I am sure. There will be moments and experiences I can't even imagine. And when I return, my friends . . . . I'll tell you all about them, I promise. 

In the meantime, forgive my absence. And know that I think of you often, although for the next week and a half, I'll be thinking of you with a lovely glass of wine in my hand, and the adventure of a lifetime at my feet. 

Wishing you peace and dreams, my friend. 

big ones. 

Xo