3rd time the charm??

You've got to be F'n kidding me! Thats All Ive got to say today!
( yes thats my front windshield cracked AGAIN!)

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tranquilla!!!

The interesting thing about sharing your opinions either on paper, internet or even spoken is you never know what will happen shortly after voicing them.

Yesterday was quite surprising...I was contacted from the close friend that I had been grieving for some time now...which is really usual that he actually contacted me after so many years ...only a few days after writing this blog, mentioning him...if I didn't know better Id say he might have found my blog but none the less I do think it is only a coincidence..well if those actually exist... that's another blog/rant/overly opinionated topic!

Anyway...it was a sad message as he reminded me of his illness which completely broke my heart knowing that his life is full of pain and reduced to getting as much rest as possible during his free times. But just as equally painful knowing that reading between the lines of his words...
-I don't have the energy for people outside of my immediate family-

it was finally a closed door since he hasn't the time to reach out to others. How could I not respect that, as I have no idea what it feels like to be in constant pain and so tired that I cant even find the time to communicate with others. But I would be a full liar if I didn't admit I was still hurt and angry that he was unable to do more, even just for our relationship. Because to me he was the brother I never had..or was that is... But deep down there is a glimps of hope that the relationship will be restored..Ill just keep praying for it..and for healing on his part...

Whilst I was taking a moment to mull over my feelings the front door phone buzzer went ding..but for only a second...of course it was my (not so friendly) postman. Well I cant say he is unfriendly... I've never met the man, ummmm I hope its a man under that helmet..otherwise a woman with teeny boobs..meh could be!

Anyway every time he has an important package or letter that cant fit into my postbox he just rings the gate phone and then sits the letter on top of the gate.. Doesn't even bother to get off his motorbike and actually throw the letter over the gate. I wouldn't even mind if he did that as at least its in my property, less likely for it to be knicked by someone walking by. My house sits on a somewhat busy road...for pedestrians that is. My road leads from the main road into the village ..and sort of is a short cut if you want to by pass walking through the centre to get to the otherside of the village..I know it doesn't make sense but just know that many people walk/bike past my house. I love it as I get to people watch whilst hanging out my window with a glass of wine in one hand (love the looks I get) but hey its my Italian dream not theirs!!

Anyway FOCUS JESS....okay so back to the postman..he always leaves my large letters on the gate ...not to mention he only rings the buzzer for about 2 seconds..obviously to say... oh hey I'm leaving something on your gate..then he just drives off..so I wonder what would he do if I wasn't home? I've never actually had something to arrive whilst I wasn't home..or maybe I have and it was knicked....one could never know.
Thankfully this letter wasn't taken..even though on the front of the package it said (important official documents) umm yeah..

I was never so happy to receive a piece of paper with a stamp on the back of it! hahaa



That stamp is an Apostle stamp. This is only part 3 of the drama I have had to go through just to declare residency in Italia. Gareth of course got it 10 mins after applying as he has a job..and even thought he makes 5 times more than the average person in Italy for whatever reason I am only allowed to get my own residency if I have a job too..how stupid..and so I asked what about Olivia..oh well since I am her mother she falls under my name. No job ...no residency for her. I really wanted to shove the papers up someone's rear ..but of course being Chrsit-like and all that I was nice and polite.

Besides I made the choice to live here knowing the beauracacy was a pain..so cant really complain too much. Now since I do not work (however I did debate with the lady that, in which she agreed, that a casalinga is a full time job in Italia..since they insist on sparkling clean houses ..with mopping the patio pavement and all..(again that's another over opinionated topic) Not saying that I actually clean my own house or the pavements for that matter..but she didnt need to know that...
Even still didn't get any residency papers from the conversation...only a few chuckles.

So my next step is to prove that I am a dependant of the 'money maker' in the house...and how does a new resident do that..well first you must translate your marriage certificate and birth certificate for any children that you have...and then you must get the country that the documents are issued to say that these documents are true ..which is proven by a judge giving the apostile stamp (at a hefty price of course)
And wouldn't you know it..just only last year the Australian AND British Consulates stopped doing this. So all documents must be sent special courier to that country and then given the stamp and then sent back.
Oh and of course the Stewarts couldn't find their original marriage certificate ...which of course this stamp can only be put on the original. So we had to first ask Gareth's mum to apply for a new marriage certificate first.
NOWWWWW FINALAMENTE.....3 weeks later..we have both documents in hand....

So off I go today trotting along to the commune, happy to finally get my residency..sit down..speak nice words with my dear friend at desk number 4 as usual...we really should be mates by now...however my smile turned upside down when she said..
oh your translation of the documents must be legal translations ..not just normal translation...I promise you she almost got a slap in the face...I know I know ...tranquilla!!!

Well the journey for residency continues..who knows if Livvy and I are actually in the country legally at the moment..probably not as all EU citizens are allowed to stay here but you must declare residency after 3 months of relocating.
We did leave for 10 days so....meh
Tomorrow I now need to go see a judge (and pay him €37 of course) just to swear to him that these translations are true to my knowledge.....then we will return to the commune...



...to be continued!

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lets try this again....

The thing about blogging is you never know what sort of response you will receive from readers or if you will even gain people interested enough to continue reading. So where have I been? Ive actually been blogging but have since stop publishing them for several reasons.


1. If there is a non-significant amount of people interested in reading what’s going on then why share the details and intimacy of your daily life online? I have no idea who actually takes the time to read…as there are no comments or replies and this site doesn’t really give me an idea of how many people read it…so my assumption would be only 3 or so persons…meh

2. Sometimes it can be quite difficult to be respectful of others feelings as well as be open and opinionated in your own private space. If anyone knows me at all…you will know that Im as blunt as it gets however I do have a general respect to those around me. I make every effort to refrain from stereotyping and generalising but sometimes you miss the mark and say something that hurt others. Or sometimes you forget to recognise someone when thanking others …or sometimes you mention your despise for something that involves someone close to you...and then the shit latterly hits the fan and you never hear the end of it. I hate that feeling of hurting others when I’ve actually tried my best to be sympathetic. But reality is that a lot of people are insecure, a lot of people are hurting and broken and defiantly there are a lot of people in this world that are judgmental. So in the end you can’t please everyone.

Why did it take me 3 months to come to the conclusion that I really just don’t care??

Who knows, but I’ve come to the decision to start publishing my blogs again...(Thanks to a few messages from friends who basically slapped me around email style to say they would like to know what’s going on with me) So in that case –you know who you are- if only for those who want to know…here we go again…..
To save you from back reading and trying to catch up…here is what I’ve been up to in 10 simple points..

(jess’ catch up guide for the last 4 months)

1.I love my house.
Yes you heard me correct..I never thought I would have a 5 bedroom house and a large garden to myself..and believe it or not I am growing veggies and fruits, oh no watch out! Let’s hope I don’t kill everything before they produce fruit. The soil here in Italy is very different and obviously I have no idea what Im doing...thanks be to dear neighbour Vando who reminds me over and over that Im doing this wrong and that wrong..siggghhh…Ill get it right one day!




2.Livvy’s school rejection…
So finally we signed Livvy up for school as Preschool starts here at 3 years old. Although we have to pay at this age we really don’t mind the few hundred a month that it cost to interact Livvy with some other children her age. It took us ages to choose a school….private or public? Mandatory catholic service or opt out? So many choices. After having a long think we decided on the local school just 10 min walk from home. I figured that if we didn’t like it can put her in another school next year. We opted to keep her in the catholic studies at this age even though we do not want her praying or worshiping anything other than God. But the school was kind enough to let me in on what they did for the pre-schoolers regarding their religious studies and it was all very basic generic things that were in line with our Protestant believes. So after a long hard translation of the forms ect. We signed her up. I was very happy to get the call 2 months later to invite me to our first parent/teacher meeting with other parents…ummmm they neglected to mention that this was a special meeting for all the kids that were left out of the school roster...hahaha imagine my face when I finally got that bit of translation.. rimasta fuori....I will never forget this translation now..
The good thing is that she wasn’t left out for some of the reason as the other students…and let me tell you, it was pure gossip as they announced it to the entire group whilst your child had been left out of school…

-signora so and so…your child has been kicked out because you lied about the father of the child and since the man who is the legal resident in your house is not the father of the child then then you need to get official residency for the child first…ouch.

-signore such and such…your child is left out because: no we will not give you only two days of classes so that you can take the other 3 days to send him to isreali school in Mantova. Either he stays here for 5 days our you are out…ouch…(that family was not happy and even though I don’t know their native tongue I'm pretty sure the F bomb and other naughty words were incorporated as they yelled at the headmaster whilst walking out)

It really was entertaining…but sad when they finally got to Oliva’s name and mentioned that she had been left out because of her age (she is 3 in December and school starts in September). So since she was 2 months too young they gave her spot to someone who is already 3. I actually think that is a fair reason to be kicked out of her spot. There really is no rush to push a small child into the school environment and really the only reason was to integrate her with other children. But if the display from parents who were left out are anything like the kids who actually attend the school…I think Ill pass.




3.Pregnancy scare
Yes pregnancy scare...and if you know anything about me...it was truly a scare as we definantly do not want any more children….so waiting 2 weeks with no show of any signs we were a bit worried...not to mention how high risk my pregnancies are. ..was not looking forward to that...but in the end ...my dear old friend came to see me ..Better late than never!



4.We are completely broke…
Well to us its completely broke, maybe not to others, but when you are used to having a certain amount of money all the time, you sort of get use to having what you want when you want it...and now we have to think about what we do and how we do it. No more trotting off twice a year on a cruise or holidays around the world…however we did go to Australia in February, but we have reduced our oversees holidays to only once a year…Living in Italy is like one big holiday and we intend to make the most of it. I’d like to see so many things and whenever we have the free time we are usually taking a long drive to discover our surroundings within a 3 hours drive away…after the summer we are thinking of a longer drive down south…Puglia, Calabria...who knows..skies the limit! Unfortunantly I don’t think we will be on our next cruise until next year




5.Italy hates our car…
So far we have had two busted windows in our car…sigghhh...oh how we love our car…but how can Italy not love her as much as we do? On our return from Sydney and driving back from Milano Airport, a huge rock smashed into our windshield whist on the autostrada..and if that wasn’t enough, about a week ago someone or something…or whatever smashed our side window whist I was parked in front of the library...let’s hope this is the end of our window smashing reign.




6.I lost my grandfather, and two old friends…
It was a very strange two weeks. First I went through the process of grieving the loss of a friend... Well he didn’t pass away but he left his life behind by making the decision to not talk to anyone from his past. Not just myself but including others, but for me it was a very painful reality that our relationship wasn’t important enough to keep. That was a very harsh reality. Then a week later I had the pleasure of my mum visiting me, but sadly two days after her return to American her father died...my dear grandfather. The worst feeling as an only child is the inability to be there for your mother whilst she is hurting. I rustled with the thought of flying to American to be with her but in the end I didn’t. Then. as things begin to come around, only 5 days after that another old friend died. I actually knew her since our school days and we had been through a lot of ups and downs within our relationship. There were times when we weren't speaking to one another due to hatred for each other and other times when we shared our souls between the two of us. So news of her death was unexpectant, quick and difficult to handle during this already delicate season in my life.




7.I’ve taken my hair to a new level…
Curly it is then…for those who know I suffer from a few health issues that left me with pre-cancers tumours and have had 4 removed so far. Also had part of the lining in my uterus removed and in the process lost 85% of my hair, most of my nails fell off as well. But I’ve been well for 2 years now and since then my hair has grown back, for the most part. For 2 years I had special wigs made for me ...which I loved …but now have decided to give them up…and then to cut all the relaxed ends of my hair off and go curly..eeekkk have never done this in my life...so was a huge step for me...but I actually like it...however the rain is no longer my friend…those are the days I wish my hair was relaxed again so that the frizz would not exist...well a girl can’t have it all can she!




8.I stopped working on my novel due to grieving
Since losing two of my friends (who happen to be main characters in my novel) I couldn’t bare to continue writing the story of my past as those feelings were hard to drag out of the dark. I would have never guessed that writing would be so difficult when thinking about all the things that happened so long ago. I would say my biggest issue was the regret from all the stupid and irresponsible things I actually did at such a young age...but that’s the point right…to grow and tell your story to help others. Well let’s just hope I can’t get back to writing again son.




9.Ive lost 20lbs since moving to Italy
I assumed that once I moved to Italy I would gain a few pounds of weight back. But since moving here I’ve lost about 20lbs...which means I’ve lost about 128lbs so far…definanlty a shocker to me. Not to mentioned I’ve gained a 2 year old during the process. I’m happy that I’ve lost weight however I know that I still have a little ways to go. 20lbs more to be exact and then I think I might be happy...but the worst thing about it all, is when you lose a lot of weight there is this nasty little thing called stretched skin leftover. I think my biggest worry at the moment is the hot summer that is approaching. I know that it will be very hot and I will want to wear cool fitting clothes, sleeveless or shorter dresses. But Im really not that comfortable with showing off my body full of extra skin. Yuck. I never had this issue in Uk since it was never hot enough to show things off…uggg how will I manage this in a few months. Stay tuned!




10. FINNALLY….We’ve found a new church…
We have been looking for a place of worship since before we even moved to Italy. We tried one church in Milano and although the church was lovely and the people were very lovely...we didn’t feel quite at home...and it was also about 2 hours away from our house...which makes things a bit harder as well. I’m not sure how we actually found the church we are attending now, but it must have been destiny as one night I had a quick search on my phone whist waiting for …ummm something I really can’t remember at this moment. But I ran across a Baptist church in Reggio Emilia. Then I found a link on their page to their partner church in Mantova. We are not from a Baptist background be we were keen to have a go and visit this church. Turns out we loved it. The church consists of about 80% Brazilians which was something we had not expected, however very refreshing. We have made a few new friends as well at church now that we have been there for a few weeks now. The only thing that holds us back is that everything is in Italian of course, but we have come across one lovely woman who speaks English and helps us with everything we might need or any help with translation if we have any questions after the service.





Okay there you have it the 10 points ..now that you’re all caught up...I promise to be more diligent...well can’t really promise we all know how wishy washy I can be...but I promise if you ask for it...or you comment or respond ...Ill keep posting...how’s that!

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