i’ve spent the first days of 2022 e-a-s-i-n-g into my annual rah-rah “new year/new me” ritual. i knew it wouldn’t happen january 1. that’s a myth i’ve told myself in years past. this time i was more honest in my outlook. i knew i’d still have family visiting and my revamped daily routine would be on hold for a bit. so i’m adding things in as i go >> some brand-new practices i’ve been wanting to try, as well as a few former habits that i’ve been neglecting recently.
so what got me off track? well, i think anyone who has been alive since the beginning of 2020 probably knows the answer to that. though the pandemic has affected me in ways some don’t even know about, i’m kind of tired of dwelling on it. all i can do is go on from here, so that’s what i’ve been trying to do.
after feeling lost for about 7 months, floundering in my aimless planless senseless mini-world, eric and i decided to start looking for a house in the northwestern united states. and not just any house, but a house that would be suitable for me to host THE ARRIVAL retreats stateside. it was only a “maybe” idea for quite a while, as we casually scoped out homes in western montana, eastern washington, and north idaho over a several-month period.
and then things all suddenly clicked into place in july 2021. through an unusual sequence of events, we became the owners of a beautiful historic home in wallace idaho, just 10 miles from the place of my birth.
since then we’ve devoted many many hours per week to do-it-yourself renovation. (something we said we’d NEVER do again after renovating villa magnolia in italy, yet here we are.) we’re still in the midst of it, still living in winterchase (our home in kellogg) and driving back and forth to wallace. hoping to move in soon, when the kitchen becomes livable again. we won’t be finished with the entire house at that point, but we really just need to grasp a bit of permanency. especially since we’re not sure when we will return to villa magnolia (lots going on to cloud that issue).
i really miss italy. i miss my home, i miss my friends, i miss my stuff. but i have never regretted the decision eric and i made, during this time of uncertainty, to come to the states and be closer to our sons. taking things one day at a time until the perfect resolution presents itself. in the meantime, i’m enjoying life back in the silver valley . . . the land of my youth.
[next week i’ll be sharing the story about how our new home, listed on the national register of historic places as mccarthy house, became THE PINK HOUSE!]
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