Expand Your Horizons

What would you give up to live one of your dreams?  Jason (my best friend & hubby) & I had a conversation a little while ago about living abroad & it was something akin to this:

Jason: "Would you ever want to live in another country?"
Me: "Sure!" (I don't know why he keeps asking, he knows I do) "I think it would be awesome for the kids & a great experience for us as well.  Where were you thinking?"
Jason: "I don't know, anywhere.  I just didn't know if you were open to entertaining the idea if the opportunity ever came up." (a few minutes later) "We certainly couldn't take everything with us.  It'd be too expensive to ship."

Me: "What would you be willing to sell?"
Jason: "Umm ..." (pausing to look around the room) "... everything.  You?"
Me (also looking around): "Yeah.  There's nothing I'm so attached to that I'd have to keep.  Just take our clothes & save a few special items that mean a lot to us."
Jason: "Then we could have an estate sale, donate the rest, & rent out the house."

I thought about this conversation later that night & have been thinking about it since.  What is it about the idea of moving to another country that makes Jason & I willing to give up just about everything we own?  We moved 2500 miles away from everything & everyone we knew in 2011, & we rented the biggest freaking truck we could & crammed as much of our junk in it as we could fit.  Yet here I was, looking around & there were literally only one or two small items I'd keep in the entire room if I got the chance to live overseas.  So, why didn't I do that 2 years ago?  Sometimes I feel like that girl in Labyrinth, when she's trying to decide whether to give up her teddy bear to her baby brother & the junk lady tries to convince her she needs all her stuff piled on & around her.  I don't want to end up like that, all my possessions piled around me.  So why take it all with me to Ohio but not to Europe or Australia?

Yes, part of the reason would be that we'd have to downsize anyway, since living in an apartment or condo would be more within our price range. Jason's work requires being at least close to, if not within a large city & stand alone homes in those areas are rare & pricey.  Part of it would be that it really is too expensive to ship stuff overseas, but it's more than that. Thinking about it, I wouldn't miss the furniture & general stuff. (well, with the exception of our daughters' dressers we just bought from a little shop downtown called Old World New Home which are gorgeous & I love them.  I don't think I could sell these so easily)

Still, a move like that would feel like a new start.  Why then, would it take moving to another country for me to let it all go? I'm realizing my stuff is like a security blanket (my inner pack rat coming to the surface. I constantly have to fight the voice in my head that makes excuses like "I might need this down the road").  Going somewhere new where I wasn't sure I'd like it, I wanted familiar items around me from my old life at home in California.  Now, craving new experiences, I'm willing to let go & start fresh.  It's easier to take a bigger leap when I've done it before & survived.  I'm realizing when it comes down to it, I don't need all the stuff.  It can be easily replaced & it just adds weight keeping me in one place when I refuse to let it go.  It's one of my dreams to make new memories with my family & expose my children to different places & cultures.  What's one of your big dreams & what would you give or sell to make it happen?

Your Own Fresco ... as a Paint by Number

I love frescoes & wish I lived in the type of home that could have one (you need plaster walls though) so a mural is my version of that since I'm in a new build home in Ohio instead of a centuries old home in Italy or Spain.  I love frescoes because it's artwork that creates a room.  It transforms a blank wall into a canvas & has no need for silly things like frames & hooks.  It's cannot be shuffled around & rehung.  On the wall of a 300 year old home it declares it will live, breathe & inspire others far longer than I will.  A sparsely furnished room does not feel empty with a fresco, it embraces the open space & fills it with color & brush strokes. 

Frescoes by their nature require an amazingly skilled artist, as you only get one shot.  The pigment needs to be added to the final layer of plaster on a wall before it dries.  It can't be redone later like a mural can.  I'm currently working on a mural in my daughters room (it's far from finished) & though murals are similar to frescoes by creating a scene on a wall, I don't need to be nearly as skilled as one who would paint a fresco.  It's actually so easy that anyone with a blank wall, art projector, pencil & paint can create one.  It helps that I took an art class in high school to add some shading, but seriously, that's all the experience I have; an art class from high school. 

My daughter's nickname is Blueberry & I remembered a book from my childhood Jamberry by Bruce Degen.  The first line in the book is "One berry, two berry.  Pick me a blueberry" & it continues in adorable berry rhymes through the entire book.  I flipped through & found the elements I wanted, then used the projector & drew them on her wall in the placement I wanted (making sure things were roughly the same size). 

The hardest part was adjusting the projector & book as I moved along the wall, keeping it all even.  From there, all I had to do was trace it on the wall & now it's basically a giant paint by number.  I went to Home Depot & picked out sample sizes of the colors I needed.  I was lucky I already had some basics from trying out different colors in my son's room.

Basic colors that are good to have are red, yellow, & blue (primary colors - all other colors can be made from these three), purple & brown are good to get if you need those as well though, because they can look muddy when trying to make them from the primaries.  Get some black & white (use these for highlights & shadowing the color you're using), remember a little black goes a very long way & it takes quite a bit of white to lighten a color.

I tried to remember to take pictures as I went along, but sometimes I was lucky just to get in 5 minutes of painting time before I was needed again & in the rush to put everything away (so I didn't end up with the kids painting their own mural on random walls in the house) the pictures often fell by the wayside.

It's still a work in progress & it's going to take me a while to finish.  I love working on it though, because I think it adds more character than simply painting her walls lavender (like we originally planned).  I think it shows her I love her & care enough to make her personal space, personal.  If I'm ever fortunate enough to live in a home with a fresco on a wall, I'll take time to enjoy it & appreciate that the artist tried to make the space personal for those who would be fortunate enough to live there while the house stands.

European Lifestyle in Ohio

This is it!  This is what I've been trying to figure out.  When I started my first blog, I had no idea what I would write about, I just knew I had to start writing & I could figure the details out later.  Motherhood was the only thing I could think of, probably because I just had my 3rd baby a month ago (I can't believe it's already been a month) & my children currently absorb 99% of my time, thoughts, & energy.  I had no idea what exactly I'd put in the blog though.  I'm not an expert on anything, I don't have any helpful advice or good ideas for other parents.  I need those from others.  I'm the one scouring Pinterest & Google for indoor play ideas when it's been raining for a week straight, the kids have cabin fever & are driving me nuts.  Over the last week though, I've been thinking about who I am outside of being a mother, since that's what the writing was supposed to give me; an identity outside of motherhood (hence my first post in my Mommy of 3 blog)

I'm not an expert on anything.  I am passionate about some things though, & I have a passion for old world living.  I love everything I hear about life in Italy, France, & Spain.  The food, architecture, language, home decor, & the way Europeans (especially in rural areas) approach life in general.  From what I hear (which is all I have to go by as I've never been to Europe, though I've always dreamed of going) it's slower than life here & more centered around family.  I want that. I want everything that lifestyle has to offer.  I'd love to shop at a local market every day, where the lady that sells grapes & tomatoes from her family farm knows my children.  I'd love to come home & throw open the windows that have been gazing silently out on an ancient country for over a century & feel the breeze that fills the gauzy curtains hanging from them, turning them into sheer sails.  I want to believe the old wooden table I feed my children at would have heartfelt stories to tell of those who came before us.  Stories of people gathering together around it & the simple daily meals & extravagant holiday feasts shared between family & friends over the decades.  I want to take my children to see Brunelleschi's dome atop the Duomo in Florence.  I want them to learn about Renaissance art & then take them to visit the museums where that art stands.  I want to teach them another language & see them reach out to others, abandon their hesitations & interact with people of other cultural backgrounds.  I want to do that.  I want to discard my introverted tendencies, swallow my fear of failure & attempt to cross a language barrier, broadening my view on the world & it's people.

Someday, I'll visit there.  Someday I hope to live there.  In the mean time, I can write about it while I dream.  I want to capture the feeling of old world living in my own home & share that feeling with you. Maybe you'll want to try it too.