Spring is here. But it isn’t spring in my Alpine wonderland of Valle d’Aosta, Italy. Instead I’m watching the world come to life in the mountains where I was born, in Asheville, North Carolina. A little more than a year ago, I moved back to the US. Gianluca followed about six months later. It was […]
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Autumn Harvest in the Alps
The seasons are changing. My garden is preparing itself for a long winter’s sleep, fresh snow has dusted the glacier capped Alps, and the cows have returned from the mountaintop pastures. Also, it is really cold. I realized the other day that I wear a winter coat eight months out of the year. Eight. Months. […]

I am officially an Italian lady
It’s official: I’m no longer an American writing about living in the glacier capped mountains of Italy. On the first day of autumn I legally became an Italian citizen. Given the fact that the economic and political situation in Italy is in a continuous spiral downwards, I can’t help but think that the date is […]

Spring in the Alps and a Tasty Springtime Snack!
Oh, I love spring! Winter in the Alps is hard, long, and cold. This week winter has officially come to an end. Yes, I know that for the rest of the northern hemisphere it ended nearly a month ago, but in my neck of the woods official dates regarding seasons don’t mean much. This week […]

A Vending Machine Tour of Valle d’Aosta
Yesterday we had friends from Piemonte visit us for the day, so we took them on a personalized tour of my own making of the region. A vending machine tour. Because Aosta has some pretty spectacular vending machines. You’ve already heard about my dairy farmer neighbors with the raw milk vending machine. That was our […]

Why I’ve been MIA….my soap business!
Sorry that I’ve been away! There are many wonderful things to write about, but I haven’t had a spare moment. In a nutshell, I’ve finally started up my handmade soap and natural body care business here in Italy! It is called ‘Fleur de Lune’, and it’s going even better than I anticipated. Unfortunately, I can’t […]

Italian by Osmosis….on learning Italian by living it
When I first met my husband five years ago while walking 1000 kilometers across Spain, I didn’t speak a word of Italian. I spoke Spanish (I studied it for 18 years between school and college), and was in the process of trying to learn a bit of French and Swedish. Italian? Not really. I never […]

The Story of Genepy the Alpine Bunny
Because it is Easter, I think it is time everyone knows the story of Genepy the Alpine Bunny. She is our household Easter bunny, so this post is in honor of her. Within the first week or so of when I first moved to Italy in October 2009, I decided it was high time to […]

It’s been a while….
Wow, it sure has been a long time since I have posted! Sorry about that. You know when so much happens that you just can’t write about it? That is what has been going on. Just about every day I think, ‘I need to blog about this!’ but it doesn’t happen. Partially because I’ve had […]

Used cowbells, sexy underpants on the street, and love graffiti
First, today is ‘La Festa della Donna’, which translates pretty much as ‘Festival for Women’. It’s like mother’s day but for all women. The men are required (by which I mean that if they don’t, they get bitch slapped) to buy the special women in their lives this particular kind of little yellow flower, which […]