Archives for March 2009

Italy Move To Do List:
Find home for Tasha – check
Decide what to do with Stevie – check
Sell the Car – check

Yesterday we sold the car to the first people who came to look at it. What’s left? Besides the paperwork (tiny little detail if we want to be legal), we are really getting down to the details of moving, cancelling phones, internet, etc. and then renting our house. We can’t do anything on the house until we have a date… so we’re still waiting on the paperwork!

We are now down to one vehicle. It will take a bit of coordination but we have to get used to it, we’ll only have one car in Italy. Things are moving!

I spent the last few days with my sister Laurie up in Portland. She flew in for the weekend for a little bit of sister time! We stayed two nights at the Benson Hotel in downtown Portland, and hung out with her friend Brandy and our friend Rainie. We went to the scrapbook convention on Friday, took a few classes, did a little bit of shopping, drank some coffee and Friday night had a FANTASTIC Greek dinner at Greek Cusina. Mmmmm…

It was an enjoyable and relaxing weekend of sister time. I wish that Laurie lived closer! Strange to think that the next time we see each other, we may be in Italy…

Cheers!

A long time ago, when we were tucking him into bed, Brandon said to tell Meemaw that he needed a “quilt that fits me.”

You see, my mom had made a baby quilt for him that he just loves. It’s been played with, snuggled with, packed with us on trips, used for forts, wrapped around stuffed animals and is generally always around. If I fold it up and put it in the linen closet it always finds it’s way back out. The only problem with it is that Brandon has grown, and the crib-sized quilt doesn’t work any more as a blanket. His feet stick out!

So, for his birthday Mom made him a quilt that fits him. She made it with lots of red (Brandon’s favorite color), bright colors and some cats thrown in (in the stitching and the fabric). It arrived today, and even though it was a month and a few days early, we asked Brandon if he wanted to open the box, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to resist. (Hey, I wanted to see it too!)

He is very happy to have a quilt that fits, and has already deemed that the comforter on his bed must go. Thanks Mom! A beautiful work of art and of love. And look – it fits!

Today I went up to the Italian Consulate in Portland, to get my visa application reviewed. More official stamps to be applied and signatures. All documentation is in order, so the next step is to mail it off to the San Francisco Consulate office tomorrow with a check for the visa fee. It was a 3 hour round trip drive for about 15 minutes of meeting, but that is better than having to travel to San Francisco for the same!

Next, waiting for the passport to come back with the visa.

The next step in the process of our move to Italy is to get the Visas. For me, the Work Permit was a prerequisite to apply for a work visa. I received my work permit on Friday. It is hard to believe that so much time and effort could go into one little piece of paper. Right now, this is the most important piece of paper for us in our move to Italy. You may laugh, but I wasn’t willing to put it through the auto document feeder on the copier at work to scan it. I carefully put each side down on the glass to scan and save an e-copy.

On Monday, I have an appointment with the Italian Consulate in Portland to apply for the Visa. How this works:
1. Visit the Consulate in person with a filled out Visa application and all paperwork, including work permit, passport, a passport photo to attach to the application and payment in cash. He will review and sign off on the application.
2. Since the Consulate in Portland is an “Honorary Consulate,” I then have to mail everything off (including my passport) to the nearest full Consulate office in San Francisco.
3. They will review the application in San Francicso, hopefully approve it, and send my passport back to me with the visa “stamp.”

Then I can officially move to Italy!

For Patrick and Brandon, an Entry Permit is a prerequisite to apply for their visas to accompany me. We haven’t received those yet, they will follow in a week or two and then we will apply for their Visas through the same process.

We don’t have a date yet, because of all of the uncertainty of timing of all of these application processes. We are fine with this. This is one of the lessons of our journey to live in Italy, letting go of expectations and just going with the flow.