good things are hard to leave

Hopefully we will be able to keep up with good habits today :-)!

from me, to you!

last sunday

Oh, the joys of pre-programmed posts!

Last sunday we had a great day.



The start wes a bit grey



and wet. But it soon cleared up and we headed off to visit dear friends.



On the way to there there was plenty to see and discover



The menu was excellent: cotolette!!!



Table is ready



Go!



Sombody even had a good after lunch nap...



While we were chatting and discussing and thinking. What a blissful afternoon!



We even managed to escape the evening storm on the way back



and enjoyed a great sunset from our balcony

Life misteries

I wonder what all this means....



BUT I definitely LIKE this!



So, not to miss the moment, we will be away for a week starting tomorrow. Stay tuned....

coffee habits

When your favourite spots are closed for the summer holydays....




All you can do is try old and new places







and enjoy the company of those that are here while drinking a good coffee toghether!

Let's conquer the world

Knitting is taking up the world



making it more colorfull and cozy!

good habits

It seems they keep arriving in batches even though I send them every other day!

la befana

Considered that in Italy the 6th of december is the last day of Christmas holydays, either because the re Magi finally arrive to destination, or because "la befana tutte le feste si porta via", it's now time to have a visual summary of new year's eve!



We headed to the center a bit late...



Didn't get lost ;-)



braved HUGE crowds



and finally found a shielded spot from where we could enjoy the fireworks (not the best view photographically, but still a good reachable spot!







It was really great, we then walked home and had a nice glass of proper moscato (it was really hard to find a sweet sparkling, here they all refer dry (brut)).

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

good advice

2012: plans, dreams, thoughts

My word for 2012 is "impegno", that is to say "focus", "commitment" and "action". I found it back in october during the path finder course, and I think it will help me through this year that announces itself as difficult.

Self: here I intend to pursue the trends I started in 2011.

Health: continue on the eating better campaign (which is asociated to a moderate loss of weigh).
Continue with much more exercise and fitness type thing: I am enrolled in a twice a week class and plan to walk to work at least three imes a week.
I MUST check in with a doctor for my back and hips. I plan to get a course on correct posturing.



spirit: here again plans are to continue meditation and keep up with my photogrphy courses.
Ideally I'd like to participate more to the photography group in Pavia, even though many evening I'm just so very tired, but I should put a little more effort into it.
I wold love to go through Julia Cameron "The artist's way", let's see if I can keep up, given all the other things happening.
A big dream would be to attend a "creative retreat" in person, but it's still a bit early to know what I'll come up with.



work: here plans are big, it has become more and more difficult to tackle all what I have boiling, I have tested my limits last year and plan to be wiser this year.
There will be needed many energies, and I have to administer myself more carefully.
But exciting times are ahead, with the promise of much fun (and hard work), so I am preparing a detaild plan to take care of all this.



home: this year is going to be very important for the tidying and decisions about home. I really don't know yet where I'm headed, but changes are in the air. One thing for sure is proper decluttering of the current home, maybe I'll fire up thinking about moving, or maybe it'll just happen, I have preparing all last year, and now it is the time for action! Detailed plans are being laid out.



Family and friends: plans are to spend as much time as possible with them.
Family wise very dark clouds are on the horizon and we are already fully in the storm, so no plans are possible other than going with the current.
I just hope that thing will be the better possible for everybody.



Last year I learnt I need to be more organised in this realm, and I cannot burn out all my energies at once to try to help everybody, otherwise I burn out and I become an obstacle to myself and others.
Definitely I have to schedule in more time with my nieces, and a great project is already stirring in my mind, a project to be developed over next year and that will involve all my beloved ones!
Friend definitely need more care on my part, and plans are to work on this seriously.

Travels: well, the year started in Australia, and travels are always high on our todo list.
On this side I have no worries, as the taking care of friends side above implies some travelling, and work requires that too.
Hopefully there will also be some travels that have been on the dream list for long (New York, Lisbon, Israel, more Spain).



And definitely I'll have a trip with a person so much dear to me, and there will be no excuses for it not to happen!
But whatever happens, this part of the list is always fine with me!

2011: what happened?

This has been a busy year, and full of many things. I have just finished to make a nice movie of my 2011  365 project. Watching at it was an emotion, and brought me back all the things that happened this year, good and bad, all there sinthetised by a photo a day!

So now I want to write down a sinthesis for future memory. As this was born as a knitting blog, first of all
the knitting: in 2011 I completed 21 projects, which is not that much, but hey, others things were happening!
They are 11 hats, 3 scarves, 3 shawls, 2 baby sweaters, 1 huge sweater and 1 cowl. I also finished an undocumeted pair of socks!



These are screenshots of my Rav page, and I'm quite pleased with what I did, not counting that I have several started project on the needles!



My plan to knit 11 shawls in 2011 failed, and it doesn't really matter, after all I had done 10 in 2010, and may be doing 12 in 2012, but I have enjoyed trying new techniques and gifting most of my knits.
What I see in 2012 is myself keeping up with knitting, it is too fun!
I may try to make more hats (to honor my long term project, see lifelist). I may want to knit all shawls from Romi, the ones in the 7 shawls series, of which I have both books. I also would like to start some cardigans for the family, and a huge shawl/stole for a dear friend.
As you can see, I'm quite ambitious, but I knit for fun, so these are dreams with no schedule!

Self: There has been several plans on which I have tried to work on myself this year:

health: the year has been good, I have tried to take care of myself, to improve my eating habits.
The start of the year was really bad from an exercising perspective, as I did attend an 8 weeks calss of Yoga while in Melbourne, but then did nothing upon my return, and I payed it all with several back pain episodes.



This kickstarted me back to subscribe to exercice twice a week, and in the second half of the year I also decided to walk to work at least three times a week, which did me undoubtely well.



I feel there is still much to be done, but I'm developing good habits, and just have to keep with them.
One regret is that I didn't tackle my hip problem, that's left for next year, when i plan also to look at posture to attempt to ameliorate my back.

spiritul: I started practising meditation, and it is working quite well. I'm still not as constant as I'd like, but hey, I'm doing quite well. If you are interested in this, go up to the Open Heart Project, it is great and free. Susan Piver is an incredible person, you will see!
I have studied several books and tackled a bit of my life and decisions.



I also took several courses that were great, made me think and connected me with wonderful people. Both the Unravelling courses were invaluable to me: Susannah Conway is a great woman and teacher, and definitely I want to buy her new book.
During summer I followed the Summer camp, and then in autumn the World Biggest Summit: both gave me interesting ideas and things to think about and people to know.
In autumn the "Pathfinder" course from Karen Walrond was a real blast: I journalled, painted, photographed and enjoyed myself immensely.



Finally the year was closed with Susannah Conway photomeditations course: a great group of people and a lot of great informations. Life got on my way here, and I didn't participate as I would have liked, nonetheless I plan to go through it with calm later on.



All in all a huge year for me on the side of spirituality, growth and learning.
Plans are to go on like this in 2012, I have discovered this is a very important part of my life!

work: the year started out awfully, actually there were still some pending horrors from the previuos year!
Anyhow I soon decided not to let things already happened to ruin my life, and once the decision made, I could savour some attainments of the previous year and carry on.



2011 has been huge work wise, so many things have changed, thanks to the work I did on myself and my attitudes, and I'm very pleased with it all. It has been challenging and exhausting, but also exciting and rewarding.
I had two excellent and stimulating collaborators, I went to 4 conferences, I was in the field more than in the last 5 years, I started new collaborations, made some exciting finds and cemented a collaboration very dear to me.



I managed to submit 1 paper and almost finish 2 others, so I expect next year to be very productive as well.
All this notwithstanding the bad situation (economic and "human") we are forced to work in.



I learned many thing this year, at work, not only about the people around me, but also about myself, my limits, my stengths and feeblesness.
The hope is to continue like that next year and learn from the past. One point that really needs more thinking about and harder work is organising myself and be more efficient.


Family and friends: on the side of human connections 2011 has been hard and required much striving. At least I have figured out the problems and I am working on them actively and with optimism.
On a good note, I have been tightening some frienships and started to see more people. And I have a great group of dear friends scattered all over the world, that come and visit me at times, gifting me great moments.



Bad news on family department, with many ilnesses, operations, hospitalisations and sickness. But we are still all alive, and that's a relief.



Of course all this imposed not to have long terms plans and living on a day by day basis, but in the end the year proved to be filled with long term achievements, really in the end.
I was able to spend more good time with beloved ones, friends and family, though I failed sometimes with somebody as there have been really too many things intersecting. But there is time to keep up, and good friends always understand.



Travels: this was quite a good year, besides being to Australia for almost 3 months (over two trips), we went to Granada, than to Cagliari and Sardegna, in various localities of the Alps, In Czeck Republic and Southern Germany, and in several places in Italy.



A really great year!