Category: My Old House
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Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn
I don’t care that the official last day of summer is the 21st of September or that it is still hot as Hades here in Rome. For me, once the calendar flips from August to September, fall begins. The kids prepare for school, marking the start of my new year. Two more sleeps and we… Read more
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A Sign
This week I received a sign I’d been waiting for. I wrote here and here about the McCarney family that owned my house between 1918 or so and 1976. Patricia McCarney, one of four siblings, lived in the house – nicknamed Rustic Manor – until she entered the convent. John, her nephew, spent summers at the… Read more
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CurioCabinet: Studiolo Gubbio
In our family, turning six entitled the birthday child to a five-day trip to New York with Mamma. It was a mutually beneficial ruse: I enjoyed a big-city adventure roughly every eighteen months and they got my undivided attention and an itinerary to match their interests. The Metropolitan Museum of Art became a staple. Set… Read more
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My $24 Wall
Just like corporate ladder climbing, my mantra is “Up or Out.” Any unused stuff in the basement, shed or carriage house must be used, up-cycled, repaired, or hung on the wall this calendar year or it’s going straight out the door. It’s crazy to be storing things that never see the light of day, or… Read more
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A Tree Grows in My Bedroom
“Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?” – Walt Whitman A bitter, alarming storm blew up the river and through the village a few weeks ago. Swaths of trees were felled in an instant, looking like a gaggle of giants had stomped through. The rain blew… Read more
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Bouquet
An early morning bouquet for Bellissima’s room: peonies, third wave of lilacs, rosa rugosas, prolific lemon balm, rotund chive blooms, Siberian iris, Nepeta and all. Seems early for some of these lovelies, a treat for Miss Bella, the bees, and me. Read more
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Leading Me Down the Garden Path
The path to the potager seems shorter in person. But I can attest to its length by the volume of plants required to fill the flagstone and the hours spent on my knees, unnaturally bent. The flagstone was a sunk cost – I already had it – but between the cost of the filler plants and… Read more
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Feral
These days I wake up at cat o’clock. Puss meows to escape, the birds twitter and fuss, a din moments before first light appears on the horizon. Little cat’s seasonal wildness begins mid-April or so, while mine lies dormant for another month. By mid-May we are in cahoots while the house sleeps on. There are… Read more