Archive | Lena

hometown of Sicilian ceramics

December 15, 2011 at 2:08 pm

One of the art forms that Sicily is known for is its lovely hand-painted ceramics. (ceramiche, cher-RAH-mi-kay) Sadly for Sicily, I already fell in love with the lovely deep-blue-on-white patterns of Polish pottery when my family lived there. Sicilian pieces tend to be painted in much lighter colors and more abstract designs, or painted with actual human figures, rather than sticking to nuances of a linear floral pattern as in Polish pottery.

Out of curiosity, which one do you prefer?

Sicilian Ceramics Polish Pottery

Well, anyway, we live in Sicily now, and Sicily do I love! Even her ceramics. When my friend Becca invited me to join her and her sister on a trip to Caltagirone this week to visit the home of Sicily ceramics, I eagerly said yes.

Caltagirone is about an hour’s drive from Motta, where we live. I admired the passing scenery, including herds of sheep (had to stop for them to get out of the road) and random castles on hilltops, like this one:

We arrived in the town of Caltagirone around 11am as crowds of school children converged on the center of town. Caltagirone is most famous for the 142 steps in the middle of town. The walls on either side of the staircase are lined with ceramic shops.

We ducked into a couple shops, examining plates and bowls as well as piggy banks, clocks, and spoon rests. A shopkeeper smilingly allowed me to take some lovely photos of the ceramics in his shop, and I was getting so excited about posting them here… and then he told me not to post them on the internet. Groan. Since this is a friendly blog, and since no one (even a ceramic spoon) gets featured here unless they want to, I won’t post the photos. However, here’s a stock photo of several Christmas ornaments. They are so lovely!

Lena was hungry so I sat out on the steps with her for awhile. These steps are amazing: each of them is lined with hand-painted tiles. Take a look at this:

After loading ourselves down with purchases, we stopped in a restaurant on the steps for lunch. Becca’s sister and I both ordered pasta di pistachi, a winter classic in Sicily. The pasta is cooked in a heavy cream and sprinkled with mild, crushed pistachio nuts. Becca has the recipe and is going to pass it on to me, meaning it will be on the menu when you come visit!

2 :: in Italy, Lena, Sicily, travel

making home in Sicily

December 9, 2011 at 5:25 pm

Elliott shooed me off to the library on base to run some errands, make a blog post, and generally have some alone time. Ahhh. So nice to be able to focus on my computer for more than 5 minutes without worrying about where little mobile Lena is off to next!

I’m so glad to finally be able to share some photos of our home in Sicily. From chaos to… less chaos. Here we go!

Last Wednesday (less than 24 hours after we’d flown back to Sicily), the movers brought our boxes to our new home. We took a lunch break in our kitchen halfway through the day. Thrilled to be moving in at last!

The movers left around 4pm, and they left everything in chaos because they needed to find all “valuable items” (of which we have… like… nothing… but still certain things had been listed). So they unpacked and/or went through every box for us! Where to begin?

Here’s what our bedroom looked like:

And Lena’s room:

Ahhh… take a break to look out the huge kitchen window at that beautiful view.

The next morning we tackled the kitchen. Lena was an eager participant. We have these open shelves in our new kitchen, meaning everything dangerous must be moved out of baby’s reach. She’s pulling herself up and swiping stuff off shelves as quick as she can these days.

But oh… how can you resist that cuteness?

Elliott took a few photos of the view from our balcony:

Another morning in front of the kitchen window. That’s the “gentle giant” Mt Etna smoking in the background.

After a few days, Lena’s room looked better!

Now to tackle all our books. Eventually I shelved them by category and in alphabetical order. Whew.

The washing machine is a new source of fascination.

More beautiful views from the balcony. We’re looking down on a valley and then out towards the Mediterranean. We can hear cow bells as herds graze in the hills or watch shepherds tending their sheep.

The books are shelved, the cardboard boxes are gone, the tubs are filling up with things to put in the garage… it’s beginning to look a little more like home!

6 :: in home sweet home, Lena, moving in, Sicily

making home in Sicily

December 9, 2011 at 4:25 pm

I’m so glad to finally be able to share some photos of our home in Sicily. From chaos to… less chaos. Here we go!

Here’s what our bedroom looked like:

And Lena’s room:

Ahhh… take a break to look out the huge kitchen window at that beautiful view.

But oh… how can you resist that cuteness?

Elliott took a few photos of the view from our balcony:

Another morning in front of the kitchen window. That’s the “gentle giant” Mt Etna smoking in the background.

After a few days, Lena’s room looked better!

Now to tackle all our books. Eventually I shelved them by category and in alphabetical order. Whew.

The washing machine is a new source of fascination.

The books are shelved, the cardboard boxes are gone, the tubs are filling up with things to put in the garage… it’s beginning to look a little more like home!

6 :: in home sweet home, Lena, moving in, Sicily

another little update

December 5, 2011 at 1:37 pm

Well, folks, still no internet in our house! I wish I knew when that would change, but unfortunately there’s some issue with the Italian phone company that would install our internet. And so we wait. Hopefully tomorrow I can bring my laptop onto base and upload some pictures. Still so many good ones to share from Thanksgiving!

We’ve been working so hard on our house and it’s really starting to look more like home. There’s lots of odds and ends and lots of photos/artwork just lying around, so the real settling in will be to organize all those little things. Lena’s adjusting well and adds so much brightness to every day. Right now she’s crawling around the library in little mini jodhpurs, a Nordic-style sweater, and little fur-lined boots. The advantages of discovering a box of baby clothes!

I’ve been knitting busily for my knitting business and am ready to mail a couple big orders. Yesterday I uncovered our Pride and Prejudice DVD (the BBC version, of course) and might have watched about 4 hours of it while knitting a very long and lovely scarf. Photos to come of the completed projects, too!

For those of you who are still faithfully reading, thank you. I hope to be back to regular posting very soon!

6 :: in knitting business, Lena, moving in, Sicily