Making Military Housing a Home: Holiday Edition Part 2
I'm back to share a bit more of my home - Ok.. actually I'm here to share a re-do. I moved my tree. Yes. I moved a fully decorated tree. It's much easier than it sounds. I simply slid it over a few feet no biggie. Especially since I've been known to do this before. The first year we were in Italy I moved my tree three times, I couldn't figure out where I wanted it, and seeing it in the spot was the best option for me. I also do this with furniture. I can visualize until I'm cross-eyed, but seeing the furniture in the room in the space is what I prefer. When you move as much as we do, sometimes furniture doesn't work exactly the way you thought it would, it's all part and parcel with making military housing a home.
Anyway, in my last post I know I mentioned I wasn't exactly in lov with it being in the corner. So I moved it today. I like it much better centered in our living room, like an anchor or something. Plus, it gives my daughter even more tree to explore. So far she's broken 5 bulbs and I've had to redo the garland on the lower half at least as many times. It's cool. She likes Christmas and I am fully encouraging her to LOVE Christmas. As I type this she is currently napping on the floor by the tree.
Seriously is there anything more magical than sleeping beneath a Christmas tree? I can't really think of anything.
Here is my dining room table. I'd like to add some evergreen branches in the jug along side the cotton stems. These lanterns are pretty much on my table all year except for during the fall when they get changed out, but I like that they can be used for various seasons and holidays.
This little tree is a fun tree. The colors I use in the dining area are shades of green, red and turqoise or blue. It all blends in nicely and looks cohesive.
This is our advent wreath. It's super simple. It's not the traditional advent wreath you'll see in many Catholic homes who do a wreath. I don't have colored candles and there is no evergreen in it, but I like it and it works. It also stays out all winter long to help remind my family of Christ's light.
As you enter my home this is directly in front of the front door. I really wish we had a bit more room as we don't have a mud room so things like coats and boots get stored beneath the table and behind the door on a hook.
When we go out for walks, my husband and boys will give me pine cones. These ones have were collected in Florida and Italy.
This blue dresser is an antique I bought when we lived in Italy. I spruced it up and really have become attached to it. We recently moved it to the landing on our stairs, so I could place the tree in the corner. I may have moved the tree, but this dresser is staying where it is. I like it in this little nook.
I have been on the hunt for several weeks for stockings that were simple and white. I had envisioned having each of our names embroidered on them. I couldn't really find anything I liked that didn't cost about $25 a piece. I happened upon these in Target and was immediately drawn to them because of their simplicity, and a sort of vintage feel to them. At $3 a piece, they were also a steal. I'm going to make some dough tags with either initials or everyone's name to hang by each stocking. I'll be sure to post a tutorial on what I end up making.
That's it for now. Be on the look out in a few days where I'll share the holiday trees in our bedrooms.
Making Military Housing a Home: Holiday Edition Part 1
I love Christmas! I LOVE decorating for Christmas. When you're in the military and move every so many years, making each new home yours can be a challenge. One I happily accept. I love to put our personal touches on each of the homes we live in; even if those touches need to be temporary. When it comes to holiday decorating I usually keep it minimal. I REALLY don't like moving this sort of stuff around - because honestly, we never know where we'll end up. Will the house be smaller, larger, have a garage? We can't say. Next we need to factor in damage. A lot of our belongings inevitably disappear between the packing up of our stuff and the unpacking, or are damaged with each move. It's frustrating, but we deal.
Over the years, I've learned I need to limit how much holiday decor I allow myself to have. What this means is decor for holidays other than Christmas get relegated to no more than two bins and Christmas gets four. That's it. The bulk of the ornaments on the trees were collected over the years at our various duty stations or can easily be replaced if I need to purge excess items in preparation for a big move.
The Friday after Thanksgiving I began decorating our home. My boys have never showed much interest in the tree. Even as babies or toddlers they left it alone. I can not say the same for Ellena. She has been all over this tree and took a keen interest in watching me decorate it. I can't tell you how many times I've caught her touching or pulling bulbs off. I love her curiosity, and the challenge she's given me to keep the lower half of our tree to the shatterproof decorations and bulbs. I think I may have FINALLY gotten my Christmas decorating partner. I'm looking forward to future Christmases where she and I will really decorate our home together.
I still want to tweak a few things but here are a few photos of what I've done in my living room so far. I love the small wreathes between each of the windows (we've four in our living room). This prooves decorating for the holidays needn't be over the top. Sometimes the simplest of touches, have the greatest impact.
I picked up this countdown garland from Target this past weekend. My advent calendar got ruined in our last move, so last year I used store bought ones for my kids. When I spied this one I sort of fell in love. Apart from the candy, which my boys love to look for each day, my husband and I are writing little notes to our boys. These sort of traditions are so wonderful and I hope when they are older they'll want to continue them with their own families.
I love these reindeer pillows. I bought them in Italy, but you can find similiar ones in many stores. I also love this one from Joss & Main. The black and white pillows I also added this week. I've wanted a black and white check or plaid pillows for these sofas since we moved into this home a year and a half ago, but I didn't want to spend a small fortune on them. I found these four pillows at Kirkland's and they were very affordable. Here is a comparable pillow from Walmart!
Check back tomorrow, I'll share a bit more of my holiday decorating and how I make military housing a home.
Two Months & Sleeping In the Middle of the Bed
It's been two months. Only ten more till my husband gets to come home. (I'm not counting down or anything...) I slept in the middle of the bed the other night. I guess I got tired of waking to a perfectly made side of the bed. I got all diagonal through the night and everything which resulted in me deciding to not make the bed the following morning, which led to a week of not making the bed. I awoke this morning and washed my bedding and made the bed, because not making the bed sets a rather poor example for my boys.It remains to be seen if I'll continue sleeping in the middle of the bed, or go back to my side.
Busy Life
Since my husband deployed last October, the "busy" in my life has grown exponentially - and not the normal playing "two roles" busy, but busy with volunteer activities, meetups, kids things, and I've been faithfully working on my fitness. All in all apart from the expected mishaps that only seem to happen when one's husband deploys [key word for sewage spewing from your pipes] and the part where my husband is deployed things have been pretty great here. I'm still in love with Italy but as I've lived here nearly a year I am beginning to miss some of the conveniences that we have in the U.S. that just aren't part of the culture here.This last week I've been fighting this sinus thing I've aptly named the "Aviano Funk" and so today I am at last taking a full day to rest which involved me not leaving my house for anything apart from dropping off and collecting my boys from their school bus stop. Watching old movies and working on giving my blog a makeover I've wanted to do for some time.I am absolutely pleased with the results. I initially was veering toward using fonts that mimicked a typewriter but found it to be too distracting and since the overall look I'm going for is plain and simple I settled on what you see before you. It's probably the happiest I've ever been with a theme for my blog in years.Yay!It's hard to believe our first winter here is nearly over. We've had a lot of rain which I wasn't expecting and to my surprise absolutely adore. If I remember correctly in the last month we've only had a few days where we saw the sun. It's beginning to get annoying but I just think about how glorious and green our Spring will be.
Italian Wheels - Moving to Aviano, Italy
On Monday we decided on a house and in the excitement and desire to just be settled we made sort of a spur of the moment decision on car in the freezing cold rain.
Test driving and deciding on a car while your teeth are chattering is never a good idea. Trust me.
It was a '91 BMW that was priced right as it's owner was scheduled to PCS (i.e. leave) our base in two days time. We thought it too good a deal to pass up and began the process of purchasing the car.
A few hours later that decision began to not sit so well with me. One because it was a manual transmission and my husband doesn't know how to drive a stick-shift. The thought of teaching him didn't freak me out or anything like that. I'm sure we probably would've gotten into an argument or four along the way, and I was sure I could teach him in an afternoon. However when I really began to think about driving this vintage-behemoth (behemoth around here anyway) I began to think perhaps we hadn't made the wisest of choices.
Because of the age of the car it also didn't come with things I've grown accustomed to in an automobile. Things like ABS brakes and air bags to name a few or even cup holders as they are an up grade when purchasing BMW's here the original owner decided he could do with out. Clearly this person didn't have children who had an affinity for sipping their juice boxes while driving.
Yesterday morning around one I woke up with a gnawing in my stomach. That car was not right for our family. I tossed and turned. Switched on my iPad and began looking for other newer cars. Yes we'd have to spend more but having a good safe reliable car was the important thing.
I was able to get passed the glove box not working properly or the fact that in order to lock the driver's side door I'd have to use the trunk. I liked that it was in pretty good condition and that the owner had put on great tires and upgraded the sound system. What I didn't was the driver's side window wouldn't go completely up. Leaving a space about a half inch wide. I'm cold here in our rental car with the heat on. I figured that would be an added distraction. When you add that and the manual transmission, plus the way my Italian neighbors drive and the small narrow roads I figured we were asking for a collision.
We cancelled that purchase and bought a car ten years younger. It comes w/ air bags and ABS brakes, and windows that close completely. I forgot to look to make sure it had cup holders, at least I know I wont freeze while driving.
Now that I'm on the topic of purchasing a car I thought I might share some information we learned for those who are PCS'g here.
I honestly think it would be easier to buy a house in Italy. In order to purchase a new car we'd have to wait about 8 months for it to arrive as we'd have to order it with the specifications we wanted. Furthermore military members overseas can only finance new cars though their banks like USAA.
Purchasing a used car was very simple as we used a local dealer who is well established with the base and all the regulations they and Italy require. Selection was very slim as automatic cars go quick and are few in number as most people here drive manual transmissions.
However if you plan to purchase a vehicle from an Italian dealership there are some rules you need to follow and should make sure you use a dealership who is familiar with the process to ensure things go as smooth and as quickly (hahahahahaha) as they can.
All of the rules will be explained to you in detail when you in-process and the information is readily available from the Pass & Registration office. If you have any questions feel free to ask and I'll answer them to the best of my knowledge or at the very least point you in the right direction.
We'll get our "new" car in a week after all the paper work has been filed and officiated. Until then we're driving a rental.
We Found A House! House Hunting in Italy
We began our house hunting officially last Wednesday, but really I'd been combing the classifieds for military housing www.ahrn.com for months. This house kept catching my eye when ever it appeared on my search findings but I figured it probably hadn't been removed and had already been rented.Turns out it hadn't and was the first place and only stand alone home we looked at. We saw about 5 others, all very nice, apartments and duplexes but this one we liked best. It's a four bedroom two and a half bath with a little back yard and a view of the Dolomite mountains that really sealed the deal for us. A few added bonuses are a mudroom/laundry room, a little square room (it's technically called a bedroom, but will be my writer's nook) and a closet under the stairs ah-la Harry Potter!We began the contract process today and hope to have it back in our hands very soon. After which Base Housing will have to come in and inspect the home to make sure it's "livable" and review the contract before we can make it official. Next week is Holy week and then Monday is a holiday here so I'm not expecting to move in immediately. However, we have a place we'll call home and that is the important thing.I can't express enough how anxious we are to be settled. After two years of living apart and not in our own space, having some place that is ours again will be delightful.
ciao!
nicole
Life in Italy - The First Week
Our first week in Italy is coming to a close and I think we're all finally getting adjusted to the time change. My son Michael began school here today and we may have found a home and a car to purchase.
I've got so much I want to share. From our exhausting trip over, to all the little things I'm experiencing. I've got to tell you about the food. The public toilets and even little things I've done that seriously, could only happen to me. I've got notes, and I plan to share them all. For now, I thought I'd share some photos from our first week. It hasn't been all briefings and sleep deprivation.
Ciao,
nicole