An Excellent Adventure Begins

An Excellent Adventure Begins

We’ve taken vacations, but only over long weekends
We’ve taken vacations, but only in the low season or shoulder season
We’ve expanded our long weekend-week to two week splurges
We’ve digital nomad-ed, which isn’t snowbirding because the work comes with us, sort of
Now, because we don’t want to miss any of the buzz words, we’re in the planning stages for an 89-day slow travel extravaganza (yes, the work is still coming with us, sort of)
It’s not about the weather, because although we will be gone from Chicago during the colder months of November, December, and February, we’re not just going to warm places.
We’re starting in Ireland for the month of November
We’re basing in Marbella, Spain for another month
We probably can’t go to Europe and not stop off in Italy again (it’s not a rut, it’s a groove)
In between?  After?  Still under development (yes, I hear you, Portugal, Seville, etc. etc!)
Planes, trains, busses, or automobiles?  Still under development
Stay tuned.
Joyful June

Joyful June

Summer finally came, in kind of a bi-polar way.  Some glorious days, some sweltering days, but all were welcome.

We started to take advantage of the Morton Arboretum in suburban Chicago last year, and continue to visit it for beautiful morning walks through hundreds of acres.  What is the difference between a walk and a hike, anyway?

It’s become our custom to follow those trips with a garden lunch at Piccolo Sogno, which I highly recommend as the closest thing out slow Italian afternoons on the Amalfi Coast.

June also included a trip down to Atlanta and a reunion with Chery Baird, my amazing art teacher, for a three day collage workshop.  Even better, I was joined by my bestie Deb Lehman.  I’d been stocking up collage fodder to start a new series called All My Dream Flew Out the Window – in the best possible way.  Each piece is based on a beautiful view out of windows around the world and across time –

– the collage posted here is the view from a bathroom window – yes, a bathroom window- at a restaurant called Torre Normanna in Maiori on the Amalfi Coast, a spectacular place.