Where did August go?

Greetings, everyone ~

I'm back home, I think? The 10 days in Europe (Switzerland & Italy) included lots of heat, humidity and good food - very much like living in The South! Worked many long hours on back-to-back weeks, and had a very good time... then Thunder Storms hit Nashville, and I was on a plane again to hang out in one of my favorite states - on the company tab, even. (They just didn't get it when they saw I ate hush puppies and catfish for several meals in a row - our office is made of all native Californians :-) Got to visit our little bit of Tennesee heaven while there - and decided that it has grown into a giant Tennessee Jungle. DH & DS will take a hop on over during fall break and bush-hog!

So y'all probably noticed that you haven't gotten any post cards from me :-( It turns out we were in Switzerland & Italy during Holiday and it was well near impossible to find any stores open after we got off of work. So we spent our energies on finding food :-) But, I did take a bunch of pictures, which I WILL someday post!

My favorite part was Surzy, Switzerland, about 20 minutes outside of Lucern. Green rolling hills dotted with brown swiss cows and fields of ripening filed corn. The talk in this little town was of heat and drought and the price of corn. Didn't understand a word they said, but that's what our german speaking person summarized. Must say, it felt like what home should feel like :-)

Naples was a large, noisy, dirty city full of people who drive even worse than me! The hospitality of our office was wonderful, and they brought us to some super places to eat - but I'm kinda glad I didn't get any days off there! DH walked around the castle that was in front of our hotel - but do you think he brought my camera with him? Of course not. Well, I have a nice photo of it from the hotel window ;-)

Venice was hot, steamy, full of turists on holiday, and breathtakingly beautiful. The vapareto (boat busses) were crowded with people in need of showers, and the little gusts of cool breeze that occationally sneaked through a window were like little drops of mana! But unlike Naples, the people here were all on holiday in a holiday kind of mood. They were happy to help us with my mixture of spanish and slaughtered italian and a few words of english here and there. It ended up that they understood my castillian better than my italian, and we laughed a lot trying to ask directions and such. (I ordered "fish tea" instead of "peach tea" at one cafe, and there was a small riot :-)

It's good to be back in my own bed, though. ...now just trying to figure out how to move the old bed 2500 miles east :-) Haven't even gotten a steel building or water or electricity set up and DH is already plotting on how we might acquire the 5 acres next door. Is that what the land does to you?

Ok, now I'm off to catching up on all the posts that I've mostly not been reading for the last month!

Take care, everyone!

Karla