I’m Back and Excited to Share My Journey

….I’ve finally returned from my trip of a lifetime to Italy

We stepped through our front door on Tuesday evening after being on an airplane for 9 hours, at the baggage carousel for at least an hour and then two hours in a car. We ended up driving to Hamilton first to drop off our daughter and Winnie. We stayed for a bit and had a much needed cup of coffee and a bite to eat. Then we packed up our dog, Frances and headed back to Toronto. By the time we got to bed we had been up for about 21 hours.

Luckily for me I managed to sleep through the night but my husband was up at 4:00 and Winnie was definitely on European time, getting up at 2:00 and 4:00 and then again at 7:00. Not only did she wake up but she stayed awake for an hour or two each time.

When I checked my emails I had over 1000. Needless to say that checking and replying to each one is next to impossible. I apologize in advance to my followers whose emails I had to delete. Even deleting emails takes time and I’m now down to 300. I’m hoping to read most of them.

I’ve managed to upload about half of my photos to my laptop. I’ve asked my family members to send me more shots, especially with ones of me in them. At the family wedding I didn’t have one photo of me in either of my cameras. Luckily my brother-in-law and nephew took lots and they promised to send me some.

So for the next couple of weeks I’ll definitely share some of my adventures and certainly many of my photos from Italy. For now I leave you with a small sampling of my 17 days in Venice, Florence, Bologna, Lucca, Assisi and Rome. Enjoy!

Getting Caught Up

…..99 emails to go

I thought when I went to Ireland I would have trouble keeping up with my emails from my fellow bloggers that I faithfully follow. I did fall behind reading posts in my Reader but I managed to enjoy the posts that come directly to my email.

The problem of staying up to date happened when I went to the cottage. As some of you know I don’t have electricity let alone internet access up there. When I was away for more than a weekend I would write articles, save them and then post them once I came home. Towards the end of the summer I discovered that the library in the village had free WiFi so I went there a couple of times to post some of my writing.

Last week I returned home to open my classroom. I spent three full days at school cleaning up other people’s rooms, and trying to put books back onto the shelves in the library. On Friday I went back to the cottage for the last weekend of my summer holiday and returned Sunday. This morning when I opened my emails I had 99 unread posts.

Should I just delete them and start fresh when new ones come in or do I read 10 or more of the old ones a day plus the new ones that come in? Sometimes I look for the posts that I know are photographs or art work with very little text and I open them first. It’s the longer posts that I’m having trouble getting to. I know first hand how disappointing it is when you pour your heart and soul into your writing and no one reads it. What would you do? Am I making a problem where no problem exists? Help me with my conundrum, PLEASE!