The water has been a bit rough.  Because of this, we haven’t gone out on the boat again. But still we are having quite a vacation – or staycation since we’re pretty much rooted in Santa Maria. We’ve been swimming, feasting on Nutella for merenda, and basking under the Mediterranean sun.

I started a new book - I, Mona Lisa, by Jeanne Kalogridis. I am loving it.  Mike is not a big fan of the book, since he has to compete with it for my attention.  Too bad for him, my books usually win.

Aside from  enjoying a handful of leisurely activities and savoring my precious reading time, I with Mike have also been getting back in touch with nature. Everyday, we enjoy the sight of purple and orange sunsets.  We take pleasure in sitting on his balcony at night, listening to the waves crash while looking up at the sky to look for the Big Dipper.  We’ve been tracking the size of the moon, and the direction that the wind blows.  Is it maestrale? In which case the wind comes from the northwest, and brings with it nice and sunny weather.  Is it scirocco? In which case the wind comes from the South (the direction of Sahara). It brings with it unbearably hot weather preceding stormy winds and big waves that take away the sand in front of Mike’s beach house.

I’ve learned so much the past few days about things that put me back in touch with nature and the world.  Back home, I don’t even look up to see if the sky is still blue.

Before leaving for vacation, I busted my chops while making sure that I finished my list of tasks for work.  Of course, task lists never truly end.  I was still thinking of technical issues even on the plane en route to Rome.  Now with all the beauty of nature around me, I’ve come to realize that whatever was going on at work, whether it was a pending change control or configuration issue, is all quite trivial, really.  There IS a bigger picture, and there exists a world such as this – a beautiful one too!

The world’s wonder is beyond the four walls of the office and its beauty extends farther than the laptop monitor.  So much is out there for us to explore and experience.  And to appreciate it, we simply must open our eyes, utilize our senses, and recognize the goodness that surrounds us.  Along the way if we’re lucky, perhaps we’d learn to see and cherish those things that truly matter and let go of all that’s trivial and small.

Last night, we spent a few hours eating and chatting with Mike’s family.  I didn’t do too bad with communicating.  I can understand way better than I can speak.  For some reason, the language came much easier to me two years ago.  I need to be better at practicing my Italian even when I’m not in Italy!

After everyone left, Mike and I stayed out on their balcony and listened to the waves crash.  The air here is different.  It’s fresh, light and has no smell to it, unlike the Jersey shore where the air is thick, and there’s a smell that you could recognize from blocks away.  I think we Jerseyans have associated this to the ocean smell, and some have come to love it. But I’ve realized that there’s no distinct smell or heaviness to the air in beaches not on the Jersey shore.

I was determined to wake up early today even though we got to bed late last night.  At some point, my eyes opened and my gaze fell straight to the clock in the room, anxious that I’d slept through the morning of our first full day of holiday bliss.  The clock read 7:45.  Okay, not too bad.  I closed my eyes and slept some more.

The next time my eyes opened, I felt that I’d slept too long.  So I dreadfully looked at the clock again.  It said 7:45.  Okay, not bad.  But wait…  I felt much more rested.  DOH!  Turns out the clock was broken.

It was almost 11 am.  Boooo!

How I wish that time could stand still just like it does in the broken clock.  I don’t want our vacation to zoom past us.  I wish it goes by slowly, and I want to make sure that we savor every moment of it.

I wonder if my father, as he turns 60 today, also wants time to stand still or if he feels that time is going too fast and his life is zooming past him.  To me, he will always be 48, strong, tall and handsome even when he’s 90 and gray.

Making it count is what’s important. That goes for this holiday, my dad’s 60 years, and more importantly, our lifetime.

Happy Birthday Pops!

Since Mike and I recently got engaged and bought a house, such questions have come up on several occasions from different people.

Questions like:

“How much did you pay for your house?”

“How much was your down payment when you bought your house?”

“How many carats is your ring?”

“How much did Mike spend on your engagement ring?”

These irk me!

It’s nosy, not to mention rude.

Why do people feel the need to know specific financial details of others?  And they ask so blatantly, often prefacing the question with “If you don’t mind me asking…”.

I want to answer, In fact I do mind, what’s it to you?

The answers to these materialistic questions should NOT have any bearing on anyone’s life but ours.  Does it make someone’s life better knowing how much our mortgage loan is, or how much Mike spent on the ring?  If the intent is to inquire about the home-buying or diamond-shopping process, then questions like “What were the requirements to get a home loan?” or “Can you recommend a jeweler you trust?” may be more fitting.  Otherwise, “Congratulations!” really is sufficient, thank you.

Unless they’re planning to move to the same block in the same neighborhood, they should be doing their ‘market research’ elsewhere.  Even then, realtors can provide the comp prices.  Don’t ask me.  But wait, what am I talking about?   These nosies aren’t moving into our neighborhood.  Thank goodness for that.  They ask because they’re NOSY!

These questions are materialistic, superficial and irrelevant to any conversation.  I feel like my worth or Mike’s is being assessed.  Any answer gives the person  the power to judge.  Anything I say could lead to thoughts like “Wow, such big spenders!” or “Wow, they’re cheap”, depending on how the nosies subjectively perceive the answer.

I don’t want to be judged.  However, not giving an answer or dodging the question somehow makes ME the rude one.

Asking these questions is inappropriate. These questions should NOT be asked unless the inclination to find out serves a good purpose and makes someone’s life better somehow.

The price of my house, or the ring on my finger, or the shirt on my back is nobody’s business.  Especially not the nosies’.

Late spring of ‘05, my dad paid a visit to his cousin in Vegas. When he came back to Jersey after Memorial Day weekend, he and my mom started to explore the idea of relocating to Sin City.  On June 6, the day of my birthday, our house went on the market.   By mid-summer, I found a new place to live, and my parents had decided  against moving to Las Vegas.   They were convinced that their new hometown was going to be Houston instead.

Moving Out - Date: August 2005.  My new place was much closer to work, more accessible to friends, and right in the heart of our usual hang out – New Brunswick.  My landlord doubled as my new housemate – a fabulous, kind-hearted gay man.  He was Will, and I, Grace.  I was single, independent and having the time of my life.

My friend Mike lived ten minutes away from New Brunswick, so hanging out was quite convenient .  Well, what do you know,  our new proximity made our hearts grow fonder.  Our constant exposure to each other mutated our friendship into something deeper.  Our relationship began.  My life as I knew it, had changed.

Mike and I got engaged in October last year.  Not long after that, we started planning a wedding.  And very soon after that, we realized what, or I should say how much it takes to get married nowadays.   Hence we also started saving up for the wedding.

Moving In - Date: February 2009 .  I moved out of my place in New Brunswick and moved into Mike’s condo in Princeton.  This was something we both thought we’d never do.   The place in New Brunswick was always a place where I can go home to, even though towards the end it really only served as a giant storage space for me.   It also became difficult to keep track of which of my clothes are at my place, and which were at his.  Even then,I always imagined maintaining this aspect of my independence up until we get married.  Having my own space was sort of my pride.  Besides, he and I had previously discussed NOT living together before marriage.  We wanted to look forward to that official ‘adjustment period’ after the wedding, to experiencing the thrill behind the unleashing of the unknown.

But one has to be practical these days.    Why should I continue paying rent when I could be putting that money away towards our wedding photographer’s fee? In any case, not having my own place where I could crash if I wanted some space or a taste of solitude was a concept I had to get used to and accept.  Two distinct spaces (with  quite a few things in them) merging into one is no laughing matter.  On top of that, sharing a closet with someone else was a league on its own!  My life as I knew it, had changed.

And so Mike and I cohabited in the 950 sq. ft. 3rd floor condo that we named ‘Sparta’.  We loved Sparta’s location, we were happy, content and completely open to the idea that we’d probably continue living in Sparta even after we got married, or heck, even after having our first kid a couple of years down the road.  However, looking at the real estate market is a pastime for us, if only to see what’s out there.  We also like going to open houses, if only to look at how sellers decorate or stage their houses.  We had no pre-meditated plans to buy a house.  But things happened fast, and the timing of everying  was akin to a perfect storm.

Moving Together - Date: May 2009.  We bought a house together  and it was yet another move for me.  And it was so soon since my last move too. It’s okay though because this time it is ours.  Not his alone, or his first, but ours at the same time.  And now that I have a place that I can finally and truly call MY HOME,  my life as I’ve known it, has changed.

I’m aware that more changes will come, some may be expected, and others not.  I used to reject change and fight it with my feet kicking and lungs screaming.  Through the years, I’ve learned to embrace it and accept it as a part of pro-active living.  These changes have brought me to the present – the ‘now’.  I can only savor the present moment and eagerly anticipate what tomorrow brings.

All that hard work poured into building what I had, all the hours, all those thoughts and memories so meticulously logged — were gone just like that.  I didn’t keep any local copies of my posts in my computer, and would blog directly on the web interface.  BIG MISTAKE!

The entire blog database and the automatic backup files were wiped out.    The thought of backups getting destroyed never even crossed my mind.  I complacently believed that disaster recovery procedures would come to the rescue if ever something bad were to happen. I thought people doing their jobs were reliable.  But I learned the hard way.  I don’t even know if the company had a disaster recovery plan in place at all or whether the people they employed were even competent.

Needless to say, I terminated their services – FAST.  However, I didn’t quite as quickly rebuild my blog.  I dreaded the thought of starting from scratch again, and the reminder of the year of hard work that I had lost stirred up anger, not motivation.

For the past four years, I’ve been paying for the services of another hosting company to host pretty much nothing, with the thought that someday I will blog again.

That someday is now.  I’ve learned my lesson and will back up often.  Hopefully Gabbages is here to stay and nothing else gets in the way.