We realized this morning that we’ve stopped taking pictures of every door, every flower, every traditional Tuscan tile building we see. What that signaled to us is that we’re settling in, beginning to live the every day life in Italy.

Our neighborhood is familiar. The neighbors know us. We know them.

We stopped to talk one night to the elderly couple who have the beautiful roses we stopped to admire – and take pictures of – every single day for the first two weeks we were here. I fed their dog the last bite of my gelato cone. Now we wave to them as we pass by. Usually they wave first.

I successfully talked with the owner of a store today, telling her in Italian that I have two granddaughters who are, respectively, two years and two months old.

We’ve made friends with the clerk at the grocery store. In the first weeks he was a little grim when he saw us. Now we greet him, ask how he’s doing – in Italian. He responds. Asks us how we’re doing, where we’re from, what we’re doing in Italy. In Italian. He picks up a few words of English. We get more comfortable with Italian.

That’s not to say our Italian is perfect. Far from it. But, it’s not so strange any more. Not so new. We’re not so self conscious using what we know. It’s every day.

Living the every day life has its downsides. We discovered maggots in our garbage this morning. Holy cow! Maggots! I swept the floor. Mary washed out the wastebasket. Guess we know we have to tie up the garbage a little more often in Italy.

But that’s just every day living.

Ciao!