Ann Silverthorn

I’m reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. The book asserts that we worry too much about the past and the future and do not spend enough time in the now. If we dwell too much in the future, we live in fear. If we live too much in the past, we live with…

On Monday, September 12, we had to go to work and leave Nutmeg and Nora in their crate during the day. I planned to come home at lunch time and let them out. I can imagine how much they cried when we left. The rescue organization gave me the name of the dogs’ vet, so…

After spending a week in State College running Penn State’s iMBA residency program, a detour to Punxsutawney, PA, home of Phil, prognosticator extraordinaire, was in order. Having lived in Pennsylvania nearly all my life, I was raised with Groundhog lore, anticipating every year whether Phil, the furry “seer of seers” would see his shadow. If…

Before I give you the low-down on our trip-home adventure, here is a list of all the blog posts for the 2011 Italy trip! Well, now we’re back home in the USA, in our small community, in Erie, PA. Although we had an amazing time in Italy, we’re so glad to be back home. Gettin…

For the last two days of our vacation, we stayed in Gaeta, a seaside town south of Rome, for its proximity to Itri, which is where Jim’s maternal grandparents were born. Itri is much larger than Troia, where his paternal grandparents came from. When we were in Itri, we enjoyed the pool at our hotel,…

On the morning after the procession, we went back to Troia so Jim could return to the tourist info office and ask some more questions. The man who spoke English well was there and he said that his friend’s mother was a DiDedda, so he offered to make a call to see if she could…

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we decided to return to Troia in the evening to observe the procession for the Cathedral of Beata Maria Vergine Assunta in Cielo’s celebration of its six patron saints, Eleuterio, Ponziano, Anastasio, Secondidino, Urban, and Anza. When we arrived, the band had already assembled and was warming up. The…

Yesterday, we drove 40 minutes from our hotel in Lucera (Grand Hotel Vigna Nocelli) to the hometown of Jim’s grandparents, Troia, in Puglia, which is located on the eastern side of the mountains, and Naples is on the west coast of Italy. Jim had done quite a bit of research over the past few years,…

So, everything was going so smoothly yesterday as we left Capri. Breakfast at 8:30, shuttle at 8:55, bought tickets for the SuperJet and left the Island at 9:35, and on the road out of Naples by 10:30. I hadn’t even gotten sick on the trip back across the Gulf of Naples. Thank you, original-formula Dramamine.…

After a week of whirlwind sightseeing, we’ve entered the quiet phase of our trip. Yesterday, settled in our hotel in Anacapri, Hotel Il Girasole, we had breakfast in the dining room and then sat outside in the shade while I updated my blog posts and Jim wrote out postcards. Later, we ordered lunch and had…