Sorry no cookies.

Where is a wall so I can beat my head against it?

Oh those dents? From the day I shopped for baking soda.

I went to 3 grocery stores today, of varying sizes and brand names, to try to find baking soda, baking powder and brown sugar (the packable kind, not the raw kind). To no avail.

I searched in the spices, near the flour, in the sugar and even by the cleaners (hey, doesn't baking soda also deodorize?). Once I even came home with granulated yeast and wheat starch (see photo). Even Cream of Tartar would have gotten me halfway home, but still I am batting zero. (I always get them confused, but baking soda plus cream of tartar is essentially the same as baking powder---unless it is the reverse). Either way, I was out of luck.

So no cookies.

That was the plan, to make my famous lunch box cookies (please bake a batch on my behalf, and snub your nose at me while you eat them---readily---in non Florentine cities). They are a treat we all love: a filling and relatively healthy snack that packs the requisite punch for soccer turnouts, rapidly growing adolescents and resident tourists alike. And yet, at the end of the day, all I was munching was biscotti (really, she is complaining?). Skip the espresso, give me some Vin Santo for dunking (super sweet wine---both espresso and Vin Santo are classic beverages to supplement a plate of biscotti).

My options are: ask mom to shop at Costco and SEND huge bags of brown sugar, baking soda and powder OR plug along and figure out sufficient Italian ingredients. Give me another day of asking my neighbors, then I will decide.

Click here for lunchbox cookie recipe.

yes I bought a purse.

Finally. I mean how long have I been here without caving?

Our residence is smack dab in the middle of Florence's leather district; there are vendors everywhere with purses lined up like colorful candy. How have I resisted?

Well we have been settling in, shopping for apartments and tackling paperwork---so I have been distracted. And leave it to me to price shop: why would I pay top dollar when I have time to research? In passing, I have been weighing one vendor against another, having my children ask for prices and verifying among the truckloads: what purse would be my first?

James is lucky, my favorite kind of shopping usually involves food. Though I love fashion, I have not spent a ton on accessories/clothes/jewelry (much of this is due to our dollars being spent on graduate school, babies, restoring homes---toilet wins over shoes---and now a self-invented sabbatical). But I am in Florence, which feels a bit like a permission slip: I plan to come home with a few purses. There must be some secret code, some girlie girl requirement that when you are in Florence you should not only eat fabulous food, scour historical sites and frequent Tuscan wineries, but one must also purchase some fashion flare. It is what it is!

My purse is... plum colored. And I love it. And Anthony helped me score a seriously good deal! He and I were going for a walk, and browsing the leather stand on the same street as our apartment. I had him ask the price of a few different purses, and translate. We let the vendor know Anthony knew a little Italian, so Anthony translated. The guy threw out a few different prices: € 25, € 35, € 45 and Anthony told me the smaller purse was € 25.

I finally caved and decided on my purse (for the record, my little black purse I bought in Maastricht had held out until this same morning, when the strap broke... oh DARN). So I took out the € 25 and the guy looked a little confused and said no, I said it was € 35. Anthony had made an honest mistake; I cringed on cue (okay there was no cue but I did contort my face and hesitate). He looked at the other vendor, then back at us (oh Anthony, you told me € 25! ehem, good job: remind me to thank you later). The vendor said: okay € 30. DONE. Woo-hoo!

Happy purse lady am I.

Firenze appartemento

I have been antsy about our Florentine landing pad for months now. I researched apartments online before we ever left Seattle, and contacted agents and apartment owners while we were cycling across Europe this summer. I emailed friends who emailed friends about various neighborhoods in the city. We looked at which school and what soccer, so we might know what vicinity to aim for. But we really didn't have a clue. I had never been to the city, we had no way to know what soccer club they would be invited to play for, and we hadn't visited schools.

There was so much to consider, like a really personal storied math problem with too many unknown variables. Including---but not limited to---a mother with a nesting drive and homing instinct, a need to help her young settle in... lets just call it an added ball of stress, shall we?

As planned (love that word), we landed in temporary diggs (2 weeks) in Florence. Then we started to get to know the city and look at apartments. And although I really wanted a place arranged in advance, it worked out quite well to make our 'home' choice while on the premises. Here is why:

If you think of the main part of Florence as the face of a clock---with the Duomo at the center---our temporary apartment was at noon. This gave us a good sense of what it would be like to live in the north quadrant of the city (nice area but not our preference, and too far away from the Arno, the Ponte Vecchio, city center). It also gave us time to find soccer clubs, the bike paths (our means of transportation around the city) and visit schools. And air conditioning became a desirable feature.

Incidentally, the two soccer clubs are located beyond the clock's face at 3:00 and 9:00; and the school we visited and love, is extended beyond 5:00.

But that isn't all; we had a list of requirements beyond location. Including a tight budget. We may have occasional guests and would love at least 2 extra places to sleep (like a pull-out couch) to accommodate them. With young teenage boys, and requisite piles of soccer gear, smelly socks and sweaty shirts, we placed '2 bathrooms' very near the top of our list. And a washing machine---for the same reason. Dishwasher nice, but not necessary. And we really started to love the idea of being in the center of the city (well within the face of the clock), so when guests DO come, we don't have to hike each time we want to tour the various sites in the city. Near the river, air conditioning, tall ceilings, wifi access, not too many floors up...

How is that for a laundry list of variables?

And we found it. But only because we were here scouring, stressing, negotiating---and beating the reams of students by mere days before they scooped up every remaining bed in the city.

To those of you visiting: there is a humble place to rest your heads. There is air conditioning, the price is right, there is a washer and a dishwasher and the table is in the kitchen (nice for people spending a lot of time cooking...). One bedroom is a loft (for the boys) and the master bedroom will double as an office, as it has a desk. There are TWO BATHROOMS, thank God, and they are very nice. It is only up one flight of stairs. It has internet access, and a TV---a requisite for soccer-watching types like ourselves. Sigh. Happy.

I would say the only downer is we have to pay extra to lock up our bikes (in a nearby garage) and it is on a tourist thoroughfare. Which means it will be busy during the day, but it also means we are well, resident tourists and in the heart of the city (and piles of fun for loaded water guns, since our windows are just above the masses...). Besides, where else would we want to be?