Moving in Day :: Italy

Well I never thought this day would come....Moving in day in Italy. From my 3 1/2 year search to phase one of our renovation of the main house, it's truly been a sweet journey. I could not have done any of this, not one lick of it, without my best friend, and designer/project manager, Forrest Spears. He is truly an angel, and will continue to be as we move into phase two, the guest quarters, commercial kitchen and student lounge. I am hugely overwhelmed with the feelings that the Fortress is finally ours. We are restoring it to its full potential and will welcome our first workshop attendees in June.I am grateful to be able to fulfill our dream and to share it with our students, family and friends over the next years to come.Send me good vibes as all of you know moving day is a challenge.I will be dealing with boxes eaten by what our workers called "field mice"... I think they were trying to be nice. I think the "mice"  are more like rats. We stored all of our belongings in our cantina (which is like a wine cellar), but obviously it's been home to several rat families and creatures of the field over the past years. I think I will be adopting a few cats this summer. :-)So the glamorous life of living in the Italian countryside begins this weekend for me. Rubber gloves and endless buckets of soapy water and giant garbage bags will be there too, as they ate anything made of straw, wicker or paper. I won't go into detail but a lot of stuff is pretty disgusting.However, once I move it, the main house will be glorious. All I have to think of is my shiny new Lacanche, and it puts a smile on my face.Our new Lacanche range fresh out of the box.Thank you to all of you that have followed along to this point, cheered me on and were nothing but supportive and excited for us. We love that you continue to send good wishes and thoughts. I hope you all come visit us and share a glass of our wine from the vineyard. Continue to follow as we start phase 2 in the next couple weeks. It's going to be an action packed summer. In the meantime love to you all, and grazie mille xxThe vineyard view from the guest room.