I woke up to the news as many of you did. A very strong earthquake had struck the Abruzzo region. My heart sank as I thought of who I knew in Italy that might be affected. Signora Molinari, my upstairs neighbor for the two years I lived in Rome was from Abruzzo. I'm sure she and her family are rocked by grief today. I've lost touch with her since repatriating to the U.S. Maybe I'll send her a note and some new photos of my son. Hopefully, reaching out will provide her some comfort. I wish I could...

Ahhh, space. I have always looked up and wondered what's going on up there. Even though my horrible math skills steered me clear of Astronomy in school, it never stopped me from reading the latest discoveries.

I kind of see space exploration in a similar vein as the Age of Discovery, but on a much longer time-scale. With my connection to the ocean from my family, its no wonder that I see space as the new, unexplored 'Ocean-Sea'.

So to me it is fitting that Italian scientists,...

At face value, it sounds almost too good to be true: Trenitalia has announced that it will offer cheap train fares just like the discount airlines. This is great news, except that will probably signify that traveling around Easter or Christmas could cost you the equivalent of a round trip airfare to Sydney.

I haven’t determined whether and by how much I’ll get penalized for being a last minute buy-at-the-station, but, I can imagine it won’t be pretty. And, considering that the online...

Have you seen the new fad of growing tomatoes upside down? It's actually a pretty good idea if you think about it. If you are limited on space, it's a good idea or if you just want to try it, it's also a good idea. I looked at different garden web sites and they have them for various prices, but I did a Google search for "growing tomatoes upside down" and came up with all sorts of things. One of which I am going to try. I went to my local hardware store(Home Depot) and bought two 5 gallon...

I posted this in the forum but thought I would follow up in my blog.
I started all of my seeds in doors about 2 weeks ago. Some didn't come up at first so I re did them. Now, all of the seeds I have started have begun to sprout
I planted 4 kinds of tomatoes, 3 types of egg-o planto's, 2 types of peppers, basil and lettuce.
This weeekend I will set out my cold weather seeds, like friarielli, beets and arugala.
Hopefully by the first or second week of May I will put...