Festa della Madonna

Here in Italy today is a national holiday, the Immaculate Conception or Festa della Madonna. Banks and schools are closed, but there is mad holiday shopping going on. It's also my Dad's 75th birthday (Happy Birthday Dad!). Yesterday I went to an Arts and Crafts Christmas fair near my house. I did a lot of looking, skipped all the dolls and Christmas balls and then ended up at just one booth that had a ton of rubber stamps. I got two sets of letters, five colours of ink and this angel hole puncher. This could turn into a very expensive hobby. When I got home and showed them to the kids they went CRAZY over the letters. Evan was spelling his name quite well E-V-A-N until mid afternoon when he decided he really liked "S" and "M" too. So now he insists that his name is spelled E-S-A-M. I tried argueing with him about if for about five minutes and then gave up. Esam, pronounced Evan.

On the athletic side of my life I went swimming yesterday and repeated the 10 x 100mt workout I had done two months ago. I've gone from 2'10" to 1'55"/1'59" - yay me! And that's only on swimming once a week. Just think what I could do if I actually started, I don't know, training? I'll get there!