Believing in Impossible Things.

So, maybe you're interested in how this trip was first conceived. I'll share my story and let Jan tell hers when she gets back from her current adventure. (She's always up to something or planning to be.)

I am not a seasoned adventure seeker or dreamer. But what I have been working on for the past few years is learning to become the master of my own habits. That means I've learned to stop doing what I've always done and start doing what I've never done (as long as it's legal that is). And so it was while talking with a good friend over coffee at Panera Bread more than a year ago that I allowed myself to express a dream of traveling. It happened that my friends' sister-in-law (Jan) was due to return soon from a trip to Italy. So I made another change in habit (isolation) and asked if my friend would connect me with Jan to talk about her trip, which she did. And that was the beginning of what I trust will be a life-long friendship with someone who really helps me break out of my habitual behavior and thinking.

Examples? Well anyone who knows me knows I have trouble with the concept of "fun". My idea of fun has been work---I know, how sick is that? Well, miss Jan is simply bored to death with anything that even sounds like work! So we had to find other things to talk about and do. Obviously planning a trip to Italy, Jan's "Happy Place", ranked right up there. And then there's shopping but NEVER paying full price---that's a game Jan has taught me to enjoy. But the most impossible thing of all is that I could come to see cooking as fun! Most of my friends have heard me say more than once "I DON'T COOK"! Shoot, I don't even think about food until I'm forced to by other family members who seem to think it's a daily requirement! All the cooking I cared for started with "P" for popcorn, pizza, and pretzels (preferably dipped in white chocolate).

So it's a small miracle that I now consider it recreational activity to mess around in the kitchen. Jan has had more than a couple of good laughs over my ignorance of all things culinary but I'm learning. I now have a stove-side drawer with only my favorite good tools, like knives sharp enough to chop onions and celery. And if my creation doesn't turn out fabulous, so what--it was fun as heck to chop, sprinkle, stir, taste, etc., and that's why Jan has taught me to call it my "test kitchen". Admittedly the occasional nip enhances the liberation of this new attitude towards kitchen duty.

Naturally, our trip to Italy will include cooking school where the only thing I've warned Jan I won't try is fish that still has its eyes! But here's to every other impossible thing!