In the early days of our shared adventure, we started a blog called “Under the Tuscan Thumb.” Since we had decided to live in Italy half the year, we wanted to move far beyond being “tourists,” to become what we jokingly called “true Italians.” Of course, that isn’t realistic, but we still wanted to move as far into the culture as possible. That meant buying a house, car, getting a driver’s license, and all that went with those seemingly simple things. Permanent Resident status is what we were actually talking about which meant documents and processes that pulled us deep down inside the beast of culture and tradition.

We came up with a title that played on the book/movie “Under the Tuscan Sun,” where everything is beautiful, romantic and sweet. We simply substituted the “Thumb” which better described the feelings associated with our deep dive into the culture. The resulting blog was an early form of our “book” documenting our pioneering days, one story at a time. Some 15 years later, we decided to keep that blog as a record and shift to a new site called “Uncommon Promise” which ushered in a new era of Italian life. You can access those original stories here at “Under the Tuscan Thumb,” where they remain intact from our period of naïveté. We hope you find the stories engaging and entertaining as well as informative. Please feel free to  visit our new site as well, where you can tap into the ongoing story that continues to this very moment—some 20 years later.

Happy Adventures!

Cheryl and Emerson