Columns

I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fan of New Year’s resolutions. I’m always looking to improve myself, and the leap from one year to the next is as good a springboard as any to spread my wings and at least try to soar. In the past, my to-do list has centered mostly on taking better care of myself — exercising, eating better, learning to relax — with my resolve typically melting well before the spring thaw. With the clock winding down on 2018, I was on the hunt for a new sort of resolution — the kind …

You have been searching for the right home for yourself and nothing seems to be meeting your needs. Many homebuyers will see roughly 10 homes prior to making an offer on one, but if you are on your 40th home, you may be paying attention to the wrong things when previewing a property. Paint colors can turn anyone off when entering a home and the same goes for wallpaper. Even if the paint color is on the outside of the home, that can easily be changed and could give you the opportunity to personalize the property to your likes by …

Everyone who grew up in Roseland, Pullman or Kensington has experience change. We have many fond memories of growing from childhood to adulthood there. Although many of us cling to those memories and mourn what we stubbornly regarded as a major loss to our lives, those changes and more have inevitably occurred regardless of how much they affect us. “Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.” — Frida Kahlo Many of us have gotten married — a ceremony that is meant to bind two people together for a lifetime — and then found …

When an Italian wants to describe a hope or a wish he has, either for himself or someone else, he must use the verb sperare, and this is the verb that will be the topic of our blog today. Sperare works a bit differently from the “typical” Italian -are verb. To review what we’ve learned in our last blog about sperare: When using the verb sperare to express a hope or a wish one person or a group has for themselves, sperare must be followed by the preposition “di”. “Di” will often be followed by a verb in the infinitive …

During all the time I have been updating everyone with more information on familysearch, I seem to have neglected another site with Italian records that everyone who is working with Italian records ought to know about. This site is an ancestry site for Italy, designed to allow us to search and browse Italian civil registration records. It’s not Ancestry.com, it’s an Italian site called Antenati. (Antenati: Gli Archivi per la Ricerca Anagrafica, http://www.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/?lang=en) You can leave the language for the website in Italian if you wish! Antenati contains the same records typically available on familysearch, and on microfilm in the …

You have been saving for years and now it’s time for you to purchase your first home, but where do you begin? The process can be drawn out and at times excruciating but with the right team in place, it can be smooth sailing. The first step, unless you’re paying in cash, is too find out exactly what a mortgage company or bank will approve you for. This is crucial since there are many different factors in determining if you’re approved and how much you’re approved for. Even an 800 credit score, doesn’t give you an automatic approval like many …

  When someone takes out a regular (forward) mortgage, the borrower makes monthly payments to pay the mortgage down. With a Reverse Mortgage, if you are approved there are no monthly payments and the mortgage balance instead goes up. Why would anyone what to get a reverse mortgage? First of all, not everybody can. It’s only available to borrowers who are 62 years of age or older. How much equity you can access is based on your age and how much your home is worth. It is very popular for seniors who have limited income and have very small mortgages …

  A Roseland Christmas was always aimed at the kids — and still is everywhere. I recall some of the gifts I received, but honestly, I remember getting my dad a carton of cigarettes more. I remember it being an annual dilemma: What do I get mom and dad. With a family consisting of eight kids, there was no question of whether to give our siblings gifts. That wasn’t about to happen. Our parents, that was another story entirely. I don’t remember at what age I started thinking in terms of better presents for my parents, but I know it …

“Parla italiano?” I get that question every now and then from readers calling to change an address or pay via credit card. For the longest time, I dreaded it. “No, I’m sorry,” I’d sheepishly reply. The caller would politely switch to English and on we’d go. Some of them have given me a gentle ribbing. How can the editor of an Italian-American magazine properly do his job with only English in his linguistic toolbox? I get by, but not as well as I might. In my defense, I came by my handicap honestly enough. My father — who was born …

One of my favorite Christmas memories is the year a white Christmas turned black. It all started out on Christmas Eve day in Riis Park, a square-block-sized patch of recreational outlets plunked in the middle of our Chicago neighborhood. I tagged along with my two older brothers to go ice-skating in the portion of the park that was flooded each year to create a sort of ice rink. While my brothers played hockey, I was left to work out the rudiments of ice skating on my own. Being only 5 or so years old, that wasn’t easy. What made it …