Pass the Potatoes!

Restaurant Review - Broadway Diner

2012-01-22T14:33:00.000-05:00

We pass this diner all the time (I mean, it's on the way to Target and Home Depot!) and this morning I finally suggested we go there for breakfast.

I am so glad I did! It was deee-licious!

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera (again) because when Wes' breakfast came out I wish I had a picture. I'm not sure why, but he always orders the largest thing on the menu. I guess when you're planning on running 20 miles that afternoon you can eat whatever you want. When we were in Boston he ordered The Emergency Room for breakfast. Today he had French Toast Deluxe which was 3 huge pieces of French toast, bacon, ham, sausage, and two eggs. I tend to not order French toast at restaurants, but after a taste of his I will definitely get it there. It was cooked perfectly and they even put some cinnamon on it. It was divine. I ordered the Western Omelette which came with fried potatoes (not hash browns) and toast. It was so much I couldn't finish it, but it was delicious. Honestly though, the biggest surprise was that the coffee was excellent. Most of the time when you go to a diner the food is great, but the coffee is disgusting. This was definitely not the case here. It was a little pricey for breakfast ($34 with tip), but they had other less expensive options than the French Toast Deluxe.

If you're in the Baltimore area or travelling through on I-95, it's conveniently located just off the Eastern Ave exit. And if you're into the show Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives it was featured on there in 2009! We look forward to going back for lunch or dinner.

Check it out!
Broadway Diner - 6501 Eastern Ave, Baltimore, MD 21224

Website Recommendation

2012-01-07T10:09:00.000-05:00

My friend, Laura, has just launched a new site where she sells cards, painted furniture, and commissioned projects. She's located in Bristol, England, but she will ship the cards internationally. I think my favorites are the camping scenes and the bowl of Brussels sprouts!

Check it out!

http://www.lmdoriginal.co.uk/

2011 Book Roundup

2012-01-02T10:05:00.000-05:00

Okay, so this year wasn't so much quantity as it was quality. Moving countries and starting a full-time job really puts a damper on reading time. The good news is I did get a Kindle for Christmas, so I'll be downloading books to read on my commute. I think first up is going to be Room by Emma Donoghue. I've also joined a book club and hopefully we'll read some interesting books this year!

Last year I did a best and worst list of the year, but it's difficult this year. I truly enjoyed all of the books I read this year. I was probably most pleasantly surprised by The Remains of the Day. I guess I had preconceived notions that it might be boring and it really wasn't. The one book I probably wouldn't recommend is Dublin Noir. I couldn't get past the story where the girl says she's sitting in a coffee shop trying to read a Dublin city map, but finding it impossible because the street names are all in Irish. Clearly the author had never been to Dublin and walked down O'Connell Street to Westmoreland Street to College Green and on to Nassau Street. Annoying.

What was your surprise read for 2011? What would you recommend?

Happy reading in 2012!

2011 Reading List

To the people who buy new winter coats

2011-12-27T13:08:00.000-05:00

I know you're excited about your new coat. You want to show it off to the world!

It's Calvin Klein! It's 100% wool!

But you know what? You need to cut off the label on the sleeve. You know, the one down by your hand? You may not even need to cut the two pieces of thread holding it on. In a lot of cases, it's just a sticker that you can just pull off.

And once you finish with that, you can scratch the clearance stickers off the bottoms of your heels. We can still see them when you're walking, even if you can't.

Phew! Got those two pet peeves off my chest! Merry Christmas to me!

Here's one thing I miss about Ireland

2011-12-20T21:13:00.001-05:00

Moisture in the air.

I'm so glad I now have an answer for people when they ask me what I miss about living in Ireland since I am asked this All.The.Time.

It's only December and the skin on my face already feels like it's going to break off. I use Dove Extra Moisture soap in the mornings to wash my face in the shower and by the time I get out my face is bright red and on fire. I apply my sensitive skin moisturiser and it feels like I'm dousing it in acid. Then I proceed to shock myself with everything I touch as I walk around getting ready for work or stand up from the couch. My clothes stick to me. I'll soon be in the market for a humidifier in the bedroom since it's only a matter of time until my nasal passages are so dry I can't sleep. I miss radiator heat which is warmer and not nearly as dry as central heat.

Oh yeah, I miss one other thing - M&S reduced fat hummus. Grocery store hummus here is nasty. We've tried a couple different kinds and we both agree that it's gross. Funny thing is when I first moved to England and was visiting friends, I specifically remember saying to them that I didn't like the hummus there and thought it was nasty. Oops! Fortunately, it's good at the local Greek restaurants, but I don't want eating hummus to be a special occasion!

Trying to get my blog mojo back with this Christmas quiz!

2011-12-10T13:48:00.001-05:00

The Annoyed Army Wife posted this on her blog and I thought it was cute. I'm having a bit of writer's block, so I'm hoping this helps!

Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Definitely hot chocolate. Egg nog has uncooked eggs in it that you're supposed to drink and well, that's totally gross.

Colored lights on tree/house or white? I actually like both (we have white), but I don't like a mixture. Either go small colored, large colored, or white. Don't put a string of each all willy nilly around your yard. That's the worst. Oh, and if you're putting candles in the window keep them white. There's a farmhouse down the road from my parents who use red lights. I'm pretty sure Satan lives there.

Do you hang mistletoe? No, but I like the look of real mistletoe. Not too keen on the fake plastic kind!

When do you put your decorations up? Not until sometime in December. November is way too early and I'm usually still digesting Thanksgiving until at least December 1st.

What is your favorite holiday dish? I don't really have a favorite dish, but I like to have nibbles/snacks on Christmas eve, something special for breakfast (basically anything but cereal), and ham on Christmas day.

Favorite Holiday memory as a child? Getting dressed up to go to the candlelight service at our church when we lived in State College. We had these little pins with bells on them that we would wear and I just thought that was something special.

When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I'm not sure, really. I think my best friend who had an older, wiser brother spilled the beans. However, her dad used to go around visiting all the kids in the neighborhood dressed as Santa and I would always ask her if that was her dad and she would deny it over and over. She didn't admit it to me until we were teenagers.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Nope.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? This was the first year we have had a tree since we were married. My husband sat on the couch watching 'The Hangover' while I put it up. As I unpacked the ornaments I would show him every single one. Good times.

Snow! Love it or Dread it? It's definitely not winter without the possibility of having snow. I love it unless I'm stranded for 3 days with my parents. 'Nuff said.

Do you remember your favorite gift? I got lots of good toys growing up, there was the year we got the rollerskate jackets, but I think my favorite gift was a ladder. That's right. It's one of those things that you want, but it's just pricey enough that you don't want to buy it yourself.

What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? I think it's easier to say what is my least favorite. Mince pies. These were a non-issue in my life until I moved to England where pretty much the ONLY Christmas treat people bring to the office are mince pies. It was seriously annoying. This reminded me of my favorite holiday treat which is chocolate chip cookies with red and green M&Ms.

What is your favorite holiday tradition? Baking cookies. I don't do that many, but it does put me in the mood!

Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum? I'm indifferent. They're okay, but I don't go nuts.

Favorite Christmas movie? Hmmm...well, it's NOT White Christmas. That movie is the pits and it has nothing to do with Christmas. I'm a big fan of Elf and all the retro movies from the olden days.

Saddest Christmas Song? Christmas songs aren't supposed to be sad. Period.

What is your favorite Christmas song? I'm a fan of the hymns. I really like The Holly and the Ivy, Lo' How A Rose Er Blooming, and O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

It's officially winter around here

2011-11-27T11:43:00.000-05:00

The cat was under the blankets today. In Dublin she spent most of her days under the blankets, but today was the first day she dug under there. Most of her time is spent here:

Thankfully, that's Wes' side of the bed and I don't have to share my space with her.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had lots to be thankful for and we celebrated it with great friends, family, and food. That awesome combination makes Thanksgiving my favorite holiday of the year!

Homework

2011-11-16T13:01:00.000-05:00

This morning I had to call and make us a couple of appointments at the clinic. I had to make another one for Wes to give a sample and the appointment is on a Monday. The woman goes, 'Now, you have homework on Friday and/or Saturday, but then no homework after Saturday'. It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. How weird when sex starts to be referred to as 'homework'. I just hope the school kids don't catch wind of that!

This shouldn't surprise people who know me

2011-11-07T21:30:00.000-05:00

I was talking to my mom today and I mentioned the scandal that's just hit Penn State University. We used to live in State College and my family has been long time Penn State fans, so this was particularly shocking to hear. Jerry Sandusky was always well respected as one of the football coaches.

Mom: "You know you went to nursery school with Jerry Sandusky's son."

Me: "Really?" (Clearly this wasn't a lifelong friendship)

Mom: "Yeah. That day of your bike accident* you were supposed to be going to his birthday party. There you were coming out of anaesthesia with your big, fat lip and all you wanted to do was go to this party so you could still get a cupcake."

Me: "Nothing gets between me and a cupcake. I gotta keep my eye on the prize!"

Mom: "You haven't changed a bit!"

*The summer before I started kindergarten my sister and I were out riding our bikes. They both had banana seats and mine was called 'Desert Rose'. Awesome. Our front tires collided and I fell onto the road (my sister didn't seem to have a scratch on her). I ended up knocking out my two front teeth, broke my middle finger, and split my bottom lip right in half. Since I couldn't see my face I was focused on the fact that my finger really hurt. My sister and I ran home, me holding my finger and her screaming and crying next to me. We ran into my parent's bedroom and I can remember my mom's face and her saying, 'Don't get any blood on the bedspread!' She's not sure she ever said that, but a child never forgets. Am I right?? When it was all said and done, I ended up with a toothless grin that lasted 2 years and 65 stitches in my bottom lip. Needless to say, I never got my cupcake that day!

It's amazing what a little cleanliness can do for the soul!

2011-11-06T19:30:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm working full time to say cleaning has been pushed down the priority list is an understatement. Wes is really good about doing laundry and getting dinner started in the evenings, but cleaning isn't his favorite thing and I can't blame him for that. It's not mine either. We have a friend coming from Ireland this week, so there was some deep cleaning that needed to be done. We've been so busy that this is the first weekend that we've actually been home and I've been able to get some things done. You know, those annoying things like wiping down the baseboards and walls in the bathroom. Do people really do that kind of thing every time they clean the bathroom?? This person doesn't. I vacuumed the stairs (this one was way overdue). Wes put together the shelf and I hung the mirror in the guest bedroom. It just needs pictures on the walls and that will finally be finished. I've been holding off hanging some things in the living room until we paint, but I said screw it and went ahead and hung a couple of things that were sitting around.

The best thing that happened was finally picking out a new sofa on Saturday. I don't think I blogged about the original sofa. I was so distraught that it wouldn't fit in the door that it made me feel physically ill. Actually, it was hearing we were going to lose a 25% restocking fee that made me want to lose my lunch. Yesterday I picked out a new - not as beautiful - sofa that WILL fit in the door. Now we wait 6-8 more weeks, but the last one didn't take that long, so I'm hoping this one doesn't either. I became a total cheapskate and skipped on the $69.99 delivery fee. We'll rent a truck from Ho.me De.pot for less than half the price and move it ourselves. I'd like to get the kitchen and living room painted before the sofa shows up.

Other than cleaning, I slept in both days and we had homemade waffles for breakfast on Saturday.

Huh...so this might be the most boring post in the world! Yet, it's weekends like this that can make me feel the most content. The beautiful autumn sun shining in the windows certainly helped with my mood!

Commuting Chronicles

2011-11-04T21:35:00.000-04:00

Just a public service announcement for my fellow metro riders:

If you're standing next to a pole, because there are no seats and the train is jam packed, don't wrap your body around the pole to stabilize yourself. You do not own the whole pole. Other people would like to hold on as well and they'd like to do it without the possibility of touching your breast.

Sincerely,
A shorty metro rider who can't reach the handles hanging above her head

I almost forgot!!!

2011-10-29T16:23:00.000-04:00

It's been such a 'woe is me' kinda week that I totally forgot the best part of the week! I lost 4 lbs this month! Woot! That's 1 lb per week and I couldn't be happier about that. I've been eating WW meals for lunch and going to the gym (THANK YOU GROUPON!) 3x per week (Body Pump, Body Jam, and Body Flow). The gym pass will only be good until the end of November, but I've already bought one month of unlimited pilates class to use in December. That will get me through the first of the year and hopefully the gyms will start their New Year's specials at that point. Here's hoping I can keep up the 1lb per week loss for at least the next, oh, 16 weeks! Ha!

The week ended with two shots and a bang!

2011-10-29T10:00:00.000-04:00

Li-tra-lee!

Sorry for my feeble attempt at phonetically spelling the British pronunciation of 'Litrally'.

Yesterday morning we were headed out to the doctor's office for my shot (Wes came with me so he could register at the office too) and what happens? Of course I fall. In fairness to me, there is something sinister about that square of sidewalk. It's the end of the curb, so it is a little hill. Wes slid on it once and he was wearing his running shoes. Anyway, I went down hard on my knee (thankfully I didn't rip a hole in the knee of my pants) and ended up I hobbling the rest of the way to the doctor. I had my MMR vaccine and they talked me into getting the tetanus and pertussis vaccine. They had to give me one in each arm and the tetanus shot goes in the muscle, so that one ached most of the day. This means that nothing can happen in the TTC realm for the next 4 weeks. Good thing shots don't bother me that much since it looks like I could have a future of injecting myself with various things. Not awesome.

Another reason why yesterday was such a bad day

2011-10-25T19:00:00.004-04:00

The calls to/from Comcast were just the bookends on a day full of crap.

At my first appointment at the fertility clinic they took blood to test for various things. I came back in the grey area for immunity to German measles. What now?? I proclaimed that my mom's a nurse and she made sure we had all of these vaccines and their boosters! It seems that vaccines can lose their power. Who knew? Apparently it's bad news to get the German measles when you're pregnant and you can't get the vaccine if you're pregnant. I got tested again. Again, I came back in the grey area. I don't like failing and I needed more info on my results. I came back as a '9'. What number is immune?? Anything higher than 9. Dang it! Getting the vaccine means everything gets pushed back another month. I had the option to waive the vaccine or I could channel my 5 year old self and get the MMR vaccine again. At first I waived it...come on, I barely failed! But, then I took one minute to think about where I work and how many international people we have come into the office. It's not just the Germans I'd have to avoid....it's everyone!!! They told me to contact my primary care physician to get the vaccine.

When I got insurance in September I had to find a PCP to put on our cards. After much searching (I had some crazy criteria), I finally found one. I called, they were taking new patients, I put them on the application, and that was that. Well, when I actually needed to make an appointment I was told that now they're not taking new patients. Already having them on your card isn't good enough. I'm not gonna lie. I started to cry. The way this day was headed was pushing me over the edge. Regardless she couldn't be swayed by my blubbering and told me to have a nice day. I called my insurance and they were VERY helpful. By lowering my criteria, I managed to make an appointment for Friday and reassured Wes that we do have a real-life connection with this office, not just the half-assed connection we had with the last group.

Fingers crossed I get a Snoopy band-aid for my boo boo.

P.S. - I did actually manage to get work done on Monday too. The work was the best part of my day!

The one with a lot of swears

2011-10-24T21:31:00.000-04:00

If you don't like swears, then click away and please don't tell my grandma about my potty mouth. I apologize for not posting in a long time (I have no good reason, really) and now that I'm back it's going to be full of swears. I had a totally shitty day today. Who's to blame??

Comcast.

I fucking hate them.

(sorry about the f-bomb, but it's truly how I feel)

The hatred actually started 11.5 years ago when I bought my house and wanted to get cable. Comcast is the only non-satellite cable available in Baltimore, so there is zero competition here (though I would love for someone to prove me wrong!). I was told they did installation appointments on Sundays. Perfect! I waited and waited and called and was told there's a technician out and waited some more and called again to be told he's still out on a job and waited some more, and finally at 8pm I called 'uncle'. I called one last time only to be told that he wasn't sure why someone scheduled an appointment for me on Sundays since THEY DON'T DO APPOINTMENTS ON SUNDAYS! Well, neat. That guy got an earful. His apology was so bloody patronizing that it just made me more and more angry.

When we moved in June we looked around to see what we could find, but Comcast was the only option for cable. I don't want a satellite hanging on the front of my house, so Comcast it was. We priced it out to see if we could get our internet, phone (we need a land line for the international calls), and cable from different providers, but it seemed that buying a bundle from Comcast was the cheapest. Plus, they were running an internet special that if you bought the bundle online then you'd get a $100 prepaid Visa card in return. Great! I started the process and for some reason it didn't work. I'm fairly certain (this was June) that the reason was because they wanted a land line number as part of the registration (at least that's the only thing we could figure out) and we didn't have one (since we were ordering it from Comcast). I ended up calling the help number on the website and we placed the order over the phone. We were assured that we'd still get the deal, no problem, they were happy to have our business! Well, of course they were. About 2 months after we ordered I called to find out when we'd get the Visa card. I was told that we had to make 4 on-time payments and at that time we would get the card. Okay! I even put a reminder in my phone to call back in October!

I made the mistake of calling first thing this morning. I was on hold for about 30 minutes, finally to be told that 1.) she couldn't find that promotion for June; 2.) if that promotion ran, then it would have been a more expensive bundle available to get the Visa card; and 3.) the marketing department would have to call me back to confirm the promotion. I pointed out to her that the promotion they're offering on their website right now is the same exact one that we bought, so I'm not sure about the more expensive bundle thing.

I get a phone call at 4:40, right when I'm getting ready to walk out the door. I answered the phone and she stammered that she was from Comcast, but didn't even have the name of the person she was calling about. This should have clued me in to how this call was going to end. This woman tells me the reason we didn't get the promotion was because there is an outstanding balance from the last tenant who lived here. I asked what his account has to do with me and she said the accounts are tied to the property, not the person. This is what prevented me from successfully placing my order online. I ask why no one told us this 1.) when we ordered this originally and 2.) when I called the second time and was told about the 4 on-time payments. Queue the patronizing apologies. Then she blamed it on me calling the wrong number when I placed my order. I pointed out that I'm fairly certain I didn't go searching around the website for a new number and would logically use the phone number that they list on the page if you need help. Then she blamed it on them using a non-Comcast call center to take these orders. What?? Shouldn't they all offer the same thing?? I am 100% certain I was reassured that I would still get the online promotion, because that's the whole reason we were going with this plan at Comcast! It's pretty obvious to me that they'll tell you whatever it takes to get you locked into a contract, but when it comes to them honoring their end of the deal they'll find whatever loophole they can to get out of it. If they truly cared about the outstanding charges from my previous tenant, since "the account is attached to the property, not the person" they would have actually mentioned them to me, not use them against me. I don't need to tell you this is absolutely shitty customer service.

My poor colleague got an earful of me telling this woman, in a not so nice way, how disgraceful their customer service is when it comes to the actual customer. I just told her that I hope she tells her supervisor about my call and that they're going to lose a customer who is paying $130 a month over a $100 prepaid Visa card. How pathetic is that?? Comcast is notorious for their horrible customer service (just google it!) and it's pretty sad that the powers-that-be truly don't give a shit. Once we are finally able to cancel, I have erroneous charges to look forward to. They're notorious for that too and I'm fairly certain this is what has happened with my previous tenant and it's no wonder he hasn't paid. I wouldn't either.

In the profound words of my friend, Steve:

SUCK IT COMCAST!!!

Commuting Chronicles

2011-10-06T12:38:00.000-04:00

I looked like a right eejit on my commute today.

I should preface this by saying that my office doesn't get a lot of foot traffic. If I don't leave my office for any reason, other than my commute, it's the same 5 people seeing me all day long. I look nice once I'm here, but I really need to work on the part where the whole of DC sees me - my commute.

I wanted to wear a new-ish pair of shoes that I'm still breaking in. This would have been fine for a normal commute, but I had to park far-ish away when I got home last night so I didn't want to start my day out with sore feet. So I threw on the brown Sketchers...with little white socks....and my light gray skirt. You see where I'm going? It was a little chilly this morning, so I threw on my lightweight purple coat which has honestly seen better days. It's all I have, so that had to do. And of course I had my nice bag that I carry every morning (I have no idea how to describe the color, but believe me it doesn't match purple) and a dark blue cloth bag with shoes, a water bottle, and two ready meals to have at the office.

Frankly, I looked like a bag lady.

I was embarassed of myself. If my husband had been there he wouldn't have let me walk out the door. I'm sure my picture is already posted onto a fashion police blog somewhere out there. And to top it all off, I lost one of my ready meals somewhere between the freezer and the office. So not only was I carrying bags, I was dropping stuff out of them. Classy. Hey, at least my hair looked good!

I will be wearing my new-ish shoes home, suffering in the name of fashion. I just hope it's warm enough out there that I don't need to wear my coat!

Well, that was new...

2011-10-03T18:26:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure why I thought having dye injected into my uterus wouldn't hurt, but by God, it does. I wasn't nervous at all going into this thing. They told me to take some medicine, like I would for cramps. Done. There was a girl sitting next to me who was practically in her husband's lap, she was so nervous about it. She asked if he could come back with her and he was denied. I thought that was all a little ridiculous (my husband wasn't even there), but everyone's different. I asked the nurse if I should be nervous and she was like, eh, then proceeded to tell me what was going to happen. Okey doke! Then the doctor came in and he told me what was going to happen. Alright! He was explaining things as he was going along, which is fairly normal. Next time, when someone says to me, 'Now, I'm going to grab hold of your cervix' I know that it would probably be in my best interest to pass out at that moment. I'd like to be unconscious for the rest of the procedure. Apparently, the dye going in caused my muscles to spasm. Have you ever laid flat on your back, under an x-ray machine, and a catheter up your hooha, all while your abdomen was in spasm? No? I don't recommend it.

The real kick in the teeth is that the test was inconclusive. I failed. The dye didn't go as planned, but that could be because my muscles were clenched so tight around my tubes that they weren't letting it, not because things were blocked. We'll continue on with the plans made and pray to the fertility gods that I'll not have to repeat that. In the meantime, Wes will enjoy his 20 minutes with a girly magazine and a cup. I hope he doesn't suffer too much.

Three months until Christmas! Time to start my list!

2011-09-25T16:20:00.002-04:00

All year long I think of things that I want and say to myself, 'that would be a good thing to suggest as a Christmas present'. Then I promptly forget about it. When the Christmas season rolls around and people ask what I want, well, I can never remember and leave them hanging. Not this year! I'm starting a list!

1.) A gift subscription to Real Simple magazine. I really got into this magazine when I was in Dublin. It was a little pricey over there, so I only ever bought it as a little treat. I love that they have a little bit of everything (fashion, food, home design, stories, etc) and it's totally for my age range (i.e. no stupid Cosmo quizzes).

2.) A gift card to Boden's US site. Ironically, I never bought anything from Boden when I was in the UK. Well, it wasn't so ironic. I was a student and I couldn't afford anything! They just recently opened their US site and I love the dresses they have on offer. Like this one!

Source

3. An eReader. I've pretty much been anti-eReader ever since they came out. Now that I'm commuting, I'll eat my words. I love books, but who has time to go to the book store!? Not me! My bag is also already heavy, so adding extra weight in books isn't ideal. As far as brands go, all I know about is the Nook and the Kindle. Are there more? Feel free to give me recommendations, since I don't really know anything about them!

4. A Keurig to keep in my office at work. I really don't drink that much coffee and I can actually get decent coffee at a reasonable price in my building, so this one is a little difficult to justify. BUT the variety of K-cups gets me excited and I think in the long run I would save money. Oh, and it comes in a very cute red color!

5. A new camera. *Le sigh* You may have noticed the reduction in photos on my blog in the past 6 months or so. My camera has been acting up (as in only turning on 20% of the time) and taking pictures is no fun right now. I've kicked around getting an inexpensive point and shoot to use in the meantime, but it's hard to find one that has an LCD screen that swivels. That's a feature of my camera that I really love. I could get an updated version of my current camera which is reasonably priced, or for an extra couple of hundred dollars I could get a small SLR, but then there are the expensive lenses and what not. So I don't know...I guess I'll have to see what Santa decides! :-)

I think that's a good starting point. Of course diamonds and spa gift certificates are always on the list!

Commuting Chronicles

2011-09-21T22:22:00.000-04:00

Rolling briefcases.

Source

I hate them. Like really, really hate them. If you do a google search on 'I hate rolling briefcases' you'll find lots of other people who do too! And no surprise the first two blogs I looked at were people who travel via the DC metro.

Sure, I understand why people use them and I can empathise. But oh.my.god they are really freakin' annoying. More important, they're dangerous! When you're walking through a crowd of people you can't see the bag dragging along the floor, so you'll see people tripping over them all the time. I've learned to walk through the metro station staring at the ground in case one of these pops up unexpectedly in my path. Also, the doors of the metro are only open for a short period of time. DC metro-ers are very good about queueing up along the outside of the doors, allowing people to exit the car before boarding (they even beat the Brits at this one). One day I watched a woman struggle with her rolly bag (it flipped over) right in the doorway, so we were all stuck there waiting and hoping she sorted it out before the doors closed. I was walking behind a woman on the train platform and noticed that the wheels on her bag lit up as she rolled. What the hell is the point of that? If you can actually see the wheels, you're not going to be close enough that you would need to heed their warning. They need to wear stupid hats or one of those flags people used to put on their bikes in the 1970s.

Source

All I'm asking is for a little warning....

Today was momentous

2011-09-19T20:14:00.000-04:00

Today....for the first time in 2.5 years....I got a pay check.

It would have been completely thrilling if Uncle Sam hadn't taken his huge cut! Ouch! I don't think it was any sort of a coincidence that the story on NPR when I was driving home was Warren Buffet talking about how little he is taxed, percentage-wise, compared to his secretary.

I'm as American as apple pie

2011-09-17T21:54:00.000-04:00

My first ever apple pie from scratch! Here's hoping it tastes better than it looks. My parents are coming for dinner tomorrow, so I figured they'd be good guinea pigs. I used a Pampered Chef recipe for the crust and the filling. Vanilla ice cream is at the ready!

Commuting Chronicles

2011-09-14T21:05:00.000-04:00

Public transportation can be a total pain in the ass sometimes, but it's never short on entertainment! I figured this was an easy addition to the blog and should be fairly regular.

I was on a packed DC metro car headed to Union Station to get my train home. I was standing in the aisle and two school girls, probably 10 or 11 years old, were sitting in the seat next to me. The one girl had some really nice braids in her hair and since I was standing above them I was admiring them. I looked away and she started singing. Then I had the feeling she was looking up at me. She stopped singing and told me that she thought my necklace was beautiful. I thanked her and said that actually I was just admiring her braids. I told her how nice they were and I asked if she just have them done for the start of school. She said that she had just had them done last weekend by her aunt. And if I wanted, her aunt could do mine for free! I said she did hers for free because she's her niece. But, she assured me that no, she's a hairdresser and if I told her aunt that I was referred by her then she'd do them for free at her shop. Thinking about my darker roots, I said that I didn't think my hair would look as nice in braids as her hair. That's when she told me that I am a very beautiful woman and that I would look beautiful no matter what I did with my hair. I thanked her and she turned back to her friend and they started singing again. What a nice way to end the day!

Crazy productive!

2011-09-10T19:15:00.000-04:00

This weekend is my first 'real' weekend since I started working. I don't really count last weekend because it was a 3-dayer and that's not real life. I've decided that Friday commutes are the best because everyone else takes off that day. I was home in record time. We went out for dinner, which I've decided might have to be a new 'thing'. You know, like a date night! After dinner we walked around a bit and I decided we would walk down towards a shop where I used to work part time to see if one of my old coworkers was there. She was, so we had a nice catch up. And by 'nice' I mean 'hilarious'. I miss working with her. I was in good spirits as we walked back to the car then it hit me, I didn't include that part time job on my background investigation for my new job. Holy. Crap. Good spirits have gone down the pooper. Since that job has nothing to do with any professional position I want to get, I don't have it on my CV so I totally forgot about it. It's 9pm on a Friday night, so there's not much I can do until Monday! I email and text my boss. No response within 5 minutes (which was about the max I was willing to wait), so I call a friend who has super crazy high security clearance. Okay, maybe not that high, but in my mind she could hang with the President. Anyway, I call her. No answer. So, I text her and ask her to call me. Desperate much?? She senses the tone in my text (which is not jovial) and calls me. I'm pretty certain I'm one step away from being fired and she's all, 'No big deal! Relax! You paid taxes! You weren't fired! You tell them you forgot and they just write it down!' WHEW! Then she is reminded that she needs to report to her super crazy high security clearance people that we're back in town and give them our address. Apparently being friends with a foreigner and his wife who both lived on foreign soil is a bit of a liability. Oopsies! Thanks to her, I was able to sleep easy last night!

Oh yeah, this post is called, 'Crazy Productive'. I put that because today I've been just that! That's the one thing I do like about working. I enjoy being crazy productive on the weekends. Especially if I can knock everything out that I want to do on Saturday and just relax on Sunday. Today I cleaned up the kitchen and ran the dishwasher, changed the sheets on the bed, washed and dried three loads of laundry, cleaned the litter box, rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned the carpet in the guest bedroom, went to Ann Taylor Loft's fall sale and got a new pair of trousers, a top, and a cami, and polished it all off with a nonfat (not skinny, because I guess that's different) pumpkin-spice latte. Boo-yah!!! The only thing left to do is go to the grocery store tomorrow, but that will happen after we watch the Pittsburgh Steelers stomp the Baltimore Ravens! It's a backyard brawl, ya'll! I wish it wasn't so hot or I'd wear my hat.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Whirlwind!

2011-09-04T17:48:00.000-04:00

It's been quite a week! Sorry for the silence, but I'm trying to get into the groove with the job and commute thing. It hasn't been easy and I've been exhausted when I get home. I bought a ticket to use on the MARC train, but it wasn't valid until Thursday. This meant I had to drive for about an hour, then get the metro the rest of the way in. All in all, it was about 1 hour 45 minutes. This sucked. THEN, I got to use my train ticket and I thought life was going to be grand! Well, Baltimore is hosting this stupid grand prix this weekend so all of these roads are closed in the city. It took me 45 minutes to get out of the city, I missed my train and had to wait another 25 minutes for the next one, so that day it took me 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to work! Yeah, that's right. Two hours and fifteen minutes. 2.25 hours. My normal commute time by train should take me around an hour and 15 minutes, door to door. The majority of that is on the train or metro, so it's really not too bad. The ride home is the really nice because the train I get is non-stop between DC and BWI. The best part about all of this is that my employer pays my commuting costs. Getting the train and the metro adds up (fortunately parking at the station is free for monthly ticket holders) and once I saw the cost I was slightly regretting making the decision to commute. But at orientation they told us about the commuter benefits, which was a huge relief. I worked for this employer before, but it was a different location and because parking wasn't an issue they didn't reimburse us for commuting costs. I had completely forgotten that they did this and was sooo happy to find this out! That saves us $230 a month!

It's been hard to try and figure it all out. It's a bit of a juggling act now that I have a husband. It used to be that I'd go to work, hit the gym on the way home, or go to my part time job, come home, eat hummus and crackers for dinner. Basically, it was all about me. Now I just want to get home because we would like to see each other! He's also reintroducing himself in the kitchen and has been cooking me dinner. :) I'd rather sacrifice in the morning, getting up early so I can get to work early and leave early. I haven't bought a gym membership yet because I'm waiting to get settled into a routine. Allegedly there is a gym in our office building and we get a discount, but I need to investigate that further.

With this job brings new things to the household! We bought a car last week and I LUURVE it! We ended up getting a 2012 Honda Civic EX and it's way fun to drive. I did quite a bit of research between some different types of cars, new vs used, etc. We were leaning towards a used one, but finding a used EX is actually quite difficult. Then Honda came out with 0.9% financing on new models so we got a really good deal on it. My favorite features are the fact that we average 35 miles to the gallon and the bluetooth. I love talking to my car! :) I never really thought I'd care much about having bluetooth, but it's definitely an awesome feature. It looks like this, we even got it in black (because that's what was in stock), but ours doesn't stay shrouded in mysterious shadows.

Source

Today we FINALLY ordered a sofa! I'm pretty psyched about it! Coming home and not having a place to relax stinks. Frankly, the state our house is in right now is not relaxing at all, so I'm hoping that now I'll be able to get this sorted out. I'll do a longer post on the living room updates when the sofa comes in, probably at the beginning of November. It's a darker green color (not sage, but not evergreen either) and it has coordinating floral print pillows that I think will look nice with the striped chair. The legs match the ones on the chair. They had Labor Day sales going on, so we got a good deal. I'm hoping to paint in here before the sofa comes. Here's a picture:

Source

Oh yeah, and lastly...we had to get a new roof. This is not fun, so I won't go into detail. The fun part is I was able to fix the water damage in the guest room and I bought paint for that today!

It's been an expensive week around here! Ouch!

S/M/L

2011-08-27T16:09:00.001-04:00

Just when I was getting the hang of what size I was in the UK and Europe, we moved. That's right, it only took 5 years. Now that we're in the US, I was falling back on my fail-safe knowledge of 8 US=12 UK, 10 US=14 UK, etc. I hit the shops and everything is in S/M/L. What the heck?? A large can be anything from a US 10-14! I think the only garment that still uses proper sizing is trousers. Not to mention it makes it a little difficult when you want to order something online. Personally, I find the European sizing charts the most accurate when it comes to clothing and shoes. A UK 14 could range anywhere from a European 38-42, which is a huge difference.

Has anyone else noticed this about the US? Is this a new thing that I missed while I was away? Is it because we're all fatties and seeing a number might make us feel bad? Personally, I'd just like to have proper fitting clothes!

Hey, what are you doing on Monday??

2011-08-24T18:35:00.000-04:00

I'm going to WORK!

That's right, people!!! DUN DA DUNNNN!!! It only took 2.5 years of constant searching and eventually switching countries for me to finally become gainfully employed!!!

Source

I get to buy new work CLOTHES! We get to buy a CAR! We'll have HEALTH INSURANCE! My bank account will actually start seeing DEPOSITS again! I get to wake up at the crack of dawn and make the hellish commute to our nation's capitol every day! See, it's not all sunshine and roses. For those of you who know where I worked prior to leaving the US five years ago, I'll be working there again, just in a different office. Unfortunately, they consider me a new employee, which means I have to go through orientation all over again. Meh. I guess enough has changed in the past five years that I'm sure to learn something new!

I baked!

2011-08-22T19:55:00.000-04:00

Well, I bake things all the time, but today I actually baked a PIE! I've never baked a pie before. I'm afraid of them. I think I'm actually afraid of the crust. I need to just jump into it and realize that eating the mistakes isn't such a bad thing!

Since it was my first go, I skipped the fruit pie (which truly terrifies me) and decided to go with a chocolate pie. Specifically, this chocolate pie posted on Lovely Jubbly London's blog today. The thing I liked about it was that it was easy and the ingredients were all in my pantry. Well, all except the...erm...refrigerated pie crust I ended up using. Yeah, I wimped out!

The best part was that I got to use these!

It all looks brand new, right? Don't be fooled...I've owned this stuff for probably 6 years or so.

I had to blind bake the crust, which is something I've never done before. I felt very Martha Stewart with my beans.

I baked mine the full 45 minutes, but I think next time I'd stop at 40, like LJL did with her pie (I got caught up in a House Hunters International marathon). Her pie looks WAY better than mine! I need to practice crimping the edges and making it look pretty.

I served the pie with squirty cream (not nearly as nice as the Irish version of this), and Wes gave it the 'grand sure' stamp of approval!

Can oval braided rugs be cool?

2011-08-19T20:50:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure why, but I've recently become interested in oval braided rugs. We had them in our house growing up, but that was 1980. I guess I'm looking for something a little interesting, but I also don't want to 'countrify' our house. This is an example of what I've been looking at:

Image from Amazon.com

We'd have one in front of the sofa and a larger one under the dining table (since they're in the same room).

To give you an idea of the furniture, this is the chair we have:

And this is the style of couch I'm considering (perhaps in a dark green color, but that's TBD).

Image from American Leather

What do you think? Will that rug look okay in front of those? Otherwise, I was thinking about an old standby from Pottery Barn. I'm planning on painting the walls a very light brown color.

Guest bedroom - decorating opinions

2011-08-13T18:37:00.000-04:00

We're having a house guest from Ireland coming in November. Yahoo! Before I moved I had a lovely guest room, even if the walls were a bit, um, bright. What can I say, I love yellow! Before my last tenant moved in I had the house painted, so now the walls are all a builder's off-white. I'd like to paint the room and get some furniture for it again. Get this, I had a little glass side table next to the bed. Well, I have the frame, but I can't find the piece of glass that goes on top. I've searched everywhere and no luck. The frame was in storage and presumably the top went in there too. What the heck?? Anyway, I think I can get a piece of glass from the shop where I bought it and it shouldn't be too expensive. I have a bed (black brushed metal headboard), but I'd like to get some sort of small armoire/drawers for the room as well.

My question is, what color should I paint the walls? Here is a picture of the bedding:

There are two windows in the room, so it's quite bright. The carpet is a light oatmeal color. There are white faux wood slat blinds on the windows and I have white gauzy curtains that go on black rods and fall to the floor with black metal pull backs. All the trim and doors are white. I was thinking of a tan/light khaki type color, but I need opinions!

Bedford, PA

2011-08-11T10:15:00.000-04:00

We went 'camping' again last weekend. This time we met up with my parents in Bedford, PA and stayed with them in their mansion on wheels. Bedford is the town where my dad grew up and my grandparents and great-grandparents lived there the majority of their lives, so we went there A LOT when I was growing up. I was going to say that it's evolved a lot over the years, but really, it hasn't. It's like driving into 1950 when you turn onto Pitt Street. Sure, some of the shops have changed or turned into antique dealers, but the buildings are all the same.

One of the most amazing buildings in Bedford is the historic Bedford Springs Hotel. It seems that every trip to Bedford involved a drive out past the Springs. It's a beautiful building that was, sadly, mostly empty during my childhood. It was finally bought in the late 90s restored in 2007. Yes, I wanted to get married there and yes, of course my sensible husband said it was too expensive. Pfft! Fortunately, the re-opening of the Springs has brought a lot of interesting little businesses to town, particularly restaurants. There is the Green Harvest Company and Bad Boyz Bistro (which was featured on the Food Network). We had lunch there and we all thought it was delicious (well, except my mom who wimped out with a tiny cup of soup and a side salad). The sandwiches were served with home made potato chips. Yum! We stopped and got some treats at the new Hot Buns Bakery on Pitt Street. We got there kind of late in the day, but they still had a great selection of goodies for us to choose from. I can confirm the chocolate chip cookies are tasty.

It wasn't all about eating though. We looked around at the various antique shops, in particular our favorite one that used to be the big Murphy's store in the center of town. My great-grandma used to work at the candy counter there! :) Mom and I popped into a fair trade shop that had some lovely things. Wes and I got a bottle of wine from the Briar Valley Winery shop. The winery is about 6 miles outside of Bedford, but we haven't had the chance to go just yet. On Sunday morning Wes went for a run around Shawnee State Park. We didn't camp there on this trip, but we used to camp there all the time when I was little. My parents play golf when they go as there are a couple of nice courses in the area. Of course there is Old Bedford Village and the Fort Bedford Museum. You can take a stroll past the square and old courthouse, past all the beautiful, old houses on South Juliana Street. Oh, and of course George Washington slept here. This stops getting exciting the more time you spend in western Pennsylvania. That guy was everywhere!

If you'd like the 'History of Kim' tour, email me and AT NO COST I'll send you a map of the playground of the elementary school where we played 'spaceship', the church where I was baptized, the 'gingerbread house' my parents lived in just before I was born, my grandparent's house with the barrel stools we would sit on in the carport eating ham and cheese sandwiches, my great-grandparent's house where we would do beads or play Uno while drinking from aluminum cups, the amazing house with the wrap around porch where my cousin's lived, and I'll include a picture of me, my sister, and our cousins in our matching shiny rollerskate jackets. Hot.

If you're looking for a weekend getaway, I highly recommend Bedford, PA. It's about 2 hours from Harrisburg, just on the PA turnpike and it's a straight shot up I-70 from Baltimore and Washington, DC (only 150 miles). If your budget doesn't include the Bedford Springs, there are more reasonable chain hotels and some B&Bs.

Just some observations

2011-08-02T09:37:00.000-04:00

Why do people wear visors during their class at the gym? The lights are really not that bright in there.
Pricks in Porsches who think they deserve to park in the 'No Parking' spot. Don't be that stereotype.
Nothing like a good anime convention to bring out all the freaks. Wes saw a ninja in the Inner Harbor.
You can't buy anything at a store without a 5 minute promo from the sales person. What is your email address? What is your phone number? Do you want two free issues of this magazine? If you open a credit card today you'll save 15%. There is a survey at the end of your 3 foot long receipt. Take it and save $5. Do you want to donate money to this good cause? It's all very annoying.
I think our neighbor is actively avoiding me. Wes thinks I'm paranoid, but I know avoidance when I see it! She was walking towards me with her dog and she turned around and went back to the park before I got too close. Okey doke!
A dill pickle served with a sandwich will never get old. I will never take it for granted again!

I whip my hair back and forth....

2011-07-28T17:35:00.000-04:00

Disregard the fake smile....I got my hair cut today and I LOVE IT!!! It's kind of hard to tell, but it's a bob and it's a bit longer in the front and not too crazy short in the back. I've been getting the same style for a long time and it feels great to switch it up! I've been going to the same person since I moved to Baltimore in 1998 and I've only cheated on her once. Hey, she told me I could! She started out in a salon, but ended up moving to her own place a few years back. I would almost always get my hair done when I came home from the UK and Ireland. I've always been pretty open about hairstyles (it's only hair), but the last few years we've really been in a rut. She did amazing highlights, as usual, and I'm happy to have a new style!

Insurance woes

2011-07-25T22:57:00.000-04:00

This is a long one, but I felt I should tell you as I didn't want you to think it was all sunshine and butterflies when you move back to the US.

This is me getting health insurance in Ireland:

Ring Ring....
Me: Hi, I'd like to get health insurance. I've looked online at your different plans and this is the plan I would like to get.
Them: Grand sure! We can have it start immediately. The cost is 75 euro per month. We'll send out all your policy info.
Me: Great! Have a nice day!
Click

The process of getting insurance in the US totally sucks.

We don't have jobs, so we have to apply for health insurance on our own. I tried one of the larger companies here in Maryland, but was denied because of my BMI. I wonder if you would be denied if your BMI was too low. Hmmm.... Anyway, they suggested I apply for this federal high risk pool since I was denied for medical reasons. Ironically, the coverage managed by this same large MD company and is actually better and cheaper than what I was denied. One stipulation is that you can not have had insurance in the past 6 months. I called the help line and they very friendly man (seriously friendly) reassured me that all they care about is US healthcare. Off goes the application (with an explanation of my Irish healthcare) and I get a letter last week that the reason I was denied was because I had healthcare in the past 6 months. So I call AGAIN and they assure me that it's only US healthcare that counts. I explain my situation and she asks if I could fax that explanation to them. I could start a whole separate rant about how the US is the only country in the world that still uses fax machines, but I'll spare you. I asked if I could email it. No. So now I have to be inconvenienced to hunt down a freaking fax machine to tell them something that was already written on my original application. Not to mention our brand new printer is a piece of junk, so I'll have to hand write it. I'm pretty excited about this situation.

On to the homeowners insurance....

I never got homeowners in Ireland, but I'm fairly certain it would gone pretty much the same as the health insurance.

Prior to moving to the UK I used a large insurance company that starts with an 'A' and ends with 'state'. I was really happy with them. Unfortunately, they didn't provide insurance for rental properties, so I had to switch to another company. The coverage wasn't as good and the price was the same, but it was fine for a rental. After we moved back into the house I contact my previous company as I was anxious to get more decent coverage on the house again. The woman that I dealt with was an absolute star. Everything was done over email (she didn't ask me to fax anything), it was totally easy peasy. One day a guy comes by and says he wants to take pictures of the house for our application. Great! Nothing has changed on the exterior since the last time I was covered, so no problem. About a week after that we get a very nasty letter from the risk department telling us that they're cancelling our policy based on our dishonesty with the condition of the house. They never would have covered us if they knew we were such high risk.

They cancelled us because of this:

This is a soffit on the back of the house. Apparently it could fall off and injure someone. Okay, fair enough.

And this:

What is it, you ask? See how the front stoop only has one railing on it? Yeah. That's why.

This is the one that really ticked me off.

There was no mention in the letter that we had the chance to fix things before they decided to cancel us. So, I emailed my contact person and she said that we do have the chance to fix things, and she agreed the soffit in the back was a bit ridiculous (I had said that it's about $20 to fix it), but that they couldn't be lenient on the railing thing. You may notice in the above picture that my neighbor only has one (not pictured) railing. My neighbor on the other side - one railing. Every house on my block - one railing. 90% of houses in Baltimore city - one railing (I know this because I can't stop looking at railings now). I was furious. How do they get any new business in the city?? Yes, I asked her that and she didn't answer me. The cancellation letter only suggested we trying getting insurance from the company I used when the house was a rental. This is the company that people use when they don't qualify with anyone else, so you can imagine what their rates would be for a comparable policy to the one getting cancelled. Um, no. People in this town are getting their one-railing houses insured by someone and I'm going to find them. What do I do? I go to their major competitor, State F-. I was terrified that we were going to be penalized since the other company was cancelling us, but they put my fears to rest on that. They were sending someone out to take pictures for our application, so Wes had his first DIY project:

(His second one should probably be cleaning the siding!Yikes!)

As I predicted the total project was about $13 and we're the proud new owners of some tin snips! I've been reassured that the railing isn't a problem and he said, that's why you pay for insurance, right? RIGHT!!! And my favorite part was that they gave us a reusable bag for the grocery store and this:

You had me at chocolate fudge brownies....

Seriously though, I actually lost sleep over this situation and more worryingly, I probably sprouted a few new gray hairs. Why? Because that letter from their risk department made it sound like I was this horrible, deceptive person. Everything was fine in 2006, how did I know this now was grounds for cancellation?? Why would I think the stoop would be a problem when that's how the entire city has been designed? My stoop has been like that since at least the 1950s! My parents have faithfully used this company for many years and I was their customer for over 10 (started with auto and then homeowners). Is there no customer loyalty??

Bottom line is they wronged me and if anyone asks me for a suggestion for insurance I will definitely point them in a different direction. I don't feel totally okay about calling them out on this blog, but if you can't work out the company from my very non-cryptic clues, then send me an email and I'll be happy to tell you who it is.

Once I find that stupid fax machine, this should hopefully be the end of our insurance woes for a little while. Thankfully I have a hair appointment on Thursday to cover up all my new gray hairs!

Bean Fail

2011-07-23T09:12:00.000-04:00

I opened up a can of beans for dinner the other night and this is what I found. Good thing I had a back up can or we would have been fighting over these three beans!

You Capture - Summertime

2011-07-14T11:00:00.001-04:00

A cowboy birthday party with...

sprinklers!

Yummy bruschetta made with deep red tomatoes from the farm shop and the basil growing in my container garden out back!

It's not all fun and games

2011-07-12T20:15:00.000-04:00

Today we went to the Maryland Vehicle Administration (MVA) and it took 4.5 hours.

The end.

Seriously though, it was the pits. Fortunately, in addition to the incredibly nice employees, there is some quality people watching to keep you entertained while you wait. Wes thinks that in America there's an inverse correlation between the size of one's body and the amount of clothing one chooses to cover it with. He's definitely on to something there.

When your number is finally called, after HOURS of waiting, you want to do a little dance going up to the window. One woman did actually hoot her way up and another woman was getting ready to leave and she told her ride that she would be out after she said goodbye to all the new friends she met while waiting. She wasn't even joking.

In the end, we walked out of there with my driving license in my married name (and we thought waiting for an hour at the SSA was bad) and he had his brand new learner's permit! Yay!

The house

2011-07-11T14:45:00.001-04:00

The house we've moved into is the one I bought back in 2002. I lived in it until 2006 when I moved to England. While I was gone I rented it out and had 3 different groups of tenants. I really lucked out and even though it was a rental for 4.5 years it's actually in really good shape. Regardless, the house is showing it's wear. Some of the projects are things I wanted to do even before I moved out and some are things that just need replaced after 9 years.

When I bought the house it was totally rehabbed. I didn't have any say in what went on, which was fine. I was young, single, and working, so I didn't want a place that I was going to have to do a lot of work just to make it liveable. The builders (who I later discovered were useless and could be a whole post of their own) put all the basics into the place. Again, that's fine. I was able to buy the house and make changes over the years.

I thought I'd do some posts highlighting different parts of the house and what we'd like to do with it. Once we get jobs we hope to put the ideas into action! I'll start with the first floor since it's the largest area.

This is what the first floor of the house looked like when I bought it:

The stairs with the hideous railings.

Looking from the front door to the kitchen.

Looking toward the front door.

Kitchen with hideous blue counter tops and blue tile floor.

Here is what the first floor looked like right before I moved to England:

It's hard to tell, but I took down the hideous railings when I pulled up the carpet. I replaced the carpet with laminate flooring.

No more blue tile! That was a total pain to get up, but 100% worth it in the end. Notice what's still there...the blue counter tops. They were on my bucket list of things to get rid of.

And, here's what things look like as of today. If you know me in real life and wonder why we haven't invited you around, now you'll see why. Before I took the pictures I thought I should clean up a bit, but really, there's no place to put this stuff.

You may notice a lack of furniture and rugs. Yeah. I sold a lot of stuff to a friend since I knew I'd want something different when I moved back That's why we have no sofa and end tables. What you can't see between the two chairs is the cardboard box we're using as a coffee table. Classy. I'd also like to come up with new railings for the bottom of the stairs.

We had to buy a TV and little TV stand. The old entertainment center weighed about 2 tons and was ugly. My last tenant didn't want it and the ones before that offered to get rid of it, so I took them up on it. Thank goodness I saved that large bookcase since a whole lot of our shipment consisted of books! It's already 90% full!

Blue counter tops?? Check! Extra security bar on the door?? Check! One day I was coming through the door and thought to myself, 'I could probably kick that door in, no problem'. If I can kick it in, anyone can! The kitchen is one of the places that I'm dreaming about a complete overhaul: new stove (one of the burners doesn't work), new dishwasher, and new cabinets/counter tops/back splash. The fridge is new, so no need for a new one. The cabinets are in fine condition, but I find that there is a lot of wasted/unusable space in the back. My parents have shelves in their cabinets that slide out, allowing you to use access the back of the cabinet much more easily. However the space that is my biggest pet peeve is this:

It's the area between the refrigerator and back window. I've considered putting a lot of things in this space, namely a big stand alone butcher block thing with drawers and what not. I can't put a hutch there because it would cover up the fuse box. With the price of those, however, I could probably get the new kitchen cabinets, so I'm thinking more built-in cabinets in this space and around the fridge. At least one cabinet will be a tall one to put brooms in and such. The hope is that this would increase resale value as well.

That's it for my first floor dreams: a couch and a new kitchen. That's not too much to ask for, right?? I suppose my dream for a job needs to come true first!

Arghhhhh, Matey!

2011-07-08T20:43:00.002-04:00

When each of my nephews turned 5 I took them somewhere special for their birthday. My youngest nephew just turned 7 and since I wasn't really around for his 5th birthday, I finally had the chance to take him for his birthday trip. I gave him a few options of things to do in Baltimore and he picked Urban Pirates. So, we boarded the 'Fearless' in Fell's Point and headed out to learn how to be pirates.

I really had no idea what to expect, but I have to say, it was brilliant. There were some kids on there who were really into pirates. Before we headed out we were having a look out the back side of the boat and this boy comes up to us and says, 'Arghh...it's a great day to hit the high seas'. Um....okay. I wonder if he even noticed that we didn't leave the Inner Harbor. The trip lasted exactly an hour and they kept the kids engaged the entire time. The trip was centered around a story and while they were telling the story they did activities.

He got a kick out of this pirate. He had a French name and his last name was l'Aubergine and they just called him 'Eggplant'. That cracked me up every time.

Listening to the story about Mad Dog, the nasty pirate, and learning how to speak like a pirate.Wes was disappointed to hear that we didn't learn, 'Shiver me timbers!'.

In order to get the kids sweaty and smelly like proper pirates, they had them dance. My nephew loves to dance and good thing because we did that a lot on the trip!

Every now and then Mad Dog would come by in his little boat and the kids had to man the water cannons. You can imagine this part was a huge hit!

Not sure if all pirates do the limbo when they have some downtime, but we did.

Without going into the whole back story (don't want to ruin it for you!), rest assured we got our stolen treasure back and the kids each got to take home some booty!

I even got the chance to take a couple of non-piratey pictures:

I was a little skeptical because of the price, but in the end I felt it was worth it. They had little costumes they could wear, they got a pirate name, they had temporary tattoos (one little girl showed me her mermaid tattoo...it's her favorite animal in the ocean!), and the could have their faces painted with scars and stuff. The crew did a brilliant job at keeping the kids (and adults) interested and engaged. One little girl was doing this for her birthday and they made a big deal out of it. There was a bathroom on board and they provided cups and water which was really nice since it was so hot.

All in all it was a really good time and I would highly recommend it if you're visiting Baltimore. ARGHHHH!!!!

I made those boxes my bitches!

2011-07-05T11:15:00.000-04:00

After we moved the stuff from storage, I whittled everything down to 4 boxes left in the living room. Then last week we had 16 boxes delivered from Ireland. I'm not sure why I didn't take a picture when they arrived. Too depressing maybe? It's been less than a week and now the boxes look like this:

BOO-YAH!!! There are about 10 boxes folded up in the smaller box and the tall box is full of packing paper. We've saved a few boxes and they're in the basement. Tomorrow is recycling day, which is why it's all stacked by the back door. We'll also be taking this second batch of stuff to Good Will and there may still be a few things added to the pile:

Everything made it over in one piece, so we were really thankful for that. The strangest thing is the smell that's on all our stuff. I opened the first box and expected it to smell like the moldy apartment we left. It wasn't like that at all. Everything smells...nice. I'm not sure what they do to stuff at customs, but thanks for making my stuff smell better!
One weird thing did happen though. When the guy was bringing the stuff inside, these were on top of one of the boxes:

We have no idea what these are and they are not ours. I pointed that out to the guy and he couldn't care less. He just kept saying they were with the boxes. I suggested he take them back to where they came from, but he wasn't really interested in doing this. Does anyone know what they are? Wes will email the company to let them know we have them, but I'm fairly certain they won't want anything to do with them either.

Happy cat!

2011-07-04T12:24:00.002-04:00

No one enjoys our ghetto backyard more than the cat.

She loves nothing more than rolling around in hot sunshine and dirt. You might think it's sad there's no grass for her, but it's a blessing. If there's one blade of anything, anywhere, she will chomp away on it; promptly puking it back up when she comes inside.

Summertime!

2011-07-03T11:02:00.000-04:00

It was all about summertime these past couple of days. We just got back from a quick trip up to my parent's in PA. They wanted to take Wes golfing for his birthday. While they were doing that I got to go swimming with my friend and her two boys. I lurve swimming, so it was a win-win for everyone! The other week I paid $3.99 for a small pack of basil, so I was anxious to get some herbs to plant. Mom and I found some that were buy one get one free, so I got basil and cilantro. I was so happy when I was planting them last evening!

I could have seriously gone nuts with buying herbs and veggies to plant, but it's a little late in the season and I would have had to buy a bunch of pots and soil. Unfortunately, it's not in the budget right now.
After we left there, we stopped at the local farm shop. It was jammers and I can understand why! All the gorgeous fruits, vegetables, and baked goods. I should have taken my camera along. Again, I could have gone seriously nutso, but I had some restraint. The last minute addition of homemade chocolate chip cookies was my only splurge! I also bought some fresh beetroot which I've never prepared. I'm not sure if I'll roast it or boil it to use for a salad. I also got some local red delicious apples, white peaches, black plums, zucchini, white cabbage, a mixture of little red and yellow tomatoes, and kohlrabi. If we lived closer I would have bought local eggs and milk too. Best of all my mom bought corn for lunch, so we had my first corn on the cob of the summer. YUMMM!!!!! We also had yellow string beans and hot dogs on the grill. Is that summer or what!?
On our way home we stopped to buy some beer. Wes is all about trying different types of local beer, so we got some from the Lancaster Brewing Company. I've had their strawberry wheat beer before and really enjoyed it. I also couldn't resist the packaging:

It was a great couple of days and I told Wes he wins husband of the year for it. He went golfing with my parents and aunt (while I was frolicking in the pool); we hung out with one of my high school friends and his wife (I tried to keep the talking of high school people to a minimum); and he went with my dad to a local military museum (my mom and I were happy to bow out of this one)!
And just as an extra, I found this little guy on my basil plant when I went out this morning to take a picture of it. He was just sitting there until I stuck my camera in his face and he started walking all over the plant. I guess I'm not very stealth!

Camping

2011-06-28T15:58:00.011-04:00

A couple of weeks ago we went camping with the family. Since we don't have any camping gear we stayed with my parents in their new camper. We were totally roughing it:

When at one point their in-cabinet flat screen TV went fuzzy I managed to keep it together until my dad could turn the antenna (no cable hook up at this poor-man's campground).

This is the view from the sofa to the kitchen. The entire camper is bigger than our Dublin flat.

Sorry, but those are the only camping pictures I took. I was too busy swatting away mosquitoes and gnats to actually hold the camera. Funny thing is that Wes and I often talk about getting a tent, but then my mind wanders back to the A/C my parents have in their camper and well, I'm not sure I can wean myself off of that.

We did have a family picnic on Saturday (I don't know why I'm hesitant to call it a 'reunion') and that was awesome. I love hanging out with my family. The weather was perfect, there was a ton of delicious food, and best of all, my grandma was feeling well enough to make it. We belatedly celebrated her 94th birthday.

Blech!

2011-06-27T17:54:00.001-04:00

The ugliest car I have ever seen is parked in front of our house right now. I can only imagine the douchebag who owns this thing.

UPDATE! He drove away while I was posting this. He must be a mind reader.

Navigating our way around the grocery store

2011-06-25T16:31:00.003-04:00

One of the hardest things for us to get used to is buying enough groceries to last us a week all at one time. Now that we have a ginormous freezer that I don't have to hack the ice out of, we can buy meat in bulk and freeze it. Now that our fridge is cold we can rest assured that the milk will not go off prior to the sell by date. It's wonderful. It's no secret that I love to cook, but I have to admit that I was looking forward to making the occasional box of rice-a-roni instead of making my own rice pilaf from scratch. I had bought a box of Uncle Ben's mushroom wild rice pilaf just to have in the pantry. Last night we decided to have it with dinner and it was disgusting. I threw it away and Wes didn't object, which is unusual. It was just so salty. I bought some store-brand fresh soup and we both agreed it was gross. Guess that's it for me buying the occasional short cut! I feel we've had a lot of 'lesson learned!' experiences with food so far.

The bummer is that some of the staples I had in my cupboards in Dublin is really expensive here, like plain wild rice or white basmati rice. It's hard to find a nice variety of lentils. We might have to buy chorizo from a speciality shop. Fish (even frozen) is very expensive. I had a pretty good spice selection in Dublin, so replenishing them has been pricey. And, don't get me started on the ginormous boneless chicken breasts we had the other night. Pretty sure they were all roided up! On the flip side, they have a wide variety of Fage yogurt, which is Wes' favorite. Beer is super, duper cheap. There are black beans all over the place. The cold meat selection is more than just ham. I eat a lot less bread because I'm not stopping at the store on my way home to buy bread to have with dinner.

We have a decent selection of grocery stores around us, it's just a matter of finding which has the best deals on the freshest stuff. Wes gets jazzed about bonus cards and how much we save after each trip to the store. I like not having to worry about having too much to carry home!

Outdoor exercise in Dublin vs outdoor exercise in Baltimore

2011-06-24T11:01:00.000-04:00

Dublin wins.

Unfortunately, my grand plans of joining the gym have to wait until one of us has a job. After a lot of sitting around on my ass, I figured I'd have to suck it up and actually go outside. The other day I was feeling motivated to walk/run and convinced Wes to go out with me around 11:30. It was already about 90 degrees and bright sunshine. We took a water bottle, slathered on some sun screen, and figured we'd go to the Inner Harbor, stopping at Barnes and Noble to cool off a bit before heading back. By the time we got there (about 25 minutes) the water was gone and my face was on fire. The annoying thing is my legs felt okay and while my heart rate wasn't great, I wasn't gasping for air or anything. I found a water fountain at BN to fill up our bottle and splash some water on my face. Did I manage to cool off? Uh, not really. We went back outside, where it was now probably 95 degrees, to determine our next plan of attack...lunch. We decided to walk/run back to Canton and go to Chipotle. Nothing screams exercise like a burrito bowl! By the time we got all the way home I had burned 638 calories, more than my lunch!
That same evening I had my first yoga class. They're on offer in Patterson Park and they're only $5! They supposed to be held in the rec center, but there is no A/C, so they have them outside if it's not raining. By that time it had cooled down to around 80 degrees and was actually cooler outside than inside the rec center. I had to laugh because it reminded me of the hot yoga class I took when I first moved to Ireland and this was just plain, old yoga.
This morning I went out for a run around 8:30 and it was already 80 degrees with bright sun. My legs felt like they were running through treacle and I was barely able to drag myself around the park. I know I'm terribly unfit, but when I think about how far I could run in Dublin it's a bit of a downer. The only thing that makes me feel not-so-bad is that Wes is struggling too and he's super fit. He tries to go out really early in the morning, but it's already hotter than he's used to. Add the heat onto the fact that he occasionally gets lost and ends up in an episode of The Wire, it makes for some interesting runs.

In totally non-related exercise news, my friend just started a blog and it's very funny so you should check it out! It's called Adventures of a Stay-At-Home Dad!

First things first!

2011-06-15T19:35:00.000-04:00

Buy American deodorant.

Holy crap, that Irish deodorant was no match for the American heat! Too bad I stocked up on it too. Guess it will have to be used in cool weather only!

I've been thinking about my first blog since repatriating. How should it go? Should it be about the trials and tribulations of moving to a new country? Should it be about culture shock? Things we miss from Ireland?

I hate to say it, but (knock on wood) so far it's been a breeze. The worst part was the taxi drivers at JFK who wanted to charge us $100 to drive us 3 miles to our hotel. Don't worry, we found the FREE shuttle bus that took us to the hotel for FREE. Wes had to have an interview at immigration and he was done with that by the time I found the cat sitting in her crate all by her lonesome in the middle of the baggage area and figured out I had to pay $5 per cart for the airport luggage carts (boo for not being free!). The guy told him he was lucky because sometimes people have to wait for 3 hours for their turn.
Since I know you're dying to know, we did not have cat litter or food for the cat. The hotel wasn't in the nicest part of town, so we weren't about to go exploring. She had lots of water and I tore up newspaper to put in the litter box I had brought along. She actually used it! I brought her back some milk from breakfast and my sister and BIL came to the rescue the next day with food and litter so she was a happy cat.
We stayed with my parents for a few days then moved into the house in Baltimore. Wes was added to the bank account with no hassle. We had movers coming on Friday to get the stuff from the storage unit. And you know what? They showed up on time. We had an appointment for to have our internet/cable/phone hooked up and you know what? He showed up on time and was done in about 25 minutes. It was amazing. When I moved to England it took 6 WEEKS for my internet to finally get hooked up. Why? I have no idea. They never had any good reason for it to take that long. We went to apply for his SSN and it was totally hassle free. Right now the only thing we're waiting for is our shipment from Ireland. It has cleared customs, so it could be delivered at any time now. Fingers crossed it's all in one piece!

Here's hoping jobs come as easily! Previously we had been looking for jobs as far north as Boston, west to Chicago, and south to Raleigh. We're so sick of moving, so Baltimore and Washington it will be for us!

Moving is crazy enough without a stupid strike!

2011-06-04T11:00:00.000-04:00

It's been a crazy week around here.

I think I have had more to drink this past week than I have all year. We had drinks with friends on Wednesday, drinks with Wes' colleagues on Friday, then we travelled to Cork where my mother in law had planned our 'American wake' for Sunday. What's an American wake you ask?? Well, back in the day when people would emigrate by boat they would plan a party with food, dancing, music, and of course drink. They'd basically party until it was time for the boat to leave, then they'd put the person on the boat drunk as a skunk. Fortunately, ours was much more tame. It was a bbq at a nice restaurant with views over the ocean. We were home by 8pm. We got back to Dublin and it was more drinks with more friends. Wes said it feels like our American wake has lasted a whole week!

It's been pretty smooth sailing all along with drinking and laughing and drinking. Cue Aer Lingus to muck it all up.

Rumblings that the pilots were considering a strike started on Wednesday. If they did strike it would affect flights starting on Tuesday. We were scheduled to leave on Tuesday. We didn't think much of it, airlines say this all the time. Thursday passed with no resolution. Friday passed with no resolution and they started offering people with flights on Tuesday and Wednesday to change their flight for free. Saturday morning comes with no resolution. This is when I start freaking out. We have people picking us up at the airport (which is not right around the corner), we have movers coming on Friday, and everything in our apartment is getting cancelled on Tuesday. We had to take the cat to the vet and when we told her when we were going and even she used an expletive, so I'm glad she could confirm my freak out. Plus, this prompted my husband to take my freak out a little more seriously!

The cat has made everything a little more difficult. I couldn't just change our flights online. I had to call to make sure there was room for the cat on the new flight. After an hour and two phone calls I'm still not sure it's all sorted. There's room on the flight and we're supposed to just show up with her at the airport on Monday. I even called back a second time for peace of mind and ended up getting the exact same guy. What are the odds?? So, I just have to take his word for it.

Since we're going on Monday evening, this means we're staying in a hotel until my sister and BIL can pick us up on Tuesday at midday. We found a pet friendly place close to the airport, but now I have to worry about cat litter. I'm packing a litter box in our stuff. Can you even take cat litter in your luggage? Do I even want to waste space on cat litter? Not one bit. Hopefully we can get a taxi to take us to the closest Target/Wal-Mart/grocery store.

I'm doing the final load of laundry and I'll be spending tomorrow sitting in front of it with a hair dryer thinking about cat litter. It's a great way to spend your last day in Ireland!

You Capture - Pretty

2011-05-26T06:47:00.000-04:00

We were in Kerry this past weekend, so lots of opportunity for pretty pictures! I didn't want to repost pictures from earlier in the week. So, these two are from the gardens at Muckross House in Killarney.

Rhododendrons

Stream Garden

Co. Kerry, Ireland

2011-05-23T08:29:00.000-04:00

We spent the weekend on Ireland's best side, i.e. the west coast. Our friend's family has a house in Kerry and once she heard I had never been there, she was kind enough to invite us down before we moved away. Her family's home is in Sneem which is on the lower road of the Ring of Kerry and about 5 hours from Dublin. That's just a note to all you people who think the Ring of Kerry would make a great day trip from Dublin. It's not. We were on the motorway for about 2.5 hours, but you get off of that and are on small two lane roads that have posted speed limits of 100 km/h, which is about 62 mph. Let's just say we were lucky to go about 45 mph and our friend was very familiar with the roads. Fortunately we only ended up behind one tractor and counted ourselves lucky for that!

It was a nice, relaxing weekend which is always the way when you're visiting with a local. The downer was that it did rain on Saturday morning, but managed to clear up in the afternoon. The wind was blowing and it was COLD, so we all forgot that it was actually the end of May and wore winter hats. Fortunately the rain and clouds lifted and we were blessed with the gorgeous views of the region. It was truly spectacular and we agreed that if the world was going to end on Saturday, we were in the right spot for it!

We started off by checking out Ireland's most famous view:

That's about right.

Then we headed on to Derrynane House. It was owned by Daniel O'Connell aka The Liberator. I didn't know a thing about him, but now I know he fought for rights for the Catholics and he accidentally killed a man in a dual (he just wanted to shoot him in the leg). Oh, and he kind of looked like Nathan Lane. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside and it was chucking it down outside, so I have no pictures. Here's a picture of what it looks like on a nice day!

Photo Courtesy of www.derrynane.com

After that we headed to Valentia Island. We had lunch in a great little coffee shop then headed to the heritage museum there. Again no pictures, but believe me when I say that this tiny island has a buttload of history. Most notably the first transatlantic telegraph cable was sent between the US from Valentia Island in 1866. Oh, but if that's not old enough for you then check out the tetrapod trackways discovered on the rocks on the northern side of the island. Yeah, they're 385 million years old.

(They're the dots running across the middle of the picture)

Fortunately the weather broke a bit while we were there. The seas were angry!

We were headed to Ballinskellig to watch the rugby match with some friends so we left Valentia Island via the Skellig Ring. We didn't even consider going to Skellig Michael because the weather was so bad, but here's a shot of it on the drive over. Crazy to think people actually lived out there! It's a beautiful drive and I highly recommend it.

When we got to the pub, the weather finally broke!

After the match we headed back to Sneem for dinner and got another look at Ireland's most famous view:

Okay, there it is! That's a big change from the morning!

On Sunday we headed to Killarney to visit Muckross House via Moll's Gap. The road went through the national park, so again, the views were just stunning.

Muckross House - the tour was 7 quid, but it was worth it. The tour was an hour long and you saw quite a bit of the house. The gardens are free. You can also visit the farms which are an additional cost (we didn't do this, so I can't comment about it). We could have spent the whole day there! The views were amazing. This is the view from the main bedroom. Imagine waking up to this!

The rhododendrons were gorgeous and we also came across this fallen tree. Or is it??

After making like the Victorians and taking in airs at Muckross we headed into Killarney for lunch. We ended up having coffee and cakes at the cutest tea room. I really liked this:

And it wouldn't be Ireland if we wouldn't have seen someone we knew on the train back to Dublin. Not only were we on the same train as Wes' friend, we were one seat away from him!

We had a wonderful weekend and I'm looking forward to visiting Kerry again on future trips back to Ireland!

Practically BFFs!

2011-05-19T12:57:00.000-04:00

Queen Elizabeth II is visiting Ireland this week. I'm not Irish, so I'm not going to comment on the politics behind the visit, but the majority of the country seems pretty happy to welcome her. My American self thinks it's pretty cool that she's here. Let's be honest, I love a good celebrity sighting. Unfortunately due to such high security, they haven't allowed onlookers at any of the scheduled venues during her visit. Well on Tuesday I was walking home from meeting the newest little princess in Ireland and I saw people congregating along the barriers currently lining the city centre. Since I had nothing better to do but stand around, I stood around for about 30 minutes waiting for the Queen!

This is looking towards Trinity College. I think every police officer in the country is in Dublin this week.

Looking north towards the Spire. You can guess where the Queen is because of the helicopter hovering above her all the time. At this point she was at the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square and you can see the helicopter here just next to the Spire.

Here's the Queenmobile!

You can (not very clearly) see Prince Philip in the back seat. The one thing I found handy was that they have a little flag on their car so no guessing which car it was going to be. And, unlike the US president, there isn't a dummy car in the motorcade, used to confuse bad people. There were no dissenters where I was. Some of you may have seen the news footage of people throwing stuff at the Garda on Dorset Street. Please understand that this wasn't the norm. People around me were either waving, clapping, or taking pictures.

So, I trotted home, all excited that I got to see the Queen.

Fast forward to Wednesday evening. I had my outdoor yoga class in the Phoenix Park. The Queen is staying up in Farmleigh and while they'll let people into the park, security is pretty tight and they have barriers lining Chesterfield Road, the main drag through the park. Well, after class I saw a few people standing up along the barriers. I headed up there and the officer told us the front gate was closed and the Queen was running late for her dinner in Dublin Castle and would be by in about 10 minutes. Once again, I have nothing better to do but stand around and wait for the Queen! I thought it was pretty nice that they let us stand there and didn't shoo us away from the barriers. This sighting was much better because there were only about 6 or 7 of us standing there waving, with no one on the other side of the road. This meant they actually leaned forward to give us a wave and you could clearly see the beautiful tiara the Queen was wearing. I'm pretty sure she remembered me from the day before!

Next up: President Obama is visiting next week and will be addressing a crowd at Trinity College. Apparently there will be free tickets available, but I have no idea how to get one. If anyone out there knows, I'd appreciate a comment!

Oh Monday!

2011-05-16T09:58:00.000-04:00

It is only 2:18pm and it's already been an eventful day!

1. Went for a run and saw them picking up the trash cans around the Phoenix Park in anticipation of the Queen's visit. Also saw a phone booth (I know, they still exist!) and it was all taped up so no bombs could go in there either. While most people in Ireland understand the benefit of having Queen Elizabeth here, a certain select few people are out to ruin this visit. Fingers crossed this goes off without a hitch.

2. While running, I was stopped by a woman asking me how to get to the city centre*. I showed her, then she asked about the 46A bus. I pointed out that it picks up on the other side of the road. At this point she started questioning my directions. "So the city centre is really that way!" (Pointing in the opposite direction of my original directions to her.) Well, that's the direction that particular bus goes, but it does turn at some point! Look lady, if you think you know, then don't ask!
*As an aside, most runners would be annoyed when people stop them. Not this runner. I'm always looking for an excuse to stop!

3. All of my friends are off having babies (in a hospital that doesn't allow visitors, pfft!) or gallivanting in Greece so I was stuck having lunch on my own today. They opened a Sbarro in the Jervis shopping centre and I know that sounds awesome, but it isn't. It's not nearly as good as Sbarro in the US. The bases are pre-made and they just put the toppings on them and heat it all up. But, I had it today anyway and pretended I was at the mall in the US. The thing they do get right is the pepperoni. It's thin and American-style. Most pepperoni here is too thick.

4. I was standing outside of M&S texting said friend in the hospital and the security alarms went off. Now, these alarms go off all the time. I've seen it happen with 3 staff members standing right there and no one bats an eye. But today, two security guards came flying out, stopped this old couple, and brought them back into the store! They must have been stalking them all along. Very exciting! At first I felt bad for the old couple, but then I didn't because they're thieves.

5. Next I was headed home with my groceries and this American guy stopped me and asked for directions to the Guinness Storehouse. They were clearly lost (hello, wrong side of the river!) and the group of guys he was with were embarrassed that he was getting directions because they all kept walking down the street. I'm pretty sure he saw my Nikes, jeans, and Columbia fleece and made a beeline to me for directions. From one American to another.... I'm always happy to help out my fellow countrymen!

Re-reading my post I don't think it's been very eventful after all. See what happens when your friends are away and you don't have a job?? I must just be comparing today to our weekend which was Boring with a capital 'B'! What if I had something actually exciting happen to me!? God, I wouldn't know what to do with myself...

Belfast

2011-05-10T14:44:00.000-04:00

Over the May bank holiday weekend we headed up to Belfast for Wes to run in the Belfast marathon. Living in the Republic of Ireland (aka The South), you hear things about Norn Iron/Belfast and well, unfortunately they're not very good. We get reports of bombs found on the Dublin to Belfast road, police officers killed by car bombs, and who can forget that pesky railway bridge that collapsed in 2009. And of course that whole Protestant/Catholic/Loyalist/Republican/Orange/Tan thing that I still have a hard time understanding. It's weird in Ireland and deadly in Northern Ireland. It doesn't really endear you with the idea of travelling north. But, Wes wanted to run another marathon before we left and he was told Belfast was flat and fast, so we risked our lives for his psychotic love of running (okay, that's a little dramatic) and headed north.

The trip on the coach bus was fine. Thankfully the scenery was gorgeous because two hours on that thing was my limit. We made a stop in Newry and I said a little prayer thanking God that I don't live there. It might be the armpit of NI. When we finally got to Belfast, my immediate impression was the number of fences. Every inch of the town has a fence around it. Fences have fences. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture, but I really wish I had since it was something I couldn't stop noticing.

After eating lunch and checking into our hotel (Holiday Inn Hotel Belfast - highly recommend!) we had to go to the city hall where they had the race packs and runners village.

When we came out of the city hall we were treated to our first loyalist parade. It was kind of strange because it was a Sunday afternoon and this parade wasn't really celebrating anything. In fact, it was celebrating something that half the town doesn't agree with and could potentially incite violence. It didn't feel sinister or anything, just strange. It seemed like it was impromptu, but I imagine they have to clear lots of things with the council before marching.

When we were walking up towards the city hall I mentioned how it reminded me of Leeds city hall. Later we were walking around I said how it reminded me of the red brick buildings in Manchester. We were in a shopping center and I said it reminded me of Cabot Circus in Bristol. The views of the hills outside of the city made me think of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. I'm sure Belfast wasn't planned to look like a bit of every other city in the UK, so I decided to stop comparing it and just enjoy the Belfastness of it all!

In 3 days I think I gained 10 lbs. Why? Well things like Nando's, banoffee pie (DELICIOUS!), Pizza Express, Guinness, and a cinnamon sugar pretzel from Auntie Anne's! You can smell that place a mile away and I was like a homing pigeon to my destination! There is AA in Dublin, but it's in Blanchardstown and that's on the way to nowhere.

Why were we in Belfast again?? Oh yeah! The marathon! It was a beautiful sunny day, but it was a bit windy. And by windy I mean freezing-ass-I-wish-I-had-my-hat cold. Apparently though, the Norn Irish don't feel cold. See?

I've never seen so many season pushers in my LIFE! The season pushers in Dublin have NOTHING on these people! Rest assured, the group in the picture weren't participating in the race, they were just spectators. They looked like intelligent people. Why are they dressed like that? When I was contemplating putting Wes' jacket on OVER my jacket, a girl in a mini skirt and tube top walked past. In the sun, it was bearable, but it was only about 55 degrees and the wind was blowing at about 15 mph. FREEZING!!!

Wes' review of the marathon can be found here. He was hoping to get a new personal best, but that didn't happen. Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of crowds out there cheering for the runners. I was in the city center for this picture and you can see a bit of the pathetic crowds:

Wes is actually in this picture. He's the first runner coming up on the left. Yeah, I felt a little strange since I was basically cheering by myself. They would probably have larger crowds if the entire town wasn't participating in races that day. In addition to the marathon, they had a relay, fun run, and charity walk. I believe the participation was around 20,000 people. That's why there were no crowds!

Even though it wasn't a great day for Wes, it was a great day for this guy. He won the marathon, setting a new course record just under 2:15. He was from Kenya and it took him 3 days to travel to Belfast. In those 3 days, he only slept 1 night. When he ran past, he looked like he was just starting out. Amazing! Color me impressed!

This guy, however, looked a bit like he was hating life. Yeah, he looks pretty good here, but you didn't have to walk with him! After we made it back to the room and had some lunch, he went back to the room to lay down and rub Bio Freeze all over his legs, and I went out to take advantage of the cheaper British prices in the shops!

That's about it for our trip to Belfast! Honestly, the best thing about Belfast were the people. Both of us commented on how friendly everyone was to us. Shopkeepers would make small talk with you and they were genuinely interested in having a quick chat. They were hands down the friendliest people I've encountered while in the UK. Another thing about Belfast were the amazing pubs. We walked into a couple of interesting places, but the Crown Pub was amazing! It's actually a National Trust property, so everyone should check it out!

All in all, Belfast was a lovely city and it was a nice weekend trip....even if we did risk our lives to get there!

Flat Sara

2011-05-09T05:05:00.000-04:00

Last month my cousin emailed me and asked if we would like to have a visitor. Her daughter's class at school was reading Flat Stanley, a story of a boy who gets flattened. The bonus of being flat is his parents could stick him in an envelope and mail him to various places around the world. Much cheaper than plane tickets! Sara's class was making flattened versions of themselves to send out to friends and family. Our job was to show her the sites, taking pictures of her while she was here, and buy her souvenirs to send home with her. They were going to display their 'Flat' projects at the school's open house in late April.

I thought Flat Sara would be this little flat person on a stick that I could pull discretely out of my handbag when necessary. So, you can imagine my surprise (and Wes' horror) when I pulled her out of the envelope and she was a life-sized version of Sara. No discretion here!

Wes had a business trip to Cyprus, so he took Flat Sara along! Unfortunately she didn't get to leave the room, but she had some nice views from the balcony! Lucky girl!

Flat Sara with a post box.

Me and Flat Sara on a walk to the Phoenix Park, with the Wellington Monument in the background.

Flat Sara stayed in the Smithfield area of Dublin. Margadh na Feirme is how you refer to the Smithfield area in Irish.

Flat Sara and me in front of a local primary school.

Out on a walk to show Flat Sara the sights and we got caught in a shower. There was another woman standing under the doorway with us and when I pulled out Flat Sara and Wes started taking pictures, she decided to take her chances out in the rain rather than with the crazy people in the doorway! Ha!

Flat Sara at the pub watching the Munster vs Leinster rugby match. Munster won! Woot!

Flat Sara on a picnic in the Phoenix Park. She got to try Club Orange and Tayto Potato Crisps. Two Irish favorites!

The thing about Dublin is there aren't really distinct landmarks here, like the Eiffel Tower or the Coliseum. Instead, I decided to go with everyday things that I thought 10 year olds might be interested in learning about. When I sent Flat Sara back, I sent her with a power point presentation giving more information about the various places she visited, an Irish flag, a potato cookbook, a shamrock, a Guinness postcard, a book about Ireland, and a t-shirt.

I hope she had fun while she was here!

The Kingdom of Boxonia

2011-05-04T06:07:00.000-04:00

And I'm the Queen! I'd love to tell you about our weekend in Belfast, but instead I'm packing. Packing wouldn't be so bad if we actually had room to put the boxes. We made good progress last night, but there's still lots to do. Our hallway looks like this:

And this is the view into the bedroom:

They're coming tomorrow to pick everything up and I can't wait. Right-o! I'm off to wash the dishes so I can pack them! The mixing bowl is getting packed, so a whole month without mashed potatoes! Ack!

Good times at Busaras

2011-04-28T04:59:00.000-04:00

We're headed up to Belfast* in a few days as Wes is running in the marathon. I stopped in at Busaras (aka the bus station) to see about getting tickets. The 13 year old boy wearing his dad's suit who was working at the ticket counter pointed me in the direction of the ticket machines since I wanted to use my debit card. I went to the ticket machine and bought advance tickets to Belfast, easy peasy. The tickets say, 'Belfast 801A'. I decide, hey, I should pick up a timetable so we know when to go! I'm looking through the rack of timetables and I don't see 801A. Then I realize that I should just look for Dublin-Belfast because the numbers don't match up. Found it! The bus goes hourly. Cool! But wait! The timetable says the service numbers are 200, 240, and 001. Our tickets says 801A. No problem, I'll ask at information to get this cleared up.

Me: Hi. I just bought these tickets to Belfast. The service number on the ticket says 801A, but that doesn't match the service numbers on the timetable.

Him: Oh, sure, that's okay. The service numbers don't mean anything. You can get on any of the Belfast routes.

Me (in my mind): That is so Irish.

*Here is a public service announcement for people interested in travelling from Dublin to Belfast: the train takes the same amount of time as the coach bus and it is double the price. Just get the bus!

Trim Castle and the Hill of Tara

2011-04-27T04:49:00.000-04:00

We have been having a really gorgeous spring here in Ireland. I mean, ridiculously gorgeous. I'm really going to miss the weather when we leave. My husband has no idea what he's in for when it comes to heat and humidity. My in laws were in town for the Easter weekend, so we did a bus tour to Trim Castle and the Hill of Tara, both in Co. Meath. Fortunately, the weather was stellar because I imagine these places would be the pits on a cold, rainy day.

Trim Castle was the first stop. The OPW does a great 45 minute tour of the Keep and I would highly recommend it.You go all the way to the top and the views are really amazing.

These dry moat-like structures, surrounding the Keep (shown below), were actually a defense against attackers. They would have been wearing helmets, obstructing their vision, so they'd come running in and fall into these ditches because they couldn't see them. I'm fairly certain these would have caught me up, helmet or no helmet!

The next two pictures are from inside the Keep (shown above). The stones are green because they're mossy (there isn't a permanent roof on the structure), not because it's some special Irish stone. The building is made of limestone.

After Trim Castle we had time to get a coffee before heading off to the Hill of Tara. The Hill of Tara is most impressive viewed from above, so click on the link I provided at the top of the post to see aerial pictures. The Hill of Tara is known as the ancient seat of the kings of Ireland. It's older than the Pyramids and Stonehenge. It is believed that Saint Patrick came to Tara to talk to the Pagan kings about Christianity. They believe the reason the Hill of Tara was chosen to be the home of the kings was because on a clear day you can see 29 of the 32 counties in Ireland. We could see the mountains in Donegal, Wicklow, Galway, and Armagh. Pretty amazing!

There was a prayer tree near the top, so I offered up a tissue for my prayer. Wes left a LUAS ticket!

It's believed the outer circle was constructed to keep the evil spirits out and the inner circle made to keep the good spirits in.

My FIL hugged the Lia Fail (the ancient coronation stone) to see if he is the next king of Ireland. The ground would have rumbled and we would have heard roaring. All we heard was traffic from the M3.

These graves are from a churchyard next to the site. They're not ancient!

Packing!

2011-04-26T11:27:00.000-04:00

Well, kind of. We don't have the boxes yet, so I've been washing clothes and anything else that fits in the washing machine. My computer backpack is in there right now. We'll see how that turns out! I've made a pile of books that I'll attempt to sell back to the book store. I found some of my favorite all-time pens (Pentel RSVPs), my beloved Sharpie that had disappeared, and a Deutsche mark. I have no idea where that came from, but it looks like a quarter, so I imagine it was slipped to me accidentally at some point! I've been going through a lot of paperwork I've collected, mainly over the years in the UK - pay stubs, bank statements, etc. Most of what I've gone through is the paperwork I filed from when I moved to the UK almost 5 years ago. I found my student visa application, acceptance letter from Bath Spa, and all the accompanying loan information. I had a big file of stuff for the house and of course the cat's paperwork. It made me sad seeing all of Obie's info and knowing he's not going back.

Except for the cat, it has been fun remembering back to that time when I was wrapping things up and getting ready to start my new adventures in the UK. My plan was to stay for two years and it ended up being almost 5 years that I've been out of the US. It's going to be weird living there again. A lot has changed, but the biggest changes have probably been to me. In some ways I'm scared of myself and how I will adapt to life in the US again. It's different for my husband since it will all be new to him. I can't wait until he complains about light switches, faucets, and grocery shopping in a new country! In my previous post, Fran asked if I will be blogging once I leave Ireland. I'm planning on it as I'm sure I'll have lots to say about repatriating! The best part about this new adventure is I get to do it all with my partner in crime!

Just livin' life!

2011-04-21T04:48:00.000-04:00

We're less than two months from leaving! At this point we're just wrapping things up. We have a shipping company (our stuff will be delivered a few days after we arrive), the cat had her rabies vaccine, and we transferred money to our US account. We had a one year birthday party to go to last weekend. The in laws are coming this weekend. I did my taxes. Finally had my birthday facial and massage. See? Just livin' life!

One thing that's fun is I started taking classes with Outdoor Yoga. I got a Groupon voucher for four weeks of unlimited classes. I am deeply in love with Groupon/citydeal.ie. I am so excited that Baltimore will be able to further feed my addiction of getting these deals! Anyway, I started yoga last evening. The weather in Dublin has been GORGEOUS this week, so I definitely didn't have to drag myself there. I used to do yoga regularly, but when I was in England I switched to pilates which I actually enjoy more. Now in Dublin, I'm unemployed so yoga and pilates were out of my price range (yes, I do it at home, but it's not the same). Since I quit the gym last month and found this excellent deal on Groupon, I'm able to do a month of yoga. I have to say, it felt really great. I was surprised at my fitness level, even though it's been so long since I've truly practiced yoga. At one point the instructor said, 'Look up. I don't think I've ever seen a nicer ceiling in a yoga studio'. He was right. The bright green leaves with the bright blue sky behind it was really inspiring. When we were in savasana at the end of the class he told us to close our eyes, but I just wanted to stare at the leaves!

It's been a nice couple of weeks. With the spa pampering and yoga I feel like I'm regaining a bit of 'Kim'. Now if I could just become 'Employed Kim' life would be grand sure!

You Capture - Smile

2011-04-13T12:28:00.000-04:00

Hey, where is that guy with my ice cream!?

There he is!

My hero! First 99 of the season!

Poor Smiffy....

2011-04-09T13:21:00.000-04:00

It gets such a bad rap!

There is an article in the Irish Times today about plans to save Smithfield.square. I hope it works. Smithfield has an interesting history and none of it is showcased. I've talked a bit about it in the past. It is a bummer walking through the square and seeing all the empty retail spaces. I mean, they just closed Subway for goodness sake!

The plans they had for 2007 were certainly grandiose! I'm not sure how the residents of the apartment buildings would have appreciated rock concerts being performed on their doorsteps! And the horse fair, well, I'm not a fan. (I wrote about it on my old blog, which I just discovered no longer exists). Sorry I can't link to the post, but believe me, I love tradition and all that, but the horse fair is not nice. I walked away from it in tears due to the way the horses were being treated. The local grocery shop closes the back half of their shop down on that day because so much stuff was getting nicked. The state of the square after a fair is disgusting.

All that being said, there are some nice things about the square. The Lighthouse Cinema is ace! The Jameson Distillery! The Cobblestone pub! And all of this underground art stuff that's so underground I've never heard of it! Smithfield is close to the National Museum, great restaurants in Stoneybatter, and is a nice stroll from, my favorite, the Phoenix Park. There's a LUAS stop here and there are decent bus close by. Sure there are knackers here, but that's a Dublin problem, not exclusively a Smithfield problem.

Out of the whole article, I think the truest statement is this: "When rents comes down, and we get rid of upward-only rent reviews, we’ll begin to see a lot of progress." High rents have been the demise of all the good things in Dublin. I guess landlords here would rather have empty space, then give breaks on the rent.

Huh.

A repatriating no no

2011-04-08T09:22:00.000-04:00

Four months before you move, don't become addicted to a product you can only get in your current country.

Club Orange is the greatest orange soda ever made. It has real bits in it. REAL BITS! Interestingly, it's the first fruit juice soda ever produced and it's been around since just before World War II, then taken off the market due to rationing, and reintroduced in 1945. I don't really have anything to say about it, except that I love it and in two months I won't be able to get it anymore. I'm partial to the diet version, but the regular is nice too. If you ever visit Ireland you should try it.

(My) Monday...on the late side

2011-04-05T04:06:00.000-04:00

Monday was our 2nd anniversary and I got this card for Wes. The sentiment was perfect but the picture was feet. Not only is it feet, it looks like two pairs of guy feet. Weird.

Celebrity Sighting! Well, kind of.

2011-04-03T11:17:00.000-04:00

Of ALL the football presenters in the world, we had to walk past Setanta's Pat Dolan yesterday.

Wes: 'That's Fat Pat.'
Me: 'Who?'
Wes: 'Fat Pat!'
Me: 'Who?'
Wes: 'He's a football presenter.'
Me (I'm now at a complete stop, staring at him from about 20 ft away): 'Oh yeah! He's the one that talks a lot of crap against Liverpool, right?'
Wes: 'That's the one!'

Man! Why couldn't it have been Alan Hansen from BBC's Match of the Day!??

He's McDreamy!!! Apparently I would have had to wait my turn to have a picture with him. Wes would have elbowed me out of the way - Alan Hansen is one of the greatest Liverpool players of all time.

And he has gorgeous eyes.

You Capture - Vibrance

2011-03-31T04:59:00.000-04:00

Just brightened nature's already vibrant colors.

I quit the gym (again)

2011-03-30T09:37:00.000-04:00

Remember back in August when I joined Cur.ves? Yeah, well I've actually still been going! I even went when I was in the US over Christmas. Those ladies were a hoot! Cur.ves in the US is a lot different from Cur.ves in Ireland. Namely, the median age of the members. Just to give you an idea, I happened to be there on 7 December, the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The conversation du jour was 'Where were you when Pearl Harbor was bombed?' I just kept my head down and kept at it. No need to point out that my parents weren't even born yet! Regardless, I had a lot of respect for these women; getting out, moving, and keeping fit and active. I had a chat with the owner of that branch one day and we talked a bit about the differences between the two countries. The main thing is there are loads of women-only gyms in the US (one was right around the corner from this Cur.ves) and in Ireland, Cur.ves is the only option so you get a larger variety of women. However, I will say I've never seen anyone in there older than maybe 60, but that could just be my branch.

While I can see the benefits of this type of workout and I know it works for people, it just doesn't work for me. I actually highly recommend it to women who need to get moving and don't know where to start, and women who don't like regular gyms and the type of workouts they offer. I'm not one of those women, so I would get bored easily and the workout just isn't aerobic enough for me. Not to mention, my favorite person who worked there has left to open her own branch, and the manager of this particular branch and I well, we're not each other's favorite person. Wes would ask me why I didn't just quit, but I figured it was better than doing nothing. I started to do some running, so I thought going to Cur.ves would give me the resistance training I need. Fine.

Like I said earlier this week, I haven't exercised in about a month. I went in today and the manager was there, checking her Facebook or texting (even though there were people working out)*. She seemed surprised to see me, didn't ask why it had been so long since I had been in, and I made the split decision right then to put in my notice to quit. Since we're moving in June I thought I'd way until May, but you know, I just threw it out there. Someone had told me previously that I shouldn't full on quit and just transfer my membership to the US. I had already worked out in my head what to say when she suggested this to me, politely declining and letting her know I plan on joining a regular gym when I'm in the US. Nope. Didn't go that way. This is how it went down:

Me: We're going to be moving, so I'm going to need to give my notice to quit. How much time do I need to give?
Her: Oh, okay. It's 30 days, so you better do it today. Yeah, today.
Me: Umm...alright (thinking in my head that I actually don't need to do this until May).
Her: Right, could you just write it down on this piece of paper?
Me: Um...sure, okay. I should make it effective today?
Her: Yep! Today!

Didn't even ask me when I was going (she could have gotten another month of fees from me). No mention of trying to keep me as a Cur.ves customer in the US. In fact, she seemed downright giddy that I was going to be leaving! Pretty good business practice!Yes, I could have offered up the information on when I'm leaving, but I try to avoid having long conversations with her. I could have told her I'd stay until the end of May, but really? Who am I kidding? Neither of us want me to be there! Ha!

Joining a gym in the US is one of the things I'm MOST looking forward to when we move!

*I should point out that this seems to be unique to this person. There are other employees at this branch and they're actually quite helpful. My friend goes to a different branch here in Dublin and the employees are involved in their member's workouts.

(My) Monday

2011-03-28T11:22:00.000-04:00

Back in the saddle! After being in England for 10 days, then sick for two weeks, today was the first day I've exercised since March 4th. YIKES! I walked almost 4 miles and I felt great! (I even got some mud on my leg!)

Waiting

2011-03-26T14:43:00.000-04:00

I am the most impatient person ever, so it should come as no surprise that I hate waiting. On the flip side I LURVE planning! This year has been a whole lot of waiting and not a lot of planning. This is not my idea of a good time. We're moving to the US in two months and I'm fairly certain this will be the longest two months of my life. We're waiting for jobs to pop up so we can apply for them, waiting to hear about jobs we've applied for, waiting to start packing, there's the two week waits that come with trying to get pregnant, and waiting for this sore throat to totally go away. With all this waiting there is a bit of planning that I'm able to do: plan for the cat's move, contact the shipping company, talk to the doctor about all these two week waits and the super sore throat, start to get rid of some of the crap we're not taking, and of course applying for those jobs that do pop up.
I finally got to tell our landlord that we're moving out and he was a total buzzkill. All he said was, 'I'm sure this is good for you.' As in, 'You must be happily dragging your husband across the Atlantic.' I said, ' Uh, actually it's a good time to go since his contract is ending and we have no other options at this point.' I don't know why his response bothered me so much, but I'm sure it had to do with the fact that I've been waiting for MONTHS to tell him. Waiting makes you bitter and paranoid when the outcome doesn't go as you expected.
Of course in a month and a half I'll be running around like a crazy person trying to get all the last minute details sorted. That's okay, I'll be blissfully happy doing it!

Arghhh!!!! Waiting!!! I hate it!!!

You Capture - Youth

2011-03-24T12:13:00.000-04:00

Got to hang out with two of my three favorite youths here in Dublin! It is a gorgeous day so we all went to park.

Waiting for his turn on the swing, Liam is getting in the zone. Clearly, swinging is serious business!

Wheeee!!!!! Henry was hamming it up for the camera and showing off his teeth!

(My) Monday

2011-03-21T06:55:00.000-04:00

My Monday involves laying on the couch, being sick. Fun fun!

Chocolate really is the Devil

2011-03-20T08:18:00.000-04:00

My friend and her 3 year old daughter gave up chocolate for Lent. It was definitely a struggle for both of them and by day 3 the 3 year old was asking if it had be 40 days yet. There was a little calendar on their fridge giving little tips and verses to get them through Lent. On one particular day it asked how many times Satan tempted Jesus in the desert. We read the little story in the bible and talked about Jesus refusing to get caught up in the evil.

Then it happened.

The Devil arrived on their front doorstep, presenting himself (is Satan a guy?) as some delicious home made chocolate chip cookies, straight from America.

I watched the two of them dance around trying to decide what to do with these cookies, while the Devil just sat there, tempting them, decorated with green sprinkles. That Catholic guilt had a pretty strong hold! Should they save them until Sunday (this was Monday) when the priest said they could have a treat? Would they go stale by then? WWJD? Jesus might be sad. Jesus died on the cross for us, we should not eat chocolate.

In the end, it was a draw. The devil was able to tempt the 3 year old, but my friend would not fall. I reassured her that the cookies could go in the freezer and they could just pull them out individually on Sundays.

Don't blame me if I have to eat some chocolate. The Devil made me do it.

Gaeilge

2011-03-17T14:31:00.000-04:00

If you can speak more than one language fluently, then color me impressed. If you can learn to speak Irish then you're a genius. To say the language is impenetrable is an understatement. Children here are required to study Irish all through school starting in junior infants (which is like Kindergarten/first grade/reception(UK)) and take an exam when they're 16 (unless they're a native speaker). Even with all that schooling, I think I may speak more Irish than my husband. I'd like to thank my main educator: the Irish public transportation system.

In my previous post I mentioned that I met my friend's little boy, Naiose. She is a native Irish speaker and wants her son to be as well. Her partner does not speak Irish fluently, but he's not too bad. I wondered how this would work and she said that she speaks Irish to him exclusively and he'll learn English from everyone else. Her sister has done this with her niece and it works perfectly.

Of course I spoke to him in English by occasionally, well, let's just say I wowed her with my knowledge of the Irish language. I would say something along the lines of:
'Ahhh Naiose...sneaicbheár?' Translated this means 'Ahhh Naiose....snack bar?
Or I would just throw place names at him in my best goo goo gaa gaa baby voice:
'Sraid na Mainistrach!' (Abbey Street!) 'Duga Sheoirse!' (George's Dock!) and of course my all time favorite: 'Na Ceithre Cúirteanna!' (The Four Courts!).

Riding the Luas (which, by the way is Irish for 'speed') can really educate a gal.

Making new friends

2011-03-16T07:31:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the silence, but I was in England for 10 days. Wes and I had a long weekend in London where we did some sightseeing. Wes had only ever been there for work, so I thought it would be nice for him to visit before we moved to the States. My cousin also happened to be in town for her son's school trip, so we had dinner with them one night. We had gorgeous weather, but it was pretty cold. Don't be deceived by the sunshine! Unfortunately, my camera is on the fritz, so I didn't take too many pictures.Not to mention, we also went to a lot of places that don't allow pictures inside (St Paul's, Westminster Abbey). They were gorgeous, but I guess you're going to have to see for yourself!

Me: 'Look Wes, Big Ben...Parliament! Hahahahahahaha!!!!!!'
Him: 'Huh?'
Me: Trying to explain Chevy Chase in European Vacation. I think we're going to have to rent it!

One of King Henry VIII's suits of armour on display at the Tower of London. I think he was an exaggerator.

This cheeky raven kept attacking the lady in the green jacket as she had some food. I guess that huge heart he ate earlier didn't satisfy him.

This is the view from our hotel in Earl's Court. It was nice enough, but Wes wasn't too happy about that stuff up on the left hand side. That's Chelsea's football grounds. We had to keep the curtains closed for most of the time.

After Wes left I travelled to visit some friends who have had babies since the last time I saw them. Thankfully we walked tons in London because when you visit people with new babies you sit around a lot bouncing babies on your knee. Or you go to the coffee shop and eat lots of cake. This is okay if you're nursing a child, but I had no excuses. My new friends are very cute and I'm so glad I had the chance to meet them!

My friend Emma's little boy, Naiose. I'll spare you the shot I got of him puking just before this.

Leah, the lovely lady, spent DAYS smiling at me then when I went to take her pictures, this is all she'd give me! Hrmph! I promise you that she loved her some Kim!

It was a great trip and I was able to meet up with some other friends as well. It was pretty bitter sweet leaving Bristol airport and not knowing when I'll ever get to England again. I promised that we'd get a web cam to keep in touch!

You Capture: Technology

2011-03-03T04:26:00.000-05:00

We got this bit of technology at my wedding shower. I've never used it (I just trim off the dried bit at the end) and to be honest, I totally forgot we had it. But last night when Wes saw the half banana sitting there the light bulb went off in his head! And I immediately yell out, 'Technology!' Maybe we used it too late, but it totally didn't work and now I have one more thing to wash.

I can't believe I'm actually writing this!

2011-03-01T04:33:00.000-05:00

I've taken up running.

You might think that because my husband runs marathons that I might be more open to running. You would be wrong. I pretty much hate running. Then my husband bought me this:

Source

Hi, my name is Kim and I'm addicted to my heart rate monitor.

There is something about actually seeing how many calories I'm burning while I'm working out that gets me jazzed. Tracking my heart rate and calories makes me go faster (which I promise is not very fast) and longer than I would go without it. The weather has been gorgeous here (I'm a fair weather runner), so it hasn't been too hard to get motivated to go out.

Each time I go out is an adventure. One day I saved a cat's life. I'm not sure if it wanted to be saved, but too bad. Another day I was stopped by a little old lady crossing the street, asking me to tell the bus driver up ahead not to leave without her. Done. I watched a swan running across the pond in Phoenix Park, and of course the crocuses are starting to bloom everywhere. It's something new each time and I get excited about what might happen while I'm out!

(My) Monday

2011-02-28T06:38:00.000-05:00

The nail polish didn't make it through some Monday morning cleaning. :(

You Capture - Things that start with 'L'

2011-02-23T10:40:00.000-05:00

I'm crazy for lentils these days.

I can't move without missing random things....

2011-02-22T07:41:00.000-05:00

Yeah, friends and family blah blah. Of course I'll miss them! That's a given. When I move I'm all about missing random things that I can't email or talk to on the phone. For example, when I left the US I missed my car desperately. I didn't just miss having a car, I missed my car. Fortunately a friend bought it from me, so I could get updates on how it was doing. In no particular order, here are the things I'll miss:

1. The BBC - BBC America is nothing like the real thing. Where will I see shows about the history of coach travel and the history of camping in England? Or the BBC Proms? BBC America doesn't show Saturday Kitchen Live, Something for the Weekend, Countryfile, or Coast. Hrmph.

2. Not having to actively seek out foods that don't contain high fructose corn syrup - They don't put that nasty crap in anything over here and well, that's awesome. I know when I buy a loaf of whole wheat bread that it's not going to taste sweet. I feel we'll be buying a lot of bread until we find one that we like.I may even need to invest in a bread maker.

3. The pub - This one is a biggie. It's not that I'm some sort of an alcoholic, but 'going to the pub' in Ireland is a lot different than 'going to a bar' in the US. It's about more than the drink. In a country with tons of rain, it's a cozy and warm place to get out of the elements for a bit. If the pub is a bit older, there's a good chance it has a snug, which is really the best seat in the house. It's about meeting up with friends to watch the rugby and cheer Ireland on, hearing people say, 'Come on, Lads!' or 'Come on, Ireland!'. I love that. Wes will remind me that a true Irish pub has no food, no TVs, and no music. There is nothing better than going for a long walk, then popping into a pub for a pint before heading home.

4. Scones - People will tell me I can find good scones in America, but well, they're a pretty British thing so I'm fairly certain they make them better over here. I'm gonna need a good scone recipe.

5. Random women (usually store clerks) calling me, 'Pet'. - This is a totally Irish thing. My friend's mom was the first person to call me 'Pet' and I thought it was pretty sweet. Sometimes they'll call you, 'Petal'. I'd say it's like when someone in Britain calls you, 'Love', but it's nothing like that actually. I've had men call me, 'Love' and it wasn't always in the nicest context. In fact, it sometimes felt downright demeaning.

6. Telling people I live in Ireland and them thinking it's totally cool - That's right, I just want people to think I'm cool all the time! Sometimes living in Ireland is the only 'cool' thing about me! However, this one is a double-edged sword. Once they profess the coolness of living in Ireland, they then ask me how magnificent I must think it is to live in Ireland. I hate that question more than anything. I remind them that living somewhere is always different than vacationing there and it's tough times in Ireland right now. But, I will always encourage them to come here on vacation!

That's it for right now. I know there are going to be more and I reserve the right to add to this list!

(My) Monday

2011-02-21T04:56:00.000-05:00

One of Wes' coworkers is having a birthday today. She's the one that always bakes for everyone else, so it was requested that I bake something for her. I decided to make black bottoms. I've had the recipe for years, but never made them, so I hope they turned out okay!

"It's not as good as it used to be."

2011-02-17T05:15:00.000-05:00

Sadly, this is a phrase you hear in Dublin quite a bit these days. Just before Christmas, the Irish Times announced that our favorite brunch place was closing due to the high rent. Chatting with a friend about this she said that they used to frequent it for lunch as it was close to her office, but in the past few months "it's wasn't as good as it used to be." I offered to take a friend to one of her favorite restaurants for her birthday lunch and she opted to go somewhere else because "it's not as good as it used to be." There's a particular pub we like to go to and if we're eating a meal there I always get the chicken goujons because they made the best ones. The last time I had them they were gross (I made Wes confirm this) and definitely "not as good as they used to be". The one that makes me the most sad ever is when my friend told me she's done treating herself to a scone at Keogh's every Friday because "it's not as good as it used to be". They used to have the best scones in the city centre and I would always recommend it to visitors. Waaaahhhh!!!!

What the heck, Dublin!?? Reduce the rents for these places so they can stop scrimping on quality ingredients and still make a profit! I need to get my scone on!

In rare news, Boojum (the awesome burrito place) has passed on the savings from their suppliers to their customers and reduced the cost of a burrito by 50 cents! It's an Irish miracle!

(My) Monday

2011-02-16T10:40:00.000-05:00

Yes, this is late. Let's forget that. Lindy has started a photo project where she takes a picture of her Monday. I thought it was a cute idea and since I finally have batteries, I figured I'd participate!

I finally had the chance to wear my new shoes out on my hot Valentine's date!

Wash, rinse, repeat

2011-02-08T11:06:00.000-05:00

Things are pretty lame around here and I've lost my blogging mojo.

The batteries in my camera are dead and I keep forgetting to buy new ones. That's why there are no photo project updates.
My birthday was on Saturday and the weather was crap which meant no nice, long walk this weekend.
Wes made me Toad in the Hole for my birthday dinner and it was fantabulous!
I got a voucher for a facial and massage. Woot!
I actually stayed awake for the whole Super Bowl. That means I went to bed at 3am! I felt like a rock star. It required large quantities of Coke Zero.
I've discovered 'Project Runway'.
I spend my days hitting the refresh button on the higher ed jobs website and sending things to Wes.

Anyone still awake? See? Dullsville. Hopefully things will get more exciting soon!

Taxi Cab Confessionals

2011-01-30T09:25:00.000-05:00

There are approximately one cajillion taxis in Dublin. For a city of about 2.5 million (which is considerably less than a cajillion) people, that's a heck of a lot of taxis. If you're in the city centre on a Friday or Saturday night you will see more taxis than people. In the olden days of three years ago you might have waited hours for a taxi to finally pick you up after a night on the lash. But nowadays you'll have drivers practically getting in an accident just to get to you first. That's what happened to me last night as I stood there and watched them battle it out for my fare. It was actually a little flattering. Everyone wanted some Kim.

I get in the taxi, clearly looking like a tourist with my Nikes and Steelers hat, and the driver immediately starts in about the sorry state of the taxi industry in Ireland (it's every man for himself out there) and the shitty government's hand in all of this. I understand he was a little flustered from the near accident he just caused, but I can't help but think he clearly wasn't hired by Irish Tourism to sell this country to foreigners. So, he goes on and on about Ireland and how it's headed down the crapper and I say, 'Yes, I know. I've lived here for two years and I'm well aware of the problems in the country.' Well, this causes him to go quiet. Yes, Mr Taxi Driver, I might be an American, but I am not a tourist that you can drive all around town before getting to my destination. I'm a local.

Once he knows I'm a local the conversation completely changes. He asks me why I'm here and I explain my husband is Irish.
"What part is he from?"
(Well, with his strong Dublin accent I knew this wasn't going to be a popular answer) "Cork".
He visibly bristled at this answer.
"Are you going to be moving back to America?"
Yes, we're planning on it.
"When? Within the year?"
Yes, he has his visa and we're going within the next 6 months.

Right, that's our emigration plans....let's move on to:

"What does your husband do?"
He works in higher education.
"What do you do?"
I also work in higher education, but I haven't been able to get a job in the two years I've been here. There's nothing out there and that's why we're going.
(He agreed with this and thought it was a good thing that we're moving. He then went on to tell me about how he's starting a course so he can get out of the taxi rat race. Every taxi driver under the age of 60 has told us he's starting a course. Lord knows where they're all going to work.)

Okey doke.....(un)employment status? Check!

"Do you have kids?"
No, no kids.
"Are you planning on starting a family?"
Why yes, Mr Taxi Driver, we are and I appreciate your concern in these matters! (Okay, I didn't say it quite like that.)

Once we established the status of my fertility we moved on to accents...

"Where do you think my accent is from?"
(This can be a touchy question in Dublin. He was clearly born and bread on the northside.)
Ummm.....Glasnevin?
"So, you're saying my accent is from the northside and not D4?" (Crikey, it's not like I said Ballymun!)
Well, yeah. I live on the northside (you're driving me there, remember?), so I'm pretty familiar with the accent!
"I'm from Raheny. The heart and soul of the country!" (That was added so I was sure to know that contrary to what my Cork-born husband has brainwashed me to believe, Dublin is the capitol of Ireland.)

He was pretty impressed that I could understand him. I was impressed too. I typically let Wes do all the talking when we're in a taxi because I don't have a clue what they're saying. For the record, he thinks the Donegal accent is the nicest accent in Ireland. I couldn't confirm that since I'm not sure if I've ever heard it. He threw out some Irish celebrities with the accent, but I didn't have a clue who he was talking about so he gave up.

Alas...our 20 minute trip was coming to an end....

Great, just drop me off here! Thanks, have a good night!
"No problem. Good luck making your little Corkonians!"
Uh...okay...thanks?

One of my new favorites!

2011-01-28T12:08:00.000-05:00

I was checking out Abby's blog the other day and you should too. Not only does she have an adorable son, she takes some pretty cool pictures. On top of that she posts about fun things like this Ira Glass finger puppet from AbbeyChristine's Etsy shop!

I love Ira Glass! Can a 35 year old woman (with no children) buy finger puppets? Is that weird? These are the cutest things ever! She also has Bob Ross, Lloyd Dobler, Johnny Cash, Charles Darwin...need I go on!?? Just think of the stories you could make with that cast in your finger puppet show....

Just a little housekeeping

2011-01-25T13:28:00.000-05:00

I'm bored with my blog and I needed a change, but I'm wasn't ready to give up the birdies!!! I hope I can get some inspiration to make some little tweeks here and there. I was thinking about reincorporating my food blog into a tab on this blog, but it's not doing what I want, so I may just keep it as is. Blah. If anyone has any suggestions on things cool things they've seen out in blog land, I'm up for suggestions!

I went in to buy a salad....

2011-01-21T12:08:00.000-05:00

and ended up walking out with these (in gray). They're totally cute and totally useless to me here. That's right, they're work shoes (aka 'smart shoes' here in Ireland). Do I have a job? No. I guess I was feeling pretty hopeful yesterday. I envisioned myself walking in the door with my new smart shoes, logging onto my email, and being offered an interview! Does that ever really happen to anyone? That's a rhetorical question. Please don't leave comments about miraculous job offers you received.

You Capture - Circles

2011-01-20T11:59:00.000-05:00

Birthday Wish List

2011-01-16T07:06:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try and spruce up a gray January and get excited for my birthday! What gets me excited are the presents. No surprise there! Here are a few I wouldn't mind opening on my big day!

This is the biggie! My current camera is fancier than a point and shoot, but not much more than that. I bought it before I moved to England, so it's almost 5 years old and starting to show it's age. Dropping it at the Dublin Marathon hasn't helped it either. I would love, love, LOVE a digital SLR camera (this is a Canon EOS Rebel T1i) and a few photography courses to go with it!

We're definitely getting this print when we move to the US, so I'll be getting it even if it's not for my birthday! Our friends have the Paris one which I love, but the London one just seems more appropriate for us.

Orla Kiely makes lovely bags and I can't leave Ireland without one! Right!? Well, that's what I keep telling Wes! Ha! I love the flowers on her new bag. (Sorry about the tiny picture!)

Alan Ardiff is an Irish jewellery designer who makes some really cool stuff. Some of the designs actually have pieces that move! This little fish doesn't move, but I think it's really sweet.

It's no secret I love wearing my FitFlops in the summer. They are the most comfortable flip flops out there, hands down. I have no idea if they tone your legs, as their marketing suggests. In fact, if you saw my legs you'd probably call their bluff. I just love them because they actually have arch support and my feet don't ache by the end of the day. I would love a pair of their boots to wear during those months that the flip flops are inappropriate. That's a lot of months here in Ireland!

It's been a busy week!

2011-01-14T10:04:00.000-05:00

It's another one of those weeks when lots is going on, but nothing seems worth writing about....you know, lunch with friends, kicking this chest cold, donating things to the charity shop, getting Wes' US visa, grocery shopping, vacuuming our previously soaking wet carpet....you know....WAIT! WHAT!? {insert sound of record scratching to a halt}

I KNOW!!! VACUUMING!!!

I kid, I kid....that's right...we're moving to the US and the government will now officially accept my husband! I would do a cartwheel, but there's not enough room in my apartment. All in all it took us just over five months to complete the process. Not bad at all, really. In fact, we could have done it quicker, but we drew out some of the bits of the process because we had an idea of our time frame for moving. Five months of paperwork, medical appointments, and payments all culminated in a 5 minute interview. When we walked up to the window, the guy greeted us by saying, 'Someone did their research. All of your documents are in order and everything is correct.' WELL, my chest puffed up and my husband said he thought I was going to start doing a jig around the office! Ha! I felt like the teacher just gave me an A++!*

So, expect this blog to take a turn to the stresses of an international move. I'm afraid that finding a decent and affordable shipping company is going to be harder than getting the visa!

I didn't want to take a picture of Wes' passport, so instead you get a picture of the mysterious brown envelope that everyone talks about on expat boards.

And no, we don't know when we're going. I keep telling people either when one of us gets a job or six months from now since that's the amount of time he has to activate the visa. Finger's crossed the job comes first!!! Thankfully, he can now tick the box on job applications that he's legal to work in the US!!!

*This is the clear behavior of someone who has been unemployed for two years. Wes wondered if the guy would write me a letter of recommendation.

Recipe time!

2011-01-09T07:40:00.000-05:00

A great meal for cold winter nights!

Beef Goulash

Ten favorite pictures of 2010 - You Capture

2011-01-06T09:23:00.000-05:00

This was a lot harder than I thought it would be! Here they are in no particular order....

Here's to more fabulous pictures in 2011!

'Dynasty' is more than just a TV show

2011-01-06T05:11:00.000-05:00

I was listening to the Slate Political Gabfest shortly after the death of Ted Kennedy. Discussing the Kennedys had Emily Bazelon complaining about political dynasties in the US. She had two examples, the Kennedys and Senator Harry Reid's son who was the 2010 Democratic nominee for the Governor of Nevada. Her comment made me laugh out loud and all I could think was, 'Don't move to Ireland!' Her head would probably explode if she tried to make sense of the government here! It's no secret that nepotism runs strong within the Irish government, but when you read that one in four politicians here come from political families it does (or at least should) make you shake your head in disgust. This article reads like a complex family tree.

Maybe you're thinking, 'Big whoop! So they got elected based on their family name! I'm sure they're still qualified for their position!' In response, I'll give you one of the more famous examples of nepotism gone bad:

One of the most famous of these family dynasties is the Lenihans. With Ireland being in the news so much these days, you all may recognize the name of our Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan Jr (Brian Lenihan Sr was the Fianna Fáil Tánaiste in the 80s). Well, his brother, Conor Lenihan, was appointed the Minister for State in charge of Science, Technology, Innovation, and Natural Resources. Prior to this appointment he was the Minister of State in charge of the Department of Foreign Affairs. In September 2010 he made headlines by attending a book launch of an anti-evolution book written by one of his constituents. That's right, the Minister for Science was at an anti-evolution book launch. Hmmmm....

Best reads of 2010

2011-01-02T04:14:00.000-05:00

2010 Reading List

Looks like I read 19 books in 2010. That's an okay number, but not great. I would have preferred a nice, round 20. I should have been able to easily reach this number, but while I was in the US I was too busy eating and watching Hoarders to actually read anything. I don't like to set myself up for failure, so my goal for 2011 is 20 books.

The one book from this year I'd be most likely to recommend is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

The most enjoyable quick read was The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

The biggest disappointment was Julie and Julia by Julie Powell.

The one book I'd never recommend was No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy.

What books did you read this year? I love book recommendations, so let me know if you read anything interesting!

Well, that's that!

2010-12-29T11:29:00.000-05:00

This weekend I'll put away our one Christmas decoration that we had out and that's Christmas done and dusted! We were blessed to be able to spend the holiday season with both of our families this year and we received lots of nice gifts.

On Monday I arrived back from the in laws to a DRY flat. Whew! I was really worried that I'd be cleaning up water all night. We finally got an update from the management company as to what happened with the water pouring into our flat the previous week. Apparently the girl upstairs left her kitchen tap running to keep her pipes from freezing, left for a few days, and it overflowed the sink. Neat! Thanks idiot! We've had some back and forth between the management company, our landlord, and the landlord for the girl upstairs about who is responsible for the repairs, thus dragging out any sort of progress. Hello, why are the innocent victims (i.e. US) being penalized here?? Thankfully, the management company's maintenance guy took pity on us and yesterday we got a brand new cook top, oven, and exhaust hood! We still have stinky carpet, but at least we don't have to eat salads and cold quiche for dinner anymore! Incidentally, they're making the girl pay for the damage which is too right.

Now we're busy dodging water restrictions. The week before Christmas our water was shut off from 7pm until 7am. This week it's 6pm to noon the next day. Fortunately the water in our bathroom comes from a tank, not the mains, so we do have water in there for showers and flushing the loo.

Next up is January which is the single worst month of the year. Even though the days are getting longer you can't tell and it's just cold, dark, and rainy. Of course my birthday month is the following month, but I'm getting too old to look forward to that anymore!

Happy Christmas!

2010-12-25T04:32:00.000-05:00

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas season!

Love,

Kim and Wes

What a difference a day makes!

2010-12-24T06:57:00.000-05:00

I had to trek up to the vet's office for diva food, so I thought I'd take some pictures. It was lovely, but cold!

Santa came early around here!

2010-12-23T07:20:00.000-05:00

We're having a white Christmas in Dublin this year. This is what it looks like outside our condensation-covered window:

If I'm feeling adventurous I may venture out and take some pretty pictures. Since it's noon and I'm still in my jim jams, I'm thinking it won't happen.

We're heading to the in-laws this weekend for Christmas. Santa's already been to our house though. Last night he dropped off some presents to put under the dehumidifier which is still drying out the carpet from last weekend. I did put up some Christmas decorations though.

We bought this nutcracker when we were in Germany a couple of months ago. We have more things, but no room to put it, so this is all that's going up this year!

Wes gave me my gift when we were in the US.

I'm so glad he picked out a watch for me! I was having the hardest time deciding and needed someone to pull the trigger on that decision!

I got Wes this:

The show is hilarious and I highly recommend it. You may need subtitles because that Manchester accent is brutal!

Then Santa brought us this:

Why? Because someone in my family gave Wes Scrabble for Christmas and apparently want us to get divorced. To say I'm a Scrabble-Nazi is a bit of an understatement. I can't help that for 6 years I played everyday at lunch with the Yoda of Scrabble. So yeah, I'm pretty good now. The last time I played was with my sister and BIL. My dad had to sit on his computer and verify my words were legit because they challenged everything. Amateurs. My husband is smarter than me and he'd definitely beat me at Trivial Pursuit, but I kicked his ass at Scrabble the other night. Now I can pull out the big guns and he can challenge me all he wants!

What's your game?

2010-12-21T10:18:00.000-05:00

My friend, Kennedy, made me this picture when I was visiting a few weeks ago. I have to say, she's dead on when it comes to describing me. She asked me what subjects I like. She's only 7 and she's all about school, so I figured I needed to say a school subject. While I'm standing there contemplating which makes me sound less nerdy - band or science - her mom saves the day by saying I like to cook and I like traveling. Good thing she knows me better than I know myself! This was the finished product:

I've never cooked for her and she still knows I'm a great cook. Perhaps she's read my food blog?? But, my favorite part is 'traveling is your game!' I love that I have game! It makes me feel very cool, canceling out my thoughts of band and science. Oh, and Samantha was nice enough to add 'like super stars'. High five!

These girls love them some Kim....good thing I love them back!

Peace out!

Back in Dublin!

2010-12-20T12:28:00.000-05:00

Nothing like walking into your apartment (that you already hate) after 4 weeks away to find water all over the floor. Now we just hate it more. At least the cat was happy to see us! If anyone needs a cat sitter in Dublin I'm happy to recommend Alice at Maow Care. She was great keeping us updated with texts and pictures and it really put our minds at ease.

We had a great time in the US! We ate before eating, then had some more to eat. Thumbs up that I only gained 5lbs. Wes gained 8 AND he ran every morning (even when it was 12 degrees F)! I'm the winner of the Lowest Gainer competition! Woohoo! Besides eating (or while eating) we managed to hang out with lots of friends and family. Unfortunately we didn't get to see everyone, which means I come back feeling guilty. I tried Zumba for the first time and had a blast. I wish classes here didn't cost 10 euro each. They were only $6 in the US. Oh, and we went to the pizza shop 5 times, Panera 4 times, Chik Fil-A 3 times, shopped at Target, drank Dunkin' Donuts coffee, used fat free hazelnut coffee creamer in the mornings, visited some museums in Washington, DC, drove what felt like a million miles, babysat our nephews, had a delicious steak dinner finished off with awesome cheesecake, went to a wedding in Pittsburgh, had my hair cut and colored, drove up and down I-83 like 10 times, and listened to NPR whenever we had the chance.

Basically we did all-American things. It was fabulous! Here are a few pictures:

Kim, Samantha, and Kennedy invited me down to make gingerbread houses with them. I've never done that before and we had a blast!

Here is our completed gingerbread village! I don't like to brag, but I made the bakery....

We had Christmas with my family. It looked a lot like this - manic.

We chased a bird out of Kim and Frankie's house. Here's a tip: when you live in the woods and you put a wreath on your front door, there's a good chance a bird will build a nest in it. Then, when you open the door for guests, it will fly right inside! Voila! Too bad they already had a Christmas tree topper...

We went to a wedding in Pittsburgh. It was at Heinz Memorial Chapel on the Pitt campus. Gorgeous!

This is the only picture of us at the wedding and I'm highly annoyed that it was fuzzy. It looked okay when he showed it to me...probably too many Yuenglings!

We celebrated my nephew's 10th birthday. Yeah, yeah, he's cute and all, but that buffalo chicken dip in the front of this picture was to die for!!!

And we got to visit with my Grandma a couple of times. Awesome!

Sorry for the lack of updates!

2010-11-27T16:16:00.000-05:00

I'm in the US for a few weeks so that means a lot of jetlag, visiting, eating, and going to Target. Doesn't leave much time for the blog! If something interesting comes up, I'll let you know. In the meantime, ponder the deliciousness of Pretzel M&Ms.

Athlone

2010-11-21T08:18:00.000-05:00

Wes had a work conference in Athlone, so I was lucky enough to tag along. Athlone is smack dab in the center of Ireland, between Dublin and Galway. It sits on the River Shannon and is in the lakes area of Ireland. The hotel we stayed in sat right on Lough Ree and the day we arrived was beautiful. The train journey wasn't so bad since the sun was shining and everything was a golden color. Unfortunately, there weren't really any walks on our side of the lake, but I did take a short one (like one mile total) and got some pictures.

The second day there it rained. Boo.