It's officially winter around here

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!

Crazy productive!

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!

Arghhhhh, Matey!

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!!!!

Happy cat!

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!

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

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.

Belfast

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

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!

Well, that's that!

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!

The Land of Dunkin' Donuts and CVS

Ahhh...yes. If you've been to Boston you'll understand the title of this post. When we arrived at the airport it was first things first. Hit the Dunkin' Donuts in the arrivals hall. Little did I know there was going to be one (sometimes two) on every block. It somehow became less special.

After all that volcano stress, we were very fortunate that our flight was scheduled to leave on time. The creepiest part of the whole thing was being at the airport. Normally a bustling place at noon on a Friday, it was like a ghost town. There were long lines at the desks were people were queued up to try and change their flights. We walked through that place like we were rock stars.

No lines at security!

This is the hall right after security. It would normally be packed. We saw airport shops we never knew existed. 

The flight was non-eventful which is always good. You would have thought it was going to be packed since the flights the day before were canceled. Nope. Good for us, bad for Aer Lingus. I got to see two stellar films, Precious and Crazy Heart. We got in some good-natured competition with the in-flight trivia game. You get the picture. 

Anywho, the whole reason we went was because Wes was running in the Boston Marathon. First things first, we had to get his number:

Then two days later he had to actually run the race.

Mom did a lot of this that day:

And dad, being the good husband and father, went for provisions:

It took awhile, but finally we saw him! Woot!

Mile 17

Then we hauled our cookies back into downtown Boston so we could see him again!

Just after mile 25

My sister and cousin were tracking him online and they would call us with updates. What an awesome marathon! My favorite place is close to the end when people are really struggling. I love screaming encouragement when they're standing there cramping up. It makes me feel like I'm helping. Well, Wes didn't need any encouragement because he was doing great!!! He ended up finishing in 3:06:30. You can get the blow by blow account on his blog here.

Once that was over, we were able to really enjoy Boston. The next morning we left the apartment and Wes finally made it down the stairs. 

Yes, he's going down in this picture.

Well, we saw all the sights Boston had to offer:

Boston is a lovely mixture of old and new.

Close up of the very cute weather vane.

Wes' favorite patriot: Samuel Adams. 

Fishing boats who brought in the delicious clams for all of the New England clam chowder I consumed.

The lovely Zakim Bridge.

The USS Constitution and Bunker Hill monument. No surprise Wes and my dad loved this part.

I felt a lot of self-inflicted tourist pressure to take this picture. I don't even care about this show.

We stopped by Harvard to absorb some smarts. I don't think it worked. 

Our picture on the boat trip. Someone offered to take our picture and we declined.

The lovely Boston skyline. It's one of the prettiest I've seen!

Thank you, America. Thank you for giving us a reason to put on sunscreen. Thank you for your unsweetened iced tea as a choice of drink in every restaurant. Thank you for your super-friendly people. Thank you for your reasonably priced consumer goods. Thank you for your cheap breakfasts and bottomless cups of coffee. Until we meet again!!!!