Today marked four years since I started this blog, and my first day as a homeowner.
In those four years, I’ve:
moved four times.
graduated college.
quit one job and started another.
started my own business.
fallen in love.
gotten engaged.
become part-owner of a crazy dog.
been dangerously ill.
gone through 2 1/2 laptops.
bought a house.
It’s nice to look back and have a record of at least a portion of my life. I’m planning to blog more regularly now that the stress of this year is mellowing into only wedding stress, but we’ll see how that goes.
On Tuesday we drove north to Connemara and visited Clifden and the Kylemore Abbey. Connemara is gorgeous, even though it hailed on us and the sheep wouldn’t let me pet them (so rude). On Wednesday we drove south to the Cliffs of Moher and the Ailwee Cave, and it snowed on us a bit and was quite cold on the cliffs… we ended up buying hats in the gift shop before climbing up.
The Chop now has a video of me driving along the roads in Ireland, careening around tight curves in our impossibly tiny car, rock walls to each side. Driving in the Irish countryside is slightly terrifying, lol.
Yesterday we drove into Dublin, drove around St. Stephen’s Green unable to spot the hotel (finally found it—was on the corner and really needs a larger awning), rushed to return the car after checking in to the hotel and then went to my all-time favorite place in Dublin for dinner. It’s an all-vegetarian juice bar with really yummy vegan and tofu dishes. 🙂
We walked all around the city centre of Dublin today, went to Dublin Castle and attempted to make it to the Kilmainham Gaol before it closed. I seemed to have forgotten how far outside of the main city it was.. we walked for a good hour and by the time we made it, it had closed 45 minutes before. Sigh.
Tomorrow we’re heading to Newgrange and going on a musical pub tour. 😀
And no cousin, we sadly have not eloped. We also realized that we are quite old and don’t want to stay out all night drinking—well, Chop might, but my liver can’t handle it, lol.
Our flight left on time, was ridiculously underbooked (and therefore the easy trans-Atlantic flight I’ve ever had) and got in early (little under 5 hours flying time).
As it turns out, the Chop and I both turn completely goofy/silly without sleep, so we’ve been entertaining ourselves since we landed—which is good, since he’s a little scared of how easy it is for me to adjust to driving on the wrong side. 🙂
We took a walk while waiting to get into the room and it only took me one turn down a side street to know exactly where I was—nothing has changed since ’05, which is awesome. Same restaurants, pubs, everything.
I do not expect to be very sober for the rest of the week. I LOVE VACATION.
Last night I stuck dinner in the oven and went back to the living room to work. A few minutes later, some odd noises were coming from the kitchen and the dog and I both sighed and I yelled at Ellie (her normal thing is to knock stuff off counters and be generally annoying). Finally it got so loud the dog got up and I walked into the kitchen… to see the oven aflame.
Part of the heating element on the bottom had melted off and was burning the oven. I flipped it off, pulled open the oven, grabbed the pan and slammed the oven shut. Which was a good thing, because the element was popping and shooting sparks (apparently you should never open an oven if there is some bit of metal burning—yeah, I know, you already knew that. Shut up. If your dinner was in there you’d pull it out too!).
At this point we’re thinking it might be a short, but we’ll spend tomorrow calling oven repair people (is the Maytag man available?) and see if someone can come out and fix it. Anyone ever had this sort of problem? ‘Cause I really don’t want to have to replace the oven, lol.
And, here you go, your moment of zen (yeah I stole that, deal!): possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen. A newborn Madagascar lemur… and his stuffed animal.
And he had trouble with the oath, LOL. He was going too fast, then he got stuck and the Justice had to repeat. And update, yeah, it turns out it was the Justice who messed up and Obama fixed. Nice.
Awesome.
And wow, the screaming crowd. Never seen so many flags waving at once in my life.
Walter Mondale and Dan Quayle … why are they there?
George HW Bush … looking not so good, very wobbly.
Jimmy Carter … young and spry, damn.
Bill Clinton … looking very good.
What people wear on their heads is SO very indicative of their political beliefs, let me tell ya.
Chop tells me they are removing people from the Mall because of frostbite. Let’s hope no one dies today.
The military band is the smartest group I’ve seen so far—hats AND earmuffs. It’s cold out there and with the wind chill it’s in the teens.
