Let's get reacquainted

1. I don’t get my toothbrush wet before brushing my teeth. It works fine without water.
2. I never put my seatbelt on until I have backed out of my driveway or parking spot. It is a bad habit, I know.
3. I never put CDs or DVDs back in their cases, which makes my husband very angry.
4. I don’t do things until the last minute. This is not because I like to procrastinate or am lazy, it is because I don’t have incentive to do it earlier. If you need it Friday, why am I starting it on Monday?
5. I never liked baseball until I met my husband. He gave me a beer, a hot dog, some garlic fries and taught me to appreciate the game. Now I love baseball.
6. I don’t think any sort of sports draft needs prime time television coverage.
7. I have joint custody of Molly the wonder dog. She will be at my house for 9 days starting this Saturday. Yay!
8. I put salt on everything. People are always telling me that it is bad. But I haven’t died yet.
9. I get incredibly attached to people and places. When I meet someone or go somewhere, I dig in deep. This is why it is hard for me to say goodbye.
10. I want to be able to write my blog more frequently, but for the love of God, I am searching for time to do it. I work my regular full time job AND then coaching swimming from 5:30-9pm every night.

Miss me?

Friend: "Dead or alive?"
Me: "Dead"
Friend: "Caused by?"
Me: "Buried alive. By my work."

I opened Google reader this morning and I had 108 unread blog posts in the last couple of days.

I miss writing my blog.

I AM TOO BUSY!!!!!

If you read this really fast it might feel like one topic.

I am paranoid. We already know that. But do you ever wonder if there are moments where we are spared some sort of disaster? Are there "what ifs" that we don't even know about because we were spared?

Molly the dog is staying at our house while my parents are out of town. She sleeps next to my bed and I have never heard a peep out of her. Last night at 3:40am she was up and walking around the bedroom. She came back next to my side of the bed and sat staring at me until I got up. She raced down the stairs to the door. I let her out in the backyard and she spent 5 minutes in full reconnaissance mode. Molly circled the backyard with her nose to the ground and the hair on her back raised. I called her and she just kept going. I was thoroughly freaked out and woke up the husband who told me to stop worrying.

Molly finally came inside and laid back down on her bed. But it was a good 30 minutes before she actually put her head back down and went back to sleep. Needless to say it was at least that long before I went back to sleep too.

I don't know if there was a bird taunting her or some real creeper outside my yard, but I still want to thank Molly for saving my life.

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Yesterday I had my annual "lady" appointment. After teaching sexuality to teenagers for four years I am generally not weirded out by this anymore. However yesterday in the room I was really bothered by one thought-- should I leave my socks on?

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I am ever so grateful for the arrival of Friday. This week has been busy, busy, busy! Brandon and I will attack the forest of grass in the backyard (it is literally two feet tall), FINALLY hang up some curtains that haven't been up since we moved in, and I will attack the laundry pile that has been accumulating. I will do my taxes for a second time because I completely disagreed with the outcome the first time and hope that doing them by hand instead of using the fool proof TurboTax will result in something better for me. *sigh* Outlook not good.

Happy Friday!

What is the statute of limitations on overdue library charges?

Sometime around my senior year I was riding the bus home (yes, I still had to take the bus occasionally) with sophomore boys who were reading "The Catcher in the Rye." While I considered myself well-read in the classics, this was one book that I had never opened. After reading the first few paragraphs I decided that I would read the entire book and headed to the library.

I can't tell you why I went to the library. I don't do libraries. I buy books and I borrow books but I don't get them from the library. But sometime around my senior year I was riding the bus home when I decided that I should borrow "The Catcher in the Rye" from the library.

"The Catcher in the Rye" didn't do much for me. I remember thinking that it must be a book for adolescent boys.

Several months later I realized I hadn't returned the book the library. I put it in my car so I would remember. I went to college without returning it. The book got packed up with all my other books when I bought my condo. It didn't get returned.

This weekend when I was unpacking books into the bookshelf in our house, I found "The Catcher in the Rye."

Sometime around my senior year I was riding the bus home when I decided to borrow "The Catcher in the Rye" from the library and I never returned it. It is ten years overdue.

I remember seeing a story on the news once of someone returning books to a library some 50 years after they had been checked out. Looks like I better hold on the book a little longer.

Erin go braugh!

Last August my family went to Ireland. Besides beginning in Dublin (and our trip to the Guinness factory), we stayed away from the really touristy places as we went in search of the places my grandfather’s parents were born. We had a fabulous driver/tour guide named Liam. I think he is part leprechaun. He helped us appreciate the culture, the food, the beer and the idioms. He pulled over every time I saw some sort of livestock I thought deserved to be photographed and he truly showed us the beauty of Ireland as we uncovered our family history and explored Ireland. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here are some Irish sayings and a few photos.

Yes, they have a school of falconry. One part boss + one part Hogwarts = AWESOME.

"An Irishman is slow to a bar and slow to leave it."

"Better five minutes late than 20 years early."

"You can boil an egg and fry another and he'll say you boiled the wrong one."

"Whatever pushes your boat out!"

This little guy wanted to be my friend. This is also an occasion where I literally made the driver stop the bus.

Ireland is covered in "famine fields." They are what is left of the potato fields from the famine times. Out of memory and superstition they go untouched.

"Willful waste makes woeful want." Pretty sure it means drink all your beer.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip:

After a day of talking to local people, we found the site of the home where my paternal great-grandfather was born:

This is the castle where Pierce Brosnan had his wedding. It seriously looks like a fake cut out. It is real. And we snuck in.

The Irish Wake was not made up. We stopped in a tiny little town for lunch and stumbled upon a group of men who just found out that one of their friends had passed away. It was noon and they were drinking. That's how I want to be celebrated!

I tried my best to embrace all things Irish. But I do not like to drink Jameson straight.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Beginning of Irish week

In honor of St. Patrick’s day I am dedicating the rest of this week to Ireland and all things Irish. I have many more serious things to reflect on which will come later in the week, but let us start off with something fun, delicious and stereotypical: GUINNESS.

Last year my family spent a week in Ireland. Most of our travels were off the beaten path. But we did start our trip with the most touristy thing we could think of. We arrived in Dublin at 8am. By 11am we were at the Guinness factory. The boys paid their respects.

Guinness was established in 1759. In case you didn’t pass junior high school history, that means Guinness has been around longer than the United States. They have a museum tour in Dublin which winds up at the top of an nine story building where you get an entire pint of Guinness. This was the first time I ever had Guinness... and I learned a little of what heaven is like. I was under the impression that Guinness was very heavy. It is actually much lighter than I thought it would be and learned that it is very low in calories! Needless to say I ended up drinking a lot of Guinness on this trip.

To give you an idea of how much the Irish respect their beer, check out this little van we found. It literally drives all over the country to ensure that quality Guinness is being poured in every little pub in Ireland. My sister gives that the thumbs up.

So this St. Patrick's Day join in a tradition older than the 4th of July and enjoy yourself a pint of Guinness.

Cheers!

The case of the lawnmower

Although I was tired of living so close to my neighbors, there were advantages to living in a condo. One of the best features was that ALL of the landscaping was taken care of. I was free to kill my potted plants as I wished, but the lawn, trees, shurubbery and flowers were all well manicured (and alive) because someone else was taking care of them. When we bought our house we knew that yard maintenance came with the deal, but really, how hard can it be?

We moved into our house in December when grass doesn’t grow. Which was convenient because we didn’t own a lawnmower and didn’t have extra money to buy one. But in the last couple of weeks the weather has changed daily, from spring rains to glorious sun, making my lawn believe it was time to grow. I looked around last week and realized we were becoming the trashy neighbors... everyone else had beautifully manicured lawn. We did not.

After weeks of procrastinating our purchase, we went to Sears yesterday afternoon to buy a lawnmower. Here is how the afternoon went:

1. We buy a lawnmower.
2. We assemble the lawnmower. Mostly I read Brandon the instructions, but that must be helping.
3. We look proudly at our accomplishment and Brandon tries to move it from driveway to lawn. Mower doesn’t move. Mower has a bum wheel.
4. Brandon’s blood pressure rises and I quickly escape into the house as I shout to call Sears. It is his lawnmower... he should have to call, right?
5. We load assembled lawn mower into car. I am terrified because there is gas in that sucker and I am convinced it will blow up. I have a general mistrust for engines.
6. We awkwardly exchange mower.
7. We assemble new mower. I am an expert now and help more.
8. Brandon starts mowing lawn and rolls ankle in the rock garden. He has hardly mowed 25% of the lawn.
9. I fear I will have to push the death machine to finish mowing the grass. Husband rallies and hobbles through.
10. I admire the lawn because it looks pretty.

I am happy not to be the trashy neighbors anymore.

Unless you walk around back and see that we still have not put up the fence that fell down in January and instead are using that bright orange security fence. Classy, I know.