campino

we're going camping in about 30mins. well... probably more like an hour, but whatever.

apparently it's a 4 star campground. as much as i have been described as a city girl (despite growing up outside a town with the population of 5000) i had never heard this term before. i have camped in europe before. it was in the netherlands and basically was in a field of grass where people parked their campers and caravans, and if there were lots of people in the group (like ours) set up a tent as well. we had dinner in the camper and never lit a fire. in fact, there was no place for a fire. the campground we're going to has (well...may or may not, depending on gerry's level of joking) a pub, restaurant etc. on site. and here i was saying that i'm going to shower right before we go so that i don't have to shower all weekend.

i'm going to do that anyway, i think. just cause it's fun. for me. :oD mwah hah hah

we will have a tent and no fire. i'm still confused about how we're going to heat up the marshmallows. only an essential for camping, and really... where will we melt the chocolate for the s'mores? this will be a new and exciting experience, possibly. i hope it's not just people getting shit-faced at the pub and then stumbling drunk to their tents/campers. i will report back sunday or monday.

stay tuned. shower time.

hawt topic

okay, turns out there's a problem with our hot water... which is leading to there not being any and from there, no heating either.

there's a leak or something... blah blah blah, therefore our boiler is trying to heat a constant stream of cold water, which is why we have once again, run out of oil. and lo' and behold, yes i'm cold.

the landlord will be fixing it, but in the meantime we also need to have the tank refilled. whoot. another 300 euros did someone say? you'd better believe some of that's gonna be compensated by the landlord. i figure if we'll have spent over 600 for the oil, but would only have used say 80E, plus the stupid thing's not even going to be fixed properly for a while because they have to find the leak... well, i'm gonna fight hard for this one. and in the meantime, light a fire. brrr.

oh. today i bought a barbeque, a cover, a propane tank, a barbeque utensil set, and a present for gerry. i am making a birthday week for him. everyday he gets a present. sometimes a little one, sometimes a bigger one. it will be fun for him... but possibly more fun for me. oh, and i now know how to get to aldi in ballintemple and that the carts take 2E coins, not one. it's always an adventure.

:o)

gay-ly forward

i think that british queer eye is more gay than the american one.

i'm gonna get my butt in gear here and zip out to buy a barbeque for the boy's birthday. then i have to find a propane tank etc. i think that things take me longer to do here than in canada because i have no idea where to go for a good deal, or even a barbeque tank.

i'll get better the more tasks i accomplish. on the accomplish note? almost done the cleanse. feeling better, and my hands weren't hurting as bad this morning. whoot.

read this

i'm thinking about giving up "smart reading". since coming to ireland i've almost just given up on reading. i borrowed some books from conor. stats on that? started:2 finished:0.

i *have* finished two books while here... one was a book on irish legends/stories and the other was a free trashy brit chick lit that came with my cosmo. at least i'm not going completely illiterate.

in any case, the trashy book was especially funny to me because these london girls go to the country in scotland blah blah blah, sometimes they can't understand the people, they can't always find what they want, etc.. in truth, i laughed out loud many times. many many times.

conor, i will return your books until i am ready to think while reading.

the first one

i sent an email asking about a position gerry and i saw online yesterday. OH MY GOD! i just read that statement and *man* does it sound sassy. we were job searching for me yesterday. we found something that's a three month contract. it's just a receptionist as anything i'm qualified to do in a "yes, i have a degree" kind of way isn't really available here. no bother! if i hate this job, it's only for three months and then i can say i'm moving on. if i love it, and they love me, chances are they'll keep me on.

am meeting sharon in town today and then will work on my resume to suit this job.

oh, if anyone knows someone who wants graphic/web design done, i'm generally available.

it's your birthday

i'll say it! i think i'm pretty awesome sometimes...



are you gerry's friend? are you my friend? want to party? (please note we have no plans to be on the cleanse at the time of the birthday party. this means cake, booze and tasties will flow freely.) oh! and we're adding a barbeque to the saturday. let me know if you want to come! ;o)

best day of cleanse

yesterday was the best day of this cleanse so far. food wise.

i didn't whinge at all about chocolate. dinner was good. spirits were good.

also today is going well.

yay!

it's a lie

people say that time heals all wounds. i think that people lie.

sometimes when i'm here (in ireland), i forget that i don't have parents (everything just seems so far away). when i was in canada, maybe because of what we were doing there, it was on my mind a lot. today i was watching a show and the mom dies in it. i cried the whole 43 minutes. i'd had a makeover done today and it was ruined before anyone else got to see me all slutted up is how much i cried. and god knows enough makeup gets put on you that a little crying won't touch the first layer.

anyway, little things make it feel so fresh. i'd say i still think about my mom every day. it's just that some times i don't really think think about her. maybe that's what people mean... move to a different country and at some point in your life not every thing will remind you of that person and then you won't cry all of the time. really, that would take time, so i guess on that level people could be right.

but i say mostly they're wrong and that that stupid saying suggests that at some point you need to not be affected by things like movies, books, and life in general because time should have healed that wound. instead, i think you should be able to take *your* time mourning and healing. and since this is my blog i get to say whatever i want.

to the parsons-sheldrake family: take your time.

cleanse suggestion

to anyone who would suggest doing a cleanse. why don't you make a recipe book to go with it. that way i would be eating more than curry every day. did i mention the rice?

yeah, i said it.

i think we should have chocolate

and pizza. i'll cleanse on the rest of the stuff... whatever that leaves.

all those in favour? (insert loud crowd agreement here).

okay, funniest thing, in my opinion. i am so ready to break this cleanse, it's not even funny. seriously, i have no idea how i could do it last year... except that the alternatives were better in the couv. now, i was discussing this with gerry and explaining that a good kamut square would hit the spot right about now. so we both did searches online for a recipe. and then when i went back to see if there were any other good looking ones than what we saw, i noticed my blog came up as number 3 on the search. whoot! then we read the entry. man. i should have read that before i agreed to doing it again.

the good news, i think i am going to eat some chocolate, so you can stop listening to me whinge about it, and i'm still interested in making those kamut squares.

cleanse day 4 is over

and i'm halfway through day 5. can i get a whoot-whoot?

today i finally got the tax renewed on my car. i went there a couple of days ago, and stood in line for over an hour, finally got to the kiosk, and handed the guy my paper, ready to turn over the cash, and get my little piece of paper.

when i got to the window, and handed the guy my form that was sent to me, he was like: uh, is this all? i was like, uh yeah, that's all they sent me. he left for a second and came back with a new piece of paper and said: you need to fill this out. i was like, oh... uh, i didn't know that. this is my first time. he said something and laughed. i had to get him to repeat it. so he looked guilty but did: oh, well i could say something about that. to be honest, i was expecting this kind of talk at the tax office so i was confused. so i was like: what? oh like a virgin? and he then explained that there were kids around, etc. he told me that because he'd stamped it, i could just skip the line once i'd filled out all the info.

i'm not really comfortable skipping lines, so i spent half an hour in the line today. in any case- i got the paper today. the cleanse is still going. still no casualties.

the cure

i'm having a bit of a bad mental health day today. i think chocolate would easily fix that. or bread product.

i should probably leave the house, but it's like how you shouldn't eat salt or whatever when you have your period. it's what you want most that's the worst. brownies any one?

makin' it work-day 3

day three of the cleanse is now over. i'd say that today was a success. we had a great dinner, and no one died. i don't think either of us was as grumpy as before (and by that i mean me on day 1 and 2 and gerry on day 2).

i do have a mysterious bruise on my face. it actually looks like a hickey on the side of my face. i woke up this morning, went to the toilet and was like, how'd blood get on my face? the 'blood' wouldn't come off. i blame gerry. or my watch... but mostly gerry.

went shopping with sharon today... and sourced out no new products that can be eaten while on the cleanse. yesterday i did eventually find a juice that is a concentrate, but decently tasty all the same.

i think i might try to get a job on friday. i said might... i want to enjoy unemployment more... maybe we should go away this weekend. take advantage of my waster girlfriend status... not that we can eat out anywhere. huh... maybe this will be a 5 day cleanse instead! in which case: YAY! it's almost over! whoot! two days? easy sleasy.

you can't get that here

added to the following list:

pumpkin pie filling
white marshmallows
roma tomatoes
lucky charms/fruit loops
tostitos
kraft smooth light PB
good salsa

are:
normal applesauce
raspberry juice
any fruit juice other than orange or apple that doesn't have water and sugar as the first two ingredients

do i need to buy a hat?

gerry called his parents yesterday to recap the trip to canada. his mom asked if i came back from canada too. he said yes. she asked if she needed to buy a hat. (non-irish readers, this means, 'are you gonna get hitched?'). before anyone gets excited, there is no need for a mad hat-buying frenzy to take place.

on a sort of similar note, i think gerry and i may be fighting tonight anyway. he's suffering from coffee withdrawal and i'm suffering from the chocolate DT's, and severe pms. it's gonna be tense around here... and it's still cold. must remember to get firelogs.

day 2

remember last year, around this time? i believe the words spoken were: i will never do a cleanse again! sometimes things change, but the sentiment is the same.

about 3 hours into it, i decided i didn't want to do the cleanse anymore. having just returned from canada, i stock-piled on loads of tasty canadian treats: reese's peanut butter cups, nibs, o'henrys, plain marshmallows for rice krispie squares, etc. gerry's a smart man, he put everything away before i woke up.

why did i think i would be strong enough to do a cleanse again, especially when i knew how sick i got last time? well, since coming to ireland i've eaten more chocolate and crap than... hmmm... possibly ever before, and i knew that i needed to do something about it. working at rci killed any thing remotely like healthy eating, even the fruit tasted nasty. blah blah blah. before going to canada, gerry and i decided that it would be wise to get back on track. the idea isn't to cut out all fun things, but to view them more as a treat, which means moderation. good idea, right? the plan was to start once we got back to ireland, cause i wanted to pig out in canada, and get some naturopathic advice from rachel, cause of my headaches, and i didn't want to get anemic again, or make it worse. we started off on a good foot, with good intentions.

here's the problem: i am fully addicted to chocolate now. oh wait, did i mention i have my period now? right. well.

yesterday (i'm still not awake enough today) i was (the only word to use) desperate for chocolate. i hated the cleanse, people associated with it, and heck, even foods associated with it. it wasn't pretty.

what i've learned: don't start a cleanse during pms as it won't be fun for anyone.

things were fine after a while. we had a great lunch and dinner, and gerry even kinda liked the bragg's marinated tofu. yay. i'm not sure if i can get him turned around on the buckwheat porridge, but he sounded a bit positive once he tried it. rice pudding is a no for him, but a total go for me. i've got to pick up some applesauce and juice today. oh and firelogs. who knows if the heater can be fixed when the landlord comes over.

more pics of ireland

whoot, here they are. ummm... gerry emailed these links to me a while ago, but that was when we didn't have broadband.

and so, for your viewing pleasure (i don't think i say that enough)

hallway

kitchen

sitting room

dining room

front lawn

Fionn - my sweet action '95, ride me hard, ford fiesta

sarah & chris sitting in a tree

in case you missed sarah (in her fabulous dress) and chris (in his dapper suit) you can find them and pics of everyone at their wedding here.

coal-d times

it's sunday and i got out of bed well before noon! i may have crawled back after doing some tidying but that's because the house is freezing. by the way, i'm normally more of a: sleeping in means up by 8.30 kind of girl, so this is out-of ordinary behaviour.

now my theory is that getting warm by snuggling up in bed counts as survival, not as sleeping/being lazy/whatever.

why so cold? i really like the house (scary at night) that we're in, but there's something wrong with the heating system. okay, okay, a rather consistent complaint, but i'm just sayin' is all. we ran out of oil a while ago... not my favourite part, but i see now that there is a certain level that needs to be maintained, it's not like: oh, there's still oil in the tank, we'll be fine. it's more like, huh, who knew it has to be that full to work? now i will freeze. as a result of that incident, we had to reset the tank (and therefore wait for the landlord to come to show us (by us, i mean gerry) where the reset button/switch/whatever is. then the heaters needed to be drained... because the heat wasn't on, they fill with air and they don't heat up fully, leaving the house, you guessed it, cold. okay, so things were grand for a while. we had lots of coal, turf, and firelogs to use in the meantime (this means, if the fire was going for a while, there would be lukewarm water, if it wasn't, we had to boil the kettle and do dishes super old-school. basically i was freezing and not very happy about no hot water. but as i said, it did get sorted, and we were happy as clams in our heated little (scary at night) house.

then we went to canada.

we came back, fully exhausted because it takes the same amount of time to get to ... ummm... really far away places as it did to get back here, and the flight was an f'ing nightmare. more on that later. anyway, the house was cold. and damp. guess we didn't leave the heat on enough. or! how about this? all the radiators needed draining again. grr. but things could be worse, so the next day we drained them. things were fine until yesterday. at some point the stupid heating stopped working. AGAIN. when i got back from shopping the house was freezing, and there was, surprise, no hot water. i don't know where the reset button is, and to be honest, i don't really even know where the boiler or whatever is. i do know how to make a fire though. (gerry went diving for the weekend, so it's just me.) we are rather rapidly running out of the fun fire products... FIRELIGHTERS (this are saturated little blocks that light very easily, used to get a good flame and light the STICKS (kindling). sometimes i put extra sticks on, so i can get a really good flame going. we only have two firelogs left, and i'm about to light one of them, and only one instant fire in a bag (you light the bag on fire and whoot! there's a fire). i have to admit, i don't really know the coal situation, cause gerry filled up the COAL BUCKET ( a galvanized bucket with a narrow end and two hands on one side that's ideal for pouring coal onto a fire... unlike the cardboard box that kept catching on fire).

i guess my point is, it's cold at my house again, i'm getting the black lung and it took me an hour to do a hand full of dishes because i had to heat the kettle 5 times to get a sink of warm water, and some water to rinse the dishes. burrrn. i guess i'd better clean the fireplace before i have a shower... which makes way more sense to be electric now...otherwise i couldn't bathe at all.

uh oh... it's started

*please note, i know where i've gone wrong... i'm working on it, today i got out of bed at least three hours earlier than yesterday. AND it was still considered morning.

due to my penchant for insomnia, i'm in a weird spot with jetlag. sometimes, because of it, it works out really well. like going to canada was a gem. i just met up with some friends and stayed up 'til about 10 or something, crashed hard and woke up at a normal time. coming back to ireland has been a complete disaster. we left vancouver in the evening, so (because sleeping on the plane is pretty much not an option for me) the flight was an over-nighter (the worst kind) and then we had to wait in london, thank god gerry gets into a lounge, or i would have died. but we got back to ireland at like 4.30 in the afternoon. you can't be expected to stay up another 8 hours. it's been downhill from there. tonight, i was doing fairly well... but gerry was knackered, so we went to bed way too early. now i'm awake, and my body's like: breakkie! whoot! i'm not even on a canadian time-zone now... i think i might be closer to india. maybe i can just make my way around the world.

in any case, i'm looking to score some catan/carca action. let me know if you're up for it. this jet lag thing might as well have some benefits.

guess who has more stuff?

today gerry and i are leaving to go back to ireland. i wouldn't say i'm exactly happy about it. here's the thing, i'm not ready to move back here, but the two weeks that we've spent here haven't been enough either. well, my ass says it's enough... i gained a million pounds with all of the eating out we've done...but that's another story. we spent too much time in hope. despite the dump being a really romantic place, and my love of gerry needing to spit after giving me a kiss when cleaning out the basement and shed, i'd say hope was one of the less fun places this trip. games at the hotel were fun, and of course, getting everything done was a complete relief, but generally, not the greatest part of the trip.

things that were fun? seeing friends, eating out, sleeping in my lovely lovely bed, shopping and then doing it all again. showing gerry around and having everyone tell him that i do in fact have a sense of humour and that i'm really quite funny and that he should totally move to vancouver? all very fun.

i already miss you guys.

boo urns.

not again!

i got waxed again today. the lady gets carried away. i got a lot of what i didn't want.

tomorrow gerry and i go back to hope to finish the house cleaning by getting the shed done.

it's going to be another long day. but i've learned a few things... i am 100% not going back to her for any bikini area waxing, and when you are planning to empty out a house, don't think that your family will help... think that you have a great guy, and that there's always a shed.

ouch.

happy birthday danielle