I want to be better about this. Hopefully one post a week.

Can’t believe it’s already June.

On a Saturday afternoon.

If you know us, you may find this odd. We generally avoid the public at large at all costs, but we’ve been wanting to see this movie for a while, and it got moved to the “Five Buck Movie” list. If you’re not familiar with the Five Buck Club, you should check it out. Basically, after a flic has been in theaters for a few weeks, it qualifies for a discount price. Anyhoo……..

We really enjoyed the movie. It was a good time. Did NOT seem like we were there for two hours. There weren’t any plot twists or surprises; the movie was what I expected. Robert Downey, Jr was great. (I just found out today that we won a Golden Globe for the role.) And I love Guy Ritchie’s movies. I had forgotten he was the director(how, I don’t know) until I saw his name scroll by in the credits. I should have known from the slow motion fight scenes.

And in true Hollywood fashion, the end was left open for a sequel. Which I am looking forward to seeing!

Sherlock Holmes Trailer

I was wrong.

I don’t like being cold. That hasn’t changed. But winter isn’t so bad. The days are getting longer again. (Actually, the amount of light during the day is increasing.) The cold weather is bearable with enough layers. And when there is snow, it’s very pleasing to the eye. I LOVE SNOW!

Maybe the biggest benefit of winter is the general lack of outdoor activity, which leads to very quiet nights. The cold keeps everyone inside, which makes my job much easier, as fewer people are out walking their dogs during the day.

Not to mention hot chocolate!!

But this season I’ve discovered that I like winter. And that makes me happy!

I wonder what else I’ve been wrong about. Spinach? Brussel sprouts? Let’s not get crazy…….

1. Talk less; listen more.
2. More quality time with loved ones.
3. Take better care of the dog, i.e., get off my butt and exercise.
4. Start my get out of credit card debt plan. (I’m really excited about this one!)
5. Unplug and enjoy the real, tangible things in life. Read more books, maybe learn knitting?
6. Start online genealogy research

I’m sure there are more, but these are on my mind right now. I hope to bring you updates soon with my progress.

I wish you all the best in 2010. Take care!

Here is my tentative plan: I’d like to stay in the village of Doolin. I stopped there on a daytrip with Railtours Ireland. The tour was great. Our guide was Liam, and he embodied everything imaginable in an Irish host. Friendly, full of stories, and always making sure the group was having a good time. I would highly recommend Railtours Ireland to anyone. They offer day trips, which we could do on our visit, but they also offer overnight trips. But back to Doolin…….Doolin seemed like a nice little village with new cottages for rent. There are several pubs in the village, along with a few shops. I don’t think we made it through the entire village, but what I saw was very quaint and peaceful. Just what I’m looking for in a vacation. But the real draw for me was the proximity to the Cliffs of Moher. I was only able to spend a few hours there on the tour, but I would love to spend much more time. It is so incredible. I’d like to take thousands of photos at all times of the day.
I’ll admit, Doolin is not a huge tourist stop. There is traffic because of the Cliffs, but I don’t think there is much to do there. Except ride a bike through the country side, look at the ocean, and relax in a pub. Sounds good, no?
Of course, there are other things I’d like to do, and if some of you want to hit the big city of Dublin, we can definitely do that! Ireland is about the size of Indiana, so going by train across country is easy and inexpensive. It’s about a 3 hour trip. Another good thing about traveling by train, you can sit back and enjoy the countryside passing you by, while enjoying a drink or two!
I’m very interested in visiting castle and church ruins and old cemeteries, but there are a few other things I’d like to see while we’re there:
The Dingle Peninsula
Bantry House
This crazy rope bridge in Norther Ireland
There are really so many things to do and see. I can’t decide which ones are on the top of my list, but these are just some of them.
There was recently an article in Budget Travel about real pubs in Ireland. I think we should try to hit a few of them. (This would probably mean hiring a car.) They also featured a few castles to stay in. The castles are expensive! But maybe we could just visit a few of them, because they are so beautiful. Here are a few of those links:
Ballinalacken Castle Hotel
Ballynahinch Castle Hotel
Markree Castle
So let me know what you think, especially about setting up camp in a cottage in a little village. I think it would be cozy and fun, as long as we can find one with enough rooms.

As for cost, it all depends on what we do. I think going in the off season will help with the price of a cottage for a week, especially if it’s split between 5 or 6 people. I would suggest we fly Aer Lingus, only because I flew to Dublin on that airline, and it was so much better than the flight I had back on United or American or whatever crappy plane it was. I don’t know the best time of the week to fly, so if anyone knows any tricks to get lower airfare, let me know, so I can do accurate research. We would need to pick up groceries to cook at the cottage, but I would expect we would go out also. Let’s hope the exchange rate moves to favor the dollar!

This is all very basic, so please make suggestions and let me know what I am forgetting! We should try to get some dates figured out so we can all get it on our calendars and start making reservations!

Slainte!

(Crickets chirping)

Hello? Is anyone reading this? Probably not, but I will forge ahead with the hopes that one day I will get a subscriber. It’s been a while. Just about two weeks. The first of those two weeks I had a good excuse. I was overbooked. WAY overbooked. Ran around like a maniac for about seven days. Not fun. So I made a list of all the things I wanted to write about to keep you in the loop.
Then next thing I know, another week has passed. WTF? This week, no excuses. Just doing other things. Playing Kingdoms of Camelot on Facebook, mostly, but that’s another story.

I’ll try to catch you up:

• People are crazy.
• Every driver is in a hurry and thinks that they are entitled to cutting you off, passing you, or just generally being dangerous because, well, it’s them, and gosh darn it, they have things to do!
• Dog hair is everywhere and cannot be contained. If I ever get a chance at life after death, I wanna be a dog hair.
• People tell me they walk their dogs. I think what they mean is that they let the dogs walk all over them. Slight, but significant difference.
• I’m ready for another vacation. Additional post to follow.
• I’ve been thinking about my ‘dream job’. Additional post to follow.

I think that covers it. As you can see, I have ideas for future posts. I hope to make another post tonight, showing off all the baking I’ve been doing today. Four pies. Yep, you heard me. Four pies. Two sugar free pumpkin, one pecan, and one apple/cranberry. Two with homemade crusts. Which are actually not that hard to make, so if you’d like to see how I do it, leave me a comment. I’d be happy to show you how to get a nice, flaky pie crust.

Tschuss!

Friday night was spent with the scrapbook girls, Mandy and Dawn. Dawn worked on fall/Halloween themed pages for her kids’ books. Mandy worked on gift tags for the holidays, and I worked on holiday cards. We played with embossing and the Epic Six. Good times! Didn’t get home till after midnight, which is late for me.

Saturday was spent continuing with the crafts. Made more cards and worked on gift containers. Pics to come soon. I’ll have to break out the big guns, cause I can’t make the point and shoot camera focus on all the details. User error, I’m sure.
Izzy and I went for a quick walk in Ritchey Woods. The weather has been incredible this weekend. Sunny and in the 60s and 70s. Are you kidding me? This is November!
We then went downtown for BOA at Lucas Oil Stadium. We were lucky and got very nice, FREE tickets. Bands these days are amazing. So much has changed since I’ve participated. I like the progress, but part of me missed the simpler times. No amps or electrical equipment on the field, no tarps or sets to be constructed, etc. Got home late and stayed up watching TV. Again, something we don’t do, but I loved it!

Today has been spent doing nothing. Nothing but laundry. And playing Kingdoms of Camelot on Facebook. ‘Meeting’ new people outside of the US through the game. Fun chats about fruit and cookies. Life is good.

Dinner rolls-check. Even though I forgot an ingredient and burned the bottoms of half, they weren’t that bad.

Cheesecake pumpkin bars-check. That’s a lot of cream cheese. How are we going to eat it all?

Apple cranberry pie-check. Still have one pie crust and some cranberries left, so I may try again tomorrow.

New tires on car-check. Major ouch to my bank account!

Cookies-check. Keith made great chocolate chip cookies. So chewy!

Pumpkin pie and brioche-no way.

Price list and website update-should be done tonight!

Hockey game-nope. I’m really enjoying this lying-around-doing-nothing thing.

Exercise routine-um, not so much. There’s always next week. (If you believe this, I’m sure I have something to sell you.)

Lots of sleeping in. Lots of laughing. Got to see my friends. Learned about Tap Tap Revenge for iPhone. Overall a very good vacation. And I still have Sunday!

Will it all happen? Hard to say. Stay tuned to find out!