Diary of An Irish Woman

musings of an irish lady now living in America.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

reasons to love california

What a great weekend

We had wonderful time with good friends over for thanksgiving. We laid a beautiful table out if I do say so myself and Jan used the power of the internet to fold the napkins into fancy shapes… Thankfully he uses those powers for good. If anything the fact we could set a table like that shows we need nothing for our wedding. We have everything we need. You know you dont need anything when the only thing you registered for in Target was the lego star wars set….

So dinner was grand, everyone is still reporting in as alive, and we had enough potatoes to do 50 more at the table and I even enjoyed the salad I made! Never thought I’d be using those words… Afterwards we all sat round and used the new chocolate fountain. Dipping fruit into it and then everyone watching the fountain and warmed by the fire and some baileys and good company.

We got up lazily on Friday and wandered into the electronic stores to see if there were any thanksgiving bargains left. A mate of mine Emily had got up at 4am from our place where she crashed after spending thanksgiving with us and went to circuit city and other stores to get the early thanksgiving bargains.. Even with the bargains she got I preferred my bed at that time of the morning.. We did get some new memory cards for our cameras which was long overdue. I had bought about 10 in total for my family over last two yearsm, being much cheaper here than Ireland but none for myself and I can imagine I’ll be using quite a few when we go back home.

Then we drove down to Monterey for the night and had a nice relaxing evening, playing mental floss a new trivia game at the motel. Then Saturday off down to Pismo beach. We pulled into the hotel and decided to chill rest of day by the beach sitting at the ocean front drinking margaritas and watching the sun finally set on the water. Not a bad life. Its so beautiful there - I’ll post pics and its only three hours south of us.

Then we had a lovely massage where my lady had just got back from Ireland and was just finally warming up as she said. Then we snacked on tasty desserts in our room before going to scyamore springs and the amazing hot mineral springs they have there in the woods. They have all the hot tubs laid out in the woods on a hill, each feels like its on its own in the woods and out in the night looking at stars soaking in the warmth. Magical. We both know we are blessed to have moments like that.

The hotel was noisy, a younger wedding going on where they shouted in the parking lot and cop cars had to come. The hotel saw itself as a fancy resort so we were kindof surprised. I mentioned that the next morning and they took money off our bill for the noise. I like customer service ! - Nice of them but next time we will go to a cheaper place and just go more hot tubbing and more wine tasting.

Sunday we drove around to some lovely wineries. Now we’re about an hour or two from Napa and you have to go there to apprecaite these little wineries all the more. Less crowds, less pushing of expensive not very good wine. We tasted some great reds and I’m not a red wine drinker and after buying about 11 different bottles at three vineyards we decided yes, next time we are staying cheaper places so that we can still spend at the wineries. Some amazing wines and then a lovely dinner at a local place before heading up back to our home sweet home where we sat by the fire and then later wrote a Holiday letter for our cards.

So many reasons to love California, and spending a late November weekend by the sea and sitting under stars in a hot mineral springs in the redwoods is up there on the list. So is sharing it with my sweetie and good friends. Its not a holiday we had in Ireland of course but its one I’ve come to love. Eating and giving thanks and sharing it with the family I’ve built here with friends and love. Now theres a great big reason for thanks alone..

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Danger Danger Chocolate Chocolate

Ok.. probably a terrible idea but it seemed such fun at the time..

For thanksgiving we are having about 6 folks over for food and then another 4/5 over for dessert.

And just because we dont need it at ALL.

We got a chocolate fountain.

choc choc

Yes a bloody chocolate fountain.

One that has the melted chocolate in a wee fountain. So you can imagine chocolate fondue right… now imagine that in a fountain. Streams of melted chocolate hot and streaming….

So to balance it out we are getting lots of nice fruit to dip in the chocolate. Then its dairy and fruit right…

Of course the funny thing is that the chocolate founatain will not tempt me in the least.. I don’t care for chocolate so should be fine. I know I know.. I’m not a real girl blah blah blah.. How could I hate chocolate. Well its not that I hate it. I only really like white chocolate and its more of a nostalgia think. I remember loving the white chocolate as a kid and its really the only one I like.

Now if they ever bring out a stuffing fountain.. thats when I’m in trouble…

So for those who do celebrate Turkey Day – Gobble Gobble and a wonderful thanks for all my blessings this year - I am blessed with family, friends and love. Now to put that in a country song and away I go.. !

Thursday, November 10, 2005

How to be woken up at 7am ...

Well myself and the wonderful man went to a Catholic Engaged Encounter this weekend. In part because its on our check off list for getting married in Ireland at the church, but more that I wanted to actually do this as I had heard amazing things about the weekend.

One friend had told me that her and her now husband were blown away and really uncovered some stuff they had glossed over in the hopes that sure will be covered when they get married… And they were thankful they addressed it beforehand. Another not so close friend more of an friends friend kind of thing had told us that it was boring.. that you talk to each other all day and write answers and discuss and very much focussed on the couple. Well we had an amazing bloody good time and it was emotionally draining, imigane seeing 6 chick flicks back to back all making you cry, laugh and love at the same time and you get the idea. We sat in Sunday night and watched comedy on the Tivo, its all we could manage and let our minds relax.. Bewitched and Sabrina the teenage witch.. both with very good adult roles of overseeing witches but I digress…

Being that myself and Jan are super geeks and if theres any one character that I feel that I am in a book its Hermonie from Harry Potter.. I always put my hand up in class. I loved to as a kid. I loved taking exams and still love learning. Jan teases me that I love taking certificate classes and I do. If I didnt have to work I’d probably be doing courses and racking up more certificates.

The wee viking admiteed that he was scared in part before we went becuase it just seems so right that we are getting married that being the engineer he started to think, well everythings so great.. .does that mean something is wrong we cant see? Always a QA guy at heart ;-) I was the same. It feels so right, so comfortable the wee doubter in you goes, well is that ok then.. We were both very happy to see that the course covered about 99% of the stuff we had already talked about, having kids, financial, sex, family, plans for future etc and quite all in depth :-)

We left the weekend exhausted but very much a glow about us, stronger by being tested in fire and looking forward to a lifetime of marraige, we know that we’ll have a lot thrown at us during our years but PG we can work through all of them with the same sense of adventure and hope we have now.

At end of weekend they had all the guys wake us by serenading us .. singing love love me do, my girl and going to the chapel. Now theres a way to get woken up at 7am in the morning ! All the girls were laughing but all thrilled.

Then at end of the weekend they have you write a love letter to each other and the guys came to find the girls to read it to them with tissues and an industrial rose in hand. Jan’s letter was .. well it was bloody amazing. And we had a wonderful time and I recommend the course to anyone who wants to get married. Its not religious and they didnt try and convert him to RC - which his dad was teasing him about.

Now to get him to serenade me without 30 other blokes.. lol

November

Was at a customer yesterday with D, my sales partner in Crime.. The office has started calling us Devade - Sinead and Dev name put together - also Mulder and Scully which I find quite amusing. Looking to have a big deal signed today, crossing fingers..

Anyway back to my wee story, the skies were overcast and there was some very very brief showers, not even sprinkles really, it was 60-65 degrees out and the customer was bitching about how horrible it was out. I laughed.

Thinking of Ireland and the cold weather that will surely great us in March. To be honest I dont care. I’m sure it will be cold, sure it will rain and a cold wind pierce our very souls when we go back to Ireland to get married but sure we plan to have some craic and enjoy ourselves.

Theres more people coming from America than I thought would - turns out we’ll have a gang travelling with us to Connemara and another bunch staying with us in Dublin. I’m excited to have all my different friends meet - we’re planning not such a traditional wedding with some games but should be lots of craic as we say at home.

All the planning is right up my alley as well. Gra my sister was teasing me saying what are you going to do when thats all done. Well first enjoy myself. I’m also doing the Irish Network which I probably will stay around for another year to help out whos taking it on. And keep up my new found fitness. Although Jan will probably slag me for that one as Monday night when doing Yoga together at the class, she does a body relaxation at first and I got so relaxed I dozed off. Woken up by Jan giving me a slight kick to nudge me awake. He claims I was snorning…. Cant see that ;-)

Hope you’re all enjoying November and only 4 months to go now…..

Monday, November 07, 2005

zazzle...

Its my quick and easy link to my products on zazzle… I made a black t-shirt with fecking ejit on it and if anyone buys it I get royalties - woo woo!! :-)

Irish and American scenes