Vote for the Boyfriend

OK. So I don't post for a week and then I come to you all asking for a favor. Just please forgive the one-way nature of our blogging relationship this month and then once you've forgiven me, please consider my favor!

My daughter's boyfriend is in a blog contest and the prize for the top two vote-getters is the entry fee to a bike race this fall. (a nice chunk of change). There are ten bike racing blogs involved and Montana's blog is in third place by just a small margin.

So could you pop on over here and read his blog?  The kid writes a fun and entertaining blog and I think you'll enjoy it,  even if you don't know the first thing about mountain biking. Then click over here and vote for his blog in the Pisgah Mountain Bike Stage Race Contest. If you don't have a Facebook account (which means you can't vote), maybe leave the young man a comment to encourage him.

And besides, Montana posts pictures like this one below, while the fellow in second place whines that he faces an unfair fight in a Facebook voting contest because of the demographic of his potential voters (Really?  Facebook seems be all the new "thing" for middle aged people.  And older.  Cripes, my mother and all of her 70 and 80 something friends are on Facebook all the time!)  and then he posts pictures like this. (Are there small children looking over your shoulder?  Don't click on that.  I'm so not kidding.)

Cute.  And no penis references were involved.

Thanks gang.  Stitchy progress post tomorrow!

My Paucity of Posting

(aka - My adventures in alliteration.  Take that, English major daughter!)

Have you ever noticed how sometimes you have a million pictures and you can rattle on about everything and it all seems so bright and interesting and then...it just stops?  You've got nothing.  Or it all seems really, really negative?  I've hit one of those stoppages recently. 

I think it's because I've been moving kids for the past couple weeks.  For over a year now, when I have nightmares, they're almost always moving and packing nightmares, so I know how profoundly these moves effect me.  In my dreams, nothing is ever packed.  I'm always in a hurry and people are always mad at me.  Everything is everywhere and I keep opening doors to find entire rooms filled with things that need to be moved. That was almost the real-life scenario as I made the second trip to move my son yesterday. 

Luckily, the day ended with a couple hours of stitching among friends.  It stopped my hyperventilating and relaxed me as I listened to their stitchy chatter.  I even enjoyed the quiet moments. 

Thank goodness for friends, especially stitching friends!

Time sure flies

When you're having fun. Well, it was fun for me, anyway!  I thought that the high school years went by quickly, but college went by in the blink of an eye.

Graduation day at Allegheny started off drizzly, then became stormy, so we were moved inside.  And just before the recessional music started, the sun came out and many parents breathed a sigh of relief.  Imagine trying to fit all of these people in the campus center!  And this photo is just a small representation of the crowd on hand.  People were streaming everywhere, but one special graduate was finding his way to his family...

The two students I love most in the whole wide world.

One graduate with five very proud family members

My son and an angel

The Gator!

We're so proud!

That's my boy!

And now all that's left is the moving.  When I was driving away yesterday, I thought I'd be waving goodbye to Meadville for the last time....but no such luck.  How can one young man have so much stuff?  I've raised a pack rat.  I thought he'd get better about it when he was in college, but my son seems to have earned a degree in Hoard-ology. So it looks like I'll be back on the road again later this week.

It's finally time

Wow! It's really here! I wonder if they make blue and yellow hankies for the teary-eyed mothers in the crowd? Because if they do, I'm gonna need a case.

(Not my graduate....we'll have photos after the weekend)

Yes! Finished the retreat project!

I hope everyone had a great Mothers Day!  I had a wonderful weekend, starting with shopping at Trax Farms Friday night.  Trax is probably one of the happiest places on earth right now, with all of those flowers and all of that hope of Spring and nicer weather!  Not to mention a wine shop that carries the favorite wines I tried during our Erie weekend back in November.  And Trax was on my way to a stitch night...who wouldn't love that?

I didn't accomplish much at stitch night.  I was working on a new La D Da, but spent most of the evening trying to find a counting mistake.  Plus, show and tell was excellent Friday night, with our friend Nancy celebrating a new granddaughter AND finishing a beautiful religious design in her own color choices.

Nancy's project - I don't know the name, but I'm pretty sure it's a free design

Two of the girls had just returned from Celebrations in Nashua, where they took lots of classes and shopped and traded and had a fabulous time.  No wonder I couldn't count, let alone find a mistake, with fascinating talk like that bouncing around the room!

I spent Saturday cleaning.   Yuck.  But until I win the lottery and move into that self-cleaning house that I plan to invent, it's a necessary evil.  And evil it was, since I had been away so much in April that somehow a year's worth of dust and clutter accumulated in only 30 days.  I was also still unpacking.  Why is it that when I go away, it takes me forever to unpack my stuff and get it all back to its proper place?  In my mad cleaning, I found a suitcase with odds and ends still in it...from our trip to Sanibel, Florida.  Last January.  So that's where that stuff was...

But it was also our 28th wedding anniversary and that meant a nice meal out.  Good ol' Dave.  He's a keeper.

And then came Sunday, Mothers Day here in the US.  Both kids are still working their way through college final exams, so they couldn't come home and properly adore me, but they made me happy with phone calls and a beautiful blog post that made me cry.  I'm a very happy and proud mom, and sometimes I marvel at the luck that brought me such wonderful children.

But you're here for the stitching, right?  And my Mothers Day goal was to finish my project from the Hearts Desire Stitch Camp.  And yes I did!

Front of fob

Pincushion - That's the Nun stitch around the edges and it's affixed to WDW felt

Both pieces together, showing back of fob

The pincushion project had a cord attached to it to secure a pair of scissors, but I decided to omit it.  My original idea had been to add a magnet to the cushion for that purpose, but the felt was bit too thick for that.  It reduced the pull of the magnet too much.  So it's just a pincushion now.

I have an exciting week ahead, with John graduating from Allegheny College and all of the fun surrounding that.  I was cleaning his room Saturday (really just making it non-health-threatening because my mother and sister will be sleeping in there), and I was dusting his Matchbox car collection and the whole college graduation thing really hit me.  It's like Gretchen Rubin says..."The days are long, but the years are short."  I'm sure I'll have lots of those thoughts as this week goes by...

Touristy things and a wrap up

Being tourists, we did some touristy things in Ireland.  We really only had five days to play with, since Tuesday was spent getting out of the airport and picking up the rental car and figuring out how to get to the hotel.  It would've been easier and less time consuming if we hadn't been roaming around lost and disconcerted about driving on the wrong side of the road and freaking out every time we came to a roundabout.

We had many colorful conversations in the car that day, but I'll leave those up to your imagination.  And it was all worth it, which you'll understand when I show you the hotel photos.

Anyways, we were totally self-guided on this trip, which had its positives and negatives.  The "wandering around lost" part?  Kinda negative.  The doing what we wanted, when we wanted?  That was pretty good.  And we saw some things that may not have been on a typical tour. 

Like the Irish Museum of Modern Art, which had a former life as a military hospital.

IMMA

Inside the IMMA in some kind of chapel room.  Not exactly modern art, but you know how I'm drawn to anything with stained glass.  Like a moth to a flame...

And there were tours that we thought we had to take, but in retrospect, we could have passed on them. For instance, the Guinness factory tour.  Total rip-off.  The come-on is this:  At the end of your very self-guided experience through what was a media show rather than a factory tour, you go up to The Gravity Bar and get a "free" pint of Guinness.  So basically you've just paid 12 Euros to walk through a slide show, see some memorabilia, visit the gift shop, and have a Guinness.  Pubs are far more entertaining and now I know we should have just gone to a pub and bought our own beers.

But I did get a cute picture of this fellow.

Guinness is good for you.  I didn't need any lunch after this pint...

We really enjoyed our tour of Dublin Castle.  It was one of the few guided tours and our guide was very, very good.

Dublin Castle

Excavation under Dublin Castle.  While renovating part of the building for office use, they found evidence of an early Viking fortress.  Really fascinating.

We visited some monastic ruins in Glendalough.  It was quite an adventure getting there.  We traveled up over the mountains, encountering narrow roads, rain, tour buses and very brave bikers.  But it was so beautiful.

And soon we arrived at the monastery, and learned about Celtic monastic life and how important it was to the health and welfare and growth of the region. Monks fascinate me.

Cathedral at Glendalough

Bell tower and graves with Celtic High Crosses

There's that cute man again.

And the next day, although the town of Kilkenny was our real destination, we visited some churches and Kilkenny Castle.  Although I don't have a good photo of the Kilkenny Castle grounds (dark and rainy day), they were also very beautiful.

Inside St. Mary's Church

The Black Abbey.  Sadly, it was closed by the time we arrived.

Kilkenny Castle

We stayed at the Ritz Carlton Powerscourt hotel, which was right next to the Powerscourt Gardens and...oh, is this just a coincidence?...right across from one of the nicest golf courses in Ireland.  So one day, Dave went off to play golf.  And he didn't even have to beg all that much.  Just a little.  And it all worked out, because this is where he left me:

In the garden behind the hotel, in the sun, with my book.  If you could enlarge the photo, you'd see a huge smile on my face.

When reading became too strenuous for me, I went inside to take a nap here, in the world's best bed.  Seriously.  It was the best bed I've ever, ever slept in.  A king-sized feather bed with snowy white sheets and blankets that were so soft and silky, I thought I was floating.  I loved getting into this bed at night and I didn't want to get out if it in the morning. 

And look here!  If nature called, I could go into the bathroom and watch TV.  On a TV that was somehow, some way built into the mirror.  Don't laugh.  One night I took a bath and watched TV at the same time.  Pretty amazing stuff.

And one last thing about the hotel, and I know that many of you will appreciate this. The valet kit in the dressing room had the usual stuff. Laundry bag, shoe sponge, etc. And a sewing kit. But  - pre-threaded needles!  You know I took that home with me!

So that was it - our trip in a nutshell.  Or more like three nutshells.  Except to tell you that for those 5 days, everyone I encountered called me "madame".  "Yes, madame?"  "Thank you madame."  "What will madame be having tonight?"  So we arrived in Pittsburgh and we were walking through the exits where a security guard was sitting.  I walked right by him, and looked at him and smiled, to which he responded, "Hey babe.  Have a nice night."

"Madame" on Monday morning.  "Babe" on Monday night.  My life is good.

Towns

I loved the small town nature of Ireland, evident even in a bigger city like Dublin.  Really, it was the thing I enjoyed most about our travels there. 

I loved streets full of busy shops and eateries - each one was different and each one seemed to be thriving.  Living in a small town here is entirely different.  Over the years, small towns have lost their small businesses.  Most downtown areas are struggling at best, shuttered at worst.  Small town life in the US usually feels depressing, but there it feels...I don't know...rooted?  And I loved that everyone walked or biked and that public transportation was so accessible.

Oh, and since this is a stitching blog after all, I know you're all probably wondering if any of the lovely towns I visited had a stitching or needlework shop.  I would have thought that a city the size of Dublin might have a needlework shop... Sadly, no.  Fabric shops that crossed my path were exactly that - fabrics.  And not much of it.  I know that there are quilt shops, but they were in cities that we weren't visiting.

I found one shop in Dublin that advertised lots of trims and fabrics (The Woollen Mills) and I hoped to find some needlework supplies, but there was only one display of Anchor Threads, Aida on bolts, and a spinner rack of Dimensions kits.  I thought I had a glimmer of hope when I saw one of the workers stitching.  So I asked her if there were any shops that catered to needleworkers specifically.  She was a little miffed that I didn't think that the Anchor display and spinner rack were adequate.  Well, whatever.

So - here are some city and town pictures!

ONeill's Pub in Dublin

HA!

For Carol, my librarian friend

Busy Half Penny Bridge.  I'm up there, somewhere.

Awesome little cafe outside Dublin Castle, where we ate this:

Not exactly Weight Watchers fare, but it was VACATION!

Busy street in Kilkenny

Pub entertainment in Bray

Pub fare

More pub fare

And more

Yum!

Kilkenny side street

Also in Kilkenny.  I mean, really.  I pink shop that sells chocolate? What's not to love?

Tomorrow -  typically touristy things.

Gardens of Ireland

We had lots of opportunities to visit gardens while we were in Ireland.  There were gardens in or around most of the historic and tourist sites we visited, but there were also gardens just for the sake of gardens.  We arrived towards the end of the tulip blooms, but they were still quite beautiful.  And I'll bet that in a week or two the rose bushes will be blooming.  We saw lots of buds, and when they open they'll make most of these gardens not only gorgeous to see, but glorious to smell!

St. Stephens Green

Merrion Square

Irish Museum of Modern Art

Glendalough - no gardens but lovely walking and hiking trails
(If you read my comments, you'll see that this photo was a replacement for the one I posted earlier.  After I set the camera timer then RAN over to sit next to Dave,  we inadvertently struck a pose that was...ummm...inappropriate.  He thought he was grabbing my waist, but with the help of age and gravity, certain parts of my body have sunk to my waist and it looked like he was grabbing somewhere else.  Evidently, this set two of my very dear stitching friends to giggling in front of their computer monitors and then commenting about it.  Once I realized this, and once I stopped screaming, I laughed, too.  Because if you can't laugh with your friends, who can you laugh with?  But I replaced the photo anyway, just to keep my blog clean and all.)

Sheep right out of a Warner Bros. cartoon

Shamrocks!

Powerscourt Japanese garden

Powerscourt fountains

More Powerscourt

And more Powerscourt

Tomorrow, the towns!