'L' Shaped Paradise

Hey sunshine, I haven't seen you in a long time. Why don't you show your face around my mind? Well, that's not 100% true. I saw you bits and pieces yesterday and last week you hung about and heated this little island up nice and toasty. That's right folks, believe it or not it got to 80.6 degrees last week. That's the warmest I have been since I moved here over two years ago and it was fantastic! A bit too humid but I won't complain if wants to be that warm again. The Irish are just as good at moaning as the rest of the population and were all complaining it was far too warm. They can never be pleased. Most of the time it's too cold and rainy and when the sun is out it's to warm and sunny. The funny thing to me is that if they were on vacation somewhere it would be acceptable to be that warm and they would even brag about it when they got home but for it to be 80.6 degrees here on their own turf is a travesty.

A puffin

Also a late happy birthday to the wonderful country I call home! This year Leo and I celebrated by having a few American treats. Who doesn't love Cheetos?

Life has been pretty busy with my new job. I barely feel like I am able too get anything done that isn't work related these days. My typical work day starts at 5:30 with some yoga and maybe a shower. Then after breakfast and making lunch I head out to get a lift to work. At 5:00 I head home and by 6:20 I am making dinner. We eat between 7-8 depending on if Leo is working and then 9:30 I am in bed to start over again. But it's good. I am really enjoying life and work. It has been super nice to have money left over in our bank account by the time I get paid again. If I only knew they were keeping me all my financial worries would dissipate. 

I'm sure most of you know about the big vote the UK had back in June. Overall, UK voted to leave the EU. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay in and England and Wales voted to get out. What I think is interesting is that it seems a lot of the older generation have voted to leave while a majority of the people that voted to stay in were all younger. Leo voted to get out, I guess that says which generation he's part of. Some of the people (younger folk might I add) were SO upset about the UK voting out that it was ruining their day. They were angry all day because of it. It will be interesting to see what happens, especially here in Ireland. Because The ROI is in the EU and NI is going to leave the EU will they put up boarder control? If not how will they stop people crossing into the UK so freely? Will the Euro or Pound drop in value? Only time will really tell. 

My car pool  was in England for a week and so I had to get lifts from other people into work. One of the days Leo let me drive little Me to work. He was very nervous and worried and almost didn't let me do it but I persuaded him. I am trying to get my UK license and I had a driving lesson that night that I would have been late to if I got a lift with the other people from work. As we traded seats and he got out to go to work and wished me and Me a safe journey I didn't inspire much confidence as I drove away on the wrong side of the road. I quickly corrected my mistake and hoped he hadn't seen my minuscule mistake. If I had looked in my mirrors I would have seen an exasperated husband arms stretched out wide and mouth dropped open, and a increasingly worried look on his face. I got Me safely to work and back so really there was no need to worry. If you don't believe me just ask Shan.

Ronnie is doing well, all things considered. For an 81 year old he is in pretty good shape too. Earlier this summer he was up on the roof of his shed waterproofing it and the rest of the shed. Plus mows his lawn and goes on hour long walks up and down hilly countryside. August 6th we are going to take him down to Dromore, which is where he grew up. We are also hoping to get up to the top of Scrabo so hopefully I will have some good pictures for you guys. I want to go down there and see if I can find anything to help me with Leo's family history. It will probably be the last time Ronnie sees Dromore before he dies because he can't get around far distances like that easily and it's hard for Leo to get Saturdays off.

Happy Birthday to all you summer kids! There are a lot of you June-August born. Weird to think my youngest sister can drive now. Seems like just yesterday she was dancing on the table in her underwear eating celery telling me I wasn’t the boss of her. Good thing those days are over! Leo's and Jared's birthday was Monday and I don't know about Jared but Leo had a good day. Thanks to all of you who sent him birthday well wishes and even more más thanks to those who sent money. I got him a t-shirt, socks, ear buds, chocolate, and a trip to Rathlin Island to see "his" puffins.

We took a ferry over and walked almost the whole island. I think the population of the island is 75 people and that day I heard there were over 200 visitors on the island. 

Because we got to the island so early we walked the four and half miles to the bird sanctuary where we watched puffins, kittiwakes, fulmars, puffins, guillemot, gannets, and two peregrines. Unfortunately they were all too far way for the lenses Leo has so he wasn't able to get the photos he's been dreaming of but we were able to watch them with binoculars. They are funny little birds. We also took a tour of the lighthouse before heading to the east lighthouse. 

Lighthouse light

Living quarters

Blurry pictures of puffins

Baby fulmar

East Lighthouse

Too bright

It seemed like every car we saw on this small island was a piece of crap that you hoped was going to start every time you got in it. Some of the cars even had plants growing out of them. 

It was mostly a cloudy day but being to fools we are didn't put sunscreen on and so both got burned. That's how void of pigmentation my skin is. I burn on cloudy days. All in all we walked about 11 miles yesterday and had a really good time.

Back to earlier in the blog, I carpooled earlier this week with two Greeks and one Irish girl and it was refreshing to get another perspective on living on this island. Both the Grecians think that Ireland is a very beautiful place but they do not like the "summers" here, or rather the lack of them. They both miss having fresh fruits and vegetables. Because potatoes are just about the only thing that you can really get to grow on this island, most everything else has to be imported from Spain or other warm countries that can actually grow fruits and veggies. It is reassuring to know that I'm not the only foreigner that has a hard time with the lack of sunshine :) On the opposite side of things, an old co-worker of mine went to Las Vegas in June and these were some of the things she really enjoyed about the dry western states:

• Fluffy melt in your mouth pancakes from Denny's
• Paper seat protectors in public toilets
• The dry air (her husband has lung problems but was felt great in Vegas)
• How cheap things are
• The food
• The variety
• Blue sky and sunshine nearly every summer day

These were some of the things she didn't like:

• Sales tax not included in the price listed
• When the AC didn't work

And then people wonder why I want to come home….silly people must be eating too much Trix. Who wouldn't want paper seat protectors?!

Leo finished up school by acing one of his courses and failing the last exam of one by one question. He needed a 85% to pass the test but was just shy of getting that. Luckily he gets to re-test in September but will be capped to the minimum for a pass. He also will be going to England for a week in November for a class and exam to get a certification that he wants for his dream job.

Good luck to the Soelberg's and Morris's in Iowa. I hope that you all do your very best and that your new adventures are filled with good times and very few bad ones. Ttfn!

Cool....ish

Dia dhuit! What a wonderful day today in Northern Ireland! We have had almost a full week of sunshine! I know that means nothing to those of you stateside but here on this island that very rarely happens. You might say it was like raining cats and dogs it was that peculiar (though after all the types of rain I've experienced here I actually would be too surprised if it actually did rain cats and dogs someday).  While it is not sunny today, it is still the same warmish temperature it has been all week. Isn't ish so cool? Not even coolish it's just plain cool.

A lot has happened since my birthday. I had an interview, got a job, quit my other job,  got driving insurance, got a hair cut, walked around lots of different places, pooped a lot, wiped my bum with cardboard (at least that's what my dad says the tp here feels like. How he knows that I will leave to him to explain), had my lovely parents visit, laughed at Leo "talking" to sheep, broke my toenail, plotted surprises, and brushed my teeth. That's essentially all I've done these last months.

I got a job at Almac as a quality control technician the beginning of May and I am loving it! No mystery sized delivery to put away in the mornings, crazy customer that give you lip because they don't have their ID because they didn't read their email and text saying they needed ID to get their package, no more moaning about every little thing(yet!),  etc. I don't do anything super sciency but that's just fine with me. We many quality check the packaging the medication is going to be put into, and occasionally the capsules or tablets themselves but we don't do chemical tests on them. We check how durable they are and if they dissolve quick enough when you swallow them. It's a bit further away than Belfast but I don't mind. It pays better and I'm enjoying it more :)

Because it is a bit further away I am in the process of getting my UK license. My US license will only be valid for me to drive on until August and even thought this job is only a six month position I still would like to be able to drive myself to work. The have some very different things about their driving that we do. We have cross walks but here you can have zebra, pelican, puffin, toucan, and pegasus crossings and they all have different rules to them. I have an app and have been going through the questions for their theory test and this one came up.

As you are driving down a road you see this sign

What does it mean?

1. Motorcycles only
2. Motorcycles only during restricted times
3. No motorcycles
4. No motorcycles during  restricted times

Submit your answer at the poll on the side and we sill see if you can get it right.

The most exciting thing that happened also happened in May. My parents came for a little visit. It was such a fun time spending time with them and being able to giving them hugs. Two years was a long time for me to not see them. It will be even greater when I am back for keepsies. We went to some cool places I had never been before. Belfast Castle, cave hill, The Gobbins, and some places I have like Tollymore forest park, Castlewellan, Rostrevor, and Clandeboye Forest/Helen's Tower. It was super fun. Leo worked most of the time but was able to spend a day with us. My super nice padre paid for a room for us at a B&B while we were down around Newcastle. Leo's and my room overlooked out into a sheep pasture. I never knew a more vocal animal. Sheep are like the ultimate relief society women. They never shut up. All night long they were baaing. I slept through most of it but I was impressed, when I would wake up, at their commitment to conversation.

Leo practicing his second language at the B&B.

If the video above doesn't work click here. It was a really good time and I was sad to see them go but like my mom said, at least this time I know it's not forever and a year is nothing compared to what I've done so far :)

Who doesn't want to be pooped out of a deer?

 Pictures taken the other day at Scrabo

Congrats to all of you have had graduations or mission jazz and happy birthday to all you now older people. Have another good set of months and I will see you all later!

Irish Boys Only

Hello everyone! Enjoy this vlog I put together! Or, if you're like Shan and refuse to enjoy anything you can just watch it anyway!! If the video below doesn't work you can watch it here.