Moon-led

Well hello! I originally set up this blog to document my Ireland trip--which was in 2010. I still can't believe that it has been that long. I've been feeling the need to blog again and I think I'm overdue. I plan on writing about anything and everything. It's going to be more of a journal for myself, a way to remember my everyday life, and less of a public geared blog.

Where I am in my life now: I will have worked at my current job for three years come February 1, just one month from now. Joel and I have been together for quite a while now, also three years this Spring. I'm happy where I'm living, we have the cutest little house, and two of the sweetest little cats. Truth be told, I will probably prattle on about them from time to time, it's just so hard not to!!! They just bring me so much happiness. Knitting is a pretty huge part of my non-work life. I mostly love working with all the different fibers, they're so lovely!

I just finished a baby llama cowl, knitted with undyed yarn, and I plan on dying it with black beans! I found the instructions here: http://brambleberriesintherain.com/2011/04/black-beans-as-a-natural-dye-revisited/ . Who would have thought black beans would dye fiber blue/green? Super awesome, hopefully I can start that project in the next day or two.

My diabetes is going okay. I actually have my first appointment with a nutritionist this Friday. I'm hoping for the pump, I just have to get some more Lantus testing nights in. Oh joy. ;)

Alright, that's good for a start, I felt it was important to at least get a little writing in while I was feeling it to get the ball rolling a bit. Goodnight.

I'm so excited! Killarney is so beautiful this time of the year, I knew when I was planning my trip that I would enjoy Fall and Winter most here and I was correct. It snowed last night! Our first snow of the season! I stood outside for ages watching the huge fluffy flakes fall gently onto the branches of the trees, and onto the grass. I awoke to the snow; thankfully it didn't burn off until much later in the day, and even then it didn't burn off completely. Every weekend until Christmas, town centre has booths set up in the street where merchants sell everything from hand painted ornaments (which I purchased of course!), to scarves and jewelry, to food and warm mulled wine! They set up speakers down every street in town which play Christmas carols so you can hear them no matter where you are. Add to that the garlands and lights draped all along the streets and the beautiful window displays and you have the most festive and happy atmosphere I've experienced in some time. It's amazing! It is quite chilly out, so everyone is bundled in thick coats, gloves, and hats, and you can see each breath in the chilly air. What I find most entertaining is to watch how inventive parents get trying to keep their kids warm, it's hysterical!

Dublin was very nice! I really enjoyed my Thanksgiving there. The streets in the part of town I stayed in were all festively decorated and cute, even if they were extremely convoluted and confusing to manuevor (although I must add that by the second day I did considerably well navigating--I'm quite proud of this fact!). I visited the Natural History museum and it was fascinating!!! I stayed there until closing; it was so interesting to learn about Viking Ireland and see all the work of goldsmiths from so long ago. Quite impressive. Their Egyptian section was small, but put ours in America to shame! The artifacts they had displayed were things that we normally only see pictures of, even within exhibits. They even had two female mummies and a mummified cat, plus x-rays showing the skeletal structures of each.

I visited the Guinness Storehouse on Thanksgiving and I was incredibly impressed. I wasn't expecting the building to be as interesting as it was, nor did I expect to enjoy touring it as much as I did. I learned quite a bit, and got a complimentary pint of Guinness in the room at the top of the building which is round and offers a 360 degree view of the city from high above. Best foam EVEEEER! :D

Finally, I visited the Book of Kells and the library in Trinity college. I cannot possibly stress to you how much I was touched by the library. It's a miraculous thing....it almost felt as if the air had weight to it, surrounded by such old texts. Almost like I had entered into some sacred place where voices must be lowered in respect for an unspoken, and undetectable force. I spent ages in that library. It was funny; in some ways I ached to touch and look at all of those books on their shelves, and in others I was terrified to get near them. So peculiar. Oh! I also learned how leather books are made and bound, it was fascinating!!!! I actually have been thinking about doing it myself at some point. I think I would really enjoy such work...a new hobby perhaps? I think I should get a spinning wheel first, then we'll see. :)

Well hello everyone! I know, it's been ages since I last posted. My apologies!

A lot has happened recently...I decided what I want to do when I get back in the states! I'm going to go to Seattle Central community college, and then I hope to transfer to the University of Washington when I can. I'll be starting on January 4, the beginning of the Winter term. I'm actually really excited about this. I can't wait to go to school again, and having a job wouldn't be so bad either, that's for sure! I'm hoping that I will be able to get a job fairly easily once in Seattle. We'll see how this all works out though. I'm hoping there won't be any huge snags.....

Other than that, I'm off to Dublin this Tuesday. I wasn't really planning on going to Dublin, I didn't see the appeal when I could see the small coastal towns all up the west and south, but Mom told me the museums there are phenomenal so my mind's made up. :) Dublin here I come.

I finished my first knitting project in Ireland. Woot woot. It's a hat, small surprise there, but it's been so bloody cold I've been thinking three things with my knitting: hats, gloves, and socks. The important things you know.

Other than that, not much has been going on. Talking with friends, staying around town....that's about it. I did hurt my back somehow though, about a week ago and it isn't getting better. It's getting worse in fact. It's so odd. It feels like a similar joint pain as I have in my hips, only at the base of my spine. It started with the pain you get when you really need someone to crack your back and graduated from there. Oh well, enough whining for me, hopefully it clears up soon.

I'll be taking my camera with me when I go to Dublin, so you'll get pictures then. :)

I know, I'm wildly behind on my poor neglected blog, but I've been busy!

My trip to Galway was wonderful! I saw the Cliffs of Moher:


Kylemore House, Abbey and Gardens:

Lots of beautiful, authentic thatched roof cottages:

Burren:

Ailwee caves, Connemara, and a few other awesome sites. It was great! Galway city itself was okay, a bit too college-y for me. Bigger than Killarney, but I still like Killarney better. I chose well when I picked the town I wanted to live in. One of the things I wanted to see most when I was planning my trip to Ireland were the Cliffs of Moher, so I'm very excited that I was able to see them. I stayed in my first hostel in Galway too. It was great, I met a couple of really cool people, and went on tours with two of them. The hostels have a great atmosphere. It's very easy to connect with other travelers.

Since then, I've been hanging out in Killarney. It's been wonderful! I've been doing a lot of hiking, and a lot of reading. The weather is finally changing too! It has been so sunny and warm, apparently I happened to come on a year with a very abnormal September and October. Usually I would have had constant rain, but within the past few days we've starting to get great windy rainy weather! Yay!!!! On that note, I made my first turf (peat) fire and it was a great success! (I'm wayyyyyy too proud of this fact, it's true.) It's funny because Jer (one of my housemates) always makes the fire if one of us lovely ladies are at home, but he's up the coast for a week with Norma. In the past Kate and Norma have tried to make fires and they never got warm, or lasted. We figured it needed a man's touch. Not so! I rocked that fire!!!! Lol. Like I said, way too proud of it. Maybe it's genetic? Or maybe I'm just a pyro, who knows. Haha. I should have taken a picture of it but didn't think of it until the fire was just embers.

I heard the best Irish band I've had the pleasure of watching since getting here; in Courtney's two nights ago. Oh my god, they totally had everyone going! Irish music is so catchy and fun. It's infectious. I actually bought one of their CDs. The band's called The Side Over, and the two main guys are Jeremy Spencer (fiddle) and Sean Leahy (guitar). They've been playing together for eight years and it shows, they mesh their instruments in a way that is just phenomenal. They also had a banjo player, who's been playing with them for about a year now. What a seriously good night. :)

Mom's coming to visit me November 5th through the 14th! I'm very excited, I can't wait to show her all of the great places I've found. This will be fantastic! Yay!!! I'm just glad that it is going to work out as we didn't think she'd be able to.

Oh, and because I'm weird and I think food is very important, I had the BEST tiramisu I have ever had last night. Oh my god, it was...wow. Should have taken a picture of that too! Geez, I'm a picture and blog slacker. Shame on me. :)

I don't have much to say at the moment as I'm staying in a hostel in Galway, and have been since Monday, but I will give everyone great stories and details when I get home tomorrow. I took lots of pictures, saw the Cliffs of Moher, Kylemore Abbey, and a plethora of other sights. I also met a ton of fun people! Just wanted to give you a quick update!!!

Today I chose to explore on foot, so I walked to the town gardens, which are fenced off by a huge, sprawling stone wall. It was a beautiful walk that took me into the national forest and followed this small creek. It was amazing!!!! The trees have started to change color, so there were fallen orange and brown leaves littering the forest floor. They contrast so well with the European forest canopy which is so different from American forests, at least on the West coast. There are a few pines, but they definitely do not dominate the landscape. It's mostly broad leafed deciduous trees with pale green leaves. I'm not sure what kind they are, I've been asking around with little success.

I had no idea where the trail went, but soon found myself on the shore of Lough Leane, one of Killarney's lakes. It was poetic in its beauty! The clouds were hanging low, obscuring the mountains so only the bases could be seen jutting out into the lake. The fog added that noiseless quality to the air and muffled even the sound of the trees blowing in the breeze. Swans drifted on the surface of the lake, ethereal, seeming to float over the water; small ripples in the calm lake passing unheeded by. Small groupings of rocks protruded out of the water, joining their plentiful island kin. The atmosphere of this magical place was so all consuming that when the occasional person passed by, it came as a bit of a shock, as if you forgot momentarily that others existed at all. As I followed the path along the shore of Lough Leane, the top of Ross castle came into view above the tree line. It was so mythical! Like nothing I've ever experienced, it was almost as if I had walked in to the realm of fairy tales and they had become my new reality. You hear people speak of Ireland in all of it's beauty, but there is no way to fully appreciate it until you have stood on these magical banks yourself and seen these scenes unfold before you. It must also be noted that the pace of life here in Ireland is so much more casual and laid back, people take their time, and enjoy the beauty surrounding them; which adds to this feeling of timelessness that you feel. It is humbling and so serene. It literally fills you with such a deep sense of contentment, like time has stopped.

I took a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry today. The Ring is a huge tourist attraction here in Killarney, it draws a lot of people in. Honestly though I wasn't as impressed with it as I was by Dingle. Dingle just blew me away; I could see myself living in Dingle, it was just--me. Don't get me wrong, the Ring was lovely, I'm just saying I was a little disappointed by it.

It was a bright and sunny day, although it did rain a bit in the morning (and I of course chose today to NOT have my umbrella with me after carting it all over for the past few weeks and not needing it). One reason I did enjoyed this tour is I sat next to this man (also traveling alone) and I learned quite a few things from him. He's been traveling all over the world for over 25 years and he had some great advice and some wonderful stories and experiences. I definitely have a growing list of places I want to see, that's for sure! So anyways, all of the tours stop for lunch and I sat with him and chatted. The rest of the tour was pretty bland. The guide was not nearly as chatty as the guide I had for Dingle and therefore, much of the trip was spent in silence. The tour takes you to the top of the mountains, so the scenery was fairly boring and brown, although we did pass through some forest land and a couple of waterfalls.

The image above was taken at Ladies' View, as was the picture of me. It's named Ladies' View after Queen Victoria visited.

I did see a sheep dog demonstration however that greatly impressed me. This man trains his dogs and has four at the moment. When he herds the sheep, he said he will normally bring three or four sheep dogs along. It was incredible! Each dog has a different set of whistle and voice commands depending on how far away they are, and they all know four directions: left, right, forward, and back. The control he has really just blew me away. All of the sheep were on the hillside above us when he started the show, in the right hand corner. He told us he was going to have the dog drive them to the left corner, take them back to the right, then drive them down the hill. Using just a whistle he did just that in no time at all! To top it off, the dogs only respond to their own set of calls--he can be talking normally and in the same tone without faltering he can add in a command and the dog will do it. Incredible. The dogs lay down when not driving the sheep somewhere so the sheep can be at ease, and the way he coordinates the direction and resting of each dog was damn near poetic. I'm glad I watched the show, I almost didn't because I figured it would just be a stupid tourist trap of a show, but thankfully I enjoyed it.

Oh, and in relation to the sheep herding demonstration, another woman from my bus was standing next to me while we waited for the show to start. It was raining at the time, and this one sheep kind of sidled up to us before shaking off and covering us in rain water. We looked at each other and laughed, and what else could we do really? We spent the rest of the day smelling like wet sheep. Only in Ireland! :D

Another random thing; I used one of those toilets with the pulley the other day! You know the old fashioned ones where the rope hangs down from either the wall or the ceiling, and it has the tassel on the end? Yep, I've used one. I thought that was so kick ass!