day 7 – dublin part 1

We got to Dublin in the late morning after stopping at the Avoca Handweavers in Arklow and Will had to wedge the behemoth Range Rover into the parking garage of the Clearys where, thankfully, it was going to stay for the next couple of days.

We started out the day the four of us going to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells – one of the coolest things in Dublin that you can’t take pictures of.  You can’t even take pictures of the a-maz-ing library.  So here’s one from the web:
 

It turned out to be student association day on campus.  It was odd being on campus with students there since I’ve only ever been there in the summer time.

After visiting the College and the Book of Kells, we split up with Will and I and my parents going in different directions.  Will and I headed to Grafton Street passing Molly Malone aka “The Tart with the Cart” on the way.

 
Molly Malone

Grafton Street

At the end of Grafton Street is one of my favorite places to hang out in Dublin – St. Stephen’s Green.  Being only a few minutes walk from Trinity, it was one of our favorite places to hang out when I was at Trinity for a summer program.

 
The St. Stephen’s Green shopping center is much nicer on the outside than on the inside.  I’ve always liked the building.

We went in to go to the bathroom (for which you’re supposed to have to pay) and I thought it was funny to find that TJMaxx is renamed TKMaxx in Europe.

But back to the park itself.

The main entrance to the park.

We strolled around hoping to find a cache or two.

 
Some other guy was taking similar pictures and I think we were annoying him by getting in the way of his pictures but we got a few nice ones of our own.

After the Green, you could say that we went on a “scavenger hunt” or really a wander around Temple Bar looking for a long series of clues to find a cache.  It was a somewhat lengthy trek but it was fun and for some reason there are no pictures.  We eventually stopped wandering and got Indian for dinner.

We went by the Ha’penny Bridge on our way home. 

 

There seems to be a bit of love padlock action starting on the bridge similar to what you would find in Cologne, Germany on the Hohenzollern Bridge.
  

There was an art installation on the Liffey as well.  Supposedly it was called “Liffey Town” but they sure looked like Monopoly houses to us.

View Ireland - Day 7 in a larger map

Day 1: Arrival, Adare, Tralee
Day 2: Dingle Peninsula Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Day 3: Kilarney, Muckross House
Day 4: Rock of Cashel
Day 5: Tipperary and Waterford
Day 6: Wexford and Vale of Avoca

apt…

I’ve decided to take up swimming again in my 3rd trimester in hopes of alleviating some back pain and that whole “even pregnant women should get some exercise” thing.  I’ve been twice and it’s pretty nice.  My belly feels a bit like a pendulum swaying through the water as I do my freestyle but it’s nice to be weightless.

One of the little things they do at the pool is put up a funny on the whiteboard that tells you what the water temp and ph levels are for the pool.  It’s usually a quotation or short joke.

I thought today’s was rather apt for the coming future:

Parents spend the first part of their children’s lives teaching them to walk and talk, and the rest of their lives telling them to sit down and shut up.

69 down 76 to go…

These suckers have been the bane of my existence since right before Thanksgiving when they were prescribed to me:

And technically, I’m not even taking these ones anymore.  I’m now on a dose that’s half again higher.

Without going into all the details, they are shots that contain blood thinners that I have been instructed by several knowledgeable doctors to take.  I have to take them in some form until I give birth (I’ll change to different meds at 36 weeks).  And I may have to do this every time I decide to be pregnant – that is yet to be determined.

I’m not afraid of needles but that doesn’t mean that I like them.  I still get the joy of sticking myself with one of these suckers every night between 8 and 10 pm (I’m supposed to do it at 8 because that’s what I decided on but sometimes i forget and it’s closer to 10 or 11 when I remember).  It’s a tiny half inch needle that I have to stick in my “love handles” as the instructional video said.

Everyday. 

For approximately 145 days.

It’s not terribly pleasant. 

It burns.  Even more at the higher dosage.

It leaves little tiny bruises on my belly.

It’s my first lesson in sacrificing my own comfort and dealing with my own fears for my children.

a few more things on our plate…

Well, a few weeks ago Will was officially informed that he was selected for the position in Denver.

Yep. We’re moving to Denver.

 

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, right?

Of course, Will had been telling them that we’d like to go in February so that was what they were expecting to hear after giving him the selection notice.

Weeelllll…. See…We’d been holding back the information that we wouldn’t be able to leave the DC area until after the baby is born (the doctors want me to deliver a little early so our window of time got narrowed as much as I would have liked to be out there settling in without a newborn) because we were afraid that it would delay the decision even more than it already had been. So now we’re looking at a start date for Will of mid-July.

We’re excited – I mean, it is almost exactly what we were hoping for.

But, holy crap, we have so many more things to worry about now!

I made a list last week – it’s 4 pages long. It was nice to get all the questions and thoughts that were buzzing around my head, out of my head. I finally felt like I could breathe again. But I’ll spare everyone, except Will of course, my list. Suffice to say there are a lot of details to be worked out in life right now.

I keep laying out tentative plans on the calendar so that we can make mental deadlines and prioritize the topics that need to be addressed.

But then I think of that Woody Allen quote –

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

Or another favorite of mine –

The best laid plans of mice and men…

I can’t help but wonder what is going to happen that is going to throw a wrench in even the barest of plans that we have made. 

Yes, I’m bordering on fatalistic on the topic of whether this will all go smoothly and according to any sort of plan.  It’s how I roll.

Photo credits from around the web.  Thanks to Google image search.  They are linked to their original websites.

nearly 7 months…

I'm discovering that there are a few distinct disadvantages of being pregnant in winter.  I've been really happy to know that I won't have to worry about being hugely pregnant in the dead heat of summer but a winter pregnancy is turning out to have its own problems.

Namely – I don’t look pregnant when I have my coat on.

I know that I specifically went looking for a non-maternity coat that I would be able to wear while pregnant without having to be that girl who can’t button her coat over her belly. For some reason the idea of just not buttoning my coat bothered me but I didn’t really want to buy a maternity coat either because that seemed like a waste of money.

My mom and I found the perfect coat in Lord & Taylor – dark loden green, empire waisted, only 3 buttons, stand-up collar and nice deep pockets.

 

Only problem was that the coat was popular and ran a bit small. I couldn’t find the right size in L&T in two states! But I did manage to find it in Macy’s in Tyson’s in a nice light grey. I like grey. I actually had to hold myself back from buying a mid-length grey coat last winter since I convinced myself that I had plenty of coats. So I was sold.

But I don’t look pregnant with it on. My plan worked too well.

There inherent problems with not looking pregnant while commuting on public transportation.

Here are a few things that I would like to tell people:

• “No, I am not going to run for that train. There will be another in under 10 min. No need to run the pregnant lady over.” This doesn’t apply to the bus since those only come every half hour but I DON’T like doing it.
• “No, I am not going to walk any faster than this. Any faster and I get out of breath and a cramp in my side.”
• “Yes, I am going to very carefully pick my path through the snow and ice. I prefer to protect myself and my baby by not landing on the ground.”
• “Yes, I want your seat when you get up and no, I’m not likely to look up again once I have it to see if anyone else is more deserving.” I still try to avoid sitting in the handicapped/old people seats though.

I had a friend ask recently if I was dreading my commute yet. Not quite yet but I can see where I may over the next few months. See, transitioning from sitting to standing pretty much always makes me feel like I have to pee. Unfortunately, I have to walk to the bus, sit on the bus, walk to the metro, sit on a yellow train, transfer to a green train, and then walk a half mile to my office to get to work. That’s – what four transitions from sitting to standing? I can handle it all the way to my office for now but I’m foreseeing a day when I have to stop at the Sbux by the DoT after I get off the train before heading to my office.

cute stuff

Ok there are a few things that make me wish that we knew what we were having… little baby clothes types of things…

Splendid for Target – I’d never heard of Splendid before but, man, is this collection getting buzz in all the blogs I read. Both baby and design blogs.  Very cute stuff.  But it’s one of their limited designer collections so it won’t last long.

I saw this in the Gap a few weeks ago. It’s part of their Valentine’s Day collection so there’s no chance that it’ll still be around in April if we have a girl.

 
Come on it’s heart-shaped strawberries. You can’t get any cuter for a future ZTA legacy.

Old Navy has the cutest clothes but there’s NOTHING that’s gender neutral.

Cute stuff for girls:

Cute stuff for boys:

  

Technically filed under boys but could be construed as gender neutral, I guess…

 

Even my one of my favorites – Boden – doesn’t really have anything that’s gender neutral. But that doesn’t keep me from wanting every last tiny little outfit.

Girl stuff:

Yeah, apparently you can take the sorority girl out of college but you can’t sever the love of all things strawberry that it inspired. 

Boy stuff:

I did manage to get this cutie jacket on clearance though –

It’s a 12-18m so hopefully it’ll fit when it should.  I’m pretty sure I got the last red one because right after I bought it, I couldn’t find it on their website for anything.  I was only able to get the picture because they must have found a couple more grey ones to sell but the stock picture is the red.  And I consider red to be neutral ;)

25th anniversary of the challenger disaster

There’s been a lot of talk today about it being the 25^th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. 

It’s gotten me thinking about those “where were you?” moments that we all have in life.  Our parents’ generation has the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations and when we landed on the moon.  Our grandparents have the attack on Pearl Harbor, D-Day and victories in WWII. 

Here’s what ours are so far.

Where was I when the Challenger blew up?  28 January 1986

I was in afternoon kindergarten at the time so I was sitting on the horrific blue plaid carpet of our family room in Texas watching the launch all by myself on TV.  Other than that I don’t remember anything.  And maybe I’m remembering it wrong – I was only 5.

Where was I when I found out that Princess Diana had died?  31 August 1997

I was a senior in high school hanging out at my friend Stephanie’s house.  We had just finished watching The Princess Bride on video.  It was actually the first time I’d seen the whole thing even though it was such an iconic movie for most people my age and several of her friends had been quoting the whole movie the entire time.  Upon turning the video off, the news of her car crash and subsequent death was running as a “breaking news alert” on the TV.  We didn’t quite believe it so we tuned to CNN for confirmation and they were running nothing but the story.

And the one no one will ever forget. 

Where was I when I heard about the 9/11 terrorist attacks?  11 September 2001

I was a senior in college on 9/11.  I happened to not have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays that semester so I was in bed asleep when it all started.  I can’t remember if I’d set my alarm or if I just woke up around 9 on my own.  I remember my housemate Gina was in her room drying her hair but she had the TV up really loud too which seemed weird.  Because of the hair dryer, I couldn’t make out what they were talking about on the TV but I got the overwhelming impression that they were concerned about something.  We didn’t have a TV in our room so I went downstairs to get breakfast and watch the TV in the living room.  All I had to do was turn the TV on to realize that something was very wrong.  It took a bit to understand though because I turned the TV on very shortly after the plane struck the Pentagon.  That’s all I knew.  I was stunned.  I was even more stunned when they cut back to New York as the second plane hit.  I still didn’t know that there had been a first plane.  Once I had a basic understanding of what was going on – I called my mom.  She doesn’t watch TV during the day normally.  My brother and sister had already gotten her so she was watching.  Unfortunately, she’d had to put the family dog down a few days prior and my dad was in Houston for a conference so she was home alone.  And we have family that live and work in NYC.  There’s more to the day but that’s my story of how I heard about 9/11.