Back & jet lagged

Bye, bye granny!
We are safely home from our time in Ireland. My kids are such troopers, we had a smooth 20 hour journey via Chicago (oh I wish they would create a straight flight Houston to Dublin). The kids colored, slept, played games and watched movies on the flight. As we got home very late Thursday night I thought that they would sleep in on Friday, but alas, no. They got up at 6am the last two mornings! So by the afternoon I feel like I have done a whole day.

We are back to normal other than time: 2 of my kid's friends are sleeping over, we went to Chick Fil A for lunch, Matthew and Mark went to Karate and the girls have been crafting.



I am currently making my kid's school schedule and making time to read my final author review for the book. I sent my initial edits to Liz while I was in Ireland and then the book went to the copy editor. Once I do this final read through and send in the next wave of edits then the book will go to the designer, Marissa Bowers.

I didn't have a fast internet connection while away and loading photos took 10 minutes a piece so I have a backlog of photos, here are some more images from our trip:














And baby continues to grow!
Excuse me while I break my blogging schedule, I will be back to normal soon enough!

the end of summer holidays

for an hour I found my place
underneath the citrus canopy
holding just-in-case jackets and apples

for an hour I knew the summer
of northern climes, lush rains, peaty dirt
paths for imagination and delight

for an hour I followed feet in pink shoes
to fairy forts, flowers and feathered finds

for an hour I invited the faint fog
of memory to play, only to loose it again
in the chatter of my bright today

A little more

We are on our last week here in Ireland. We have packed a years worth of family outings into a month. Soon enough we will be back to the hot and humid of Houston, depending on A/C and waiting for the rare blessing of a cold front to give some relief. In the mean time we will enjoy the 13 - 16 C temps, short, light rain showers and easy access to scenic and historical places to walk.

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I have my computer back! What a relief, the motherboard had to be replaced but the memory was untouched! So I didn't loose any of my photos! Yeah! Being without my computer showed me how dependent I am on it for so much of what I do for myself. All my photo storage and processing, connecting with friends, art research, poetry reading and writing happens right here on my computer. I am OK with that to a certain extent, but it took a little getting use to the idea of my computer being gone this last week. It is never easy to be shown a dependency, it feels a little like a weakness even though logically I know it is not. I love what the computer and the internet has given us by way of connection with others, creativity and productivity. While I plan to continue to limit my mindless, unproductive use of technology, I intend to go on celebrating what is good about it.

Here's to the guy at TypeTech who solved my Apple woes :)

Photo + collage

Recently, I did a series of art pieces where I combined a photo with a collage. I discovered this little birdie on my journey and once found he seemed to fly into each piece. It was fun seeing where he would show up!
The photo was taken in Glencree, Ireland last year. We visited the same place again this year and it is equally as lush and green and magical.

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Computer saga:
My mum brought my computer into the shop for my on Friday afternoon as I visited with old school friends (my mother wins the award for being the most wonderful mother, ever). They will call me Monday or Tuesday to tell me the damage. I am down about it, as so much of me is on that computer... no, I had not backed my files up for a few months... I am hoping that they can fix the problem without loosing any of my photos and documents. Note to everyone: go out and get an external hardrive, even the best computer can crash :(

Computer issues

My computer has crashed, I don't know the cause or the exact reason, but according to the Apple specialist my computer is in 'Kernel Panic' with video distortion. Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? I have been advised to bring it to a local MAC dr. Tommorrow is the last day of our creative writing class and then I have a playdate with 2 women I went to primary school with (our kids will play, we will be talking of course), so I will not be able to take the computer in until Monday. AHHHH. Hopefully by next week I will have the issue resolved.

In the meantime I can't process any of my current photos, so I am 'borrowing' photos from my personal photo blog that dates back a few years. Fortunately, this rust cross looks pretty much the same as it did in '07 when I took this photo. Typing on my Mother's PC & using photos from the past is pretty much all I can do until my laptop is fixed. ~sigh~

Creative writing class

Mark and I are taking a creative writing class here in Ireland. We have been to 2 of 5 classes so far and are enjoying it immensely. The instructor is a playwright, poet and university lecturer, Kevin Wallace. He has given us a decent insight into the life of a writer and some fun writing exercises to get us writing. Both Mark and I have written tons in the 7 hours of class time, it is interesting to see how differently our styles and ideas are expressed and to hear the work our classmates create (as you can imagine there are a few interesting characters in this creative writing class ;). The focus yesterday was on prose, today it was poetry. I may post some of the exercises later in the week when I have had time to digest everything a little more.

I have been reading this excellent book called 'Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting' by Robert Mckee and many of the points that are made in this book Kevin has made in his class. It is very affirming. I highly recommend the book for anyone interested, not just in screenwriting, but in writing short stories or even novels. The principles of writing outlined seem to transcend all writing genres. I am thinking of ways to extend some of the ideas to poetry writing too.

Family Creativity

We went to Powerscourt House and Gardens in Enniskerry to read the 2nd book of ‘The Cat Family’ series, written by Mark and Matthew. Granny came too, but ended up watching Annie, 3, who wanted to do her own thing and then needed to go to the bathroom, which was really far away.

We bought our tickets in the house and went out into the gardens. There are different parts of the gardens, so moved to a new spot for each chapter. We started on the grand steps in front of the house where Mark read chapter 1. Then for chapter 2 we went to the Pepperpot Tower, followed by the Japanese Garden (Lily’s favorite place) for chapter 3. The last chapter was read at the Dolphin pond. Here is a little taste of the day:

Date with my boy

Matthew is a quality time person so every so often we go on Mom and me dates. Last week we went on one to town, ie. Dublin.



Matthew learned to juggle from an entertainer we met at Family Night at Chick Fil A in The Woodlands. He taught him the basics and recognized Matthew had good eye hand coordination and encouraged him to work at it. So we bought some ‘how to’ juggle DVD’s from an online juggling store. 7 months later and he still loves to juggle.

So on our date we went to a juggling store in Temple Bar. The shop owner was super friendly to Matthew and gave him some great advice. After the store we had dinner at Eddie Rockets (in the US it is called Johnnie Rockets, but looks the same!), spent a little time at Hodges Figgis bookshop and then off to the park where the Trinity College juggling group meets (who knew so many university kids were into juggling?). Matthew juggled there for about 2 hours, joining in with different groups, asking advice from the better jugglers and wowing the mainly older crowd with his skill. We stayed until the crowd grew to over 70 and Matthew realized he was the only kid!

Words from dirt

Last year when we were here we got to hear Seamus Heaney read his poetry. He packed a huge tent, we were sitting on bales of hay, it was raining outside and everyone was damp, but the performance was so mesmerizing that it didn't matter. One of my favorite poems of his is this one about the Irish bog land. I love the dark earthy-ness of this and how the woman is now part of the land. So very Irish. Enjoy!

Bog Queen
By Seamus Heaney

I lay waiting
Between turf-face and demesne wall,
Between Heathery levels
And glass-toothed stone.

My body was Braille
For the creeping influences:
Dawn suns groped over my head
And cooled at my feet,

Through my fabrics and skins
The seeps of winter
Digested me,
The illiterate roots

Pondered and died
In the cavings
Of stomack and socket.
I lay waiting

On the gravel bottom,
My brain darkening,
A jar of spawn
Fermenting underground

Dreams of Baltic amber.
Bruised berries under my nails,
The vital hoard reducing
In the crock of the pelvis.

My diadem grew carious,
Gemstones dropped
In the peat floe
Like the bearings of history.

My sash was a black glacier
Wrinkling, dyed weaves
And phoenician stichwork
Retted on my brests'

Soft moraines.
I knew winter cold
Like the nuzzle of fjords
At my thighs -

The soaked fledge, the heavy
Swaddle of hides.
my skull hibernated
in the wet nest of my hair.

Which they robbed.
I was barbered
And stripped
By a turfcutter's spade

Who veiled me again
And packed coomb softly
Between the stone jambs
At my head and my feet.

Till a peer's wife bribed him.
The plait of my hair,
A slimy birth-cord
Of bog had been cut

And I rose from the dark,
Hacked bone, skull-ware,
Frayed stitches, tufts,
Small gleams on the bank.

Working & playing

This week in my spare time I have been working on my book's author review, making changes, sending them to Liz at North Light, viewing the pdf's she sent back with the changes (she works quickly!), offering even more changes... it is amazing that she can follow my notes and make it all work! The book is taking great shape. I even got a peek at the cover that Marissa Bowers has designed, very exciting stuff. Marissa is a wonderful designer. I look forward to see what she does with the interior of the book too. But before she gets to work on it the text must go to the copy editor for proofing.

In the meantime, I have not made anything artsy.... just memories of picnics and castles, we are in Ireland after all :)





Malahide Castle

Fairytales

Mount Usher Gardens




Oh my.... we found these houses at a kids park in Lullymore. What an inspiring find. I totally want to build fariyhouses like these when I get home!!!

Some pics from Ireland

Yummy scones

A 99 from Teddy's in Sandycove

Lily finding flowers

Catching up on sleep at odd times in the day

A talent show in granny's back garden

laundry drying on the line

We have packed in so many things in our few days here so far: eating scones at Avoca Handweavers, Teddy’s ice cream in Sandycove, skipping stones into the Dublin Bay, some walking, going to the park, watching a ‘talent show’ in granny’s back garden, visits to 2 bookstores, watching a little Wimbledon on the TV, enjoying lots of flowers, jet lag induced sleeping all the while living a normal life here – going to the store for food, doing laundry…

that only brings us up to Friday....

First day of our holiday in Ireland

Prologue

The flight to Ireland went really well. We flew American Airlines to Chicago, took the train from terminal 3 to 5, and checked in with two hours to spare. I was all prepared with puzzles, a DVD player, coloring books, books and toy bags for the little girls. We ate and did some coloring and reading before getting on Aer Lingus flight to Dublin at 7pm. The kids, being seasoned travelers did really well. The flight was 7 hours, which was broken up into dinner, 2 movies and then sleeping time. Matthew and I were the only ones who didn’t sleep, Matthew played some games on the inflight entertainment screen and I listened to my iPod until it ran out of juice. Everyone else got 2-3 hours sleep.

Everything was very smooth until we got to passport control in Dublin. There were 3 workers for about 2000 people who arrived on the 3-4 international flights that landed at the same time. It took an hour to get through passport control. It was 3am our time but the kids were still happy, buoyed by the idea of seeing granny, who I am sure was wondering where we were!

It was lovely to finally get through passport control, get our bags and see granny. We picked up our hire car and made it home by 11am Irish time, 5am central US time.



Chapter one

The first thing that always strikes me when I get to Mum’s house is the color! Everything is so lush, green and the flowers bright. My Mum has a lovely back garden. Lily loves flowers so much I am afraid she will want to live in Ireland one day just to have a pretty garden! Somewhere in the day we all slept a bit and ate, it seems a bit of a blur now.



Chapter two

The next day (Thursday…today?!?) we waded deep into jet lag territory. The kids were wide awake at 3:30 am Dublin time, granny needed to sleep so we went down to Wicklow for a walk. We hiked up Rocky Valley. The sun was coming up – days are short here in summer, the sun goes down at 11pm and comes back up at 4am. It was lovely to be up to see the dawn move in so slowly.

For the rest of the day we all slept at various times, the little girls almost until dinner. I think it will take a while to adjust to the time difference. Mark worked (his work day starts at 2pm here), Matthew and I went to a book store, their cousin came over to play, we went to Dun Laoghaire for ice cream, when the big kids went asleep we took the little ones to the beach (at 10pm – hopefully they will sleep all night tonight). All in all we are blessed to be here and enjoying the lovely cool Irish summer.

I will be posting photos of our trip here, so check back in for more.