My Year of Meaningful (2011)

Ups and downs all over the place. But I have to go out on site and have a look at a quarry in Kildare so this has gotta be fast. I just don't want to lose some of my very few final rituals in Ireland before absolutely necessary. And that includes talking to the Bloggy!

1. See the great move update re: puppy troubles

2. General feeling of unsettledness.

3. First in sequence of many "goodbye events" happened this wknd: Our last night out with Kalvy, Vincey, and Sam. :( The Mr. wasn't quite ready for that. Of course I'll see V&K a few more days at work, but K leaves on the 2nd for a month, meaning Sam won't come down from Dublin anymore til he gets back (and we'll be gone). Then V. is off on the 7th (also for a month). We went and had our last dinner at Aroma, followed by Cafe de la Paix and 2 lovely bottles of Muriel Rioja (& bubbly). A fun night, yet bittersweet.

poo.

4. My mother is a passive/agressive nut job. It's amazing how she can turn someone else's tragedy into something ABOUT HER. And the P/A emails just top it all off with a big damn cherry. UGH.

5. The Father Inlaw fell off a roof on the farm and damn near killed himself this wknd. He's in intensive care to date, with several broken ribs (one sliced through a lung and will likely have to have that removed), a cracked skull, brain hemmorage, and broken groin/pelvis/whatever it is. But he's alive and stable.

6. The phabulous physio and the divine yoga teacher held The Great Minds' Summit of Jill- '06 on friday, and decided I can't go back to yoga yet, due to this DAMN knee.

7. (refer to no. 6) I'm losing muscle and gaining weight by the second!

8. PACKING HAS BEGUN

1. Leading on from PACKING HAS BEGUN, I would just like to confirm that: SPACE BAG REALLY WORKS!!!! Seriously!!! As much as infomercials are the bane of my existence (well, they were when I lived in the USA), this space bag thing is really amazing!!! (could I audition for one of those commercials?!)

We went from *Jumbo Size* THIS:

To THIS:

There are bloody winter coats, at least 50 t-shirts, a queen-size bed matress cover, pillows, jeans, workpants, a whole winter wardrobe of dress clothes and such, AND SO MUCH MORE in there!!! Just look at the thickness in relationship to the foot of the bed!

2. My new passport arrived safely in the mail (whew!) after 3 weeks of being held hostage (in the renewals office) at the embassy in Dublin. The kicker? This one has my married name on it. I'm officially, for the first time on any government document, finally, and proudly wearing the name of the Mr.! No more of that "in electricity bills, mortgage papers, payslips, and car insurance only" crap. Disappointed Feminists away with ye! I get off on sharing a name with someone I actually consider to be my real family-unit. The passport was nearly expired so I had to do it all in Ireland, which was a frightning experience, but the result (and 10 more years of credit til expiration date) makes the 3 weeks of anxiety and worry over the status and safety of my passport hanging out in the Irish Post, worth it. :D

3. On sunday, I got to talk to Sandra for AN HOUR AND A HALF!!!!!!!! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh it's so fun to talk to S&A on the phone!! Even though they couldn't be farther away geographically if they tried, and Aus is always a pain to get the right timing (of day/night) down for phonecalls, it's still like we never left and I could just blather on for 10 hours and still keep going. That is just frigging brilliant. And she's NOT PREGNANT!!! Just hearing her voice made all of the previous list (1-7, at least) completely disappear. Unreal.

4. I thought I had more than this, but I guess SPACE BAG was just so cool that it felt like I had three or four more bonuses to add to the good list. Oh well, I have appx 5 hours in a car today to come up with more. And that I shall. starting with the fact that the weather actually looks dry for the first time in i cant remember how long. GOD is all loaded up with tunes, and the TuneCast has batteries in it. woo hoo!