It's a boy!

His name is Oscar:

HAPPY MARDI GRAS!! (and Pancake Tuesday)

Happy Mardi Gras!!! And Happy Pancake Tuesday to all of my Irish friends. For Mardi Gras, I had a little neighborhood party, which means that I was absolutely required to make a king cake, as Mardi Gras just isn't the same without it. My wonderful mom sent along 2 boxes of mix (in case I completely screwed up the first one) and lots of decorations and beads.

In the case that you are ever living outside of the US and would like to make a king cake, here's how it goes:

1. Ask nicely for someone to send you something like this:

2. Combine cake mix and yeast (first error was me not knowing what yeast looks like and dropping the frosting powder in there - had to scoop out carefully):

3. Combine butter and knead til it disappears. Then add hot water and an egg and knead for 15 MINUTES! (Owwwwwwww)

4. After letting it rise til it doubles in size, roll it out:

5. Then mix the praline filling...mmmmmm:

6. Mmmmmmm......

7. Wrap up and let rise for 30 minutes in a warm oven:

8. Bake for 20 minutes:

9. Ice and sprinkle:



10. Add baby and serve! Important to have it surrounded by loads of alcohol (hurricanes included), pralines, jambalaya, and red beans 'n rice.

HAPPY MARDI GRAS!!

Winter freaking wonderland

Yesterday it was chilly, but sunny and completely free of ice and snow other than first thing in the morning. When I left the gym, the only ice left was under the cars and in the shadows.


Made plans today to head to a few places - go shopping with a friend. I wake up this morning and look out of the window and it's not raining - perfect. But wait, is that snow on the trees??










What the hell happened??? Unbelievable. I watched two cars try to drive up the hill - not happening. The field across the street now has big green circles everywhere, which are snowman making tracks. I saw a kid make a snow angel in the street. Winter wonderland indeed.

Look out Chicago!

It's snowing in Dublin! At the time of this post, the snow has basically gone even though there were a few flurries this morning as I waited on the train. However on Monday, there was snow EVERYWHERE!! I knew that it was snowing in England as I watched if fall during the Liverpool match on Sunday but I still didn't believe that it would head this way. Lucky us! Well, lucky until it started to hinder transportation...

We woke up to find snowflakes:

Covering the driveway:

Look at the poor car!

Yep - it's officially snowing.

My train station from my current client...it snowed all day (as you can tell, I go to work in the dark and leave in the dark - it is getting lighter a little earlier and dark a little later but it's still only light from about 8:30 - 5:00).

In Leixlip it was MUCH snowier than in town. My walk from the train station:


First official snowman - haha!

Drive into the estate from the train station:

And the fun begins...

Much better aim than I thought:

It's thick!

It was so freaking cold that making a snowman was aborted, but there were lots of snowball fights on the field (or pitch as they call it here) - including a few neighbors. That night the transportation issues started. The following 2 days, the snow started to melt and turned the roads into ice. We live at the bottom of a hill, so cars had to be parked at the top as on Monday we were sliding down it to the point where the cars at the bottom of the hill backed up just in case.

A co-worker said that it may start to snow again, so here we go!

This is where I've been working

Oh, hells yeah.

Wha??

So, just picking up a little ground beef - or "mince" as they call it here. Ah, there it is. Wait, what's that on the bottom right corner of the package??



Oh yes, that's right. Let me just blow that up for you:



Um, NO FANKS! Don't need to know what furry cow this came from!

Car inspection

Here in Ireland, you only have to get your car inspected once every two years. Now this may lead you to believe that this process is much easier than in the US, but noooooo. What you have to do to prepare for the car and then what the poor wittle car has to go through during the inspection is much more intense than in the US (you know, drive to the gas station, turn your blinkers on, check the lights, pay $10 and VOILA! They give you your new sticker).

Before going to the NCT here in Ireland, you have to make sure that the entire car and trunk are cleaned out. You also have to make sure that the undercarraige is clean. We don't do a whole lotta muddin' in the Volvo, so we were alright with that. You have to make an appointment and fortunately they're open until 10:00 so we were able to go at 8:30 one night.

They take your car and roll it into a big warehouse:

You pay ahead of time and then you can go up to the "observation deck" to watch where all of the magic happens. They hook it up to a few machines and check God knows what:

And then they get in the car and drive over a this thing in the ground that holds the wheels so that the inspection guy can "drive" the car at a higher speed and then rolls over something else in the ground that lifts the wheels to check the shocks.

There's our little car going through the stress test:

Theeeeennn... they drive it to the next stop and lift it up as they would if you brought your car to the mechanic so that they can see what the story is underneath.

At the end they call your name on the loudspeaker and you go down and some Polish guy gives you your keys and says "Eet's pearfect." If they don't say "Eet's pearfect," then you have to go get the whatever is broken fixed and bring it back to have all of that done again. Fortunately we passed!