My Joy

FTLOB is co-hosting a Joyful Moments blog hop with Joyful Jones.  I thought it would be good to participate especially since I usually focus on the negative and the un-joyful (is that a word?).  So my joyful moment is reminiscing about vacation or planning my next one!  Since I don't have another planned right now, I'll have to settle for reminsicing today with some photos of previous vacays!  I could only post the ones I had access to from my online Kodak Gallery since my computer crashed a few months back and all I have left are print versions of my other fav vacations.  Enjoy!

Me and my hubby whale watching in Alaska on our honeymoon!  We did pretty good that day...a pod of killer whale and humpback whale as well as a few bald eagles.

I heart Vegas. Period.

Me anxiously waiting on the midnight dessert buffet to begin on our honeymoon!  My mouth is watering.  How could it not be?  They had a mountain on a table made out of profiteroles!  A MOUNTAIN!

And here is a somewhat blurry pic of the aformentioned mountain of profiteroles.

This is a view from the condo we rented when we went to Key West for my 27th birthday.  Wish I could wake up with a view like that everyday!

Inside of the Key West lighthouse.  This is one of my favorite vacation pics.

Happy Friday and Happy Weekend to everyone!

Facebook! Yay!

FTLOB encouraged me with their Facebook link up to develop a Facebook page for Ireland Ever After so I did and it is here.  P.S. click on the word 'here.' So, go there, like me and I'll do my best to get and keep it updated :P! Content is pretty scarce right now, but I'm working on it! Bye for now!

Soap Box Wednesday: Drive Thru Dilemma

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Here we are again, week two of Soap Box Wednesdays and I have to say, I'm quite excited by this little venture.  Finally, somewhere to vent my frustrations and hopefully maybe yours, too! 

So this week, I'm getting up on my soap box about the fast food drive thru window.  I've never had luck ordering food from drive thrus.  Nine out of ten times, my order is wrong and I've learned to accept that, until this week.  Yes, the past few weeks has been a trying time for me as far as drive thru windows are concerned.  Every time, my order has been wrong! In particular with one well-known burger chain. 

After four times (one after the other I might add) of going through this particular restaurant's drive-thru window and after four times of getting my order wrong, I've had it up to here (I have my hand held at my neck, by the way.  Just so you  have a visual).  When I order a sour cream and chives baked potato, I expect just that (I also expect a fork, which I usually don't get, but hey).  Not a plain baked potato with no sour cream.  And, when I pay for a sour cream and chives baked potato, I expect to get what I pay for because the sour cream and chives potato is about 40 cents more than a plain baked potato.  Somehow they manage to ring it up and charge me for what I actually ordered but the food item I'm given is not what I ordered.  I realize 40 cents is not a lot, but times are tough and those 40 cents could potentially be the 40 cents I have in my wallet when I'm at a parking meter and my time is running out and the meter maid is coming by to pass out tickets.  So, those 40 cents could be the difference between getting a parking ticket and not getting a parking ticket.  Just sayin'.

I can't help but wonder, maybe they need help understanding their own menu?  In that case, I can help!  Let me just take a minute here and explain to this restaurant about their menu items.  A sour cream and chives baked potato has chives on it and it comes with butter and sour cream on the side.  Oh, and it costs $1.49.  A plain baked potato has no chives on it and it does not necessarily come with sour cream.  As the name of it suggests, a sour cream and chives potato has chives on it and comes with sour cream.  And, it is really helpful if you provide your hungry patrons with forks.  Forks are what we eat your yummy potatoes with. 

Phew!  Okay, I think I'm done.  I'll step off my soap box now.  If you'd like to share your drive thru dilemmas with me, I'd love to hear them!  Bitch it out by posting a comment! Cheers!

A little whine over some wine

(Channeling the Golden Girl Sophia Petrillo here.) Picture it...June 1995. A teenage girl takes her first trip away from her home and her parents.  But, it's not just a trip to a neighboring city, it's a trip across the Atlantic Ocean...all the way to Europe.  Yes, as you may have figured out by now, this girl was me. 

It was during summer break 1995, that I, along with about 15 others from my high school, Hurricane High, took a school trip to Europe. Specifically to France, Switzerland and Italy.  Now, I was only 14 years old at the time so unfortunately, much of my memory of the trip has faded and I can only remember flashes here and there.  But something that I do remember as if it were just yesterday is the trip we made to a vineyard in Bourne, France.  I have no idea what the name of the vineyard was, but I remember going through the shop at the vineyard and picking out the perfect bottle of red wine.  I couldn't believe my naive little ears when I learned that I, fourteen year old little me, was allowed to purchase wine.  That certainly would not have happened at home, but in France, it was all good.  And, that excited me.  Not only did it excite me, but all of my other traveling companions as well. 

I picked out the perfect wine and took it up to the counter. I flashed a braces encrusted smile at the nice French man who checked me out, all the time hoping he wouldn't realize how young I was and how taboo this very act would be in my own country.  But, he didn't and I carried my wine, bottled in Bourne, France in 1985, back to the tour bus and then back to our hotel.

When it was time to end our European vacation, I bundled my prized bottle of 1985 red into my dirty laundry bag and covered it with clothes.  Mostly because I didn't want it to break on the trip back, but also because I was terrified of what would happen if Customs found it in the possession of a fourteen year old girl.  Luckily, the wine was never found and I carried it home where I proudly showed it to my family before deciding that I would save this wine for a special occasion.  Perhaps, my wedding.  So, there my wine sat for years and years, waiting for the special occasion. 

Finally, the special occasion was upon us...my wedding in September 2010. However, with the chaos of the pre-wedding, wedding and post-wedding festivities I completely forgot about my special occasion wine, purchased more than fifteen years ago.  It wasn't until just recently that I remembered it, after my wedding passed and when I began packing up my apartment in preparation to move to Ireland to be with my husband.  Of course I realized that I couldn't take it with me to Ireland, so I needed to drink it now.  So, I took it to my mother's house on Christmas Eve where my mom, my brother and I decided to crack it open, finally.  I mean, why wait for a special occasion.  Every day we get should be considered a special occasion, right? 

So, we all gathered around the dusty bottle and opened it up.  Our mouths were watering at what we figured was a perfectly aged red wine. 

So, I was given the first glass and as I brought the glass to my lips, I imagined this would be the best tasting wine I'd ever had and the wine finally hit my tongue.  And, this is where the exciting story ends.  IT WAS AWFUL!  Terrible!  Enough to make a person puke!  We didn't get a picture of the sour wine face I made at the taste of it, but if we did, it is safe to say it would have looked something like this:

I don't think it was a bad wine.  In fact, it probably would have tasted fine if it had been bottled correctly, but we don't think it was.  The cork, as we were taking it out of the bottle, basically disintegrated into a million little pieces, so that wasn't a good sign to start with.  So anyway, the years of anticipation over this wine ended with that awful face you see above and I couldn't help but be disappointed in how much I had looked forward to the special occasion wine only to discover it was no good. 

I guess the moral of the story is to not save things for a special occasion and treat every day as that special occasion, because if you wait, you may end up with a face like that one up there...and who wants that?  Luckily, my sour wine face went away and it has molded itself back to my normal face.  Thank goodness!

A picture says a thousand words

Barry just emailed me this photograph today and I love it! 

Across the street from Barry's shop, sits a framing shop.  Inside this framing shop sits a talented framer, who must have been bored today because he decided to draw the inside of Barry's shop.  The detail amused me, especially the laptop in the bottom right hand corner.  If you'll notice, the text says: "Oh hubby how are you?"  That is supposed to be me since Barry spends a lot of his day chatting to me on IM and this is how we've communicated since the get go.   Gotta love his attention to detail!

Relocation practice run

Almost as if they knew which belonged to them, Charlie and Fox snuggled up in their respective airline carriers as soon as they were assembled and ready.  I know what you are thinking...Charlie's carrier is so much bigger than Fox's!  Yes, you're right.  It is MUCH bigger.  In fact, I think a beagle could ride in Charlie's.  You may be wondering why Charlie's is so much bigger, and...well...Charlie, is, er, um, a little on the "fluffy" side.  Okay, okay, maybe not "fluffy" in the traditional sense of the word, but perhaps a little overweight would be a better explanation?  Well, anyway, that's why.  I feel it is a little unfair...Charlie gets to ride in an air condo while Fox gets a Tuna can.  What a difference a few pounds makes when it comes to international pet relocation rules. I guess since Charlie is the oldest, it makes it a little more fair? Ah, well.  Anyway, I hope they are this comfortable when they make their journey to the Emerald Isle.

Soap Box Wednesdays

For today's post, I've decided to create a very special type of post.  I'm starting a Soap Box Wednesday posting every week, of course, and today is the very first one!  I've decided to do this because it is starting to get a bit ridiculous out there in the world.  Why is it people never do what they are supposed to do?  I just can't understand this.  If I say I'm going to do something, I always do it!  Even if its something as small as returning an email or phone call, I still do it.  Am I the only one now that does this? 

There are many things I could randomly rant about...injustices I have suffered by incompetent people and companies however, we have to thank a particular shipping company for the creation of Soap Box Wednesdays.  Now, I won't name names here, but I assure you, it is a VERY WELL KNOWN shipping company. So now, let me get up on my soap box:

You see, as you may have read in my previous posts, I have been working on my immigration papers so that I may join my husband, whom I've not seen since our honeymoon by the way, in Ireland.  I painstakingly put together a binder, with 100 pages of supporting documentation to go along with my immigration application, or more specifically, my EEA Family Permit application.  I filled out the online application, went to my biometrics appointment and then shipped my 100 page binder to the British Consulate in New York.  I paid to have this overnighted since it contained such sensitive information and documents like my passport, birth certificate, etc. 

Well, as you may have predicted by now, even though I paid for overnight shipping, it was not overnighted.  In fact, it sat in the shipping company's air terminal for a good 36 hours before it was shipped to New York.  There was no reason but incompetence and I could not be given a straight answer as to why this happened.  The weather was perfect, so it couldn't have been a weather delay. 

So,why?  Because no one did what they were supposed to do!  Yes, my package did finally arrive in New York 36 hours after it was supposed to.  But, I'm still out the cash I spent for overnight shipping and I'm just plain miffed about it.  What's the point of spending money on a service, when that service will not be provided?  I mean, would you go to a hair salon and pay $50 for a shampoo and a blowout and just leave not having the blowout or the shampoo without demanding your money back or at least a partial refund?  Of course not!  You should get the service you prepay for! So, why would any other service be different?

 I guess the good news is that it has arrived and now I'm just awaiting the decision on my permit, but I do have to say, the path to this permit has not been an easy one.  Oh well, the things we do for love, eh?