Faith, Friends, and Food

(From Lauren)

Oh dear, how time flies. It's been more than ten days since our last blog update and I can't believe how fast time has flown by! This whole month has gone so incredibly fast, and that's one of the downsides to having a routine I guess. Finally being busy again has made us reminisce a little for the first few weeks we were here, when we could wake up and say "so... what do you want to do today? Stay in and watch movies/play video games? Is it a job hunting day? Is it a museum day?" Of course we are incredibly glad to be where we are. We feel much less like tourists and much more like we really live in Dublin every day. And we have made some amazing relationships that just keep getting better with every excursion, every class, every day at work.

There are several things to update you on: school, Aaron's work, and some fun events that have happened to us in the past week. School is going incredibly well for me. The only homework I ever have is to read and that's plenty enough for me. My workload is constant, but enjoyable. Even the books that I don't really like, I will stop and read pieces out loud to Aaron so we can both laugh at the absurdity of it, or shake our heads at the very blatant racism of the Victorian era. Most of the time I read these without giving Aaron any context, which makes it seem even more ridiculous. :) To give you an idea of how much I have to read every week, it's three novels. Two for my core class to discuss--one on Tuesday and one on Thursday--and one for my options class, the Victorian Child, which meets on Thursday morning. Needless to say Wednesday is usually a day spent frantically reading to get everything done for Thursday but so far it's worked out well! The novels I have to read for this week are A String of Pearls, which is the story of Sweeney Todd, and The Pickwick Papers, which is Charles Dickens' first novel. They are 378 and 863 pages, respectively... I know right!

Aaron has really been enjoying his work, and this week, he had the most awesome schedule. He didn't go in before noon, and didn't stay later than 6:30, and didn't have to work more than two or three days in a row AND he had the whole of last weekend off. Which meant we had the same weekend, which made me really happy. He said he liked it so much because he still had good hours at Game, but also had time to write some articles for some extra income. I've been really proud of how hard he is working. It's really weird for me not to be able to contribute financially, since I've spent the last two years (since we were engaged up to now) working to save money for us and now all I do is spend it. But Aaron is determined to provide for us so I can have my time to read and focus on school, and for that I'm incredibly grateful. I have a really awesome husband, but if you know Aaron that's no news to you :)

Ok, on to the events! Last Sunday, Aaron and I went with our married couple friends, codenamed the Bees, to Christ Church Cathedral for their Sunday morning service. We were all excited to attend a big service in one of the older churches in Dublin, and in a cathedral no less! It was awesome. We absolutely loved it. The church is a Church of Ireland, which is very similar to Episcopalian churches in America, so there was a lot of standing up, sitting down, standing again, singing in between scripture readings, and a lot of speaking together. I'm beginning to get used to the prompts and what my response should be, and I really enjoy having the hymns sort of scattered throughout the service, rather than a long line of them at the beginning. The teaching was on the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee who go up to the temple (the Pharisee says I'm sooo glad I'm not like a tax collector, Lord, thanks, and the tax collector who says I'm such a sinner, have mercy on me, and the tax collector walks away justified.) It was an interesting perspective on the story, since I never realized it's told right in between when Christ has a meal with a Pharisee and when he eats with Zacharias, who climbed the tree to see him. I wish I could recreate the whole sermon for you right now, it was really wonderful. Just know that this church was not just a pretty face. We were fed too!

Here are some photos of the cathedral itself!

Tah-dah! The building on the right is the Cathedral, the building on the left was added in the 1870s when the church was restored by a wealthy distiller, and it's called the Senate Hall. The bridge over the street that connects the two was also built at this time. The church's original foundations are about 1,000 years old, put in place by the Vikings that first settled in Dublin. Isn't that crazy?? 1,000 years old! It was begun in the Romanesque style with rounded arches and was finished in the Gothic style with pointy arches.

Here's the organ player's box with his cool spiral staircase. The organ was beautiful, but unfortunately, we went on a Sunday when the choir had a break. Looks like we'll have to go back later to hear them! Speaking of music, another neat fact about the church was that it provided the choir (along with St. Patrick's Cathedral) that first sang the very first performance of Handel's Messiah, in the music hall across the street from the very building we had church in. 

It's sort of a running joke in our family that whenever my Mom was in Italy, she was simply amazed by the mosaic tile floors everywhere she went. "The floors, the floors! Look how pretty the floors are!!" Well, I guess she rubbed off on me, because I couldn't help but look down (and cathedrals are supposed to make you look up right??) and notice the beautiful tiles of the floors. Enjoy these next two photos, Mom. :)

And here we are, standing in front of the church after the service.

 

And here are our friends, the Bees!

We hang out with them a lot. We have started a sort of dinner club where we alternate having each other over for a fancy meal once or twice a week. Whoever cooks hosts at their apartment, and whoever comes over, brings dessert! It's worked out really well :) Their friendship is a definite answer to prayer. Another American married couple, and one of them in the same program as me? A Godsend for sure.

And the second event: last night's Postgraduate Halloween Ball, and here we are as black eyed peas! This was a pretty cheap costume set to pull together. I bought some gold fabric for a good deal at a place in North Dublin and threw together a skirt for me and a bow tie for Aaron. Before I get any undue credit, it's not a real bow tie. It's a rectangle of fabric squished together in the middle. I was hand-sewing the skirt during lecture and everyone loved it. Our costumes were a pretty big hit and only cost 8 euro to make! Aaron wrangled the cardboard for our P's and the face paint from work so it was a joint effort. Don't we look classy?

Speaking of classy, the Ball we dressed up for was excellent. Usually I'm pretty wary of adult Halloween parties because it seems like the holiday has become an excuse for ladies to unbutton their shirts, throw on a themed hat and call it a costume--"I'm a sexy (fill in the blank)" That was not the case with my friends last night, however. The party was an unexpected affirmation of the caliber of people I hang out with, at least they are a group that respects themselves and their bodies. We all had a great time dancing and there's another great thing!--the dancing wasn't all the bumping and grinding I've seen at other dances, it was real dancing! The kind with "moves." It was a great time, spent with a really wonderful group of people. I really wish I had taken more pictures, but once I got there I forgot we even brought our camera. You can see more photos of us in our costumes on facebook that other people have taken.

So that's the update! Up next for us is another Halloween party tomorrow night, hosted by Aaron's boss, and attending a friend's volleyball game (besides a lot of necessary reading of course!) We hope you're all doing well and enjoying fall as much as we are!

And now for something totally manly...

As Lauren so eloquently put it in her last blog post, there's been plenty of crafting and cooking commentary on the blog, so I thought I would take a moment to cater to the male readers. For starters, I'm going to start typing in bold, blue ink. Check this out, I'll even change the font to "Trebuchet," which my more historically knowledgeable readers will recognize as a type of manly catapult.

 

Let us continue our celebration of masculinity with a parade of manly images. Enjoy.

THE GALLERY OF MAN

This image is so manly, I could eat lightnin' and crap thunder.

Painted faces, sharpened sticks, fighting in a decent cause to protect others, kilts, and heroic speeches. Manhood defined in one image. On a side note, look at the guy to Mel's left. Who invited that guy?

One of man's greatest inventions: The V8.

 

These guys put the "awesome" in "MANawesomeLY"

Ingenuity. The hallmark of any manly endeavor.

Let's do some Algebra. Chest hair + Mustache = XY

"Why yes, ma'am, as a matter of fact we DO enjoy detonating explosive cartridges right besides our faces."

The Squint. Enough said.

Well, there you have it. A brief, but very manly, interlude. To finish, please enjoy the wise words of that author of jungle books and sage poems--Rudyard Kipling. Until next time, stand proud, let that chest hair flutter in the breeze and build something dangerously ingenious.

"If" by Rudyard Kipling

 

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; 

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools; 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"; 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

It's the Great Pumpkin (Experiment), Charlie Brown!

When Aaron and I first moved to Dublin, we were both on the lookout for indicators that we weren't in America anymore. After all, we did move to an English speaking country of mostly white people who dress pretty much the way we do. The different accents, the driving on the wrong side of the road, the having to walk everywhere--everything that told us we weren't at home anymore was both a thrilling revelation and somewhat of a setback. Probably the clearest place to see where those setbacks were was at the grocery store. It took us several weeks to find tortilla shells and taco seasoning (since then, taco night is a weekly event). Our first trip through had us worrying that soy sauce was a thing of our past, but we found it! The two things we and our American friends have not been able to find are not necessary items, but seem culinarily* crippling just the same: chocolate chips and pumpkin!

*culinarily is not a word.

Chocolate chip cookies can be purchased, sure, but pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin muffins... how can you have fall without them? As I was bemoaning this loss to a friend of mine, she suggested I make my own pumpkin puree. Make it? That seemed absurd. Who makes it? It always comes in a can. You can't make that stuff. Actually you can, and plenty of people on the internet do every year. So if they could do it, I could too, right? Following the internet's instructions, I purchased a pumpkin with the intent that by the end of the day, by hook or by crook, it would end up as pumpkin bread.

Destined for greatness.

Step one: I cut the pumpkin in half and proceeded to hollow out all the gooky stringy seedy mess from the inside.

Also pictured: orange juice, because I'm finally getting over my cold! Thanks, Vitamin C.

Then I had two hollowed out halves, ready to be baked (or made into googly eyes)

I added one cup of water to my roasting pan, set the pumpkin half into it, and put it in the oven at 350 for one hour. You're supposed to do both of them at the same time, but my roasting pan is only so big.

At this point I have no idea how this will turn out, but I am SO excited.

The pumpkin came out steamy and soft. All I had to do was wait for it to cool and then scoop it out with a metal spoon.

This pumpkin is now a shell of his former self.

Can you tell Aaron and I had fun taking these pictures? Here is a very cheerful shot of me mashing the pumpkin (which I did for a long time--I miss my food processor).

 So this is what we ended up with. It doesn't look like the stuff that comes from the can, and it doesn't look like a whole lot. But wait, let me add the spices and zoom in a little bit!

There we go! Just a little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg and photo trickery.

This project was a total blast and I felt so self-sufficient. Who needs to depend on other people to can things for me? I will can things myself! Or to be more specific, I will put them in glass jars that I have saved from my many spaghetti sauce purchases.

I couldn't believe I made that. But I wouldn't be satisfied until I used it in something, to make sure it was actually suitable for cooking. I don't have a pie plate so there was no making a pumpkin pie, but I had everything I needed for pumpkin bread. So pumpkin bread it was!

Pictured above: One happy husband.

So the Great Pumpkin Experiment was a success!! I could not be happier. In the end I probably paid the equivalent of what a can of pumpkin would be over here, which was 3 euro but back home, I can see this saving me some money in the long run. The general consensus on pumpkins and pumpkin carving is that it's an American thing, but that has drifted over to Ireland several years ago. However, I have it on good authority (my Papa) that the Irish used to carve turnips and put candles in them around this time of year. That tradition has undoubtedly faded away, but my guess is that the Irish that immigrated to America carried the idea with them, and tossed the turnip when they saw the size of the pumpkin. Regardless, Aaron and I hope to have a pumpkin carving party with some of our friends before Halloween. We're also planning on having a Thanksgiving celebration, and guess what? Pumpkin pie is now officially on the menu :)

Now that the pumpkin excitement is over, I'd like to share with two other pieces of news from the past two days, both very exciting. 

 

Number one...

My fabric came in the mail!!!! I'm beyond excited. And as soon as this blog post is over, I'm getting started on my quilt.

Number two...

I made a skirt! Myself and a friend from class (otherwise known by the codename, Mrs. Bee) were on our way to the farmer's market when we saw a vintage store whose logo had a giant unicorn on it. Of course, we had to go in and look around. Mrs. Bee found some awesome vintage boots for only 15 euro and I found the mending stash. Bits and pieces of old clothing that were either hopeless or waiting to have zippers sewn back on, slits sewn up, etc. All the items in the bucket were one euro each, regardless of their length. I spent 5 euro on fabric that day, two on pieces from the bucket, and three on a muu-muu. That's right, a muu-muu. My goal is to take each of these purchases and transform them into wearable items, or bags. The skirt is from a long strip of fabric that was a one euro purchase.

Yep, for this fun teal skirt I paid one euro. Not having a machine at my disposal anymore, it took a little more elbow grease than usual, but it was so worth it! I'm very excited. What's that, you say? You want to see the muu-muu? It's my next project, and it is going to be awesome.

After two blog posts talking about the joys of domesticity, I'll let Aaron take over the next one and he can talk to you guys about something manly! Now that I've spent the last two days cooking and sewing, it's back to reading. I'm almost done with Frankenstein, and how appropriate that we're reading it so close to Halloween :) 

Fall is in the Air

Hello all! This is Lauren typing to you on a very cloudy and chilly fall Irish morning. Fall is definitely here in Ireland, and here I was worried it would be green all year round! The leaves have definitely changed significantly, and while there is still more green than any other color, I'm excited to see the familiarity of my favorite part of this season. The road I walk to class is littered with crunchy orange leaves, and when no one is looking I like to kick a bunch into the air. It brings back memories of living in Bryant and my sisters and I banding together to destroy my dad's leaf piles as he raked them up. I don't think he minded too much, seeing as how we got away with it most every year :) Aaron has just left for work (he does 9:30 to 6:30 today!) so it's just me and my cup of instant coffee and my homework today, and a research methods class at 4.

While there haven't been many big events after Aaron's job offer, I realized there are still quite a few things to update you guys on, so bear with me, as this may be a long post. It's definitely a long overdue one--we'll try to keep up with posting more frequently.

1.) My classes are going splendidly. I love my classmates, and it sounds like we have a really, really good group. This is the third week of classes and we're finally getting into the literature after reading a bunch of literary theory and criticism. Those things are great, but those first few weeks left me feeling a little intimidated. I feel much more comfortable discussing actual books than articles about books that I've never read, and I think that's the general feeling with the rest of the class too. The first week, I contributed little to the discussion, but the second, I felt more comfortable with the people and jumped in a little more. We all seem to really like each other, and usually will gather together and talk for a while before class starts, and several times we've all gone out afterward and continue our discussion at a restaurant or pub (of course the tone of those conversations are completely different--as in, we're more liable to make fun of the snooty thing we just read than we would be in class!)

2.) All I plan to do until Christmas is read. I've got two novels to finish for tomorrow (I know right) and next week I'm reading Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen) and Frankenstein, both pretty big novels, as well as readings for my Victorian class. It is definitely a masters level experience, and I'm in no way disappointed by the standards the professors have set or the workload. I think I would have been very, very let down if any part of it felt like my undergrad program, but I'm happily being stretched and challenged in new ways. Hooray for higher education!

3.) I snapped some photos of Aaron on his second day of work (but let's just pretend it's the first) and I thought you would all like to see how dashingly handsome he is in his new uniform! Please notice the very manly fuchsia stripes on his sides.

4.) Trinity Hall had a fire drill this morning and Aaron and I were pretty much the last ones out (sorry Mom and Dad). We were battling cold/runny nose/changing weather grossness--I had it and I'm pretty sure I gave it to Aaron since he woke up with it this morning--so when the alarm went off at 7:45, we were a little slow to get out. When we walked outside, we had to sign a sheet that said that we acknowledged that we were late and that we would have been dead if it had been a real fire... that's right, we were on the dead list. Every university should do fire drills that organized, but maybe not before 8 in the morning.


5.) I've been taking pictures of the street art that I've seen around Dublin. Some are actually really interesting and pretty, not like the one word things that someone sprayed on a surface to vandalize it, but it looks like there are a couple fences/places that actually facilitate what I like to call "tasteful" graffiti. Most of the graffiti I've seen has been advertisements for different festivals or events. These two photos have been my favorites.

6.) Fall, and cold weather in general, makes me want to curl up in a warm quilt... or as my tendency has been lately, to make one. This time last year I was working on my very first pieced quilt, which is still waiting on finishing touches at home because it was too big to bring along. It's a different color version of this one here, from the purl bee. My circle is pink and orange, with the exterior being brown instead of white.

So Aaron and I decided on a crafting budget for me. I'm reminded of how much I really enjoy sewing and crafty things whenever they're unavailable to me--it's definitely my stress reliever and without them I feel like a part of me, probably the creative part, just isn't being utilized. So with a budget set, I set out looking for a quilt project that would keep me busy for a year, and would have a small chance of leaving behind a large fabric "stash" for me to have to take home. I dreamed big:

Someday I will make this quilt. From this website

Of course this would be nice too... in fall colors! Also from purlbee.com

And then there's that one... again, from purlbee.com

But there are issues with all of these quilts that prevent them from suiting my purposes. For the first, the pattern is too expensive and I'm not that practiced at applique yet, so I'll tackle that one in about ten years. The second two are almost too straightforward, and I can just see myself getting frustrated 20 minutes in with thoughts of "oh this would be so much faster with a machine!" So I needed a quilt project that I could only handsew, that would be ludicrous to do on a machine, and therefore take away the temptation to buy one. So let me introduce you to my next project:

Hexagons!

Or to be more specific, the pattern is called Grandmother's Flower Garden. This image will give you a hint as to why....

from a Nebraska history website on antique quilts

There's no pattern to buy (just a hexagon template), and they must be hand sewn, and they're going to make pretty little flowers. Since I'm making this quilt in Ireland, my fabrics should have green in them somewhere right?

This is the fabric bundle I just purchased from a store on etsy.com called Poppy Seed Fabrics. They've already been shipped and they're on their way! I'm so excited! It will be a welcome break from reading to sit down every once in a while and put together a flower, and it's also nice to know there's really no pressure to get it done. I have a whole year after all!



I miss this place, though...

Can't find a source for this photo, but I will definitely be stitching this up someday for a pillow or something.

Have the boys totally checked out now? Hi Mom, Nana, and Laurie! :) That's my super long blog post updating you all on the little things. I'll finish with two more pictures of a photo mural that lines the street of the farmers market I've been frequenting. Can you name that African American celebrity?

 

How random is that?

Until next time, love you all and miss you!