Chrimbo Craft Fair

Since I seem to be incapable of doing one thing at once, I always have to multitask. This last year I have been making a bunch of jewelery and learning how to juggle. Since my juggling skills are not going to get anywhere near making me any extra income, i have been focusing on my jewelery. I signed up for a craft fair in Greystones for Christmas. I did not get to see it before hand, but all I knew is it was going to be in a Christmas theme and be big. Louise, another co-worker, met me at work in the Sunday to collect the display and take it out to Greystones with me, which is about 30 minutes out of the city. The model barely fit, but we managed to get it in. Louise help me set it up since we could not fit Ben in the car, he had to take the train out to meet us.

I had a few girlfriends meet us out there and they were some of by best customers. I sold a few things, that did pay for the table and I even made a profit! One of my co-workers wives like it so much she wants to have a party at her house in February with her friends. I will keep you updated on how that goes, I am excited for that and getting ready!

Pumpkin Pie Extravagnza

We have our token American friend here that is a good friend of one of my college mates. We have become friends with her and her fiance. So for Thanksgiving this year since she had the day off she was able to cook all day on the Thursday and join her for the day. I was able to get a half day and head to her house to start on the best Bloody Mary's I have had in a long time. By the time Ben got there, we were all in good holiday spirits. It was mainly Andrew's family, one of Tori's co-workers and ourselves. We had an amasing meal, with a good taste of home. She even had the cranberry sauce that holds the shape of the can when you pour it out. Disgusting stuff, but a requirement on the day of. Ben was in charge of cutting up the turkey, he did a very barbarically good job at it. We sa down for dinner and had several helpings of food until we were ready to explode or as Ben says, were ready to fall into a food coma. The ended the night tucked into their living room in front of a fire with pumpkin pie!

Saturday we had to do it all over again! Oh darn! We started cooking early that morning to get reaady for our 15+ house guests. The pies were baked, the potatoes were mashed, turkey basted to perfection with little lemon halves underneath the skin to make it look like it was stacked with some large breasts on its breasts that kept it quite moist. We had to make sure that all the food was cut up small since there were not enough knives to go around for their paper plates. We had some green bean casserole, corn bread, sweet potato pie, stuffing, gravy, turkey, mash, and fluorescent orange mac n cheese! That was the biggest hit. We had a good night, with everyone crammed in, and the wine flowing. Once the pumpkin pie was gone and the drink started to disappear, so did our guests. It was another great year, and I even helped Ben with the dishes, which is a marked improvement. We do miss our families on this day, but it was a lot of fun to do it with all of our foreign friends once again!

Mary Kicken' the Holy Ball Pub Quiz

I had my first pub quiz! My plethora of useless information actually helped me for once. Ruth's rugby team was raising money for the upcoming year. We paid for our spot on the table, it ended up being Ruth's boyfriend Tom, Catherine, her boyfriend Andrew, myself and Edell. There was a great turn out, about 250 or so people. Once we are all settled in with our drinks and meeting most of her family, they passed out the packets. There were 12 rounds. The MC for the night was one of her teammates friends who at first was quite funny, but soon became way to inebriated. The first 4 rounds went by quite fast, and we were doing decent enough, getting more then half right, some getting 8 out of the 10 right. Tom excelled in Sports, Catherine in History, Edell in pop culture, Andrew in Geography and I seems to have an even spread of random information.

As the night went on, the MC got so drunk that is just kept dragging on. What should have taken about 2 hours tops, was turning into 4 hours plus. When the prizes for the raffle started being called out we encouraged Ruth to take over and call out the numbers. Things then started to take a more rapid pace! Even with about a few hundred gifts, I swear Edell and I were the only ones to win nothing! NOTHING! Upon not receiving the prize for the best name: "Mark Kicken' the Holy Ball" since the rugby clubs name was Mary's, we decided it was a no win situation. Out of the possible points, there were a few teams that had near perfect score, and although ours was one of the better, 82 was not going to be a winning number for us. Edell took me home and we proceeded to drown our sorrows at home upon not winning with chocolate. Still a good end to the evening!

Architecture Open House

Last year during the architecture tours, we mainly focused on Temple Bar, but since there is so much to see we only got to about half of it. This year we got to do the other half. Ben and myself on Saturday got tours in the City Hall building to see where city council meetings are held (and where we have some friends getting married there in June); the old Rates Office which is an old haunted bank that has a bit for Easter Rising history to it; and the main Dublin City Council offices. Since all of these buildings we walk by and live by I figured why not get a sneak peek inside. The DCC offices were impressive since the atrium is 5 stories high and is very energy efficient. The architect gave a very informative tour and then for a grand finale, we went into the traffic control office. More than two dozen monitors up on the wall showed current traffic conditions, it is the eye in the sky. It was interesting to see all over Dublin simultaneously.

Sunday we meet up with Tullia and Edell for a river tour around the new docklands. The two tour guides was the president of the RIAI and founder of one of the largest architecture practices in Dublin, and the other guide now works in planning but ran for the Taoiseach (president) so it was sort of like John Kerry of Ireland giving our tour. Although as architects we know most of the buildings, the history was great to hear. How the docklands used to be, and although the docks are quite built up now, it only really happened recently during the Celtic Tiger. The best part was just seeing Dublin from another angle, it is not everyday that we get a boat tour up the river. It was a gorgeous day with the sun shining very brightly that it made us forget that most of the leaves have fallen and winter is well on its way. Since the tide was up to high, we were not able to get back into some of the docklands to see the most current building that we are constructing (I worked on it when I first started and now working on the finishing touches).

After our tour, we crossed the road to the CHQ for the Oktoberfest celebrations. Who can pass up freshly cooked German sausages and yummy beer! I can't. It was a good end to a sunny autumn day.

Strange Anomaly #44

Baby jabs. Kept seeing adverts for what I thought was some kind of kids cold medicine and they kept referring to baby jabs. Wondered for a long time what that was, it is when kids get their vaccines, to it was a pain reliever for teething and shots.