Meandering Maunderings

So, my latest idea is to attempt to balance the huge negative with many little things.

One. Discovering that you have the perfect shade of brown shoes to match the sweater and skirt you got as an early birthday present.

Two. Delaying the move gives us time to save more money.

Three. Additional education for the hubby will only improve our financial future.

Four. I may end up taking a few classes to become more hireable in the future.

Five. I'm working on the rest...

Should write something here, just can't really think of anything.

Homewise- plans for moving to Ireland are building up steam again. As is the slight freakout. Must get the cats to the vet ASAP for chipping- though I want to make sure that it's the right chip! Would be awful to chip them and get over there and find out that we used the wrong kind and the one we have isn't scannable! So yeah, calling our vet, writing to people... Hubby is working on his CV... The fun- we may have to try to go over there for 3 weeks, for interviews, come home, and make the final preparations and then make the move. Which is more money than we were hoping to spend. At the very least I'd get a three week vacation in Ireland out of the deal!


Petwise- The boys (aka cat Leo and dog Kyle for those new to this journal) have taken to napping on our bed in the evenings. Every once in awhile I'll look around and realize that Kyle is nowhere in sight, head to the bedroom and 'catch' him curled up on the bed near Leo. Leo I expect to be there- he and Sasha (my girl cat) have worked out a timeshare plan for the bed. Evenings are his time. I'm not entirely sure how they came to this agreement, and that's probably for the best.


Not much else going on. The holidays were fun, I'm glad the stress is over but I liked the days off. *laughs*

I need an Ireland icon. Icon skills are NOT something I possess... Help? :) Please?





And the rose meme, because I carried lavender roses when I got married.

You are a Lavender Rose

You represent love at first sight and enchantment. Your vibe: intense and intriguing Falling in love with you is: deep and meaningful

So... bettybaker is a bad influence... No really. She's got me wanting to refresh my Spanish knowledge. And of course, I have no idea where to begin. *grins* I remember bits and pieces, enough to occasionally dream in it (though it's been awhile since that happened). I did take Spanish for 4 years in jr high/high school, and a semester in college (their 4th semester course). So I'm not sure where to look for a refresher... LCC is in the middle of semesters, so that's not a good source. So that's the new thing on my mind.


This weekend, as a non-sequitor, went well. We took Kyle to the dog park a couple times- which was much fun. Save for the slightly stressful moment when he decided to roughhouse and subsequently roll an intact male 9 month old South African mastiff... The mastiff did NOT approve and freaked out- so for a few moments it seemed like the play was going to get serious. Of course Kyle is standing over this dog (mastiff on his back, Kyle standing with front feet on one side of mastiff, back feet on the other in perhaps the most dominant pose there is) just grinning and thinking it's all fun. *facepalm* This 'puppy' was already twice Kyle's weight- though not much taller, and a total klutz (as many puppies are). The height/weight/feet size ratio meant that Kyle was able to trip him up pretty easily. So the second time he rolled the puppy we decided that walking on would be good... I do have to say that I haven't seen any real fights break out while we've been there, and the only time it gets tense at all is when we hang out near the main gate for too long. That's an area a lot of people linger by, so there are a lot of dogs, and it just gets to be a tense place when the park is crowded. If you walk away and around the path things are so much better.

Well, except when Kyle gets infatuated and tries to run off with a beautiful boy boxer like he did yesterday. He's been so good lately, but he met this boxer and that was that. He forgot his name, forgot who he came with, and just wanted to run with his new love... Which meant that I had to backtrack, leaving the group we were walking with, and go hunt his butt down. I couldn't even yell at him because he finally turned and saw me and started running full tilt at me. All the dog trainers I know (and respect...) say to never punish a dog who comes when you call. If I had to go to him- then I could chastise him, but no... the little brat finally learned to hear and came back. I did insist on him walking at a heel with me- off leash no less- and succeeded. Totally blew ME away...

One of the things I really like about the dog park is that there are people we go to meet, and others we've met there that we see time and again. A group will form and we'll walk and talk and laugh at the dogs' antics. So my social needs are partially seen to. *laughs* See- for those that are new, I would generally go home from work and just stay there by myself as my hubby would be at work. Now he's home (though hopefully not for much longer, we need him to be working!) and I'm going to the dog park and meeting peoples. It's nifty.

On the way home from the dog park yesterday we stopped by L&L (local grocery store) and were looking for dinner. We see a 'free fixins' bag, and were intrigued. Deal was- you buy a roast over 3 lbs and you get a bag (intfoil like roast pan, taters, carrots, onions and gravy) for free. So we decided to do that. This did mean that on the way home I had to call my mom and ask her how one cooks a roast... In the end we opted to use our slow cooker for the first time. We've had the thing for over two years and never used it, mostly because the plastic turner thing (to change it from off to low to high) broke when I was pulling the cooker from the box. We never did anything about this. Oops. The plastic broke- not the cooker itself, so pliers work. The timing didn't, but the roast made and *excellent* lunch...

In other news, the hubby and I have been talking about the fact that we've always just assumed that once he graduated that we would move back to Ann Arbor. But we've stopped to consider, and realized that we don't *have* to move there- though we do have friends in the area. We could move somewhere else... So we pondered this over the weekend and the only conclusion we came to was that if we weren't going to move to Ann Arbor the only other place we'd want to live is in Dublin, Ireland.

We've done some research, and we could move there for two years (with a work visa). These work visas are harder to come by for US citizens- and really easy for EU folks. However! There are certain classes of people that can get expedited visas. People like RNs... There are also spousal visas for people who are married to people on other types of Visas. So we could get jobs there. And with the new pet policies we could get all three animals there without quarantine (or at least not the 6 month, bill on us quarantine that is the alternative), we just have to jump through several hoops and plan way in advance. So we're actually considering moving to Ireland... For two years and then we'd have to come back. (Mom said she'd store some of our stuff for us if we help her get rid of my dad's newspaper obsession.. er collection. :) ) I don't know how likely this is, really, but we're seriously considering it.