Easter

My first St Patrick's in Ireland in 21 years. We went into Grange village to see the parade. My mother was with us having stayed the night before. It was a beautiful sunny day which is rare even in Washington on March 17. There weren't too many people and there was plenty of space to view the parade without anybody jumping in front to pick up candy of which there was none anyway. Throwing candy off a moving truck is not a practice here. The parade itself was very low key and started 30 minutes late. The big parade is in Sligo. It definitely would be worth a look but my 77 year old mother could not handle the hurly burly. Her balance is appalling and she is liable to fall any minute. There was a great atmosphere but no element of over the top as in America. I had gotten quite used to the American style celebrations and noted their absence. We came home and had a fajita dinner with Baked Alaska for dessert and loads of booze. Rian and I even went for a 5 mile cycle round the mountain.
I am loking forward to Easter. Everybody is off from Good Friday through Easter Monday. It is the kick off of Spring and all that goes with it. Golf championships, music festivals and feiseanna. We will spend Sunday and Monday in Mohill and then hit Bundoran and the amusements on Tuesday. Wednesday I go back to FAS. I'm taking Microsoft Office Specialist which is 9 months in duration. I'm pretty happy about it and hopeful that my skills will be sufficient to get a job when I am finished. It will be good to get out and about again and be learning something new.
I am sure that lovely Spring weather has started again in Washington. We all miss it even the people who were never there.
Happy Easter !

getting Antsy

Last week I got three job rejections on the same day and they were the ones who were nice enough to acknowledge my application. I remember when I was single and a fellow would let me down by not turning up or not phoning I used to feel so frustrated. Why oh why couldn't he have the decency to tell me straight out that" he wasn't that in to me" to coin a phrase. How I cursed and wailed about the cowardice of men etc. One could say the same about job applications. Oh well! at least they are professional enough to let me know that I didn't cut the muster blah blah blah. But what difference does it really make to me if I still don't have the job. Ditto for the man. Maybe that cowardice is well placed. I probably would have killed the poor bollox who was honest enough to tell me that he didn't want to go out with me just because he shouldn't have been around in the first place. Anyway the job situation is getting frustrating as we need to get our long term plan working namely get an income, a loan and a property. With that in mind we are starting to look at our original plan of a food van while I am doing an interview with FAS on Thursday to see about getting on the Microsoft Office Specialist course. It will run for 30 weeks but I will be paid and then I will be more hirable in an ever more competitive job market.

Rian

Ultan and Rian were home from school today with colds. Ultan was home yesterday too and we went to our local doctor Niall Hever who I went to school with. Ultan's asthma had kicked in and Niall prescribed steroids and Nebulizer. We were home in less than an hour complete with medications and groceries. Rian was very congested and I didn't want him to get out of hand so I kept him home proactively. No worries no hassle. Anyway it was a beautiful crisp sunny day and I really wanted to get out for a bike ride. We had terrible storms all weekend and yes our electricity went out for a few hours. The wind howled and howled and it rained almost nonstop.
Yesterday it snowed for most of the day but it was my kind of snow. It came and it went. No lingering like an unwanted visitor who just won't go home. Still by the time I saw the sun today I had itchy feet. Rian wanted to come along and he picked the route up towards the mountain. We cycled and walked for about 5 miles. We had views of the distant sea most of the time and the snow tipped mountain to our left made me think of Austria . We had to walk a lot of the time and as I looked at Rian's face all lit up drinking it all in I thought how far we had come since those early days if his autism. All I know is I got the place right. I will find a way to make a living here.