Fun Weekend!

Following on from my previous post about achieivng 30 things before I reach...gulp...30!! I can now say that I can cross one of the list!!.....Surfing!! (In 11 degrees of Atlantic Ocean coldness! - Mind you with a not so flattering wet-suit on me, it didn't feel that cold!). I tell you one thing, surfing is hard work! I was bashed about and beaten by every wave that came near me and two days later my arms still ache...much to my boyfriends amusement.

I don't have any images to share (despite bringing my camera along!), but to be honest you don't want to see me attempting to surf anways....I was dire! Next time I'll invest in a much needed lesson!

I'll also invest in what the wee town of Lahinch needs...changing facilities! No one (not even the Japanese tourists who parked up next to us!) should have to get a glimpse of my pasty, milk white skin! Nor should anyone have to go through the humiliation of trying to gracefully remove a wetsuit under a towel while protecting one's dignity! I think I spent longer 'trying' to get changed outside the car then I did in the actual sea!

It also turns out we picked the wrong weekend to go away as this week a heatwave is a coming! Regular readers will know how I love when even the slightest bit of sunshine arrives into Ireland. It completley changes the mood of the country and the much spoken sentence of "It'd be a great country if we had the weather hey!", can be heard from Mullingar to Mayo, Lahinch to Laois and Cork to Cavan!

On a final note....Well done Munster! Magners League Champions. We had a bit of craic with some Leinster fans before, during and after the match!

Photo Credit; http://www.holidayhomelahinch.ie/

Positive Quotes

Birthday Celebrations

An easily pleased me with a yummy cupcake & can of coke (present curtorsy of my colleague Tom)

This week I celebrated the final year of my 20's.......gulp! Right now I feel old and that I haven't achieved all that I thought or hoped would achieve before I turned the big three Oooooo! However when I think about what I wanted to achieve before the big three Oooo, I sometimes find it difficult to remember what exactly those things were.

So in an effort to feel some sense of achievement by this time next year, I've set myself the.....wait for it....."30 things to achieve before I turn 30" challenge! Queue rounds of applause! So far, I've come up with the following.

Learn to Drive (I can hear the boyf and work colleagues laughing!)

Run 5k (without stopping...serious training needed)

Learn to surf

Try Oysters

Make Macaroons

Be well on the way to completing my Masters

Actually read the books my Masters requires me to read!

Go to the Eurovision (Azerbaijan is calling me!)

Get a new / creative / arty farty job in the area I'm qualified in or least be well on my way to getting there!

Get my legs waxed! (Yes, I'm 29 and I've never tried it! I hate pain!)

Go camping! (It's been a while)

Finally get a ticket to Glastonbury! (If I get one I can knock that off my list and camping!)

Save (rather than splurge) for a cheap, fun, sun holiday with Robert

Go a week without watching TV (and not actually die!)

Go to the cinema on my own

Clear my debts. (or at least try to!)

Write some letters to some friends

Go to the doctor and get the check ups you should be getting rather than avoiding them!!

Have a go at writing a children's book (You know you want to!)

Stop cursing......naughty naughty!

Be a vegetarian for a week and see if you like it.(I'm toying with the idea)

Give up taxi's (I take too many and they take too much of my money!)

Join a club or society in UL (I'm thinking Outdoor Pursuits Club)

Host a radio show (random, I know, but I'd love to work in radio!!)

Give up bread for a month (impossible!!!!)

Attend a Spanish or French class.

Get that bike repaired and use it! (it's been sitting in the shed for a while now!)

Make smoothies!

Learn a sport....Tag Rubgy, 5-aside soccer anyone?

and finally......work harder at LuckyRainbowDesigns!

I have to say I found that somewhat therapeutic!

Something to make you smile

Pop Up Shop Success!

Over the weekend I helped out with a number of great and talented Etsy Ireland members run our very first pop up shop. The shop was run as part of CATDIG 2011, a great cultural event which brought together storytellers, artists and musicians to name but a few to create a wonderful three day event.

Myself doing my utmost to get the customers in!

After much hard work (put in by Ruth & Jess) the previous Friday, I arrived with all my goodies ready to sell on the Saturday and Sunday. I had such a good time chatting to everyone and trying to convince people to come into the shop that I stayed the two whole days.

I also ran a card making class in the local arts and crafts shop Silkes and encouraged people to create their own and adopt some of the techniques that I use. I really enjoyed it and makes me miss teaching even more!

The LuckyRainbow Selection

On Sunday, we were having a chat about how we could make this a more regular thing, we wondered if other empty spaces would have us....for free! Just as the conversation was in mid flow, in walked Marilyn, one of the organisers who commented how great the place looked and that we should chance our arm asking to extend our stay. When Niall (owner of the space) walked in a short time later, Ruth bravely stepped up and asked the question.....with no hesitation he said "Ah we won't be doing anything with it for a month, so you can have it for a month!"......All who were there nearly died from shock with his kind gesture!

How lucky are we? If you pop on over to the Etsy Ireland team blog, you'll find more information about volunteering your time and perhaps selling your items if space is available. Overall it was a brilliant and very productive weekend....and I even made lots of sales!

Mmmmm

Mmmm, Rainbow Cake!

I wonder how it tastes?



Today I heart...

The Catherine Street Cultural Dig which yours truely is participating and helping out at, takes place this weekend (May13th - 15th)! I'll be selling a selection of LuckyRainbow goodies as well as helping sell great and crafty items from the Etsy Ireland team.

This is the second year of the CATDIG and is was a resounding success last year. I remember last year, I was crazy busy in my full time job, working weekends and was angry I was missing out on all the fun and wacky events. (To be honest that happens alot...whenever a great exhibition opens, I usually am unable to attend!) - This year it will be a different story!

If you're in the Munster area or feel like popping over to lovely Limerick, stop on by and check out any one of the great events scheduled to take place. Ruth (from NiceDay Designs) and I would love to see you. We are located next door to Bourkes Bar on Catherine Street!

Come one, come all!

Positive Quotes

So true...and lovely!

Berlin

In late March I took a trip to Berlin, an amazing and inspiring city! My plan was to visit a friend of mine who previously lived there for a short time and agreed to meet up with me for a few days over the weekend. One of the best ways to see a city is when you have tour guide who knows the 'in's and out's' of the place and the wonderful Josephine was just that!

I have a love for all things vintage and thrift and this amazing flea market proved to be more than I hoped for! If anything they sold the most amazing second hand, pre-loved furniture. They even had what I like to call an IKEA set up, whereby they took all different types of furniture and set up rooms to show you just how brilliant and inspiring your new room in your new apartment could look! I lusted after it all!

The market also didn't disappoint when looking for the unusual, the different or the just plain wacky!

I also took time out to do all things touristy! Sometimes, nothing makes me happier than strolling around in a new city with my camera and click, click, clicking away!

Ich LIEBE Berlin!

Some Treasury Love

Personally speaking, I think it's the sweetest thing when someone takes time out of their busy day to curate and treasury and feature you! I then also appreciate when they email you and let you know!

With summer well and truly in the air, this fresh treasury has me lusting over so many shops! The beautiful hues of yellows and green are an even match and I'm now in the mood to create a few treasuries of my own!

Thanks to AFineFibreFrenzy all the way over the in USA for featuring me! Mwah! :)

Funny Quote

Makes me laugh.......alot!

Blogs you should be reading....

Simply because I think they're great!

I have to say, one of my favourite things to do is to read my favourite blogs. Some of them I love so much that I get a tad impatient when a new post hasn't been published yet, but then there are times when I havn't read them in days or weeks and then I have a multitude of blogs and amazing posts to catch up on....I love when that happens! I also have to realise that alot of the blogs are read are in the states or Austrailia so there is that little thing of a time difference when it comes to the publishing of new posts!

First up...

A Cup of Jo - Joanna Godard can do no wrong in my eyes. Her blog is beautiful and she has a wonderful eye and a lovely way of writing about her life. She is also very generous in sharing her personal life and has the cutest little baby boy. She has an amzing eye for detail and I'm very jealous of her life in New York city. I want to be her!

yes and yes - a blog which I recently discovered, it full of all things positive and over the weekend I sat down and read some of the older posts. They were incredibly interesting, full of knowledge and very relevant. This is one of my new favourite blogs!

Design Sponge - It just needs no explanation, from the blog design to the content, everything is gorgeous and inspiring. It's right up my street

Stitches, Fabric and Soul - I don't have an eye for fashion, I wear the same old clothes that suit my shape and body and I'm not that experimental with my clothing, so I really admire those who can and do write about fashion and who know their stuff! Stephen knows his stuff and he's only a young fella! I also adore his style of photography and admire his confidence for approaching people in the street.

Fat Mum Slim - a lovely austrailian named Chantelle, I've also only recenlty discovered her blog. Its the kind of blog you read when you want to relax, drink some tea and pop yourself on the coach for a Saturday afternoon.

Hither and Thither - A couple based in NYC who document their life and their love of travelling. They have written the most amazing travel diaries which are pretty useful if you intend on travelling anywhere! I also want their life in NYC

16 House - I love interiors and I imagine how my house will one day look. 16 House provides me with all sorts of imaginative, simple and elegant ideas. I drool over these images!

So there you have it!! A few of my very favourites....be sure to share yours!

Life before the Internet...

In this day and age I have little patience for those who cannot work a computer, don't understand what google is or how it works and take twenty minutes (over the phone) asking questions about how to log into a facebook account. (Incase you're wondering, I'm referring to my mother!)

So it got me thinking and reminising about life before the internet......back in the day (How old does that statement make me sound!), around the age of 14 or 15 when I started seeing....ahem...boys! Standard protocal said that if you were interested in each other then you would exchange home phone numbers and this in turn usually meant organising a time for you to be home in order to receive the call.

I have a strong memory of being in a local disco ( The Glen in Dundalk!!...ah memories!) where a boy wanted my phone number for his friend. (Oh asking a girl out for your friend.....that was standard too!) He asked me as we were leaving to get our taxi, so in a rush I kept shouting the number so he could remember it for his friend and even suggested he got a pen and paper! It worked out......his friend called, we met up and we were stuck together for about a year!

In my house, I was lucky in that we had a couple of phones around the house so I could take calls upstairs without having to whisper in the hallway so my parents didn't hear me! However if you called someone and they were not at home....well then they weren't home.......leave a message or try again later! No chance to send an email, a text, post a Facebook message.....nada!

1997 is the year I can remember being interested and fascinated by the idea of the internet! The fact that you could 'go online' and connect with anyone in the world really excited me and when a friend of a boyfriend got a computer and a dial up internet connection I would insist that we would hang out there so that we could 'surf the net'. I even got excited by the sound of the dial up connection......yup I was THAT sad!

An internet shop......not a cafe but a small shop with about 10 computers where you could pay to use the internet popped up in my home town and I would spend hours in there. Looking back I'm not even sure what sites I was browsing but needless to say I was amused by it all! A friend then got a computer that Christmas and I was so jealous, it wasn't funny! I nagged my parents to get me a computer but at the time, they didn't understand what the  fuss was about or the importance of being connected to the world!

These days I'm still as obsessed with the internet as I was in those early days! I love how you can find everything and anything that you need within a click, can connect to a whole world of interesting people (which I have done via all things Etsy) and how the word google has become a verb and part of everyday vocab!...Just 'google' it! This sentenance irrates my mother to her core...."What's google?" she asks....I've tried explaining it to her in the most simple of terms but I'm getting no where! :)

Still though......I don't know what I did before the internet.

Positive Quotes

New Things I'd like to try.....

Every now and again I have a moan and a whine about life in general and this ususally results in me wanting to spruce life up a little bit.....if not for a little while!

Hot on my list is the following
- Learn Spanish
- Cook more and more often
- Write a childrens book (Apparently according to friends I have a very vivid imagination)
- Learn guitar
- Learn to read music for the guitar
- Run 5k, then 10k and one day......a marathon......one day!!
- Leave Ireland and live in a foregin country for a few years (This.will.happen)
- Own a glass greenhouse
- Own a vintage mini copper AND a vintage Nissian Figaro

- Find the perfect job.....does it exist?
- Lace making
- Make cupcakes!
- Go to a fancy restaurant....think Gordon Ramsey or Michelle Roux (I heart Masterchef!)

How about you? What do you fancy trying!