Christmas gift idea for the kids.

Got young kids to buy for? You're welcome. I found this book when I was in Trinity College with my friends Hannah and Stan came to visit me. (Okay, they weren't here to visit me, they were here to travel. But they did stay with me.) Trinity College is the famous university here in Dublin that houses the Book of Kells.

Book of Kells? Anyone? Look it up.

Anyway, Hannah was looking for a children's book to buy for her mother, who is an elementary school librarian, and we stumbled across this one. I can't tell you how cute it is. It's called The Comical Celtic Cat by Norah Golden. It's the story of a fat cat who belongs to a monk named Matt. Who lives in Kells, the town of the bells. As you might have guessed, it's written in a simple, catchy rhyme.

Matt happens to be one of the monks working on the Book of Kells, which famously used animals as inspiration in its beautiful and intricate letterings and illustrations. Example:



The illustrations in this book are brighter, simplified versions of these originals in the Book of Kells, making a beautiful piece of western culture accessible to kids. I couldn't find any online pictures of the inside, sadly.

You will love this book. You will love to tell your kids about the monks hundreds and hundreds of years ago who made a beautiful book by hand, now one of the most famous books in the world. More than that, you will love reading it to them because of the chirpy pace and the adorably funny story. Hannah and I giggled and giggled in the library gift shop as we read it--aloud. You can't help but read it aloud! It's as addictive to adults as it is for littl'uns. It's like when you buy your kids a Fun Dip and can't resist a lick yourself.
The Comical Celtic Cat, by Norah Golden. Amazon, $16.95

Sacre bleu!

Uh oh.
If you were in Ireland for the past 24 hours, you probably caught a whiff of what was nationally wafting through the air: bitterness. We have a nation of bitter people here.



"Is there a pervasive ethos of cheating in sport, and what message does that send to the young?" was the preview of the night's news.

"Controversy over last night's playoff escalates into a diplomatic incident" was another.

Not a happy day in Ireland, let me tell you. I had almost managed to forget about it, as someone who doesn't really follow sports, until I ran to the grocery store today to pick up a few things, and the headlines were blazing.



Basically, the Irish national soccer team were in the World Cup playoffs against the French. It was a two game qualifier. The first game was on Saturday, and it was disappointing. The French won 1-0, and I have to say that I wasn't incredibly impressed with the way the Irish played. They really could have been more aggressive, in my amateur opinion. But no matter: there was still Wednesday's game. Officials take the total number of points scored by each team in both games and whoever has most wins. If they tie, it goes into overtime. Ireland was playing well. They were up 1-0, which constituted a tie, until French player Thierry Henry used his hand to pass the ball to another player, who scored. That brought France's overall score to 2, sending them to the World Cup.

OUTRAGE!

"Le Main de Dieu!" (The Hand of God!) was the French headline.

The Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) has called for a replay of the game. The French PM told him to butt out.

WAR!

People are not happy. I know next to nothing about the sport, but I do know you can't use your hands. The ref failed to call it, and FIFA (the international governing body of soccer) has ignored the complaints. What a mess. The Irish have even temporarily forgotten to hate the English in the aftermath and, shops are beginning to sell Freedom Fries with their burgers in protest. Just kidding!

Here's a video of the incident. The quality ain't fantastic, but you get the idea.

Fairies live here.

You know why you love me today? Because my husband fixed my computer problem and I can show you pictures. So really, you love him. But he eats sardines and then he farts in bed.

Still love him more than me? I didn't think so.

These are the photos I wanted to post on Halloween. I took them at Glendalough, which is a ruined monastery which is over 1,000 years old. It's in County Wicklow, and it began when a monk, St. Kevin, who was born in Dublin, wanted to get out of civilization and be alone with God. So he went up into the Wicklow Mountains and lived as a hermit, and eventually other monks joined him and formed a monastery there. It is so peaceful and remote you can totally understand why someone would go be a hermit monk there. I almost wanted to be a hermit monk when I left.





Anyway, they have been burying people here for over 1,000 years and the gravestones date from that time. Some stones have disintegrated completely and there is no marking for the graves at all. All the stones here date between then and now.

There's old crosses.



And stones that have been propped up with other stones.



The tidy rows of modern cemeteries got abandoned about, oh, 1103.



These have got to be some of the oldest ones. They're so primitive and completely worn away.



Some have been totally neglected.





It could actually be a totally creepy place, except you just feel so peaceful there. It feels sacred. You turn around and go, I LIVE HERE?





Uh, no. People don't live here. FAIRIES live here.

The bigger the family, the bigger the...gratitude.

On Saturday, November 28, I am hosting a Thanksgiving dinner here at the apartment for Edmund's family. Since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, they don't get Thursday off. It seemed to make sense. I have been thinking long and hard about the menu. Of course, there will be turkey, and I have tried to think of classic side dishes to go with it that Irish people will enjoy. The real dilemma, though, hasn't been the meal but the space. I have invited over 20 people into a space the size of a refrigerator box, and you may be wondering why. Why, Alyse?

A glutton for punishment? Nope, just a glutton. I like food.

Actually, the fact of the matter is that Edmund has two parents, six siblings, five siblings in law, and twenty nieces and nephews. Ahem. Twenty. Eleven boys and nine girls, if I'm counting right. Now, I don't think everyone is going to be able to make it, and my sister in law Catriona has offered to swipe a couple of folding 6-foot tables (with chairs) from her church, but when I look around my living room and picture, say, 15 people in it, I imagine that the place will essentially be a kennel. Food everywhere, noise everywhere, and since there will be infants, possibly feces everywhere. But doesn't it sound like fun? I'll just pop open a couple of windows and line the floor with cardboard litter. Woof.

So I don't even know where to begin preparations. The good news is that none of them have ever celebrated Thanksgiving before, so they shouldn't be disappointed. The bad news is, none of them have ever celebrated Thanksgiving before, so their hopes could be pretty high. I'm just going to ply them with alcohol early and start throwing scraps of turkey out of the kitchen every now and then as a teaser. (Note to self: think of good appetizer ideas.)

When I called my sister in law, Sorcha, to invite them, her response was, "That sounds like fun!" Then she put the phone to her shoulder and asked her 17 year old daughter Caoímhe, "Wouldn't it be fun to go to Edmund and Alyse's to celebrate Thanksgiving?"

Then, muffled by the cries of her younger sisters, I heard her reply with 17 year old disdain, "Thanksgiving? What's THAT?"

Woof.

Stocking stuffer idea!

This would make the perfect gift for the coffee addict in your life. In my life, that's me. This is the kind of thing I always wish people would get me. But self-pity aside...
Last year I was one of 6 managers at a department store, and all but 2 of us shared an office. During the summer, Sonic cups were on our desks every day. During the winter, it was Starbucks. I had such a hard time thinking of a little gift to get the ladies in the office for around $10. It would have been perfection to put a hot caramel macchiato with a personalized coffee holder on each desk. Maybe with a little bow. I can't resist a cute little bow.
Or maybe if you put this into your sibling's stocking with a Starbucks gift card, it might distract them from wanting to play with YOUR toys for a while.

Monogrammed Knitted Coffee Sleeve, $12.00, Etsy

Maybe you noticed...the holidays are coming.

Now that my posting has been somewhat limited due to the fact that my computer is crazy, (if your computer was like, a kindergarten teacher--helpful, prompt, wears holiday sweaters--mine is like the crackhead in the alley wearing five jackets. And talking to itself.) So I had a great idea. I can still get pictures off the internet, so let's start there. And the first thing that I loove to look at pictures of is HOLIDAY STUFF. A good housewife always needs to know how to do the holidays right.

So just go here: www.marthastewart.com

Just kidding! Don't go there. That's a last resort. You can come up with something better! And I'll help. You don't even have to be married to be a housewife. You can be like I was six months ago, bunking with my mom and a crackhead computer. And a cat. Whether your family is huge and you have eight kids (are you reading this, Kate Gosselin? Thought so!) or it's just you and your goldfish Bubbles, you have presents to buy. So now and then I'm going to be spending some of my considerable free time posting Christmas gift ideas and stocking stuffers. With a little home decor thrown in, let's be honest. I can't resist it. And maybe just a liiiiiittttle Martha Stewart. If it's really good.

Today's gift idea is soooo good for the whole family, because they're fun, hip for males and females, and amazingly comfortable. They're TOMS shoes.



I know a lot of people like to make charitable donations and things around the holidays (side story: we saw someone on TV the other day say "Happy Holidays" and Edmund shouts, "That's MERRY CHRISTMAS to you, you f-ing heathen!") and this will knock out two birds with one stone. For every pair of TOMS you buy, they provide one pair to a child in a developing country. I have had a pair for a little over a year, and I have worn them so much Edmund groans when he sees me putting them on, but I can't help it. They are LITERALLY the most comfortable pair of shoes I have ever owned, and they look cool with skirts, jeans, leggings, whatever. Here are some examples:

They range from the hippie:


To preppy:



To young and trendy:


And even for baby:


I love this gift idea. Cute, comfy, and charitable. Find them at www.tomsshoes.com
They range in price from $34 for a children's shoe to $98 for boots, and everything in between. Well worth it.

Ta-da!

If any of you have been wondering of my whereabouts for the past couple of weeks, then I have to say you don't know me very well. I am not dependable. And I make excuses.

That being said, my computer hasn't been my best buddy lately. Its memory is so full that it won't even let me open email attachments. And it lost a bunch of my photos. So I've been boycotting it by not blogging. Yes. But until that gets sorted out, you won't be seeing pictures on here, unfortunately. But I can tell you about a few things that have happened to me in the past couple of weeks:

-my sister-in-law got me drunk in a tiny pub in the middle of nowhere.
-I had two houseguests, old friends from high school, come and stay.
-under duress, I rode the Dublin Bus for the first time ever. And it wasn't so bad.
-I made fettucine alfredo twice and oh man do I NOT regret it.
-I unpacked most of my boxes. The rest are going to storage at my sister-in-law's. (Not the aforementioned, a different one. I'm boycotting the aforementioned.)
-I took a bus tour of Wicklow, the county just south of Dublin famous for its natural beauty. Yes, I have pictures. No, you can't see them.
-I watched so many episodes of The Dog Whisperer that I have decided to abandon all other career paths to become the Cesar Millan of Ireland. The Sheep Whisperer.