Lauren

I am never going to get back into the swing of this, but I am forgiving myself for it. I have such grand self-improvement plans: I’m going to exercise; I’m going to read a little each day; I’m going to be creative for a bit each day; I’m going to …… you see how this goes. I’m really doing pretty well to keep myself fed and clean.

Anyway, let’s get caught up. The summer session ended on Thursday. I cut myself a lot of slack this summer since everything was so off-kilter. I was sad to see some of my students go, but it was time for them to move on. We have some work days until the new session begins on Wednesday, and I’m trying to put them to good use. Friday I worked in the morning then ran some errands in Lincoln. In the evening we caught up with some of the Ireland crew and had a good time recalling our adventures.

Saturday I helped Deborah drop off a car at the airport in Omaha for her girls to use when they returned from a trip. I always like Omaha and we stopped at a couple of places to look around. We would have shopped more but I was so sleepy.

Sunday was re-installation day at church and then we went to Lincoln with the Other Sommerers to see Hamilton! It was fun seeing it with people who were just as excited and also knew all the lyrics. Lloyd and I sat with Sam and Rachel, and Gracen and Anna were up in the balcony. It was so different seeing it in person – the soundtrack or tv doesn’t shake your seat with sound. I loved the whole thing.

Today Lloyd starts his school year. My prayer is that this is a good year for us all, you included!

We are back from Phil’s funeral. It is good to have that part done. It was great to see family, even though the reason was so sad.

We came to Dad’s in waves – first our car, then Mark, Rachel and Matthew, then Keren and Kurt, and then Charlie. (Nephew Jacob couldn’t come – he was missed, but we all understood.) That was so great – I love my family! Some of us stayed at Dad’s and the rest stayed up the road at a rented house, but we gathered together to talk, laugh, cry, work out funeral details and just spend time together. We ate gobs of food (thanks to my thinking-ahead sister-in-law and my good friends), drank some of Lloyd’s lovely gin and tonics, and enjoyed connecting. My nephew Charlie said it well, that this is how people are meant to work through troubles – as a community. Isolation is no good.

We invited a couple of Phil’s friends over in the evenings and that was wonderful. I only knew Phil as my brother, so it was good to hear other people’s thoughts and feelings regarding him. There again, community is healing, especially when Jesus is there.

The funeral itself went well. The pastor kept the focus on Jesus’ gift of salvation and we had lots of singing. (Phil would have loved that.) The committal went well, too. His remains are up in the same cemetery where we buried my Mom. The weather was lovely and the short service was just right. Phil’s ashes were placed in the columbarium by his two best friends and they when put on the face plate, and that was – as his friend George said – closure. We know that’s not Phil. Phil is with Jesus, and all his troubles of this world are gone.

Huh. Remember when something interesting happened and I still didn’t write posts? I envy Bard for his stick-to-it-ness where he writes something every day. Now, looking back on the trip, I don’t really know how to start. My guess is that things will sneak in every now and then – whenever I get to this website.

This morning I got up and had my fire, even though it was already 76 degrees and muggy. (Yesterday the heat index hit 117.) One of the lovely things about Ireland was that our last house had a wood stove and I made a fire nearly every evening, and a couple of mornings, too. They were having a cool July, which is right up my alley. My only frustration was that I couldn’t figure out the air intake, so I would just leave the door open a crack. (There were three levers and I was only confident about the ash riddler. Online searches for a manual were futile.) Doesn’t this seem like I really, really should get a wood stove? Right?

Anyway, this morning I had my fire and then did a tiny job of trying to weed. There is bindweed everywhere and volunteer plants are all over. My yard is far from tidy – it’s more like a small woods, but messier – but this is pretty bad. I brought my reciprocating saw from work and had intentions of chopping down some stuff, but after working for 30 minutes before the sun was up, I was a dripping mess. I put a bunch of weeds, a bunch of sticks and also the big branches that fell while we were gone into the truck. The town burn pile is open on Saturdays and I need to get the load there before the thunderstorms hit.

Ok, breakfast and then a trip to the dump. Sounds excellent. Have a good Saturday.

One of the things I was interested in doing was going to Irish grocery stores. We went many times, but I was never alone so I wasn’t able to stare at products for hours on end. (I may have a problem.) Anyway, it was fun. The selection of all the things was similar but different – Kerrygold butter – the fancy butter we buy here – is all they have. There were no saltines, but we used ‘cream crackers’ instead. Milk was sold in 3-liter jugs, not a gallon. And best of all – eggs were just on the shelf. They’d never been washed or refrigerated, so they were just out. I loved that!

I have started to throw my photos onto Facebook so my Dad can see them, so if we’re not Facebook friends, we’ll need to fix that.

I think I’ll just write about some topics. For today’s thoughts: traveling. The flights were not terrible for me. I had spoken to my doctor about getting some anxiety medication, and I only took 1/2 a pill for the first flight. Flying isn’t the issue – it’s the ocean, which I couldn’t see from my seat anyway. I sat by Lloyd’s mom, Jane, on the overnight/overseas flight. She was by the window and it was COLD. Our seats had those little t.v. screens where you could choose movies, games, t.v. shows or the map that showed you where you were on the flight and what the outside temperature was: negative fifty-something!

We had two meals on each long flight, and I enjoyed each one. They weren’t spectacular, but I have very low standards for food. I just need to eat something. In fact, Brad and I had talked about that beforehand – how we just needed to Not Be Hungry in order to have a pleasant time. Not just snacks – protein and fat.

The ground transportation went well, too. I was supposed to be on our rental car but didn’t. We had five cars with five drivers that did a spectacular job. Nobody had a crash and they all stayed on the left side of the road 99% of the time.

Ok, that’s it for today. I am back into my old routine of going to work. Fortunately, the time difference has messed me up enough that I have plenty of time to get ready. By the way, Lloyd is having a colonoscopy tomorrow, so if you see him thinking about eating something solid today, slap it out of his hand.

We are home! It was so tricky posting from Ireland because the signal wasn’t always very strong and I was trying to type on a little iPhone. Right now I’m running into frustrations about moving photos around. I’ll just type.

Our first few days were spent exploring Dublin and going north to the Giant’s Causeway. Our driver for that was very talkative and knowledgable about the land and the history, and it made me want to try and go back and learn a little more about it all. Lots of this will make much more sense after actually seeing the places.

On Friday we drove across to the west coast, with Doolin as our goal. I was in Beth’s car and before we left Dublin…. we stopped at IKEA!

On the way we made some stops – a sweet little cafe, a castle, and then on to the hostel

We met so many lovely people along the way. At this castle, there was a little stream and waterfall, and a couple of dogs came barreling over to play in the stream. I talked with their owner for a while about how one of them had been hit by a car when he was a pup, and now. he loved playing in the water because it was good for his joints. We had a great conversation.

Ok, that’s it for this post because the transferring of photos is giving me a headache. More news tomorrow!