St. Patrick's Day Table 2016

It's almost time for the wearin' of the green -- are you ready?  :-D  It's St. Patrick's Eve, and I've set an Irish-themed table so I can participate in Kathleen's Annual St. Paddy's Day Blog Crawl.  If you'd like to join in the fun, head over to Cuisine Kathleen's blog and prepare to be Irish for the evening.

McGee's Pub

Once Upon A Time in a place called North Carolina, there lived a husband, a wife and son, a dog, a cat, and two sets of grandparents.  The husband was working on a big computer software installation at his company's Ireland facility in Kilkeel, Northern Ireland.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you!  Unfortunately, things aren't looking real green and cheerful around here today.  More dismal weather, filled with gray skies and cold rain.  To be fair though, it rains an awful lot a wee fair bit in Ireland, too.  That's why everything is so lush and green there.  They're not plagued with the hot, humid weather that we get here in the summer, or the frequent periods of drought.

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My Favorite Five -- Guest Posting at "Decor To Adore"

Hi everyone!  Today you can find me at Laura Ingalls Gunn's blog, Decor To Adore.  I'm guest posting for her weekly series, "My Favorite Five."  I'd love for you to stop by and visit me at Laura's blog.  I'll be sharing five of my favorite Irish things.

Happy Pink Saturday and Happy St. Patrick's Day

Hi everyone!  What gorgeous weather we've had this week!!  Just in time for Pink Saturday...

My husband took these pictures of our Saucer Magnolia, or Tulip Magnolia, about two weeks ago.  We had a freeze three nights later, and yesterday we had a thunderstorm, so the blooms are mostly on the ground at this point.  It was pretty while it lasted. :)

Does anyone have plans for celebrating St. Paddy's Day tomorrow?  Some of the Irish restaurants in our area are having all-day buffets, starting around 10:30 a.m., and Irish bands performing all day, as well.  Lots of festivities.  Hope you enjoy the day wherever you may be!

If you'd like to see more pictures from our trip to Ireland, you can click on the posts HERE and HERE.  Thanks for visiting me, and I'm joining Pink Saturday, hosted by Beverly at How Sweet the Sound, Seasonal Sundays, hosted by The Tablescaper, and Mosaic Monday, hosted by Mary at Little Red House.

All the best!

Denise 

The Land of Shamrocks, Part 2

St. Paddy's Day hasn't arrived yet, but everyone is still celebrating.  There's a whole lot of celebrating going on over at Cuisine Kathleen's place.  She's hosting the Fourth Annual St. Patrick's Day Blog Party Crawl (try saying that three times really fast) :)

I thought I would leave you with a few last images of Ireland from the trip we took in 1999 (you can see Part 1 of our trip HERE).  But I also wanted to share some thoughts about my experience.  I so appreciate all the nice comments people left on the first part of my post.  It's amazing how many out there have Irish roots and have traveled to Ireland.  A few of you mentioned "The Troubles" in your comments.  When we think of Ireland, we think of the beauty -- the unbelievable green land, the magical light, the flowers, cottages, and the hospitable people.  And unfortunately, most of us think of "The Troubles."

Ireland, The Land of Shamrocks

This week it seems that in America and across the big pond; in the old country and the new, almost everyone is celebrating being Irish.  Some folks can claim a true Irish heritage, and others are Irish only in spirit.  But either way, we all seem to enjoy the experience of St. Patrick's Day.

In April of 1999, I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to England and Ireland with my husband, who was spending a lot of time there on a big computer project for work.  The company he works for has a facility in England and one in Northern Ireland.  Now I realize that Northern Ireland is not really Ireland proper, as it's actually part of Great Britain.  But, if you have a rental car, the Republic of Ireland is within driving distance and one can spend the day there, which is what we did.

It really was a great adventure, this trip.  I'm so thankful I had the chance to go.  It was mostly a working trip for my husband, but at least he was able to be free on the weekends, and that's when we did most of our sightseeing.

Our trip was scheduled for ten days, and two of those were spent in the air between London and Raleigh, North Carolina.  One day was spent traveling to Belfast, Northern Ireland.  So that left us with five days in England and two full days in Ireland.

I don't have a lot of pictures of Ireland, but I'll share what I have.  We didn't own a digital camera in 1999, and these pictures were made on my beloved Canon Sureshot, 35mm, automatic focus.  My parents gave it to Mr. Forest Manor and I for our first Christmas.  It was so easy to use, and it actually took pretty good pictures.

I spent about two hours today scanning all these pictures into Picasa and editing some of them.  To be almost 13 years old, they've held up pretty well.