Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Living in the Moment...Living My Life

Well my wonderful little holiday (vacation) is over.  My parents have gone back home to Michigan, and I'm resuming my responsibilities as a GAPper in Dublin.  I've put my "GAPper hat" back on and am ready to conquer these next 3 and a half months here in Ireland. Yesterday I helped out with homeschooling and child-minding for a big family in community, and today I'm helping out at Spirit Radio with the pledge drive. 

We're on day 2 of fundraising for the station, and we're praying that God will provide money to help us stay on the air.  Spirit Radio is a great evangelistic tool we have started here in Ireland---we're currently broadcasting to 5 cities across the country!  That's huge!  If you'd like to find out more about the station, click here.  You can even listen online by clicking "Listen Live" (at the top of the page).  We depend mainly on our listeners for financial support, so these pledge drives really are critical to us.  You can donate to Spirit Radio if you wish---we are always looking for financial support!  If you're reading this from the outside Ireland, you can donate very easily (and securely) on the website via Paypal (Option 4 on this page:  http://www.spiritradio.ie/support/donate/), and if you're reading from Ireland, you can call in to the station this week at 1800 815 711 or donate online.  Any amount you can afford will greatly benefit us!  :)  Okay, enough on that.  Didn't really expect to give a plug for the pledge drive here but the Lord really put it on my heart to do so.

Before I completely abandon my "holiday/vacation mode", I have to tell you about one of the best days I've had in a while...the last day (Sunday 23rd April) with my parents here in Ireland.  It was all about living in the moment.  We didn't have a grand plan for the day...we just took it in bite size pieces.  It's not often that I do that...but I loved it.  Here's how the day went:

After a nice relaxed morning (I slept until 11:30!), I hopped on a bus and headed into town to meet my parents.  It was pouring (or "lashing" as they say here) rain when I got on the bus, but I really hoped it would calm down by the time I got into town.  Of course it continued to rain.  I got off the bus on O'Connell Street where I planned on meeting my parents, but because I was about 10 minutes early, I ran into the nearest Penneys (not to be confused with "JC Penneys" in the States...) to buy a cheap umbrella.  I found a small pink one for just 5 Euro.  Perfect!  :)  By the time I paid and went back outside it had stopped raining.  Oh, Ireland...how I love thee.  I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't use my new umbrella, but I figured I'd have plenty more opportunities.  I walked over to meet my parents and about 5 minutes after I got to our meeting spot, I saw them walking up the street.  As soon as they saw me they started waving their arms wildly and smiling at me.  My mom also started gesturing "I love you" as she got closer, and my dad started doing the same.  It was one of those moments that made me really happy they were in Ireland visiting me.  :)

My mom and me with my new pink umbrella!
My parents and I walked pretty aimlessly all around the city that day...in the on-and-off rain...and it was wonderful.  We didn't really have a set destination, other than the fact that we knew we'd eventually get hungry and need to stop somewhere for dinner.  We spent our time just walking up and down streets, crossing bridges, and stumbling into shops.  I met a nice Irish man named Sean in a charity shop we visited, and he was very friendly.  He heard my mom say something to me and he immediately detected our American accents.  He proceeded to ask where we were from, and then asked all kinds of questions about Michigan.  It was nice that he was so interested in our State.  Before he left he shook my hand and said, "It was nice to meet you.  My name is Sean, by the way.  Can't get any more Irish than that!"  I laughed and told him my name, to which he responded, "Oh, Rachel is a Biblical name, isn't it?"  I nodded yes, and then he said, "I'm not too familiar with the Good Book, but I do know that Rachel is a Biblical name."  I smiled at him and then said goodbye and made my way out of the shop.  Looking back on it now, I feel as though I should have shared a bit of Jesus with Sean.  He did kind of bring Him up.  *Oh Lord, please give me the boldness to share You more impulsively with others!*

This is at Madigans
About halfway through our afternoon we decided to stop for a coffee (Diet Coke for me) break in a pub.  We went to a place called Madigans and got drinks and an order of chips (fries) to share.  It was the perfect mid-afternoon snack!






My new gorgeous necklace!
Close-up
We walked in some other cool shops in the city and we happened to stumble into one very unique place called "The Ferocious Mingle Market".  Standing on the street and looking into the shop, it seemed to go on forever...just further and further back.  When we walked in there was a whole bunch of really cool antiques and some old books.  There was also a little coffee shop.  Further back there were a bunch of stalls set up with people selling all kinds of things...clothes, books, jewelry, lamps, little trinkets...all kinds of things.  Everything had kind of a funky, vintage-y feel to it...very quirky.  There was also a small stage where I assume they have live music from time to time.  I was looking in the jewelry stall with my mom and the lady there was very friendly.  She said that all the jewelry was currently half off because she was trying to bring in a new line of more jewelry soon.  I bought a really pretty necklace and it was only 10 Euro!  :)

When we had finished furociously mingling in "The Ferocious Mingle Market", we headed back out into the rain toward a pub to have dinner.  Even though it was wet and grey and cold, we enjoyed trying to squeeze under my tiny pink umbrella.  Truthfully, I don't think we really minded getting wet.  We enjoyed just having a nice relaxed pace to the day and not rushing anywhere.  Plus we were together.  Who cares about the rain?  :)  For dinner we went to The Brazen Head, which is Ireland's oldest pub.  I ordered Irish stew with lamb, and it was absolutely delicious.  I can't remember the last time I had lamb, but I really enjoyed it.  It was cooked and seasoned perfectly...yum!  My mom also had her very first Guinness in The Brazen Head.  She had never had Guinness before...what a perfect place to try it!  :)  We had a wonderful dinner together and got some great pictures in the pub.

The bar at The Brazen Head, Ireland's oldest pub

My parents and me at The Brazen Head












I said goodbye to my parents at the bus stop on Sunday (it was too much trouble for me to try and get to the airport to bid them goodbye there...), and then headed back home.  I didn't feel too sad about it then, but looking at all the great pictures from our visit makes me wish I could hug them both one more time.  I am so happy that they got the opportunity to come visit me here in Ireland and also for the opportunity I had to take some time off to be with them.  Thanks Peter & Ciara!  :)

I got the new Jason Mraz cd in the mail last week and I've been listening to it nonstop since then.  I love all the songs!  My current favorite is "Living in the Moment".  It just makes me so happy.  :)  I listened to it 3 times on the bus into Spirit Radio today.  Good stuff.  Here's the link to the song on YouTube if you'd like to have a listen:  "Living in the Moment".  I love the whistling at the beginning, and the lyrics are just really great.  I think we all need to learn a lesson from Jason about just living each moment of every day and not getting caught up in the small troubles of life.  I know I need that lesson!

"I will not waste my days making up all kinds of ways to worry about all the things that will not happen to me.  [...] I'm letting myself off the hook for things I've done.  I let my past go past and now I'm having more fun.  I'm letting go of the thoughts that do not make me strong." -Jason Mraz ("Living in the Moment")

First try with my new stamping nail art kit
Oh, one more thing...if you know me at all, you'll know that I love painting my nails.  I paint them every week and love doing cool designs on them.  I also love doing other people's nails and have gotten around to painting almost every girl/woman in Community's nails here!  Anyway, I got an awesome KONAD Stamping Nail Art kit a few days ago.  If you read that and said "What the heck is a KONAD Stamping Nail Art kit???"...I'll explain it as best as I can.  It's "nail art made easy".  Basically you get these round, thin metal plates with designs engraved into them.  You take a special nail polish and blob it onto the plate, then take a little metal scraper to scrape the excess nail polish off the plate.  The rest of the polish stays in the little grooves of the design.  Then you take this rubber stamper tool and press it onto the design, picking up the nail polish that is left in the grooves.  Then you stamp the design from the rubber stamper onto your nail.  Sound complicated?  It is.  I got so frustrated last night trying it out!  I kept smearing the nail polish all over the plate instead of neatly scraping it off.  Then when I did neatly scrape it off the plate, I only picked up half of the design with the rubber stamper.  Then it dried before I could stamp it onto my nail.  Sheesh!  Eventually after many many tries (and fails) and a long Skype call with my friend Jennifer from back home (she was encouraging me "You can do it, Rach!")...I got it to work!  I ended up using my own nail polish to stamp the design instead of the special nail polish that comes with the kit.  I think eventually I'll learn to get the special nail polish to work.  :)  The picture above is how my nails turned out.  Not bad for my first attempt!  I added some pink and white to distract you from the fact that the stamp didn't fully make it onto my nail.  :)

If you're in Ireland reading this and would like to have some cool designs stamped onto your nails, let me know!  I'd love the practice!  If you're back in the States, you'll have to wait till I get home in August.  By then I should have it down perfectly!  :)

God bless you all!  Have a great rest of the week!  Here's a funny picture I took in Dublin on Sunday...

No comments:

Post a Comment