My display at <Elements Gallery
Whew. My workload is drastically less until mid-August now. This is what makes the craziness of spring worth it. Hopefully I will now have the time and energy to write and make art for the next several months.
In less than one week, Sandy and I leave on our excellent adventure to Ireland. Although I love the idea of spontaneous travel and following our noses, my anxiety level and personality type (INTJ) will not allow it, so I have obsessively pored over Google maps and changed our reservations on most of our days at least once. I changed our car rental to begin as we leave Dublin so I feel much better about that. Plus, I ended up saving a lot of money by moving to a different company plus I upgraded our car size to economy. We did have a tiny “mini” car through Hertz and I decided that I didn’t want to ride all over Ireland with our luggage in my lap and on my feet. Apparently car rental is much cheaper in Ireland than it is in the U.S.
Now we are doing a clockwise tour of the island because I discovered that this festival is going on the last weekend of our trip. It didn’t take too much rearranging. I changed our lodging from the hotel in Kells to Newgrange Lodge for a night in the Irish countryside (and less expensive) and I am actually happier with the bed and breakfast that I booked for the night of our anniversary, Gorman’s Clifftop House, overlooking the Atlantic near Dingle. We will stay at Davitt’s in Kenmare, and two nights at the Lake of Shadows Hotel in Buncrana, as well as in-town guesthouses in Dublin and Galway for two nights each, so it will be nice to stay in a lovely country house on the sea cliffs. I cancelled our stay in Ballycastle because of our new schedule, and this also means that one of my main things that I want to do, hike on the Giant’s Causeway, will be on our last day on the way back to Dublin. I hope that we will not be too worn out by then, but I’m done worrying about that. If we are, then it will be an excuse to go back. My Irish blog friend Moonwaves gave me some excellent advice on where to stay nearest the airport (the Clarion) for late on our last night we will return the car, take a shuttle to the hotel, collapse, and be up early to fly back to Greensboro.
I managed to get my wedding band off, and since my hand is a bit swollen (yes, I overdid it with the gardening, not to mention the thirty pounds or so I’ve put on since my wedding day 25 years ago), I put it away. Sandy lost his band recently (probably behind the dresser) and we will both buy new ones in Ireland. Celtic knot silver band, at least for me.
So my thoughts have been all about work, Ireland, and working at the gallery, which I did in one fell swoop in the past five weeks, in a fit of what I can only describe as miscalculated. I normally know better than to schedule anything toward the end of spring semester. The upside is that I am now free of obligations other than work for the entire summer. I don’t really mind gallery sitting though. It is very relaxing, and once I do the few chores required, I work on a project. What I really hate is being on the hospitality team for a reception. I am not an event planner or a decorator. If it was up to me, I’d probably set out a bowl of peanuts on a bare table and provide a cooler of different drinks. But we do have very nice receptions and it is a good thing that I have others to make me toe the line on this.
I will post about the Back Forty later – I have done some planting and other work back there this spring.
slowly she turned 