Coming from Texas, but living in Ireland, I’m always asked the same question: did I find it hard moving from sunny Texas, to rainy Ireland? The answer is no. Texas is too hot and you spend all of your time running from air conditioned shop to air conditioned car to air conditioned house. If you …
My Mom died of cancer last January 2nd. Almost a year later, I’m still grieving. I moved from Texas to Ireland in 2001 and my Mom remained my connection to Austin. She was my anchor and bridge to the US. We spoke on the phone for about an hour twice per week and exchanged emails …
One of my favourite things to do at Christmastime is to visit some of the amazing Christmas markets Europe has to offer. I’ve been fortunate to get to a number of places, but wanted to write a bit about the most recent four I’ve been to with my partner, Mary. 2017 Bratislava, Slovakia Mary chose …
How do you choose when there are too many options? You want to watch some television. 30 years ago, you would have turned on the TV and moved between the handful of channels you had access to. Today, you have to first decide between terrestrial, Sky, Netflix, catch up TV or just surfing the web …
Maybe it’s just me…but when I was young I dreamed of doing something important. I was always interested in politics, so I dreamed of shaping world events, negotiating treaties or helping to create new policies with real, lasting impact. Instead, I became a teacher. My dreams remained big. I wanted to be the head of …
I’m always fascinated by how tastes, smells, music, sounds and just random thoughts can evoke strong memories. Recently, I had watermelon. After one bite, I was transported back to my early 20s as a camp counselor in Houston. Vividly, I remembered cutting up farmer’s market fresh watermelon for campers. Those melons were always amazing. So …
This summer I got a new puppy named Penny. She was born around the start of May and enjoyed her first summer walking parts of the Kerry Way and exploring Rossbeigh Beach. At home, she enjoyed basking in the sun either in the back garden or in the sunroom. But, as the winter has closed …
When I think about life, I keep coming back to the theme of how we spend our time. If you’re working, you spend about 25% of your time at work, 33% sleeping and the remaining 42% of your time doing things for yourself and your family. From experience, I know that while no one has …
One of the things that seems so shocking about the UK BREXIT referendum is how a narrow majority of people is going to make a massive change in every aspect of the UK economy. Imagine if you wanted to go out for dinner with a group of 21 friends. Ten of them LOVE pizza, but …
I Meeting Tim I think I first met Tim in 2003. It was winter sometime maybe October or November. My then partner wanted to get a dog and found this rescue dog through the ISPCA. I’d never really had a dog and she hadn’t had one since childhood. We went to meet Tim on a …