Living in Ireland: When to Move Back to the U.S.
This was a hard article to write. If you’ve been living in Ireland, how do you know when it’s time to move back home? In our case, home is the United States. If you are an American citizen who moved to Ireland for work, then you probably entered Ireland in one of two ways: on a contract or as a permanent hire. If you were on a contract with a set end-date, then you know when you’ll be leaving. If you entered Ireland as a permanent hire, then your end date (if there is one) is more ambiguous and something you’ll have to determine for yourself. My husband works for…
Living in Ireland: Pediatric Emergency Medicine
When our family moved to Ireland 15 months ago, I did what I could from a medical perspective to make sure our transition was as smooth as possible. Today I’m going to share what I did in the hope that you’ll find my list helpful should you find yourself in a similar situation. Then I’ll get to the dramatic part tell you how it all went to hell a story of what happened last week that showed the drastic gap in my planning that most certainly contributed to a new patch of grey hair. BEFORE WE LEFT THE USA: Prescriptions: Before I left the states, I arranged to “buy-out” the…
Moving to Ireland: A Day Out and About
Can I get a hip-hip-hooray for Friday? I have a bunch of posts in progress to share with you, but I just wasn’t feeling it for today. Instead, I thought I’d just share some random pictures. These all happen to be taken the day we got the keys to our new house, but have nothing to do with the new house. In the last month, we have become quite adept at taking the DART train. We’ve taught the kids to swipe their own train tickets and to read the signs so they know which train we are taking and when it is due to arrive. Tourist Tip: The trains are marked with their final…
Moving to Ireland: House Viewing #3
If you’ve been following along on our house hunting adventures in Ireland, then you’ll know that House #1 and House #2 were a big, fat bust. I hate to spoil the surprise, but if we are connected on Instagram or you ran into my dad, then you already know “third times a charm” is now my favorite phrase ever. House #3 is a 4 bedroom, 2 bath semi-detached home located in a small coastal village about 30 minutes south of Dublin. Semi-detached is just a fancy way of saying it’s actually attached on one side and thus a duplex. This home was built in 1966 and thankfully has had some updates since that…
Moving to Ireland: Temporary House, Floor 2
After Monday’s awe-inspiring pictures of where we stayed while we searched for a permanent Irish residence, I didn’t want to leave you hanging over the weekend without showing the 2nd floor of this home. You’re welcome. (You can read all about the first floor here.) Let’s climb the stairs to the second floor. Ask me how many times the kids took that stair turn too fast? Go ahead. Ask. Once each. Alright, my son might have done it twice, but his danger streak runs a mile wide. This townhouse is a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home. At the top of the stairs you can turn right to the bathroom and one of…
Moving to Ireland: Human Kindness is Overflowing
Our first week in Ireland has been a WHIRLWIND. Apparently, the motto in our house is “hit the ground running.” Just once I’d like to try dialing it back a notch to see how “hit the ground after this Netflix binge” feels. I’ll bet it feels nice…and not jet-lagged. Jet lag aside, I don’t want to give the impression that this week has been without any bumps in the road. Every good adventure has a few of those. However, as I keep my eyes focused on the big picture, I can’t help but feel I’ve seen the kinder side of humanity this week. Surprising? It sure as heck surprised me! In…
Adventure Awaits
There has been a frenzy of activity behind the scenes of this little blog. This happened. Then this happened. That’s right! We are moving! Again. Ha! Handy Husband accepted a new job with his same company and a transfer to Ireland! IRELAND. As in that foreign country that’s really pretty and green with a pub on every corner. That Ireland. Even though I am mired in all of the moving details, it still sounds unreal when I say it out loud. This has been a collective dream of ours since college, but even more so after we had children. We want our children to grow up considering themselves to be global citizens with a…
