Ahh, nothing like waking up to a cold and rainy Monday back in Virginia. Honestly, I actually love these sorts of mornings- I’m sitting on the couch with Lily curled up next to me, I started my morning off with the best breakfast ever (see below) and some scripture reading, and the writing mood is in full swing so I’ve just pumped out 4-5 blog posts that are locked and loaded for publishing over the next couple of weeks. Europe was really good to me, but it’s wonderful to be home again.

As always, lessons learned/events that transpired over the past week:

• While I was still in Paris, I described to Matt over a Skype call just how insanely delicious the Nutella + banana crêpe was that I’d had in the Latin Quarter that afternoon. And then Matt discovered Banana Bread English Muffins at the grocery store, popped them in the toaster and paired them with Nutella: INSTANT hit. Holy cow, it’s phenomenal.
• During a round of evening music in McDermott’s pub last week, I had the joy of hearing an Irish drinking song… about Facebook. Never thought I’d hear that, but it was hilarious! God bless the Irish.
• I rented a bike for my time in Doolin- as I pedaled around for the first half of the day, huffing and puffing on a mostly-flat road, I found myself thinking “I don’t remember bicycling being this hard!” And that’s when I realized I was in the completely wrong gear, making my should-be-easy ride into an intense workout. Whoops.
• Trespassing is one of my favorite things to do in foreign countries. Not in extreme amounts, just the occasional (or frequent) hopping of fences to get closer to those adorable baby sheep. Or the bypassing of cows in order to pick your way across the moor, you know, to reach the castle you saw from the side of the road.
• Speaking of picking your way across a moor, something I learned: Hunter wellies are GREAT for splashing through water, but not so great for spelunking across rocky terrain. My boots are all kinds of scratched up, but that just means they’re well-loved, right? No better wait to break in some rain boots than by crashing your way through brambles and moors!
• I thought I’d encountered the creepiest creeps I’d ever meet in college, but nope. I had a 50-something-year-old Irish man (the town drunk, no less) ask me if I’d “like a night of passion before heading back to America?” Um, no thanks.  I’m still not sure if he was joking.

My film is still a couple weeks off from the blog, but here’s a preview of the gorgeous ballerina Sophie that I shot in Paris- the full session will hit the blog later this week!