Vague memories of an Irish pub

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . February 26, 2010 . 8:19PM

When we last left our heroine, she was at an Irish pub in the awful land of Washington, D.C.: a land full of people with agendas and horribly arranged streets…

We’d moved to a larger room in the back of The Dubliner and our group was gaining people like crazy. By this time, many in the group were inebriated. I was drinking my Coca-Cola (yeah, yeah, I’m drinking caffeine again–I’ll pay for it later) and enjoying the show.

It’s not my job to tell you everything that they did or said. It’s really not fair to them. Truly. They desperately need to be tattled on, but they all have their own blogs and if they can remember, more power to them. What I remember most keenly was our waiter. In an Irish pub, anyone with any kind of European accent sounds Irish. This is particularly true when everyone in the room is inebriated. What happens is that everything is much funnier than it really is.

Because of this situation, when it came to conversing with the waiter, I thought that it was hysterical that he wasn’t really Irish (look, he SOUNDED IRISH–if it looks like a Lucky Charm and walks like a Lucky Charm–yep, I’m kidding and yep, someone is gonna take that personally and yep, someone is gonna call me names). If you’d like to call me sauerkraut, go ahead.

Anyway, I made it my mission to discover the heritage of our waiter. As such, I refused to give him my order until he would disclose. What? I was in Washington. Disclosure is the name of the game. You can’t live there and not carry around your birth certificate, right?

Eventually, he gave it up to me and my friend Sarah that he was English and French. Sarah is French so this was an incredibly delightful conversation that ended with us holding our waiter up for ten minutes while we compared family histories and had a new best friend who was now required to serve all of our food “with love” because it was inevitable that we were somehow related (me being 1/4 English and Sarah being French).

And yes, I required him to say that everything had love in it.

This was much better than the experience we had at a bar later in the week where they wouldn’t allow us in because Caleb’s license had expired and they refused to believe he was over 21 even though he was supporting a full logger beard and it was clearly him on the license. And then when the guy who refused to let us in mouthed off to Caleb and Ben and made the situation ten times worse… Oh, you want to hear about that, too?

It was a long weekend. And I met a girl named Beer.

My first giveaway! Jewelry by Linda Lee

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . June 16, 2009 . 12:30PM

My wonderful friend, Linda Lee, is a jewelry-making genius. Last year, she went to Italy to learn more about glass-blowing and her skills have just taken off since then. I recently bought a necklace from her, to wear to a wedding this weekend, in fact, and I was blown away by how incredibly beautiful the necklace is and how lovely it is when it hangs on my neck.

When I received the box in the mail, it was gift-wrapped and gorgeous and I couldn’t wait to open it. It was then that it occurred to me that Linda Lee is an unknown treasure and I’d been keeping her to myself, quite selfishly, in fact. Recently, she’d had a sale and I realized that I was being a bad friend to all of you in not sharing her amazing work. What? I’m not always nice. And I like having first dibs.

So, to make it up to you, I’m offering a giveaway! It’s the first one on this website and Linda Lee forgave me for being so selfish and so should you. She’s generously donated a BEAUTIFUL necklace and earring set valued at $65! She custom makes all of her jewelry so there is not a single set just like this anywhere else. Ladies, this matches everything. Men, your woman will love this. Let me give you a little background information on it.

This necklace features four oversized pearls, tiny Swarovski crystals, sterling silver wire, and sterling silver chain. Linda Lee used a classic chainmail technique with twisted sterling silver rings. This necklace is 18 1/2 inches long and can be worn much shorter because of the type of chain used.

If the winner needs the necklace longer, Linda Lee can add an extender to it. 

The earrings are slightly longer than 1 1/2 inches measured from the top of the ear wire.

Here’s the best news of all. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU gets 15% off at Linda Lee’s Etsy store if you find something there that you must have! Just mention this blog when you purchase at her store between now and June 21, 2009 to receive a 15% discount!

Today, one lucky commenter will have the chance to win a beautiful necklace and earring set you can’t find anywhere else (valued at $65)!

Here’s how to enter:

1) Leave a comment before June 21st at 5pm CST telling me your favorite part of summer.
2) You can tweet this giveway and/or link it on facebook for extra chances to win! Make sure you leave individual comments so all of your entries count.

Things to know:
**Linda Lee ships everywhere! That means all of you outside of the U.S. CAN participate AND you can order from her etsy store, too!
**Comments posted after the deadline won’t be included in the drawing.
**If you win, you must email me your address so I can give it to Linda Lee in order to receive your prize.
**I will be using a randomizer to choose the winner of the giveaway. As long as your answer fits the criteria, you are eligible.