A Fond Farewell

I don’t remember exactly when we started watching Top Gear. It was somewhere between 2008 and 2011, I know that much. I also know that our dear friends, Meg and Jason, were the ones who first brought it to our attention. When they asked us if we watched the show, my first thought was, “A show about cars? Boring!”

But we like our friends rather a lot, and we knew they liked a lot of the same things as we did, and so we decided to watch an episode, if only so we could say we had given it a shot.

I did not expect to enjoy it.

I definitely never expected to fall in love.

Reviews, Television Shows, PersonalJenelle SchmidtJanuary 27, 2025 Comment

Dreaming forward 2025

“Things that were, things that are, and some things... that have not yet come to pass.”

Well, we’re a week into the New Year…

And that means it’s time for my annual “Looking Back/Looking Forward” post, in which we look back at last year’s dreams and look forward to continuing or new dreams for this year!

Adventures and Episodes, Ishness, Personal, Publishing, WritingJenelle SchmidtJanuary 13, 2025 Comments

Travel-log Part 2: Waterford & CastleMartyr

Welcome to the second installment of my Ireland trip travel-log!

If I’m being perfectly honest, our first two days in Dublin were a little disappointing and Derek and I had a couple of moments of wondering, “Did we just waste a lot of money on this trip?”

And now we had to get ourselves to the car rental place and learn how to drive on the left side of the road. And by “we” I of course mean “Derek.”

It was all getting a little overwhelming.

PersonalJenelle SchmidtJuly 29, 2024 Comments

Travel-log Part 1: Dublin

Good morning, friends. It’s been over a month since we got back from our Ireland trip, and it’s been a whirlwind of a summer since we got home. But I made a promise, Mr. Frodo, and I aim to keep it.

I promised to tell you all about our Ireland trip, and here I am to make good on that promise!

It was such a great trip and we had so much fun and we made so many epic memories and I probably can’t fit it all into one blog post, so get ready for a series of posts.

In the heading picture of this post you can trace our travels through Ireland. We started in Dublin, drove down through Waterford into Cork, then on to Killarney, up to the Cliffs of Moher, through the Burren National Park, back to Limerick, and then back to Dublin by out-of-the-way of Kilkenny.

PersonalJenelle SchmidtJuly 7, 2024 Comments

A Final -Ishness Post for 2023

They say that 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

So that’s fun.

It’s been quite a year! In many ways, full of good things. In many ways, just straight-up exhausting. I am grateful. I look back on this year and I see so much that was good and exciting and fun.

It’s been a couple of months since I did an Adventures and Episodes / -ishness style post, so let’s dive in, shall we?

Ishness, My Books, PersonalJenelle SchmidtNovember 17, 2023 Comments