Happy Monday, friends! Did you have a nice weekend? We finally saw the sun, and we also took a quick trip to Galway for Mike’s last away basketball game of the season and I’m so relieved!

It’s grey and rainy in Dublin this morning and I’m working on a few projects I’m hoping to share with you later in the week. They’re both very sweet, one literally and one figuratively! I thought I’d take a quick break from my projects to talk about plants for a minute.

When we took down our Christmas tree in January this year, I realized how much I liked having something green in our living room. With that in mind, I have added and subsequently tortured, basil and cilantro plants. Michael brought me a spiky red plant a month ago which seems to be surviving, and although my paperwhite flowers have gone by, their leaves are still three feet tall and seem to be fairly happy.

But while the living room is a little greener, these plants are forcing me to act like a helicopter parent. Whenever I’m in the living room, I’m wondering and worrying if they have enough water or too much water?

I’ve decided what I really need is an air plant. Did you even know these exist? I spotted them a few weeks ago over on The Marion House Book and couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of them before! It could have something to do with them not being at all indigenous to Ireland, but still.

{Images of Emma’s air plants in her beautiful house. If you haven’t yet seen her blog, it’s well worth a visit! She has the kind of serene-but-lived-in home I just love.}

Aren’t they equally cool and creepy? According to Wikipedia, they gather nutrients and moisture from the air, from decaying plants, dust and insect matter, all stuff I’d be happy to have out of my air! And bonus points that they can apparently live on driftwood. You know how I feel about driftwood.

I’m not sure if I can get air plants in Ireland or if I’ll have to smuggle them back from America. Do you have air plants? In Ireland or elsewhere? I’d love to hear your experiences with them. Are they as easy as they seem?

A few weeks ago, a friend pointed out that I hadn’t been posting many recipes. She’s right! I haven’t been spending much time baking, mostly because I’m trying to get back in shape after the winter and I find if I bake something, chances are good I’m going to end up eating it. All of it.

But these meringues from the Wedding Chicks look so light and airy, they might make it into my kitchen this weekend. Meringues often make me nervous, but I think they’re deceptively simple.  I think the key is to avoid a recipe that involves piping, and these recipes involve zero piping. I am not interested in piping. Mostly because I’m terrible at it, and also because it means more things to wash afterwards. These recipes seem to stand on imperfections, which is just my kind of style!

I’m hoping to have my own little meringue tutorial to share next week! Fingers crossed!

Berry Meringue and Ombre Meringue Parfaits from the Wedding Chicks.

When I first read about this project earlier this year, I was so moved by it that I tore out the pages from the Sunday Times magazine and saved them. I found the combination of past and present so compelling – I love when new forms of technology are used to preserve history.

Chris Ayres noticed each entry in his late grandfather’s war journal was about the same length as a Twitter status update, so he opened a Twitter account to post the entries and honor his grandfather’s experience.

But not only is Ayres’ honoring his grandfather’s service, he’s also sharing a really incredible story. Ayres’ grandfather, British Private Ross Taylor, was captured as a prisoner of war and kept in work camps until he finally escaped five years later in a stolen, wood-burning truck with flat tires.

Two weeks after he was reunited with his girlfriend, Flo, who waited for him for all that time, they married and were together for 64 years.

Ayres didn’t get a chance to hear his grandfather tell the stories in his journal first hand, instead only fully began to understand his grandfather’s history after he had died. Many of us have grandfathers who fought in wars but never kept journals and aren’t eager to speak about those years.

In our world of over-sharing and constant status updates, I find our grandparents’ lives as soldiers utterly mysterious. Every so often, I get snippets of what my grandfather’s life was like in World War II, but there’s so much I’ll never know. He comes from a generation that couldn’t or didn’t need to pour out feelings and opinions at every turn. Stories could be kept and just never ever told.

I get goosebumps knowing that there are stories around the world that will never be spoken or heard. I know there are countless stories of bravery and courage, and probably stories of vulnerability and loneliness so deep that nothing I ever feel will quite compare.

When you stop and think about those untold stories, it’s just a little eerie. Are there stories only you will ever know? I have a few but maybe I’ll wait and share them with my grandchildren so they think I have grand secret stories!

Happy Monday! Did you have a nice weekend? Mine was productive but rejuvenating. These few days off have been busy, but full of visits with friends, great chats and a ton of walking.

On Saturday afternoon, I met my friend Sebastian in the City Centre to take photos for a project I’m working on. Sebastian is my go-to for all photography questions. He works at Nikon in their professional customer care department. Obviously, he knows tons and he’s also a great photographer. He took these photos and helped me take these too. Good thing he doesn’t seem to mind that I’m forever asking him for photography favors!

While I wasn’t paying attention, Sebastian snapped a few photos of me playing photographer.

Tomorrow I should have a few of those photos to share with you!

We needed a winner for the Little Hill Designs cheese board, so I picked one using random.org. And the winner is: Kay Reinhart! Kay, please email me your address and I’ll put it in the mail! Thanks to you all for entering!

I left Michael snoozing in bed this morning and took myself on a photo walk. Early spring is so short and I wanted to capture a few of the first blossoms. And yes, it’s spring already in Dublin. It’s a trade-off, no hot summer but at least winter is mild and spring is early!

You have until midnight tonight (Dublin time) to enter the Little Hill Designs giveaway and I’ll be announcing the winner tomorrow. Have a lovely weekend!