Month: May 2007

Irish Businesswomen’s Conference

Post author By Claire
Post date May 16, 2007
3 Comments on Irish Businesswomen’s Conference

I’m heading off to the Irish Businesswomen’s Conference down in sunny Westport tomorrow where I will be photographing the event (must go clear my memory cards!). The theme of the conference is “Thinking Bigger: What Are We Waiting For” and there’s a great line-up of speakers, including Annette Clancy of Interactions. Conn Ã“ MuÃneachÃ¡in will be Podcasting the weekend and there will be quite a few other bloggers around the place so it’ll be nice to have some familiar names. That’s another good thing about blogging…normally I’d go to one of these events and stand shyly in the corner pretending to be incredibly interested in the pattern on the carpet because I wouldn’t know anyone.

One thing I’ve always missed when working from home is the ability to swivel round in my chair and have a chat with a colleague. Or to go and have a bit of a bit of a rant in the canteen about whatever frustrations I might be having. If Matt and Eve aren’t around, the house can get awfully quiet. So, I’m looking forward to cramming a few months worth of over-the-cubicle-partition chats into the next couple of days. The fact that it’s in an extremely nice hotel and I’m booked in for a massage tomorrow afternoon isn’t half bad either!

Eve

Twinkle Twinkle

Just a little something for a Monday…Eve’s rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star*:

Click for the cute

*warning: insulin may be required.

Personal

Mole-less

Post author By Claire
Post date May 8, 2007
10 Comments on Mole-less

I’m alive! I’m feeling a little silly now that I’m back home and it’s all done. By the time the nurse came to call me in to the operating room I had worked my insides up into a bit of a churn. I did try to take Davy’s advice from the comments to the previous post and imagine it being all over but I kept slipping back into the now. Especially when I saw the giant needle coming for my face.

My main worry was that I would feel the cutting and do one of my fainting tricks and totally embarrass myself like I did when I got my tattoo a million years ago…yep, that’s me…the rock-hard rebel sitting on the tattoo parlour floor retching into the wastepaper basket! Thankfully, this time I kept my dignity because I didn’t feel a thing. The surgeon turned out to be lovely (I must have caught him on a bad day before) as were the nurses, telling me what to expect at each stage. Him telling me to keep still and then asking me questions as he cut into my cheek wasn’t the best idea though.

The stitches come out at the weekend and I’m not allowed to wash my face for a few days (lovely). As I sit here the numbness is beginning to wear off along with the adrenaline so it’s starting to get a little bit painful, but I’m so relieved that it’s over I can handle a bit of pain now. Thanks for the good luck wishes 🙂

Personal

Nip/Tuck

Post author By Claire
Post date May 7, 2007
3 Comments on Nip/Tuck

I’m going under the knife tomorrow morning…having a bit of work done. Well, I’m having two moles removed but they’re from my face and it’s being done by a plastic surgeon and it’s about as close as I’ll ever get to anything like a facelift. I’m not good about anything like this, I’ve got the butterflies in my stomach and I know by the time I’m sitting in the waiting room I’ll be a nervous wreck. It doesn’t help that it’s being done in Ireland where you hear all too often about people going in to have so-called simple procedures done only to come out missing a leg because their charts got mixed up.

I met the surgeon a few months ago for the preliminary chat and he didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. Apparently my GP had exaggerated somewhat in her letter to the hospital saying the moles bled at the drop of a hat and were causing me much pain. I guess that’s what you have to do to get your patients seen quickly. This meant the plastic surgeon was skeptical of everything I said to him and kept cutting me off with a “yea, yea, of course…that’s what they all say.”

So, wish me luck. Hopefully I’ll make it out alive.

Photography

The Beautiful People

I’ve been dying to show off some of the lovely people I got to photograph last weekend, I just had to make sure everyone had had a first peek. So now I can finally show the results. I had four sessions scattered throughout the day, there were to be two others but due to unforeseen circumstances they had to cancel. This meant that I didn’t get to shoot any children that day so my portfolio still needs some work, but I’m more than happy with the shots I did get. Thanks again to everyone who came along and allowed me to drag you to all sorts of weird and wonderful places along Killiney Beach! So here are a few of my favourites from the day:

First off is Matt of Life Without Toast. A real natural and the early bird of the day. He was able to show me some great locations that I used for the rest of the day:

Next came Mike, a journalism student from DCU and an extremely nice guy with a spooky resemblance to my little brother:

Next was the lovely family of Aisling of Team Geared Up, Wednesday Night Runners and Aisling’s Blog Page. This is one fit family, I’d recommend reading about their running adventures, puts my couch potato ways to shame!:

My last session of the day was with my good blogging pal John (of Dublin) of Earth And Universe. He managed to persuade his lovely wife Joey to come down with him and they were great fun. Again, they were brilliant sports even when I had them standing under the train tracks amongst the graffitti and other debris!:

There are lots more on Flickr in my portrait set.