Mar 4, 2025 | A House In Italy, A Rosie Moment, Book Updates, RE# Your Life
If you have read my book ‘A Rosie Life In Italy’ you may remember that back in 2013, I was living in the cheapest house in Ireland with a colander for a roof, rats scrabbling above my bedroom ceiling, and not enough money to pay for my kids’ school bus fare. Life was, to put it bluntly, a bit of a shit show.
I was 40 years old, and the previous ten years had felt like a relentless game of emotional Whac-A-Mole; Miscarriages. Losing my big sister. My partner battling and then rehabbing from chronic alcoholism. The collapse of my business and income. Our dream of moving to Spain—gone. Every time I thought things might turn a corner, life threw another curveball, and I was exhausted. The chaos in my life was attracting more chaos.
I needed something to shift the trajectory of my life. I wanted to step away from the chaos. I wanted an instruction manual, a step-by-step guide to get out of the rut, to stop spinning in the same downward cycle. But I couldn’t find one.
So, I decided I would create my own.
I knew I wanted to follow my dreams and live life to the full. More importantly, I wanted other women who were feeling the same—trapped, stuck, waiting—to rise with me and grab life by the goolies. Because let’s be honest, we know by now there is no knight in shining armour coming to rescue us. If we want to shake things up, we have to do it ourselves.
Grab It By the Goolies Academy
I knew how to build a website, so I started Life Is Short Magazine. It was an online magazine filled with interviews of inspirational women who had followed their dreams, despite life’s challenges. I wanted their stories to give me and others hope and inspiration and to be proof that it was possible to change course, no matter what life had thrown at you.
I wanted to develop a community of women so we could encourage and learn from each other so alongside it I launched—Grab It By the Goolies Academy—an online space to encourage people to take tangible steps toward their dreams. And, because I don’t do things in halves and I believe in the power of a good book, I decided to write a non-fiction book to kick off the academy and website, called; How To Have A Fabulous Midlife Crisis: A User’s Guide to Dusting Off Your Dreams and Making Them Happen.
Then something I always wanted to happen happened.
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Jun 3, 2024 | A House In Italy
“I brought you some plants.”
“Oh bloody hell!”
Feck, did I say that out loud? I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but really? More bloody plants.
Neighbours were wonderful and very generous when they heard of my Dad’s passing. Instead of sending flowers to Ireland they brought me plants for my garden in Italy. Buckets of them.
These I will plant randomly, as I will forget what they told me they were and what size they will grow to. I did the same with the cuttings and plants they gave me for my birthday, and the 28 faded packets of seeds I’ve collected from shopping expeditions, with great unfulfilled intentions, at the beginning of each spring for the last five years.
I’ll battle the weeds and brambles and clear an area. Dig the holes required, battle the roots of old trees that no longer stand. Fill in the snake holes and avoid the scorpions. After fertilising the area with expensive organic stuff, I’ll carefully tip the plant from its pot and bed in the soil around it.
My nearly grown back nails will break again and no amount of soaking or scraping will remove the ingrained dirt.
For at least a month, my daily workout will include carrying two full watering cans per plant down the garden.
It will rain, then sunshine. Then rain again. Alongside the plants, the weeds will take advantage of all my hard work.
Then, one fine morning, my husband Ronan, will go out with his strimmer and strim the weeds, and all the plants I have carefully planted down to the roots because, “they all look the same” to him.
Bless his wee heart.
I’ll then spend a week, and a small fortune, tracking down and replacing the same plants so that the neighbours won’t be upset. And the process of digging and planting will start over again.
And I can only hope some might survive the next round of impromptu strimming.
Sep 12, 2023 | A House In Italy
Ronan has been busy during the last two months creating a courtyard–just in time for the end of summer :D.
We were having some friends over for dinner on Saturday and needed some extra chairs. So I pulled out the old chairs that were left in the house when we bought it, gave them a wash, a light sanding and painted them with paint that looks more like wood stain but worked out well.
I added new seats I had bought online (a set of 6 for €49) and the chairs were ready just in time for dinner al fresco with friends that evening!
Total spend: €70
LINK TO WHERE TO BUY THE Chair seats
Before and After:
Jul 3, 2023 | A House In Italy
As any reader of my Rosie Life series knows, I have been trying to find a new name for The Sighing House since it was complete. It went from being called The Sighing House to being referred to as The Work House. While it is still a work in progress, I have gone through tonnes of Italian names and ideas but nothing seemed right. Then I realised, while the house is in Italy, we are Irish not Italian; I am quite boring, I don’t have a drop of any other DNA in me, I am 100 percent Celtic and we are now part of the house’s history, so why not give it an Irish name that has meaning to what we want the house to represent while we are living in it?
The last year and a half has not been easy and after my brother died two months ago, I have had some soulful experiences that have made me have a life-shift. A new purpose, which you will hear about in Book 5 (Out in the autumn. You can pre-order Book 5 here!). So instead of giving the house an Italian name, we have decided to give it a Celtic name. The Celts were around my town fighting the Roman’s with Hannibal over two thousand years ago so it’s not out of keeping with the history of the area!
The Celts believed that each person had a life-force that radiates light and energy around our physical body. They believed when people were genuinely open and transparent our life-force, or soul, could connect on a spiritual level, mingle, creating a powerful bond and in so doing become each other’s ‘Anam Cara’. In Gaelic ‘Anam’ means ‘soul’ Cara means ‘Friend’. The great modern Irish poet John Donahue wrote a wonderful book about Celtic Spiritual Wisdom called ‘Anam Cara’.
However, the benefits of this connection and profound bond could not happen until a person saw their own beauty and light. Anam Cara is a connection and exchange between souls – a genuine bond and true friendship.
And that is exactly what I want the house to be, a place where true friendships are made.
Welcome to Anam Cara. 🙂
I have lots of exciting news to in the coming weeks so if you are not on my newsletter, jump on now and don’t miss updates!
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A Friendship Blessing
May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where there is
great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.
May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of
belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them; may they
bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth, and light that you
need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.
May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam cara.
– John O’Donohue
Dec 20, 2022 | A House In Italy
The heating is fixed, Ronan is 100% better and our two kiddos have arrived safely back without any drama such as missing passports or Covid scares for the first time in three years!
To celebrate all of the above I am giving away 5 audiobooks of ‘A Rosie Life In Italy 1’ , 5 copies of ‘A Brush With Death’, 5 ebook copies of ‘A Rosie Life In Italy 1’ and 5 ebook copies of ‘The Cosmo Club’. Simply pick a decoration from the Bingo Christmas tree and write the number in the comments below this post! The first 20 people with the lucky numbered baubles will receive a prize!
(Winners will be announced on the 27th December).
GOOD LUCK AND HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
Nov 8, 2022 | A House In Italy
| I have finally got around to taking some ‘After Pictures’.
Do you remember my Austin Powers style bathroom? Well we redid it with the tiles that went missing in book 3 and exposed some of the stonework we discovered under the red tiles. I can’t say I was sorry to see the red headache inducing bathroom suite go!
We also removed the 60s tiles from the top kitchen and turned the room into a bedroom. It is the room with the ‘lake view’ (through the small gap between the trees!) I’m really happy with these two rooms. |
2nd-floor-apartment-bathroom-
BEFORE
top bathroom 2
I love this mirror!
top bathroom 3
We exposed some of the brick
