Category Archives: DIY

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Why Some Goals Are Easier To Complete Than Others And Some Lessons You Never Forget

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My daughter took up knitting when she was student at Virginia Tech and after she made a scarf for me and later some blankets and other things, I asked her to teach me how to knit. I picked out a yarn that I thought would be soft around her neck and had a mix of her school colors and after she started it for me, I set to work to complete it.

What I overlooked was that she doesn’t wear scarves, not now, not ever. I am known for almost always having one looped around my neck in all kinds of weather and I’ve worn them since my mid-twenties so it’s rare to see a photo of me through the years without one, but Miranda doesn’t wear them.

She did try to tell me this more than a time or two, and it took me a year of ripping out mistakes and redoing it before I heard her. I was so intent on presenting my first project to her especially as she had introduced me to it, that I never thought that this gift was more about me than it was her.

Miranda took me through the basic stitch so many times when I saw her over the last year that you think I could have worked it out, but I had such trouble with it that I began to knit only at the pub on quiz nights when my friend Jean could fix it for me when I made a mistake.

In the end, I shipped it unfinished to Georgia with my knitting needles to wait for our arrival from our New Zealand trip with the hopes of finishing it before Christmas. By Christmas day it was a major mess and when I showed it to her after lunch, unfinished and still on the knitting needles, she suggested gently that while I was good at many things, knitting did not seem like one of them.

There was something in the way she said that along with repeating once again that she did not wear scarves that I finally heard and suddenly I was able to let go of my need to finish the thing!

So she tied it off for me and I decided that I would give it to her dog for a neck warmer at least for purposes of a photo shoot because he doesn’t wear scarves either. Even though he won’t wear it again, it didn’t look so bad on him.

Afterwards, I told John that having tried my hand with the first one, I had some lovely yarn in just his color. He has not really protested, but thinking about it now, I am not sure I have ever seen him in a scarf either.

 

Life In The UK Test

There are still some things I seem to still be able to pull off with a better outcome than my knitting experience and the letter and news above was really big for me. I shared it yesterday on Facebook and received so many lovely responses that I was quite overwhelmed by all the support and since some of my readers only see me here, I wanted to tell you my news as well.

There are many steps on the way to being able to stay in the UK and most people assume if you marry a Brit it’s an easy-peasy process. Except for shaving a few years off the time it takes to become a British citizen, married folks go though the same process as everyone else.

Yesterday, I completed a major step in my goal to stay in the UK with John. I passed the Life in the UK test!

My next immigration appointment is on the calendar and if all goes well, I will have my Indefinite Leave to Remain approved after we are interviewed in a few weeks. Passing the UK life test was necessary to complete before the interview so I managed it just in time. I had mistakenly thought it was not required until you applied for a dual citizenship so I was on a tight timeline to get it done.

After I get though the next stage in a few weeks, I can apply within a certain period of time to become a naturalized citizen and have the right among other things, to vote, run for public office, and carry a British passport.

I don’t have to give up my American citizenship to do this and will have a dual citizenship when I finish the process.

I do want to acknowledge my long time friend Diane and her unknowing help with my test yesterday. We were roommates during my first year and her last at the university we attended together in New York. After she graduated, I transferred to the University of Georgia and she spent a year with an élite group of educators traveling and teaching University students study skills they might have missed in high school.

As a nontraditional student, I was older and had already served in the army and even though I was doing well in my classes, I spent many, many, hours studying to make this happen.

When Diane came to town in 1985 to spend a few weeks with the brainy young women of Agnes Scott, a college in Atlanta, she took a some time to show me a few things about note taking and review which changed my life and still help me to this day.

I kept the book she left for years until Miranda went off to VA Tech and I offered it to her in case she found she needed help to keep up. I don’t think she ever used it and I cannot remember the name of the book, but I will send a link to Diane in hopes that she can leave the title in a comment below.

Long story today to talk about lessons learned, but I did want to acknowledge how Diane’s help back in 1985 made prepping for the important test I took yesterday fairly easy and made me feel pretty confident going in to it.

If you live in the UK and want to test how much you know about your own country, you can take an online official practice test of 24 questions by going here.

I want to thank Miranda too for her patience in teaching me how to knit and let her know that I may try to make something else for her in a few years after (if) I manage to finish John’s scarf.

 

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Reading A Kindle Book Without A Kindle

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Today I made my first Kindle book purchase from Amazon. I always thought one needed a Kindle to buy books in this way, but after doing a bit of research this morning, I was able to download a book straight to my MacBook.

Intrigued by a post written by Suzanne Anderson who comments at GOTJ from time to time, I went in search of her book, Mrs. Tuesday’s Departure which she talked about over at her place today.  She recently decided that self-publishing by way of Kindle was the quickest way to get her book in front of readers. It is an interesting possibility for many writers and one I had not considered until today.

 

Photo Courtesy Of Suzanne Anderson

I plan on doing some more of my own research, but I may be a bit slow in getting back to it as I will be busy reading Suzanne’s new book.

Big congrats to Suzanne and good luck on this new adventure. She will be talking more about self-publishing in the days to come and you can follow her discovery and progress here.

 

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Building A Home One Mouthful At A Time

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Sometimes when feeling overwhelmed by a sizable to do list, I don’t need to go far to be reminded of how much can be accomplished when broken into small steps or as in the case of the House Martins who share close quarters with us for several months of the year, what can be done one mouthful at a time.

The House Martins build nests up under the eaves every year or reuse the ones left behind and the nests are protected by law in the UK while they are being built or if there is active nesting going on. John is always quite pleased to see them and doesn’t seem to mind cleaning a bit of bird poo that falls from the area at times.

They have a tendency to build little bird duplexes side by side or as John would say, a semi, short for semi-detached, a name used here for two houses joined together on one side.

These photos aren’t my best work. It’s difficult to get close and I was too lazy to pull out my Nikon and good lens, but my little Canon G9 did a fair job picking up some decent images. I would love to show you a completed semi from the work above, but House Martins need mud to build these nests and with the beautiful weather we’ve had lately, there’s been little rain to create the necessary materials.

This birdie duplex is over the garage and appears to be occupied only on one side this year. Can you see the little bird peaking out on the left?

Look, there are at least two beaks waiting inside for their supper.

Some people don’t like having what looks like a great clump of mud in the eaves of their house, but I’m amazed and inspired when I consider that it must have taken hundreds of trips back and forth to build this temporary sanctuary and birthing center. It helps my perspective every time.

You can go here to hear what House Martins sound like. There’s an audio link right under the name on the left once you get there. Thanks to my bird-loving husband John for sending this to me.

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One Benefit Of Line Drying – No More Lost Socks

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You have to love having someone around who is still young enough to enjoy the chores most of us would easily never do again if someone agreed to take them off our hands. Now before you go thinking I was trying to turn Jersey Girl into Cinderella last week, she volunteered to help her Bapa (John) out when he had some washing to do.

Photo by John Winchurch

In fact, she seemed to like the process so much there was little left unwashed when she went home to Jersey last Friday. I think her favorite part was hanging the wash on the line. She had quite the system right from the beginning and not surprising a few things emerged during our discussion around issues frequently found in maintaining a clean wardrobe.

Chief subject of interest, you guessed it … disappearing socks. It seems despite the geographic boundaries of another country, here, as in America, dryers, referred to in the UK as tumble dryers, still eat socks. Jersey Girl mentioned that this had happened in the past with one of her grandmothers who had managed to solve this problem by pinning her socks together before they were washed and dried. It turns out that grandmother has one of those sock-eating tumble dryers in her home.

I told Jersey Girl that I had discovered that the secret to safe-guarding socks from a mysterious and confusing shortage was to hang all washing on the line. It’s the absolute truth and no matter what you might say about the hassles of line drying, not only does it save money and energy, you don’t end up with solo socks whose mates have gone on walkabout deep into the Devil’s Triangle we call a tumble dryer.

Don’t believe me … I dare you to give it a try for a few weeks and see what you think. Oh, and don’t forget to check your energy bills at the end of the month to see what you saved, in addition to possibly your favorite pair of socks.

*******

This post was inspired in part by my fairly frugal husband John and his granddaughter Jersey Girl and also by Donna Freedman and the money-saving tips found at her new space here and her regular MSN Money home here.

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We’re Having A Child

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Calling one of my local American friends today, we did a quick catch up, ” How have you been, fine how about you, ” and then I said, ” John and I are having a child …” and before I could finish my sentence, I think she said something like ” Whaaaat “

Like me, Gillian has a British husband, but they also have two children who happen to be the perfect age to hang out with John’s granddaughter, Jersey Girl. Children are out of school both here and on Jersey for the next few weeks and John flew over to bring JG back to stay with us next week. So what I was trying to say was, “John and are having a child with us next week and I want to invite you and your family to a little pirate themed party on Sunday.” Once she realized I wasn’t trying to join the ranks of older women intent on increasing the size of their family, we settled into the details of the party.

It’s funny how many women there are with children in the six to seven age range in my local circle of friends. I fall into this weird place of being about nine or ten years older than most of them except Gillian who’s still a baby in her late thirties. She’s a natural entertainer making her great person to have at a party and I was pleased she agreed to join us. Tina, who I’ve mentioned before and Lara, a new running buddy, will be coming with their children bringing the child total up to a manageable seven.

I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to have a little one to plan a party for since my own daughter will be twenty-three soon, but I have been planning a fun outing for us down by the river. It’s a perfect place for a pirates picnic compete with a treasure map that I plan to hide in the river (more like a creek in size next to the party area) in a bottle tied up with string.

I love to come up with rhyming clues and have been testing some out as I get ready to create the map. I’m off in a minute to scout out hiding places and then back home to bake and make some party treats.

I’ve already painted an egg carton metallic gold for a small treasure chest and I have a larger one that looks like a crystal jewel box for the larger candy treats. I even made pirate spy glasses and painted a styrofoam sheet metallic gold so it can be a big doubloon for the party.

Fingers crossed it goes off as well as it looks in my head. I’d hate to think there might be a mutiny because between you and me, I am not walking the plank.

February 1, 2009 - Me with Jersey Girl

UPDATE: She’s here, Jersey Girl is in the house!

After bed, bath and reading the book, Angelina’s Birthday, Jersey Girl fell fast asleep. She wants waffles for breakfast having remembered them from her last visit. I think I may have to cut them into a special shape to surprise her. Hmm, now what kind of shape should I do …. suggestions anyone?

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Leaping Ginger Cat Takes Flight

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Dexter, the leaping cat is a Ginger … well at least that’s what he would be called here in Britain. In America, we would likely refer to Dexter as an Orange Tabby. Living on my street, I’d call him just about the most playful cat I’ve ever met.

If he’s outside when I am walking past his house, what you see in these photographs gives you an idea of what’s bound to happen. He doesn’t seem to forget his playmates and once you’re his friend, he will come running up the street to see you if you call his name.

He has taken to stopping by the house now which is not something John encourages. It’s not that he dislikes Dexter or cats for that matter, but he enjoys watching the birds that come to snack on the bread crumbs he leaves on the bird table and Dexter’s tendency to leap out at the birds seems to put them off. My daughter Miranda took these photographs last Friday, two days before she flew home. We laughed and laughed as she tried to catch Dexter in mid leap.

Speaking of leaping, I did a little myself yesterday when I signed up for Kelly Rae Roberts e-course titled, FLYING LESSONS: TIPS + TRICKS TO HELP YOUR CREATIVE BUSINESS SOAR

It looks as if it’s going to be a good one and it’s filled with a talented mix of people. I know because I’ve been reading their introductions in the comment section and snooping through their websites to learn more about who they are and what they do creatively. I’ve pasted my own intro comment below if you’d care to read it. It came out quite naturally and seemed appropriate for a course titled Flying Lessons.

Elizabeth Harper said…

The best dreams are always the ones where I fly. Those of you who are night-flyers know exactly what I’m talking about. Sometimes my own technique varies when going airborne, but the one consistent thing that always happens in beginning of the ascent … is the leap.

The leap is required before I can feel the air under my body and take flight.

The leap is essential for flying.

This morning as I was reading a few of my favorite blogs while waiting for my coffee to brew, I clicked on Kelly’s post and noticed as I have for a while that she was talking about this e-course. I frequently make major moves on intuition and when I feel the nudge, I move so before I had my first sip of coffee or the sleep had been rubbed from my eyes, I had signed up.

The leap … remains essential.

As an American married to a Brit, it was just such a leap that lead me to find love and a new life on the Cornish coast of England.

A quick look at the comments tells me I am in the company of talented group of folks and I am so pleased to be here too.

My name is Elizabeth Harper and you can find me at https://giftsofthejourney.wordpress.com

If you feel like leaping, there’s still room in the five-week on-line course that begins May 30 … maybe I’ll see you there.

Image belongs to Kelly Rae Roberts

UPDATE : This just in … I got an email about an hour ago from my sister Margaret with a receipt for the Flying Lessons class. She was up late working on a website, read about it on my blog and decided to sign up too. This should come in handy for the creative project I mentioned here, (second item on the list) that we’re working on together.

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I Married Superman

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Last night I emailed the image below from Target, to my husband John.

Some of you may remember that our original building plans for the the extension also included adding an en-suite bath for the master bedroom.

In the beginning

Adding the bath meant that we had to steal a few feet from the master bedroom for a corridor leading to my space. Along with the extension, the master bedroom got a new look as well and part of that involved new bedroom furniture. While we did not have to do such a major renovation or build out, this space has gone through a fair amount of change as well. Part of that change involved redecorating. We are down to just one or two changes in the master before it’s complete and the bedside tables are a topic of conversation lately.

Since John is so good with building things, we have talked about how he might build the bedside tables and occasionally, as I have about 599 times over the last nine months, I’ve emailed him examples of things I like from the internet. Some of my favorite resource sites during the renovation have been places like, Young House Love, Design Sponge, and the always inspiring, Poppytalk. In addition, Design Therapy, Bloom Studio, and Apartment Therapy gave me tons of ideas as I was planning my space.

Last night as John was checking his email, I heard him say, ‘You must be joking!’ I knew when I heard him that he was talking about the bedside table and went to his study in time to hear him say, ‘I can’t make that!’ Of course, I had not really expected him to make it, but was only sending him another in a long series of images that had caught my eye.

Now to fully explain the title for this post … a few weeks ago, John ordered a pulley with the intention of hauling a five and half foot unvented hot water tank up into the attic (loft) to provide hot water to the two new en-suites. When he suggested that he and I could lift it up through the smallish opening for the attic space using the pulley, I thought to myself that it might be a difficult task, but being my father’s daughter and having never shirked from heavy lifting, I thought we would manage, especially when John said our next door neighbor would help if necessary.

A few days after that conversation, I came down the corridor from my studio and noticed the attic door was open and the pull-down stairs pushed way back out of the way. When I saw that I knew immediately that something was up and up it certainly was. It seems while I had busied myself with something out of hearing range, the pulley had been delivered and John had used it to hoist the cumbersome tank all by himself. I was both shocked and impressed to find I had been living all this time with … Superman! That man continues to amaze me.

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Coming Out Of The Closet

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Right! Here goes with something you don’t know about me even with all the secrets I spilled yesterday. I know what you’re thinking … can there really be something more?

Today I’m coming out about clutter. My closets have never been organized places where clothes hang neatly or where you could open a door and know that something was exactly where you left it. In fact, there have been times when whole rooms began to resemble a big walk in closet and were so bad that even my closest family members were bared from entering.

There are quite a few people who would agree with what I have said here going as far back as my roommate Diane who shared an apartment space with me when we were university students. More recently, my daughter Miranda would not hesitate to confirm that as late as 2007 there was at least one room in our house that looked like more like someone’s storage building out back than it’s intended purpose.

Three guesses which one looked like a ” tip. ” (a British expression I’ve come to love)

rubbish tip (n.) dumping ground, garbage dump, garbage heap, refuse dump, rubbish dump, tip

It was … my home office space. That’s right, the very place I had always had in mind would be my retreat, a place of peaceful serenity where I could write uninterrupted by everyday life. I dreamed of a space like the one I have now while I was working for corporate America. I was fortunate over the years to have three homes where there was enough room for me to have a space designated as my office.

It is no surprise that my writing life was given the least amount of attention and my ” offices ” always reflected that lack of priority and focus. While the rest of the house might have been fairly tidy, my office was always unfinished, over-cluttered, and completely unwelcoming for any creative energy. It was plainly as I said before, a tip. More than a time or two I found myself channeling Bette Davis as I tried to pick my way through the junk pausing in frustration to utter her famous movie line, ” What a dump! “

The day I saw my  home in Atlanta for the first time, I walked upstairs into a delightful space that felt more like a sweetly decorated little treehouse than an upstairs room in a downtown bungalow. The windows were open and outside a light rain was falling creating a happy sound through the trees that formed a canopy of leaves all around the house.

I was enchanted from the moment I stepped inside and the owners who were selling it themselves, were near enough so that the husband volunteered that the room I had fallen in love with was his wife’s office space, and that she was a writer. Of course I was interested in hearing more and asked what she had written, never guessing the connection we already had.

When he picked up a copy of her book from the shelf, The Truth Shall Set You Free, I was stunned as I had read it only a few months earlier. While working a medical conference at St. Simons Island off the coast of Georgia, I walked into a used bookstore and found her book signed with a personal inscription and I snapped up the first edition which had been published only three years earlier.

The book is under the owl and on top of Virginia Wolf

Sally Lowe Whitehead had accomplished a great deal in her office space, writing a book that had a tight hold on me from the beginning and I saw our book connection as a sign that I might also find a way to put the ideas I had on scraps of paper into a book or two of my own.

Standing there recalling the contents, I shared with Sally how I had read her memoir and knew her story, which must have been a bit disconcerting. I remembered enough of the inscription for her to glean that she had known the person who owned it. It turns out that this man had died of an AIDS related illness and that knowledge pretty much sealed it for me. Working as I was in HIV, I thought the universe could not be any more clear. This was surely the place I would write all the books I had dreamed of writing.

When I closed on the house, I took my copy of her book with me to the attorney’s office and Sally signed it with the words below.

To Elizabeth,

What a journey we’ve come to share.

I am so pleased our paths have crossed.

Enjoy your new home!

It is waiting for you with open arms.

Blessings always,

Sally Lowe Whitehead

I was excited to move in and set up my office in what had been the space where she had completed her book. Here is what my office looked like in late 2007. You be the judge … tip or not?

You’re probably thinking … messy, but not really a tip, but what you don’t know is in order to have it look as it does in the three photos above, I had to spill over into another room down the hall.

Again, not awful from this angle, but what you can’t see is all the junk on the other side of the room. All I can say now is, never again!

I’ve shown you my new space and now I want to show you one more thing … the closet! Let me expose what I keep hidden behind closed doors. Once again, John did all the work and built the interiors according to my specifications.

I wanted my closet (wardrobe) space to be divided into three distinct areas. Not only do I write in this room, but I use it as my dressing room too. There are four mirrored doors the length of the wall to bring in as much light as my sliding glass doors will allow.

The first thing I wanted was to be able to hide my chest of drawers so I asked John to build a section that would accommodate the piece of furniture I had already purchased. I keep shoes I rarely wear in little travel bags underneath. Because our small refrigerator has a wooden cabinet front there was no place to put my magnetic collectables so I bought a metal board from Ikea to put some of my favorite quotes and things that I used to stick on the frig in Atlanta. You can see it just above the chest at the back of the closet.

At the far right you can see my hanging clothes with a shoe rack at the bottom and laundry basket under the longer clothing. Notice the pillow color on the daybed.

Now for the business side of life. The left side of the closet holds things related to cameras and computers and business related papers. I have my sewing machine and sewing box tucked in there too. The chest is also from Ikea and has dividers inside that keep all the bits separate and organized. When I put it together, I left the bottom panel out of the second to the last drawer and John fixed it so the last two drawers slide out as one deep drawer that is perfect place for files. Notice the pillows now on the daybed … I did as some of you suggested and made two with orange backing and two with green.

So here ends our week-long tour … please feel free to sign the comment book on your way out and thanks so much for your kind attention.

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The Real Worker Bee

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Now while I would never think of John as just a worker bee, (which would make me the queen, right) he is definitely the one who makes things happen here. As an example, do you see those hats on the wall … last Saturday I said quite casually, ” What do you think about a long wooden strip here with pegs to display my special hats from home ? ”  A few hours later, I was putting three generations of my family hats on a lovely hat rack made by a man who makes me feel like all I need do is ask.

I loved hearing about your projects yesterday and would like to do a post with links to your blog or include a photograph of your projects here at GOTJ. You decide, but I think it would be fun to have a community Show & Tell page. If you’re interested, leave me a comment below and I’ll be in touch.

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Independence Day

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American Flag - Elizabeth Harper

‘My Country, ‘Tis of Thee …’  are the words running though my head this afternoon.

I left the United States seven and a half weeks ago and aside from a few passing moments, I have not been really homesick until today. Today is the 4th of July, if you’re reading this and you’re an American, the date has meaning. Today in England, there is nothing on the news to indicate what’s happening on the other side of the ocean. The US seems to make the news here everyday, but today, when I’d like a glimpse of home there is nothing.

Cullene's Table - Elizabeth Harper

I’ve tried to create a bit of flavor from home by making some of my favorite family recipes. Things you’d recognize on any table at any gathering on July 4th.  I thought it would help, but I think I miss the traditions of the day and the people I love from home even more.

Watermelon

My sister in Alaska quite sweetly made me my very own version of a Peachtree Road Race number with a few modifications to fit my geographical location.  I usually run this race every year with exception of a few when I’ve been out of the country on vacation. I spoke with one of my closest friends this morning as she was preparing for the race. We ran the Marine Corps Marathon together last October and it would have been fun to run the what is touted as the world’s largest 10K run, with her today. It’s limited to 55,000 runners and the race numbers are almost as valuable as one of Willie Wonka’s Golden tickets.

Race Ticket

The weather here was quite different from the 91 degree heat I noticed on the Atlanta Journal website. Of course it’s always heat stroke weather for the Peachtree and it would not be right if wasn’t hellishly hot. Which is why when I looked out the window today and saw the weather here, I decided to skip my morning run.

Water Window

With the windy wet weather we’re having here, our barbeque chicken had to be cooked in the oven instead of outside on the grill. John keeps referring to the amount of food I’ve prepared for just the two of us as a feast. I can’t help thinking about my dad manning the grills on the 4th. Yes, you read that right. I said grills as in at least two and sometimes three. Chicken and burgers and ribs … oh my! Even though there were usually only five to ten people at our house on the 4th, my dad would cook as if the whole neighborhood would be on the doorstep before the day was out. We would have leftovers for days … with so much chicken you’d think you were going to start clucking if you had to eat another piece.

July 4 Lunch 2008

It’s been a quiet day here at my home away from home. Thanks to my sister in Alaska who took the time to dig out some family genealogy …we’ve spent a bit of the day reading about the life my ancestor, John Sparks who along with many others fought for American Independence.

Apple Pie

It’s late evening and John and I have had our first 4th of July together. We’ve had a lovely meal and lots of conversation about the ways our respective countries are both different and alike. When I went to Wikipedia to see who wrote the lyrics to ‘America’ also known as, ‘My Country, ‘Tis Of Thee,’ I found that Samuel Francis Smith wrote the lyrics without knowing that the melody he was using was the same as the one used for ‘God Save The Queen,’ the national anthem of the United Kingdom.

Imagine that … I guess in some ways we’re really not that different after all.

Reposted from original GOTJ

Sorry to have such tiny photos, but the originals were smaller on the first GOTJ blog.