Category Archives: Family

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Gifts From America – Happiness In A Box

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Just yesterday, I was moaning about how much it costs to mail gifts to the US and today there was a delivery here. My step-mom Cullene and my sister Jennie sent a box filled with Christmas presents to put under our tree. I have to say that as shocked as I was to see this one package cost $44.50 to mail, I was really touched to receive their gift box from home.

Wrapped Christmas Gifts There were two gift tags that came off during the journey and two packages missing tags so unless I hear from Cullene or Jennie as to which one goes where, John and I will just open them at the same time. (Let’s see if they’re reading my blog and leave a comment to sort it out)

All American Themed Santa

I got a little teary when I opened the gift marked ‘ Open Now ‘ knowing it would be an ornament for our tree. Cullene has given me Christmas ornaments for years and I love seeing them as I decorate the tree each Christmas. They always spark a memory of what was happening in my life when I received them and they’re family tradition I love.

Feel free to share a favorite Christmas tradition if you’d like or perhaps another family tradition if you don’t celebrate Christmas.

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The High Holiday Cost Of Being An Expat

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Living Christmas Tree, Christmas In England, Cornish Christmas

Christmas In Cornwall 2009

Christmas, birthdays, and trips home … when you chose to live in another country, you need to be prepared to spend more money especially when gift giving. I love to shop and make or bake gifts for friends and family back home, but after this Christmas I may need to reconsider my regular way of doing things.

When the cost of mailing your packages adds another $45 to the overall gift cost, it may be time to let Amazon do the work. For instance, I shopped and wrapped the contents of three small packages to send home to the US  yesterday and while there was more value in the boxes than the cost of shipping, after spending so much to mail them I decided that gifts from the UK will need to fly with me from now on rather than traveling by Royal Mail.

Which brings me to flying … I really miss seeing my family especially during the holidays, but it’s a terrible time to fly and costs associated with a trip home include air travel, rental cars, and overnight stays in London. All of this makes a traveling to Atlanta comparable to a beach holiday in Spain. Thankfully, I stay with family and friends both of whom tend to feed me to extremes so I usually spend little for my eating and sleeping arrangements once I’m in Atlanta.

My travel budget also feels the strain of using my checked baggage as an opportunity to bring back my favorite foodstuffs that I can’t get in the UK. Things I’ve mentioned before such as peanut butter, cornmeal, grits, and Nestle’s Chocolate chips. It’s no wonder I need a trolley as they call them here to get my luggage through customs when I arrive.

Fuzzy Video Shot of Me Arriving At Gatwick Airport In 2009

(I never have this much anymore and usually limit myself to one checked bag and two carry on pieces)

Let me add that thanks to a part-time job, I feel very fortunate enjoy a relatively low stress life with the man I love while still having enough creative energy and time to write and a bit of money I can call my own to help with travel and bills related to my house in Atlanta.

So while this moan about money may seem like a real rant, I’m trying to see the mailing cost issues as just an opportunity to get a bit more creative with gift giving without giving it up.

Tips would be appreciated if you’d like to share how you give to family and friends who live far away.

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More Than Just Turkey – An American Expat Explains Thanksgiving

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Turkey & The Trimmings

Since moving to England, I’ve had to explain a few American holidays with Thanksgiving being one. There seems to be a lot of confusion here about why we celebrate it and what it is exactly.

Most people know about the turkey, but not much more than that.  A young woman asked me the other day if it’s like Christmas for Americans only without the gifts.

Suppressing a laugh, I said there were no presents at Thanksgiving and that like others who celebrate Christmas, we save our gifts for the tree, not the turkey.

I told her about the early settlers and how fortunate the Pilgrims were to be fed by the Native Americans when there wasn’t enough food to go around.

I talked about how it’s a celebration of family by most and a gathering of people who sit down to tables loaded with memories created from family recipes passed down through generations.

I forgot to mention how it’s football and alcohol and a chance to over-indulge in more than just food for some folks.

I didn’t say much about the thanks in Thanksgiving or how we talk about gratitude and blessings, generally sharing some of what we’re grateful for before the first fork is lifted.

I didn’t say how it feels to be so far from my other home on days like these or how we really do exchange gifts in a way although not the kind that can be purchased from a favorite store.

I should have talked about the gifts of memory that are mixed in with the pie and family favorites, and the stories of loved ones long gone who come alive for a moment when we remember them, especially when we join hands with those sitting next to us, bow our heads and give thanks.

Most Americans, with me included, tend to make a big to-do about the turkey and the trimmings, but in the end I think we just want a little more time with those we love and whether it’s in person, or in memory, Thanksgiving forces us to focus on what really matters.

Happy Thanksgiving to friends and family who celebrate this day.

If you have a gift of memory you’d like to share, I’d love to read about it. Please leave a link if you have one on your blog today or tell us a family favorite that comes up each year. 

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Birthday Cake Again?

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Elizabeth & Margaret Celebrating Cousin Wally's Birthday

September is a birthday filled month for me and if I had an opportunity to eat cake every time there was a birthday this month I’d need to diet through October to make up for it. My birthday on the 10th begins the potential cake fest and my sister Margaret’s birthday today ends it.

Our September celebrations feel like bookends with some significant volumes on the shelf in between. My daughter and husband make up the most important middle part for me with their birthdays falling halfway through and near the end, but Margaret’s big day completes it.

Never in all the years we were separated did I not think of her and it makes me happy to know that I can connect with her for a proper birthday greeting today.

We’ve spent years supporting each other in different ways and the bookend analogy seems right. Margaret was one of the people who helped keep me sane during my unplanned summer in Atlanta and it was no surprise that she rallied to help me when I needed her artistic design and savvy computer skills. I was desperate for online sales materials including flyers I could print while I was trying to sell my house in Atlanta and she put together a lovely website on very short notice.

Additionally, she modified the website and flyers several times as my price shifted, and when it wouldn’t move fast enough to suit my time frame, she turned the website into one designed to attract renters.

Last year I had the good fortune to spend the month of September with her traveling to Paris for a week and having my 50th birthday during our week in London. The rest of the month we traveled around Cornwall and finished with her birthday and a special cake just before she flew home to Alaska where she lives with her husband and their two boys.

Margaret & Elizabeth - London - September 2010

Happy Birthday, Margaret … I think I’ve got room tonight for one last piece of cake.

 

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Burning Love

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Today is John’s birthday.

It’s the fourth one I’ve been able to share with him and while he doesn’t like to make too much of his own birthdays, he goes out of his way to make mine special. Right about now you may be thinking, “If it’s John’s birthday, why are we looking at a picture of you blowing out candles?”

Let me tell you a story …

Remember when I wrote here about being in Scotland for my birthday? Well, we were there because John had big a reunion nearby with former colleagues from the television station where he’d worked before retiring. A few months before the event, he noticed the date was on my birthday and he kindly asked if I would mind going that evening.

Once he was sure I was fine with sharing the day, he began planning how he might make it memorable for me too. He knows I love a trip to Scotland so it was big part the fun we had on my birthday and our evening finished with a small carrot cake in our hotel that night after the reunion. The cake part presented a little problem though.

I’m a big believer in candle blowing and wish making on birthdays. There’s something hopeful, thankful, and celebratory about the act that feels necessary to me and I can’t imagine a birthday without it.

John is not that bothered by it on his own birthday but he knows how important it is to me. We took the cake with us on our outing thinking we might have it during our day out in Scotland, but stayed in motion so much that we decided to save it for after the reunion. When we rushed in to shower and change for the evening, we realized that we didn’t have a way to light the candles for the cake.

He went out to buy some matches or a lighter and was gone so long I was beginning to worry. I didn’t know that since we were in a hotel in the center of Carlisle and it was evening that the shops would be closed.

Poor John searched everywhere for an open shop to get what we needed and finally ended up a good distance away in a pub that he was familiar with from his days of living there. They didn’t sell matches, but the guy behind the bar gave him a box they had for the pub’s use.

After hearing about his search, I asked him how far he’d had to go before finding them and was really touched when he said, ” About a mile. “

Life with him is like that. A million little sweet gifts of service that say love. I am a fortunate woman to have found this gentle man and I am so happy to be able to celebrate another birthday with him today.

Of course I had to save the matches … I’ll use one later to light a candle or two for John and hope to post a picture here later today of him making a wish.

Here’s a photo to save the spot for now. I think of this look as his determined face. I’ve seen it before although it does look a bit different with the beard and all.

I imagine this was the expression he was wearing all around Carlisle a few weeks ago and it makes me smile just thinking about it.

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Tearful Reunions Taking Place In Cornwall

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Patrice & Lisa Arrive By Train

We’ve been showing off Cornwall to friends Patrice and Lisa over the last few days and I wanted to share our reunion with you. I think the sweetness in this hello has to be seen.

Patrice was saying “E,” a nickname some of my friends like to call me, only when she says it, it sounds more like “Eeeeeeee!”

I think everyone should have this experience at least once in their life where someone shouts their name with delight and opens their arms for a big embrace. We do it with our children especially when they’re young and I wonder how much better we’d all feel if greetings in general were more joyful and enthusiastic.

Lisa took this picture of me giving Patrice a big happy hug and the one below as well!

Happy Tears To See Each Other

Patrice and I have known each other for ten years and found a compatibility in our communication right from the first when I showed up in her physical therapy office needing help with a painful hip injury.

We chatted our way through my physical therapy appointments always running out of time with more to say so I suggested we get together for dinner after completing my course of therapy and we’ve been friends ever since. It’s difficult for some of us to find close friends later in life especially the kind you can trust with your secrets and it’s comforting to me to know Patrice is that kind of friend.

We’ve seen each other through some extreme times of sweetness and sorrow watching and supporting each other through major life changes that seemed to happen all at once in our 40s. We’ve laughed and cried our way through romantic disasters, shifts in employment, and the death of both of her parents in the last ten years. It has not always been easy.

Our 50s have a different look about them as we’ve worked to create lives that are more of what we want and while we still struggle occasionally with our individual areas of stress and compromise, I think we’ve both learned the joy in holding tightly to moments with people we love and value.

Patrice is here with her partner Lisa for a few days and John and I are having a blast showing them all the places we love. Their clear delight in everything (except apple cider) makes each day an exciting race to see more and I’m taking pictures of them like a mad paparazzi documenting moments we’ll want to remember.

The pictures above were taken at the train station Saturday evening and capture our happy reunion. We were both teary even though we had said goodbye in Atlanta only last month. I feel sure my tears were more about welcoming a dear friend to my life here in Cornwall than about anything else and it thrills me to see her enthusiasm and appreciation for the places I’ve come love and think of as home.

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How Can She Be 24

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It hardly seems possible that 24 years have passed since I heard multiple voices saying the words 8:03 and after calling time of birth, they formally introduced my daughter with the words, “It’s a girl! ” Not having had an ultrasound I knew intuitively I was a carrying a girl in the first few weeks of my pregnancy and their confirmation made me smile.

With so much geographic space separating us, I tend to look for ways to feel connected. One thing that helps is keeping the clock on my computer set to the same time my daughter sees in America. It’s silly, but it makes me feel a bit closer to her in a way and makes the distance between feel us smaller than the ocean between our two countries. A few hours ago I watched as her local time rolled over to 8:03 making her well and truly, 24.

I hate not being there to celebrate with her. We saw each other for an iChat this morning and I did a little singing, but I wish I could give her a big hug. This makes the fourth year I’ve had to write about missing Miranda and it doesn’t get any easier. I have three previously written birthday posts complete with photos which can be found here and here. They’re kind of mushy so be prepared.

 

 

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Birthday Surprises

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Elizabeth's First Birthday - September 10, 1961

This photograph is fifty years old.

Taken September 10, 1961, it’s one of me with my parents, Judy and Gene Harper.

It is a bit faded and blurry, but I’ve seen it so often I think I know it by heart.

For the longest time I focused on the hugeness of the cake preferring its sweetness to a sad memory of a mother with no contact and a father who died too young.

It’s funny how your vision can change as you grow older.

You go along adapting to the shifts that occur with perception and depth until one day you look at a photograph you’ve seen forever and your eyes see something you’ve missed.

Suddenly, this still young family looks different to me.

It’s no longer the size of the cake or the look on my mother’s face that draws me in, but the image of my tiny body leaning ever so slightly towards my dad and my small hand reaching for his.

I never really noticed it before … my hand in his, and it feels like a gift of awareness, a happy birthday of sorts fifty years later from my father to me.

 

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Making Gifts From Photo Memories

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I used to make large and unusual photo collages to give as gifts to mark special occasions. I began doing it about 25 years ago when I became frustrated with the amount of photographs I was taking and the lack of ways to display them. Albums seemed tedious and too many framed images felt more like clutter than a way to share a memory.

I came across a photo in my files of one collage I made and thought some of you might be interested. It was a gift for my step-mom’s aunt Margaret who served in the Navy during WWII and stayed in long enough to retire.

Born in a small town where everyone knew and loved her, her desire to see a bigger world and the courage to venture into places where women from small towns usually didn’t go, would have made her my type of role model when I was growing up. I put this together for her 80th birthday about eight or nine years ago. It’s not my best collage, but it is one of my sentimental favorites.

It’s smaller than most of the collages I’ve done in the past, only about 24 inches tall and 14 or so wide. I didn’t have as many photos to work with as I normally do. I’m used to having loads to choose from, but because it was a surprise I had to work with what Cullene had on hand.

Knowing that the Navy was such an important part of Margaret’s life, I enlarged a V-Mail letter and envelope from my great-uncle Hugh who died towards the end of WWII. I used it as a backdrop and tried to position it so that it would not be obvious that he was writing to his parents.

I wanted to project a feel for that time during her history and thought it was a good stand-in since I didn’t have any written by Margaret. I made photo copies of the old photos Cullene gave me and tore the edges before gluing them on with rubber cement. I like to use different textures normally and this was actually a bit too glossy for me.

Personalized Party Favors

I also made little party favors (memory items) for each guest at the 80th party to sit at each of the place settings. I based it on a story Cullene told me about how in those days small happenings made the newspaper in the close-knit community where she and Margaret grew up.

Since she broke her arm playing on bales of cotton, I decided to make mini bales with a laminated photo copy of the news clipping attached to it. I can’t help thinking how nice it would be to live in a place where a little girl’s broken arm during play was part of the news.

 

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One Reason For Severing A Family Connection

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Imagine tossing out a family memento before you realized what you had. That’s the way I felt when I discovered the old photo I showed you in this post and talked about in the follow-up one yesterday.

In the mid 90s, I had a little plastic surgery. When I did it I unknowingly severed a connection to my family history. I have to admit I felt a little wistful when I saw the old photographs and realized what I had done.

Looking back, it seems fairly shallow and superficial that I spent so much time worrying about a physical characteristic that most people didn’t seem to notice. It bothered me a great deal though and when I got a bonus at work, I took a bit of the extra money and changed my look.

Elizabeth Harper - 1993

Ignore the mullet and how it oddly looks like both ears are sticking out here.

Not only did my right ear stick out in a way the left one didn’t, it was flat inside with none of the whirled bits that most ears have. I never considered I had the option of changing it until I was in my 30s and mentioned it to the plastic surgeon who reworked the area where my melanoma had been removed. She talked to me about the ease of having it done and before I knew it, I was living with a new ear.

When I went in for my post surgery follow-up, I said it felt like she’d cut my ear off and sewn it back on. The look that passed between my doctor and her nurse confirmed I was probably not far off in my sense of what it must have looked like during surgery.

My Ear After Surgery

Was it worth it? I never really questioned my decision not even when I realized the connection to other family members. After years of avoiding getting my hair wet while swimming, and wishing I could wear my hair cut really short, I could finally do both without worrying about how my ears looked. The only lasting negative side effect has been the way my ear sometimes aches when the weather’s very cold.

Elizabeth Harper With Jersey Girl

After years of turning my head to avoid showing my ear, I have trouble remembering to face the camera fully and it’s difficult to find pictures showing both ears at once even since my ear surgery. This shows me with longer hair, but you can still see that the ear closest to Jersey Girl is no longer sticking out through my hair.

I loved the results and rarely thought about it when looking in the mirror or tucking my hair behind my ears until I saw the picture of my great-grandmother and discovered that what I’d considered an imperfection was a family trait.

As someone who worked for years in an industry that liked to have cheerleader pretty types marketing their products, I was acutely aware that product knowledge needed to be balanced somewhere between bubbly attractiveness and at least the appearance of youth.

Elizabeth & Alley - 1994

I look hyped up on caffeine, but I had just rushed in from Atlanta to grab our cat so my daughter Miranda could have her at school for pet day. Notice the before surgery ear I’m trying to hide with my big hair. It’s hard to see my ear with that door knocker hanging off it. 

As a working actor, I recognized that pretty, and young, were often at the top of the list when casting a part. It’s no accident that my ear pinning happened while I was working as a drug rep and auditioning for film and commercial work.

Elizabeth Harper - 1996 - Funny Ears

See it sticking out on the left?

When I was working towards my university degree, I had an advisor tell me that I would not get much work as an actor until I was older as I was more suited for character roles. I thought at the time that he must be thinking that at 24, I was too old and not pretty enough. Having spent time a little time in front of a camera, I think he was right.

Can you find me in the photo below?

Elizabeth Harper - UGA - With The Major-General And His Other Daughters - Pirates Of Penzance

I haven’t done any acting since 1998 when I changed companies and didn’t have time to do both and these days I’d rather spend my time writing. I was never really that good of an actor, but if I’m ever moved to dip my toes back in the shallow and often ‘looks focused’ waters of the acting world again, I can totally rock a Dame Judi Dench haircut especially now that both of my ears match.

Dame Judi Dench (Internet Photo)

Elizabeth Harper - 2011