tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48031301617094023592024-03-05T04:43:43.006+00:00Bloody BrilliantA not-so-daily despatch from a London based desiger, traveller & writerDaniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.comBlogger542125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-30842307534791325632013-08-09T15:22:00.001+01:002013-08-09T15:25:39.225+01:00One year at home<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of receiving the keys to our home. Sometimes it seems surreal to think we own this little piece of paradise in between Dalston and Stoke Newington.<br />
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In the year since we purchased our home, I've learned a lot about what 'home' means. Of course there is the Pinterest moodboards about what your *perfect* kitchen looks like and mindlessly accumulating inspiring images of artfully placed vintage crates. But there is also what you do in your home – the entertaining, the hosting of guests, the visitors from afar, and the respect you show to your surroundings that makes it a nurturing refuge from a big global city.<br />
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Owning a home is so much different from renting in so many ways, but I think this notion of respect is central to it. Everything takes on so much more meaning when you completely control your surroundings and are 100% responsible for everything in and around them. What might have been annoying before takes on an offensive character, and what might have been a nice to have previously is suddenly an imperative. And vice versa.<br />
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But I think in the year that's gone, what I realized is just what I need for a place to be a home. A lot of things – actual things, like furniture and decorations – are exactly the same as they were. We're still lounging on the same IKEA sofa, and we're still eating from the same IKEA plates. They might not be of the highest quality, or the best of their kind, but they're ours and they've become symbolic of how The Irishman are choosing to spend our time: watching box sets together (West Wing, from the very first season!) and hosting dinner parties for our nearest and dearest. It's funny how things you thought you'd get rid of as quickly as possible actually become sentimental.<br />
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Overall though, I've spent exactly half of the year since we moved in NOT blogging. And I realized that I don't need nor really want blogging in my life. So I've made the decision to shutter Bloody Brilliant. Or at least, no longer update it. The winddown will be slow – I'll treat you to photographs of the final kitchen, once we find a tiler, and a few other shots of the house, and give you the update on our summer so far. My last post will be at the end of the month, when The Irishman and I depart for our two week summer holiday to Portugal. We've not had 2 weeks off, together, without family, friends, or other commitments in 3 years, so we're pretty pumped for this break. This seems like the perfect time to bow out gracefully.<br />
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I know there are a few of you who will be sad that Bloody Brilliant won't be an active blog any longer; I know there are more than a few of you who won't really mind! I'll write a post or two about how blogging helped me in my expat life, and what I think is great (and not so great about blogging). But I wanted to thank all of you who have, past and present, commented on the blog and reached out to me. It's been really wonderful to have you. The next few posts on here will be for you, and hope you enjoy them. xx</div>
Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-15319645876305139942013-08-07T18:20:00.002+01:002013-08-07T18:20:34.007+01:00Howdy from the homestead: a long overdue Project Casserole update<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Well it's been a while, hasn't it?! It's like I just disappeared into thin air!<br />
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And I did, sort of, didn't I. I have to apologize to all of you – I've been here, and there, and everywhere over the last four months of not blogging. Mostly The Irishman and I have been working on the house, finalizing Project Casserole. But I've also been traveling, working, and living, and I've realized a lot of important things.<br />
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But first things first, a Project Casserole update:<br />
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We spent the majority of the spring working our tails off on the house. After Agim and his merry men left, we spent the Easter Bank Holiday sanding, filling, and painting the ground floor before beginning to lay the flooring.<br />
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We got a good start on the floor before having to go back to work, and then wrapped it up the weekend after. It was a hard slog – The Irishman had a lot of black fingernails and bruised knuckles, and we both had sore knees from crawling around the on concrete floor for so long.<br />
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Once we got the floor down, we started on the deep clean. There was dust EVERYWHERE. In the bathroom, in the loft, IN MY CLOSET ON MY CLOTHES. It took at least 3 vacuumings just to get the dust out of the house and for the floors to feel clean under your feet. I've never scrubbed so hard in my entire life.<br />
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After the floor was complete, we went to IKEA to finalise our kitchen design and order the units. The IKEA experience deserves an entire post unto itself, but suffice it to say we had so many issues that we were weekly visitors to IKEA Tottenham and knew the staff by name. Oy. But here's what an IKEA kitchen looks like when it is delivered flatpack style:<br />
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The actual construction of the units wasn't that difficult – if you can build a bookcase, you can build a kitchen. But I'm not sure that it would have been so easy to install it and make it look seemless if The Irishman wasn't an engineer. There are some seriously tricky things to installing a kitchen!<br />
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We spent a lot of evenings finalising small details in the kitchen, and lived without a working kitchen for probably 5 weeks. The night that The Irishman connected the sink was the highlight of my life. No more washing dishes in the bathtub or eating microwave meals. I think I might have wept with joy.</div>
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We even had a little helper one night – our neighbor down the street asked us to puppy sit her 10 week old Whippet puppy named Zelda. She and I ran around and annoyed The Irishman while he sorted little things out under the sink. She was very curious!<br />
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While I dictated all of the little "details", The Irishman got to pick out a new oven. He was so excited about this oven – it's a double oven which means nothing to me, but for the chefster it's a big deal. Here he's watching how it cooks something delicious and watching how his new toy performs.</div>
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Also note above that we have plywood on top of our cabinets. We had a really hard time dealing with countertops – worktops as they're called in the UK. We (I) initially wanted marble, but that's not exactly durable. And then we started considering engineered stone and Corian, but that is absolutely ludicrously expensive. And then we just decided that it's probably best at this stage to go fully IKEA and use their butcher block wood worktops. Only, I hated the color options.</div>
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So I made The Irishman stain them. Of course.</div>
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And I also was really fussy about the color of the stain. So we bought a bunch of different ones, tested them all, and ended up CUSTOM MIXING OUR COUNTERTOP STAIN. I know. I know. The Irishman then decided that he also really wanted to "cure" them with a food-safe wood oil. He spent nearly every night smoothing them down with steel wool and then re-applying oil for about 10 days. He then left them while we went to the US for 2 weeks to let the oil set.</div>
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In the midst of all of this, we did do normal things like go into town for the sales. I dragged The Irishman into Liberty in early May to check out the end of their Spring Sale, and we ended up taking home 5 discounted Cox & Co stacking chairs. We put my paltry £5 Loyalty voucher to good use for an additional (paltry) savings.</div>
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And then, we took a break.</div>
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We went to America for a wedding in Wisconsin. We hosted friends and family, including my world traveler career break peeps over at <a href="http://banhmiandyou.wordpress.com/">Banh Mi & You</a>. I went to Doha (twice). We went to Ireland. We went to Glastonbury. We had BBQs. We saw friends.</div>
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Basically, we had a life.</div>
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Only now are we back in the DIY saddle, and finishing up little details in the kitchen. Last weekend, we filled a hole we made in the ceiling (we had to make the hole to get the cabinets straight and level), put the final sides on the cabinets to make the units look grey and seamless, and filled in little bits here and there. We also took the horrible bookshelf unit off one side of the kitchen and replaced it with a vintage wine rack that I found in a charity shop for £20. The Irishman was extremely excited to fill it with all of the wine he's been collecting for the past few years. FYI - the wine rack holds 54 bottles. In case you wanted to send us anything ;)</div>
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You can see our lovely countertops in this picture as well.</div>
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So what's left? Well, we have to put the beading moulding around the bottom of the walls throughout the ground floor. And we have six boxes of white metro tiles sitting next to the cabinets, waiting to be hung, but we can't find a tiler to do it any time soon. And we are continuously moving things around from cabinet to cabinet, trying out new locations for things.</div>
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A final overall picture is coming soon, as well as a few other updates for you guys. Thanks for sticking with me here – welcome home.</div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-78135069762578007172013-04-09T16:38:00.003+01:002013-04-09T16:38:40.909+01:00The life and legacy of Baroness Thatcher<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5SX-RRPQShcVbIzl7Ft2mmcD1rSBPVAff2Wyiy8bNOh3Qffqyo54F7dBx8kPnjPUe1_nzaKI2kdFQFGf-P44XJjy4XWW7APW4_c-NkYCqXH514loqdMP7wNTm73lM2wfIl-jpzTQUGcw/s640/blogger-image-1609129441.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5SX-RRPQShcVbIzl7Ft2mmcD1rSBPVAff2Wyiy8bNOh3Qffqyo54F7dBx8kPnjPUe1_nzaKI2kdFQFGf-P44XJjy4XWW7APW4_c-NkYCqXH514loqdMP7wNTm73lM2wfIl-jpzTQUGcw/s640/blogger-image-1609129441.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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So by now, if you're alive, you know that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155">Margaret Thatcher passed away yesterday morning</a> here in London. Every news outlet, pundit, and commentator – professional or otherwise – has offered his and her assessment of her work and legacy, so I won't offer anything more here. You can find them yourselves, if you haven't already, across the internet. But what I wanted to point out here on my patch of the internet is what's been missing from the commentary.<br />
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I watched 4 hours of coverage about Margaret Thatcher last night across the BBC, read countless articles and had several conversations about her yesterday. Not one of them focused on Margaret Thatcher as a woman beyond her being the first female Prime Minister of the UK. I've been fascinated and impressed that the coverage of her life and death has been shaped by her policies and achievements (and failures) rather than her gender.<br />
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Regardless of whether you think her actions shaped modern Britain successfully or detrimentally, or whether you're conservative or liberal, or whether you think she was a feminist or not (<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9979922/Margaret-Thatcher-a-pioneering-woman-with-no-time-for-feminists.html">she absolutely didn't think so</a>), Margaret Thatcher should be celebrated for her achievements in breaking into the old boys school of politics in the UK. In a world where still the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hillary-clinton-laughs-criticism-photo-wearing-makeup-viral-article-1.1075683">US cares more about whether Hillary Clinton wears makeup or not</a> and who a woman is married to, you have to hand it to a woman who achieved a position of political power and accomplishment over 30 years ago. At that point, women were still fighting for a seat at the table in the US rather than commanding leadership at the head.<br />
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Debate will continue rage for the foreseeable future, as all of these headlines attest, as to whether Thatcherite policies built or broke the UK. I can't claim to know the truth, and my opinion is clouded by the here and now rather than the experience of living through some of her more dramatic decisions and policies. But I will always respect The Iron Lady who said<br />
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<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22076397">"If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman."</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8DpKn7IpHqsYwZ1hmr1KmACYUWba4EE3TYuC041rk9SHyOTShN0uI1xB8cPHI5EpbGFHm4W1J62k12A0XAmEdQf-HX5UtMEy2wyz98oBcQGjX7yHc3-STHFvM0oJP_hJRPrdThq6JYF4/s640/blogger-image-1395177444.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8DpKn7IpHqsYwZ1hmr1KmACYUWba4EE3TYuC041rk9SHyOTShN0uI1xB8cPHI5EpbGFHm4W1J62k12A0XAmEdQf-HX5UtMEy2wyz98oBcQGjX7yHc3-STHFvM0oJP_hJRPrdThq6JYF4/s640/blogger-image-1395177444.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-58510199262791352762013-04-05T15:17:00.002+01:002013-04-05T15:59:19.064+01:00Project Casserole: UK vs US DIY terms <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A short and sweet post for you guys: as we've been working hard at completing the renovations to our home, I encountered some serious linguistic differences in the words Americans and British/Irish (Bi-rish) use for home improvements. I stubbornly refuse to switchover to many of them, resulting in a fair bit of confusion and sometimes hilarity. Here's a quick list for your amusement:<br />
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crown molding, or cornice (US) = coving (UK)</div>
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molding (US) = beading (UK)</div>
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spackle (US) = filler (UK)</div>
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baseboard (US) = skirting boards (UK)</div>
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drywall, or sheetrock (US) = plasterboard (UK)<br />
hardware (US) = ironmongery, or fittings (UK)<br />
<a href="http://www.shopvac.com/">shop-vac</a> (US) = <a href="http://www.numatic.co.uk/products4.aspx?id=1&r=4&sr=1">Henry</a> (UK)</div>
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I'm sure there are more, so I'll update you when I discover them – but maybe you have some to add? Send me your additions to the DIY word differences list!<br />
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<i>PS: Even though I use it liberally across the blog when talking about our renovations, DIY as a term is a uniqely British concept and saying. It not only encompasses the activity (i.e., the home repairs completed by an individual not a builder) but also the category of paraphenalia and associated jargon surrounding the activity. So if you talk about what you did over the long Easter weekend, you could say you "Did DIY" which isn't grammatically correct AT ALL but refers to the wearing of yuck clothes, going to B&Q, prepping, doing, cleaning – the entire lifecycle of a home repair. And it can be anything – renovation, repair, redecorating, replacing lightbulbs – anything home-related.</i></div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-80964999731323443252013-04-04T18:24:00.003+01:002013-04-04T18:24:53.414+01:00Project Casserole: the DIY files<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="text-align: left;">Hi everyone. I hope you've all been well and staying warm – here in the UK, in London, on the 4th of April, it snowed. SNOWED. I'm sick of the winter now and am really desperate for spring.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">The other thing I'm desperate for is my house renovation to be complete. I know I promised to keep you up to date with our progress, but it all happened so fast that on the Tuesday after my birthday I left for work and came home to this:</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">It's been over three weeks now without a kitchen, and frankly, I think we were a bit naive. We really just thought they'd take down the wall separating our kitchen and our living room and that would be it. But they also reinforced the structural support in the ceiling (so our bed doesn't end up on our sofa).</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw1Km-U0hT1GFYyHu2717051ot8kIVV5xn4NVrtcinzsejzSibktyt2576yunJB-rQUGgFIAvZvjX00hBpL4xQWOK0W-HghNacAR7lclHXCYVr4Kj9nECUL4qjHlQSZsWOpd5Qh4gUAsQ/s640/blogger-image-1317195103.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw1Km-U0hT1GFYyHu2717051ot8kIVV5xn4NVrtcinzsejzSibktyt2576yunJB-rQUGgFIAvZvjX00hBpL4xQWOK0W-HghNacAR7lclHXCYVr4Kj9nECUL4qjHlQSZsWOpd5Qh4gUAsQ/s640/blogger-image-1317195103.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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And they re-routed the pipes, which went through the wall we removed, and moved our boiler to the opposite wall which helped with the plumbing being made all nice and tidy. They also extended this wall, so that we could put more cabinets on it. This is really only exciting if you're into plumbing and plastering.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0uChBaoei7fHF-2ikf875ybyrR6gipVbKm90t7MTziRJNnB0MC0uIc2fV4wUDnJxZo0Cr04Pu9-0YJpJ29D-0Odl4yakZo6fjZLhBJHmrkxUYSY8d_ian5txGwriLthb3uB-l8MOnNZU/s640/blogger-image-1136664861.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0uChBaoei7fHF-2ikf875ybyrR6gipVbKm90t7MTziRJNnB0MC0uIc2fV4wUDnJxZo0Cr04Pu9-0YJpJ29D-0Odl4yakZo6fjZLhBJHmrkxUYSY8d_ian5txGwriLthb3uB-l8MOnNZU/s640/blogger-image-1136664861.jpg" /></a></div>
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While all of this work was going on, my living room looked like this:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7EPNqCrhZgFlsNGxRTUqRHOfIoWmk8FRldGDfJvC5gTuBZn_MYlIZJ49jwwi3hYMN0Yq6AQQzSONg7a-y_FZ8-Y3v7L-Eefiyu-Vs-Ccmk3-Gq3WzvUzeEBGwIEbpoeg6qnVyLYf_Ifw/s640/blogger-image--962796991.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7EPNqCrhZgFlsNGxRTUqRHOfIoWmk8FRldGDfJvC5gTuBZn_MYlIZJ49jwwi3hYMN0Yq6AQQzSONg7a-y_FZ8-Y3v7L-Eefiyu-Vs-Ccmk3-Gq3WzvUzeEBGwIEbpoeg6qnVyLYf_Ifw/s640/blogger-image--962796991.jpg" /></a></div>
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And everything, I mean EVERYTHING, was covered in dust. We spent most of our time in the loft, sitting on mattresses from the spare bed, watching tv from the iPad via the Apple TV. It was like being a student, in a squat, only we own it. Weird.</div>
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At the end of the 10 days our workers were in, this is what we were left with:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxqFm5WvCa2ovqQjJIzfZOMFoj6IrcpRDoUPLhfjwOD-EpR-4VrUH9tQrrOoVVpiDveeHIXyc__slljCi8KbpCASmaflRFOcXwPOU2tYgc8LvbVeqytiT-C6uG0xWqc9pU8oe9n4bQ9Jc/s640/blogger-image--329612617.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxqFm5WvCa2ovqQjJIzfZOMFoj6IrcpRDoUPLhfjwOD-EpR-4VrUH9tQrrOoVVpiDveeHIXyc__slljCi8KbpCASmaflRFOcXwPOU2tYgc8LvbVeqytiT-C6uG0xWqc9pU8oe9n4bQ9Jc/s640/blogger-image--329612617.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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On the left there, that new door is my coat closet. I fought The Irishman very hard for that closet, and I'm very excited for it. This is my life now: excitement about built in storage. But the space is open plan now, and feels light and airy and BIG.</div>
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Obviously you can see that the flooring is gone; our kitchen had tiles and the rest of the ground floor was a laminated wood. We decided to put wood down on the whole floor, and went with <a href="http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/574877/">engineered wood</a> – and decided to save money by installing it ourselves. It arrived last Thursday, in time for our Easter Bank Holiday DIY-athon Weekend.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJoGpwqhDDCHhYFOIATFaIu9m7uivKfVNMOQ_PKEcrECRc1sJawcymtJE2EMG0TRuGaQ8lbSEteAV8yY6U9FU77HOgsTWnIRv4Gq4ThrgIR69D_jH0x-mXlYwEblJOvUXWf-wHGHXHH_I/s640/blogger-image-2029212024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJoGpwqhDDCHhYFOIATFaIu9m7uivKfVNMOQ_PKEcrECRc1sJawcymtJE2EMG0TRuGaQ8lbSEteAV8yY6U9FU77HOgsTWnIRv4Gq4ThrgIR69D_jH0x-mXlYwEblJOvUXWf-wHGHXHH_I/s640/blogger-image-2029212024.jpg" /></a></div>
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This is what they call "curbside delivery." You have to heft it into the house YOURSELF. I was the lucky one who worked from home that day and had to do it – all 28 boxes.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs4Ds0rQpnILbufZO7wq9u0Vj3mIWAjSRIG6-vUGuXPSMlgDfmwc9yEXHHtuqaKWOj7D-u9RyiCN5QfyEmqStgQ-4JnbYNobDOnzEbrKWB__YHddxKa2kH77QL_-nSYXTyGrXostsxNLM/s640/blogger-image--70109261.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs4Ds0rQpnILbufZO7wq9u0Vj3mIWAjSRIG6-vUGuXPSMlgDfmwc9yEXHHtuqaKWOj7D-u9RyiCN5QfyEmqStgQ-4JnbYNobDOnzEbrKWB__YHddxKa2kH77QL_-nSYXTyGrXostsxNLM/s640/blogger-image--70109261.jpg" /></a></div>
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And here is the wood, and all of our DIY supplies bright and early last Friday. We covered a lot last weekend – filling in holes, removing the decorative woodwork, sanding, priming, painting, and laying over half of the flooring. We are finishing the flooring this weekend, and installing most of the kitchen cabinets along with the new oven (which arrives tomorrow) so we will have a pretty much functional kitchen AGAIN for the first time in nearly a month. We'll post photos of the nearly complete space next week – and in the meantime, if you have any tips about countertops or tiles, we'd really appreciate it!</div>
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Til next time... xx</div>
Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-50063776042866521062013-03-05T09:37:00.000+00:002013-03-06T14:04:00.379+00:00Yoga v Pilates<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of my New Years resolutions was of course to exercise more (isn't it everyone's?) but specifically to resume a weekly yoga class. I've written before about how robust and balanced I felt when I practiced regularly, and in the depths of winter I was eager to get back to that place.<br />
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Since moving to our house, my previous yoga studio in Islington, The Life Centre, has become slightly inconvenient as a place to go for regular classes - plus they cancelled the later vinyasa flow class on Tuesday nights that I could make with my hectic work schedule. So I decided to start trying classes at the studio around the corner from my house called Yogahome.<br />
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Like everything else in Stoke Newington, Yogahome is an eclectic place with a homespun vibe. Spread across two spaces, it's a bit higgeldy-piggeldy and apparently they even keep chickens out the back of the main space. I haven't met them yet, but it's nice to know they exist. Anyway, I was pretty pumped to find a place with a lot of class options so close to my home, especially vinyasa classes that start at 8pm - sometimes (okay, most of them time) it's really hard for me to get out of work for a yoga class so a later one is usually best. I signed up for a 10 class card before Christmas and promptly went to my first class the first weekend of 2013.<br />
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Only my first class wasn't a yoga class - it was Pilates. Something made me feel like it wasn't just stretching I needed but lengthening and a 'serious' workout. I'd taken a short series of beginner Pilates classes last spring that to be honest were rather boring, though the instructor did being her French bulldog named Claude to class every so often. This time I went to a Sunday Pilates class at mid-day and experienced a true mat work class: hard on the abs, soft on the back, and small stretches that shockingly leave you sore for days. I left the class feeling knitted together, a tightened, tauter version of myself with better posture. I have to say, I was slightly obsessed with Pilates after that and tried desperately to get to midweek classes as well as the Sunday class.<br />
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But then I couldn't go for a few weeks, because of a trip to Doha and a weekend out of town, and suddenly I found myself craving the movement and openness of a vinyasa flow class. So two weeks ago, I went to yoga on a Sunday instead of Pilates - and it was joyful. For the first time in a long time I felt the power of the flowing movement and syncing of breath and movement, and it was immense. I fairly floated home.<br />
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So what's the difference? Well, in a nutshell, the movements. Pilates is a series of small, precise, repeated movements that target extremely specific parts of your body. If you're type A, you'll love Pilates - it's focused and goal oriented and you walk out of class feeling strong, with your muscles pulled tight to the bone not flapping all around. Also, all of the movements are modular, so you master one movement then you "add on" to deepen the intensity or shift the focus to a different muscle.<br />
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Yoga on the other hand is big, constant, whole body movement. Poses work your whole body and take all of your breath. The goal is to synchronise movement with breath, so that your intake of air and exhalations power your movements through the asanas. There is no perfection, just constant progress towards achieving enlightenment. No one gets there, but in order to come close you have to surrender the self - this isn't about lunging deeper or longer than the yogi on the mat next to you, this is about lunging as deep and as long as your body can on that day. Walking out of yoga class I feel light, expansive, and energetic - empowered. <br />
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Though Pilates and yoga are connected, there is a stronger spiritual element to yoga; incense, chants, spiritual readings, even an accordion have all played parts in classes I've taken. I can't deny that the first time I took a yoga class I was weirded out by the recitations and bells and Buddhas, but I've grown to consider them as a broader part of the yogic ritual. By contrast, Pilates - especially the classes with machines and weights - can feel like a standard exercise class, and more than a little soulless. Yoga is exercise for both body and mind.<br />
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I went back to Pilates this past weekend for the contrast, and I'm currently enjoying the delicious ache of my triceps after arm raises. But I know that dry soon I will need a more holistic and emotional session. I'm glad I have both in my arsenal, and can deploy them at will. When I start training fully for the half marathon I entered in October, I'll need all of the stretching - of various forms - I can get!<br />
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Let me know if you're a yogi or a Pilates-devotee - I'm curious about the split!</div>
Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-37229688216771937652013-02-22T18:53:00.001+00:002013-02-22T18:53:39.490+00:00Project Casserole: T-minus 10 days to demolition<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
...give or take.<br />
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We've found and selected our builder, a knowledgeable man named Ajim, and bargained him down to a more affordable – though still eye-watering sum – and now we just have to wait for his plumber to free up so that we can start work. The pipe work is the first thing to happen, and the plumber is currently booked up for the next week or so. Apparently we'll get a start date from Ajim sometime in the middle of next week. My birthday is March 6th so I bet you £5 that they'll be waking me up at 7am on my birthday to begin the renovation. That's okay, because it means I get to buy myself this exciting birthday present:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.johnlewis.com/hotpoint-lst216-integrated-slimline-dishwasher/p230972511#media-overlay_show">This is a dishwasher.</a> I've officially become middle-aged.</td></tr>
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Honestly I never thought I'd be more excited by an appliance than a pair of shoes, but there you go.<br />
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I am so excited that we are nearly ready to start tearing down walls, ripping out pipes, and generally transforming our ground floor. It's taken a lot of planning and thinking, which is surprising, because I thought that when I owned a house I would have free reign to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. But even though I don't have to ask anyone's permission, doing stuff to a house you own takes time: thinking, planning, discussing, reviewing, budgeting, sourcing, negotiating, approving, all before you start any work. Which makes sense, because everything you do to a house either adds to or reduces the value of the property. Whereas when you rent, you might need to get permission to paint, but then you can go ahead and just buy the paint and get it on the wall. It's a subtle difference but you definitely feel it when you realize it's taken 6 weeks to decide which contractor is going to remove the wall you've wanted to get rid of for 6 months.<br />
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So stay tuned for more updates on when we start the demolition and start creating the kitchen!</div>
Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-64660126266475803882013-02-18T12:37:00.001+00:002013-02-18T12:37:49.096+00:00Horseback riding in East London<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>Editor's note: I drafted this post to completion twice and Blogger lost it both times! So I really hope that third time is a charm!</i></div>
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After I wrote my post in January about trying to be happier, I spent a lot of time thinking about times in the past when I was truly happy and what was present then that is missing now. And one starkly missing element is animals - specifically dogs. This is the longest period of time in my life that I've gone without having a dog, and I feel it on a daily basis. I desperately want a dog, especially since London and my neighborhood of Stoke Newington particularly are so dog friendly and welcoming to four-legged friends. But as much as I'd love to get a puppy right now, I do know it's not the right time: I'm traveling a lot for work right now, and I really value the freedom I currently have to jet off for a long weekend in another country at a minutes notice (without worrying about a dog sitter). Plus given all of our house renovations and capital expenses, I don't think our budget can stretch to cover the inevitable veterinary bills that come with rambunctious puppies.</div>
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So while I console myself by befriending all of our neighborhood dogs - like Peggy the 4 month old Chow Chow and Bruce the cool corgi mix owned by the proprietor of my local coffeeshop - I decided to find another way to get more animal interaction in my life. Cue horseback riding.</div>
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When I was a kid, I was nuts about animals and I was lucky to have parents who indulged this passion by letting us have a menagerie: dogs, hamsters, fish, ferrets. They also indulged me in horseback riding lessons twice a week. Not only was I riding, but I even picked up a menial job turning in the horses each evening, brushing them, blanketing them and feeding them. I joyfully rode and hung around the stables until my early teens when my parents made me decide between horseback riding lessons and dog shows; I already had two dogs and knew it was highly unlikely I could convince the parents to add a horse to our family. So I sadly hung up my jodhpurs and haven't been on a horse since.<br />
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Until three weeks ago, that is, when I took the 56 bus from my house to the <a href="http://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/en/content/cms/outdoors/lee-valley-riding-centre/">Lee Valley Riding Centre</a> for one of their super-beginner assessment classes. I had brought my riding helmet, breeches and paddock boots back to the UK with me during one of my previous trips home to the US, so when I arrived at the stable suited and booted I was told that I could do a little bit more than riders typically get during a new rider session. I got to lead my mount to the outdoor arena, ride without a leader, and put my horse away after the lesson. Hilariously though, my riding equipment was so old that I had to get rid of my gorgeous old velvet helmet with the ribbon the back as it no longer conforms to equestrian safety regulations. Ha!</div>
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And it was joyous. Just like riding a bike – once I was up in the saddle, everything I ever knew about riding came back to me: how to hold the reins, how to position my feet, when to squeeze my knees. It was amazing. I was so happy, despite the cold, for that hour, and at the end of the class the instructor suggested that if I were to return I could skip the introductory class for new riders and move up a step to the beginners class. She said that because she hadn't seen me canter, she couldn't move me up to Novice. That's okay by me – it's been two decades since I moved that fast on a horse and I'm happy taking my time and working my way up to it.</div>
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After the lesson, I got back on the bus and arrived home smelly, covered in horsehair, frozen to the bone, but elated. Classes are £28 for a group lesson, so no prohibitively expensive, and I plan on trying to get out there at least once a month if I can. It's not as good as being woken up by a dog every morning, but I'll take it!</div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-80645674211044561332013-02-14T14:37:00.001+00:002013-02-14T14:37:33.721+00:00Flying over the Middle East<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Happy Valentines Day, everyone! Apologies for the absence; I've been absolutely up to my ears with work and the house renovation over the last few weeks, and then had to fly to Doha unexpectedly last Sunday. It's one of the trade-offs of working with another culture that you have to give up your weekend sometimes to adjust to their schedule (Fridays are their Saturdays).</div>
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Anyway, I was flying back yesterday and for the first time we had an absolutely clear sky without cloud cover and could see the geography below in detail. I was so curious about the landscape that I switched off my movie to track our progress on the inflight entertainment system – and discovered we were flying above one of the most contested areas in the world.</div>
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Our flight path took us over Basra, where I saw the US military base, and on over valleys that looked surprisingly verdant. There were snaking rivers that I found out later are the Tigris and Euphrates, major arteries that empty into the Persian Gulf. We flew over other cities like Najaf whose names have become synonymous with the loss of American soldiers. And then we flew over Baghdad.<br />
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I never ever thought that in my lifetime I would see, even from the air, a city that has been defined, for the majority of my life, by war. As we passed, I kept imagining images of protestors pulling down the statue of Saddam Hussein and how when I was in Germany for New Years they captured and executed him. I thought about the war that ideologically tore America apart for the first decade of the century and to this day splits people on basic democratic issues. And I thought, this is so close to a part of the world that I am drawn increasingly into on a personal and professional level that I can't ignore its proximity nor its importance.<br />
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Expats leave their home countries for opportunities and experiences, and so frequently those opportunities and experiences happen in places beyond their new homes. So even though an expat from the US might assimilate to life and work in the UK, there's an even bigger challenge when her work takes her to the Middle East where cultural norms and values are that much more different.<br />
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It can be hard to be an American in the UK; it can be even harder to be an American in the UK who goes to work in the Middle East – where do you belong? Who are you representing? What is 'you'? Who are 'you'? I thought I had all of those answers, but confronted with such a symbolic place as Baghdad – even from 30,000 ft – I suddenly thought that maybe I don't have such a handle on it. And probably that means I'm closer to the truth than not.<br />
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-40355075594610140122013-01-24T19:42:00.003+00:002013-01-24T19:50:36.620+00:00Project Casserole Design Development<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Sorry for the massive delay in posting, guys. Since I last got a chance to update you, it's snowed quite a lot here in London and my family was here visiting. So I was a bit, shall we say, preoccupied! But now the snow is gone and so are the familials, so let's talk kitchen design. Specifically, IKEA kitchens and trying to figure out an aesthetic for our open-planned ground floor.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://design-crisis.com/?p=4118">Photo courtesy of Design Crisis</a></td></tr>
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I'm finding that the problem with an open plan kitchen / living room is that setting the "look" for our kitchen is actually about setting the look for the entire floor, as the kitchen will spill into the living room and vice versa. So it's made me slightly adverse to do something wild like this nautical blue and white kitchen, because how do you synch that with sofas?!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/cozy-commercial-style-kitchen-roommarks-175315">Photo courtesy of Apartment Therapy</a></td></tr>
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And my aesthetic for kitchens tends towards industrial chic, which is all well and good in a warehouse conversion but not our little contemporary mews house. First of all we don't have any exposed brick, and secondly it just doesn't feel homey enough. Our house feels like a home. This kitchen felt like it was a step in the right direction but still too cold – all that steel! I hear it's a bitch to keep clean.<br />
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Our other option is to go for a modern or contemporary kitchen. We could definitely do it; it wouldn't feel like an anomaly in the house and our current furnishings could definitely work with a more modern aesthetic. But when you touch these kitchens, there is something off about them... a bit soulless or something. I don't know.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglYEuHO_wUOGNwuGAyvb4RreArBnE5Jr2NriUD2Jlzt3Xd9Yj9BO6uIptekP2v_Zptvt59-H4KPPouTEfqW_0Wwk1wzQKxwSUqKP-yWPBeiwmnII51-9Dj-se07Yt2tTkXIdE_LF19R9g/s1600/a-trio-of-vintage-pendants-in-the-kitchen-roommarks-174700.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglYEuHO_wUOGNwuGAyvb4RreArBnE5Jr2NriUD2Jlzt3Xd9Yj9BO6uIptekP2v_Zptvt59-H4KPPouTEfqW_0Wwk1wzQKxwSUqKP-yWPBeiwmnII51-9Dj-se07Yt2tTkXIdE_LF19R9g/s1600/a-trio-of-vintage-pendants-in-the-kitchen-roommarks-174700.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/a-trio-of-vintage-pendants-in-the-kitchen-roommarks-174700">Photo courtesy of Apartment Therapy</a></td></tr>
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Plus, it's not just me. I have strong aesthetic ideas and as a visual person, I see what I want in my head. Sometimes I have a hard time describing it, though, and The Irishman gets a bit frustrated by my lack of verbal clarity. So both of us have been Pinning our ideas for kitchen looks separately, and sharing big finds. Surprise surprise, we actually have pretty much the same thing in mind: traditional style cabinets, minimalist color, oh-so-trendy (but so cool!) railway tile, and industrial steel appliances. Our prayers were answered when The Kitchn posted this amazing and classic kitchen renovation a few weeks ago:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thekitchn.com/ryans-inspiring-san-francisco-remodel-kitchen-tour-167605">Photos courtesy of The Kitchn</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">Basically, this is what we want. We're going for a galley style, and want dark cabinets but a sense of lightness. There's a ceramic sink, stainless appliances, and that iconic tiling. And the homeowners even have big French doors like us! You can totally see a nice big sofa leading out from this view.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">We'd already started designing our kitchen via the </span><a href="http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB/rooms_ideas/kitchen_howto/EU/plan_your_kitchen_in_3d.html" style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;">IKEA Kitchen Planner</a><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">, but these photos really helped us solidify our layout and look. We are going for the Lidingo (or Lidi) style of cabinets, shown here all in grey but depending on the actual color of the white versions we might try the white on top to give the room a sense of lightness.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZXz2l0zxx6ZjgS_u6wotj7S9aj8dRDyZs4GIWSJTPXuVECiGECYRawpDH8l9LCiOEVz3buL34f3Q_EwWOpXKTnhv3oe83ZNzIYm6yCCC-dF6XXAIPqVsgJjANKB_y9Pw-PMXRzfVj3kU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-01-24+at+19.25.50.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="479" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZXz2l0zxx6ZjgS_u6wotj7S9aj8dRDyZs4GIWSJTPXuVECiGECYRawpDH8l9LCiOEVz3buL34f3Q_EwWOpXKTnhv3oe83ZNzIYm6yCCC-dF6XXAIPqVsgJjANKB_y9Pw-PMXRzfVj3kU/s640/Screen+Shot+2013-01-24+at+19.25.50.png" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Here are a few images of our initial room layout. We're not tiling EVERYTHING, but it's just easier to leave it all tiled that separate out the areas where we want tiles (though there will be some full walls with tiles above the sink and around the window.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Now that we're pretty confident on the layout and the style, we're just waiting on a few quotes from contractors so that we can decide how fast we can do the work. A lot of structural stuff has to happen first, as well as pricing the floor (so expensive!) but then we can go and actually buy the kitchen itself. So exciting! For the next installment of Project Casserole, let's talk fun design things: lighting! Taps! Appliances! It's home renovation galore!</span></div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-87371611342544576352013-01-15T17:59:00.000+00:002013-01-15T18:01:37.212+00:00Project Casserole<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyDOlBIKZuLE93vdYvIj0q04apT0eUUJiemD5m3qPhXJx9QhzapNcL00fIfHOcgQNR2F59nXgq0Kp2uVqky7H2K7bsH_Js_BloCPBQjzI147QNaXfiA3Aib9DPM11-vW49NwEMbc-VV68/s640/blogger-image--936155641.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyDOlBIKZuLE93vdYvIj0q04apT0eUUJiemD5m3qPhXJx9QhzapNcL00fIfHOcgQNR2F59nXgq0Kp2uVqky7H2K7bsH_Js_BloCPBQjzI147QNaXfiA3Aib9DPM11-vW49NwEMbc-VV68/s640/blogger-image--936155641.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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In addition to figuring out what makes me happy, calorie counting, and working 50 hour weeks, The Irishman and I are resuming our home renovations. Specifically, redoing the kitchen and making the ground floor open plan in what we're calling Project Casserole.<br />
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I know a lot of you have been clamoring for photos of the house, but as of right now it's sort of a mess. I mean, the house isn't mess-y but the ground floor is in a state of suspended DIY. All of this is sort of abstract, so let me take you on a little virtual history tour of our home.<br />
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When we bought our house, the layout of the ground floor was like this:<br />
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There was a built-in kitchen diner in the front, by the window, and a pass-through window (with venetian blinds, UGH!) from the kitchen into the lounge. Here's how it looked just after we moved in, at the very beginning of our refurb process. We'd ripped out the built-in table and chairs, and our farmhouse table is visible squished under the window.<br />
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You can't really tell, but all of that white around the kitchen is wall.</div>
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When we bought the house, we saw the potential of it to be open-plan on the ground floor. We both like to cook and entertain and it was a real priority for us during our house search that if one person was in the kitchen cooking, they wouldn't be sequestered in a separate room while everyone else was partying in another room. This conviction was held up when we met one of our neighbors who bought her house (identical to ours) and it was already open-planned. So we stopped by her places a few times to get ideas, and then went to town. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsglRwT_MutfsEat3RJ_VAKb8MB0991e4BF0TbEIeRNhbYmGw02Mq9OCbDWyAfIyBirkgcDNWyXis_k5lcmQ69VHY3dYFZQHzLahA6L8uPuzjDVOyVBtTVihP5Vy-WT2zFMUKjwNR5Mxk/s640/blogger-image-208983180.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsglRwT_MutfsEat3RJ_VAKb8MB0991e4BF0TbEIeRNhbYmGw02Mq9OCbDWyAfIyBirkgcDNWyXis_k5lcmQ69VHY3dYFZQHzLahA6L8uPuzjDVOyVBtTVihP5Vy-WT2zFMUKjwNR5Mxk/s640/blogger-image-208983180.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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First, The Irishman took all of the cabinets off the wall we want to remove and reinstalled them where the built in table was, creating one long worktop and all of the appliances in a row. The fridge also moved down to that end of the kitchen, and a spare Billy bookcase went in to hold our cookbooks and booze – the most important things in life. </div>
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The Irishman then started poking around in the wall before trying to completely remove it, because as he suspected not only did it contain electrical fittings but also pipes that still ran water. Oops. Before we could take the wall down, we'd have to reroute the water and electricals. </div>
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But that didn't stop us from a light demolition work; we decided that we were pretty set on going full open-plan and that we might as well at least open up the pass-through completely. So in late September/early October, The Irishman broke through the half-wall between the kitchen and the lounge. It's so nice living with a DIY-friendly-hunk.</div>
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So basically this is the kitchen we've been living with for the last three months or so.</div>
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But now it's time to go whole-hog and redo the entire ground floor.</div>
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We've been having plumbers and electricians and general contractors come in to quote on Project Casserole. The first things we need to have them do are:</div>
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<li>Move the boiler</li>
<li>Reroute the water so that it goes directly upstairs to the bathroom from the boiler (and not circle around the kitchen - byproduct being a much warmer shower much faster!)</li>
<li>Move the radiator</li>
<li>Get a building control officer in to tell us whether we can leave the remaining wall (the one near the window) as-is or need to make it more compliant with the fire code (possibly extending it? possibly insulating it?)</li>
<li>Ripping down the main kitchen wall as well as the parts of the wall near the ceiling where the doors used to be</li>
<li>Quote for installing the new kitchen (but we may do that ourselves depending on the cost)</li>
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And while we're getting these quotes, we're having fun playing with IKEA's online kitchen planner application - designing the budget kitchen of our dreams! My next Project Casserole post will be about the look we're going for, and how we're learning to compromise on form versus function.</div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-62858490263328538202013-01-07T14:24:00.002+00:002013-01-07T14:24:29.208+00:00My happiness project<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
YOU GUYS, you seriously rock.<br />
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I have received so many nice comments, emails and links from you since I posted about my general state of being on Friday (including one from Mom-Mom, thank you, I promise I will call you this week!). It seems how I'm feeling resonates with so many of you, and I'm glad that by finding the courage to give voice to my issues I'm actually speaking for you, too.<br />
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So in the spirit of sharing collective learnings and sentiments, I'm going to set up a separate page on the blog called <a href="http://bloodybrill.blogspot.co.uk/p/being-happy.html">Finding Happy</a> and collect posts, book reviews, musings, and other learnings about finding happiness and passion in life. Sort of my own self-directed <a href="http://www.happiness-project.com/">happiness project</a>. If you haven't heard about this <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Happiness-Project-Aristotle-Generally/dp/006158326X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357568325&sr=8-1">book</a>, the author did what I'm talking about: set out to find what really makes her happy in life over the course of one year. I'm adding it to the reading list.<br />
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Finally, I want to report that I had a great weekend. I didn't do much of anything, really, but had good healthy food, kept the wine to a minimum, went to Pilates, and most importantly spent a lot of time on Facetime with friends in farflung places (New York! Penang!). I feel really centered and rested and full of energy today. Optimism abounds. I hope you're all finding yourselves in similarly positive places as well.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://mayhemandmuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/life-advice-picture-quote-enjoy-happiness-better-inspiration-motivation-joy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://mayhemandmuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/life-advice-picture-quote-enjoy-happiness-better-inspiration-motivation-joy.jpg" width="507" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://mayhemandmuse.com/inspirational-quotes-and-pictures-july-2012/life-advice-picture-quote-enjoy-happiness-better-inspiration-motivation-joy/"><i>Image courtesy of Mayhem & Muse</i></a></td></tr>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-54724921730275660982013-01-04T15:59:00.000+00:002013-01-04T17:34:22.408+00:00Where I've been and where I'm at<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I love this photo. I took it on a sea wall in Lahinch in Ireland just before the clouds unleashed a torrent of hail on us. For a good comedic sketch-worthy 25 minutes, The Irishman, me, and his parents jumped in and out of the car in an attempt to go for a walk on the beach; every time we thought the rain had stopped and there was a break in the clouds, we would get about 10 feet before some sort of precipitation came clattering back down on our heads. We ended up soaked, annoyed, and ultimately gave up and drove to drier climes.</div>
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This anecdote pretty much perfectly encapsulates where my head has been for the last 4 months or so. I promised you yesterday that I would explain why I haven't been blogging as much and I want to prepare you for a really big dose of negativity and frustration and a few side dishes of jealousy, bitterness, and despair. It's not great reading, nor writing if I'm honest, but hey, where else can you be honest except on the internet?</div>
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I tried writing this post a few times before Christmas, and always ended up abandoning it because I just couldn't go <i>all the way there</i> yet. But a few good conversations with good friends, my mom, and a few others in the real world have helped me see that the only way through it all is to be honest with myself and the rest of the world and just do it. Like the photo, there are tons of dark clouds in my head at the moment but hopefully there is a break coming and brightness to follow. I was also inspired by Emily at <a href="http://www.fromchinavillage.com/2013/01/looking-back-at-2012/">From China Village</a> who wrote a post that really spoke to me about not blogging about what's really eating at you, and how isolating it feels, and related so much that I felt like I could come clean too.</div>
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So what's up, sugarplum?</div>
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Well, sometimes it feels like WHAT ISN'T. And other times, it feels like WHAT IS? But I can't really sugarcoat it more simply than this:</div>
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I'm just not happy.</div>
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It's been a long time coming to be able to admit this in public. Sometimes, when you have a blog and you're an expat, you don't realize that you're unconsciously holding back, pretending your fabulous foreign life is full of excitement and glamour, hiding the lack of fulfilment, the frustration, the pain. Sometimes you even feel guilty that you feel those negative thoughts because you think, well, I mean, at least I am here in London and doing wonderful things like eating in Michelin-starred restaurants and traveling to cool cities so of course I must just be ridiculous because look how lucky I am! But lucky doesn't come with a side effect of being miserable.</div>
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I'm conscious that this post can really quickly devolve into navel gazing (and probably already has) so let's really quickly recap on the positives that I've got going for me:</div>
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1. I have a house</div>
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2. I have a secure job in an interesting industry</div>
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3. I have a fabulously supportive boyfriend</div>
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4. I have a fabulously supportive family</div>
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5. I have a great network of close friends near and far</div>
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So, you know, with regards to Maszlow and all of his needs, I should be fairly well-placed to be seek enlightenment. And maybe that's what I'm missing? Because despite all of the above, I'm finding that each day I struggle to wake up with any motivation for achieving anything. I don't have much excitement. I'm bored with my routine, but lack any desire to change it. I'm tired. I'm frustrated. That frustration is making me see the things I have as burdens, rather than joys. </div>
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For example:</div>
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1. I have a house<br />
With walls that have holes in them, waiting for plumbers to come remove pipes.<br />
With windows that are constantly covered in condensation <i>(Editor's note: I never ever thought in 1 million years that I would be worried about condensation but there you go!)</i><br />
With a loft full of boxes, instead of the craft/design room of my dreams.<br />
With a guest room where the freshly applied wallpaper is already peeling.<br />
With cosmetic fixes that cost more than any pair of shoes.<br />
With so many other things to fix in it that I feel like I'll never have a weekend to myself or spare cash to buy a handbag again.<br />
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2. I have a secure job in an interesting industry<br />
That causes me untold anxiety.<br />
That I constantly measure my success in against my peers.<br />
That I am always worried I'm doing well enough at.<br />
That I don't really know where I'm headed in.<br />
That sometimes I'm not sure why I'm doing it.<br />
That I can't see a future in 10 years down the road that appeals to me.<br />
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3. I have a fabulously supportive boyfriend<br />
Well, he's pretty much great. I'm not airing my issues with him here, but suffice to say it's little things like "will he ever close all of the drawers and doors ALL OF THE WAY instead of leaving them open 1 inch".<br />
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4. I have a fabulously supportive family<br />
Who I never see.<br />
Who live in the US and it costs me £500 at least to go back and see them.<br />
Who I constantly feel guilty about never seeing.<br />
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5. I have a great network of close friends near and far<br />
See #4.<br />
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Add worry that their lives are fast-forwarding through marriages and babies and moves and etc, and I'm not there to share it... so where does that leave me?</div>
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Phew. All of that and more has been rattling around and stuffing up my brain for a while now. It feels good to get it out. And even better to read it because I know that it is LUDICROUS. Most of it, at least.</div>
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But it gets worse.</div>
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Because I've been torturing myself over the above, and more, I've really taken a negative turn for the worse in terms of my general attitude. I've given up exercise, and started comfort eating, and find myself back at the weight I hated 2 years ago. I'm not spending as much time out, socially, because I don't really feel like I have anything positive to say, and I don't have anything cute to wear (because it doesn't fit, and I don't have the spare cash to buy anything new). Social media terrifies me because every new announcement of a vacation, engagement, baby, etc, reinforces my lack of fulfilment. </div>
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It's easy to say "I'm jealous" but it's more than jealousy over achievements or possessions; I'm jealous of people knowing what they want, knowing their dreams, and striving to them. My besties are on a career-break trip in Asia right now, something they scrimped and saved and fought to do, and are having the time of their lives – meanwhile, I'm sitting on the sofa staring at cobwebs and trying to find the energy to dust the house, let alone try to figure out what my dreams and life goals are. Before Christmas, it took me 4 days of saying "I'm going to clean the bathroom" until I finally did – after we got back from Ireland. This negativity is eating away at me, and starting to affect my relationship with The Irishman too. He is nothing but supportive but my life state is exhausting him too. </div>
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Overall, it's a bad scene over here.</div>
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So what am I going to do about it? </div>
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Well I've been doing a lot to fix it up to this confession. I've a lovely therapist named Wendy who I pay over the odds for; she can't make it all go away but she has taught me ways to recognize the pattern of thinking that leads me to a place where I feel paralyzed. So at least I can avoid getting to a point of no return. I'm taking a small break from her because she's helped me through the emotional aspect of all of this, and now I need to start the fixing part. I've also been working with two ladies I know, one of whom is a close friend, who are becoming life coaches. They've both agreed to take me on as a test case to help me suss out where I am, what I am, who I am, and how to sync up my values with my work and my goals. I'm terrified by this process because I hate change, but it's necessary. I've gone too far stop now.</div>
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Personally, though, I'm starting the following (call them resolutions if you like, but they're more like life shifts):</div>
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I'm <b>reading a book</b> called <a href="http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/the-element">The Element</a> that people have told me really helps you understand what is unique to you – and how to use it to make you happy. I've just started it, so, you know, I'll let you know what I think. </div>
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I am <b>recommitting to yoga and pilates</b>. But in a different way than in the past; I used to go to the hardest class, really push myself, really force myself to get into the hardest poses and hold them the longest and generally be super competitive. This time, it's all about me just doing it. Getting up on the weekend mornings and going to class and celebrating that I'm doing it will be enough. I'm hoping the toning and leanness will follow from the centeredness.</div>
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I'm also <b>recommitting to running</b>. Short runs to start and hopefully a half marathon in the spring. A goal to work towards with the side benefit of clearing my head. </div>
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I'm doing a mini January <b>detox</b>. I'm cutting out refined carbohydrates and sugar, and restricting alcohol and red meat (only on the weekends, in moderation). I'm tracking my calories on <a href="http://www.myfitnesspal.com/">My Fitness Pal</a> and hoping to hit my goal weight in May.</div>
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With a lot of help and encouragement from The Irishman, I'm working on <b>getting up earlier</b>. Ideally to run before work, but this is baby step territory. I am not naturally a morning person, but I do know that when I get up earlier and don't have to rush around, I am more at peace and feel more accomplished – it's just that I really like to sleep. A lot. So the goal is to get to a place where I can get up at 7 every morning easily and hopefully add in a 30 minute run. Let's see.</div>
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Also with The Irishman, we're doing a lot of <b>budgeting and financial tracking</b>. Since buying the house, our finances are ever more intertwined and it's helpful to understand what we can afford to do in terms of renovations. But also, I constantly feel like I'm broke. I need to stop dreading the credit card bill and ransacking the sofa for £1 in the days leading up to payday (they're probably The Irishman's anyway).</div>
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Finally, I've given myself a deadline of June to work out what I want and need in life. It's not going to be a full life plan, but some things like location might be things that fall out of it; realistically, it's going to be an honest assessment of the things that I need in place to feel at peace and, dare I say, happy again. It's going to be a hard road, and very intense, so I probably won't actively blog about it. But from time to time, I'll update you on how I'm doing. I'm sure you'll sense when changes are amiss, anyways.</div>
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If you've stuck with me through this post, thank you. Hopefully you won't abandon the blog but it's okay if you do. If you're going through something similar, feel free to reach out – I've been reading a lot of books, some might be of use to you so message me privately. And if you've a friend like me, well, just go give her a hug and a cup of tea because really that's all she (and I) really need. </div>
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Wherever you are in life, with your resolutions this new year, I wish you nothing but success and satisfaction, happiness and love.</div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-17961607147952364892013-01-03T13:22:00.001+00:002013-01-03T13:22:55.834+00:00An Irish Christmas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A very belated but still Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! It's day 2 back in the office and I must say, I'm not really feeling it. Even though I had 9 days off, I'm still rusty and not back in the groove. My first yoga class of the year is tonight so hopefully I can ease my way back in smoothly.<br />
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I know I haven't really been blogging much lately, and we're going to touch on that in another post tomorrow. But before we get into reality, let me fill you in on my Christmas. I spent it with The Irishman and his family in Dublin, as we alternate every year – last year was the US with my family, and this year we went to his home. We had a few lovely evenings in Dublin, joining in the festive cheer, and spent the rest of the time having meals with family and friends. On St. Stephen's Day (Boxing Day) we went for a walk on the South Pier out by the iconic stacks.<br />
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The day after St Stephen's Day, we all piled into the car and drove out to County Clare in the west of Ireland near Galway. The Irishman's uncle lives out there and, get this, has a castle on his property. In actual fact it is more like a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep">keep</a>, but he has restored it to a liveable space and we had dinner there one night and a tour of the fuller property. It's pretty cool – but very cold. We stayed in less historic accommodation, in this little thatched roof cottage.</div>
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The landscape of Clare is pretty dramatic, owing to its glacial geography and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burren">The Burren</a>. It's hard to describe, so I won't really try, except to say it is barren, bleak, and utterly beautiful. I'd suggest going in the summer, though, because the wind and rain make it particularly raw so you tend to not spend too much time outside seeing the sights.<br />
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And sights there are! Clare also hosts evidence of some of the earliest settlers to Ireland, who left these epic burial tombs called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmen">dolmens</a> across the region. There are also several other castles, military fortifications, medieval crosses and crumbling churches littered across the fields – not to mention the geographical wonders like the Cliffs of Moher. We went on a cold and rainy day and I was very dumb not to take a hat. Learn from my mistakes, people – always take a wooly hat to Ireland. Even in July.<br />
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From this area, if you wanted to go out to the Aran Islands, you could easily take a ferry there but they weren't running over Christmas and I don't actually think they run during the winter. But there were other places to see too, tiny towns like Ennistymon and Doolin and lovely little hamlets with one pub and one church. Lots of Irish to be had – this cafe we went to in Ennistymon is literally named "food house." Apt, I think!<br />
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After a week with The Irishman's family, I was ready to come home. Don't get me wrong – they're a lovely bunch and we had an amazing and warm and lovely family Christmas. But we, and when I say that I really mean me, wanted a break for just us, too. We had 3 days in London together but it simply wasn't enough for us to unwind together. So as 2013 unfolds, I'm really looking forward to some quality time with this chap that doesn't include family, friends, DIY, or modern (in)conveniences.<br />
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Despite my crankiness about that, we still managed to have a fabulous New Years Eve at <a href="http://www.theledbury.com/">The Ledbury </a>restaurant in Notting Hill and then caught the fireworks down by Parliament.<br />
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I hope you all had just as wonderful a Christmas and New Year, blogfriends. Tell me how you spent it! Next post will be about why you haven't heard from me in a while, and what I'm planning to do about it in 2013. Until then, I hope you're finding the transition to 2013 smooth, joyous, and relaxing.</div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-5585259508505598012012-12-18T12:20:00.001+00:002012-12-18T12:20:04.877+00:00Christmas on Southbank<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Last night The Irishman and I went to a late night showing of The Hobbit in 3D at the BFI Imax near Waterloo. Crazy kids on a school night! As the showing was later and we both skipped out of the office a bit early, it being the last week of work before Christmas and all, we treated ourselves to dinner at The Anchor & Hope, a sister restaurant to our favorite 32 Great Queen Street, which we'd never had a chance to try, and a stroll along Southbank. Every year Southbank gets all gussied up for the holidays, with a German Christmas market, lights, and all sorts of installations, and this year is no exception.</div>
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The programming on Southbank is part of its annual <a href="http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/winter-festival">Winter Festival</a>, which includes lots of performances and installations like this Christmas tree with bicycle powered lights. That's The Irishman lighting the tree through his furious pedalling.<br />
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If you can, try to get down to Southbank this holiday season as it's really a lovely festive area with tons to see and do.</div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-35671743280560861492012-12-10T21:50:00.001+00:002012-12-10T21:50:49.554+00:00Brittas Bay, Co. WicklowThe Irishman and I were in Dublin last weekend to celebrate his father's 70th birthday. In and amongst the family dinners and bottles of wine, we made time to get out and about. Besides going into town to run errands around Temple Bar, we went for a beach walk around an hour or so south along the cost. I did some light beachcombing and frequent photo-taking, and here are some of the results. Enjoy.<br />
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Howdy from Doha. I'm here for the week kicking off a new project with my client here. I'm jetlagged, cranky, have an upset stomach, and am getting a little emotional. So of course, lets blog!<div>
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December is a weird time to be in the Middle East; it's really sunny and warm during the day, the <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhan">adhan</a></i> sounds at regular intervals, you subsist on hummus and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabbouleh">tabbouleh</a>, and yet there are Christmas trees and wreaths adorning the insides of hotels and other Western-expat type areas and canned Christmas music everywhere you turn. Once the sun sets, it's actually cold and you find yourself wrapped in a sweater just like in London, only sitting in a restaurant eating mezze with a lot of berobed people. It's an odd experience to be receiving festive holiday emails and invites and cheer in my via email while in a sandy desert city – and I can't imagine what it's like to be here, away from family and friends, for an extended or established period of time during the holidays.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So while I'm here experiencing a strange out of body experience, I learned that my company is organising a gift tree in aid of Camila <span style="background-color: white;">Batmanghelidjh's Charity <a href="http://www.kidsco.org.uk/">Kids Company</a>. She selflessly gives up her Christmas celebration every year to host a big meal and party for 7,500 lonely kids who wouldn't otherwise have a holiday. She has also teamed up with <a href="https://www.johnlewisgiftlist.com/giftint/buylist#total">John Lewis</a> to create a Wish List of toys for the kids she serves (list number </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">525473, if you're interested)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"> that members of the public can donate. An email came around with the information, and a suggestion that we try to pool our funds together to buy some of the more expensive toys for the kids.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">I clicked on the wishlist out of curiosity, and as I looked through the selection of toys I started welling up. Maybe it's the work stress, maybe it's the tiredness, maybe it's hearing canned versions of Disney theme songs constantly from the beach outside, maybe it's reading too much about the Royal Bump, but I got really emotional looking at all of those toys picked out for kids whose parents just can't give them a proper Christmas. Nothing on that list is over £65, which I think made me even more sad – I work for a fancy branding agency that charges a lot of money to clients for our work, and we employees take home rather good salaries for our industry, and we can't afford, each of us, to give some kids some gifts that will hopefully make them think that each of them are special just for one day? I just felt, in some part of me, a big injustice and a need to do something.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">So I've decided: of course I will buy some gifts, myself, to donate for these special kids, but also I am going to ensure that in my budget moving forward I keep aside some money for charity. Despite my self-pitying laments that I am "always broke" and "can't afford xx or yy," in reality I am much better off than so many others. As I go about this holiday season buying gifts for my loved ones, I want to remember that the joy of giving is not just about presents but about making life better for everyone.</span></span></div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-34040546763360518302012-11-29T13:22:00.000+00:002012-12-03T16:25:51.501+00:00Exploring London's great outdoors<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil87b68IPGeIxg-6cYjEeHIhitknwuvDqMveaPhkCnUJy9nZiAiwTKlQ3nNE4qkvnI8DG8RF322uNI1xsLpCfUCvrZx5WLZRgSv7uNix-innDNo8vrbURia2VxGTw_bMdDalfCo5sXNI8/s640/blogger-image-32733502.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil87b68IPGeIxg-6cYjEeHIhitknwuvDqMveaPhkCnUJy9nZiAiwTKlQ3nNE4qkvnI8DG8RF322uNI1xsLpCfUCvrZx5WLZRgSv7uNix-innDNo8vrbURia2VxGTw_bMdDalfCo5sXNI8/s640/blogger-image-32733502.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i>Editors note: I started writing this post about 2 weeks ago – and am only now finishing it. I apologise for the tardiness!!!</i></div>
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One of my favorite things about London and the UK is the proximity I feel to nature. Even London, whose nickname is Big Smoke, you're never very far from someplace wooded or a nature reserve or even just a leafy square where you can rest your feet and enjoy some lovely flowers.<br />
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Ever since moving into our house, we've been exploring the natural beauty of East London. Hah! you may say – Hackney is full of estates and faded glory! But no, nestled amongst the hipsters and cafés and plantain shops, there are tons of acres of preserved land.<br />
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About a month ago, The Irishman and I cycled over to the Lea Valley park and <a href="http://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/en/content/cms/nature/nature-reserve/tottenham-marshes/">Tottenham Marshes</a>. You access the park via a spur of the canal and cycle or walk all the way over to <a href="http://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/en/content/cms/nature/nature-reserve/walthamstow-marshes/">Walthamstow Marshes</a>. We found an ice skating rink, a horseback riding facility, and working reservoirs that treat the water for London. There are cute pubs and cafés all around, so you can walk or bike or run safe in the knowledge that there are places to take a break everywhere you go.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjalth2ETbZrWRvYmdBKqDQYPjbtJpEeWHhNU0fgPxSPYeJKgOT4kxWv4hOfvMWb5FV_x9ulyTmg2VPgBNPsgpqFhfMrjNaXEH2-Dvq59V-EkyIc4Ls_BqLVOGhkbs8Oz2RkSKaZvAloZU/s640/blogger-image-1939364473.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjalth2ETbZrWRvYmdBKqDQYPjbtJpEeWHhNU0fgPxSPYeJKgOT4kxWv4hOfvMWb5FV_x9ulyTmg2VPgBNPsgpqFhfMrjNaXEH2-Dvq59V-EkyIc4Ls_BqLVOGhkbs8Oz2RkSKaZvAloZU/s640/blogger-image-1939364473.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih0O4fYxUGebb2Uf229J4YagYRUG9KR5HjhbhhHfZoWtaB9gc9Xr3WpGcm-k714tbiqqaCvEZBk_nV5dGAPE_jnPFX5AwTxPwq7dKZlD6OvxsbAwwIkPfpTRXGFNtHBi6mOEiAOH1aWWE/s640/blogger-image--764297514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih0O4fYxUGebb2Uf229J4YagYRUG9KR5HjhbhhHfZoWtaB9gc9Xr3WpGcm-k714tbiqqaCvEZBk_nV5dGAPE_jnPFX5AwTxPwq7dKZlD6OvxsbAwwIkPfpTRXGFNtHBi6mOEiAOH1aWWE/s640/blogger-image--764297514.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisEIn2ROhhDS0AUUEp2ArkxWMr0K3mviQh04RjpNNtb2Fd8I3ItKtkqVs2zscLabuF70hYrgpKwvoaUDc3XpTt0QrE59oimV6pNPHYPqMYadZ1x1Enoz9_DT52aZHcConNiF8UmpzHVyk/s640/blogger-image-1831276442.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisEIn2ROhhDS0AUUEp2ArkxWMr0K3mviQh04RjpNNtb2Fd8I3ItKtkqVs2zscLabuF70hYrgpKwvoaUDc3XpTt0QrE59oimV6pNPHYPqMYadZ1x1Enoz9_DT52aZHcConNiF8UmpzHVyk/s640/blogger-image-1831276442.jpg" /></a></div>
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That's The Irishman on his bike!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsHvKholC8i7GwpJmEhMreuIsqojXurjw0wa3GCLqioyRZACyKzQ3bEBoa-WMLQSJypBC4wY698qaMYB8yFhmpU1ybi6rr0KkVMDf6PijjcIavM0PCn216J5AM3v2A1_rGG0-x8WId_zc/s640/blogger-image--1363518621.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsHvKholC8i7GwpJmEhMreuIsqojXurjw0wa3GCLqioyRZACyKzQ3bEBoa-WMLQSJypBC4wY698qaMYB8yFhmpU1ybi6rr0KkVMDf6PijjcIavM0PCn216J5AM3v2A1_rGG0-x8WId_zc/s640/blogger-image--1363518621.jpg" /></a><br />
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Then two weeks ago we walked the <a href="http://www.parkland-walk.org.uk/">Parkland Walk</a>, which is a trail stretching from Finsbury Park to Highgate tube station that runs along an abandoned section of railway track. I'd heard about it from a few people who did the walk and we decided to check it out, and extended it by walking from our house to Finsbury Park and joining the trail there.<br />
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The best part of the trail is that there are artifacts still in place from it's previous life as a railway – so old station platforms, bridges, and access points are decaying and fading back into the land as the wildlife takes over. </div>
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The trail its about 1.8 miles long up to Highgate tube station, and we added on about 1.5 miles in the walk from our house to the trail. It was a beautifully quiet and peaceful place to stroll on a Saturday and pretend we didn't live in the middle of a global capital. Yet when we popped out on the other side, a pub was waiting to warm us and a bus ready to take us home. That's my kind of wilderness.</div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-59526802864930944692012-11-15T14:26:00.003+00:002012-11-15T14:27:29.636+00:00Expat Thanksgiving – or, our first dinner party in the house<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's that time of year when every American starts thinking about turkey, stuffing, and football – though if my Facebook feed is anything to go by, it may not be in that order. Personally, I used to hate Thanksgiving: I didn't like starchy orange vegetables, I hated football, and with my small family the holiday felt like a cheap, orange version of Christmas with less decorations and no snow. Fast forward 15 years and I'm living in London where you pay out the nose for a can of <a href="http://www.verybestbaking.com/Libbys.aspx">Libby's Pumpkin</a> (£1.39 a can!) and the butcher rolls his eyes when you ask for a turkey killed a month early. But creating my own Thanksgiving traditions is pretty amazing, especially as The Irishman has gotten into the Thanksgiving cooking spirit with me, and I'm really enjoying cooking and hosting expat Thanksgiving meals and introducing the holiday to curious Brits.<br />
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Last weekend I had a close friend visiting from Chicago so we decided to hold an expat Thanksgiving while she was in town. It was our first dinner party in our new house, so it was always going to be pretty special. I went all out with decorations and cooking, particularly in the purchase of this amazing platter from a thrift store:<br />
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We went to town with the table settings, using a cored butternut squash as a vase for some autumnal flowers. The Irishman found the idea on <a href="http://www.thekitchn.com/fall-table-decor-squash-and-gourd-flower-vases-179300">The Kitchn</a>, and it looked great with two little squashes as a natural centerpiece. We left the table rustic, as I love my farmhouse table and didn't want to cover it, but I ordered those brass leaf candle holders on Ebay from a seller in the US to get some authentic harvest vibe going.<br />
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My friend helpfully made personalised name cards from a magazine, so each person got a different texture. It turned out really special and actually really appropriate for each person – they were a big hit.<br />
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I ventured out of my comfort zone to make my first pumpkin pie; it was a true collaboration as The Irishman made the shortcrust pastry and neither of us had actually ever made a pie before. So the crust isn't that great but overall it was very tasty.<br />
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Of course we had a bird – a 5.685kg turkey that took nearly 5 hours to roast. But it was worth every overpriced penny as the butchers had prepared it perfectly for us and it yielded one of the tastiest gravies I've ever had.<br />
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Our menu was pretty standard overall, with standard American recipes from my favorite cooking links:<br />
Turkey<br />
<a href="http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Chestnut-Stuffing">Chestnut stuffing</a><br />
Mashed potatoes<br />
Brussel sprouts and pancetta<br />
<a href="http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/fluffy-sweet-potato-biscuits-recipe/reviews/index.html">Sweet potato biscuits</a> (full disclosure: I am embarrassed to say I enjoyed a Paula Deen recipe)<br />
<a href="http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Whole-Cranberry-Sauce">Cranberry sauce</a><br />
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My American guests contributed acorn squash and pumpkin barley salad, which rounded out the meal and made it a really lovely potluck affair.<br />
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I'm doing another Thanksgiving meal next weekend for Brits, so I think I might change up the stuffing and the cranberry sauce. The New York Times is doing this brilliant <a href="http://projects.nytimes.com/qa/events/thanksgiving-help-line">Thanksgiving Help Line</a> feature that's inspired me to try a few new things.<br />
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Tell me, expats: where will you celebrate Thanksgiving? What will you serve? Can you get turkeys easily? And Americans: what are your favorite recipes and traditions?</div>
Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-67956019365285808722012-11-07T13:30:00.002+00:002012-11-07T13:30:26.147+00:00Beautiful Berlin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I don't know about you, but the minute we decided to buy a house my life became all about scrimping and saving. All of a sudden, I was watching every penny and really felt like I couldn't bear to part with a single cent/pence – or I was hunting down every deal or bargain. So when The Irishman had to buy a printer and some ink cartridges for his old job and they came with a promotion of free flights with proof of purchase, we became those people who were like "hey, what a great deal!" We ended up with 2 flights to Berlin for a long weekend, and only had to pay for the taxes – £50 per person – and got excited about a quick little holiday for not a lot of cash.</div>
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Of course, by the time you add up the cost of the hotel, the taxi to and from the airport, and all of the other travel related expenses, it's not as if we saved any cash. But we did get the most amazing trip to an awesome city that neither of us had ever visited.<br />
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Unlike other cities in Europe, Berlin hides its touristy bits well. Obviously there are the Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie, both of which are mobbed with actors dressed in WWII era army uniforms who will let you get your photo taken with them for a price. But other notable spots of interest are nestled in and amongst regular neighborhoods where citizens carry on life as normal.</div>
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For instance, the Berlin Wall Memorial is a really tasteful explanation of just how crazily the city was divided in half. It explained how the wall was constructed, how it was policed, and along the footprint of the wall showed where crossings were averted. There was a memorial to people who lost their lives trying to cross from East to West Berlin, and remnants of the wall covered with graffiti. There is also an education centre with films and interpretation around the divided era of Berlin.</div>
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Around Berlin, more sections of remaining wall are displayed with overt anti-dictator and pro-peace messages. It really feels like the city has taken the lessons of the Cold War to heart and is itself one big advocate for tolerance. That message also comes across loud and clear in one of Berlin's most iconic museums, <a href="http://www.jmberlin.de/main/EN/homepage-EN.php">The Jewish Museum</a> designed by architect Daniel Libeskind. It's an aggressive, severe, intense building that gives visitors a journey that echoes that of the Jewish diaspora. It's worth a visit even if you don't stay long, and I found the interpretation to be riveting.</div>
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In addition to The Jewish Museum, helpfully there is an island in the middle of the Rhine that is home to most of the state collections. One of the museums on the island is called the <a href="http://www.neues-museum.de/">Neues Museum</a> and its recent renovation won a lot of awards for how it retained a lot of the original building while still creating a new, modern space. We didn't do any of the art museums in Berlin, as we were only there for three days, but a tip for fellow travellers is to book online to avoid the rather long queues for tickets.</div>
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The big elephant in the room in Berlin is the experience of Jews and other ethnic minorities who were persecuted during World War II. There are several sensitive memorials and places of rememberance around the city, which respectfully acknowledge past sins.</div>
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One of the best things we did was visit the dome in the Reichstag. Designed by Norman Foster, it's open to the elements and provides an amazing 360° view of the capital. It's free to visit, but you have to <a href="http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/visits/kupp.html">book in advance</a> and provide photo ID to access the roof.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWjk2Cp5jTp2BT-4P5cPThro9caC39N9IiWgEERh6H4uLOZoOYsdcb0pZ7lgXUc39mC2ToNlntiKun9UVXJyzfKqW-rovwRssuQU9MeeHFsV3au9LqnfWUhyphenhyphenkZyZIjFqfV_Yh1GIn8_dw/s1600/IMG_0184.JPG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWjk2Cp5jTp2BT-4P5cPThro9caC39N9IiWgEERh6H4uLOZoOYsdcb0pZ7lgXUc39mC2ToNlntiKun9UVXJyzfKqW-rovwRssuQU9MeeHFsV3au9LqnfWUhyphenhyphenkZyZIjFqfV_Yh1GIn8_dw/s640/IMG_0184.JPG.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Berlin is not just known for its epic history, though. This is a living, breathing city of artists and creative innovators – a testing ground for new and exciting self-expression. This spirit is evident in the street art, posters, and general tone of the city – if it's done in Berlin, it's done with a unique and sophisticated take on what's expected. The fashion in particular is amazing and it was hard for me to keep my wallet in my handbag.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMqsHJwvErfohVRk81Doi0gmcLpwFosAS6nFcivxOOwmRhjUSEfdLFsHJV73FLDQ0ZQ7tpotjKG22Sju9kQ3reKzepxtiNgOhZCYcDJTnF7VCOIA8cg2Znz8rV4-v3WBuRtQPEo_f2vZY/s1600/IMG_0042.JPG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMqsHJwvErfohVRk81Doi0gmcLpwFosAS6nFcivxOOwmRhjUSEfdLFsHJV73FLDQ0ZQ7tpotjKG22Sju9kQ3reKzepxtiNgOhZCYcDJTnF7VCOIA8cg2Znz8rV4-v3WBuRtQPEo_f2vZY/s640/IMG_0042.JPG.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxZATHgE1oDFgFvNBjsKshTpegSV4AdIuUsUqbn0rRLsPkI7asrot6LUhqBP61at5WvqBtkL9IN5Boc46JSuT93ZaO4ntEkC9n_NJgHvQkKiG187ZENzRzFzjjLZRvhBHPEfLNxd7wi-c/s1600/IMG_0120.JPG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxZATHgE1oDFgFvNBjsKshTpegSV4AdIuUsUqbn0rRLsPkI7asrot6LUhqBP61at5WvqBtkL9IN5Boc46JSuT93ZaO4ntEkC9n_NJgHvQkKiG187ZENzRzFzjjLZRvhBHPEfLNxd7wi-c/s640/IMG_0120.JPG.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
And then there was the food. Glorious German cooking! To be honest, there was more ethnic food in Berlin than I thought; more Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, Italian and French restaurants than traditional German places. But we did manage to have an amazing meal at <a href="http://cgi.alpenstueck.de/user-cgi-bin/?file=kop1.php">Alpenstueck</a>, a really highly recommended restaurant serving traditional German food from the Alpine region. And we also made a point to travel to what is considered the best currywurst join in town, <a href="http://www.curry36.de/">Curry36</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM2pwhJk8TyQzBKlbz1vKVQH_aX6GkuWNvXmdcNG8xbX5HbMGdslW56hsszI87v1alHQNSHWLKyQBA8TG_j-5T4QlAxjxX3Kb2eGemYdHZX_ybQc3oWYo6kJsKfZfITsVWgQvtTCqAFOk/s1600/IMG_0060.JPG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM2pwhJk8TyQzBKlbz1vKVQH_aX6GkuWNvXmdcNG8xbX5HbMGdslW56hsszI87v1alHQNSHWLKyQBA8TG_j-5T4QlAxjxX3Kb2eGemYdHZX_ybQc3oWYo6kJsKfZfITsVWgQvtTCqAFOk/s640/IMG_0060.JPG.jpg" width="640" /></a>Because we ate so much meat, and not many vegetables, I was shockingly too full for the lovely patisserie on offer in Berlin's bakeries. I was actually pretty upset to not be able to eat more of these.<br />
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Finally, the wine. German wine. I wasn't really looking forward to it, because I think of German wine as sweet whites like Rieslings. But there are whole other winemaking regions in Germany producing wines that I'd never heard of like my favorite the <a href="http://www.germanfoodguide.com/spatburgunder.cfm">Spätburgunder</a>. It's a pinot noir which means it's a lighter red but more spicy than sweet. Love. We bought a bottle at the airport that, if it's even half as good as the one below, I look forward to drinking soon.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirzDbyzAg5XmBC8vfiX9nHqQNgjU0hMZ6fe1F3ua9itF2bbO9Lx_GHIvdgYNKlqFjxgRpGGEfETOBYWdglCJYLKTzLlqYiw4K4Fqq3Br1_zxGCZ8RCl1Nfz0R60ntV8M3vBJBfOXjlguw/s1600/IMG_0143.JPG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirzDbyzAg5XmBC8vfiX9nHqQNgjU0hMZ6fe1F3ua9itF2bbO9Lx_GHIvdgYNKlqFjxgRpGGEfETOBYWdglCJYLKTzLlqYiw4K4Fqq3Br1_zxGCZ8RCl1Nfz0R60ntV8M3vBJBfOXjlguw/s640/IMG_0143.JPG.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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So all in all, Berlin was amazing and the perfect place to run off to for a whirlwind visit. It may even be up there on the same level with Paris and New York as my favorite cities in the world (besides London of course). I'm already planning all of the things I want to do in my next visit, which means I'll probably be back sooner rather than later. See you soon, Berliners!</div>
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<i>If you go:</i></div>
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<i>All major airlines and many budget carriers fly to Berlin, which has two airports: the older, more austere Schönfeld or the newer, more modern, Tegel. A third airport, Brandenburg, will be opening in late 2013 and replace both existing airports as Berlin's travel hub. The super efficient U-Bahn subway runs from Schönfeld Airport, and you can buy a day pass that allows unlimited travel including to/from the airport for €7 per day. Note of caution: most of the ticket machines don't take Visa or Mastercard, and only accept bills under €50. Hotels are numerous and rather inexpensive; we stayed in the Hotel Weinmeister in the heart of Mitte for £80 per night. The city itself is small and compact in the center, so you don't really need much in the way of transport, although there is a public bike hire network and taxis seemed plentiful.</i></div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-26437585357470181452012-10-31T18:08:00.001+00:002012-10-31T18:08:28.557+00:00One year anniversary of my first marathon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><i>Image courtesy of <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gallery/files/2011/10/146.gif">The Irish Times</a></i></td></tr>
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Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you're either celebrating in style or staying safe in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Beyond the excitement of trick or treating and pumpkin carving, today is exactly one year since I ran my first marathon in Dublin. I cannot believe it's only been a year; it feels like a lifetime since I pushed myself along for 26.2 miles.<br />
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In that year, I have to admit, I really haven't run much at all. The Irishman and I had big plans for keeping up our running and staying in shape but Christmas happened, and then winter hibernation, and then house buying and all of a sudden our Saturday mornings were booked up with life plans rather than long distances. Over the summer I started running to work and then running home every so often – but less often and more not. Moving to our new house a bit farther from my office provided me with a better distance for my runs home from work, more like 4 miles, but I'm still not running home with any great regularity; I hate running with a backpack, I hate having to lock my handbag in my desk, I hate having to plan to bring my gear into work with me. Basically if there's an excuse not to run home, I've made it. And forget running on the weekends: house viewings have morphed into house improvements, and once you've spent about 8 hours painting the last thing you want to do is go out for a run.</div>
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I've recognized that I have a sort of mental block on running at the moment – well, for an extended moment – and so I attempted to resume my yoga practice over the summer. I found <a href="http://www.thelifecentre.com/">The Life Centre</a> in Islington and fell in love with <a href="http://alessandrayoga.com/">Alessandra Pecorella's</a> Tuesday evening class, and really got into it – until we moved. Now a bike ride away instead of a short walk, I again am finding more excuses not to go. I know I need to go; I feel so much better, so much more whole, so much more positive after a class – yet I CAN'T MAKE MYSELF GO. I do know that I am a goal-oriented person and a contributing factor to this is that I don't have a goal for either yoga or running (besides the nebulous "lose weight"), but I'm also having a hard time setting a goal. Right now my goals are about redecorating and saving up for a new kitchen, not running certain distances or perfecting my headstand practice.</div>
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In some ways, my goals have become shared and intertwined with The Irishman. We do so much together that it's sometimes hard to find my own space to pursue my own goals. Previously, us time included running as we trained for the marathon together as a way to spend time with each other. But now we're constantly DIY'ing and cleaning and decorating together to make our home that I think I've sort of forgotten about what drives ME. Moving forward, I need to work on finely tuning that balance of me vs us time and hopefully find a way to get some physical activity into that me part of my life.</div>
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But beyond the "I haven't really run a lot in a year", I'm still really proud of myself for running a marathon. It's up there in my most proud moments and even today I pull myself back to the feeling of driving myself over the finish line, or forcing myself to put one foot infront of the other, when I encounter a particularly challenging situation in life or at work. I'll never forget my relief when I made it over the line, and I'll never forget the pride in myself that I felt at that moment. I always imagined that I would cry when I finished but actually, I felt powerful and contented – like I finally proved something to myself that deep down I always knew but never acknowledged. That's something that I will never ever forget.</div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-25034477877867468392012-10-21T10:51:00.001+01:002012-10-21T10:51:05.748+01:00Spotted: Gourdeous!!<div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimsA25cd6iGrTSPh8T5wDEzLJEMa7GSDIw453ipkxJZdLU8ebTj6W_f0S-sVnKNAqCJfz22Q_DuRDVCpIsep-AE4_GBUJfuAL8E9ruX9lFNs2gORIucYqM_SeF7UzfvhhX0dUI2tUdV0w/s640/blogger-image--131990325.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimsA25cd6iGrTSPh8T5wDEzLJEMa7GSDIw453ipkxJZdLU8ebTj6W_f0S-sVnKNAqCJfz22Q_DuRDVCpIsep-AE4_GBUJfuAL8E9ruX9lFNs2gORIucYqM_SeF7UzfvhhX0dUI2tUdV0w/s640/blogger-image--131990325.jpg" /></a></div>Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-1688741890979961072012-10-07T18:31:00.001+01:002012-10-07T18:31:21.893+01:00House Week Part 6: The Fine Print<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
To wrap up House Week, the last piece of the puzzle to put in place is how we made the house ours. As I said yesterday, we saw the house in late April and it piqued our interest. We saw it on a rainy day and it felt so cozy, and unlike anything we'd seen before, that it really stuck with us. So we scheduled a second viewing for the next week to see it again and decide whether or not it was something we were serious about. After that second viewing, we called the estate agent and made our initial offer.<br />
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The offer was of course rejected, and we decided to take a different tack than our previous property negotiations; we basically decided what our highest offer would be and just went in with that. If the seller ended up wanting more, we would walk away. The agent took our offer to the seller and she accepted it, but with the condition that she was waiting to hear on an offer of a property she wanted in Wales. If she didn't get the property, she might not sell the house at all. We went into the first Bank Holiday weekend on tenterhooks, waiting for a call letting us know whether there would be a deal – or not.<br />
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The Irishman got a call the next Tuesday from the estate agent, and it turned out that the seller didn't get that particular house in Wales... but she wanted to go through with the sale! We were ecstatic, but had been burned before, so we just quickly went into business mode to lock down the purchase. We called our lawyer, got him in touch with the seller's lawyer, and started talking about the possible dates for exchanging the sale contract and completing the sale, and we spoke to our mortgage broker about getting the load finalised. The seller was moving to Wales for personal reasons, and needed to be in a new home fairly soon, so she wanted to hurry the purchase along as quickly as she could. We were happy with that, but knew nothing would be final until the exchange of contracts; exchange, as it's called, is the moment the sale becomes legally binding – until that point, either party could pull out of the sale with no financial penalty. Luckily for us, the seller wanted the house listing pulled from the estate agent's offices and websites so that any sellers of homes in Wales couldn't track her sale and find out how much money she would be getting. This was good for us because it meant there was little chance of us being <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazumping">gazumped</a> - that is, somebody else coming along and offering more for the house and pulling it out from under us.<br />
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The next steps for us consisted of a lot of waiting. The lawyer proceeded to conduct a document search on the property with Hackney council; this is to make sure there aren't any series legal issues with the house itself (liens against it, all works were conducted safely, etc). These searches tend to take around 2 weeks, but unfortunately for us Hackney's computerized system went down over Christmas 2011 and probably STILL hasn't been fixed. They advised us there would be delays as the searches had to be performed manually and there was a significant backlog.<br />
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Meanwhile our mortgage broker came back to us with good and bad news: the good news was that there were several good deals going on mortgages, fixing low interest rates for up to 5 years even for buyers putting down low deposits. We wanted to go with a fixed rate for stability. Even though mortgages are really cheap on tracker loans that follow the <a href="http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-2197448/Tracker-mortgage-borrowers-set-benefit-Bank-England-cuts-base-rate.html">Bank of England base rate</a>, we wanted to know exactly what our monthly outgoings were going to be for a set period of time. As we were putting down a 15% deposit and will need to repay our respective parents for the loans, we wanted to be sure that we could afford to do both in the event of a dramatic interest rate rise should the economy pick up.<br />
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The bad news our mortgage broker had for us was that we probably weren't eligible for any of those deals given my non-resident status. When we first started working with this broker, he was confident that given my length of stay in the UK, my job, my salary, etc, we wouldn't have a problem being accepted for a mortgage. We easily got an <a href="http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/ManagingMoney/Mortgages/DG_10013667">AIP</a> for a hefty sum early on in the process with Halifax, which is considered a good lender and made us look like excellent prospects as buyers to estate agents. However when it came to shopping around for the best deal on mortgages, I was considered a risk or "an exception" for many banks and lenders. Our broker was good at knowing which banks we couldn't approach at all (Santander) and which ones he might be able to sneak us through using his connections (Northern Rock). But at the end of the day, because of the lack of lending in the market overall and the volume of mortgage applications being submitted for good deals, most banks were not reviewing exceptions and we weren't able to take advantage of the deals. We ended up getting our mortgage with Halifax, which is apparently the only bank who will lend to non-permanent residents, with an interest rate at least 1.5% more than the next option.<br />
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I wasn't pleased, to be honest, because I felt like my expat status was again costing me more to do normal life things. The Irishman genuinely rued that he hadn't asked me to marry him sooner so that we could save money on our mortgage (romantic), because all the bank wanted was a piece of paper I am 6 months away from obtaining. We actually located a specialist Tier 1 immigrant mortgage broker for a second opinion, and he kindly reviewed our offer and basically said to go with it as he couldn't get us anything better. At this point, we were under quite a lot of pressure to finalise the mortgage because the mortgage company needs to perform a survey of the house before the loan is agreed and the seller hadn't had the surveyor come through yet. Her lawyer started chasing us up, worried that the sale wouldn't go through, and we had to fast-track the mortgage process to reassure her we were committed.<br />
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Once the loan went through, we basically spent the summer waiting. We didn't hear from Hackney council on the searches until the end of July and when we did we got bad news: there were concerns over the legality of some of the building works that had been done to the house (things that were the reasons we were buying the house). So again, we had to again while the seller and her lawyer investigated the issues. It wasn't 100% resolved for us, but the seller took out an insurance policy for us that protects us against the loss of value of the property if something were to go wrong. Our lawyer advised us that was good enough, and we moved forward with the sale.<br />
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Because of the seller's timeframes in trying to move into a new place quickly in Wales, we had to fast forward the sale process bigtime after all of the delays during May, June, and July. We exchanged contracts around the first of August, and completed on the 10th. Usually people exchange contracts and have a longish wait to move into their home; we had 10 days to pack up and move! We also only had 10 days to transfer funds globally. Because we weren't sure whether the sale would go forward, I didn't move money from the US until we were locked into the sale. I had money in mutual funds and an IRA, the latter of which I will have to pay a tax penalty on for emptying before a certain age, and I didn't want to incur those penalities unnecessarily. So I liquidated those accounts and then had to figure out the quickest and least expensive way to get the funds from the US to the UK. I ended up writing my dad a check for the money, and he had Bank of America wire all of the funds to me in the UK – there was a $25 charge, I think, and it arrived in 3 days. I also had to go to the bank I had an ISA with in the UK to transfer the balance; the sum was too big to do online or over the phone.<br />
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At this point, all of the money becomes funny money; the number of zeros is laughable and the value is more as quantities on a spreadsheet rather than actual money you own. It's a weird feeling. Especially because the money is just going going going every which way. Here's a short list of the funds you need to proved on the day you complete the sale:<br />
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<li>Down payment (15% of total agreed house price)</li>
<li>Stamp duty (3% of total agreed house price – this is in addition to the price of the house)</li>
<li>Mortgage fee (the price you pay for the privilege of getting a mortgage, around £1000)</li>
<li>Lawyer's fees</li>
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Like I said, funny money – you get rather blasé about the whole thing after a while, probably as a coping mechanism for dealing with the sheer amount of money you're spending in one fell swoop.</div>
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The day we completed the sale, I thought I would be giddy and feel some sort of amazing relief. But I had a rather busy day at work and The Irishman cycled to the estate agent's office to get the keys alone. I met him after work and we immediately went to IKEA to buy a bed for our guest room, as we needed something to sleep on for the first few weeks until our new bed arrived. I had dreams of doing the whole "Chinese takeout sitting on boxes with cheap champagne" romantic new homeowner moment, but we didn't have time! We had to finish packing so we could move into our new home the very next morning.</div>
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So there you have it! That's how we bought our home. Friends of mine in the US tell me this process is so different from how it's done in America but I have nothing to compare this experience with. Obviously I learned a lot about the UK property market and house buying process, so if you have any questions please feel free to post them in the comments or email me personally.</div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-87369849584414241202012-10-06T15:24:00.001+01:002012-10-06T15:24:34.892+01:00House Week Part 5: finding our place<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Apologies to everyone for not posting this yesterday; I typically find my time to blog right before lunch at work and yesterday it just didn't happen. So without further ado, let's jump straight into how we got this here house I'm sitting in right now.<br />
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I mentioned on <a href="http://bloodybrill.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/house-week-part-4-offers-and-decisions.html">Thursday</a> that towards the end of March The Irishman and I were getting rather fed up with the whole house search process. I had been hearing ridiculous stories from people at work about searches that went on for years, people finding a street they loved and stalking it, waiting for a home to come up for sale, and even flyering the street asking if anyone was considering selling so they could buy exactly the right house exactly where they wanted. The Irishman and I were horrified at the thought of continuing to look for a place for years, let alone months; we'd only been at it for 3 months and it already felt like a lifetime.<br />
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In mid-April we went to the US for a bit – me for 10 days, to see my family, and then to Florida for a wedding where The Irishman met me – and we chilled out. A lot. While we were away, the second granny house fell through and we both sort of just, I don't know, gained perspective I guess. We had been making this such a big thing, pinning all of our happiness and future plans on this ephemeral perfect house, and being amongst my friends celebrating a marriage made us realize that we were probably just making it a lot harder than it needed to be. We also realized that we were approaching the search from a "forever house" perspective; this is a term you hear quite a lot in the UK, which is sort of interchangeable with "family house," but essentially means the house you plan to spend most of your life in, raise your kids in, and really commit to. Our house was going to be the beginning – for a while, sure, but not forever – and thus it didn't need to have EVERYTHING. This was a biggie for me, this epiphany, and it helped me reconcile a lot of the issues I was having with finding exactly what I wanted in our price range... because it didn't have to have it all. It just had to have enough for both of us to be happy.<br />
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So we returned to the UK and made a bunch more appointments for viewings, intent on not letting the search take over our lives. The very next weekend, we saw what is now our house. The Irishman remarked to me as we walked up to the place that he was surprised I wanted to see this place; he had seen the listing and didn't think it was something I would be interested in, but I was intrigued and we had made a booking anyway. Afterwards when I was describing the house to a friend, she said I talked about it in a very different way to all of the other houses. She didn't say why, but she said this one sounded different. This all sounds a bit like dating, no?<br />
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And actually, it is exactly like that. You think you want something very specific in a partner and then you meet someone who makes you realize that actually, you don't need some of those things to be happy. So with this house, I didn't get a lot of things I wanted but I love it just the same.<br />
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To begin with, it's a modern build house. You might remember that on <a href="http://bloodybrill.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/house-week-part-3-dealing-with-estate.html">Wednesday</a> I said that I didn't want a modern build, but I think I didn't want a house that felt overtly modern; I didn't want a house where everything was slick and soulless. This house was built as part of a mews development in the 1980s, and it looks like a cottage. It is set down a dead-end lane off of a main road, in between Church Street in Stoke Newington and Dalston Kingsland Overground station. The lane has a gate at the end, and when the gate is closed you feel like you're in another world, not in the middle of busy Hackney.<br />
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There is a garden, more like a patio, that is south facing and is a suntrap for most of the day. The kitchen is pretty old, and it separate from the rest of the ground floor so it will be the first thing we renovate (more on that very soon). The master bedroom is huge, and has a big closet (as does the spare bedroom). There is a huge walk in closet off the hallway which I would love to use as a small laundry room if possible. The bathroom is okay, not great, but will suffice until we get around to redo-ing it.<br />
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The main attraction of this specific house is that it has a converted loft, so we have 2 full bedrooms plus another room that can be whatever we like. Initial plans are to make it a hangout room for The Irishman, where he can watch sports unimpeded, and also where I can have my sewing machine and art stuff. But maybe it could be expanded further to make it the master bedroom, with an ensuite bathroom. The possibilities are endless, really.<br />
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And I think that's in the end what sold us on the house – the fact that there weren't limitations to it, rather tons of things we could do to it. Instead of having to worry about the roof, or updating the electrics, we can go straight into cosmetic improvements like putting in a new open-plan kitchen. The house was constructed in such a way that all of the load-bearing walls are on the perimeters, so any of the rooms can be reconfigured fairly easily. We don't need to get planning permission for most upgrades, as it's not listed, and The Irishman is confident he can do most of the DIY work himself to save money. With a period property, we wouldn't have been able to do too much ourselves as we would have had to consider the codes and restoration before even thinking about wallcolors.<br />
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What didn't I get? A fireplace, to start. Lovely plasterwork cornices and ceiling details. Original internal shutters in windows. The joy of having a piece of history. But as I said, these are things I can live without. Instead, I got something that we are already, 2 months in, making our own, making work for us and how we want to live where we want to live. And that in itself is priceless.<br />
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So I've just reread this and realized that I told you all about our place but not how it ended up becoming ours. I'll need to give you that in part 6 tomorrow. Stay tuned!</div>
Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4803130161709402359.post-73082523736696152192012-10-04T15:02:00.001+01:002012-10-04T15:02:14.824+01:00House Week Part 4: Offers and Decisions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After reading yesterday's post, if you thought that finding houses to see was bad, imagine what it was like trying to decide which one you liked enough to buy! Buying a house isn't as easy as simply walking in to Macy's or M&S, trying on a pair of shoes, deciding whether they fit, go with your outfit, and are good value, and simply taking them to the register to pay. Each property we saw was unique, and we went through a complex set of negotiations and emotions individually and separately to come to a decision about whether to make an offer on a specific one.<div>
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The process is something like this:</div>
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<li>See a property – viewings tend to be around 15-20 minutes, shorter if you hate it, longer if you love it</li>
<li>Decide whether you like it enough to see it again</li>
<li>Schedule a second viewing</li>
<li>Make an offer</li>
<li>Negotiate</li>
<li>Either your offer is accepted or rejected</li>
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But the process is rarely that straightforward. Sometimes an estate agent shows you around. Sometimes the owner shows you around. Sometimes you see something in pictures that you love and when you walk inside you hate it. Little things about a place can colour your opinion; I remember this one maisonette had this tiny little bathroom off a stairway landing, and I refused to consider buying it because of that one particular feature. Sometimes you'll go away to think about the house and call the estate agent back and find out it's already gone, just hours after you saw it. Sometimes you'll see something and it will make you reconsider what you thought you wanted. The whole thing is so subjective that you really have no idea what you want until you see it.</div>
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The Irishman and I made offers on 3 houses before we ended up in the one we eventually bought. Two of them were what I called "granny" houses; these are period houses that have been lived in by families for the past 4-5 decades and haven't been updated since about 1965. The generation of my grandmother is still living in their homes, often widowed, and can no longer keep up the house. The upside of these treasure troves is that you can get them quite cheaply compared to properties that have been recently redone as buyers would go into them, have a look at the horrid wallpaper, and think "I don't want to do this job." We wanted to do that job, so we hoped to find an amazing home at a fraction of the price. The downside of these homes is that often there was a decade or so of neglect, and you got what you paid for; roofs, floors, even whole electric wiring systems had to be replaced in both houses we made offers on before we could even move into them.</div>
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We lost both of those houses, one because someone offered £35,000 more than we did and the other because even though we offered more than the other party they were a cash buyer – nothing trumps a first-time buyer besides a cash buyer. In both cases, in retrospect we were glad that we didn't end up with those homes. The sheer amount of money we would have had to pour into them to renovate them up to a liveable standard – just liveable, not even to a specific design aesthetic – would have exhausted all of our resources for the foreseeable future. We both borrowed funds from our respective parents for our downpayment (more on that tomorrow) and it's already looking tight to pay that back; had we gotten either granny house, we wouldn't have seen either of those parents for quite a few years we'd be so cash strapped.</div>
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The third property we offered on was a ground floor maisonette that featured a 70' south-facing back garden. When you start shopping for a house, you start to learn things like south-facing gardens are the best because they get light all day and into the evening; west-facing is a close second but doesn't have the morning sun, and north-facing gardens are the worst. So this lovely garden was full of grass and flower beds and even had a shed in the back! The rooms were a good size and the kitchen opened into a lovely sitting room with a great big fireplace. The downstairs bedrooms were just okay; I felt like I would have wanted to knock down all of the walls and redo them because they were all odd sizes. The third bedroom wasn't even really a bedroom, more of a study, but would have been okay for sewing. We made on offer on that house that was initially accepted but then the estate agent called back ten minutes later to say someone else had offered more so they were going into a closed bid: highest price won the house. Despited being convinced the jerk estate agent actually called another interested party to tell them the house was going at a certain price, we quickly scheduled a second viewing to decide how high we were going to go with our bid. On closer inspection we decided that actually we really didn't like the house that much, and it wasn't worth more than the prices that had been rejected. We decided not to bid on it, and let it go.</div>
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At one point around the end of March / early April, we got pretty down about the whole process. We'd lost out at two homes by now and were bickering over the houses we were seeing. I was ready to jump at anything, and could see potential of homes slightly out of our geographic area that needed quite a bit of work. The Irishman was leaning more towards smaller places in the heart of Stokey, and I was getting upset at him rejecting properties with seeming no rhyme or reason. After a few particularly gnarly fights, I was lamenting about the process to a friend of mine at work who shared her story of how she and her partner found their home. She said they put together an evaluation sheet that helped them both independently and objectively evaluate whether the house was someplace we really wanted to live in and make our own. I mulled on this and created the following form for us to fill out based on our core criteria and a few other mandatories that had emerged throughout the search:</div>
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Using this checklist really helped us turn a corner in the search, because all of a sudden it wasn't him vs me, or me vs him, but an actual score we could discuss. It turned out that some things I originally thought were really important actually weren't in the grand scheme of things, and it helped The Irishman see what I valued the most. For all of the properties we used the checklist with, we were never more than 5 points apart. We just needed the vehicle to help us talk about the houses rationally.</div>
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I've left the best for last – the house we bought and now live in! I'll tell you about it tomorrow, along with the wretched process of actually finalizing the sale. </div>
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Daniellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11156583827571013584noreply@blogger.com2