Howdy from the homestead: a long overdue Project Casserole update

Well it's been a while, hasn't it?! It's like I just disappeared into thin air!

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.

But first things first, a Project Casserole update:



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.







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.



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.

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:



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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

So I made The Irishman stain them. Of course.

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.

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.

And then, we took a break.

We went to America for a wedding in Wisconsin. We hosted friends and family, including my world traveler career break peeps over at Banh Mi & You. I went to Doha (twice). We went to Ireland. We went to Glastonbury. We had BBQs. We saw friends.

Basically, we had a life.

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 ;)

You can see our lovely countertops in this picture as well.

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.

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.

Where I've been and where I'm at

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.

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?

I tried writing this post a few times before Christmas, and always ended up abandoning it because I just couldn't go all the way there 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 From China Village 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.

So what's up, sugarplum?

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:

I'm just not happy.

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.

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:

1. I have a house

2. I have a secure job in an interesting industry

3. I have a fabulously supportive boyfriend

4. I have a fabulously supportive family

5. I have a great network of close friends near and far

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. 

For example:

1. I have a house
With walls that have holes in them, waiting for plumbers to come remove pipes.
With windows that are constantly covered in condensation (Editor's note: I never ever thought in 1 million years that I would be worried about condensation but there you go!)
With a loft full of boxes, instead of the craft/design room of my dreams.
With a guest room where the freshly applied wallpaper is already peeling.
With cosmetic fixes that cost more than any pair of shoes.
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.

2. I have a secure job in an interesting industry
That causes me untold anxiety.
That I constantly measure my success in against my peers.
That I am always worried I'm doing well enough at.
That I don't really know where I'm headed in.
That sometimes I'm not sure why I'm doing it.
That I can't see a future in 10 years down the road that appeals to me.

3. I have a fabulously supportive boyfriend
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".

4. I have a fabulously supportive family
Who I never see.
Who live in the US and it costs me £500 at least to go back and see them.
Who I constantly feel guilty about never seeing.

5. I have a great network of close friends near and far
See #4.

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?

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.

But it gets worse.

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. 

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. 

Overall, it's a bad scene over here.

So what am I going to do about it? 

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.

Personally, though, I'm starting the following (call them resolutions if you like, but they're more like life shifts):

I'm reading a book called The Element 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.  

I am recommitting to yoga and pilates. 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.

I'm also recommitting to running. 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. 

I'm doing a mini January detox. 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 My Fitness Pal and hoping to hit my goal weight in May.

With a lot of help and encouragement from The Irishman, I'm working on getting up earlier. 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.

Also with The Irishman, we're doing a lot of budgeting and financial tracking. 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).

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.

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. 

Wherever you are in life, with your resolutions this new year, I wish you nothing but success and satisfaction, happiness and love.

Pizza on a roof

Friday night, The Irishman and I drowned our house sorrows in pizza and wine at one of London's newest pop-ups, Forza Win. I think I've mentioned before that The Irishman's two favorite things in life are pizza and ice cream, so when he heard about Forza Win he jumped right in and got us two seats. It's a good thing as tickets are sold out now.

 The concept is pretty simple: pizza on a rooftop in Shoreditch, straight out of a homemade brick oven.

Unfortunately, due to the recent weather, we didn't get to eat on the roof; instead we had tables set up in an alternate inside space inside the building. But no matter – it was still pizza!

The weather held off long enough for us to have our cocktails on the roof though, so we got to admire the view of the East London skyline, mingle and meet the other guests, and ask questions about the pizza oven. I was gutted that it was so wet I couldn't sit in the bumper car. It was literally filled with water.

Tickets to the event obviously include the pizza, but also a welcome cocktail – an Aperol spritz. This drink happens to be my favorite cocktail of the moment, perfect for a hot summers day (or a cloudy cold summers day if you want to fake it). 

As the sun started to set and the temperatures started to cool down, we headed inside for the main event: pizza. As it's a pop up supper club, you sit at communal tables and share the pizzas. We sat with a few couples and a group, and had a few vegetarians which meant more meat pizza for us! One of the main meat ingredients was a chorizo-type sausage called andouille (I think) – hot and spicy and amazing.

As the meal went on, though, the conversation started to turn slightly odd. One of the women sitting across from me started to heavily criticize America and Americans to the couple sitting beside her. Now. I am not a thin-skinned person, nor am I particularly gung-ho on the USA. As an American who lives abroad, I frequently criticize my homeland myself, find typical American habits to be grating and often apologize to my foreign colleagues for the blithely offensive actions of our New York office. But listening to someone else, a stranger, sound off about Americans right infront of me – definitely within earshot – got my hackles up bigtime.

When she finally addressed me and The Irishman, she made a few pointed remarks about the USA and proclaimed me to be acceptable when I told her where in the States I was from. I disengaged from the conversation pretty quickly at that point, and it sort of soured the rest of the evening for me.

Which is a shame, because we were also treated to a set from a band called Shields from Newcastle. They were set to open for Bruce Springsteen at Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park later in the weekend, and were really fantastic. As we were actually in the offices of a film production company, naturally the band's performance was being shot for a video.

I have to say that I've never really been that annoyed by someone America bashing, but something about the setting of this interaction saddened me. Maybe because pizza is such an American food, despite being cooked Neopolitan-style at Forza Win; I mean, we wouldn't be having pizza pop up restaurants if Americans hadn't normalized the idea of eating pizza. Maybe because I'm so quick to defend my decision to live abroad while being jealous of the 100°F heatwave hitting the East Coast yet hating the fact that I'm wearing the same outfit I wore in February only it's July. Maybe it's because the longer I live away, the more I realize that nationalistic segregations and stereotypes are barriers to truly understanding people. And maybe, finally, it's because hearing some lady punter verbalize opinions that are so close to my own actually reinforced for me the reality that the US has a lot of work to do to repair its image in the world; the work is far from over on that regard, and as much we Americans still want to believe we are somehow more evolved than other nationalities, it's simply just not true.

And actually, I have to say that one of her comments was very very apt: she was astounded that the US was exporting so many bright, articulate, and interesting people... and she wondered why the US wasn't doing enough to keep them. Which is a pretty fascinating comment – I mean, why isn't America doing more to keep its brainpower within its borders? I don't particularly want to move back, nor do many of my expat friends. So maybe the truth of it is that her comments hit far too close to home.

At any rate, if you can get there, check out Forza Win: the pizzas are great, the spritzes are authentic, the bands are fantastic, and the conversation is nothing less than stimulating.

The big 5-0-0

I'm not one for stats and figures and monetizing and referral sites and page clicks and what have you, but the new Blogger interface showed me a few weeks ago that I was inching closer and closer to the 500 posts mark. And this is it!

When I started this blog, I never thought I'd be in the UK for four years – nevermind inching towards home ownership with a longterm partner. And I definitely didn't think I'd still be blogging. When I began Bloody Brilliant in 2008, it was definitely a place for me to capture my feelings about moving abroad – sort of like an online diary. At some point, probably around 2010, I thought to myself oooh how nice would it be if I could be like Orangette or Mighty Girl or Design*Sponge or The Pioneer Woman and just live off of talking about myself and my passions online! I'm cute, write well, work in design, and have interesting things to say! I can DO THIS!

But I realized, eventually, that whether or not those attributes above are true, I'm not committed to becoming an online persona in that way. This realization came about, I think, when an influx of other American expats to London who were blogging started linking to me and commenting; they helped me understand through their writing that I'm neither unique in my experience of living abroad nor social enough in my interactions online to become a power-blogger. Once I came to terms with that realization, found a measure of acceptance in it, I fully embraced Bloody Brilliant for what it truly is: a carefully curated record of my life since moving to London, through pictures and words. And that is enough. More than enough.

Every so often I like to look back through my posts and re-read them to remind myself of how far I've come. It's heartwarming to remember the amazing trips I've been on, meals I've enjoyed, exciting moments and sad times alike. Do I wish I had tried harder to make this blog more popular or more < gulp > famous? Maybe – I'd be lying if I said no – but do I want to grow up and grow old and say "I'm really glad I devoted my life to a blog"? No, I don't think so. So I'm satisfied for now with keeping Bloody Brilliant as living, breathing timeline of my life in London.

So what's next, then? Well obviously there is big house news that will be hitting here fairly soon, and then I will probably post quite a few retroactive entries about what the process was like – finding, offering, losing, winning, negotiating, waiting and waiting and waiting. And then of course there will be a few decorating posts and DIY posts, and maybe a few more money posts. And then it will go back to just normality: every day life posts about the weather, musings on philosophy, a few pretty things, and a few moans about, well, life.

Because that's really, at the end of the day, what blogging is really all about – it's about sharing the little and big things that make you happy, sad, and everything in between. Thank you all for continuing to visit my small corner of the world – I truly hope you'll continue to stop by for the next 500 posts and beyond.

Dandelion Wine

Image from Flickr courtesy of peppergrass

I've been back in the UK from my recent travels for 12 days. And it has rained, consistently and steadily, each of those twelve days, with only glimmers of sun peaking through for short-lived respites.

I'm starting to suffer from cabin fever and despair in equal measure; such wintry joys as curling up on the sofa under a blanket with a knitting project while watching Don't Tell the Bride don't seem so appropriate when the sky is still light at 9:45pm. Every night I go to bed hearing the tires splashing through puddles and every morning I am woken by pelting raindrops hitting my windows. Saturday provided one small burst of sun in the earlier hours, and I used it as an opportunity to forge on with sorting out my wardrobe, pulling my summer clothes out of storage, and packing away my winter woolens. But as I dropped sweaters and winter dresses off at the dry cleaner this morning, I secretly was wishing to be wearing some of those items instead of my lighter weight summer top and trousers.

I had a bit of a temper tantrum about our "summer", one of the wettest summers on record, on Saturday night; why are we trying to buy a house in country where there aren't differentiated seasons, and instead experience one type of weather with 3-4 variations? I want heat, I want cold, I want sun and I want snow. In the four years I've lived in the UK, the famed "British summer" has always turned out to be a damp squib, and this year's is no exception. I miss the scorching, searing, hazy summers of my youth, lazy days with my feet in burnt grass and caked dirt, when the loudest sounds waking me up and putting me to sleep were the constant drones of various types of insects. I'll even take the summers of my recent past, when my freshly applied makeup slid down my face as I trudged to the subway in a blanket of air so dense it was like wading through invisible soup. Chowder, in fact.

In the midst of my self-indulgent melancholy about the weather, Ray Bradbury passed away. The dimming and final extinguishing of a bright light always gives me pause, but Ray Bradbury was more than just an iconic author. He wrote my favorite book Dandelion Wine, assigned to me as summer reading before my senior year of high school by one of my favorite teachers, which I faithfully reread every summer after for about 8 years. That book touched me in ways I never thought literature ever could, and brought home to me the meaning and power of reading in a profound way.

If you've never read it, Dandelion Wine is about a young boy who reaches that pivotal age, neither boy nor man, where everything fairly sizzles with possibility yet also now holds that new and dangerous element of disappointment. The book is the story of that summer where everything changes and the boy has to make decisions about how he will live moving forward.

When I first read Dandelion Wine, I didn't realize how much I needed its lesson of containing nostalgia into a manageable sentiment – nor did I realize how powerful the effects of change, the passage of time, and the evolution of the human race would become. I just loved it for pulling out and shining a light on the shades of grey I was experiencing in my formerly very black and white worldview. Throughout college and graduate school, I returned to the book every time I found myself unsure of how to deal with a major life event, like 9/11 and the deaths of two of my grandparents. I would often stop into used bookstores to pick up spare copies (it's the type of novel you can find with a raggedy illustrated cover for $1) as I frequently foisted that book on friends and foes, telling them to read it to truly understand who I was.

Dandelion Wine remains such a powerful force in my life, like certain paintings and scents, that Ray Bradbury's death really did make me stop and reflect – on his life and talent and contribution to our world, but also on myself and my current state of mind. Do I really have the right to moan about the conditions of the place I chose? If I really wanted the things I had in the past again, shouldn't I just make the necessary steps to regain them? But really, do I want them – and if I got them, would they be as sweet as the ones I'm remembering so fondly?

Ray Bradbury's greatest gift to us, to humanity, was the gentle reminder of not living in the past but simply to learn from it as we blaze our collective trail into the future, and to remember along the way that we should be kind to ourselves and our fellow creatures. So as I sit here at my desk, staring out at the rain falling, still falling, steadily on the canal, I decided to again try and heed his lessons: I will be kinder to myself, kinder to humanity, and I will stop stressing out about the bloody rain. Weather patterns come and go, the past is never as sweet as your memory would have you believe, and nothing ever truly stays the same. So here I go, moving forward through June with a brave face and renewed hope for a lovely bright summer afternoon.

Oh look. I think the rain has stopped.

The Diamond Jubilee weekend

 

I'm sitting on the sofa watching the Queen's Jubilee Concert, arguing with The Irishman over whether The Beatles originally sang Live and Let Die (I was sort of right, it was Wings) and thought it was the right time to update you all on the Diamond Jubilee festivities thus far. That's me above, with my face through a placard in Victoria Station and it pretty much sums up the weekend: flags, buntings, and Corgis galore.

It started Friday on my walk to work. The pub above is my local, where I had my 30th birthday party, getting ready for the onslaught of the coming festivities. It cheered me up and set the stage for the rest of the holiday weekend.

When I got to work, bunting and chalk drawings greeted me. Can you see the theme yet?

We spent Saturday out in East London at a music festival (a post about that later), but Sunday was devoted to the Jubilee flotilla. We decided to go down to the riverside near Tate Britain, and try to find a spot near a large screen. This is what we saw when we met up with friends at a pub near the Pimlico tube station.

And here is what we saw on our way to finding a viewing spot:

The screens were great, as you got to see all of the goings-on down river in Chelsea Harbour where the royal party was boarding their respective watercraft. When the Duchess of Cambridge came on screen for the first time, a massive cheer went up and the flags went wild. All around me I heard "She's gooooorgeous!" A lesser cheer went up for Charles and Camilla. But of course, the biggest cheer of all went up for the Queen.

And then the flotilla procession began. I had to stand on tip toes, but when I did I could glimpse Kate in her bright red dress and get a good view of the royal barge. It was pretty special. 

The rain started not long after the Queen sailed past, so we decamped to a pub near Victoria Station. This is Elizabeth Street.

We sat outside a street party table, with lovely flower arrangements that reflected the flowers of the British nations.

And some unfortunate spelling on lovely decorative bread. 

In Victoria Station, this cheeky sign was a brilliant symbol of the mood of everyone in the city - despite the weather.

Today we went to Oxford Street, and Regent Street was decked out with bunting and flags.

Carnaby Street of course had a more eccentric take on the Union Jack.

And then we had lunch in Chinatown, where the Union Jack hung next to the Chinese flag across the neighborhood.

Even the drag queens were celebrating, with confetti and balloons during an outdoor concert.

And of course, there was the Jubilee concert this evening in front of Buckingham Palace. It was surprisingly emotional, with Prince Charles calling the Queen "Mummy" and the Queen breaking into a smile as her subjects cheered and clapped for her. But the festivities aren't over; tomorrow there is a service at St Paul's Cathedral and procession down The Mall. I don't think we'll try to attend any of those celebrations as the weather will be crap again, and I want to take advantage of some of the Jubilee sales that are flooding the high streets.

I remarked to The Irishman that I felt sort of weird after yesterday, standing for hours in the rain to crane my neck for a glimpse of a monarch that technically isn't mine. I mean, I'm a native of a country that defined itself by rejecting the British royal family and rule; The Irishman's people were persecuted for centuries and tried to kill the Queen. Yet we both found the Jubilee celebrations to be wonderfully moving displays that we were more than happy to join. The Irishman thought that it was a testament to the Queen's ability to bring people together and lead in such a way that helped mend differences. I think that the Queen is a lovely grandmother sort who has mellowed so much since I moved to the UK. 

There was a lovely piece of footage during tonight's concert that summed up how I see the Queen: in it, she is examining soldiers standing to attention - including William. As she passes him, he cracks a smile and then straightens his face but not before she pauses a moment and smiles herself. That shared look of love through duty is what I've come to see of the Queen in my four years of living in the UK. A lot of articles have been written about the Queen over the last few weeks, many (if not most) of them positively praising her influence on the world and the UK, but I've found the personal portraits the most fascinating. Here is a woman who completely dedicated her life to duty to the Realm, and had to adapt to some of the most changing situations in history. Sometimes she changed too slowly, but at this point, 60 years in, she's found an equilibrium that most of us dream to possess. Whether she likes it or, not, Diana was good for her and the family and you can see her influence in how the Queen treats her grandsons and her subjects.

I'm glad I got to experience the Jubilee, and all of the pomp and circumstance, even if every time I hear God Save the Queen I think of My Country, 'Tis of Thee. It's a special time for a special woman, who sets an example that all politicians around the world should study and heed.

Compromise

So I hinted on Twitter that there is house news coming soon... and I promise it is, and it will, but just not yet. If it were up to me, I'd have filled this blog with every single juicy, gut-wrenching, dramatic high and low of the house-buying process thus far. But it's not up to me; I'm doing this in partnership with The Irishman and that means we've had to meet in the middle about a lot of things – well, everything really. From location to size to space to bedrooms to garden to money to how much I disclose about our house search online to money to dealing with our parents to money, we've had to discuss and argue and find a way to agree on everything despite our seemingly extremely different points of view.

Where we've ended up is a place we both feel comfortable and positive and optimistic for the future, but the compromise isn't over. In fact, it's dawning on me that this is just the beginning. Even if we do get a house, by signing on the dotted line we are committing ourselves to 33 years – the length of a mortgage – of joint decisions, budgets, priorities. And that means that my world view is shifting, and none too subtly. Holidays I want to plan, sales that constantly tempt me, must-do restaurants and theatre, all of the things I previously would have done on a whim are now going to be things we plan and save for. The Irishman likes to reassure me that this is what everyone does, and that we've been privileged up to this point to be able to just jaunt off to Paris and worry about the credit card bill later; I recognize this truth and I do appreciate and value where I've – we've  – been able to get to in our lives to be able to have that freedom. But it is exactly that freedom that I'm now trading for the security of a home with The Irishman, and that is pretty scary. It's a bigger, more complex, more demanding commitment than the one I made when I moved in with him, one that is a lot harder to undo.

And of course, there is the big elephant in the room: marriage. In some ways, buying property together is more binding than a ceremony and party. The Irishman and I will have been together for four years in just over a month, and I sort of feel like the last 5 months of house-hunting has been our version of wedding planning hell. I've never really been a big bridezilla type, never wanted a big white wedding, and I also was pretty adamant that I didn't want to get married until I turned 30. But now that I'm here, buying a house with my man at 31, having attended more weddings than I care to recount, I am ready and want my own special day. We've talked about The Big M and there is a shared agreement that it's not an If but a When, but talking about the sheer sums of money we need for A House makes the cost of a wedding feel frivolous and unrealistic. When £2,500 can get you the kitchen of your dreams or the wedding dress of your dreams, it's hard to decide which is the more appropriate decision – compromise – to make. Yet, I'm sorry, my vanity is strong: I do NOT want to get married at 40, I don't want to walk down the aisle with wrinkles. There's no right answer to how to spend one's money, and I feel slightly trapped in that putting a downpayment on a house has already decided for me.

So I'm entering unchartered waters here, trying to juggle the best for us as a couple, hopefully as new homeowners, and what I want and wish for me, myself, a girl who has her own individual hopes and dreams. And I am starting to realize that actually this is just a magnification of the biggest struggle a person can have as part of couple: retaining her sense of self, stay whole, while creating and building another, bigger, hopefully better, whole. I guess this is just the maturing process, realizing who and what you are and want and balancing it with who and what your partner is and wants and what you are and want together. Every milestone we meet together brings this truth into sharper focus and brighter clarity, while also being difficult to understand and adjust, yet once we've passed it I feel stronger and more capable. I guess this house thing will be yet another of these trials and tests for us both.

I declare this week a fail.

You know how they say "beware the Ides of March"? Someone should have said something about the ides of February this week. It seems as though everything I've touched this week has spoiled in some way, and staying positive has been rather trying.

I started the week by picking a massive fight with The Irishman about Life Priorities. Without going into specifics, I acted like a prat and he told me so. So I cried and didn't talk to him for 18 hours. Yes, prat.

The biggest fail of all was learning that our the house we put an offer on is being viewed seriously by a few other couples. One of those couples is taking a builder in with them to cost up doing a lot of renovations that could be done to the house before making an offer. It's a cruel blow, because, while this house has a lot of amazing potential, it is potential that The Irishman and I both dreamed about saving up for and doing slowly. So it feels pretty sad to think that some people with deep pockets might just be able to pay more for something we really want. It left me feeling powerless and depressed. But there is still hope, I suppose; we are still the only people who have actually made an offer on the house at this point.

But a close second was that same day, my anti-Valentines plans were completely dashed. At the end of last year, I spent a good hour scouring the National Theatre website for cheap tickets to see One Man Two Guvnors before James Corden left the cast. I finally found some for Wednesday February 15th, and The Irishman and I planned to use the tickets as an excuse for a night out – just not on Valentines. Until he looked at the tickets and realized they were for the 2:30pm matinee show, not the 7:30pm show. So I requested an emergency half day off from work and felt like a total fool.

Add to all that a pretty bad blunder at work and the fact that I haven't exercised at all since last Tuesday, and by yesterday I felt a little bit useless. But the upside is I've turned it all around in some way... I think. I made up with The Irishman, and feel like we are stronger than ever in our house search and life goals. I've reframed my expectations of the house, and made peace with the fact we may not get it. And our impromptu skive from work was actually really lovely; cocktails at The American Bar at The Savoy and dinner at Spuntino were perfectly timed instead of rushed before / after the show.

I wish I had a way to prevent weeks like this from getting the better of me, but sometimes, especially recently, I've felt like I drag myself across the Friday finish line just to sleep it off on the weekend. I do wonder whether being more consistent with running it would make a difference in my mood and how I handle stress (YES) but also how to make it easier to get out from under the dark clouds and onto the road to run. Running wouldn't have fixed someone else having more money to buy the house I want to buy, nor the fact that I booked tickets to a matinee show rather than an evening show, but it might have helped me laugh it off that little bit quicker.

PS This post is also dedicated to my lady friend who I ALSO had words with this week but whom is still  in my corner and who I'm lucky enough to have my back through all of this LIFE STUFF. 

The emotional ups and downs of expat home buying

Photo from Flickr courtesy of Limonada

So no progress I can report as of yet on the house situation. Offer is in and we're waiting.

Waiting in these types of situations opens the door to all kinds of thoughts: the good ones like "what type of bathtub should we install if we redo the bathroom" and bad ones like "oh my god I cannot believe I am contemplating spending this much money in one fell swoop."

It also gives a person time to self-reflect in quite a deep manner. Lately I have been rethinking my identity as an expat, what it means to buy property in another country and who I will be afterwards. The expat adventure is obviously alluring; just look at how many expat bloggers there are out there, people who dream of selling it all and moving clear across the world. It's a thrilling and illuminating, self-improving and horizon-expanding experience that I advocate to everyone. But at what point does it stop being an experience and begin to just be your life? Does buying property make you a local, or a resident, any more so than paying taxes? Does it make you less American? Or does it just make you a person who lives somewhere else? And what does that mean?

On a more personal level, buying a house changes priorities in a way that completely reframes the expat experience. At this stage, if our offer is accepted, there will be no more jetting off for city breaks, no more long weekends in Paris, no more extravagant meals in foreign lands, no more big holidays in the sun – at least for the first few years. Does that mean I'm going to miss out? Do I actually even want to buy a house? Or do I just want to travel more and live in a small flat to be able to afford that pleasure? And if I refocus my energies on building a home rather than exploring the world, will I realize that actually I don't want to live here anymore? What if I end up hating England?

And of course, there is then the big elephant in the room of me buying a property with The Irishman – I refuse to call him boyfriend, but he sure isn't my husband – and what that means for our relationship. We've already had a few corkers in terms of arguments, and, despite having a very equitable financial relationship, the idea of purchasing a property together is putting our relationship under a microscope. Everything he does I scrutinize, I'm sure he is evaluating everything I do, every penny we spend separately and together I analyze, and I'm feeling like at some point we'll either end up hating each other or self-implode. Or both! I blogged before about how buying a property together is the biggest commitment two people can make, and it's proving itself to be true on a daily basis. I've already demanded a declaration of trust so that neither of us can clean the other out if we split, but I'm also hoping that we can get through this period of doubt and tension so much stronger than we entered it. But if we do split up, and own a property, will I stay in England? Will it still be my home? Is my entire expat experience based on one man? Is that healthy? AM I HEALTHY? OH MY GOD WHAT AM I DOING?!

I guess what I'm trying to articulate is that while buying a property is emotional purchase regardless of where it takes place, as an expat it is even harder. It's surfacing all sorts of issues that I've either managed to bury or never knew I had, and in some ways they are harder to quantify than the figures on our mortgage spreadsheet. The only way to really deal with them is to just plow ahead, keep talking to The Irishman, and be honest with myself. Whatever will be will be and I will end up where I'm supposed to end up – whether it's London, New York, or somewhere inbetween.

Post-marathon running

Editor's note: this post was brought to you by the gentle Twitter insistence of Jumped the Pond and A Hop, Skip and A Jump Over the Pond. Thanks for the idea, ladies!


So it's been exactly 105 days since I ran 26.2 miles. When you think about it like that, it actually wasn't very long ago. But it does feel like it was a lifetime ago, so I'm actually really glad that Anne and Ashley wanted to know what it's like to continue running after running a marathon.

To be honest, it's not much different. It's still the mental battle of getting out of a warm bed, into wick-away clothes that are never 100% comfortable nor smell 100% fresh, and forcing yourself to get out there and put one foot infront of the other. And breathing is still hard, and you still get cramps, and you still get blisters. But the one thing that has changed is my knowledge of what I can do, how far I can push myself. Crossing the 26.2 mile threshold makes you realize that the 3 mile lap "maintenance run" (what I like to call my daily distance) is NOTHING. It's a warm up. And there is NO EXCUSE for not doing it – even if it's hard.

Sometimes when I run, and I'm cranky and don't want to be doing it, I think about the marathon. I think about mile 20 when I really started to feel the distance. I visualize this one turn in the road where I simultaneously started to get sore but felt better because I actually knew where I was in Dublin, and therefore knew I could get to the end if for no other reason than I knew the route. And I think about how tired I was and how I pushed through and how I just need to PUSH THROUGH to FINISH 3 G-D'D MILES ALREADY. And I do. Basically, finishing a marathon has given me mental strength and given my brain a very accurate whip with which to smack my whining self when I err on the side of sloth.

Which I have, because since the marathon I haven't really run much at all. Post-marathon, I had a week off in Prague to recuperate. When I got back to London, I had to jump straight back into work for a few intense weeks and averaged only 2 runs per week throughout November/December. I also haven't really run farther than 4 miles. I need to break it open and do a 10k and then a 10 miler, but something is holding me back (besides my sloth); it's almost as if I achieved this wonderful accomplishment and I don't want to ruin it by trying to replicate it. But that is ridiculous, because every run is different; as a runner, every day you show up with whatever is going on in your body, your brain, and it's up to you to run it out on the track, make the run what you want it to be. So really, I just need to do it. There is no point in putting it off.

Beyond all of this zen thinking about running, though, I did pick up a few practical running pointers that worked for me. Hopefully they will be useful for all of you runners out there.

1. Arms at 90°
This is an interesting one because it is a subtle change that makes all the difference. I run like a boxer, arms up, pumping, but held close to the chest. I read an article about running form, which is basically minimizing extraneous movement that causes fatigue while maximizing essential movement. One of the easiest fixes is to maintain arms at 90° angles (rather than my 45° chicken angles) – it makes your arm pumping more efficient and therefore aids in your speed and cuts down on fatigue. It also helps you hold your back up straight and encourages you to drop your shoulders. It really works, and I think gives a side benefit of toning your triceps.

2. Shoulders down
Linked to above, but really important on its own. I have a tendency to hunch – while I'm knitting, while I'm typing, while I'm running when I get tired. And when I hunch, I get bad upper back/neck pains. But remembering to just lower the shoulders helps reset my whole upper body (I usually reset shoulders and take a deep breath, it's a yoga thing) and sort of center myself for continuing. It's a useful tactic for when you get out of breath (top of a hill) or lose your rhythm.

3. Breathe into cramps
Again, another yoga thing. But really, if you get a cramp, it helps to focus on where the pain is, and for a few breaths aim at breathing in and sending the air to the cramp. Cramps are just muscles that somehow have a little kink in them, and breathing into them is like gently working a knot out of thread. Also, I think this visualisation technique takes your mind off of the pain and surprise surprise 2 minutes later it's gone.

4. Continue yoga/aerobics/stretching
All of this talk of yoga brings me to the point that if you do any other sports (swimming, cycling, yoga, aerobics, whatever), you should continue it while running. I used Hal Higdon's training schedule, and he builds in cross-training days which a really key for strengthening your body beyond running. You don't realize how much strength your body needs in its core, its arms, and overall for successful running beyond just leg power. The more of a routine you maintain that you enjoy, the better your running will be. It will also prevent injury.

5. Cut your toenails
Seriously, I don't know how the second toenail on each foot fell off, but it did, and I can only imagine it was compression from my big toe and the nails being too long. But now I have little stubblies and I want them to grow back so I can get a pedicure. First world problems, I know, but seriously if you don't want to have your toenails turn purple and then fall off, keep them trimmed low.

6. You will gain weight
Marathon training keeps you running, and running keeps you eating, and even if you eat like a machine and never indulge in anything fattening, you will still gain weight. A friend of mine went up a trouser size; I felt like I was just a bit bigger overall. It's just a fact that you will build up muscle and muscle weighs more than fat. You'll also drink more water, eat more salt to replace minerals and fluids, and it all makes you bigger. I lost weight after the marathon, and got a lot of compliments on looking skinny about a month after the race - go figure.

7. Learn to use your butt
Hands down, your butt is the most important muscle when running. It powers you up hills, keeps you stable, and I like to think of it as your engine. So don't try to make it smaller – maximise its value! Seriously, when I go up a hill, I visualise my butt driving me up the hill rather than my legs pulling me. It's a subtle change but it means that I beat The Irishman up every hill no matter what. I actually speed up when I go up hills, rather than slow down, and it makes a big difference.

8. Stick to the training plan – all of it
One of the things I really regret about my marathon training was that I was a bit cocky in the beginning and skipped a few 2 and 3 mile runs. I figured, hey, I already run those distances, it won't matter. But it does, because the point is to gradually build up distance each week from a baseline running ability. So if you skip 2 miles here, 3 miles there and then your weekend long run distances increase, you will get injured like I did. In my next race, I will NOT be skipping ANY little distance runs. No sirree!

9. It's quantity not quality
Probably the only time someone will tell you this. But it's true. It's all about logging the distance. Even if it's the hardest run ever and you're going at a snail's pace. Even if you're lethargic and walk after every mile. EVEN IF YOU HAVE A HANGOVER. You have to log the miles, so you know what 8 miles versus 18 feels like, and you build up the confidence in your own ability.

10. Have fun
Seriously, I loved running the marathon. I loved the old ladies shouting my name, the kids giving me jelly babies, all of the drunk people in Halloween costumes cheering for me. I felt like I was running for all of them, because all of them were supporting me. It made every early Saturday training run worth it. Crossing the finish line was the anticlimax because it was the 4.5 hours of running to cheers of encouragement that really mattered the most.

Anyway, that's just my feelings on running. Everyone who runs a marathon experiences something uniquely different, so I can only encourage you to try it. I've had so many people tell me "OMG I could NEVER do that" but really, you can. Seriously. It's the ultimate battle of mind over matter, and if you're focused and confident enough, your mind will totally win and the matter will follow – for 26.2 miles.

Musing on resolving

Happy 2012 everyone! I'm glad my first full day back in the UK dawned with torrential downpours and gale force winds. I'm trying to be positive here!

Last year, I made a big deal about my resolutions, even assessing my progress one month into the year. And you know what? I still sorta failed. I didn't keep up with my sketchbook (though I am loving Pinterest more and more), I'm still falling back on my overdraft, and guess what – today's weigh in pronounced me the exact same weight as I was this time last year. Blurgh.

When I was in the US, radio and TV shows kept spouting the same advice on how to stick to your resolutions. Hilariously, one of the tips was to start in March! But seriously, since I fail miserably every year, this year I've decided to rethink my approach to self improvement.

I spent a few days around New Years with one of my closest friends who has the enviable plan to quit her job and travel in Asia for 6 months. She's estimating that she and her hubs will be ready, financially and emotionally and practically, by Christmas time this year. I am putting it out there in the universe that I am jealous of her. Not in a "man I hate her" way but in more of a "God I wish I had that sort of goal/plan" way.

So my New Years resolution is to have my own plan.

It may, or may not, have been evident but 2011 wasn't exactly a great year. I accomplished a few things, like run a marathon and successfully transition to a new job, and spent another great year with The Irishman. But I'm still feeling unfulfilled. I'm dragging. I'm not achieving. And I hate that. So I need a plan to give me focus, give me ambition, help me find the inspiration I used to have on a daily basis. I'm not sure how it's going to happen but I need to do something.

One of the things I hope will help me create my plan is a Life List. Above-mentioned friend shared hers with me, and it is a delightful list of both aspirational things to aim for and achievable goals. I had started my life list earlier this year and only got to 7 things; hers is the full 100 and it made me think that yes, yes there are 100 things i want to do in my life and dammit I can do them!

So I'm going to write my life list. And I'm going to think really hard about what it is I want out of life: personally, professionally, lifestyle, location, attitude. This blog will come under review, my wardrobe will come under review, my savings will come under review, my spending, my eating – everything I spend time doing, thinking, feeling, I'm going to try to be more conscious about so that I don't feel like I'm frittering my life away.

This is going to be a slow burn, but hopefully this time next year will find me more sane, centred, and positive.

Cheers.

My week in Doha

So I'm back in the office, sitting at my desk, trying to get photos from 5 different places into one blog post. Apologies for the weird posting!

Anyway, here it is - a week in the Middle East, working, exploring, and trying to understand this fascinating region.

It started with a flight mid-day last Saturday, which I started with a glass of bubbly. Underneath the glass was a bottle holder for my water. I was served a 4 course meal and my seat had massage settings that I used for the majority of the flight in a state of semi-consciousness. Brilliant. Ryanair this was not, and I am now dreading my flight to America on Friday in row 7,000 of BA economy class. Bleurgh.

Part of my job in Qatar involved visiting museums, and this is by far one of the most amazing museums I've ever visited. Designed by I.M. Pei, the Museum of Islamic Art sits on reclaimed land in the middle of the bay. It is absolutely beautiful from the outside...

And seriously stunning on the inside. This view is looking up to the skylight in the middle of the building's roof.

We also visited the New Old Souk, or Souq Waqif. As with everything in Doha, it was rebuilt recently ("restored") so it is not the original structure. But you can still get spices, animals, and clothing in addition to touristy tat.









We also went to one of the ginormous malls in the city; we were invited to a very swank opening while we were there that was being attended by the Emir and his royal entourage so we had to spruce up the gladrags. It's a good thing that Zara was there, with a very similar pricing structure to that of the UK. But the mall was something straight out of Vegas - complete with a river and gondolier that would take you from one of the mall to the other.

So that was an experience.

But mostly I spent my days calling our driver, waiting for our driver, or being driven somewhere – usually to meetings or important sites that our client recommended we see. No one walks in Doha, so even if your destination is literally around the corner you wait for a driver to take you. Our driver was lovely, a man we called Mr. B, and we found out a little bit about him - a Nepalese immigrant working there for a few years to make some money. 

That's another hard realization: everyone there is an immigrant. Qatar is a small nation, with a relatively low population of native citizens. Everyone else is either a Western expat there to work, or an Asian immigrant there to work. And te servent culture in the Middle East is strong. So many times I wanted to say "that's okay, I don't need you to bow/call me m'am/explain the difference between the 9 steak knives you have for me to choose from" (seriously). But when you're a guest in someone's country, you have to live as they do to some extent and effusive service is the easiest to accept.

The team that I traveled with to Doha was an all-woman project team. That's not unusual in my industry, but before leaving we did have a few people raise their eyebrows about it with regards to the region. Qatar is part of the GCC and one of our clients explained to us that all member states of the GCC have adopted similar dress codes for their citizens including the white thobe for men and the black abaya for women. Apparently abayas used to be bright and colourful, kind of like saris, but now they are black and somber in a Iranian Shia tradition. Women wear these in public, with their face either exposed, half veiled, or fully veiled. It is difficult to be a Western woman, dressed conservatively, but still feeling exposed when sitting in a room with women half veiled. It's the most awkward and self-conscious feeling you could ever have.

Beyond these cultural differences, Doha is experiencing an extreme transformation. The entire city is under construction, and the skyline you see today wasn't there 15 years ago. Everywhere there is something being built, and the ambition and energy were palpable. I've never witnessed a city with such a drive towards progress; everyone there was there for the single reason of contributing to the future of Qatar. It was inspirational, to be honest, and made me think that the Gulf is someplace to watch in the future – sort of like India, it is a region where the youth are organising themselves into a new generation with a lot of things they want to achieve. Returning to London felt like going back in time to an older world that maybe hasn't quite kept up with the economic / political times. I think that we will hear more about the transformation in that region over the next decade, and it will be more positive and exciting than not.