What I Made for Christmas Gifts

Is it too late (or too early) to talk about this?

You might already have guessed, given the number of times I talked about my book binding.  I made blank notebooks for everyone, with their names stamped on the front.

Given that I started back in the summer, I'd never have predicted finishing them at the last minute.

Everyone at the bookbinding class thought it was a brilliant idea - though there was one even better one that I'll tell you about.

The problems came when the instructor had heart problems - well, new ones, and had to have his pace maker replaced.  He wasn't around for a while and his assistant really couldn't manage to help everyone there with their projects all on his own.  I would spend as much as 20 minutes waiting for the next step and what with the cost of the class and the travel to it, I found myself using a huge amount of energy to practice patience.

Even when the instructor was present, he loved the hustle and bustle of having people queued up to check with him about things and positively encouraged interruptions.  He is a really sweet man and I couldn't at all begrudge him being happy.  Except that it was costing me money.

I'd estimate that each notebook cost between £20-25 to make, not including the payment up front for materials.  Not exactly a frugal present considering the price of blank notebooks at book or stationery store.  

Still, with the names on the front and the hand cut pages (and the obvious flaws denoting a handmade item), they were unique gifts.

What I learned?  

1.  How to make notebooks, obviously.  I took better notes than the first time and doing ten, one right after the other, I learned a lot more small tips on how to do it better/easier.  Doing each step ten times increased the quality of the books I made, of that I'm certain.

2.  That I want to increase the number of activities I can do within walking distance from home.  Until I'm old enough to get a bus/metro pass like Bill's (if they still exist by then), travelling alone into Newcastle has serious costs attached, either Metro fares or petrol (now £1.12 a litre) and parking charges (only 50 p an hour, granted, but it adds up).  

3.  I might go back in the summer on my bike when the weather permits the 20 mile round trip.  It's goal to aim for anyhow.  I've done it before and with all the time in the world I could certainly do it again if it was sufficiently important to me.

4.  The components of bookbinding can be replicated in nontraditional ways that might be quite fun.  I've a number of ideas in mind.  If I follow through with any, you'll be sure to know.

5.  I finally learned to leave if I arrived and found the instructor wasn't available.  It saved me wasting the cost of the class and loads of frustration.  I discovered that in spite of all the ways and reasons I love book binding, I didn't actually value the experience sufficiently.  Once committed to making the Christmas gifts I just accepted that it was going to cost more than I'd realised and I aimed to minimise the wear and tear on my nerves.  I got a lot of satisfaction from making them and I'm not at all sorry I did.  I just wouldn't do it again; not that way, anyhow.

5.  That other idea?  Paul bought an A5 (about half of letter size) diary (the page a day kind like my Grandmother used for her hairdressing business.)  He added end papers front and back with calendars from the previous and next years, often a useful reference.  (Another idea might be to add reference sheets pertaining to a hobby the person had).  Then he raided his wife's fabric stash and found something really lush for the cover, usually upholstery fabric.  I didn't see how he managed the fabric cover with the end papers, but I might play with this idea as well as some of my others.  

I've already found something fun to do once a month that practically in my back garden; but that is another post.

Exploring Locally

Being down to our last box (UHT) of milk, I needed to go to the supermarket for more.  I know from my car journeys that the round trip is only 1.7 miles and there is nothing like having to carry your purchases on your back to make you selective and, consequently, frugal.  The sewing ladies had informed me that the bargain store where I buy my hair colour was about to close for refurbishment and so I decided I'd best go stock up a bit before they vanished for an unknown period.  As it happened, these errands were in roughly opposite directions, but no matter.  I now have a trusty carrier to help me.  This might have been the wheeled trolley thing I bought years ago before I got a car, but it being buried in the loft, I used the human one instead, AKA as Bill.

He's still casting about a little for what to do and he's almost always up for a walk, so we each donned backpacks and set off.  We made a large circle...I measure it to be almost exactly 5 miles, so not that large...and had a sort of day out at the same time, with loads of conversation along the way.  Another errand was to find cards to send for a cousin's anniversary and birthday.  So, I finally got to show Bill the Little Acorn design cards stocked at the Post Office on Nile Street in North Shields.   I wouldn't normally spend that much for cards, but these are beautiful and they are for a 90-something birthday (as a genealogist, that's something I should know...) and a 75th wedding anniversary (boggles the mind).  We both spent ages admiring the lovely art deco designs (click on the link and see for yourself).  Bill would far rather give money to the local business than to a chain, like Clintons, for example.  So that was a score.

We poked our noses into a variety of rubbish type local shops as well some of the national chains.  We wandered into Wilkinson's where I found my hair colour even cheaper than the shop at the bottom of the street, so I didn't stock up.  I normally would, but I'm ambivalent about how much longer to be auburn.  Indecision can be both friend and enemy to frugality, you know.  

We visited another space that used to be a collection of individual stalls, mostly of really tacky stuff.  It's now an entire store, half household items (also tacky), half food.  I found Kraft low-fat honey mustard dressing for 10 pence a bottle - 10% or less of the usual supermarket price.  The bottles expire this summer, but ask me if I care.  I bought five and may go back for more; I love salads in summer and honey mustard is great on pasta, beans and chicken, too.     There were lots of odd things like duck pate that I never see at the supermarket; mind I don't look for them either.  Bill and I agreed it was a fun place to visit.  I'm definitely taking my price book next time I go, both to compare and to update. So, another win.

We popped into Netto, a version of Aldi / Lidl type store to see if we could save ourselves a trip to the supermarket.  They wanted 59 pence for skimmed UHT milk and although they were 'offering' it 2 for £1 I knew the regular price at Morrisons was 49 pence.  In fact we walked another 3 miles or so to save 8 pence, but it wasn't just to save the pennies, but for other reasons as well.  

I confess to not having taken my camera.  In fact I only tucked my billfold into a coat pocket along with house keys and a hankie.  North Shields is not a very pretty place, though some locations on the river are photogenic.  The one place I would have enjoyed sharing pictures of is the bookstore.

On our way to the supermarket we passed Keelrow Book Store.  Their website holds more promise than it currently delivers, but it's practically on the door step so that doesn't matter much.  I'd been in before but discovered a lot more rooms than I'd realised were there.  I loved the place and could imagine me working there for payment in books.  It's a funny old shop with wood floors and three levels and little bedrooms full of books by category.  The shelves spill over to stacks on the floor.  One can see any attempts to really organise always being defeated by new acquisitions.  A fun but frustrating place altogether.   The prices are not cheap, but they are reasonable, certainly comparable with Amazon; like Bill I'd as soon spend the money at a local business.  I shall return with my inter-war reading list (and my camera).  

Continuing on our journey, I learned that whilst Bill didn't particularly enjoy rummaging in the bookstore, he's more than happy to be sent on bike, bus or foot to local libraries where books on that list are currently housed.  Each visit would save me 50 pence in reservation fees and it will fill his time with something he enjoys.  The sewing ladies mention rumours of library closures, but hopefully if it happens it will only being the very small branches.  I have one nearer me, but usually walk the 20 minutes into the Central Branch for the wider selection.  One can return books to any library and there's another errand if he needs one.  (I know, try not to hate me, I'm so lucky.)

At the supermarket we went straight for the milk and bought more than I would attempt to carry, but Bill could manage it in a basket with one hand, so we loaded up his backpack and trudged our way home, closing the circle.  It was a windy day and I had on a long skirt and coat so between the distance, the wind resistance and the added weight I got a reasonable bit of functional exercise.  And free transport.  

The weather got even wilder as the night progressed and I never did get to sleep (until 3 am) in spite of getting up to verify that there wasn't actually someone holding a fire hose aimed at our bedroom windows.   I can't find a retroactive / weather 'pre-cast' to tell me about the wind that hammered and howled, but it is expected to get up to 70 mph tonight, no doubt a repeat. 

Anyhow, I spent a grand total of £5.41 for marinade (salad dressing), marmalade and milk, got some exercise, had fun with Bill.  Bargain day out!

Beach Babes

We went for a walk on the beach last weekend and I finally remembered to take my camera.  Bill was saintly in his patience with my stopping every two feet to take a picture.  After a while he enjoyed pointing out likely subjects.  

Pugs just turn me to mush, they are so cute and comical.  A woman at work brought hers in one afternoon and I was instantly down on the floor to play with him.  

The dachschund really had to work hard to make his way through the sand, I was well impressed with his determination!

Ya' gotta love the water or love fetching to be willing to wade into the North Sea this time of year.  I'd bet most of my dogs would have balked, looking at me like, "Are you mad?" 

Lakeland terriers are popular here and they are amazingly good runners, ie long distance, in spite of their small size.  They never seem to lose their puppy-ness, either.

 

All shapes and sizes hurled themselves into that icy water.   

Bill loves Jack Russell's.  I think they are scary they have so much energy.  We watched one girl encourage hers to jump over and over again.  I'd have sworn there was a trampoline hidden under him.

I nearly scooped up this puppy into my pocket but he was squirming all over the beach, getting loads of attention.

This clown, a whippet, was awesome to watch.  He streaked back and forth the width of the beach, twisting and leaping with limitless energy.  The Border Collie could actually keep up, but his movement was horizontal and efficient in comparison.  

Who couldn't love a dog with a face like this?

He doesn't look that massive, but his is a Baskerville bark.   People love it when you take photos of their dog.

This tiny brown poodle was so pround of her stick, she drove the other dogs nuts trying to take it from her.  

Lovely to see a bit of dignity for a change, with this kindly old Basset hound.

I told Bill I figured this photography fed my doggie longing and helped put off the day... but some day...

Do you take pleasure from other people's dogs?

Cars I've Loved and Left - Part II

Obviously, being Part II, this is a continuation from Part I.  About two years after I got my first car it developed problems other than a crumpled side and a wonky tailpipe.  For a while I drove one of my Dad's cars, a 1964-ish Pontiac Catalina. It was sort of navy blue but the oxidising paint gave it a sort of iridescent multi-colour look.  

It had power steering and power brakes, which were way fun, but driving it was sort of like wearing a dress with a 25 foot train for everyday: there was just too much of it!   I felt much the same about the long bench seat in front.  I had to slide into West Texas to unlock the passenger door.  

By then I was waitressing at Pizza Hut.  One night I was driving home after closing, about 2am and some guy who was keen not to miss his flight back to Army duty decided he needed to turn left from the right hand land.  I was in the way.  The damage he did to my car - something to do with the wheel - was more expensive than the car.  It is likely that neither of us had insurance back then either.  My Dad had the habit of buying clunkers and driving them til they died, so this wasn't a huge loss, and he happened to have a spare for himself.  Still, public transport in OKC was next to non-existent so I needed another car.

As usual, my Aunt Rita had a car to trade off, a 1972 Volkswagon Karmann Ghia.  I took out my first car loan to buy it from her.  My Dad co-signed my loan with Associates Finance.  He called them loan sharks - it will have been a ridiculous rate of interest - but they were the only folks he could do business with.  That was one of my early financial lessons:  people with bad credit pay through the nose.  I remember the payments were 'only' $83 a month, but the seemed to go on forever. 

The Karmann Ghia (named Gretchen - the only car I ever named) was noisy on purpose - it had something called 'headers' that made it growl a little instead of the rin-tin-tinny sound Volkswagons normally made.  It had a standard transmission with a stick shift on the floor.  It sounds daft now, but that stick shift was so cool to me back then.  The engine was in the rear and the 'trunk' wasn't big enough for anything, but it had a cute little hidey-hole behind the back seat which folded down.  It was low to the ground and wonderfully fun to drive, but I was terribly irresponsible with its upkeep.  When it developed motor problems my Dad identified a good mechanic through a work contact.  

Eddie re-built the engine of my Karmann Ghia for me.  We also dated for a while.  Eddie drove my dream car:  a 1969 Chevy Corvette.  

We'd go out to eat and on the way I'd ask him to drive on and off the freeway just so I could enjoy the feel of the car hugging the road on those sharp turns.  

He was a nice enough guy and we had good times together.  I think his day job was something to do with airplane mechanics and he made pretty good money.    But then he traded his Corvette for a '68 Mustang Shelby Cobra.  He obviously felt he'd traded up, but Shelby Cobra did nothing for me.  I thought those fin-things behind the windows looked like shark's gills and they gave me the creeps.

I'm sure it wasn't just about the car, but more that at some point I decided I didn't want a permanent relationship with grease-stained hands, an ex-wife and two small children.  I moved on, but not before Eddie had found me a different car to drive:  a 1968 Datsun Roadster convertible.    

I liked Eddie, but I left him rather easily; when I left Gretchen I sat in the driver's seat for the last time and blubbered.  I felt so sad and so guilty for trading her in.

A little while later I dated a guy who drove a rag top Cadillac.  An older model, green, nothing to get that excited about.  I could be snide and say 'him or the car', but there was one perfect, happy day, driving with the top down in the hills around Lawton with Lovely Rita blasting.  

I enjoyed my Datsun, in the sunshine.  The top was tricky to get up and down - 'up' being the more important part with Oklahoma's sudden showers.  Also, I decided convertibles were a bit dangerous.  

One Friday after work I had a whim to drive down to Ardmore to spend the weekend with a longtime girlfriend.  On the way I encountered a truck driver who was attracted to my car.  Or maybe it was the long blonde hair or the tube top and cut offs on a 20-year-old.  He would get in front of me and slow down, but would speed up when I tried to pass.  After a while I got well and truly fed up and did 93 miles an hour (without a seat belt) to get rid of him.  Between the tricky top and that nasty experience, I was lukewarm on the car thereafter.

For a while I had a roommate, Missy, who drove a new Mazda RX-7 with the rotary engine.  That will have been around 1975-1976.   She let me drive her car once; it was a dream, but it cost more money than I was prepared to pay for a car.  By that time I'd moved out from home and had to pay for boring things like food and utility bills.  

Did you love and name your cars like pets?

Chocolate February

I don't know about you, but I'm pleased to see the end of January.  I always think it's a cold, dark month best used for hibernation and this year was no different.  February, on the other hand, is halfway to March, which is supposed to mean spring (but I know it will still be cold and more lion than lamb, but never mind).  I wore something black every day in January, but that also meant I wore loads of colours because so many things go with black.  I also bought myself some flat black boots (Hush Puppies!) and that allowed me to wear loads of skirts and dresses I wouldn't normally have found a use for.  Those boots and a long-sleeved white tee were my only clothing purchases in January, and I bought them new, for a change.

So, the brown clothes will get their turn this month.  I have flat brown boots I've long loved and enjoyed.  I've always liked brown but thought of it as a mouse colour, good to hide in.  Then one day I realised if I'd only call it 'chocolate' or 'cocoa' it would create a completely different vibe.  People and words are funny that way, aren't they?

Brown isn't quite as versatile as black, but half the fun in is the challenge, right?  Orange, cream, rose, purple and even some shades of blue can work with chocolate, especially with the help of a print that mixes brown and another colour.   Scarves, once again, come to the rescue; and, they keep one's neck warm.

Do you prefer to wear 'chocolate' instead of 'brown'?

Year of Style - February

You can see a trend coming on here, can't you?  After all, it only takes two point to draw a line.

Amongst Frederic's suggestions for February, I like:

• There is more to be gained by eliminating than by adding.
• According to Diana Vreeland, 'Unshined shoes are the end of civilisation.'
• Do something artistic today:  paint, sculpt, sketch, photograph, embroider (I can only manage the last two).

The theme for this month is 'Energize'.   Makes me tired to write it.  I must need a new haircut.

Cars I've Loved and Left - Part III

[Links to Parts I and II]

After I married I got rid of the Datsun convertible and got a staid hand-me-down from #1, another Chevy.  I couldn't remember a Chevy What for the longest, but all the sudden 'Caprice' popped into my brain.  I remembered all along that it only got 8 miles to the gallon. 

1973 Chevy Caprice - but mine was blue, not gold, with a 'leather' roof

I'd left university and worked full time for a while by then, but started back to night school to finish my degree.  It was now a 60 mile round trip to school.  My mechanic by then was J.C. Bannister, the most honest mechanic I've ever encountered - besides Eddie, of course.  Loads of people had stories about the time they pulled into the Bannister garage and J.C. fixed some twiddly little problem like a disconnected hose - with no charge.  I remember his degree in mechanical engineering hung on the office wall and you couldn't meet a nicer man.  He fixed my car for me until one day he told me it wasn't worth fixing anymore, bless him.  J.C.'s garage is still there, I believe, but his was an untimely death a long time ago.  I gather the business is still there, but I've no idea who owns or runs it, so I couldn't make any recommendation one way or the other for the present staff. 

Husband #1 now had a job 50-miles away in a small town with a medium-security prison (he was a case manager).  Given the drudgery of the drive, he decided to buy himself a new car.  Another financial lesson I learned:  don't buy a new car (everyone knows about the depreciation) and then put on so many miles that it loses its value faster than you can pay it off.  Need I mention considering the price of gas?  I did offer to move half way between his job and mine, but he didn't like that idea.  Turns out he was already thinking about divorce.

Anyhow, with him having a new car I got his hand-me-down, a burgundy coloured 1978 Mercury Marquis, with air conditioning and electric push-button windows.  This was fun, except that the first summer I drove it the electrics quit working.  Even though work was only a mile each way (through a pretty scary area, I might add) I would be ill with the heat driving home.  I decided within a couple of weeks that no air - fresh or conditioned - was intolerable. 

Since #1 had treated himself to a new car (another Mercury, only this one had velvet upholstery - I ask you), I decided I would have one, too.  I bought a car I'd been in love with ever since I saw them, a little cream coloured boxy looking thing with baby blue suedette interior.  Colours of cars are important to a girl, you know.  I'd never own a green car, but I can't tell you why.

I really loved this car, a 1983 demonstrator model Mazda GLC with a standard transmission, another stick shift.  People in the UK assume that all Americans drive automatics; they barely believe me when I say I had a number of standard transmission cars.  It was about 25 years later when I accidently discovered GLC stood for 'Great Little Car': the truth in advertising, for once.  

It's the only new car I've ever owned; very likely the only one I ever will.  I paid it off early and never fell out of love with it.  I kept it for 11 years, though once we moved to Salt Lake City the hampsters that lived in the engine had a hard time pedalling in the mountains there.  Husband #2 traded in his bought-new-in-OKC pick-up truck for another bigger one with 4-wheel drive in SLC, also new.  These purchases were made without consultation, but since we kept our money separate, I just shook my head.  I still loved my GLC and I loved not having car payments.  

When it turned out I was moving to England for a while, I sold the car to my hairdresser for $500 with the warning that it would soon need a new transmission.   I went back a couple of years later and, while I was in town, got in touch with her for a hair cut.  Her husband was still driving my GLC, so they must have loved it, too.

Did you ever have a car that you kept until they pried the steering wheel out of your hands?