Browsing Tag

blogging

My 2020 Challenge: 10 South African Towns

In June 2020 the 2Summers blog will turn ten years old. One decade of blogging. This means I’ve been blogging for more than 20 percent of my life. It also means a baby born on the day I published my first post in June 2010 — here it is, in case you’re curious — is now old enough to actually read and comprehend this blog. It means I’ve currently published 951 blog posts, including this one, and will probably surpass the 1000-post mark in 2020. I want to do something to recognize this milestone, and I’ve decided I need to be serious and start planning now. I’m going to make 2020 the year of South African Towns. A Year of South African Towns I’ve visited a lot of small South African towns recently. And I’ve realized that right now, for whatever reason, exploring small South African towns is what brings me the most joy. Long road trips used to exhaust me, especially when I was alone. But since moving to South Africa I’ve developed a taste for solo driving. I’ll happily jump in the car and drive four or five hours alone, knowing I’ll reach a new town at the […]

September 17, 2019 by 2summers

Men on Tinder: Read This

Okay people. It’s time to talk about dating apps. If you’re using a dating app like Tinder — or considering doing so — read to the end of this post. You could win a free dating app profile consultation and photoshoot. I avoided the dating app scene for ages. The whole concept terrified me. But I have several friends who are using dating apps — Tinder most commonly — or have used them in the past, and while the feedback wasn’t 100% positive I’d heard a few success stories. So a couple of weeks ago I swallowed my fear and downloaded the app. I chose a few photos, wrote a bio, and bam: I was on Tinder. I thought I’d swipe on a few profiles, have some nice chats, block a few creeps, maybe go on a couple of dates. And much of that did happen, except for the dating part — I haven’t gone on a single Tinder date yet. But that’s a story for another post. Anyway. The main thing I’ve done while browsing Tinder is laugh. I don’t laugh because the men are witty (although a small percentage of them are). I laugh because many of the […]

April 14, 2019 by 2summers

The 2Summers #Gauteng52 Book: Frequently Asked Questions

UPDATE (August 2019): The first and second editions of The 2Summers #Gauteng52 Challenge are nearly sold out — I have about 15 copies left. If you’d like to order a copy, click the button below or contact me for details on how to pay via EFT: After many years of threatening to do so, I’m finally publishing a book. The 2Summers #Gauteng52 Challenge is being printed as we speak and will be for sale in mid-to-late November. What the actual book will look like. It’s soft-cover and 216 pages. A sample page of the book. I’m really excited about the design. I’m anticipating a lot of questions. Let me try to answer them in advance with some handy FAQ. Frequently Asked Questions about the #Gauteng52 Book Q1:What is the book about? A2:The book is a compilation of the 52 blog posts I wrote in 2017 as part of my #Gauteng52 Challenge, when I visited 52 places in Gauteng province I’d never been to before. The 2Summers #Gauteng52 Challenge is part coffee table book, part guidebook, part quirky blogging nonsense, with beautiful photos and design and text kept as close as possible to what I wrote in my blog in 2017. To […]

November 2, 2018 by 2summers

Learn How to Blog From a Reluctant Blogger

I’m teaching another blog class. It’s happening on 13 October at Bridge Books in Maboneng. The class is limited to 10 aspiring bloggers and there are six spots left (as of today, 19 September). You should sign up. A couple of months ago I confessed that for the first time in eight years, I was struggling to blog. I had hoped that feeling would have gone away by now but it hasn’t. The feeling is weird and disconcerting. Perhaps this post isn’t the best place to focus on my current lack of blogging motivation. But then again, maybe it is. This is reality, baby. Blogging is a wonderful form of creative expression but it ain’t no walk in the park. I like to talk about reality in my blog classes. In these classes, we don’t focus much on making money or building massive social media followings. Instead we focus on ideas. We focus on the best reasons to blog and how to create a blog that’s honest and compelling and emotionally fulfilling for the person who writes it. We talk about how writing a blog can change your life, as it has mine. We share with each other, eat some nice […]

September 19, 2018 by 2summers

Thoughts on Blogging (Which Is Kind of a Stupid Word)

I woke up this morning thinking I have to blog. I have time. I have things I can blog about — there are always things to blog about. But none of my ideas feel quite ready yet, for one reason or another. And I don’t really feel like blogging. The only thing I can motivate myself to blog about is my lack of motivation to blog. I’m re-reading what I’ve written so far and looking at these words: blog, blogging. Blog, blogger, bloggety-blog-blogged. Blog sounds like smog and blag and bog and fog. I remember now why it took me so long to start calling myself a blogger: Because it’s kind of a stupid word. Lately I’ve been blogging about once a week, which is fine. The beauty of blogging, as I tell other people all the time, is I can do it whenever I like, about whatever I like, as much or as little as I like. But once a week is below my average for the past couple of years. Last year I was a blogging machine, posting at least twice a week, usually three times or even four. If I wasn’t writing a blog post or obsessively checking my […]

June 10, 2018 by 2summers

2Summers in Motion

Many months ago, as I often do, I was talking to my friend Fiver about this blog. I was saying it was time for a new header image, and Fiver said she wanted to create something using linoprints. I said that sounded great. That’s how “2Summers in Motion” was born. 2Summers in Motion. I didn’t give Fiver any direction at all — I just asked her to make something and this is what she made. She’s talented like that. Each of the images portrays a different mode of transportation I’ve used in or around Joburg. The patterns in the background are inspired by South African shweshwe fabric. Fiver making one of the prints for the 2Summers in Motion series. You can see more pictures of Fiver working in this post about my business cards, which incorporate the same images. Once Fiver started making these prints, she realized she wanted to do a lot more with them than just make a blog header. She started printing the images on different kinds of paper, with different kinds of paint, with different patterns all around them. Her customers, including me, started buying the prints. 2Summers in Motion print. (Photos courtesy of Fiver Löcker) […]

March 29, 2018 by 2summers

Heather and Jon at the beach on the South Coast

19 December

I woke up feeling sad this morning. This was no real surprise as the last few months have been difficult for me. But I’d been feeling better for the past couple of weeks, so when the sadness returned this morning I felt a little disappointed. At about 8:30, lying in bed with the curtains still closed even though I’d been semi-awake for hours, I looked at the date on my phone. 17 December, it said. Oh right, I thought. It’s almost 19 December, the day Jon died. Jon. Jon died in 2011. His death was horrific and I suffered greatly, as did everyone else who loved him. While not a complete surprise, the death was sudden and I didn’t get to say goodbye. No one did. For the first year I thought about Jon at least 50 times a day. It felt like one of my limbs was missing. I fantacized about all the things I wish I’d said to Jon before he died. I went through months of therapy and 12-step meetings and emotional rehab. I cried in bed, in the shower, in coffeeshops, at concerts and church services. I tried to get angry but felt only sadness. In December […]

December 17, 2017 by 2summers

8 Years, 800 Blog Posts

This is my 800th blog post. I lied a little bit in the title because it hasn’t actually been eight years — I published my first post on 26 June 2010. But close enough. I wasn’t sure I would write a post to commemorate this. 800 is a strange number — 500 (which I also blogged about) and 1000 seem more significant. But 800 is still a lot. Assuming an average of 600-650 words per post, I’ve written at least 500,000 words on this blog. Half a million! My name is Heather and I’ve written half a million words. Photo shot by Nina Neubauer at Perron in Melville — my new favorite lunch spot. This milestone comes at a poignant moment for me. I find myself pondering all that’s happened since I started the blog — seven years, four months, and fifteen days ago — and wondering what it all means. 2Summers started as a kind of expat travel journal and eventually morphed into an ongoing story about life in Johannesburg. I think of it as a “culture blog”. Accidentally I think I’ve created something pretty unique. From time to time, 2Summers has also been a place where I pour out […]

October 13, 2017 by 2summers

A New and Improved 2Summers Blog Course

I taught two one-day blogging courses last year, and they went really well. We met at Bridge Books, learned about blogging and social media, and photowalked around downtown Joburg. Everyone seemed to have fun and leave the course with fresh inspiration. My November 2016 blog class in front my favorite downtown mural by Faith47. But this time I want to do more. Learning to blog is not a simple, step-by-step process. Every blogger wants something different from his or her blog and the people who attend my class tend to show up at various points in their blogging journeys. Some have established blogs already and are looking for pointers to spruce things up. Others have only a vague notion of starting a blog. Some plan to blog about food; others about women’s rights. Some want to start a new business while others just want a new hobby. I started to think about a way to structure my course so that every blogger or potential blogger, no matter where they are on the spectrum, can come away with a clear plan of action. The new and improved 2Summers blog course was born. The Next 2Summers Blog Course: August 2017 My next […]

June 20, 2017 by 2summers

Lightning strike over Joburg, seen from Randlords

An Instagram Challenge in 2016. A Blog Challenge in 2017.

In 2016, I committed to post a photo on Instagram every day of the year as part of a challenge called #366DaysOfMakingSpace. Even though the subject of the challenge — anything that relates to making space in my life — was broad, and even though I didn’t have to post photos on the actual day they were taken, this challenge was damn hard. It was so hard that my blogger friend who convinced me to do the challenge in the first place didn’t finish herself. (You know I love you anyway, Dee.) I’m interspersing this post with some of my favorite #366daysofmakingspace shots from 2016. I posted this one during my visit to Istanbul in February. I only missed one #366daysofmakingspace post the whole year. I was in Cappadocia in Turkey, and was so overwhelmed by the scenery that I forgot to do a post. I made up for it by double-posting the following day. Cappadocia, also in February. There were many days in 2016 when I felt uninspired and had to dig way back into my archives to find a photo. (I never posted any photos that I’d posted on Instagram previously.) There were days when I was insanely busy and didn’t remember the challenge until right […]

December 29, 2016 by 2summers

Another Chance to Attend #2SummersBlogClass

Here I sit, in the Frankfurt Airport at 11:00 a.m., blogging. This airport offers excellent free wifi and I have a few hours to kill before my connecting flight to Washington D.C. How fortunate that I have a blog. Otherwise I’d be really bored right now. This is where I’m sitting, right now, and this is my blog. Would you too like to have a blog of your own, to pass the time during endless airport layovers? If so, you should attend my #2SummersBlogClass on 19 November at Bridge Books. I held my first blog class back in July, and I must confess I was nervous about it. First I was worried that no one would sign up, and once people did sign up I was worried that no one would like this class. That didn’t happen though. Everyone loved the class, including me. I received several nice comments afterward but here is my favorite, from #2SummersBlogClass participant Roslyn: “The day did exactly what the advertising said it would – I learned to blog! We created the structure and did the technical tasks and then got tips about how to write and how to include photographs. Heather’s style of mixing anecdotes […]

October 21, 2016 by 2summers

#2SummersBlogClass: A Really Good Saturday

Yesterday I held my first #2SummersBlogClass, with nine fabulous bloggers/aspiring bloggers, at Bridge Books in downtown Joburg. It was one of the best Saturdays I’ve had in a while. Yes, I gave my blog class a hashtag. I’ve become one of those people. My blog class and me, in front of the beautiful Faith47 graffiti mural just off Gandhi Square. The First #2SummersBlogClass We spent the day in the Bridge Books meeting room at 87 Commissioner Street, talking about why to start a blog, tips on creating a strong, readable blog, how to promote a blog on social media, and how to shoot great photos for a blog. We took a photowalk around the CBD, visiting one of downtown Joburg’s best rooftop apartments, meeting people in shops and on the street, and exploring historic landmarks. Merishia shoots the city from the Apprentice Penthouse balcony, owned by Urban Ocean, on Albertina Sisulu Street. View of downtown Joburg through the porthole-shaped window in the Apprentice Penthouse bathroom. We wandered into a shop called Nombini Christine Fashion Design at the corner of Harrison Street and Albertina Sisulu. We had to do some negotiation to gain permission to take photographs, which was good practice for […]

July 31, 2016 by 2summers

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