Oops!

I wrapped and packed the placemats for Josh's mom without taking a picture of them - oops!  I guess you'll just have to believe me when I say they were works of art.  Collectively, they were the Mona Lisa of placemats.

However, I did take a picture of my workspace post-Christmas-projects:

I've become messy!  For Christmas, I want little elves to come tidy up and organize my fabric scraps.

Projects Galore

I've been working on Christmas gifts for people pretty non-stop these past couple weeks while Josh is on night float again.  I don't think any of the recipients know about the blog, so I'll put up some pictures!

First, I made Josh's grandma a purse like the one I carry from Elizabeth Hartman's Margaret Bag pattern:

Josh said, "It's so awesomely old lady!"

Second, Josh and I made a jewelry box for our older niece:

Josh did most of the work on this one.  I stained it, but he added all the fanciness.

Third, I'm making stuffed animals for our baby niece.  I've made a bird so far, and I sewed insulated batting into the inside so it crinkles when you squeeze it (babies dig crinkling, don't they?).  I'm also going to make her a fish with a rattle inside.

Lastly, I'm making placemats for Josh's mom.  Basically, I'm making 6 tiny quilts.  I've just got to bind them now and then I'll be done and I'll put up a picture!  The quilts for Josh's cousins have been bumped to birthday presents - one in January and one in March.  That will be much more doable!

Zoo Lights

Josh and I went to Zoo Lights with our residency bff, Denise, on Sunday.  The Oregon Zoo makes beautiful displays all over the grounds.  For instance, a safari scene complete with light-alligators opening their mouths and a light-bird swooping into a light-river to pick up a light-fish.  It is pretty spectacular.  I mention this experience for two reasons:

1. Among all the animals made of lights that you would expect to find at the zoo, there was a light-triceratops and also a light-stegosaurus being attacked by light-raptors.  What?  And a light-unicorn, with a beard.  Whaaaat?

2.  We rode the steam engine.  Not the new-fangled zoo train, but the old steam engine that they only bring out for special occasions.  Why is this so exciting to me (aside from the fact that steam engines are cool)?  My grandpa helped build the Oregon Zoo Steam Engine back in the day.  I feel pretty important having that as a part of my family history.  My roots are deep in this city, and I like them here.

 

This is an old picture, we don't have any snow yet!

Cowboys and Indians

While in Tulsa last week, I met FIVE babies.  FIVE babies have been born in the five months since we've moved.  I was able to deliver quilts to two of those babies, the others having already received them, while we were there.  Josh's good friend from high school (and my friend too!) had twin boys 3 months ago, and we got to meet them.
About a month ago, I was looking through the fabric store (aka: my mom's extensive stash) and had a stroke of inspiration for these little boys!  Cowboys and Indians!  Twins don't want to be exactly alike, right?  But this way, they still go together.
Here are the finished products:

The first has cowboy boot and bandana fabric and the second is covered in little teepees.  I used the same wood print flannel backing for both of them:

I need to get started on two more quilts I want to send to Josh's cousins for Christmas.  They may end up being belated Christmas gifts, or maybe birthday presents, because Christmas is coming so fast!  I have lots of projects in mind for people, and I'll try to post them as I go along.  I hope I can get everything done!

Getting There Is Half the Fun

We took a vacation.  We went to Tulsa for Thanksgiving and saw as many people as we could - it was a blast!  It was awesome from the very beginning, though. 
We took the Max to the airport, and I passed the time by finishing up the binding on a quilt.  This got the attention of a lady who has been quilting for more than 50 years, and we talked almost the whole way there.  She was the coolest!  She told me about how she used to live on the Baja peninsula with the natives there.  She lived in a teepee and was a midwife.  She said she was the hit of the neighborhood because she had a generator and therefore a fridge and a sewing machine. 
She also told me that she was allergic to an ingredient in anti-venoms and has unfortunately had several run-ins with poisonous creatures.  I was reminded once again how great Portlanders are when she told me about just having to wait out a brown-recluse bite that was "way crazier than any of the acid trips" she'd ever done.  Then she continued on talking about her loving husband, six kids, and grandkids.  Ahh, the quaint charm of Portland's elderly!

Size Matters

I finally finished my Vernazza-yarn hat!  It took soooooo much longer than it should have because, as it turns out, size matters.
I found a pattern I liked online, found a place that could decipher crochet language for me (I  was a little rusty with what "Rnd 3: dc next st, Fpdc same st" meant), and started crocheting.  But since my yarn was skinny, I made a tiny hat.  Our second niece was born two weeks ago; this hat would have been too small for her.  So I undid my tiny hat.
I started again using both balls of yarn at once, so I was working with twice the thickness.  I made the hat again.  It was still too small.  Not comically small anymore, just too small.  So, I undid most of the hat and added several rounds to the top before remaking the band, which I also made bigger to make up for my still-too-skinny yarn.
To get to the point, I'm so happy with the result!  So much, in fact, that I am wearing the hat right now, which is a little silly because I'm inside, at my desk, typing on a computer.
Here it is (with the perfect button that I found in my mom's button jar):

For the Birds

I have this thing for bird fabrics right now.  Or really any product with a bird silhouette.  Whenever I picture the sewing room I will one day have, it always has yellows, greens, and blues and birds, birds, birds.  I went to a "Handmade Holiday" open house at Modern Domestic and saw this:

I tried to be nonchalant about taking the picture on my phone, so it's kind of a rough photo, but you get the idea.  I think it's awesome and would be so easy to make!  It gave me something more to imagine in my future sewing room.

They also had cute appliqued stockings that looked like they would be fun to make with a group of friends:

Don't you wish you could just stay home and be crafty all day?  I certainly do!

Inspiration

I have a lot of time to think at work right now as I finish up some gigantic constituent imports.  I’m at the stage now where I only have to push a button occasionally while the computer does the heavy lifting, but since my database is hard at work, I can’t use it to do any other tasks.  Thus, extensive article-reading, dreaming, and blog-stalking.

I’ve been following Elizabeth Hartman’s book The Practical Guide to Patchwork on its blog tour, entering a giveaway every day hoping to win a copy (if not, it will sit atop my Christmas list).  Today, I read a brief interview in which she talked about inspiration for quilt patterns and I thought about what inspires me when I design a quilt.  Most quilts I’ve made have been as gifts and the inspiration for them comes from the person I make them for.  I’m especially proud of my patchy Texas Flag quilt I made for Brian and the bright yet warm exotic floral quilt I made for Crystal.

However, such inspiration mostly affects fabric choices while I rely on books or blogs for actual block layouts.  As I read, I found myself wishing I were better at creativity.  I often feel that way.  I perform well when given guidelines, but I struggle in making up my own guidelines.  This applies to quilting and other types of sewing, but also to music and to cooking, and even how I enact my faith.

I recently read Shane Claiborne’s Jesus for President (again) and was reminded that Jesus lived his life finding unexpected solutions to the many problems humanity faces living in a broken system.  How many times did He say, “You have heard it said…but I say to you”?  And when was anyone with Him and say, "I totally saw that coming"?  I want to be more creative as I discover solutions to life’s big questions that stem from the values of the Kingdom.  Yes, I’m sure it will be difficult and probably uncomfortable, but I am motivated, and by no means do I think that all answers and options have been established yet.

What's Over There? Oh, The President

On my way to work yesterday, I heard that President Obama would be at the Convention Center in Portland and because of that my evening train would be delayed.  Well, the Convention Center is just one short block away from where I catch the Max, so I thought I'd go check it out after work.
But then I read that people had been lining up since dawn and that not everyone there would get in when the doors opened at 4.  I don't get off till 6, but when I got off my bus at the station, I wanted to see what the deal was anyway.
I walked over to the Convention Center and saw a bunch of policemen guarding the back door because the President hadn't arrived yet.  I thought, "Well maybe I'll catch a glimpse as he's rushed inside," but I stood there for a long time and nothing was happening.  So I went around to the doors just to see what else there was.  As I walked up, there was a small group to whom a secret serviceman gestured and said, "All right, you're the last group in."  I made myself a part of that group and went on inside!
I had to wait through a lot of other political speakers, but eventually President Obama came in and spoke for a good half hour.  It wasn't terribly crowded so I got pretty close - probably the closest I'll ever get to a president.  However, like in side mirrors on a car, objects in an iPhone camera are closer than they appear, so this picture is misleading about my proximity:

Really, I could see his face clearly enough to see his varying expressions, which is saying something because I'm approaching blindness faster than I would prefer. (My eyesight takes after my mom's who, without contacts, says, "I can still see light and color" - oh, good)

Now I've seen a president in person, and rather spontaneously too!

Monster

I have my first Portland Modern Quilters' Guild meeting tomorrow night, and we are having a pincushion exchange.  Nike lent me her pincushion pattern book and I picked a cute little cactus to make.  Well, the pattern was a lot bigger than I thought it was, and I ended up making a bigger cactus than I thought, and I think mine looks more like a monster:

I love him, but I don't know that others will find him lovable.  He is a little dweeby looking.

Night Float

Josh and I have opposite schedules this week and next week.  He leaves for work at 5 pm while I'm on my way home and gets home after 8 am while I'm on my way to work.  We are exactly opposite.  I've been leaving a little late so I can see him for 10 minutes in the morning.  Yep, that's it.  It only lasts for one more week though, and the more night float is worked into the residency schedule, the fewer nights of random call the residents have during the year.  It's an investment, really.

I fully intended to get tons of sewing done on these empty evenings, but I've been wholly unmotivated.  All I've done so far is choose patterns for my next two and stare at the fabric for a while from the comfiest chair in the world - which happens to be in my mom's sewing room.  So I may not have a project to post for a little bit.

I do, however, have to make a pin cushion for an exchange at my first ever Portland Modern Quilters' Guild meeting next week.  I've never made one before, but how hard can it be, right?  And today I started my Italian-souvenir-yarn hat.  I found a pattern I like and crocheted about 6 rounds before pulling it all out.  I think I got the hang of the "front post double crochet" stitch, but now I think I can do better than the chunk I made trying to figure it out.  I'll post it when it's done.  I'm secretly hoping I'll have enough yarn for two hats, but as I've never made a hat before, I don't know how much I'll need.

Happy Friday!

Halfway There

I've finished 5 of the 10 quilts I had planned when we first moved to Oregon.  It's been extra nice having my mom's sewing room and fabrics and machine to help me knock all these out!  I finally finished the grey and yellow one that I posted about almost two months ago.  It's for our niece who is due to be born at any moment!  I put it in the mail for her yesterday:

In this one you can see the butterflies that it's quilted all over with:

And not to leave out our first niece Abi, who is so excited to be a big sister, I made a purse for her because she's pretty much a grown-up now:



We bought tickets to go visit over Thanksgiving and we're so excited to see everybody.  Since all of the quilts I have left belong in Oklahoma, I'll try to get as many of them as I can done by then so we can deliver them in person.

Cave Canem

It's another Europe post!

One of the coolest things we did while abroad was visit Pompeii.  It wasn't what I expected after visiting other ruins because it still looked like a city.  We walked around on streets that had ruts worn in the stone from cart travel.  We went into houses built 2000 years ago and admired the murals on the wall and the mosaics on the floor.  We saw the bars, brothels, and temples and could still tell what they were.  There were vases, sculptures and pieces of furniture on display.  All of which had been suddenly buried under ash and thus preserved since AD 70.  (There were also plaster casts made from the actual inhabitants frozen in place, covering their faces as they were covered in ash from Vesuvius - it was eerie)

One of the most famous mosaics is this one found at the entrance of one of the homes:

"Cave Canem" means "Beware of Dog."  Awesome, right?!

Also awesome is that it kind of looks like my dog:

Also also awesome is that there are still dogs living in Pompeii.  They just have free reign of the city.  They're kept there under protection and are up for adoption.  You can adopt a dog from Pompeii.  Tell me that's not cool!

Beautiful

When I lived in Tulsa, I got to work for Melissa Ramirez.  She has a beautiful family.  Her kids, the Spectacular Sophia and the Extraordinary Elijah, are bright, witty, and fun - just like their parents!  I enjoyed seeing them both come through the office from time to time.

Elijah has overcome a lot in his (nearly) four years, and last week I was glued to their blog Pray For Eli as his dad, David, posted videos of him getting his brand new "special shoes" and learning to walk.  I watched the videos during lunch and it was all I could do to keep from jumping up to celebrate his victories in my cubicle!  If you want to get to know a beautiful family, visit that blog!  Even if you don't wander over to their blog, keep them in your prayers as Elijah masters walking.  After all, he has a dynamo of a big sister to keep up with!

Busy Busy

This last week was busy.  I finished this quilt for our friends the Herberts who had their first son, Daxton, this weekend.  Congratulations to them!

Because of my poor photography skills, I don't know if you can see that the fabrics include waves, palm trees, and starfish or that it's quilted all over with waves.  Those Herberts love the West Coast, and who can blame them?

Then Josh and I went on vacation.  Josh hadn't seen Central Oregon before so we visited Bend and Sisters.  We met a legit watch maker in Sisters from whom we will purchase all our wrist and/or pocket time pieces in the future.  The guy is an artist!  I don't remember his name.  But Josh got his card.

On the way home, we decided to track down some ghost towns, since Oregon has the most.  We bought a book at Powell's before leaving the city, but since they deal mostly in used books, the only one on ghost towns we could find was 40 years old.  Mistake!  Although, it is the same book my Grandpa used when he and Grandma went on a ghost town tour in the '70s (no lies).

Our journey was kind of a bust, because in the last 40 years one of the towns from the book had completely disappeared and two others had kind of bounced back (good for them, though!).  My unstable relationship with the camera was momentarily in good standing when I took this picture:

Too bad the only real abandoned building we saw was surrounded by barbed wire and "No Trespassing" signs.  Oh well, it was nice to have a break, and I certainly enjoyed five whole days in a row with Josh!

Fight (Almost)

I said I would blog about my adventures on TriMet, but nothing too extraordinary has happened.  Sometimes I see things that make me feel pretty good about humanity – like the spacey kid with his pants belted around his knees getting up to give his seat to the lady with crutches before being asked.  Sometimes I see things that are funny – like the dude with a case of beer just handing them out to everyone on the train and starting a party.  Sometimes, though, I see things that make me sad for humanity, but I don’t need to bring out those stories.  So instead I’ll tell one that started in that direction, but had a sort of comical twist.

I was sitting near the back of the train and heard a lady yelling.  It sounded like she thought she was in a fight, but I couldn’t tell if the other person was as into the fight as she was.  I imagine the other person was standing there, having inadvertently offended her, not knowing how to get out of an awkward situation with a crazy person.  I guess this because I only ever heard one voice.

Well, the Max driver got tired of the yelling and at the next stop got on the intercom to ask them to take the fight off the train.  The angry girl immediately jumped off and started yelling curse words mixed in with things like “How dare you look at me that way,” or “Who do you think you are?”  While she was having her fit trying to get the fight to follow her, the driver just closed the door and started on down the tracks leaving her with no one to accost.

Well done, driver.

Filler

I'm still here!  Aside from getting half my quilt blocks done for Juliette's baby quilt, we picked peaches for canning this week, and we picked a little bit of blackberries.  We only picked enough for two and a half cans of jam, which I made today.  I just wanted to check in and put up a single picture from our Europe trip before getting back to sewing.

I want to show off the very small bags we took with us!  It was incredibly handy to not have to check anything, nor to have to lug big bags on and off the many trains we took.  These are our backpacks lounging by the sea in Greece while we did the same.

Yes, that is all we had between the two of us for a month of travel.  I even had a fancy occasion dress for going out to dinner in Venice stuffed in mine.  As my sewing projects wind down, I'll post more pictures, I promise!

Fabric Love

I bought some fabric this weekend for a project for our new (on-the-way) niece, and I think it's the cutest stuff I've ever purchased:

I haven't decided what to do with it yet, but I love the gray and yellow scheme.  And those birds, I love those birds!  I'll post the finished product when it's all together, though that might be a while.  I expected to have all kinds of time this week since my commute is lessened as we house-sit on the east side.  I've only done the eenciest bit of sewing, though.  I had already forgotten how much time having a house takes up.

The Great Chicken Caper

Josh and I are house sitting this week for a couple of his senior residents.  Our responsibilities include caring for the gardens, the dog, the cat, and the chickens.  They said we could bring Ada, and we thought she would make a great addition to the household, but I didn't anticipate one thing - she turned out to be a professional chicken hunter.

Yes, within five minutes of taking over guardianship of our friends' home, Adelaide found the backdoor open and discovered her feathered friends.  She chased them until one flew over the front gate, one completely vanished, and one was in her clutches.  After I got her to release the chicken and tugged her back to the truck, I tried to figure out what to do. I went back to the chicken she caught, expecting to find it mortally wounded, but it was only scared out of its mind and had gotten up to hide behind the compost bin.  Where it stayed for hours.

Then, after setting up Ada's crate and relocating her (I'm not cruelly leaving her in the car on the hottest day of the year even if she did try to do in the chickens), I began my search of the neighborhood.  I went around and asked the neighbor over the back fence if our chicken ended up in his yard - no.  I asked several passers-by if they'd "seen a chicken clucking around" - no.  I searched the yards surrounding the house, but only found a glass chicken yard ornament - not good enough.

In complete shame and despair, I gave up and went back to the house to eat.  I texted Josh, who was on call at the hospital.  I did some Red Cross work.  I called my friend to commiserate.  Several hours passed.  Then, I decided to water the plants so nothing else met its demise on our watch.  Lo and behold!  Chicken #2 emerged from under the house.  I quickly made sure that it was not Chicken #1 simply in a new place.  No!  Chicken #1 is still terrified behind the compost bin!  Having two chickens is way better than having one chicken!

Revitalized by this discovery, I thought, "Surely the other chicken is still hiding nearby!"  I began my search again and quickly found Chicken #3 in the neighbors tree.  I told it to stay where it was and went to get gloves.  I could only find snow gloves.  I chased the chicken around the front yards of several houses in snow gloves.  I caught the chicken and put her back where she belongs.  Days later, we still have all three chickens!

We did relocate Ada back to my parents the next morning, though.

Supurrr

I love this ugly mug

Make Yourself at Home

So, I tried to come up with a clever title for my revamped blog.  I'm pretty pleased with "Make Yourself at Home" for two reasons.  The first is that I love to be hospitable.  I love doing/making things for people and making them feel welcome around me.  I want you to make yourself at home. 

The second reason is that I feel the most myself when I am at home doing what I love.  It is where I get to be creative, it is where I naturally put others first, it is where I best like who I am.  I try to be consistent everywhere I go, of course, and having this home space where I can ground myself daily and "make myself" into who I want to be is so helpful for those efforts.  So, when you run into "commuter Laura" or "workday Laura" or "hanging out Laura," know that she is trying to be kind and intentional and thoughtful and creative and productive because that's the person I want to make myself into.  And for me, that starts at home.

Commissioned

Before I left Tulsa, my friend Susan entrusted me with a collection of shirts that had belonged to her mother.  She asked me to make them into two quilts – one for her and one for her brother.  Her only instruction was to make them as colorful as possible, so I decided to use a little bit of each of the 15 shirts she gave me.

My mom helped me out by removing all the buttons and cutting the shirts apart at the seams to give me the largest possible pieces to work with.  I then cut them into strips of varying widths and arranged them into 30 differently designed squares. 

I finished the first on Tuesday and will bind the other this weekend.  I had a lot more fabric left over than I expected, but Susan wanted some to have made into teddy bears for their kids.  In that case, I will mail the remaining material to her along with these:

Please pardon my poorly lit pictures!

Our Life Nowadays

Josh gets up a little after 5am to get ready and go to work.  I get up at 6:30 to do the same.  My trip to work includes an hour on the Max and bus to get to the Red Cross.  Work is uneventful (for me at least, Josh's day is probably more bloggable than gift entry and database cleanup).  I try to use my twice daily hour commutes as a Trimet passenger wisely: reading, crocheting, working my Tulsa job, etc.  I get home around 6 and bide my time until Josh gets home at 7ish.  We then have two hours until he goes to bed and I work for an hour on whatever crafty project I need to complete next.  That's right folks, we spend 2-3 hours in each others' company per day.  Of course, it is less than that if he is on call and doesn't come home in the evening at all, which happens about once a week.  Weekends are glorious and we have 48 beautiful hours to work in the garden, go to Portland's many festivals, and take advantage of all the outdoor fun at our fingertips.  Except when he's on weekend call - like this weekend.

I'm not trying to be Complains McGee over here, I just thought a little sketch of this new life would be interesting to do.  Compared to his last year of medical school, where he had tons of free time and we both worked about 7 minutes from our house and could have lunch together anytime, it's a big change!  This daily routine won't last forever, in fact it will get better each year he's a resident, and we are looking forward to life after residency when he can set his hours more reasonably.  In the meantime, though, we appreciate having at least those two hours a day - happy fourth anniversary, Dr. Reese!  Thank you for spending your free time with me, I enjoy your company in life.

"I'd buy that!"

I made this purse before we went to Europe so I could have a roomy purse to supplement the sole backpack I brought for our four week adventure. Since I couldn't find one at a store that suited me, I raided my mom's fabric stash and made one myself. The pattern is Elizabeth Hartman's at Oh, Fransson! who is my favorite quilting blogger and a fellow Portlander.

On Friday, Josh, our new intern bff, Denise, and I went to the Brewer's Festival downtown. I got there first, so I passed the time listening to the fantastic bluegrass band, Head for the Hills. While I did so, a girl came up and asked me where I got my bag. It was such a great feeling to announce "I made it!" She said that she would "totally buy it," but as I can't take credit for it's design, and it was full of my stuff at that moment, that is/was not an option. Kudos to Elizabeth Hartman for a great pattern, though! And the compliment made me pretty proud of my assembling skills.

New Look!

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I gallivanted around Europe with my husband for four weeks. I watched him become a doctor. I drove a Jeep 2500 miles from Tulsa to Portland via the Grand Canyon (with no a/c, might I add). I got a job doing for the Oregon Red Cross pretty much the same thing I did for Tulsa's. I'm still working for the Tulsa chapter, too. Now I feel all settled and can get back to a normal schedule that, ideally, will include more regular blogging. And for this new life, I felt a new blog-look was appropriate.

I plan to blog about many things, including our Europe trip, my adventures riding the train through Portland every day, the awesome stuff there is to do in this great city, and the stuff that I make with fabric, yarn, or food. For now, I'll combine two of those topics and show you my favorite souvenir of our recent trip:

Handspun yarn from Vernazza, Italy in the Cinque Terre! I spoke with the lady who makes it and she told me all about the different things she uses to dye her yarn. Mine was dyed with ivy leaves. She uses cabbage, onion skins, and all kinds of things to make beautifully colored yarn. Plus, as she put it, she "has much fun!" I think I'm going to make it into a hat. First, I need to learn how to make a hat.

Disappearing Act

We made it to Portland without any problems, and even got everything on the list done before we took off. Well, everything except Josh's paper which he is finishing this week.

We leave for Vienna in 5 days, and I am nervous about something: my dog. Since we've been at my parents' she has made a run for it twice. She is in a new place and doesn't understand, I get it. She's probably looking for home. But what if she does that while Josh and I are gone and she won't come to Mom and Dad? Yikes. Maybe we'll get her microchipped before we leave.

Homework, shopping, and desperate-dog-training will fill our next five days!

Moving

There is still so much to do before we move in one week.
We have to finish packing and cleaning our little house. We have some repairs and gardening things we would like to finish. We have to make the last reservations for our trip. We have to cancel all our Tulsa utilities and memberships. Josh has a paper to write that he has been trying to get information about for three weeks. (Thanks preceptor, for your prompt attention. It's not like we're leaving the country soon or anything.) We have to find a storage unit in Oregon to have the relo-cube delivered to. We have people to see and goodbyes to say.
Stress!

I think I just need to make a list. Sometimes I think all stress can be solved by a good list.

Hair Plugs

An actual conversation at my garage sale today:

Me: "Good morning, how are you?"
Old Man: "As good as a 73 year old man can be."
He sees Ada's crate which is serving as a table to display my items.
"That's a big crate. What do you have? An Akita?"

I was impressed at his guess, as Ada was unhappily cooped up in the back yard.
"Why yes, we do!"

"I like them. My hair is Akita hair."

I thought, "Whaaaaaaaaaaat?", but said, "Oh, really?"

"Yep. I sent a sample of my hair away and the closest match was Akita hair, so they made me plugs out of it. Do you want to feel it?"

I took his word for it, because apparently I can just go pet Ada and it would be the same.

Committed

I just bought us tickets to Vienna. I'm excited, but that was just one of the scariest decisions I've ever made. I feel a little irresponsible and a little intimidated. Also, I realized we'll miss the series finale of Lost. What?!

Whew, I'll get all the jitters out of my system. They're already starting to fade with that confession.

The plan is to start in Vienna and wander through Hallstatt, Venice, Rome, Florence, Naples, Corinth, Delphi, and fly home from Athens. We'll be making those reservations in the next couple weeks, in addition to having a garage sale, packing, and Tulsa family stuff before we go.

The "Relo-cube" will be delivered to our house on April 14th and we'll probably hit the road to Portland on the 15th or 16th. Our goal is to take only one cube thing; the rest of our stuff is to be sold or given away. Do you need anything?

Long Time No Blog

I won't bother with any catch up info because by far the most interesting things are right now!

Thursday was Josh's Match Party. He planned a swanky shin-dig at the newly restored, art deco May Hotel downtown. That place is gorgeous. All the students in his class got there and tried to make small talk and pretend like they were eating and weren't the most nervous they'd ever been.

See, they'd all ranked the places they wanted to be assigned for residency. Then the programs had all ranked the students they'd like to hire. A supercomputer somewhere ran some algorithms and tried to get all the students and all the programs in the whole country their highest choices. Once it finishes - that's that. You go to the place it spits out for you. Everyone in the country finds out at the same time.

Josh planned a pretty excellent reveal. At noon everyone opened a box with a fleece in it. Their name, MD and their assigned program were embroidered on said fleece. It was a hit! Josh should rethink medicine and go into party planning.

Josh's fleece told us that we are going to Providence Milwaukie, which is not in Wisconsin, but rather in Oregon. Woohoo! Yes, we are moving in with my parents.

So now, I have two weeks left to work at the Red Cross and Josh has two papers to write until he's officially done with medical school. We are planning to move in mid/late April. We escaped up to White Rock Mountain immediately after the party to plan all the "last things" to do in Tulsa (which makes me sad), our move (I think we're utilizing those handy moving pods), and a trip to Europe before graduation. I'm starting to pack today!