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.