How I Fill My Days

Though I still feel like I am just WAITING for the next thing, I am still managing to fill my days with some fun. Last Friday we decided to have some friends over for a dinner party. I don't take pictures during socializing, so this is all I have:

Brad and I:





Dress: Volcom from Buffalo Exchange in Tucson
Cardigan: Target
Belt: Red Fox Vintage on Killingsworth
Tights: F21
Shoes: thrifted "Naturalizer"

I've also been working on some projects, one of which is a ridiculously time-consuming crochet blanket:





It probably won't be done before the cold is gone, but at least the texture is coming out pretty neat. I'm using a double cluster shell stich (I think).

Things I Would Like to Do

(in no particular order)

http://pinterest.com/pin/178525572698677074/

1. Start collecting brass candlesticks

Fake Spring?

Today was sunny. Acutally sunny. In February. I even saw sun yesterday, too. I think fake spring is upon us.

Anyway. Brad and I finished a collective project recently -- one which has been on the back burner for quite some time (since August!). He drew the geometric pattern; I selectively painted it and erased remaining lines:

I really like how it turned out. This is to live in the downstairs, and the colors are pulled from various things in the room (a painting, the walls, a pendleton throw Becky got me, and a chair). I still need to spray it with a coat of something to seal it, but otherwise its all done.


So it being fake spring and all means the cats are pretty happy. Vashti looks so pretty in the sunlight (though when does she not?).

So lovely.

Tucson and Valentine's Day

Our trip to Tucson was fantastic. We hiked a lot, visited Tucson touristy places with Brad's parents, ate delicious food, and shopped for jewlrey and vintage dresses (okay, only I did that last two).

It looked like this:

I looked like this:

Dreaming of the Desert

I'm heading to Tucson for a vacation in approximately 2 days, and I am beyond excited. Portland is still cold, cold, cold. While it makes for the pleasant drinking of some heavy stouts (quite regularly), I am ready for some sunshine.

I've been looking mostly like this:

sweater: thrifted

dress: old navy sale

belt: thrifted

striped tights: ?

shoes: mall store



To celebrate my coming trip, and as contrast to the outfit above (which was still wayyy too cold to go outside in) I invented some pretend outfits I would wear if I packed a million things and bought a whole new wardrobe for my vacation. I think this is a new favorite hobby because I think I just want new clothes to combine exciting new colors and textures. If only I could touch 'em. I am particularly interested in touching the sweater in #2.



For shopping for vintage turquoise and going to the art museum

Green dress, bag, black shoes, melty ring

For an short sunrise hike and breakfast out after

sunrise sweater,  sea glass ring,  white oxfords (alternatively, these), colbalt jeans, canvas and leather tote, borrowed background



January.

January has been long.

Brad has been working this terrible schedule, leaving me sitting in the house wayyy too often. I've been able to complete some projects, but overall it is harder for me to be motivated when  I am stuck inside.

Shirt: UO 2010

Sweater: thrifted cashmere silk blend (warm)

Skirt: thrifted 

Tights: smart wool (gift from Mom last christmas)

over cheap-o target sweater tights

Shoes: unknown mall store, I took the laces out 

I've been trying to stay warm without too much heat or too much bulk. I've become a lot better at it over the years of living here. I can definitely take the Oregon winter, now.

kitten musings

She always looks at me like this. A look of love and a tiny bit of condescention. "Oh you," she seems to say, "you keeper of my life and heart. How can you have so much power yet be so naiive."

She watches me waste away my days, in front of glowing whirring boring things, while she perfects her downward dog (just kidding, it comes naturally) and sleeps in the planter. She woke me up this morning to play. To play! What a good cat. But I simply grunted and shut the door.

Other than the cat, I've been thinking daily, hourly, of going home. Home to late nights, mountain lion fear, restraunt work, strong hearts, wild gestures, and wise trees. The drunken (in vino veritas) words of a woman who was in Becky's math class keep coming back to me. "You have to go back, eventually." And it is so true, and I have accepted it fully into my visions of my future, but it's dominating the view. What is next, what is first, what is now?

I am begging the world for action and purpose, but I am both sitting passively and longing for the escape of home. Can I bring it there? Five thousand four hundred seventy five left to go. I am measuring time in dollars. Every time I explain how things are, the Listener has the opposite reaction as I am having. I'm a success, apparently, for doing almost nothing every day and filling up that fivethousandfourhundrenseventyfivedollar hole.

soon, Soon, SOON it will be the next thing. But that is how I've always felt. How much waiting can I do before I trick myself into waiting for death?

Ah, well, at least from Vashti I feel that I am getting the appropriate response. "You are stupid and this is dumb, but I understand and love you anyway."