I have decided that I would like to live in this purple house. Or really I’ll take almost any house as long as it’s in Portland.

We went to House of Vintage and these are some pictures from inside.  I really enjoy the cat picture on the right.

Madnesss!  It’s a hoarders dream!

Eric said this shirt totally reminded him of the 80s and he could totally picture this shirt tucked into some nice white jean shorts.  Oh that Eric!

We headed to the Rogue brew pub for dinner.  Had some delicious beer and headed back to the hotel.

I had forgotten to mention that we went to two fantastic diners for breakfast, The Original and The Roxy.  The Original was modern and had lots of vegetarian/vegan options on their menu.  The Roxy has been around since the 70s.  It definitely had more of a hole in the wall kind of feel but was fantastic!

Day 3, we finally made it to the ocean! A much nicer drive over the mountains.  I have many more pictures, but will do a different post once I get home and have unpacked the camera. The picture below is from my phone.  We had a lovely lunch at the Pelican Pub and then drove back Portland.   The mountains and forrest were so beautiful as well. 

We had a low key evening and went out for a lovely dinner.  So far we’re really enjoying that it’s like 40 degrees here and we can walk everywhere.  I don’t want to go back to the winter in Wisconsin!  There are blooming flowers here and other such loveliness.

Here are the sexy bus stops in Portland complete with monitors for upcoming bus times.  Madison thinks in it’s this, but it’s really not.

Just a quick picture snapped outside our hotel.  So modern and fancy.  Our hotel is so pretentious, it’s fantastic.

We had dinner at the most bazaar place called Mummy.  We were the only people there except for the two egyptian guys who ran the place.  We’re pretty sure it was some kind of front as they seemed surprised to have anyone come in for dinner.  But the food was great and they had fantastic hummus.

We didn’t do much else that was exciting.  Although I did buy a new Betsey Johnson dress.  We were pretty beat from traveling.  The plan today is to drive out to the ocean for the day.  Tomorrow is exploring the Pearl district and Thursday is still up in the air for now.

So here are some links to some fabulous belts.

Industrial Grey Leather Muse Belt

Necktie Obi Belt

Hawk Belt Buckle

Holla Belt Inspira

Waist Pack by Happy Cow

 I really really want one of these waist packs.  Seems like it would be so handy with the kiddo.

In the spirit of decluttering the house, I’m trying to complete projects with materials I already have and boy do I have a lot of materials.  I have fabric, buttons, trim, patterns, yarn and thread galore.  It’s ridiculous.  I’m considering having some sort of online yard sale/please just take this stuff for free extravaganza.  no more real yard sales for me and I don’t want to just take all this stuff to goodwill.  But for now I’m trying to pick out the things I really want to make and get sewing/crafting.  I’m finding that my excess of crafting stuff is starting to cause me stress.  The total opposite of what I want crafting/sewing to do.  So I need to just make what I want and get rid of the rest.  No more Joann’s for me until I’m ready to work on one project at a time.  I think that needs to be my creative approach considering the amount of time I have to create in life.  I need to be smart with my creating.  I shouldn’t waste time creating things I’m not completely in love with because of what little amount of time I have to squeeze in those precious few hours of being creative.

First I’m making some gentleman pajamas for the bear. I had a couple of yards of black flannel laying around so I started this project Sunday while Indie took a nap.  I finished the pants and I’m about half way done with the shirt.  I will be finishing the shirt up tonight most likely. A fun little project.  I do enjoy sewing for my little man. It’s probably a bit morbid to make a straight black set of pajamas for an almost two year old, but I think he will look rather dignified.  I also sometimes refer to these types of pajamas as his little don draper pajamas.  I think I’ll be making more of these for the coming months as Indie looks adorable in them.

A peek at a finished project for you.  I had some dishcloth yarn hanging around so I decided to go old school and easy with my knitting right now and make some dish cloths.  Knitting dish cloths has a special place in my heart as they are the very first thing I learned how to knit and the only thing I knew how to knit for quite some time.  My Grammy taught me how to knit them when I was probably 8 or 9 years old.  Definitely not in the double digits yet.  I still have that very first pair of size 8 knitting needles that she gave me.  So sentimental.

Well I’m off to do not creative work and think about coming home to clean and then create.

I did make a menu for the week so hopefully that will help.  I’m also planning on 1 or 2 cleanse days this week. 

Here’s the workout plan for the week:

• Mon – run 1/2 hour
• Tues – run 1/2 hour; strength 1/2 hour
• Wed – Kinect Your Shape
• Thurs – run 1/2 hour; yoga
• Fri – run 1/2 hour; strength
• Sat – none
• Sun – none

Without the focus of the couch to 5K or marathon training, I haven’t been as awesome with working out.  I think I need to create a quarter marathon training plan so I have something more structured to work with.  Otherwise I just tend to avoid. Ah good habits are hard to establish.

Don’t worry, this morning I did not cave to impulses.  I said Lindsay you don’t really need zumba today now do you? 

I’m not always that lucky.  Sometimes at the end of the conversation with myself I do actually buy Hip Hop Abs.  But I did use that DVD alot.  I should find it and start using it again.  I never did get those hip hop abs….

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