moving

I’ve gotten to meet with local attorneys and get pointers on how to break into the legal market here. I’ve also started volunteering at an Immigration Legal Aid Clinic three times a week. Clay and I joined a home group at church. And they are a great bunch. 

Anyway, I won’t be posting here anymore after more than five years at this site. I was just beginning law school, and arise amy was a sort of battle call when I thought I needed to rise to the occasion. Ironically those years I learned that I didn’t need to “rise” I only needed to rest on God’s finished work. And try my best out of that rest. I need only think of that time to remind myself how faithful God has been in my life. I have nothing to fear in these days of new unknowns.

I hope you’ll keep up with me on my next adventure, hopefully for another five years.

aparkbench.com 

1. Weekend breakfast for Clay (egg over medium with bacon and sharp cheddar on Hawaiian rolls). 2. Weekend breakfast for Amy (fluffy whole wheat pancakes). 3. Winter trees.

1. The amazing fall foliage has almost completely fallen off the trees on our corner. A different sort of beauty is taking over.

2. Lots of moisture, lots of moss in cracks. 

3. Free slice of marionberry pie from Shari’s. If you join Shari’s pie club, you get a free slice of pie, so Clay and I are going to sign up all seven of our collective email addresses to get seven free slices of pie. (Shari’s is the PNW’s version of Denny’s, but better, they say.)

Thanks to our visitors, Clay and I had a very delicious weekend! We got to eat out and get out of our apartment far more than we normally would allow ourselves. We tried Toro Bravo, Pok Pok Noi and Deschutes Brewery for dinner. After hearing a lot of good things about Toro Bravo, I wasn't very impressed. Everything was over-the-top in an unbalanced way for me. The elk burger at Deschutes was very good, but at $13 with a handful of fries, I'm not rushing to go back. Pok Pok Noi on the other hand was the best thing I ever ate in my entire life and I can't wait to go back. We also went on the Widmer Brewery tour and had tastings at two local distilleries--Eastside and House. 

I also made snickerdoodles, oatmeal raisin cookies and ricotta gnocchi with Marcella Hazan's 4-ingredient tomato sauce which was as good as everyone says it is.

We won't be eating for the rest of the week, to make up for this weekend :)

Clay and I biked to church today. I felt so happy and cold. Except when I went uphill.

I found nice sticks to use as rods for my weavings so that I can stop using chopsticks and pencils. Doo-doo-roo!

Experimenting with more texture.

It’s generally getting wetter but the sun has come out everyday. The forecast for the next week does not seem as favorable.

I made 3 more tiny rugs, some watercolors and stitched paper. Jenny sent me two tiny cinnamon stick branches and I turned it into a tree, about to lose its last leaf. On Friday I got 5 rejection emails notifying me that the position to which I applied had been filled. I feel purposeless. It’s a hard thing to have energy, drive, and enthusiasm, and be unemployed.

Do I hang my own shingle? Do I attempt to start a handmade business? It has been a saving outlet. Is any of it viable to support myself and Clay?

I’ll end on a good note. I'm climbing again. And I think I made a new friend named Natalie.

1. There are few things Clay and I disagree on. One of them is gravy. Clay made a nice batch from scratch.

2. The light.

3. Stir fried noodles from Frank’s Noodle House. Chewy and delicious hand-pulled noodles.

4. Clay’s seriously sinister pumpkin, rotting inside.

5. My seriously cute pumpkin.

6. My second tiny rug is complete. Much better than the first but still needs work as it tapers towards the bottom and is wobbly on the edges.

7. A fresh batch of yarn scraps from Scrap for more weaving. A gallon bag full for $1.50, yes!

8. Got invited to the Compassion First banquet and learned about their anti-human trafficking work in Indonesia. Loved the speakers and felt inspired by their work. Told Clay it felt much more like church than the actual church service we attended in the morning. We’re having a hard time choosing a church and it’s isolating, and a huge contributor to my loneliness.

Morning mist, afternoon rays.

Snack time!

1. His and hers sweet potato tots. Ketchup & mustard for me, chipotle tobasco for him.

2. Carne asada, guacamole, chip. It's taco week in the Powers home. So this was a viable snack option. We ate a pack of 30 corn tortillas in 3 days. Is that okay?

3. Almonds, water crackers, fuji apples, honey, and "unexpected cheddar" from Trader Joe's (highly recommend this cheese).

4. This week's baked good--oatmeal raisin cookies. 

Chilly sunny leafy. Shadows.

My first tiny rug is complete. It’s a little rough (lumpy) around the edges but with some practice I’ll get the hang of it. I used an empty picture frame and leftover yarn from “scrap” to make it. Creation on the cheap yo.

A word about “scrap.” It’s essentially a goodwill for craft items in Portland (and my new favorite place). They had everything from cards to wood to fabric to bottle caps to pens, items ranged from 10 cents to $2.

A canopy of color.

Afternoon walk with Clay for ice cream and leaf collecting.

On Friday Clay and I went to Clyde Common for happy hour. The $6 burger was incredible (yes, incredible). Buttery pillowy bun, meat cooked medium rare and juicy, pickled onions, oozy cheese, whole grain brown mustard. Flavors worked together beautifully. I liked it better than umami in L.A., but I’m not a fan of umami so take that as you will. Drinks were typical of a joint like it (infused liqueurs) very reasonably priced at $5. Fries were also great, higher quality crispy McDonald’s fries. And that’s not a bad thing, I love McDonald’s fries.

We left to walk around the neighborhood and didn’t get far before we noticed a crowd of people two doors down. They asked for IDs at the door because there was free food and beer inside for the tanner goods and danner boots launch party. Um, OKAY. We shared a pork bahn mi sausage sandwich catered from Lardo’s, a place on our long list of places to eat in Portland. The sandwich was SO good, SO.

Feeling full and happy, we continued our stroll by a theatre that plays indie movies (and sells upscale food and drinks to be enjoyed inside, in addition to the usual king size candy bar fare)—another place to return to. We’ll need more than 2 years to cover all that this small big city has to offer. We dropped into Powell’s bookstore since I had never been and called it a night. And it was only 7:30pm when we got home. This is wherein we vowed to always go to happy hour. Always and always amen.

Went to Sauvie Island, the largest island in the Columbia River, to pick pumpkins with Jesse and Bo. The pumpkin patch made me sad because it looked like a slaughter yard, pumpkin guts and rotting mixed with still-normal-looking-but-we-all-know-are-dying-everyday, pumpkins.

We saw animals, rode a tractor train, looked at a beach on the Columbia River, and I noticed this sad lonely pumpkin in a field separated from the rest. It was lovely to be outside. I felt thankful to be doing one of those things you’d only want to do with other people, and particularly with other people you love.

Dried up palette from wedding program watercolors.