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Crazy Tourist | Crazytourist.com

The true life diary of a wanderer

  • Home
  • Travel
    • Los Angeles
    • International
    • What I Packed and What I Wore
  • Knitting
    • Free Patterns
    • Hats
  • Navelgazing
    • Tips & Tricks
    • Sewing
    • Crafting
    • Food
    • My Crazy Household
    • Neurotica
    • Right Now I Am …
  • These Cats Speak French
  • About Me
TravelWhat I Packed and What I Wore

The Clothes Are Laminated And The Suitcase Zips!

It’s happeninggggggg!!!!

The suitcase is full of crinkly clothing packages. It is kind of miraculous how well compression bags work. I have seven minutes to write this and get myself sorted but here is my performance art photo gallery of laminated clothing.

Also! I am not bringing my laptop so I probably won’t figure out how to post pictures on this blog while traveling but hopefully you have Instagram because I spend my entire travel time taking pictures and posting on there and generally being drunkenly talkative on stories. I’m @crazyauntpurl and let’s hope I packed pants for the benefit of us all!

The Clothes Are Laminated And The Suitcase Zips! was last modified: February 13th, 2019 by Laurie Perry
February 13, 2019 3 comments
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TravelWhat I Packed and What I Wore

This Day Is Crazy And So Am I

You guys! I did not feel vacation vibes at all until last night at 10:55 PM when suddenly they kicked in with the fury and I am going on vacation tomorrow! Finally! All I have done for a month is look at Norway weather forecasts and dream of snow and also roll my eyes at the pile of work obligations and weird requests from my boss and feel further and further from true vacation mindset and now suddenly it is here and I was not prepared!

This morning I woke up at 5 AM and tried on all my clothes and put them in compression bags. I am not kidding you when I tell you these bags work like a mother effah! They are basically weird plastic Ziplocs that you put your clothes in, and then you roll them until all of the air squeezes out of invisible spots at the edges of the bags and they compress down into tiny little laminated packets.

I bought this set on Amazon and also additionally about five other brands online but these are the ones that work the best. What I am trying to say here is that I did the market research by simply buying ALL OF THE BAGS possible in the known universe and trying them all out over the past few weeks and deciding that these no-name brand ones are the ones you can most rely upon to squeeze your clothes AND also stay laminated for at least one week. As one does.

Yes I am carrying my gigantic winter coat on the plane, but I have two additional down coats squeegeed into these little laminated packets. My suitcase does not technically close, ahem, so I may have to jettison a coat. I have all my underwear and socks packed. And then this morning I stood in my bedroom with a cup of coffee and one snoring cat on the bed and I tried on all of my outfits until I figured out mostly/kinda/sorta what I was going to wear and then I put them all in the bags and started squeezing.

I made four shirts, two pj pants and one extremely thick pair of skirted leggings for this trip. The leggings may not make it to Norway after all because they are way too bulky and did I mention the suitcase does not close? I still have not finished the last hat that I was planning to knit for this but hopefully I can get to do it on the plane. I have so many hats and I have a scarf and I have my mittens and gloves and three coats (for now) and two pairs of shoes and frankly I should just move to Norway because I strongly feel I’m a winter person.

Not to get into a whole deep monologue on body issues because honestly I just can’t even, not enough wine, too early in the morning… but trust me, I am a winter person. I am an honest true “never naked“ person. I will never be a “walk around in a tank top and feel comfortable in short shorts” kind of lady. First of all you can get ringworm that way. Real talk.

I’m more of a “give me a slanket and also additional socks” kind of person. My naked parts aren’t touching seating that other people’s naked parts have been touching.

This makes me extraordinarily well suited for cold weather. As part of my study and deep research on arctic living I started watching a show on amazon prime called “Trapped.” IT IS SO GOOD. The captain and I watched it kind of like we were watching a documentary and now we know how to both solve crime and dress for Icelandic winter which pretty much translates to arctic Norway, I am guessing, because … snow?

I’m excited to get out of here and see snow and maybe solve crime. It’s only been in the past few days I realized I have been a little down. Bob has been on the decline and work has been draining and the captain and I don’t get to see each other very much right now so everything is a little exhausting and lonely. I’m happy that we’re finally going on our winter Norway trip, and it kicks off a nice little six month period of traveling and dreaming and wearing goofy matching outfits on airplanes. I’m looking forward to the happy moments. It’s just little things … us holding hands while we stand in line at the airport. Making jokes. Doing facemasks on the plane. Call me crazy but I love the unbroken hours of sitting on an airplane because we’re together and there are no urgent texts or meetings or doctor’s appointments or bills to pay for phone calls to return… Just two people in matching shirts living 100% in the moment and somehow it’s our thing and we love it.

There will come a day when schedules will change and other things will resolve, but right now this is where we are. So we do this travel-together-and-maybe-fight-crime thing and I’m really really happy we’re going to Norway. My clothes are compressed into tiny laminated packets. I’m almost ready. Just gotta zip it all up.

This Day Is Crazy And So Am I was last modified: February 12th, 2019 by Laurie Perry
February 12, 2019 16 comments
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InternationalTravel

All Dressed Up & No Place To Snow

A week ago the weather in northern Norway was in the minuses. Minus degrees. Now we’re looking ahead to the days when we will be visiting and it’s warming up every single time I look at the long-range forecast. Stop it! I am not going to the arctic in February for my tan, people! I want to see snow, glorious snow, and lots of it. Weather is quite the cruel trickster. At this rate you’ll be reading news reports of a surprising spring heat wave in Tromsø and it will probably snow in Los Angeles while we’re gone.

Packing has been a journey. Now we are re-thinking all the weird clothing choices we made just a week ago, and I also recognize that I love drawing out the vacationy goodness of every trip by spending way more time than necessary on packing. This weekend I’m going to finish up whatever new clothes I’m making and hope to have my bags packed by the end of the weekend. I’m still taking the gigantic Land’s End coat I got on ebay but I’m not certain I’ll even need it since the current forecast has Tromsø warmer than Paris was at Christmastime.

Nonetheless, I’m suuuuuuper excited for this trip and the countdown is on. Everyone at work has been in a terrible mood for about two weeks. And I haven’t been sleeping much. Does anyone else have a geriatric cats that wails mercilessly in the night? Both Bob and Frankie do it and it’s making me insane. The vet says it’s not pain or discomfort, well, not for them. For me it’s so stressful and upsetting. I have tried calming treats and calming drops and now I have resorted to trying to keep them awake as much as possible during the day so they sleep more at night. If anyone has successfully cured the caterwauling feline, please tell me how! As of right now my current cure is to take lots and lots of vacations and give my housesitter combat pay. Definitely looking forward to getting some much-needed sleep on vacation. My eye bags have bags these days.

T minus a few days yet. Think snowy thoughts for us!

All Dressed Up & No Place To Snow was last modified: February 8th, 2019 by Laurie Perry
February 8, 2019 6 comments
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Navelgazing

I Made Leggings That Are 1/7th Of My Allotted Carryon Luggage Weight

Well, I did it, sort of! I sewed my own skirted leggings!

Not to bore you to death again with sewing, but this is a big accomplishment for me, as my beloved Eileen Fisher skirted leggings are starting to develop holes and I can only iron on so many heart-shaped black patches before it starts to look like leg measles.

To make my own, I used a leggings pattern that I know fits me great (the free Patterns for Pirates Peg Legs) and then I carefully traced the skirt portion of my existing Eileen Fisher skirted leggings along with a waistband to connect them both.

My goal was to:

1) make skirted leggings out of a very thick ponte knit to wear to Norway and

2) re-use the pattern for the rest of my life to make approximately eleventy hundred pairs in all colors of knit fabric.

Instead of making a mockup, I decided to cut right into the thick ponte knit and get going. I’m wild that way, plus time is running out for my butt to be sufficiently covered for the arctic winter.

This fabric is from Joann and I believe it is their “Refined Ponte” which is so HEAVY, it weighs as much as kevlar. Hence why it has been on my stash shelf for over a year along with some jersey-backed scuba and another mystery ponte knit because it is regularly 100 degrees here and only after purchasing said fabrics did I realize I don’t want to die of swamp crotch. Ergo, perfect weight fabrics for Norway!

The leggings fit pretty well, although they are a smidge tight. I think I got a little overzealous with the seam allowances. And they are super thick. The skirt sewed up easily and fits well. To attach these two, however, would require me sewing through 1 pants layer + 1 skirt layer + 2 waistband layers, which would require some kind of industrial strength machine I do not have.

I puzzled over this for much longer than I want to admit, and finally I decided to attach the skirt directly to the leggings like a long tube and then fold it back over itself to make a waistband casing. While that description makes ZERO SENSE, I am not even going to try to illustrate it because I don’t have confidence I can actually replicate it lol. Just know that this weird trickery actually worked. Tonight I need to add elastic to the waist, and I now have the world’s thickest skirted leggings.

Next up, I had planned to use the scuba material for a version of the Mimi G pants I made over the weekend (Simplicity # 8655). But looking at the weather forecast now in Tromsø, the temperatures are climbing into the toasty mid 30s and I’m not sure I need special neoprene pants. Did I mention time is running out and no one at my workplace is exactly laying off the special projects just so I can sew more? Plus I still have two more shirts to complete.

Why I suddenly decide to sew an entire capsule wardrobe for me + matching boyfriend shirts before EVERY DAMN TRIP is beyond me, but there you have it. Luckily I have realized this is now becoming a habit, and I am already working on my ideas for a summer suitcase wardrobe for a mid-year trip to Thailand. Interestingly enough, I’m not nearly as worried about dressing for the frozen tundra as I am for the heat. In the cold weather, I can probably wear all my layers at once if need be and still fit in my coat but there are only so many layers you can remove before you get arrested. Also, I am a be-sleeved person. I need sleeves. I am introverted and so are my shoulders. Last week in a meeting I started surreptitiously drawing up ideas for loose flowy tops that can go over sleeveless things. And I may actually finish those culottes I cut out 47 years ago.

But first, the cold. Think snowy thoughts for me, because part of the reason for this much-anticipated trip is for me to see real, live, actual SNOW. I think snow is magical and I’ve only seen it snow maybe four? five? times in my life and I have been fantasizing about having snow flakes fall on my head since April of 2017 when we were in Stockholm and I lost my shit over SNOWDROPS and many Swedes were amused and probably still tell the tale of the ridiculous American who danced in joy over seeing fourteen flakes on a Saturday.

That’s all for today!

I Made Leggings That Are 1/7th Of My Allotted Carryon Luggage Weight was last modified: February 7th, 2019 by Laurie Perry
February 7, 2019 3 comments
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Los Angeles

Everything Is Wet And People Are Angry + Something About Strap-ons (For Shoes! Really!)

Los Angeles in the rain is a delight for the senses. The dulcet tones of screeching tires and honking horns. The beautiful sight of a small child at a bus stop flipping off a driver who splashed water on her. The sound of constant whining and complaining at work of how we are all just so over this weather and like, man, I’m getting literally depressed, you know?

Yes, it is still raining in Los Angeles! My boss was in a foul mood yesterday and at first I thought it was just me, but by the end of the day I realized everyone around me was grumpy and annoyed at umbrella technology and as of 9:59 AM this morning I am honestly the only person at work on my side of the office as I believe everyone else called in sick or gave up or both.

Secretly I love the rain (don’t tell anyone) and I love starting yet another knit hat, this one in smooshy Patons wool that I will work together with our leftover mitten yarn, because in just over a week we will be heading into the Arctic and while I already made eleventeen hats, we need hats that match our mittens. NEED.

I may be more excited than is healthy to visit the snow. My free time is spent plotting new and ever more bizarre winter outfits and scanning tourist photos of northern Norway in winter to see who if anyone is wearing these ridiculous strap on ice gripper thingies someone at work told me about. At first I scoffed, as one does, and then a travel blogger wrote about them and then I remembered how I managed to put myself in an ankle brace for all of last year by simply walking in Madrid and so yeah maybe I purchased three sets of bright blue strap on ice grippies.

The Captain and I keep talking about whether or not our strap ons will be confiscated in Heathrow and then laughing like fourteen year old boys.

We have to connect through London Heathrow about 15 times a year and it’s become a game to see who has the most ridiculous reason for being pulled aside for re-screening. I think I won on our last trip when I was pulled out for a re-screen and the agent took all of my liquids out of my plastic baggie and then put them in a new plastic ziploc baggie. And that was it. That was the entire reason. She re-packed my liquids. The Captain and I watched in stunned silence as she moved my tiny lotion bottle, lip gloss, contact solution, and toothpaste from one baggie to the another. It was like performance art.

So imagine how much fun we will have demonstrating how our shoe strap-ons work!

Nonetheless I am ready for this winter excursion and all the rain has simply been my version of training for a marathon. It’s made it even better that everyone at work is still grumpy as hell, because going on vacation feels like both a treat and a life-saving measure.

 

Everything Is Wet And People Are Angry + Something About Strap-ons (For Shoes! Really!) was last modified: February 5th, 2019 by Laurie Perry
February 5, 2019 7 comments
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Sewing

Overlocker? I Don’t Even Know Her! (Or: The War & Peace of Serger Reviews)

It was my birthday! Eights months ago! And to celebrate me getting yet not another year older as I have stopped doing that, I bought myself a serger! Also, I bought it back in May of 2018, so that things could be even more confusing!

Note: If you speak British, that sentence reads: I bought myself an overlocker in May!

This is the Janome My Lock 634D.

I’ve been trying it out before releasing its birth announcement into the world and I think I am in love. I want to separate out two things here, though. There’s my review of the machine itself, and the review of the place I bought it from.

First, my shopping experience

I found this model in stock at Sew Vac Direct, a shop based in Texas, and I placed my order online.  It arrived as promised in just a few days. And that is where our story takes a dark turn.

The machine they shipped me was not the brand-new factory fresh machine I purchased. It was clearly a used/returned machine and it had not even been re-threaded. It came with all the attachments, but no DVD and it was not NEW and was not THREADED. Arghhhhhhhhhhh.

Because what everyone wants, right, is to save up money for months and months for a scary exhilarating new machine and then when it arrives discover not only were they sent used merchandise but it’s a Saturday and the store is already closed and in Texas, so the only option is to try to figure out how to thread it or put it back in the box. Happy birthday?

Since there wasn’t much I could do to resolve it until the store re-opened on Monday morning, I emailed images of the machine as I received it to their customer support and then put the machine aside on Saturday. I needed time to decide if I would even attempt threading it.

Temptation was too strong. I did eventually work on threading it on Sunday, and when the store was open again on Monday I called to resolve the issue. It took a VERY LONG TIME on the phone, but they finally agreed to put $150 credit back on my card as a price adjustment for sending me a used machine.

I’m still not sure how I feel about this.

  1. They did the right thing by adjusting the price, but I had spend a long time on the phone l to get them to do it.
  2. It took them several days to actually credit me, and I had to call AGAIN to before I actually saw it on my credit card.
  3. I would never buy anything from them again, as I think it is super shady to sell used merch at full price.
  4. The machine doesn’t appear to have anything wrong with it, but one of the reasons I purchased this model is that it was supposed to come threaded. And while of course you have to learn how to thread your machine, having it pre-threaded helps you reverse engineer it a LOT faster.
  5. On the other hand, I’m pretty stoked I managed to thread this on my own having never even used an overlocker.

So that was my shopping experience. Buyer beware.

Threading the Serger

The pictures in the user’s manual might actually be diagrams for rebuilding a 1967 Mustang engine for as useful as they were. Instead, I looked on YouTube and found what appeared to be a Janome official video. I watched it a couple of times all the way through, as well as a few other videos online. Then I watched the video again on my ipad as I threaded each part step by step.

There was a weird internal setting that had been flipped on my machine, likely from its original owner (insert emoji of choice here), and it took me half an hour of failing to thread one of the guides before I realized the flipped setting was the issue. Eventually I managed to get the damn thing threaded, and I FELT TALLER. Emotionally taller. It was a journey, friends.

Good: I was forced to dive right in and learn to thread this thing

Bad: It took me almost two hours the first time to figure it out. Yikes.

… And We’re Off!

Once I got it threaded, I made a few test seams on some scrap fabric. And then I just started serging away! I decided to dive right in and sew up some leggings! They have long, mostly straight seams and I figured it would be a good test case.  I was BLOWN AWAY by the speed and quality of serged seams. It was fast and simply amazing. And that is when I began to get attached to this machine. Keep in mind, I was doing this testing over a weekend still thinking that come Monday I would be returning the machine as it was not the brand-new factory machine I ordered.

Maybe that was a small blessing in disguise. I tend to be someone who treats nice or new or expensive things very gently. Sometimes I have treated things so gently I have barely used them, which makes no sense. Since this machine was already used, it didn’t have that air of preciousness I tend to imbue nice things with. So I just jumped right in and started using it (after two hours of threading it, of course.)

The TL;DR here is that I decided to keep this machine if the shop would price adjust it to reflect that it was not in fact a new machine. Once they made the price adjustment, I was free to let go of my bad feelings about this purchase and just plain old fall in love with it.

I have been using it weekly for about eight months now and I really REALLY love it. Along the way, I found a few things that helped tremendously with the learning curve:

  • The Complete Serger Handbook by Chris James (by the way, the paperback version is just $5 but I splurged for the spiral-bound version and it has been so useful to have this book out on the table next to me without having to prop it open!)
  • Craftsy class: Beginning Serging With Amy Alan

This was a big-ticket purchase and something I had wanted for a long time but had put off because of the price. There are cheaper overlockers out there, but I wanted a heavy-duty machine that I could use daily. I had no idea how much it would improve my sewing speed. This thing is FAST. And I love having finished seams and stretchy, professional-looking edges.

Was it worth it?

The shopping experience gave me doubts, but in the end yes, this purchase was worth it. I love my machine and use it all the time. It has totally changed up my his-n-hers pajama game, I’m able to zoom through making pajamas in about half the time. It’s also encouraged me to sew more with woven fabrics. In the past I avoided wovens because I hate pinking every. last. piece. of. fabric. Using the serger I can create professional looking garments out of even the fussiest cotton.

If you looked closely at some of the Instagram pics of my Wonder Woman jacket, you would have seen that I serged all the seams together and then mock-flat-felled them with topstitching. I don’t think I could have made that jacket without the overlocker. The fabric frayed a lot, and it would have taken me seventy-two years to overedge stitch every last seam.

There’s still a lot to learn on this thing, and that’s another good thing! I love the feeling of being on the upside of a learning curve. Just before Thanksgiving I figured out rolled hems and  net up is flatlocking — I’m gonna try that on my homemade Buff scarf thingies we’re taking to Norway. Once you get it threaded and learn how to tie off new thread cones to do quick threading, it’s just a machine. Easy to use — press the pedal and go.

If you are in the market for one of these and don’t want to spend quite so much, there’s another Janome that’s about half the price that the Captain and I went in on for his mom for her birthday. And I have heard very good things about the Brother and Babylock sergers. I picked this one because it’s pretty powerful, was allegedly easier to thread (hah hah) and reviews online said it was a workhorse, which is what I need around this place.

So, there you have it. My new-to-me serger/overlocker gets two thumbs up.

 

Overlocker? I Don’t Even Know Her! (Or: The War & Peace of Serger Reviews) was last modified: February 4th, 2019 by Laurie Perry
February 4, 2019 9 comments
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Sewing

Getting My 10,000 Hours With The Help Of Epic Rain

Happy February First wherever you may be. Here in Los Angeles we endured four entire hours of rain WITH lightning and thunder yesterday! Yes I realize people in other parts of the country were snowed in with -1000 degree weather, but we had puddles and we’re all extremely delicate and fussy in L.A. and need your thoughts and prayers.

(There are also mudslides and unstable hills, including in my neighborhood, but we make jokes and hope the concrete barriers hold up.)

The sun is out this morning but all anyone can talk about in the office is the storm of epic proportions headed our way tonight so I have preemptively worn my Ugg boots. While I cannot legitimately wear pajamas to work, I am wearing my Eileen Fisher skirted leggings, which is my version of cute, work-appropriate PJs.

Speaking of skirted leggings, I am trying my hand at sewing my own pair this weekend! These Eileen Fisher pairs I have are all starting to show signs of wear, understandable after two years of weekly use. I am using the Patterns For Pirates free Peg Legs pattern as the legging part. For the skirt, I’m attaching my own self-drafted skirt made by tracing the skirt portion off one of my ready-to-wear pairs. And I’m making them out of a merino wool blend fabric in hopes they will be warm enough for me to wear in Norway when we go in a few weeks (um, days, actually, not weeks. Yikes!)

The picture at the top of this post is another weekend project, a lowkey head nod to Valentine’s Day. I’m making me and the Captain matching baseball style T-shirts with this cute Joann Doodles that says “Love You Latte.” I got them all cut out last night and ready to sew this weekend. And yup, I love them a latte.

My weekend list of sewing items is long and strong! When I first got back into garment sewing about two years ago, it took me an entire weekend to make two simple pajama pants. Now I feel pretty confident I can get through the two Valentine’s shirts, skirted leggings, and a merino wool base layer top + leggings as well. Sewing is the one thing that finally demonstrated to me how much I can grow/improve/speed up with one simple thing: CONSISTENCY.

I sew (or do sewing related things) almost every day. After work I may be too tired to do much, but I can tape together a pattern or cut one out. Last night I did the shirt cutting. I sew just about every weekend, and sometimes I take a small project and space it out during a week (like a turtleneck or leggings — easy things I can do a seam here or there.)  I watch sewing videos on YouTube and follow tons of sewers on Instagram, which also means I am absorbing tips and ideas and knowledge from them.

It has been a long and slow process and I don’t even think I realized I had crossed over into a new skill range until recently. For example, I used to be scared to try fit adjustments but this year it’s my main sewing goal! I can’t wait to take that Archer shirt class with Lauren Taylor in March. I’m watching more videos about technique and trying them out on my own.

When I first heard that statistic about putting in 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, I scoffed. Scoffed, I say! Rolled my eyes and everything. Nowadays it makes more sense to me. Sewing has taught me that I can get better at anything if I just keep doing it (even through the fails and blunders.)

Getting better at a skill comes naturally with putting in the time — not all in one weekend, as my old self would try to do — but consistently on a daily or near-daily basis. It helps when it is something you love! I can’t wait to get home some nights and start my next step of a project or cut out a new pattern.

So on this February 1st, I’m thrilled that a Noah’s Ark rain is headed our way so we can’t leave the house all weekend and have to eat chili and make leggings. The Captain is coming over and he likes to hang out in his comfy chair in the project room, working on his computer or knitting or we listen to audiobooks while I sew.  It is an introvert’s fantasy come true and I am loving it a latte.

 

Getting My 10,000 Hours With The Help Of Epic Rain was last modified: February 1st, 2019 by Laurie Perry
February 1, 2019 3 comments
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Navelgazing

Let’s Go Somewhere, 2019 Edition

Hey, I forgot to tell you! A few months ago I got rid of my car.

It was the first and only really nice car I have ever had and it was a lease and (to me) it was expensive but man did I love that vehicle. In 2015, having that car was really exciting. I loved it, loved riding in it and putting the top down and feeling free. Of course I wasn’t really free because it was a solid car payment every month and I was locked into it for three years. Anyway, at the time it meant something to me and I ADORED that car.

I am glad I had a season of Fancy Wheels and don’t regret leasing it, but by the time my contract was set to expire at the end of last year, my life had … evolved? Changed? Something was different. I still loved the car, but I was absolutely aware (again) that I am not a car person. I put less than 20,000 miles on it in three years. I hate driving. I know some people feel that a car is a necessary extension of their inner being — especially here in Los Angeles! — but I am not living my best life in a car.

So I decided to walk away from the lease. However, this is LA and I do live alone and have two cats and we still need an escape vehicle should the zombie apocalypse arrive, so I turned my attention to finding the cheapest-but-best car available to me and that was how I came to pay cash for a secondhand Fiat Pop. It’s small and fits in my (tiny) parking spot and has low mileage and lower insurance. The best thing about that car is that I have NO car payments! I love it. No Ragrets.

Who knows, maybe in three years I will decide another fancypants car is just the ticket. There are no rules. We change, and not everyone is in the same place at the same time, and our needs and values change as we do. It felt good to make a decision based on what I value right now. I want go places, but not in a car! And the craziest thing was that at the same time I was going through my car decision tree, the Captain was coming up on the end of his lease, too, and he decided to also find a low-cost used car (in his case, a Camry) and we both took one giant step out of car culture.

It was a big step toward something, too: More airplane tickets! What used to be car payment money is now going to be travel money. It made me think about how many decisions we make in a day that help us achieve our personal goals. I wanted to start this year off as my year of NO SHOPPING! And I did a completely terrible job at it. I immediately failed, like on January 1st at 6 am or something I was clicking an amazon.com buy button.

And every day this month I kept asking myself WHAT THE F IS WRONG WITH YOU? each time I purchased a thing I didn’t absolutely need (cat treats, some Vitamin D gummies, Joann Doodles — my ultimate downfall.)

This morning it hit me like a lightning bolt: I was doing that thing you do before a particularly heinous diet, where you can’t for the life of you stop eating junk food. Because soon all the junk food will be taken away and you hate lettuce and life is not happy. (By “you” I mean “me.”) I’m not sure what to do with this information. I still like the idea of keeping my consumerism to an all-time-low. I enjoy feeling like I am working toward a goal. But maybe it was too strident, too all-or-nothing. Maybe my budget needs a little tiny room for cat treats and vitamins … and Doodles (only on sale though, let’s be real, that fabric is too expensive to shrink so much.)

The best part about still being upright is that we get to try again with every breath. Tomorrow is already February 1st can you believe it? I’m excited about February! We are going back to Norway, going to see the Northern Lights (I hope), something I have wanted to do forever. Aaaaand I’m finishing up a super tedious project at work that will be done for another year, and next weekend I will be sewing my first pair of snow pants. Not that I didn’t buy two pairs on amazon mind you (already going back for a refund) but I know I can make a pair and they will fit, as opposed to mass produced  snowveralls made for 83-foot tall people.

And thus ends January, my first one in six years with no car payment, my first one maybe EVER without a start-a-diet resolution, no ridiculous personal organizer full of massive to-do lists. Just me out here trying to enjoy being alive today, whatever today brings. WHO AM I???

Let’s Go Somewhere, 2019 Edition was last modified: January 31st, 2019 by Laurie Perry
January 31, 2019 12 comments
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Your Tour Guide

Your Tour Guide

I'm Laurie. I live in Los Angeles with two cats and a LOT of yarn. I have a website because it's easier for me to write than talk, unless you want to talk about travel or knitting and then I never shut up. Just trying to add a little positivity to the world in my corner of the internet. Also I have a proper About Me page here. It's very loooong.

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Calendar of Posts

January 2021
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Most Recent Posts

  • The Clothes Are Laminated And The Suitcase Zips!

    February 13, 2019
  • This Day Is Crazy And So Am I

    February 12, 2019
  • All Dressed Up & No Place To Snow

    February 8, 2019
  • I Made Leggings That Are 1/7th Of My Allotted Carryon Luggage Weight

    February 7, 2019
  • Everything Is Wet And People Are Angry + Something About Strap-ons (For Shoes! Really!)

    February 5, 2019

Topics of Conversation

Air Travel bob complaining is my cardio copenhagen crafty daytripping decluttering denmark drinks eiffel tower Food France Frankie Free Pattern funny goals Hats helsinki hygge in-flight Instagram knits London long-winded Los Angeles love luggage neurotica Organization packing Paris photography prague recipes Romania serger sewing machine stash stockholm sweden the guest room Tips & Tricks walking whining work

Right now I am …

Starting to take some of the improvements from the guest room and add them to my bedroom, like this cool power outlet for the bedside table. I’m hoping it helps with the constant problem of needing to charge all devices simultaneously.


Still obsessing over Sew Over It and Lisa Comfort, the lady boss behind it all. Here is her site, YouTube vlog, and Insta. I bought pretty much every pattern they have during the recent 30% off sale.


Currently reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. I need this book to help me but I don’t have enough time to read this book because I’m working nonstop, so…


Interested in these silica gel packets for my yarn stash. Does anyone out there add these to ziplock baggies of yarn?


Listening to lovely Carla Bruni singing “Quelqu’un m’a dit.”


 Trying some cedar oil in my oil diffuser to ward off summer pests



Read past lists >

You are My Favorite

It's my BFF, Drew! This is Drew's website. He makes beautiful things and is a great cook and posts recipes that are a little more complex than my repertoire of toast, toast and more toast.

Instagram @crazyauntpurl

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Blog Archives by month

  • February 2019 (7)
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  • May 2018 (8)
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  • March 2018 (2)
  • February 2018 (3)
  • January 2018 (9)
  • December 2017 (2)
  • October 2017 (7)
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Tweets

Also I took this very emotional video of tiny moss growing on an ancient stone wall in Wales. 🤷‍♀️ https://t.co/Y6vpBUGgCb

16-Jan-2021

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More pics from our walk around the ruins of Llanthony Priory, just north of us. This place is nearly 1,000 years ol… https://t.co/p1iUUlIhSd

16-Jan-2021

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Today we visited the nearby Llanthony Priory, built in 1100. It was majestic. https://t.co/vAOxzu2h4L

16-Jan-2021

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The truest words ever spoken. https://t.co/hbQ9ssjmlT

06-Jan-2021

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This is horrible and terrifying. This is not Patriotic. https://t.co/DeZNKLeHFq

06-Jan-2021

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instagram @crazyauntpurl

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  • Its in the 60s in losangeles so that qualifies as
  • Traffic sucks but the view is losangeles
  • Ladybugs!!! This is the seamworkmag Neenah pattern Its a turtleneck
  • Grey morning in the hollywoodhills
  • The scenery at work improved dramatically this week  aquaman
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TM & © 2017 Laurie Perry
NOTE: I am not paid to endorse or use any products.
Not that I would mind, so if you have a Boeing Dreamliner you need me to ride in for a first-class seat review, call me. Hi!
Any links that are here are for things I genuinely like and recommend, and they are the standard amazon/retailer affiliate links. Here is the standard Amazon Affiliate statement:
Laurie Perry (crazytourist.com) is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.


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