Ahhhhh....Texas

Finally crossed the state line today and am posting from Waco, TX. I will be in Austin tomorrow! That's an 1800 mile drive!

As a diversion from the trip have been catching up on some online reading. Fun game all over my favorite daily blog reads so I decided to play along.

The Game:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Labs Mosaic Maker.



The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Laurie
2. What is your favorite food? Mexican
3. What high school did you go to? Coronado
4. What is your favorite color? kiwi green
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Patrick Stewart
6. Favorite drink? Guiness
7. Dream vacation? Tibet
8. Favorite dessert? Crème Brûlée
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Happy & Healthy
10. What do you love most in life? My family, friends & my pets
11. One Word to describe you. Goofy
12. Your blog: lauriewis.blogspot

Almost there

Will cross the Texas border tomorrow. What a doozie of a drive. I'll be in Austin by Thursday. Can't wait to get there. And the dog and the cat are ready to be there too.

Texas bound

Movers finally, finally, finally got everything loaded. Wow they were slow. Wouldn't have made it through the day with my sanity had my sister not been there to keep me from freaking out. Thanks Wendy!! I'm really going to miss you! We got the dog and cat loaded into my car and I finally hit the road late in the afternoon. I was very sad to be leaving NY. Thinking that I will stop at the Quilt Museum in VA tomorrow. Off to sleep!

Rain pouring down

Movers not moving quickly. And now there's a torrential rain storm. Delightful.

Bye Bye Brooklyn

Waiting for the movers to arrive. Sad to be leaving Brooklyn but excited about what's next.

A nice stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge

Beautiful morning here in Brooklyn. Started the day with a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Clara was less enthusiastic than I was.

Less than a week left in NY

Cannot believe that I have less than a week left in New York!! The movers are coming this Sunday, so I'm running around like a crazy person trying to squeeze in everything 'one more time' before I head out for Austin. Today was a very productive day.

Started at Cotton, Inc. to speak to them about fabric sourcing and 2009 color forecasts. It will be interesting to see if any of the colors feel inspiring to me as I work on additional designs.


From there I went to the Neue Galleries to say goodbye to my favorite Klimt and see the jewelry exhibit. Followed that with a long stroll through Central Park and the upper East side.

It's been so hard to say goodbye to everyone! Rick threw me a lovely going away dinner (Thanks for the Brazilian Shrimp Stew recipe Rick. It won't be the same when I make it. The company is always part of what makes it so delicious!)

And it was so great to see the whole team from Ogilvy last week. I will miss all of you little chickens. Please come visit Austin.

And Renee and William had a glorious, delicious dinner for me in their beautiful garden. I still have no idea how you ever leave that paradise each day.

Thanks again to everyone for all the love and support. It's time to get back on the phone and continue discussions with printers. Stay tuned...

Stars aligned

On a whim, checked on my horoscope for this month. Love it when these things are spot on.

I am off to my exit interview. In 9 minutes, I will officially be self employed!

Strive for excellence this month while contrasting planetary trends can motivation you. Additional practice upgrades your skills and enhances the value of your work. Take the time to hone your talents to their highest levels rather than racing through your duties haphazardly. The extra attention necessary to refine your methods will pay dividends in the long run. You’re a fire sign and you need sparks of excitement to sustain interest in any lengthy process. Fortunately, it looks like those will be plentiful this month, too.

Keep in Mind this Month: Free your mind, open your imagination, and be creative.

Horoscope courtesty of tarot.com

Random stuff you stumble across in NY

At lunch time yesterday... Since it's my last week of work and there's not much to do, maybe I'll even (gasp) leave the building! Look, it's the Major League Baseball All Star parade. Right outside! That's one of the greatest things about NYC. You can literally walk right into an event that you had no idea was happening. I will miss this city!

Radio City is right across from my office


Yogi Berra


Derek Jeter

NYC at night

Rockin the River Cruise last week with Meghan. It's a boat that has live music, drinks and it cruises the Hudson. The weather was perfect and the company was great. What a way to start saying goodbye to the city. Lady liberty looks lovely, doesn't she?


I'll be posting pics of some of my favorite things about the city over the next 2 weeks before we head out. Perhaps I'll even master the night setting on my camera. Hope you enjoy!

Boxes, boxes everywhere

Ummmm...mom...are we going somewhere?

Crafting a plan

For years, I’ve spent countless hours thinking that there must be a way to create a livelihood for myself that isn’t simply another iteration of the same marketing job I've had for nearly 20 years. And during the last 6 months, I’ve been doing some serious soul searching…

When I took stock of the things I love to do, I’ve discovered a common thread. Making things with my hands makes me happy. My crafty ‘Laurie Projects’…The Quilts, collages, stationary, travel memory books, pillows, knitting, jewelry, gardens. All of it. These are always the things I can lose myself for hours in and feel like my soul is a bit fuller while I’m doing them.

So, to give myself some space to explore how to take my creativity and turn it into a way to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly, it’s going to take some pretty big changes.

I have loved my time here in New York. What a wonderful city. I’ve experienced and seen some really amazing things here. But let’s get real people, it’s a pretty expensive place to live! Especially when you don’t have a ‘real’ j.o.b. Which brings me to my next two pieces of news…

I quit my job and I’m moving back to Austin! I found a great little apartment in South Austin and will be setting up a little home studio where I can create. And now I can direct all my experience in marketing towards my own goals!

I’ve been working on some ideas for the last few months and am going to give it a go. I’ve set up this blog where I’ll be posting to keep everyone updated on my journey and my ideas. I hope you’ll visit often. Although most of my ideas are in very early stages, the header graphic includes pieces of one of the designs for some new fabric I’m hoping to get manufactured.

The movers are coming to pick up my stuff at the end of July and the dog, cat and I will be taking a cross country driving adventure from Brooklyn to Austin. We should be there sometime during the 1st week of August.

Thank you to everyone for all the love, friendship and support you’ve always provided!