for CHANGE. I'm so proud to be an American today. And I feel incredible excitement for where this country is going to go under our new President. It has been a historic ride and I've really enjoyed it these past few weeks. Yeah, we've all been bothered by the excessive political ads but this election more than any other in recent memory has been so historical, ground-breaking, downright exciting. Even 100 years ago, I would not have been able to even cast my vote for someone who could really affect my life. We've come a long way and I'm so thankful for all those women who fought for that right so that I may have this feeling today.
I'm looking forward to the next four years with Barack Obama. Now is the time to join his team. No matter your choice, the decision has been made. Let's give this guy the chance he deserves. I think he will bring greatness back to this country.
Well done, America. Well done.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Public Service Announcement
Election Day is TUESDAY NOVEMBER 4, 2008. PLEASE PLEASE exercise your right to vote and cast your ballot on Tuesday. This presidential campaign has been LONG but very interesting. I sent my absentee ballot in today. I'll give you a second to guess who I voted for.
Team Obama 2008.
Team Obama 2008.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Sick...
I'm sick. ewwwww.
I've been SO tired all week long just knowing I was getting sick. Sure enough about 3 PM on Friday afternoon it hit me at work. Headache, runny nose, congestion. Not fun. And it is supposed to be nice and SUNNY this weekend, probably the last Portland will see before the rain comes. :(
I am going to tough it up to make it out tonight to watch the Warren Miller Film downtown. Who is Warren Miller you ask? well check out http://www.skinet.com/warrenmiller/
This man is insane and the man who made me fall in love...with skiing! :) His films come out this time each year to pump you up for the upcoming ski/board season and it is always an awesome event. People cheering and screaming at the death defying crazy skills of the athletes on the film.
LOTS of dayquil needed today though to get ready for that!!
I've been SO tired all week long just knowing I was getting sick. Sure enough about 3 PM on Friday afternoon it hit me at work. Headache, runny nose, congestion. Not fun. And it is supposed to be nice and SUNNY this weekend, probably the last Portland will see before the rain comes. :(
I am going to tough it up to make it out tonight to watch the Warren Miller Film downtown. Who is Warren Miller you ask? well check out http://www.skinet.com/warrenmiller/
This man is insane and the man who made me fall in love...with skiing! :) His films come out this time each year to pump you up for the upcoming ski/board season and it is always an awesome event. People cheering and screaming at the death defying crazy skills of the athletes on the film.
LOTS of dayquil needed today though to get ready for that!!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Home Sweet Home
Many of you have been asking to see pics of our new home here in Portland. Here we go!!
Our Home Sweet Home
Our Backyard
Kitchen
Living Room/Dining Room
Guest Room/Office
Master Bedroom
The house is just a rental but we are loving it. It also has a full basement with LOTS of storage. We signed a lease through March 2009 though have the option to extend. It's located in a GREAT neighborhood in Northeast Portland with convenient access to freeways, the airport, grocery stores, and tons of adorable restaurants and cafes. It sure beats living in an apartment! We'd love to eventually buy in this area, though I'm sure it will remain out of our price range but we'll see. We may have to look in Southeast Portland which is a little more affordable for us to buy. We really want to stay within Portland city limits and close in to downtown if we're able.
Right now, this house is perfect and we're finally feeling settled. We've got an extra bedroom so anyone is welcome to come visit!!
Our Home Sweet Home
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| From Home Sweet Home |
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| From Home Sweet Home |
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| From Home Sweet Home |
Our Backyard
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| From Home Sweet Home |
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| From Home Sweet Home |
Kitchen
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| From Home Sweet Home |
Living Room/Dining Room
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| From Home Sweet Home |
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| From Home Sweet Home |
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| From Home Sweet Home |
Guest Room/Office
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| From Home Sweet Home |
Master Bedroom
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| From Home Sweet Home |
The house is just a rental but we are loving it. It also has a full basement with LOTS of storage. We signed a lease through March 2009 though have the option to extend. It's located in a GREAT neighborhood in Northeast Portland with convenient access to freeways, the airport, grocery stores, and tons of adorable restaurants and cafes. It sure beats living in an apartment! We'd love to eventually buy in this area, though I'm sure it will remain out of our price range but we'll see. We may have to look in Southeast Portland which is a little more affordable for us to buy. We really want to stay within Portland city limits and close in to downtown if we're able.
Right now, this house is perfect and we're finally feeling settled. We've got an extra bedroom so anyone is welcome to come visit!!
Friday, September 26, 2008
I've been tagged!!
I was recently tagged by a fellow blogger and cyber friend Colleen over at The Non-Smoker. Colleen and I "met" in cyberland soon after I got engaged. She had a little over 5 months until her wedding but I had a well over a year to go. We've never met but I think she and all my cyber friends were a major part in helping me to plan my wedding. Go check out her blog. She is successfully kicking the nasty habit of smoking so leave her some love. I hope one day to finally meet you Colleen and share some good beer together (maybe Christmas Ale?)
Okay, so here's the rules:
7 Random Facts about me:
1. I stress out about EVERYTHING. It's horrible and I really need to stop. I hate delegating something to someone else to do for fear that it won't get done. I stress about work, cleaning, money, the future. I think it's a disease really.
2. I despise the snoooze alarm. Seriously, why would you want to be awakened every 9 minutes for an hour when you could just set the alarm an hour later and sleep in perfect harmony? In my life, I think I have pushed the snooze button ONCE.
3. My third toe is longer than my second. Look at your hand. See how the third finger is longer than the second? Now look at your feet. Not so much huh? Ohhhh, but mine is....
4. I could watch hours on end of Life in the ER and Trading Spaces on TLC, but I force myself to stay away from that channel. The stuff ER docs see never ceases to amaze me. Talk about never having a boring day at work! And who doesn't like to dream about decorating their home in an eccentric or untraditional way?
5. I am the proud aunt of an adorable little girl named Lily and a sweet young man Cameron and will be a new aunt again in November, but the thought of having children scares the hell.out.of.me. Someday I'm sure that thought will change, but the thought of giving up 18 years of complete independence when you have a child is overwhelming and stressful (refer to random fact #1)
6. I think red wine and chocolate, especially dark chocolate is the best food combination ever. Hands Down.
7. I have a severe diversion to food if I don't like the way it looks. Some food may be amazing but if you tell me it's raw, some kind of delicacy. or it has eyes staring back at me, I won't eat it. I also don't like to mix my food. Every portion of my dinner gets a little place all to it's own on my plate.
My Tagees:
Jaime at Jaime's Journal
Jason at Intersections
Adrienne at The First Year Married
Ann at My Life of Craziness
Ang at Bring The Rain though I doubt she'll ever see this since she gets a zillion comments.
Greg at Light Your World (he'll probably never see this either)
Julian at Julian at Large (and he won't let me leave a comment so I'll have to track him down in this world somehow...I think he's in Turkey now??)
Okay, so here's the rules:
7 Random Facts about me:
1. I stress out about EVERYTHING. It's horrible and I really need to stop. I hate delegating something to someone else to do for fear that it won't get done. I stress about work, cleaning, money, the future. I think it's a disease really.
2. I despise the snoooze alarm. Seriously, why would you want to be awakened every 9 minutes for an hour when you could just set the alarm an hour later and sleep in perfect harmony? In my life, I think I have pushed the snooze button ONCE.
3. My third toe is longer than my second. Look at your hand. See how the third finger is longer than the second? Now look at your feet. Not so much huh? Ohhhh, but mine is....
4. I could watch hours on end of Life in the ER and Trading Spaces on TLC, but I force myself to stay away from that channel. The stuff ER docs see never ceases to amaze me. Talk about never having a boring day at work! And who doesn't like to dream about decorating their home in an eccentric or untraditional way?
5. I am the proud aunt of an adorable little girl named Lily and a sweet young man Cameron and will be a new aunt again in November, but the thought of having children scares the hell.out.of.me. Someday I'm sure that thought will change, but the thought of giving up 18 years of complete independence when you have a child is overwhelming and stressful (refer to random fact #1)
6. I think red wine and chocolate, especially dark chocolate is the best food combination ever. Hands Down.
7. I have a severe diversion to food if I don't like the way it looks. Some food may be amazing but if you tell me it's raw, some kind of delicacy. or it has eyes staring back at me, I won't eat it. I also don't like to mix my food. Every portion of my dinner gets a little place all to it's own on my plate.
My Tagees:
Jaime at Jaime's Journal
Jason at Intersections
Adrienne at The First Year Married
Ann at My Life of Craziness
Ang at Bring The Rain though I doubt she'll ever see this since she gets a zillion comments.
Greg at Light Your World (he'll probably never see this either)
Julian at Julian at Large (and he won't let me leave a comment so I'll have to track him down in this world somehow...I think he's in Turkey now??)
Sunday, September 21, 2008
OK Ok I'll post something!
Sorry fellow blog readers for the loooonnnnggg delay in posts! This crazy ride I call life has been insane. Since my last post, I turned in my 30 day notice at my job (read the last post to find out how much I hated the job) and was forced to find a new job FAST. I still wanted a "traveling" position even though I intend to stay in Portland now that we are happily married. It was looking a little hairy but I managed to find a new job. I start Monday! Yep, tomorrow. On top of looking for a new job, because I lived in corporate housing, if I wasn't working for that company, we had to move out of the apartment. James and I planned to do that anyways when the contract was up and wanted to find a house to rent. This would enable us to take our housing stipend from my company but not have our housing "attached" or dependent on a particular job. If I left that company and went elsewhere we wouldn't have to pick up and move again. So after FINALLY getting settled in to our tiny apartment, it was time to start packing up again and look for a place to live!! We spent countless hours on craigslist looking at housing ads and went and visited a few. We found a cute house in a great neighborhood in Northeast Portland and we moved "in" Sept 13. Well, we got the keys that day anyways! We spent all of last week trying to finish packing, and moving everything over. Plus, try to finish up all my loose ends at my old job. FUN.
Oh yeah, the other thing about finding a place of our own? We need furniture. I've been living in corporate housing for 4 1/2 years now. Basically I show up, there's furniture there, I move my clothes in, and I'm settled. Well we rented a storage POD from Ohio to bring our stuff out here in. It contains our bed, some end tables and night stands, lamps, a dresser, and a lot of our wedding presents. Said pod was supposed to be delivered after a LONG delay (don't get me started on that) this past Friday, our first night to sleep in our new house. It was perfect: we'd have a bed to sleep in! Except the company screwed up the delivery date AGAIN and we won't have the pod until NEXT weekend. So we spent the first night on an air mattress which was not fun because the pump wasn't charged and our extra pump wasn't doing the trick. Luckily, I had some fellow co-workers and traveling therapists who were moving out of their apartment and had gotten a queen size bed on craigslist. We took it off their hands for a guest bed for our 2nd bedroom and it's now become our bed until our POD finally gets here. We also hit up some garage and estate sales and managed to score a coffee table, 2 bookcases, an entertainment center and a dresser to go along with the free futon and free desk we already found on craigslist. We topped it off with a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond and IKEA to find a few home touches and it's ALMOST starting to feel like HOME.
So please forgive me for the long delay. I promise to be a better blogger in the future.
Oh yeah, the other thing about finding a place of our own? We need furniture. I've been living in corporate housing for 4 1/2 years now. Basically I show up, there's furniture there, I move my clothes in, and I'm settled. Well we rented a storage POD from Ohio to bring our stuff out here in. It contains our bed, some end tables and night stands, lamps, a dresser, and a lot of our wedding presents. Said pod was supposed to be delivered after a LONG delay (don't get me started on that) this past Friday, our first night to sleep in our new house. It was perfect: we'd have a bed to sleep in! Except the company screwed up the delivery date AGAIN and we won't have the pod until NEXT weekend. So we spent the first night on an air mattress which was not fun because the pump wasn't charged and our extra pump wasn't doing the trick. Luckily, I had some fellow co-workers and traveling therapists who were moving out of their apartment and had gotten a queen size bed on craigslist. We took it off their hands for a guest bed for our 2nd bedroom and it's now become our bed until our POD finally gets here. We also hit up some garage and estate sales and managed to score a coffee table, 2 bookcases, an entertainment center and a dresser to go along with the free futon and free desk we already found on craigslist. We topped it off with a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond and IKEA to find a few home touches and it's ALMOST starting to feel like HOME.
So please forgive me for the long delay. I promise to be a better blogger in the future.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Busy Busy Busy
Life has been CRAZY lately. I finally have time to update a little....
We moved into our new apartment August 1. It's very conveniently located right near the heart of downtown. We are even within the "fareless" zone for the public transportation meaning we can ride the bus and MAX line for FREE into downtown!! Woo hoo!! Now as for our apartment...it's nice and would probably be great for just one person but it is just too small for the two of us. The kitchen is TINY and we had a really hard time trying to fit all our kitchen stuff (our new nice stuff from the wedding) into the cabinet space. It's a two bedroom which we requested but the bedrooms are SMALL. I mean tiny. We couldn't even fit all our bedroom furniture into our room! So our dresser sits in the other bedroom. Good thing we got the two bedroom or that dresser would be in our living room!! The living room/dining area is quite large but I just can't figure out why they couldn't make the bedroom larger!! It will do for now. The good news is that it's only until November. My company got us this place while I am on contract with them so we'll be moving out when my contract is up. We'd really like to buy, but I think we will look for a house to rent until we can save a little more money for a down payment. We'll see...I'm kind of getting the itch to go house hunting!!
My job started on Monday. I am working in home health for this assignment. I enjoyed home health when I did it in Olympia back in early 2007. This job I think will be a different story. I have never seen a company so disorganized. There is no leadership or guidance. I was told I'd be oriented by this guy J. One of the managers said, "You'll like J. He's really good. You'll learn alot, and you have 3 months experience with home health." So I drive out to meet J. And J. is great as a therapist, but he's been doing home health for all of 8 weeks. He happens to be a traveler as well. In 4.5 years of traveling, I've never been oriented by another traveler. I couldn't believe it. You'd think they would have someone who really knows the ropes to orient people. Nope. On Thursday I was in the office and one PT asked me if I was ready to see repeat visits for patients. I think she was a little shocked when I said no. I told her that until this job can get me the materials I need to do my job (ie, my computer, my clinical bag filled with the necessary things, an employee phone list, and my name tag) I'm not going to do my job. This is my license on the line and I'm not walking into someone's house until they provide with the tools they are required to to do my job properly. So needless to say, it's going to be a long 3 months.
In good news, as of 8/8/08, I am now officially DONE paying off my student loans. Thanks to my work as a traveling PT, I have been able to stay way ahead of my payment schedule. I had them consolidated over 20 years, and PAID OFF in less than 6!! I am so excited to be completely debt-free and really start to save now!!
That's it for now....more to come when I have time.
We moved into our new apartment August 1. It's very conveniently located right near the heart of downtown. We are even within the "fareless" zone for the public transportation meaning we can ride the bus and MAX line for FREE into downtown!! Woo hoo!! Now as for our apartment...it's nice and would probably be great for just one person but it is just too small for the two of us. The kitchen is TINY and we had a really hard time trying to fit all our kitchen stuff (our new nice stuff from the wedding) into the cabinet space. It's a two bedroom which we requested but the bedrooms are SMALL. I mean tiny. We couldn't even fit all our bedroom furniture into our room! So our dresser sits in the other bedroom. Good thing we got the two bedroom or that dresser would be in our living room!! The living room/dining area is quite large but I just can't figure out why they couldn't make the bedroom larger!! It will do for now. The good news is that it's only until November. My company got us this place while I am on contract with them so we'll be moving out when my contract is up. We'd really like to buy, but I think we will look for a house to rent until we can save a little more money for a down payment. We'll see...I'm kind of getting the itch to go house hunting!!
My job started on Monday. I am working in home health for this assignment. I enjoyed home health when I did it in Olympia back in early 2007. This job I think will be a different story. I have never seen a company so disorganized. There is no leadership or guidance. I was told I'd be oriented by this guy J. One of the managers said, "You'll like J. He's really good. You'll learn alot, and you have 3 months experience with home health." So I drive out to meet J. And J. is great as a therapist, but he's been doing home health for all of 8 weeks. He happens to be a traveler as well. In 4.5 years of traveling, I've never been oriented by another traveler. I couldn't believe it. You'd think they would have someone who really knows the ropes to orient people. Nope. On Thursday I was in the office and one PT asked me if I was ready to see repeat visits for patients. I think she was a little shocked when I said no. I told her that until this job can get me the materials I need to do my job (ie, my computer, my clinical bag filled with the necessary things, an employee phone list, and my name tag) I'm not going to do my job. This is my license on the line and I'm not walking into someone's house until they provide with the tools they are required to to do my job properly. So needless to say, it's going to be a long 3 months.
In good news, as of 8/8/08, I am now officially DONE paying off my student loans. Thanks to my work as a traveling PT, I have been able to stay way ahead of my payment schedule. I had them consolidated over 20 years, and PAID OFF in less than 6!! I am so excited to be completely debt-free and really start to save now!!
That's it for now....more to come when I have time.
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