Well, my ambition to change the blog to a collection of posts about what I’m currently doing apparently didn’t pan out for me posting more often. Time to bring the blog back from the dead - some techno-necromancy.
What’s happened in the three years and change since the last post? A lot, actually. Ignoring the political landscape and all the nonsense from the COVID times is hard, and probably why I didn’t feel motivated to write anything about what I was doing with my personal life.
In 2020, my family and I relocated to small town coastal Oregon from the sprawling metropolis of Phoenix, AZ. Work had an opportunity, I took a leap. The Oregon coast is absolutely gorgeous - but we very quickly learned that it is much nicer to visit (briefly) than to live. Work was challenging in many new and unexpected ways (there’s too many trees here!). The three of us struggled to adapt, and probably due to our stubborness we made it work.
Surrounded by the beauty of the coast, we tried to make the most out of living there. On our 45 minute drives every week to the grocery store we’d pass dozens of new and exciting hiking trails - so we spent a lot of time hiking and exploring. We acquired a canoe, and took that out whenever we could.
In the middle of 2021 we realized that living on the coast wasn’t going to work for all of us - Kara needed to start school and the coastal schools were awful. Trying to get information from them was impossible during the pandemic, and it turns out the school in the podunk hole we moved to wasn’t even a real school - it was a charter school. The closest “real” schools were 45 minutes to an hour away. Obviously, a serious problem - the yokels on the coast just advocated “homeskoolin’ with a healthy dose of Sunday skool.” (Not even joking, we passed church signs and school signs on the coast with simple words misspelled frequently).
I came up with a plan - my employer up here had 7 people spread throughout the state, and I was the only one with experience in the job. I was also completely isolated from the rest of the team, the closest area to mine was 2-3 hours away. My coworkers were struggling, and the utility was frustrated with having to train people. They needed a supervisor, and I wanted out of my current role. I mentioned to a couple of the utility foresters that the position was needed, and that I wanted it. It didn’t take much coercion to get them to ask my manager to post a supervisor position.
I applied, and then was interviewed. I got the job officially in July of 2021, and for the next few months life was hectic. My working area was now the state of Oregon (Portland to Medford, Bend to the coast). I spent the week living in motels (Grants Pass has, officially, the worst places to stay in all of Oregon), and the weekends painstakingly packing all of our stuff and moving it to a storage unit in Eugene. My partner (who is amazing) handled the packing and getting our house on the coast on the market. We decided to try and move to Eugene - not quite a real city, just big enough to be comfortable, great schools, and centrally located for work. We found a realtor, but the housing market was (is) insane. We hit the market at just the right time where things started selling for way over asking, with no inspections, almost as soon as they were listed. It worked out alright for getting our house sold, but it threw the three of us into a strange borderline homeless situation.
Again, probably due to stubbornness, we made it work. My job was already paying for hotels for me to stay at during the week - we just had to cover the weekends. We took advantage, traveled around, explored, and saw some of the coolest parts of the state.
We put out many (many) offers on houses, and were quickly rejected. We were starting to get tired of the constant moving and hotel/airbnb life. Then, in October 2021, we found the coolest little house in the nicest part of Eugene (with the best school district). It had been on the market for a couple weeks - which was wild. We asked our realtor to see it - well, the walls inside were painted in bright gaudy colors, there was no flooring (just the subfloor), the tiny bathroom had no vanity and a massive claw-foot tub, broken windows, and the outside painted a bright turquoise blue. It felt like home right away so we excitedly put an offer out. It was accepted, the inspection process turned up nothing that wasn’t obvious (it’s super neat paying a ton of money to someone to tell you that there are no floors and the windows don’t open).
We closed on the house the weekend after Thanksgiving, and moved our duffel bags and air mattresses in. We were excited to get a u-haul and schlep all the stuff from storage… and then it snowed. It snowed a lot. So, the only things we grabbed out of the unit were the holiday decorations.
Our daughter started kindergarten January of 2022, and we eventually got all of our stuff moved in and unpacked. Our house is much smaller than the one on the coast, and a little smaller than the one in Phoenix. The view out our windows is magical though. A family of deer live in our backyard, and are constantly peeking in our windows (part of our house is “in” a hillside, so the windows are at ground level). There are trees everywhere - big Douglas firs, charismatic maples, white oaks, apples. Our back porch looks out over the hill, and where we are situated we can’t see our downhill neighbors unless we try. There is a few gangs of wild turkeys that roam the streets, and two of them live in the tree in our front yard. We have an incredible hiking trail system literally right across our street that goes through miles of protected area.
Work balanced out and got much easier - my commute is only an hour most days, and I’ve been able to really strengthen and expand the team here.
We settled into a new groove. Started exploring more new places, hiked new trails, took the canoe to new spots. Spent time picking fruits and vegetables at u-pick farms near us. Kara really took off in school, and quickly made friends.
2023 has been a good year. It feels good living in one spot, and our little turquoise house on the hill feels more and more like home. Kara finished first grade strong and is enjoying second grade. I’ve been spending as much time as possible adventuring with my partner (and best friend). We picked more produce from different farms this year, and scavenged tons of fruit from the neighborhood - pears, apples, plums, blackberries, grapes. The neighbor across the street grows an insane tomato garden every year, and shared his bounty with us. Our deer family hangs out with us so frequently that we can easily tell them apart - “Mom” and her babies from 2021, 2022, and 2023. The trees we planted in the yard are growing well, and even gave us a few Asian pears. We have strawberries growing, and just acquired some concord grape cuttings.
