Getting Settled in Puddletown

Well, our move to Portland happened and we have been here now for nine days. The journey from Los Angeles to Portland was not without some adventure when Dan's car brokedown on I-5, mine got a flat and we had to spend a day in Los Banos, CA dealing with our various car repair issues. However, we like to think that our little detour to Los Banos was the universe's way of telling us that we needed some rest from our packing and moving travails. All of this put us a day behind but we still arrived in Portland late last Monday evening in time for the movers on Tuesday morning and we were at least a bit rested.

Unpacking has been lots of fun (she said sarcastically). We don't have a enough room for everything in our small house but fortunately, we have a basement and a garage to store things that we do not use on a regular basis. Looks like Dan and I will need to continue purging more of our possessions on our mission to declutter our lives.

We now have a functional kitchen, which is nice since eating out all the time gets to be a drag... and expensive. We baked a loaf of bread the other day and tonight, I will even attempt a pasta dinner.

So, we are getting our new home set-up little by little. More to today, including another trip to Target and Home Depot. At least, we now know how to get there. Hopefully, we will have a little time this afternoon for some more exploration of our new home town. So much to see and do.

Movin' On Up...North

I just couldn't resist a reference to The Jeffersons in the title for this post. Sorry. However, to get back to the actual point of the post, Dan and I are indeed moving up north to the beautiful Pacific Northwest. To be more specific, we are going to Portland, Oregon. Yes, it will be quiet a change from Los Angeles in many, many ways. However, it is a change that we are excitedly looking forward to. 

Well, the packing part is not so exciting. Actually, it's a bit of a nightmare and extremely stressful. Dan and I trying to purge and pack at the same time. It is amazing how much stuff you can accumulate. We are doing our best to get rid of some of this stuff...even a bunch of our beloved books. But, we are keeping most of our gardening tools, decor, etc. since we have been blessed with finding a home with a small backyard. So, I will be writing a lot in the future about our adventures in gardening in a much damper climate and learning to cook with an electric range (Ugh!). But now, the clock is ticking and we have exactly one week before the movers show up to load our possessions into a van for the drive north. So, I should probably get back to packing.