Pacific Northwest Romance

Before we moved to Oregon, I could probably count on my two hands how many sunrises I'd seen in my life. Living in Portland, I've now seen three this week. It is quite an adjustment that I wasn't expecting -- as I noted in an earlier post.

Sunrise on Kauai, Summer '09 -- We actually sought this out

I was considering purchasing an alarm clock that wakes you up with the gentle increase of UV simulating light. But I don't need one, because I have Robert, who even though he may be a-typically romantic, is still very romantic. This morning when my alarm clock went off, Rob got out of bed and started quietly turning on lights around me. First he lit the living room so just a little light hit my face, still in bed with my eyes closed. Then he turned on the bathroom light, then the closet and finally my bedside lamp.

Oddly, I can feel the difference in my mood this morning. I don't know if that is because I woke up more naturally or because I have the best boyfriend ever.

Things I don't love about Portland

As we get more and more settled in our new place (which, BTW, we're planning on providing pictures of in short order -- but I need to finish a painting first), I fall more and more in love with Portland. I even started my own hashtag on Twitter! (#reasonsiloveportland) Be sure to use it now before it catches on en masse. It is even better than I imagined. The city is beautiful, fun and unique. I find myself making daily lists of all the things I still really want to do - new coffee shops, bookstores and farmer's markets to visit. We practically live in Forrest Park - which has more hikes and trails than I know what to do with. And now we actually have a FALL!! The view from our bedroom window is like a painting filled with green, pink, red, orange and yellow leaves.


There is one thing that I've discovered I hate about living in Portland -- and that is waking up at 7 a.m. and feeling like it is the middle of the night. In Los Angeles we literally woke up to the sunshine. Now, we wake up and it looks the same outside as it did at 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. the night before. It also doesn't help that it is cold, but I think I could deal with that if wasn't so dark outside.

To top it off, the time change is this weekend. I'm looking in to buying a sunrise simulating alarm clock. Let me know if any Pacific Northwest folk have tips for adjusting.

We're finally here

If moving to Portland has taught me one thing, it is that I am a really bad blogger. I stopped documenting the move at the most mission critical time! That is just what happens when you have too much going on. It has been completely insane. I can't believe that it has been just a little more than a week since we first arrived in Portland. It feels like we've been here for much longer.

I'll give you a quick synethesis of the past week so we can start looking forward:

We packed the U-haul, truck and prius until 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday. We slept for three hours and got up to pack some more. It was a fun couple of days. I do have to say that Robert is the most perfect, burly, manly man packer in ther world. He managed to fit everything and didn't even ask me to move the refrigerator.

We drove home to Visalia Wednesday morning and had a great last two days with the family. Rob's mom cooked us an amazing going-away dinner, and I spent all Thursday afternoon painting ceramics with my neices. It was perfect.

Then Friday morning my parents, Rob and I left for Portland at 5 a.m. The drive was long and rough. We did discover that we won't be taking any road trips back to visit the parents any time soon. Once we got to PDX at 9:30 p.m., I took a look at the apartment and kind of freaked out. It wasn't at all like what we looked at when we visited in April, nor was it up to snuff in general. The microwave wasn't installed, it was missing blinds, there were no burners on the stove. In short, it was a hot mess. So we didn't unpack that night, and slept on the ground in our disappointing apartment. The next morning we talked to the leasing office and they upgraded us to a MUCH better apartment on the second floor, and we're really happy.

We had a couple of great meals and some good bonding time with the parents before they left. Then work started.

It has been an INSANE week. I'm just starting to get some rest. We bought a couch and I need to stop blogging right now so I can organize my closet. I will really try to keep up more with the blogging.

It is a little overwhelming, but we love it so far. We even went for our very first hike today. More to come.