The summer of my unemployment

Its July and Portland is sunny. The longer I live in the Pacific Northwest, the more I dislike heat. Don't know how I ever survived in Hawaii without dying of heat exhaustion... Luckily I have a portable room air condition and when really desperate, I have the option to turn on the house AC instead. Trying not to do that much so I don't have to pay an arm and a leg in cooling costs.

Last time I wrote it was 3 months ago; my, how time passes. After much stress and debate, we got our repairs done and sold our house at the end of April. It took 9 hours for the movers to get everything moved to our new rental; we just have too much stuff and one of the personal goals I have during my sabbatical from work is to de-clutter and get rid of some of this stuff.

At the end of May we went back to Kauai to see Mark's brother get married. It was a beautiful wedding, and even though I haven't had much time to spend with my new sister in law, she seems very nice and good for John. We stayed a very short time on Kauai since Mark had to return to work to teach.

I spend a extra week on Oahu to spend time with my mom and get some things done at her house. I cleaned up all the things in my bedroom at home, so that my mom can use that room for a storage room. We also got rid of a lot of stuff that my dad had in the garage. There was so much things to get rid of, we called 1-800-got-junk and they hauled away an entire dump truck full of stuff. It felt good to spend some time with my mom who I haven't seen since my dad's funeral last year.

The trip also happened to somewhat coincide with my sister's due date for my 3rd nephew, Jacob Kaimana Bradford. He was a week late and so I extended my trip another week so I could be in the hospital when Jacob was born. I actually found his Hawaiian middle name on the internet, so I got to be part of the name choosing process. Kaimana means spirit of the ocean. I liked it because the word mana that is used in a lot of RPG games is actually derived from this Hawaiian word for spirit. Jacob was huge; a couple ounces shy of 10 lbs. My sister had some complications after the birth, but the doctors were able to figure out why and resolve the issue with a small surgery. During my time on Oahu, I got to spend a lot of time hanging out with my nephews; they are of an age where I can play video games with them. It was really hard to leave Hawaii, I missed my nephews a lot. But I also missed my husband and was very happy to be back in Portland. (and the much cooler weather =D )

When I returned in the middle of June, I started unpacking the boxes in the house and de-cluttering. I have a couple simple rules for whether or not to keep things: If I don't use it, or I don't love it; I shouldn't keep it. And if I keep it, it should be displayed or stored respectfully; otherwise I shouldn't keep it. I packed up boxes of clothes to give away to some good friends, several boxes of linens and blankets that have accumulated through the years and I don't know how many boxes of books. I gave away almost all of scrap booking supplies since I finally am being honest with myself that paper scrapbooking is a hobby of my past, not my future. If I scrapbook in the future, it will be online with photobooks.

We took a nice trip up to Seattle during the end of June to see some of Mark's family from Hawaii who were on their way to take a Alaskan cruise. We stayed with Mark's uncle and aunt who have a house in Seattle. It's terrible of us that we have lived in Portland for 3 years now and this was the first time we have made it up to Seattle. The whole family visited a fortune cookie factory, a kangaroo farm and picked strawberries. More than that, it was so nice to get to know Mark's extended family better and we enjoyed it very much.

I celebrated my 35th birthday at the beginning of July and drove down to Salem area for 4rth of July weekend to have dinner with Jana and her family that I haven't seen in a couple years.

Even though I have been unemployed since January, its only in July that I actually feel like I have some time to work on things. My unpacking is almost done, and the de-cluttering process is about 75% done as well. I hope to have the house presentable by next weekend as we are thinking about having some friends over for the first time since moving into our new rental house.

I am still helping Mark grade his online classes as well as rewriting the material for his HTML class since it is very outdated. I'm also learning stuff about a new class that he will be teaching online in the fall on Adobe Flash. Mark doesn't know much about the program, so he's leaning on my knowledge to help him teach and grade the class. Seems odd to me that he gets assigned classes in software he has barely ever used, but they seem convinced that Mark can teach any software product they offer. This was a good deal for him since he traded one of his in-person classes for this online class. Teaching in person 3 nights and all day Saturday AND working a full time job is killing him so in the fall he'll only have to go campus 1 night and 1 Saturday per week. He'll still have 4 classes though, and we are hoping that PSU will hurry up and hire him for a permanent position so that he can stop teaching full time. PSU continues to postpone making a decision because they can't decide how to restructure the department. His department really does seem to like him, so I think its just a matter of time. It is frustrating for us because he isn't getting benefits and so we continue to have to pay a high medical premium every month when he could have completely paid for medical coverage as a permanent employee.

All in all, I am enjoying my sabbatical though I'm disappointed in myself for not exercising more. Once I finish decluttering I'll have to push myself on that much harder. I think taking this sabbatical was a good idea; it has given me some time to think about things and life as well as learn more about myself as a person. As this blog entry is already way too long, I think I'll leave those musings for another post. =) This blog post reminds me of a quote that my friend Nancy told me this week:

I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time. -Blaise Pascal

House Sold... Maybe.

We were lucky enough to get a buyer submit an offer within 4 days of putting our house up, but unlucky enough to get the buyer from Hell. There has been so much drama on this house sale contract that I have been at wit's end several times in the last few weeks. After 2 weeks of negotiating and a original list of 51 items of "to be repaired" demands from the buyers, my real estate agent finally negotiated the repair list to something reasonable. We are busy trying to get our repairs done in the short escrow the buyer wanted; putting on a new roof and getting a lot of carpentry work done. I will be so glad to leave this place, if only to have the drama end. The last hurdle is whether our house appraises for the amount that we agreed upon. We'll find out next week. I am going forward with the gamble that it does because we've already found a rental house. We have signed the paperwork and should be moving in 10 days. Its a cute 4 bedroom house that was amazingly reasonable that is in a good location for me to take public transportation to downtown. I'm excited to move in; with 4 bedrooms we're already planning on having a "gaming" room AND an "office". This is mostly so when one of us wants to concentrate we have a space that is separate from the noise of the other person's game playing/talking. The rental is actually bigger than our old house, though the yard is a lot smaller. The best part for Mark is that the rent includes yard care; so no mowing the lawn for him.
Other than the insanity of the house sale, we also had to put down our cat Piers in March. We've had him for 17 years now, and both Mark and I were devastated by the decision, but we felt it was the best thing to do in the situation. The last year he's been losing a lot of weight and barely eating. We've tried feeding him everything under the sun, but at the end he would barely eat and was sick all the time. After the 4rth vet visit in 4 months, we finally decided it was time to let him go. Mark has taken it the hardest; Piers was his "shadow" and was the most loyal cat I have ever known.
Along with the house stuff, I have been busy working at H&R Block. I also have a small web design contract; doing a project for a department that I knew when I worked at PSU. It's my first real paid web design gig, though its going very slow because of the other distractions in my life right now. With the craziness of the house sale and move, I also decided to postpone taking classes this spring, since the move is going to take a lot of time. I just have 2 more project classes to finish my certificate, but I keep postponing it lol. Eventually I'll get it done.
Mark is very busy with his full time temp job work as well as teaching 4 classes. To alleviate his work load, I offered to do all the grading for his classes for the Spring semester. We'll see how it goes, and whether its sustainable for the future. If Mark gets a full time job (either one of his interviews or his current temp job being converted to permanent) then in theory I don't really have to work as long as Mark continues to also teach part time. So we have tossed around the idea of me helping him to rewrite some of his courses that need some content updates and web re-designs instead of looking for an internship/job right away. I could also just work on some side projects to build up my web portfolio a bit before looking for real web work.
Its still hard to tell if staying home all day is driving me crazy, since we've been under so much stress. I am reserving judgment on working from home until we are settled into our new rental. I have spent a couple days going to PSU during the day with Mark as well as walking to the nearby Starbucks; it gets me out of the house a bit. I am still loving the ability to just wake up whenever I want, though I am surprised how fast the day goes by.

House for sale.

We just put up the house for sale, and what a whirlwind it was to get it ready by March 8th! For a week, I basically woke up in the morning and didn't stop cleaning and packing till I collapsed in bed at night. My whole body aches, but we got it done. We actually had to get it ready by last week Friday when the home stagers came in and the professional photographer came. The pictures are beautiful, and now we just play the waiting game. Its tough keeping it pristine every day, the cats make it difficult making a mess of their litterbox all the time lol. I spend some time browsing possible apartments and house rentals but until we get a contract I can't really act upon anything I find.

Mark is keeping very busy with teaching 4 classes and a full time job. The semester ends next week, and he's looking forward to a week off. Its hard for him not to go crazy, the end of the semester is a lot of work.

Selling our house

Here’s it’s the middle of February, and I already see a few early signs of the spring to come. A few of the bushes have leaf buds and I saw some early flowers peeking through on some of the plants. Mark and I have finally decided to sell the house, and though we’ll miss it a lot, there’s a certain financial relief that we are looking forward to. Not sure yet where we’ll end up renting, and we’ve even thrown out a lot of crazy ideas like moving to Canada, but nothing is firm yet. Since I’m the one unemployed, I have the most time to organize getting the house ready for sale. So I’m spending my days calling contractors to get bids, and packing. We have a tentative date of March 1st, but we’re probably going to move it back one week to March 8th. Even then, there are a lot of things that need to be done before the house goes on the market, and it can feel overwhelming. We have no idea whether the place will even sell, but I have a feeling that someone will buy it up quickly because it is an adorable place with lots of thing going for it.

I’ve been off work for about 3 weeks now, and I am enjoying sleeping in. At the beginning, I was stressed about finances, but with the sale of the house, I think we’ll be fine for a while. I’m postponing figuring out what to do next until we are moved into our next place. Mark has been super busy teaching 4 classes and a full time job, which means he teaches Tues, Wed, Thurs nights, and all day Saturday. All his other free time gets taken up with grading 4 classes of homework, which leaves him little time for anything else. One of his classes will finish early, so he’ll regain his wed nights and Saturdays for a month, so that will be a relief.

Other than that, things are going well in general. I’ve been distracted with the decision to sell the house, but now that we have made a definitive decision, things are moving forward. I haven’t concentrated on my health as much as I was planning on, exercise still seems like too much work, but I’m not too worried about it right now since I am burning a lot of calories packing so that should suffice until we move. One of the decisions we are struggling with now is whether to get a super cheap apartment or get a moderate priced house rental. Where ever we end up, it will probably be temporary so we have some flexibility on where to live. If we end up in an apartment, I’ll miss the quiet of having a house, but we may have more discretionary income for traveling and fun things, so it’s a tradeoff.

Well I guess I should get back to packing. Mark and I own too many books, I’ve already packed 17 boxes of books and there’s still many more to go. We have a home stager company coming in on Monday to help me figure out how to stage the house so it looks awesome, and I really want to pack as much clutter and books away before they come.

Work Stuff

Its the middle of January and so far we've been spared the large snow storms that characterized our winter last year. We had one day that there was 4 inches of snow, but it didn't last a day before melting away. We had a quiet Christmas at home this year, as my official last day of work at PSU was Dec 6th. December was spent going to tax training, and dealing with Mark's car accident. He spun out on a on-ramp to the freeway during some cold wet weather. He wasn't hurt, but the car is damaged and may be officially totaled. We are still waiting for the insurance company to tell us if it will be repaired or whether they will pay us for the value of the car. We were also dealing with a very sick cat, as our 17 year old cat Piers was suffering digestive problems. We almost put him to sleep, but like many times in the past, he used up one of his nine lives and this month is doing better. I don't know how many more he has, but Mark and I are glad he's still with us.

The best news lately is that Mark has a full time job for the next 3 months. Its actually at PSU, working with faculty to create online class materials. Mark is very excited because this is something that he really wants to do, so it will be a great experience for him to put on his resume even if it only lasts 3 months. They are not sure if the position will be made permanent because of budgets. Even so, it helps us postpone using up our savings for another 3 months so its worth it. It will be a little crazy for Mark, working all day and then still teaching 4 classes. If this job turns out to be permanent, he may cut back on the teaching but until we know for sure, he wants to hold on to as many classes as he can. Just a couple weeks before this, Mark had decided to not work for H&R Block because of his faculty schedule, so that works out well with this new job as having 3 jobs would have been too much.

As for me, I'm quite busy. After quitting on December 6th and having a couple weeks off, my boss from PSU got another job and asked if I would temp back at my old job for a few weeks during the busyness of the beginning of the term. After the 2 weeks were over, they asked if I would stay till the end of the month. So I guess I'll be working full time until then. Its a little crazy, working full-time, working at H&R Block 4 days a week and going to school 2 days a week, but I just need to survive another 2 weeks and the money would be helpful. The beginning of February is when my H&R Block job gets super busy, so this will be good timing for me to concentrate on my tax job.

It was 1 year ago that Mark quit his full time job to teach part time, and its been an interesting financial road. Having only 1 and a half incomes have taught us to tighten our belts, but more it has given us the opportunity to examine the necessity of whether 2 people "need" to work. As I made the decision to stay at home and take a break from work to concentrate on my health, both Mark and I have given a lot of thought to our financial situation. We have a beautiful house, but is it worth it to pay a large mortgage and have to work 2 jobs, or would it be better to sell our house and be able to live on just Mark's part time salary and have free time? We go back and forth on this, but for now we've decide to wait till the end of Mark's temp job which coincides with the end of my tax season job before making any decisions. A lot can happen in 3 months and often does in our lives. =P

In other news in our lives, we are looking forward to going back to Hawaii at the end of May for Mark's brother's wedding. Also around that time, my sister is expecting her third child, which will be another boy. Mark's parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this year as well. So exciting times for our families =)

Probably Crazy

Doing well here, though about to take a big leap of faith myself, quitting my job in 6 weeks to become a fulltime student for a semester or so while I finish my web design degree and try and study taxes for next year’s tax season. I will still be working for H&R Block part time in the winter and look for a new job in the spring. One of the reasons for my quitting is my health has been poor, so not working will give me some time off to try and take better care of myself and think about what I want to do when I grow up. =P Its scary since most people I tell think I’m crazy for giving up a stable job, but I just feel like it’s the best thing for me right now. Our finances will be…interesting for a while, we are already scrimping and saving in preparation for having very little income. Saimin with an egg has already become my de facto lunch at home =) It will feel weird to not be at PSU and I will miss all my great co-workers; there are some wonderful people who work at my current job.

With this change in mind, Mark is still looking for another job to supplement his part time faculty gig. He’s even extended his distance to apply for teaching jobs in Salem, which is 30 miles from our house. He is really enjoying teaching, as it has been a dream for him to be a community college professor for as long as I’ve known him. His students really love him, in fact they all wrote a letter to the dean (unbeknownst to him) asking if he could teach more classes since they all enjoyed his teaching so much. The hard part for him is that as a part time faculty, he is limited to only a small amount of teaching hours, which only adds up to half a salary, and there are some months he doesn’t teach at all. He’s is taking the H&R Block basic class to see if he could possibly work for H&R Block as another possible part time job. Oregon’s unemployment is one of the highest in the nation, and so job searching is a pretty discouraging process.

Other than our impending financial doom, Mark and I are doing okay. It’s definitely autumn here, and my yard is filled with a thick carpet of leaves that make me feel guilty for not raking them up. The trees are beautiful though. Its getting cold, and we had our first hail for the season a couple days ago. It will be an interesting winter.

Dad's passing.

June has been a sad and busy month for us. It started with a visit to Portland from my sister and her family. I took off the first week of June to spend time with them. We spent time at the OMSI, saw the Rose Parade and drove up the Gorge to see Multnomah Falls. They were going to spend 4 days with us, then drive down to Los Angeles and spend 5 days there with Jason's mom to visit Disneyland, Universal Studios, etc. Unfortunately, on the Saturday before they were going to leave, we got the unexpected news that my dad had passed away from a heart attack. We cut the vacation short and everyone flew back to Hawaii the next day. My mom's English isn't very good, so my sister and I did all the planning and coordination for the funeral and reception afterward. The nearest date we could get for the veteran's cemetery was 2 weeks out, so we spent 2 weeks cleaning out my dad's desk, collecting photos and planning the funeral/wake. It was a lot of work, and it was tough doing all the planning while at the same time feeling overwhelmed by the sudden death of our dad. I can say that I have never felt more like an "adult" than when sitting at the mortuary discussing the funeral plans for my dad and feeling the heavy responsibility of being the oldest child.

I think we did my dad proud on the arrangements, and the funeral was beautiful and well done. My dad was blessed with a lot of friends and family who helped out, and made things easier for us. There has been some bad feelings among some of my dad's brothers in the past so I was afraid it was going to be a warzone, but they really pulled together which would have made my dad very happy.

Sixteen days in Hawaii is probably the longest time I have spent in Hawaii since I was a college student. Too bad it was for such a sad event. It did make me realize that I have finally reached a place in my life that I no longer feel like Hawaii is "home". However much I will always enjoy going there and spending time with family, its nice to be able to go back home to Portland.

Sun in Portland, what a concept.

Enjoyed a very sunny weekend, first it seems in a long time. Spring is coming, and I'm looking forward to it, and the cheaper heating bills that comes with it. The yard is a total disaster though, winter really took its toll. Hopefully with Mark's flexible schedule, he'll be able to get some work done on the yard this spring.

Its been a couple months now that Mark has been working part time, and so far we've been surviving okay. This spring he has more classes, so we'll find out what that translates into in regards to a paycheck. I've given up trying to figure out how it all gets calculated, its really weird. We are eating out less, and trying to save more. So far its working. I still wish I could work part time, but I really can't complain, I have a reasonably steady job with great people, even if its boring at times. Lot of people out of work right now, so I guess I should consider myself lucky. My dad just got laid off after 30+ years of working for the same company, so things are tough all around, we'll be helping them out the best we can.

Speaking of work, we started to move furniture around the house this weekend. We went to Ikea and bought the components to put in a wall to wall desk in our office. It was hard work putting it all together, it probably took us several hours. The new stuff allows us to move Mark's old desk up to the top level area of our house, which will soon be his home office. Now that he works from home, he'll be able to have a room to leave all his work stuff around without cluttering the downstairs. The downstairs office now has a big L shaped desk for me to use for homework/work and computers games, and a smaller area for Mark to play computer games. I'm pretty excited, I've never had a large desk at home, and since a lot of my school work and tax work requires me to spread out a lot of paperwork, its very nice.

Other than that, we are still pretty busy. This is my last full class load semester, so I'm taking classes 3 nights a week which is a lot. After this semester I will have 1 portfolio class in the summer and 1 in the fall and I'll be done with my certificate program. One of my classes this semester is my capstone class, in which my class will be taking on a project to redesign a non-profit organization. This years project is Portland Center Stage, http://www.pcs.org which is the most high profile website any of these capstone classes has taken on. Also, this project includes a team of outside agency professionals who are partnering with us to complete this project. Its still unclear how all this is going to work out. Its going to be a lot of work, hence why I'm trying to get a good setup in my home office.

Looking forward to my sister and her family coming in the beginning of June. They will be here in Portland for 4 days, which will be nice since I haven't seen the kids for a year. It will be a little interesting since that will be the last week of classes, but it will be nice to show off Portland during the summer, when it is beautiful.

Cats

This past week, my first and favorite cat Furble had to be put to sleep. He got a liver infection, that led to him not eating no matter what we did, and after several tests, meds and force feeding him, we finally had to let him go. We've had him for about 16 years, and it was a very sad time for us. Anyone who has been at our house has known Furble, as he was one of the most social cats I have ever known. He loved drinking out of the faucet, riding on Mark's shoulder for walks outside, and begging for chocolate ice cream. Mark and I will miss him terribly.

The other two cats seemed lonely, and so we decided to get a third cat to see if that would help the youngest one especially. We went on the webpage for the humane society of Portland and looked through their database of cats. We picked one that sounded really friendly, and went the next day to get him. His original name is Max, but since that's my co-workers name, we decided to name him Bear instead, since he's a huge cat that reminds us on a black grizzly bear cub. Click on the picture for a complete description of Bear from the website. He is a huge cat, and very very affectionate. We kept him in the guest bedroom until he felt more comfortable and are slowly integrating him into the household. So far Kitiara hates him, and Piers is indifferent. Hopefully with time, Kitiara will get use to him.

Wicked...again

Had a great time seeing Wicked for the 4rth time (first time in Portland) with my co-worker Max and his wife Whitney. I absolutely love this play, the singing and sets are beautiful, but the story is complex and really speaks to me as a person. Some days I feel like Glinda; going along in life, trying to do good and be the nice person I like to think I am. Some days I'm like Elpheba, who realizes that good deeds often get misinterpreted and go wrong, and wondering where is the boundary of doing good sincerely, and doing good as a way to get attention and being "popular."


Elpheba ponders that in one of her songs, where she says:

"One question haunts and hurts
Too much, too much to mention:
Was I really seeking good
Or just seeking attention?
Is that all good deeds are
When looked at with an ice-cold eye?
If that's all good deeds are
Maybe that's the reason why
No good deed goes unpunished."

The challenge is being sincere and honest with oneself and making sure that actions are being done with the right motivation. A tall order in society today. Much easier being "wicked".

There is such a thing as too much snow...

So my last post was at the beginning of the snow storm we had, that left Mark and I stuck in our house for 8 days. We had 13 inches at least at one time. Work got canceled for both of us for at least 6 days. Luckily we just bought a new chest freezer and had gone to Costco right before, but toward the end there it was getting kinda hard, (I ran out of coffee oh no!)

It was funny, I was hoping to see at least 1 snow day this winter, not 2 weeks of it. It made Christmas feel very surreal, since we had to cancel all of our activities. There is something odd about being surrounded by a ton of snow; maybe the fact that the snow absorbs noise and makes things feel very quiet. I really like being snowed in, and actually it was good timing since it happened when school was out so it didn't impact the university as much. The only bad thing is that snow days ate up my vacation time.

January started things up again and life has been busy with classes three nights a week and work being crazy busy. The beginning of the semester is always crazy, and with my boss out on maternity leave; it was a little insane with readjusting after the snow days and catching up on stuff. It’s only now coming back to normal at work. I feel like the whole time was a blur, and now I’m getting my sanity back (what little there is).

For those of you who don’t know, Mark decided to resign from his full time job. His boss was just very unreasonable and vindictive and even though Mark is pretty laid back, it just got to the point that it was pretty intolerable. Made him sad to leave a job that he really loved other than his boss, but we agreed that no job was worth dealing with someone so bi-polar. Mark was very well liked at his job, so there were a lot of people who were sad he was leaving it. Fortunately, Mark also teaches as a part time faculty, and when his department chair found out that he would have more time available, she gave him more classes to teach for the spring term. So we plan to see how it goes with me working full time and Mark working part time for the spring, and see if we can get by with that. Being a faculty member is actually the direction that Mark was planning on going anyways, so in some ways this is a blessing in disguise if we can swing it financially. He also has a full time faculty position app in process that he applied for last fall, and he just found out he made it to stage 2 of the screening, so many he’ll have a full-time faculty position come fall 2009. We’re not holding our breath, but it’s a possibility. Mark is going to spend the next month preparing for the 4 classes he’ll be teaching in the spring, and also converting our upstairs nook area into a home office for himself since as a part time faculty he doesn’t have an office at work. Surviving on 1.5 is half exciting and half scary at the same time. We’ll see how it goes…

First snow storm at our house

Just thought I'd post some shots of our winter wonderland here. Has to be at least 3-4 inches, and its still falling. I'm excited, looks beautiful outside...and maybe I'll actually have my first snow day tomorrow, so maybe no work tomorrow.

Happy Halloween

We're hanging on here, seemingly by the skin of our teeth(yes, I don't know where I get these weird sayings). Work has been more crazy than usual, as my work place people and I have had to relocate to a temporary location for the foreseeable future because of the city breaking a sewer pipe that flooded sewer into our old area. It was a weird experience, as we watched the sewer leak ooze closer and closer to our office and finally we had to evacuate the area and use cardboard boxes to escape without walking in it. We have to wait until they put in new carpet, and that might be a while. Our new temporary digs is in the same computer classroom that I have all my classes in, so I spend from 8am to 9pm in a drab windowless loud room with 15 people working in one big open space. The noise in the room drives me crazy, and I have a headache everyday about 3pm.

On one good note, I got my review for my job since its the 1st anniversary of working at PSU, and got a nice raise. (much bigger than any I've gotten at Pepperdine). We also get a cost of living raise too, 3.2 percent through our labor union. I plan to put that extra money into a savings account since we used up what we had when we bought our house. We're also in the process of hiring another person who will do similar work as my position which will be nice since my boss is going on maternity leave in December.

Mark is still enjoying his faculty position, and has finished the 1st session of his class. He teaches two 5 week classes, instead of one 10 week class per semester, so today is the last day of his 1st session and he starts his 2nd session next week. Next session is a full class, so he'll have a lot of students.

We rejoined WOW, but I really haven't played much. I'm trying to be just a casual player, which is made easier since I transfered my characters to a server that I know very few people. Trying not to get too involved with the people much, since that is really what makes the game addictive to me, the socialization factor. At least I'm not a leader anymore, I'm relieved about that. =)

Other than that, I'm starting to look for a webpage project that I can work on for next year's portfolio class. I have to do 3 semesters of a portfolio class, that i have to develop and be able show off as samples of my internet work. I don't really have an idea of what I might want to do, which is funny since in the past I can think of good projects for this, but now I can't think of much.

Falling into Fall

Its been a couple months since I've updated the blog, I've been way too lazy lately. In August, I had my internet design classes to fill my time, and periodic Rockband BBQ's at my house. September was slower since I had a break from classes, and Mark and I enjoyed the lazy days playing video games and enjoying the peace before our fall semester started. I have a full load of classes this semester, so basically I'm in class Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, plus all day Saturday. Which means very little time for anything else, with homework and all that. On top of that, the beginning of fall semester is the craziest time for my job. Everyone has been warning me about how insane the first week of fall term is, and its true. Just in the first 4.5 days, we dealt with 5000 issues. Soon as I walked in the door, there is a line, and its just constant motion and talking until I left work at night. And then I had to go to 3 hours of evening classes, I don't know how I didn't fall asleep in class. It should slow down in the coming weeks, thank God.

Mark started his part time faculty position last week, and so far he likes it. He's already been asked to teach the same class in the Winter term. Its a lot of work, the first time you teach something, but it should get easier when he repeats the class.

Sadly, we had a friend pass away unexpectedly in the end of September. Rachel suffered from end stage liver disease and was waiting for a transplant in San Francisco but she ran out of time. Mark and I drove to San Fransico to be there at the hospital with Anton (her husband) when the end came. It seemed like such a short time ago when I was blogging about their bridal shower and coming to Portland for their wedding. They are one of the friends who moved up to Portland that Mark and I were excited about living closer to when we moved here. Anton has been staying with us at our house since returning from San Fransisco, while he settles his affairs. He plans to move back to LA, to be closer to his career aspirations(he writes screenplays). Its sad to lose friends, especially those who are so young. Even though we've had quite a few people pass away lately, it still doesn't get any easier.

Anyways, other than that we are hanging on and riding out our busy schedules. I've really been getting into Facebook lately, so if any of you use it and I don't have you on my friend's list, let me know and I'll add you in. I don't use my real name, so you won't be able to look me up unless you know my fake name.

When did 85 degrees seem so unbearable?

I can't believe that its already the end of July, where has all the time gone? It's been a much cooler summer than last summer, but it still feels unbearable in the house when it gets 85 degrees or higher outside. It took Mark weeks to convince me to spend the money and buy a portable air conditioner in the spring so that we can use it in our office but I had to eat my words when we actually bought it since I'm the one who is using it all the time. I really fear what it will be like when we go back to visit Hawaii after becoming used to the colder weather here in Portland. Its a good thing my sister has air conditioning in the room we stay in, otherwise I may have to rent a hotel just to be able to survive.

Mark's parent's came and visited us for 2 weeks, and we had a good time eating out and doing some touristy things in Oregon. We took Mark's parents to several yummy food places, such as Gustav's, I had class on both Saturdays that Mark's parents were here, so while I was in class, Mark's parents visited the under the bridge craft fair, Powell's books, and the Portland farmer's market.

Mark's dad messed up his knee a couple days before the trip, and they were unsure that they would be able to make it, but they decided to come anyways. Of course, on the trip that Ed hurts his knee is the same trip we plan to go on not one, but TWO walking tours. Luckily he was feeling better by the time we had our tours, and he did both without any complaint. Our first walking tour was an epicurean (read: food tour) walking tour on a Friday afternoon, and then on Sunday morning we went on a "Best of Portland" walking tour. The food tour was great, we tried 32 different foods. The "Best of portland" tour was informative, but my legs were sore afterward since we didn't get very many breaks from walking.

Mark and I took a few days off from work so we could go visit the Oregon coast with Mark's parents. We stayed at a cute little bed and breakfast for 2 nights. It was quite charming and very beautifully decorated. The innkeeper was on vacation, but we enjoyed getting to know her daughter and enjoying her cooking for breakfast. It was a relaxing time, and we spend the days driving around the coast. On our first day we went to the outlet mall in Lincoln City and Mark and I spent way too much at the Eddie Bauer outlet. We also spotted whales on the way to Newport, and we ate clam chowder at Mo's (which tasted better than our previous visit last year).

We ate dinners on the coast at my favorite restaurant, Pier 101. They have the most amazing steamed clams I have ever had, and even now my mouth salivates a bit thinking about it. The sauce it is cooked in is very different, with hints of soy sauce and sesame oil with a nice smoky flavor. After dinner we would retire to the B&B, where Mark's parents taught us to play Sequence.

After our trip to the coast, Mark's parents left for a week exploring Oregon on their own. They enjoyed a railroad trip near Mount Hood and a sand dune bus ride.

Besides the touristy stuff, Mark's dad was determined to help us with our untamed Japanese garden/yard. We've been so busy getting the inside of our house unpacked and straightened out that we've completely ignored the outside of the house, which by mid summer, has grown very wild. Ed knows a lot about gardening so he was happy to impart his knowledge to us poor ignorant new home owners. He trimmed all our bushes and some of our trees, and Jan who normally doesn't usually do yard work gracefully went out to help him. By the time they left, our yard looked so much neater. There is still a lot to do, but the most heinous examples of excess growth have been pruned down. In our neighborhood where most people hire landscape people to do all their yard work, we felt a bit relieved to finally have tamed a bit of the wildness.

It was a good trip, so now we have to go back to our boring normal lives =P Mark is getting ready for his first class in the fall as a faculty member, and I am busy with my Internet design classes. Work has been very busy for me since my boss has been on vacation the last two weeks. I'll get more into more normal life topics in my next post.

Summer in Portland

After a very late spring, I feel like summer is finally making an appearance, and it is quite beautiful. Been lazy about posting, so I have several months to catch up on. Since the end of tax season, I have been enjoying the break and just doing a little of everything.

The last month I have been playing a new online computer game, Age of Conan, with Mark and a friend from Pepperdine, Nancy. Its nice to be playing something new, and its actually a decent enough game compared to WOW to keep my attentions. Its socially much quieter, without a large group as I have been accustomed to, but its refreshing that way.

We have been spending a lot of time working on the house, trying to make it nice before Mark's parents come in July to visit. I'm especially proud of the way the 2nd bedroom is turning out, I will include pictures here soon.

Peter and Irene's wedding

Last weekend we flew to Ohio to see Peter and Irene get married. We got a chance to catch up with Paul, Peggy and Holly from our old care group in LA, and we had a great weekend hanging out together. We all went to a dinner theater, and saw Damn Yankees on Saturday night. Sunday was the wedding, and we had a blast at the reception that night. Peggy and Holly had a lot of fun dancing, and the rest of us joined in as some part of the night. Pictures soon.

Finally some breathing room

Well, the tax season is finally over, and I’m so glad to have survived. It was really nice being able to enjoy 2 whole days off from work this past weekend. It will feel even nicer when we are officially unpacked and I feel moved in. We are probably about 75% there. The move went smoothly, and the movers finished very quickly. We got our cable/internet/phone hooked up the same day and overall it was amazing how uneventful the whole day was.

The weather was unusual, but luckily it didn’t interfere with the actual move. It was cold and dry when the movers were working. An hour after the movers and the cable people had all left, Mark and I were just sitting at the dining room table, taking it all in. The weather suddenly turned gray and it started to hail. It was heavy, and I found it interesting watching it bounce and accumulate on the deck outside the dining room. It was fascinating listening to the sound the hail made as it hit the wood deck, and it just seemed to emphasize and magnify the oddity/reality of our new home ownership. I even went out and grabbed big scoops of it in my hands and tasted it (which amused Mark who was staying warm and dry inside.) The hail continued for a while, and we finally started unpacking. Just an hour later, it was bright and sunny, and most of it had melted away, as if it never happened.

I’m still struck even now the strangeness of owning a house. I think after 3 weeks, I’ve gotten used to the insides, but the outside is still a vast unknown that at the moment I am trying to ignore until I feel fully settled and unpacked inside. It’s a beautiful house, and even though it has its quirks, we still feel like we’re in some bed and breakfast that we’ll have to leave after our vacation is over. The sunlight in the place is amazing, and just being surrounded by trees is great. The cherry blossom trees are in bloom, and so our living room has a gorgeous view of pink trees. I’m trying not to look too carefully, since the yard needs cleaning and the weeds are starting to sprout along with all the leaf buds on all the trees.

I finally gave up on World of Warcraft, and disabled my accounts. It was a glorious 4 years, but I really feel like moving on. This doesn’t mean the end of computer games by a long shot, but I’m taking a break from the responsibility of multiplayer games and just playing some single player stuff like Oblivion, Witcher and Neverwinter Nights 2. Its nice to play a game and not feel socially obligated to play.

I must be crazy, its just been a week since I stopped working insane 70 hour weeks, and already I’m planning to jump into something else. I went to a conference last Thursday and found out that PSU has a multimedia certificate program in Internet Design. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I don’t think doing taxes is going to replace my regular job, so I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m going to do when I grow up again. I can’t stay a computer generalist all my life, the money is just not there and I’m really much better suited working on projects as opposed to random general tech support. So, in thinking about what I’d like to specialize in, I’ve decided to learn more about internet programming. I’ve always been interested in how to organize information so that people can learn more effectively, and so I’d like to learn more about making web pages not only look good, but organize large amounts of content so that its readable and understandable. One term that describes it best is knowledge management. Since there are no programs that teach that specifically, I think this program is in the right direction. It’s a one year program in which I’ll take classes in web development, graphics software, and web design. I could start as early as this summer, and the classes would be nights and weekends depending on when the courses are offered. It’s a lot more attractive to me than going for my MBA because in this program I don’t need to take a lot of general business courses, I just take the tech classes I’m interested in. I need to meet with the program administrator first and have some questions answered, but I’m pretty excited about the possibility.

Other than unpacking and working on little things on the house, Mark and I have just been recovering from my crazy work schedule. Mark was a great help when I was working; taking on a lot of the household chores and doing most of the packing and unpacking throughout the move. Mark has been seriously considering teaching as a part time faculty in the community college system. He already works there as a fulltime staff, but he would love to eventually do full time teaching as a faculty, and this would be a good way for him to get his feet wet first. So perhaps this summer, we’ll both be busy with school.

Unexpected trip to Hawaii

My grandfather passed away last week, and Mark and I just returned from our unexpected trip back home for the funeral. It was a short trip, but it was good to be around family. I wasn’t especially close to my grandfather, but my dad took it hard. Always touch to have to find tickets on short notice, but it was worth it to be home to support my parents and be there to help out at the funeral. I got to see some relatives I haven’t seen for 20 years. My grandfather was a WWII vet, so he was buried at Punchbowl with a military ceremony. One good thing about it was that I got to be there for my nephew’s birthday, so that was a nice unexpected treat.
Life is super busy and I barely have time to think let alone write much. Working two jobs is leaving me exhausted, and the beginning of the semester was extremely busy since we had a brand new software rollout to deal with along with the usual new semester crunch. There were a lot of issues with the new system, and a lot of times I ended up doing a lot of troubleshooting to figure out what were some of the problems, even though I’ve had very little training with the system. Its hard for me physically to talk all day long and then go in at night and do people’s taxes, which require a lot of thinking. I’ve been making a lot of promises to myself about what I’m going to do after the tax season is over, hopefully I will actually take a break when all this is over. I have a doctor’s appointment scheduled with my new doctor on April 16th, and so I expect her to give me an earful about my health since its been not the best with all the craziness I’ve been going through.
We still pretty excited about buying our new house, and we are spending every spare minute (what little time we have) packing up everything in the apartment. We decided to schedule movers to move our stuff, but we still need to box everything up. Hopefully the cats will take the move in stride, since its just a local move. We move at the end of the month, and I actually have the weekend off from both jobs (yay). I don’t know how we have so much junk, sooo many books. Good thing the new house has a lot of storage. Anyways, I guess that’s all for now.

The beginning signs of spring...maybe

It starting to warm up a little bit, the days are in the 50's instead of the 30's that have characterized most of January and February so far. Things here are going well, I'm prepared about 27 taxes at my job, and so I can definitely say that my nervousness about the process is long past.

As for our house, even though it was a little dicey for a while, we are still going through with it, with a closing date of March 28th. We had our property inspection, and the inspector informed us that the house needs a new roof soon, so we negotiated a price break with the owners. We are slowly packing on the weekends, though that will speed up in the month of March. Working two jobs has been challenging, and leaves me pretty tired so I don't have much spare time. The tax season is slowing down, and I'll have more time at home until it picks up again in April, so I have more time to pack. I'm still excited about moving, though all the doom and gloom news in the housing market makes me double check my numbers all the time. So far I still think we are getting a good deal, you know me, I like to do my homework. =)

Mark has been wonderful while I've been working, picking up the slack by doing more chores at home and cooking dinner every night I work. We are trying to keep our expenses down in anticipation of the move by eating out less and being more careful. We are planning to go to Peter and Irene's wedding in the beginning of May and also visit Hawaii in later May. Trying to save my earnings from Block for vacations.

Other than that, nothing much is going on. I'll be happy when April 15th comes aound and I can relax again. I'll start studying for my Enrolled Agent license after the tax season, and see how far it goes. More about that in later posts.

In the process of buying a new house...

Well, as if starting a new job wasn't excitement enough, Mark and I will be signing a contract to buy a house this weekend. We really weren't looking seriously, but we were casually browsing (as I have been ever since we moved here) and I saw a house that just sounded beautiful. The pictures were grainy but the description sounded like everything we wanted in a home. So I wrote an email to the seller asking if it was still on the market. He said he was only showing it to qualified buyers, so I called him up and he allowed us to see the place, even though we didn't have a pre-approval for a loan. We saw the place and fell in love with it.

Here's a couple shots of the place that the seller had put up online. It's a little nerve wracking to be doing this when I'm just learning my tax job, and we'll be moving in the middle of tax season, but its a great house. Its a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1700 sq.ft. split level house. On the bottom floor, there is a solarium/family room, with two guest bedrooms on either side and a guest bathroom. The main floor has the master bedroom, living room with fireplace, and kitchen. There is a deck leading out from the kitchen for outside entertaining. Another half step leads to a nook that has access to the attic and an unfinished area above the garage. It has lots of windows and skylights, which is great for me since I like a lot of natural light. The lot (1/4 sq. acre) is surrounded by trees and has a Japanese garden feel to it. If all goes well, we will be moving in about March 28th. I'll post more pictures later.

Merry Christmas 2007

Merry Christmas everyone!

We have had a nice Christmas weekend, sleeping it till noon every day and being able to relax. I was off from both my regular job and from tax studying/H&R training, which was probably the first time I've had 4 days off since September. It was great catching up on my sleep too. My usual schedule of working from 8am to 9pm on weekdays was starting to run me a bit ragged, so it was nice to rest. Sunday, we had a small dinner party at our house with Paul and Peggy, and Troy, Valerie and Russell. We all played Rock Band, and I was happily surprised that both Peggy and Valerie got into it as well. We had a great time, and our band, "RAT" earned many fans and a tour bus before we had to call it a night. It was a really enjoyable night, especially since the last few months have been so busy with studies, it was nice to have fun with good friends.

On Christmas eve, we attended a Christmas eve service at our new church, and also attended half of a catholic midnight mass that a friend of mine from work was singing at. We ended up having to leave in the middle because of my allergies to incense were driving me crazy. Good thing I'm not Catholic, I would never be able to survive the services. The music was really nice, and we did get to hear my friend's choir sing, so that was the main thing.

Today, we slept in and awoke to the sight of snow falling outside of our window. All week the news said there would be no snow, but they were wrong. It was kinda nice to have a "White Christmas" on our first Christmas here in Portland. I later read online that there was only a 1 percent chance of snow today, and that the last time Portland had snow on Christmas was back in 1938! =) As I watched it outside, it reminded me of all of God's wonderful blessings Mark and I have enjoyed since moving to Portland.

Later today, we went over to Troy and Valerie's house for dinner. For Mark and I, it was a good opportunity to play with Russell's Christmas toys. Russell is so cute, with his blue eyes and easy laugh. He is just starting to walk, and its funny to watch his wobbly hesitant steps. He has always seemed to like me, but today he was more affectionate than ever, coming up to me and cuddling. After a delicious dinner, we just spent the evening chatting and watching Russell play with his new toys.

Tomorrow I have to go back to work (Mark gets tomorrow off) and I have H&R Block training at night every day this week and on Saturday. I start my official first day of work at Block in the office on January 2nd. I'm nervous about doing my first clients, I feel like there is a lot that I need to learn about office procedures and the financial products Block provides. I'm sure my nerves will settle once I start doing some returns.

Let it snow, Let it snow...

Today we got our first snow here in Beaverton. I also had my H&R Block exam, which took 4 hours to complete. I was taking my test, while Mark took this video outside our house. It didn't "stick" but it was nice anyways. They were forecasting snow today all week, and I did wonder if I was gonna be snowed in from taking my test, but it wasn't too bad.

Passed my tests

I survived both my tax tests, which was a big relief to me. I got a 86% on my H&R test and a 92% on my state tax exam. (a lot of people fail) Its nice to have that stress out of my life. I had a few nights off before starting my H&R Block employee training. I still end up giving up my weeknights for training, but there is less homework. The training consists of learning how to interview clients and some of the financial products we offer to our clients. In some ways, the people part is more intimidating than the tax knowledge part. I'm sure after I get some real experience with clients, I'll feel more comfortable about the process. I officially start work in my office in January.

The Saturday I finished my class final, we went to Costco and I was able to miraculously snag a copy of Rockband Special Edition and a xbox 360. This game has been sold out nationwide for weeks, so someone must have returned it and they put it back on the shelf right before I got there. I've been waiting for this game to come out since May, when I first learned about it. So even though I wasn't shopping for it specifically, it was a wonderful surprise and a nice reward right after my final. The premise of the game is that you form a 4 person rock band, with 1 lead singer, 2 guitar players and a drummer. The Special edition comes with a microphone, 1 guitar, and the drum set as well as the game . I am absolutely in love with the drums, which you play with real drum sticks. Its actually pretty realistic, for a video game and they say that if you can play on the expert setting, you probably have the skills to play for a real rock band. I'm doing okay on easy, and practicing on medium. I got Mark to play guitar but he had to stop since he's been having some issues with carpal tunnel syndrome from his new job. Still trying to find people to complete my band, though I really haven't had much time to play. If you want to check out what the game looks like, you can check out http://www.rockband.com/

Last week Wednesday, we also made some time to go shopping for our tree. As I explained last year, getting a Christmas tree is probably my favorite part of the holidays. We wanted to go to a farm and cut one down, but because of my work schedule and all the rain, we decided to just go to a place where they sold cut trees. At the place we ended going to, the person helping us was actually the farmer who grew the trees, and she said that the trees available had been cut that same day. They were all beautiful and full, and it didn't take us long to find a nice candidate. They had special machinery that would "shake" the tree to get rid of any loose needles and bind it up so that it would fit in our car. We took it home and set it up. Since its such a fresh tree, the smell is considerably stronger than trees we have bought in LA or Hawaii. Even though I haven't had much time for doing holiday things, just having a tree makes me feel more in the holiday spirit.

My job at PSU is going well. I like the people I work with and the job is still interesting. I think it was great to have had those months of not working to rest a bit before working again. I realize now that I probably stayed in my old job a bit too long, and its great to be in a new environment with new challenges. Mark is also enjoying his job, he had his first big presentation last week Thursday and he did really well.

Other than that, we've just been busy working like crazy and learning our jobs. Haven't had much spare time, so I hope everyone is doing well. We'll probably spend Christmas with Troy, Valerie and Russell. I hope we'll be able to see some of our other friends like Anton and Rachel as well.

Baby, its cold outside.

Mark and I are doing well. Mark has been working at his new job for about a week, and its working out nicely. He and two other new trainers that started around the same time have been busy learning the ropes, and taking a lot of training classes themselves. Mark is the most experienced in training between the three of them, and the hope is that he will develop most of the new curriculum for their training program. He will be supporting all the PCC campuses, so he'll be driving around a bit once he gets up to speed. So far it’s been fun for him, and he's enjoying it.

I'm continuing to enjoy working at PSU, even though it’s only been 3 weeks, it seems like longer. The people are great, and I am enjoying getting to know all our student workers who work at the Help Desk. We get into great conversations and lively debates; Oregonians seem to be much more concerned about politics and social issues than people in LA seem to be. Even though I consider myself a liberal, there is a lot of extreme liberalism here that make me look like a moderate. I usually try to stay out of “those” conversations. Sometimes the student workers remind me of my own ‘youth’; it’s amazing how black and white things look when you are young. With age and experience comes a greater… ”appreciation” of the shades of gray in life.

My final exam in my class is in 2 weeks, and the state board test is in 3 weeks. I'm spending every spare moment studying. This Thanksgiving weekend will be my last weekend before my final, so I'll be spending it studying. I haven't played WOW in 3-4 weeks, and though it’s been tough to hold back, I've been pretty good about it. After my test, I'll decide how much time I want to dedicate to it again. It’s been weird not to be playing, but it’s also been nice to enjoy other things.

We are slowly acclimating to the cold, especially now that both of us have to wake up at 6am to get ready for work. (For those of us who knew us from our old job, they would be amazed we are actually doing this). Mornings so far can vary from 30-45 degrees F. Who would have though that I would wake up and think it was a "warm morning" at 43 degrees F. (I can hear my family in Hawaii cringing about now). Also, living here has taught me the meaning of scarves. In LA it was a fashion statement; i.e. the oxymoron of scarves and tanktops. Here it’s a warmth necessity. I don’t leave the house without one anymore.

I’ve spend a lot of time shopping for coats and jackets. Seems like everyone here has 12-15 of them. Living in LA all these years, my wardrobe is lacking much serious cold weather clothes. I have also been shopping a bit for some professional clothes, since what I wear to work as a tech support person won’t quite cut it in the professional tax preparer world of H&R Block. My first year of income from my H&R Block work will probably be eaten up by the cost of clothes I need to buy to work there lol.

Other than studying, there really isn’t much going on. Mark has been having fun as a pyromaniac. In our apartment, we actually have a real fire burning fireplace, and so Mark has been enjoying figuring out how to make a fire that will sustain itself without too much feeding. Of course, when we’re feeling lazy we just use one of those pre-made fire logs that are pretty much light it and forget it. Its been very pleasant to have a fire when its cold and overcast outside, makes us feel very cozy.

Anyways, it’s almost Thanksgiving and Mark and I plan to have a quiet time at home, studying for my tax exam in a big comfy chair in front of the fireplace. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Dad online

Its still weird to be browsing the internet and see my Dad's(Bruce E.) name mentioned in some random news article. Mark forwarded this article to me:

Article from Honolulu Advertiser, Nov 5, 2007

My dad is quoted often whenever there is some heavy rains or bad weather conditions. He's on the TV news quite a bit for the same reasons. Though he claims he only does it since the other guys think he does a better job in front of the camera, I think he secretly likes it. =P

Gainfully employed

Mark has a job! He got a call from PCC and so he'll be teaching computer training classes to the staff at one of the PCC campuses. Not sure when he'll be starting, since he needs to work out the details, but he's very excited to be employed again. With both of us working again, we'll need to work out the transportation issues, but I think I've figured out the route to take to work via public transportation.

We had a great time in LA this past weekend, and got to see a lot of friends. Got my hair straightened again, and ate lots of good food. It felt really busy since every moment I wasn't out with friends, I was studying for my midterm. We left Thursday night and got back on late Sunday night, so it was a short trip.

My first few days of work this week has been great, but between tax classes and homework at night and all the new things I'm learning at work, I'm completely exhausted. My first day of work was also my midterm for tax class so it was a tiring day. I'm really not used to getting up at 6am anymore, so that's an adjustment =) But so far I'm really enjoying the job, the people are really nice and friendly. There is a lot of new systems to learn and if I didn't have so much experience from Pepperdine, it would be completely overwhelming but I'm doing fine. I think I might be tiring out my boss with my questions and all this training though. =P We should be done with our training meetings today and then its just actually learning the job by helping people and seeing what questions are normal.

I have an interview for H&R Block this Friday, though from what I've heard from others in my class, its pretty much just a formality as long as you can pass your state exam, which will be in early December. We got back our midterm and I was slightly disappointed by my score, even though it was a B. I think I would have done a lot better if it hadn't been my first day of work, and also with my LA trip the weekend before. I have decided that I really need to concentrate on learning my new job and doing my tax thing, so even though this is hard, I'm going to be giving up Wow for an indefinite amount of time. After playing for 3 years, I'm sure I'll feel some withdrawal and I'll really miss seeing my friends every day, but I really need time to learn my job and study for the state tax exam.

Its been really cold this week, the mornings are usually around 35 degrees! I don't need to do much walking around for my job, but when I do, its cold. I feel like I've already bought lots of clothes, but I still need more since most of my California clothes just seem too thin for fall/winter here. Thankfully, I can wear nice jeans to work (I love being a computer geek) but when I start work at H&R Block I'll need a more "grown-up" wardrobe as well.

Anyways, I guess that's it for now.

Life is speeding up

I have a job =)

PSU called me a couple weeks ago and offered me a job with their IT department, kinda doing the same things I did at Pepperdine. I decided to take it, and so I start work this up-coming Monday. (I would have started this week, but I postponed because of the trip we are taking to LA this weekend.) It will be interesting waking up early again.... I'm kinda preparing for it this week, by gradually rising earlier and earlier. Today I had to go to tax class early since I'll be missing my usual night class because of our trip, and it was cold and dark in the morning. Definitely will be using the new coat I bought a couple weeks ago...brrr.

Two months ago, Mark and I bought tickets to LA for this weekend. Unfortunately I have my tax class midterm AND my first day of work on Monday, so I'll have to spend some of my time in LA studying. I should be getting a call from H&R Block soon for an interview for working there part time in the winter. So in the next couple months I'll go from total unemployment to working 2 jobs. At least the H&R Block stuff will end in April.

Mark is still waiting for a call from the job he interviewed at 2 weeks ago. Its hard to wait, these educational institutions take forever to make decisions. Even the job that I was hired for, I applied for in July and I'm only starting work now on Oct 29th! Now that one of us has a job, we have been considering alternate work schedules. Mark is thinking about part time work, which would allow him to drive me to and from my 2 jobs as well as leaving some time for volunteer work as well. Its nice that the lower cost of living here in Oregon allows us to be more flexible in our work situation, in LA we would have both had to work full time just to get by.

I've really enjoyed the last two weeks off before my job starts because the stress of the uncertainty of our financial situation is resolved. I've been very busy in my computer game, negotiating a alliance with another group of people so that our guild can do things in the game that require 25 people at a time. We haven't had the numbers in our normal group of people to consistently get 25 people to show up at a consistent basis. There's a lot of rules that need to be negotiated between the two "guilds", new people to meet, and a lot of planning and scheduling. Leading a guild of 50+ members and now a join alliance for 70+ is a lot of work. It reminds me a lot of being a church leader, lots of the same skills go into it, since its basically boils down to "dealing with people". Most of my time in the game is spent talking with people, listening to their personal problems and resolving conflicts between members. I have joked that being a guild leader is like being a friend, a mom, and a dominatrix all at the same time. =P It can be hard, but most of the time I enjoy it.

This week has been more hectic because of tax class and my midterm next week. This afternoon we leave for LA. Friday we'll stop by our old work place and say hi, and hopefully have lunch with some of our old-coworkers. Friday afternoon, I'm going to get my hair re-straighted. I haven't quite figured out the rest of our schedule, but I hope to see as many people as I can.

Anyways, I need to pack, and such, just thought I would catch up my blog while I had the chance.

Where does the time go?

I would have swore that I posted something in September, but checking the blog out I guess I haven't. I guess I'll try and catch everyone up with what we've been doing.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, days seem to run on together, and I'm amazed how much time has passed. We are still absolutely loving it here, I wish we had moved earlier! We drive around and it feels surreal that we actually live here and we're not just on vacation. Of course, not having jobs probably enforced that feeling lol.

I guess for myself, I have been really debating what to do with myself and work. We've never really been in a financial position where we could survive on only 1 income, and its a very liberating feeling. In September, I made the decision to get my MBA in finance and change careers from technology to finance. PSU has a pretty good MBA program and I plan to apply there. Unfortunately, I have to wait till next fall because they only admit new MBA students in the fall terms and you have to apply by March. By then I'll also be an Oregonian resident instead of playing non-resident tuition costs. My ideal would be a full-time student, with maybe a part time job to help pay for misc. expenses. But that is a year away, so the issue I have been struggling with has been what should I do until then? Thinking back to the past, I remembered I did really well at the tax course I took about 5 years ago. I almost worked for H&R Block then, but at the time we were too busy for me to fit in a part time job on top of my full-time work. I found I had made the decision at a perfect time, since it was the day before classes were about to start. I registered on a Sunday and started class the next day.

I know taxes sounds like the most boring subject in the world, but its been fine. The class is 9 hours a week (Mon, Wed and Thursday nights) and probably another 9 hours of homework per week. Its been nice to keep busy while I've been unemployed and I have applied to work there part-time during the tax season. When I started the class, I had just about decided to just pursue this, and stop looking for a full time job. It would give me income through Dec-April, leaving me free to become a full-time student next fall. But a few weeks after I started the class, I got a call from a job that I had applied to back in July. If it had been any of the other jobs I had applied to, I would have turned them down flat, but this was with Portland State University in the same department I had interviewed with in June. Even though I didn't have the right experience for that June job, I liked the people that I had met and I think they liked me, so I decided to give it a chance. I had a phone interview in mid Sept, and a 2nd interview last week. Both went really well. I should hear if I got the job in the next couple days. Part of me wants the job because I'll get a 25% discount on my MBA if I stay working while going to school, but another part of me was looking forward to concentrating on my tax work, which would be better experience for my future in finance. So I'm just leaving the decision in God's hands. One way or another it will work out. =)

As for Mark, he has an interview tomorrow for Portland Community colleges as a technology trainer for staff. His absolute ideal job would either be an IT jobs in the elementary school district or the community college system. It has been a very slow process, since both those systems are very bureaucratic. He's been very patient, but I know that he's anxious to get something. We made a decision when we moved here not to just go for any old job, but to really try to do work that we would be interested in. So he's excited about tomorrow's interview.

Other than job searching, we have been enjoying living here. Fall is definitely coming in, and the trees here are all red or yellow. I've been doing a lot of reading, mostly non-fiction stuff. We have decided that we will not buy a house for the next couple years until I'm done with my MBA. The housing market is a little shaky as well, and so we want to wait it out a bit. So we are planning to do more unpacking and really get comfortable here since we'll probably be in this apartment for a while. We moved the computers into the 2nd bedroom and made that our office. We bought some new bookshelves and are slowly unpacking and rearranging the apartment to a more permanent arrangement. I really love our apartment, its cozy and the view of the trees outside makes it seem more private(See the view from our living room window)

In the last couple months, we have found a church that we really like. Its about 2-3 blocks away from our apartment which is really nice. It has a modern feeling, with a nice worship team and the pastor is pretty good. Its a young church, meaning in age rather than in history. We attended a newcomers event and got to meet the staff as well as several other new people. We aren't in a rush to get involved but its nice to start meeting people in the community. I really thought it would take a long time to find someplace, but we checked out several webpages, and this one really seemed be promising. Feels weird to go with one of the first church's we visited, but maybe God wants it that way. =)

Anyways, I've blabbed on for a long time and its getting late here. I'll stop now.

Mini me

Some fun websites I came across lately that allow you to create little avatars of yourself.

If you ever wondered what you might look like in the Simpson world...try this website out.

http://simpsonizeme.com/

Here's what I look like:

Another website that you can make electronic representation of yourself is http://www.weeworld.com/

Here's what I look like here:

Hmmm...maybe I have too much time on my hands....=P

Trip to the coast

We decided it was high time we left Portland and did a little sightseeing along the coast. We headed over to Lincoln City, visiting a cute little covered bridge along the way. It was just nice to get out of the house, and drive through the forests. Even though we've been here for a couple months, I still thoroughly enjoy being surrounded by so much greenery.

We got to Lincoln City at about dinner time, and found a cute seafood restaurant called Pier 101, with the most amazing seafood. The sign outside says "Best steamer clams in the world" and it was sooo good I could believe it. I don't know what they put in the broth, but we loved it so much we came back 2 more times on our trip.

The next day we drove down to Newport, and spent the day there. We drove around, stopping often to take pictures of the coastline and just to breathe the fresh air. We spent the afternoon shopping at the little sidewalk shops near the coast. We got a good look at a group of seals, sunning themselves near the pier. They looked quite comfortable, and reminded me of our lazy cats at home. We ate clam chowder at Mo's, which is known for their clam chowder. (Verdict: The chowder was better at Pier 101 =P )

Our last day of our driving trip, we wandered back up the coast. I don't remember all the names of towns and stops along the way, but it was a beautiful experience to wander and look and stop when we felt like it.

We ended our trip in Tilamook to visit the factory that makes my new favorite ice cream. At the Tillamook factory we ate cheese curds and ice cream, and learned about how these items are made.

During the trip, I started reading Walden, and it seemed appropriate. This qoute stood out, probably a good theme for our life right now.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. - Henry David Thoreau