1 month

This past Friday makes exactly 1 month since Bootsie and I arrived in Oregon.  I don't think it's a coincidence that it was also the first day Oregon really felt like home.  Yeah, my house still isn't quite set up (I may finally have a kitchen table, but I'm still sleeping on a floor mattress and storing socks and underwear under the sink!) but I finally feel like I've arrived.

I managed to drive to and from work on Friday without my GPS (which is a HUGE deal!) and am slowly settling into what I think will be my home church.  I still don't know a ton of people, but I've been able to catch up with old friends and it's been truly refreshing to see the ways we've all changed over the years, yet in some ways remain the same.  I'm also tremendously grateful to these old friends who have welcomed me with open arms and open invitations, and incredibly blessed to have found new faces who have welcomed this strange Bostonian into their lives without batting an eye.  Yes, it's been a little strange trying to explain exactly why I left a stable job, circles of friends and my entire family to move 3000 miles without a job...but whatever.  I don't think I'll even know why I'm here for another few years at least.  I just know that I'm here, and now I'm finally here.

My immune system was pretty shot from having such little human contact for the past month, plus the fact that all the little cherubs at work have snotty noses (OK, not really but put 10+ children together and one of them is bound to be carrying some sort of germ) meant that I caught a terrible cold this weekend.  I was out late on Friday and felt fine, but work up at 11am on Saturday feeling like I'd been hit by a truck.  8 cups of tea, 1/4 cup of local honey, 7 hours of Netflix binging and 12 hours of sleep later and I was feeling Okay enough this morning to go to church.  I cleaned the entire house when I got home, drank at least a gallon of tea, studied Ethics in the sunshine and prepared most of my lunches for the upcoming week.  I don't want to jinx myself, but I think I may kick this thing if I get a good enough sleep tonight.  (Which also means I should stop rambling and just go to bed already, even though it's only 8pm.)

I'll leave you with a picture I took this afternoon.  Lately I've been obsessed with the Oregon sky.  It's probably the same sky as back home (in fact I know it's the same sky, even dumb Sarah from Newsies makes the astute observation that NY sees the same sky as Santa Fe) but I just can't stop looking at it.  I think I'm mostly just nervous that one of these days I'm going to look back down at the road and realize I'm driving to work on route 9 and all of this has just been a dream.  If it is a dream, I really don't want to wake up.  I never thought I could actually do this, but somehow I am.  God gave me a dream, He drove me across the country, found me a house, a job, and lots of new people to meet.  I can't wait to see what's next.

Thoughts on Oregon

Now that I've been in Oregon for a couple weeks, I feel compelled to publish some of my random thoughts regarding the differences (or at least my subjective impression of differences) between here and Boston.

• Drivers are much more courteous here (like, people STOP to let you make a right or left turn out of a driveway...what's up with that?!?!?!)
• There is no humidity.  Stop, I know you're going to try to convince me this is the most humid Oregon's been in years, but just stop.
• Roads can be VERY steep.  My poor baby car hates it.
• A lot of roads have very abrupt deep ditches on either side of them (especially out in the boondocks where I live).  It's kind of scary, but I assume they're for drainage purposes?
• I live in the boondocks (like, dirt roads, farmland, cattle and horses boondocks) but can reach downtown in maybe 15 minutes without traffic.  If I drive 20 minutes in the other direction I can see beautiful trees and waterfalls...WHAT?!
• There are a LOT of churches out here...like maybe 100 within 7 minutes of my house.  It's really bizarre.
• Everyone loves the Ducks.  I've heard some people like the Beavers (rival football team) but I've seen maybe 1 Beaver hat for every 100 Ducks.
• Boston is OLD.  In fact, Massachusetts in general is old.  I just found out that the town I live in has only been a town for like 7 years.  I didn't even know we were still naming new towns!!
• You can't pump your own gas in Oregon.  I knew this from my previous trips out, but it still confuses me.  Why can't I pump my own gas?  Are you afraid I'll do it wrong?  How much trouble will I really be in if I just sneak out and pump it myself?

I'm sure I have more random thoughts...but I can't think of them right now.  I'll let you know.

Also, I can officially go to work in 8 days.  I'm so excited!

Football

Tonight I was invited to watch a football game with an old friend.  It was tough giving up my nightly visit to the gym (HAH!  not tough at all) but of course I had to go.  Silly me, I thought we were going to watch a game on TV, but we actually went to a high school game!  Now, I haven't been to a college football game since...well...high school...and I haven't been to a live sports game since that time I watched hockey in Canada on our Quebec exchange trip.  HOWEVER, it was actually a lot of fun and our team SMOKED the competition.  (It was actually kind of sad, they didn't score until the 4th quarter, and they missed both field goals.)  I feel like I'm finally settling in here, and that's pretty great.

Oh yeah, and I finally got the job!  I'll be working at BB as an ABA Therapist.  I'm super pumped, I'll be working with the little guys, which is different from what I've been doing for the past 3 years, but it's an age that I absolutely adore, and early intervention is super important when addressing individuals with autism.