Update-o-rama

Hey All!

So here we are closing in on a year of living in Oregon. It REALLY doesn't feel like that long, even when I think of how much I've missed everyone.

Currently, we are planning a move to Portland around Dec 1. We love Newport, but it's kind of small, and Portland makes us really excited. Rosie, my best friend from Albuquerque, recently moved there; several people from Newport are debating moving there soon; all in all we feel we'll be really happy and have more options up there. The beach, which I have soaked up extensively this year, will be about 1 hour away by car.

I'll try just to transfer to another Fred Meyer up there, and Boone (he's going by Sev now) will look for some kind of bus driving job.

We're waiting til Dec in order to save up a deposit for an apartment. We're looking in the Woodstock/Sellwood/Hawthorne areas in the SE part of town.

Anyways, I'll update more as we get closer to the move. LOVE!

New House!

Whew! Well, we finished moving into our new two-bedroom apartment (we're sharing with Zofia) two days ago. I was sick until right before the move, and Zofia and Boone were both under the weather during - but luckily Zofia's friend Eliza was visiting and between the four of us we managed it.

Our new address is 811 S.E. 5th St. #10-B - we moved maybe a mile, so it's the same town and zip code. We moved from the beach side of town to the bay side of town - not we have a fantastic view of the boats and the bridge, and we can walk/bike to all the restaurants and shops on the bayfront in about 5 min.

The kitten LOVES our new place. It's bigger, so he can race around for longer distances. It also has a balcony, which he adores and constantly almost falls off of due to his constant racinf around like crazy. It's about 10-15 feet up, so I'm sure he'll fall one day, but not hurt himself badly - and that'll be the end of that.

We found a bunk-bed-where-the-bottom-bunk-is-a-futon-couch for free on craigslist, and we're using that as our couch. It makes me so happy! We're unpacking still today, but I will try and get some pictures up soon.

Other than that, everything is crusin'. Catching up on bills, enjoying the fabulous weather, making sushi, and sittin' on our giant blacony. Boone loves his job, and I love mine, and we're both getting more hours. Mom will be coming to visit me at the end of the month, and our friends Melanie and Robin next week, so it's a good thing we got this extra space when we did :)

I owe everybody phonecalls, but you all know I am forgetful, so please call me for some chatting up!

<3<3<3 (Those are sideways hearts)

Lyssa

Pictures II

Our new kitten, Sokka. He was a rescue, but he was too hyper for the old cats in the home he was staying at, so we got him. Free cat setup! We were waiting until we had more extra money, but you can't beat free. He kinda rocks.

Moolack beach.

Boone, the beach by our house.

The beach by our house. :D

It was windy.

Let's Play Catch-up!

Hello again everyone!

The purpose of this blog was to keep everyone abreast of my rapid changes during my move - now that I am settled, I'll probably discontinue posting here. (Or at least make it more infrequent, updating you on more at once.)

Boone likes his job, except for the going to bed early so he can get up early part. :) I love my job. We're both scouting for pick-up work, rather than additional regular jobs - Boone fixes bicycles, we just made up some flyers for that. I'm looking for maybe a steady house sitting or childcare job, and I've decided to do as much graphic design as I can talk people into letting me do so I can get the practice. If you know someone who needs an ad or flyer whipped up, have them email me! Basic layout/event info kinda stuff I'm happy to do for free, logo design or fancy things that require Photoshopping I'm going to do for ridiculously cheap ($20-$50 per project).

We might be getting a roommate! Our friend Zofia is in need of a place to live in Newport, so we're looking into getting a two bedroom with her. We'll see if that pans out :)

I'm still loving this town. We've now been to the local Asian food market, the sushi restaurant, one of the Thai places, and the indoor flea market. People I know come through my checkstand every time I work. We went and saw the children's theater production of Willy Wonka, and I hope to go see a modern dance show next week.

Hope you all are well, mucho love!

Christmas and New Years!

We had a nice quiet Christmas - we opened our packages and cards as they arrived, to spread out the goodness, so our actual Christmas day consisted of sleeping late and going to see Avatar at the local movie theater (it was pretty awwsome - very gorgeous). New Years we had planned to have people over, but cancelled because Boone didn't feel well. We took a nap and ended up going to the Sandbar from about 11:30-12:30 before returning home again.

I've been getting mildly sick a lot, and so has Boone. One of my customers told me that when she first moved here from Arizona she got sick a lot for the first six months or so, so I figure it's just the drastic climate change and probably new microbes to deal with. As long as I'm not missing any work - and I haven't, since it's all been so mild - it's all good. Trying to support my immune system as much as possible.

I worked a lot during the week and a half before Christmas and the week before New Years, and I'm kinda beat! I ended up with the 1st-4th off in a row, so I am taking it easy. Thank you to everyone for your awesome gifties, I am enjoying them all immediately! Bought myself a few little things with some of my Xmas cash, and I got a bunch of new clothing items and books and things :D

School is out at the moment, and Boone is still waiting on his new birth certificate to arrive to complete his CDL application, but we did fine money-wise this month with my income and minor supplementation.

It's been raining like crazy all week - I'm hoping it will ease off enough for me to go hiking soon, I am longing for some quality forest time.

Anyway - I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and I'll talk to you soon hopefully! Much love!!

Life's a Beach.

Hey all! Here are some photographics of my current meme! I live on Spring between 9th and 10th streets - so from my house I take my cup of coffee and walk down to 10th and turn west and it looks something like this:


Keep walking west, and the ocean peeks into view:


The street turns into a little footpath:

And bam!, Nye Beach, as seen from the top of the cliff.
And I realize, this rocks! No wait - I realize this is why I wanted to come here, this is the aspect of The Glory I am here to contemplate, standing in the sun and the salt in my pjs with my cup of coffee makes my brain click in ways it hasn't been clicking for a while - and it feels good. And that's why I came here.

Soft Places

So I stumbled into a children's fantasy novel on Saturday, going by the unlikely name of North Fogarty Creek State Park. You drive down a tree lined path to a meadow with a gazebo, where you park. Then you wend your way through a tall pine forest filled with little picnic tables and wooden bridges, everything is green and gorgeous. The path takes you in a tunnel under the highway onto a sparkling bright beach with huge crashy waves and black cliffs. The beach is littered with driftwood and a hundred varieties of seaweed and interesting tidbits. Where the creek comes out it mixes with the ocean and the incoming waves send ripples back up the creekbed. Whoosh!

Man do I love crap you find on the beach. I brough home several pocketfuls of goodies from the fanatsy novel, and today I brought home an armload from Moolack beach as well. I'm going to make our parrot, Euclid, a stand out of driftwood to replace the dinky one we have in the living room. I love seaweed, I love smooth rocks with little round holes in them, I like string and shells and little bits of bright plastic that are worn and frosted just like sea-glass. I LOVE driftwood, it's like candy to me.

Things are well here - christmas shopping done, and under budget. House scrubbed, books read, stir-fry broccoli and beef eaten. Boone home soon! Oh...I think my laptop may have finally bitten the dust with a broken monitor, but since I can use Boone's extra laptop, I'm not going to worry about it just yet. I think I got it in 2005, but I was hoping to eke another year or so out of it, since I just got the stickers on the lid the way I wanted them. :(

It's gotten much colder here, down to 30-35 at night this week, and higher wind chill in the day. I love it. Wouldn't want to do it every year for the rest of my life, but I am reveling in it now. My often-unused scarves and hats and long socks are happy to be out of the drawer.

Reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman series and loving it, just finished book seven out of ten.

Anyways, love to you all!