Almost one month in Portland Oregon.

Wow how time flies. Sorry I haven't been updating as much as I should but we have been settling in and such.

Since my last blog we have enjoyed the amazing live music of our friends band Alabama Black Snake at a few venues here in Portland. I got bake a few home made from scratch organic pumpkin pies with danielle. It was fun to show her how much fun yet time consumeing making my favorite from scratch pie is.

And I have been reunited with my amazing friend Tiffany.

A short lil back ground on Tiffany n I hanging out in the past. About 3 yrs ago I visited Portland on new years day. I was introduced to Tiffany. She is smart, funny, adventurous, and loves coffee and photography. The two of us seemed to click n enjoyed shooting photos together. Two days after meeting we decided to have adventure day so I rented a car and off we went. 1st to multnomah falls then we went off to the coast to the cheese factory then back to the mountains for a trip up mount hood to see the timberline lodge aka the overlook hotel from the shining. But we never would have thought it snows up on hood. Even tho we have seen the shining. Lol. This was the birth of T&T Dynamite Adventures. I had told her I would get get her home by 10:30 midnight which turned into 7am Eeekkk . So up on mt hood we made it to the top by the hotel in what turned into a blizzard. Snowflakes the size of our hands fell that night with snow banks higher then my moms house. We decided not to go into the hotel out of fear of the car getting snowed in there. We headed down the mountain to discover the quick way back to Portland was closed due to a mud slide. Off in a blizzard we took the back long way in a freakin blizzard in a compact rental with no snow chains. It was an eventful night of over turned trucks, lots of laughs and the beginning of an awesome friendship.

Ok so back to 2011 lol.

Since I have reunited with Tiffany we have successfully taken a trip to multnomah falls , bridge of the gods, as well as a recent trip up mt hood. Which was alot less snowy and still alot of fun. I'm grateful to have reunited with her. and there will be many more adventures to come as well as good times amongst friends.

Brian was delighted to discover the falls were only 30 mins from our apartment, mt hood is one hour directly up the cross rd we live off, and mt st Helen's is only one hour away and on a clear day you can see both mt good and st Helen's from the 84 freeway by Ikea.

It delights me that that Brian seems to get along with my friends here too.

Speaking of Brian he finally bought a bike to get around town and is slowly learning the amazing mass transit system here in Portland. Where you can take any bus, train, trolley and transfer between them and go anywhere in the city or suburbs all for a 3 hour time period for only $2.10 what a steal. I'm happy he's venturing out and exploring. Brian also had an interview to work at a bread factory which sounds intresting. And they give u free bread and feed you meals. My fingers are crossed he gets it.

Brian also finally met up with his buddy fly by aka Steve who he met hiking the Appalachian trail. The two of them went to the Reel Rock Film Tour. It was a series of short films about rock and ice climbers. Brian is calling it rock and Ice porn he said it was beyond amazing to see people climbing rock faces of mountains and ice waterfalls.

In other news I finally have hours at Macy's. At min wage it still isn't enough to pay the bills n survive but it is a start. I'm still looking for a second or even a better paying job. My hours start at 6am and I work till 10am and on some days 1 or 2 in the afternoon. It is what it is. My boss JC is pretty cool. It's crazy to see the behind the scenes of a big retail corporation like Macy's.

We are still adjusting in many ways. I still get home sick from time to time and question our decision on coming west. But we are here and deep down I'm a tough cookie and my job in life is to survive.

We adore our new apartment it's still very empty and we wish we had furniture but in due time I guess. Right now my concern is paying next months rent, transferring my drivers license to Oregon and getting car insurance here. Which I am learning car insurance is 1/2 the price here than it was in Nj.

My 30th birthday is creeping up october 22 I will turn the big 30 I wish my friends n family from back home were able to be here to celebrate it with me. But atleast I have Brian. As of now the plan seems to be on my birthday we will be going out for a bite to eat n some drinks with Danielle and Shawn.
Then the day after my birthday Tiffany , Brian and I will be heading to the coast and the cheese factory. It should be a fun weekend.

I have high hopes for 30 maybe too high of hopes but something has to give. I'm beyond grateful that I have a place of our own to call home finally. But everyone keeps telling me I have an impressive work history and life story but guess what it's not doing me much good if Macy's is the only employer willing to give me a chance. I'm worth much more and capable of 2000 times of what I'm doing there.

I understand The economy is on a downward spiral but cut me a break.

I have been following this whole occupy wall street thing and I can agree with alot of what they are for and how they say the banks keep getting richer, the cost of everything keeps going up but min wage stays the same and the middle class is disappearing. It is becoming harder n harder to survive. I would like to go photograph the signs n set up down at occupy Pdx but hear alot of the homeless here are using it as a free pass to camp instead of actually standing for a cause. Even tho they have signs. Let me tell u homeless people love signs and are pretty creative with their signs wording.

Two of my favorites are ";too old to work, too ugly to prostitute, alergic to jail"
And ";2 French fries short of a happy meal, need $3 for a whopper and a pony ride"

This town and most of its people are interesting to say the least.

If anyone is interested in getting us a house warming gift or a birthday gift here are two links to my wish lists.

The first is my amazon wish list that I usually use for my Xmas list for my mom but decided to just use the same one for my bday/housewarming too.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/1LXZ3ALZHQFSZ/ref=cm_sw_em_r_ws_ETIMob1GAYFYX_w">http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/1LXZ3ALZHQFSZ/ref=cm_sw_em_r_ws_ETIMob1GAYFYX_w

And below is my target list. Message me if you need our address.

http://www.target.com/TargetListGiftGiverCmd?isPreview=false&status=completePageLink&listId=uXWpPo1TPPX9cS2BkCEcdA">http://www.target.com/TargetListGiftGiverCmd?isPreview=false&status=completePageLink&listId=uXWpPo1TPPX9cS2BkCEcdA®istryType=OT&isAjax=false

Let the count down begin 4 days till my birthday. But for now it's time for me to go to bed and get some rest so I can wake at 5am and be at work by 6am. Fun fun fun. Till next time thank you for following and reading. It means alot to me.

Good things are happening.

Sorry it has been a while since I updated alot has been going on.

I will slightly add onto the few days after where I left off then jump to why we have been so busy.

The few days after my last post were filled with alot of idle time and nerves being in knots. I am not a fan of the waiting game for anything. The job emailed me they would be in touch with in a week. And Brian and I spent hours and days pacing chain smoking wondrering if we just blew $90 on an apartment application fee for nothing.

I got a few more phone calls to go on job interviews, nothing too special, just retail and stock.

Oh fun more things to wait for Call backs about. I started to feel like a burden on Danielle n Shawn. It had been a week since we arrived and even tho we were told we could stay as long as we needed to. I truly felt that Brian and I needed our own place ASAP. Every night I would pray that life would fall into place. And that we could just have a place of our own to call home before we go broke. I tell god all I want for my 30th birthday on October 22nd is a place of our own to call home and a job that pays enough to keep it.

And yes I pray alot.

Saturday rolled around and my nerves are getting to me. While drinking coffee and chain smoking in danielle's back yard my phone rang. It was the woman from the rental company. Great news..... We got the apartment and can move in Tuesday. So excited for the first time since Brian and I have been married, we are going to have our own place. Now to play the waiting game again. It's only Saturday but Tuesday feels so far away.

Fast forwarding to Monday I went on another interview. This one was at Big time department store for the stock room. Wow was that nerve racking. I made the mistake of showing up an hour early. It was interesting to watch n listen to all the interesting things going on in the HR department. After an hour of waiting the lady called me in for my interview. It was very corporate. Things seemed to be going ok and at the end she seemed to want to make me a job offer and asked to see my ID. I pulled out my NJ drivers liscense and it was like I pulled out garlic to a vampire. She said she is unsure if She can employ me. I was confused. Just cause I don't have an Oregon state drivers liscense didn't mean I can't work in Oregon.
I do have a Social Security card tho. She told me she would run it by HR and be in touch with me. This is starting to turn into a depressing trend. I needed something amazing to happen in life to cheer me up.

So when I got back to my car I called the rental manager to get the exact dollar amount to have a cashiers check made for Tuesday. And to my surprise the rental manager told me to come down and sign the lease a day early. I was suddenly filled with excitement. Today just turned into the day I've been waiting for now for over 5 years. It is about to be official that we have our own home.

I sped to the bank got the cashiers check n rushed back to danielle's to get Brian. He was beyond happy. We went down signed the papers handed over 1/2 of the rest of our savings and next thing you know we had keys. It was officially ours. I took a short video to send home to my family and friends. And off we went to load our boxes into the car one last time for a while. Danielle and Isaiah met us at her place and allowed us to strap the box spring to the roof of her suv and allowed us to tetris our boxes into the suv n her car.
Brian and I couldn't wait to get everything into the apartment and unpack. We managed to get almost everything to the new place with the 3 cars.

After emptying the cars Danielle and Isaiah went their separate ways and Brian and I began ripping into boxes like little kids on Christmas. It was so exciting to finally get to see what we have been lugging around for all this time. We also got to open all of our amazing bridal shower gifts that were still in their original boxes.

The first thing I did was gather up all the bathroom stuff and ran off to decorate. Our shower curtain and bathroom decor that my aunt n cousin gave us went perfect. It was like it was ment to be.

The bed perfectly fits in the room with tons of space to spare.

The kitchen came with a 1952 teal stove. I must say originally scared me cause I didn't think I had anything to match such a thing. But upon opening boxes we discovered we have a bunch of 1950's metal vintage signs that would make our vintage kitchen just what it needed to be.

I swear we stayed up till 2 am exploring boxes. The next day we woke and headed back to danielle's to get our last two car loads of stuff. We said our thank yous and gave hugs and were off to unpack the last of our boxes.

Piece by piece we found spots for what we could. We even made a run to target to purchase a $16 book shelf to put some books on. I told Brian we needed two of them and he swore I didn't own that many books. To his surprise when we got home we probally could have used 3 book shelves. Our place still seems so empty. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that we do not own a tv nor any furniture. But one day hopefully we will be able to afford some.

Our first visitor to stop by was my friend Adam who lives a few blocks away. He came to kidnap us for drinks at a local bar/ strip joint. Now what's weird to me is every strip joint here feels like a regular bar till you turn around and oh my dancing ladies. All of the bars here have "lottery" aka slot machines in them. It was nice to get out and meet new people and have a drink or two and a few laughs with good people. A big thank you to Adam for a wonderful afternoon out.

After arriving back home that evening I started to get super home sick. I started wishing that our family and friends back east could be here to see our new place and all we have done with this sweet space.

To be honest I cried for a few hours. Brian tried calming me but no words could fill the void of missing everyone that has found their way into my life and my heart back east.

Fast forward a few days full of decorating and trying to skype my mom and dad on my iPhone with no wifi. That would bring us to Saturday.

We have since acquired a second book shelf and two small ottomans for chairs. We have formed two of my giant photo bins into a make shift table. We finally have enough hangers to hang all of our clothes. We got a throw rug in hopes of it absorbing some of the echo from our place being so empty. The kitchen is all put away and straightened up. Brian even has all the cans in the cabinet lined up perfectly just like my stad has his at home.
I figure just like the Johnny cash song one piece at a time only not about a car. We will eventually turn it into a home. And as we acquire a dollar or two here and there we hope to acquire furniture.

Now our mission is to acquire jobs ASAP so we can continue to afford this adorable place we now call home.

I would like to extend a huge thank you to Shawn, and Danielle for being amazing hosts and allowing us to stay with you and store our stuff at your place. As well as being amazing friends. And also a huge thank you to Isaiah for helping us load and unload boxes as well as for being a great friend.

For now I'm going to end this with a short line from a Johnny Cash song that has been haunting my head.

The song is " Can't help but wonder where I'm bound"

"if you see me passing by, and you sit and wonder why, and you wish that you were rambling too.
Nail your shoes to the kitchen floor, lace them up and bar the door.
Thank your stars for the roof that's over you."