Three Years In

on Saturday the 11th was our 3 year Anniversary of moving to Oregon. Three years!  When we first moved here the twins were only 3 years old , we pulled up in a van with Bob the Cat, Molly and Rueben. The house was a disaster to put it mildly, the smell of cat urine was overwhelming and it was one of the few 90 degrees days they'd had that summer so it was baking! David, Kim and Steve had cleaned one room and the bathroom of cat pee - we slept in there with the door shut for a month. When we were 30 minutes away I got an alert that FedEx was not going to deliver our mattress - I panic called them as the idea of sleeping on that floor was beyond even me. I was able to get through and after convincing them it was not an abandoned house and better yet, the driver was kind enough to come back - I will never forget that feeling of relief, 

sometimes the simplest things are the most important.

I had save my time from Bayada -vacation, holiday, personal so I was able to take off for two months. Aside from major surgery I've never been out of work for that long! It was a good decision looking back, we had a ton of work just to make it livable, we scrubbed and painted, set up the rest of the utilities ( we had no internet for almost a month), reconnecting with Kim and Steve. We explored our town, met our neighbors and I pulled a bazillion blackberry vines. Bag after bag of trash, just went you thought you were getting on top of it David would take down another stand of blackberry vines and another pile of trash would appear. We had an entire livingroom set next to the garage - I found a mound and pulled two bags of dirty diapers out of the ground.

Yuck!

We set  mouse and rat traps  - some nights were pretty snappy, but thank goodness no insects. I'll take a rat over a cockroach any day of the week! We had no furniture to speak of, most of what we transported was appliances - we had my grandmother's bedroom set, 2 tvs, the dining room furniture and ........ well. That was it. We spent our evenings parked on the mattress with all the pets watching tv on the floor. But we got to see the girls, Brandi and Jackson when he was stateside - oh my, that was the best thing ever. No more full days of airports arriving sleep deprived, thousand dollars of flights, having to save vacation constantly. They were now a mere four and half  hours by car! 

That was it!

And if you're wondering why we didn't buy closer -  it was mainly cost and being near a large town. We bought this house right before the explosion and it was well under 100,000. It was a mess as you can see from the pictures but it had great bones and it was really our kind of house. During this we bought a second house to flip in Astoria - in the end it turned out to be an amazing decision but getting from Point A to Point B  I would never do that again. NEVER. And no, I still can't talk about it but the whole thing stank from one end to the other. But - it's over and done with.

And we got money out of it, I can deal. 

The other really fun thing was I didn't have to take the first job that came down the pike. Usually when we move I usually end up taking two jobs- The job I need which is anything fast hire and then later on the job I want. Yes I'm an RN and yes, there's a lot of jobs out there - a lot of AWFUL jobs. You make bank but they bleed every penny out of you and then some.  I wanted something that was not hands on and I did not want to be administration. And I found my job, I started working for the Area Agency of Aging and Disability - I will be there 3 years in August and I can honestly say I love my job and I love my co-workers. It's a really nice place to work and my job is right up my alley. 

I have to say this year we feel like we're really settling in, the first two was constant working on the house, working at work, the other flip house, etc.. But it's been fun. Since this house was built in 1938 we've furnished it with estate and yard sales with some FB MarketPlace thrown in. We are slowing down of course, it's taken awhile to find just the right pieces haggling our way through but we have the house furnished how we like it. We still yard sale on the weekend because it's fun poking through other people's things but we've slowed down a great deal. We have the girls coming this weekend, we take them for about a week or so at a clip and it's great to get to participate in watching them grow up, no more peering into a video screen. So overall aside from some bumps here and there it's turned out to be a really good decision. Of course there's been some bad things, the Astoria house and of course Molly and Rueben's sudden and insanely heartbreaking departure from this plane. But we also ended up living 5 hours away from Jess, owner of Sitka, Rueben's half brother and she helped us get Bee and Dutch - so much to be grateful for!  I"m glad we took the plunge.