Wow, I’ve been waiting three years to write this blog post. I first visited Oregon in October of 2017 and I will never forget the strong feeling that overcame me… I knew instantly that this is where I belonged. Oregon housed all of the things I was searching for at the time — geographic diversity, cooler climates, beautiful scenery everywhere you look: mountain peaks, rolling hills, lush fields, trees, and Portland is the city that has the most breweries out of anywhere in the WORLD.
To understand more, let’s rewind. I’m originally from Northern California — I grew up right outside of the Bay Area. 3 months after graduating from FIDM in San Francisco, I moved to Austin. The thing that felt lacking in my life in Texas was the close proximity to the beach, mountains/snow, diverse scenery within a close radius. You couldn’t load up the car and drive an hour and a half to chase the waves at the beach or escape to the mountains to play in the snow while living in Austin. The easy day or weekend trips that I had been so accustom to growing up wasn’t available to us living in Central Texas.
Austin was extremely good to me. It’s where Archie came into my life. Where I made incredible friendships. JMK Media was established. I grew up and became independent. Queso was introduced to me and for it I will never be the same. We bought our first home. I got to enjoy living in a vibrant city, enjoy the amazing greenbelts & rivers, delicious food, live music, and collaborate with other creatives. I spent five years enjoying myself, but it just never felt like my forever place. I missed the West Coast more than I ever thought. I missed my family a WHOLE lot. I missed the gems & adventures that were calling me back West.
As quick as I was ready to leap — and as easily as I could have thanks to my laptop working lifestyle, I also had a partner and a home to think about. 2018 was spent taking lots of trips to Portland/Oregon and hours of research getting to know the city we would one day call home. The end of summer in 2019, N decided to apply to a couple jobs in the Portland-metro that were open. It wasn’t until March/April 2020 that he had his first interview and it seemed like things were moving QUICK. Then cue COVID. Everything was put on pause. It was a long several months of waiting for things to pick back up with job prospects out here. We had already had a trip planned to visit family at the beginning of October, early September we suddenly heard back from the company N had been talking to pre-COVID. He set up an interview during our existing trip at a location an hour and a half south of Portland. Afterwards, N came to the conclusion that he wanted to be in Portland due to how demanding his job is and seeing as our family was in the Portland area. N decided to reach out to management at the Portland location and updating them on his interview and expressed his desire to work out of Portland. A couple weeks later, N flew back to Portland for a quick interview and to our happiness… HE GOT THE JOB. At this point we had both been in the mindset of Oregon living for a while, so to say we were both thrilled was an understatement.
Which brings us back to the present. Sunday, November 8th we officially arrived on our one-way long haul to Portland. We are thankful every single day to be able to live our every day lives in a place full of beauty. Any direction you go there’s something beautiful about this place — the trees full of color, unique buildings, rolling hills, mountain views. We will start to safely explore more around the city and state. For now, we are enjoying trying new restaurants & coffee shops via takeout (but can’t wait for the day to dine in), we’ve been to a couple golf courses, getting active and hitting new trails/parks, and spending quality time with my family. I’ll be adding to my Oregon Journal as we venture out more so please reference. Thank you for taking the time to read about our journey. I can’t wait to take you on more adventures.
xx
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