How We Got Here

      We had been talking about moving for some time.  The Oklahoma summers became oppressive and dodging tornadoes and severe storms became tiresome.  Within a month my son and my husband both lost their jobs and when my hours were cut to 20 a week I knew it was time.  My daughter, SJ and her family, live in Oregon and  so it was decided that we would move to Oregon.

It took us two months to go through 26 years worth of accumulation and decide what to take and what to get rid of in preparation of moving.  Then there was the packing.  I won't bore you with the hassles of finding a moving company.  Let's just say that if I had it to do over again, I would have transported everything myself.  

I had never been to Oregon.  Like pioneers of old I was moving to an unseen place with hopes and dreams.  According to the "Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California" by Lansford Hastings (the official guidebook of the ill-fated Donner Party) many of the early settlers to Oregon ended up going back.  All of the rain was too much.  But I had seen a lot of rain in Oklahoma, too, usually all at once, so undaunted I pressed forward. 

Moving week arrived and the movers came.  My heart rose in my throat then plummeted to my stomach as it hit me that I was letting strangers take all of my worldly possessions, including family heirlooms with provenance that couldn't be replaced.  Not all of our stuff would fit in the amount of space allotted for us in the moving truck, so we ended up having to rent a Penske truck anyway, which we were trying to avoid. 

It took us two days to load that truck and clean the house before we left.  It rained that morning, keeping the temperature cool.  Davey, my cat was riding with me in a crate in the back of my station wagon.  Russ drove the Penske truck with Sophie the Border Collie aboard, and Scott drove our truck and trailer accompanied by his German Shepherd mix, Rex. 

The drive took us 3 days and took us through some of the most beautiful country imaginable.  Wyoming with its large open skies, and Utah with its multicolored rock formations.  I never realized how big Oregon is.  It took us quite a while to drive across the state.  The part of Oregon that we chose to settle in is in Northwestern Oregon, along the Columbia River.  During the day I can hear the fog horns from the big ships traveling down the river carrying their loads of lumber. From our house we can see mountains of tall pines and driving down the highway we are treated to gorgeous views of Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Hood.

It took us over a year to sell our house in Oklahoma and find a house here in Oregon.  We chose one that was move-in ready because a lot of the houses that we looked at needed extensive work, which we were not up to.  After we moved in we realized that there were a lot of things that needed to be done (like replace the knob and tube wiring that Russ accidentally found and came close to being zapped with), as well as things that we wanted to do to make the place suit us.  

The house that we bought was built in 1915 and was a work in progress.  You can see that there was once an exterior door between the kitchen and the dining room, and the breezeway was obviously added later when the house was attached to the garage.  

Last year as the specter of COVID loomed before us, we were able to bring my other daughter and her family up to Oregon too, so we are all together.  What a joy.  I just can't wait until all of this pandemic is behind us so that we can go places again and fully enjoy each others company.

We have a lot of different projects going on right now and in different stages of completion.  I try to take pictures as we go through the projects, but sometimes I forget.  I will post the pictures here for inspiration, with instructions when necessary.

In the meantime, enjoy a couple of pictures of Mt. St. Helens, which is still an active volcano.