Three in Tennessee

The past three months of life in Tennessee have been good to me. 

From the start of the epic road trip across eight states, I've had a hundred new, exciting, frightening and humbling experiences. A terrifying leap was taken into the unknown that included quitting my steady job, leaving my family behind and donating many of my belongings to Goodwill. A risk, which may have appeared to others as a train off its tracks, that I was willing to take to follow my heart. A risk that had no certainty in a successful outcome, and quite honestly still doesn't. 

Without this terrifying yet perfect-for-me life moment, I wouldn't know what was possible.

With a long distance love, everything you do and every time you see each other after weeks can seem like the most magical experience possible. The texts as you're still descending in an aircraft, the holy-sh*t-i-can-feel-your-presence goosebumps, the first sighting, the first touch, the first passionate kiss, the insatiable desire for one another.

My fear was that this could possibly disappear if I were to plant my roots in Tennessee.

Who wouldn't be afraid of losing a touch of this magic while establishing a routine? Waking up together, working together, eating lunch together, walking to coffee together, grocery shopping together, sweating together, falling asleep together. Just to do it all over again the next day? Snore?

To my surprise and far-exceeding my expectations, it's not a snore at all. It's amazing! The past three months have given me every bit of validation that this choice was the right one to make. While everything may not be picture perfect, I've seen the importance of teamwork, communication, respect, honesty, laughter, silliness and adventure.

Adventure comes in many forms for us. A new restaurant, a new TV show, a different haircut.

Just Friday at lunch we were discussing our evening plans of gym, grocery needs and planned exit from the office. While this is my ideal Friday agenda, I went out on a limb and suggested a quick road trip to Nashville for the night.

For the night and right after work without already packing? To spend all that money on just a place to rest our heads and order late night post-bar calzones? He initially hesitated at the thought, but within a minute there was a huge grin on his face and the glimmer of Nashville's lights in his eyes. 

A spontaneous weekend trip to spend some frivolous cash is why we have an adventure budget (also funded by things like our ice cream tax, losers of Uno games and under the table sports betting).

We drove, we sang, we danced, we snuggled, we ate, we laughed, we drank, we planned, we goofed. We shared a triumphant ending to the night slow-dancing to a country cover of "I Want it That Way". We even squeezed in a trip to Trader Joe's that I wasn't expecting until our Oregon vacation coming up in 8 sleeps.

I'm a big fan of this new life and look forward to what the next three months have in store, no matter how they look.

The Adventure Begins

It's time.

Yesterday was my final day at work and as of today I'm an unemployed American leaving her family, home, city and life for a new one with new adventures in Memphis, Tennessee.

I've never moved more than 20 miles in my life and don't know what it really means to drive 2,400 miles over four days to a whole new world.

I really don't know what it means to not be able to see my parents whenever I want to, or my sisters, or my city. I really don't know what it means to have summer temperature lows of eighty degrees. I really don't know what it means to have to pump my own gas. I really don't know what it means to not have a job as an adult. I really don't know what it means to have sales tax, much less move to the state with the highest sales tax in the nation!?! I really don't know what it means to not have an endless variety of craft beers whenever I want, or have to somehow acquire a taste for Starbucks coffee rather than the local beans I've grown up with.

I really don't know, but I know I'm doing it with a guy who loves me unconditionally and have all of the faith in the world that this is going to be the greatest leap into the unknown that I've ever taken.

Thank you all for your love and support as I take on this epic adventure in my late twenties to follow my heart.

It's been impossible for my family to let their baby girl go, but they've done everything in their power to prepare me for this journey. They've given all their help packing, boxing, cleaning, donating, selling, decision-making and in a few sentimental cases storing my belongings. They are my biggest cheerleaders and I look forward to settling in and inviting them to consider a move to Memphis themselves!

It will break my heart today to drive away.

The hugs goodbye, the tears that will follow and the frantic waves that continue far past when my family is out of sight. Crossing the border out of Oregon will make it real, and the three cities we stop to rest will be reminders of how really real it is.

I'm sure you'll be able to catch us on Instagram!

God bless and see y'all soon!

A New Something

I often joke that my favorite fish is efficiency. I admit that not many people understand that joke, even when I say it like "e-FISH-incy", but it still makes me chuckle. I think it's witty, others are trying to understand if I'm trying to say "a-fish-in-the-sea". We all can't win, but maybe we can enunciate?

Lucky for you (and me!) I get to say that joke way more often and maybe people will finally get it. That or they'll tell me I'm not funny. I get to say this dad joke more often because of a big investment I made this weekend. 

Meet my new baby 2015 Prius Three (she doesn't have a name yet, should I finally have a Betty?)

This was very very very, and I mean very unplanned. Not to say she was unwanted, but if you would have told me Friday morning that it was the last time I'd drive my Ford Focus to work I'd laugh and believe that meant I wasn't ever making the commute to work again. Which, yeah we'll keep this post about my new car. 

My point is that my 2005 Ford Focus (Black Stallion) made it 10.5 years and 79,730 miles as my main squeeze. Sure we went through some hard times together where we got towed, got parking tickets, dings on the doors, hit by a bus and other normal girl things. 

But she also showed me the world. She kept my ass warm in the winter with her heated seats and she kept my hair windblown in the summer with the sliding roof. She was pulled over several times but never given a traffic ticket. We took a lot of great selfies together. She did her job to get me from A to B and she also took me on some emotional long distance trips. 

With certainly longer and certainly more emotional trips on my horizon, it was suggested by those who love me the most that I needed to find a car that I could depend on.  Understanding their concern and agreeing with their recommendation, Saturday was full of a test drive, learning about amortization tables and really figuring out what an interest rate is. The day was full of excitement over a new adventure. The evening was rushed with a dash to clean up my Focus for a trade-in and a race home to grab my checkbook. 

At the end of the day, I drove my new baby off of the lot with only 15 miles (most from my test drive) and a very easy amount to pay off all on my own as a grown-up. Its very first stop? Taco Bell drive-thru. Dad's best call yet. 

I won't have to fill the gas tank for 550 more miles and that feels pretty dang cool. 

What did you get into this weekend?

So I Went to Mexico with a Boy and Other Confessions

Sorry to leave you hanging yesterday, but I couldn't come back from 2 weeks of absence and hit you with substance. I had to get back into the writing flow with something shallow like the length and color of my hair. It was also an attempt to cleverly attract you while simultaneously buying time to write the vacation recap + other confessions.

To be honest, I've been away from blogging for so long that I wasn't sure if Kathy still hosted confessions on Wednesdays, if people still used twitter or if hashtags were even still a thing. #TheyAre #Blessed. Actually I was also surprised to see there was a new iPhone out, like I've been living in a cave or something.

That's how removed I've been from the internet world the last few months and I want to come clean with my list of reasons for being so remorselessly MIA:

1. Work
2. Summer
3. A Boy

While I'd love to tell you exactly what "work" and "summer' mean, I know you really just came here to read about the boy-carrot I've been dangling in front of you for about a month now. (btw, google image search "boy carrot" for a giggle).

The slightly ironic thing about today's confession is that this isn't the first time I've talked about this boy here on this blog.  If you need to catch up, here's the post you might remember. #SpoilerAlert

Through the events that played out as a result of work and summer, we were reunited 75 days after we had mutually decided to spend the rest of our forevers apart. And I mean forever. Quickly through our re-connection, the sparks, the magic and the happy fuzzy feels of being back in contact caught us both by surprise.

From my point of view, an anxious and uneasy surprise. From his, "a pleasant one".

You see, the sparks and the feels were there before and arguably had never died, but we stuffed those beautiful beams of light into a tiny box - locked it, threw away the key, buried the box a mile under ground and erected the next world's tallest building with a "shit-load of concrete" on top of it. Hoping and willing that those sparks and feels would never again see the light of day.

But duh, you know as well as I do that magic and sparks can't be forced into darkness.

The time that we spent apart concealing that magic was liberating, eye opening and extremely helpful for resetting my personal value, my self-worth and experiencing the blossom effect that happens after a break-up. Repairing myself and rebuilding into something better was time well spent, but when those sparks rose from the dead and waved themselves frantically in front of my face, they suggested that I give this man and this terrifying thing called love another chance. A chance that I've since tried to sabotage, a chance that I've since tried to nourish and a chance that I owe to the decisions and sacrifices that have led us here.

So this boy (who I can't really call a "boy" as he's 4 years my senior) and I live 2,000 miles from each other. Aside from hours on FaceTime and quick weekend trips, we don't get to touch each others faces more than the pets we give on the front-facing iPhone camera (you can turn away now from the mush, but I'm just getting to the vacation recap). Because of all this apart-ness, we planned a week-long tropical Mexico vacation to serve as our last escape before a crazy few months ahead in our careers.

Ole! Onto the good parts! By the way... his name is Brian.

Brian and I met up in Dallas for our connecting flight to Cancun and we were so excited to get Popeye's Chicken see each other at the airport that we almost missed our flight. We didn't have seats booked together but somehow he negotiated the aisles across from each other. Meanwhile I was busy doing my part by gracefully spilling 20oz of water into the aisle, accompanied by a chorus of gasps from the witnessing passengers.

When we made it to Cancun we grabbed some cervezas and jumped on the shuttle that took us an hour south to my first all-inclusive resort experience. Our room overlooked the "adults only" side along with the dolphin / manatee tank where they did daily swim experiences.

Between the food, the booze, the pools and the entertainment - the place where we spent the most quality time was at the life-sized chess board.

Let me preface that one of the qualities that I find most attractive about this guy is his brain, followed closely by his competitive spirit. He's brilliant. Put those two things together with a person who's never played chess before (against me who was in the Chess club through 4th grade) and you don't need alcohol for entertainment. Things got heated as I continued to chirp "check" and asked "now why would you move that there?".

Since Mexico he's drastically improved his chess game but I'll just take the credit as my solid teaching. Right?

The week was spent within the grounds of the resort - overlooking the ocean, kayaking, renting a cabana, playing pool bingo, beating him in pool H-O-R-S-E and pool P-I-G (he is athletic, I promise. He beat me in a footrace on the beach), trying out the restaurants, dusting off my Spanish minor with some translation assistance and watching classic films I'd never seen like Blazing Saddles and Something About Mary.

I even convinced his sleepy-head to wake up with me for the sunrise on our last day (that he continued to actually call the "sunset" because I don't think he's ever woken up for a sunrise).

We avoided the flood of work emails that were coming in as much as possible and  kept our phones tucked away in the hotel safe - which is the main reason for so few photos. We ordered corn dogs from room service like it was our last meal. And lastly maybe because of the corn dogs we spent a ton of time battling each other for the toilet - absolutely THE most romantic time we've ever spent together.

Positive side - I didn't get a sunburn and I haven't been peeling my skin like I did after the week I spent in Belize earlier this summer. #winning

[Brian Wants To Interject: "Hey! I like how you didn't mention that I beat you in ping-pong and spoke Spanish better than you. Or that I won a bracelet for the dog you in pool bingo.]

Oh yeah, he won this bracelet for me and I haven't taken it off since!

In short, Brian's pretty special to me and we had a wonderful escape from reality together.

My favorite memory from the trip was tackling each other in the cold sand and staring up at the stars while we threw handfuls of sand in each other's hair. Also, when I come back in another life I want to be a manatee. They were the cutest cows of the sea that did nothing but love and snuggle on one another. What a sweet existence.

I'm excited that my "coming out party" got to be with my Wednesday confessions. Mainly it just feels good to share what's been making me so happy and blog-absent.

Really where I could use your help today is to send your good vibes. He's coming to visit this weekend and will be meeting my parents for the first time! Over Chicken & Waffles, naturally.

Give him your worst, Angie!

Go Link Up with Kathy!

The Weekend Blate

I'm positive that I've never crammed as much awesome into my weekend as I did over the past 5 days that Melissa was in Portland. 

Not only did I get to meet this beautiful and confident lady in the flesh, Brooke and I were able to show her some of the "greatest hits" that the Portland Metro area has to offer. She's got the cutest Canadian accent and we enjoyed pointing out how it was even more obvious when she'd get excited. Trust me, there was tons to get excited about.

Food, scenery, girl chats, good music, wine, meat(!!!). Such a packed weekend that I don't even know how to recap it all.

Let's list some of the yummy places that took my moneys this weekend. So many meat sweats I can't even count them all.

- Casa Del Matador

- Smokehouse 21

- McMenamins Blue Moon

- Tilt

- Willamette (rhymes with "Damn it") Valley Vineyard

- Stoller Family Estate

- Red Hills Market

- McMenamins Edgefield

- Deschutes Brewery Portland

Each day was something differently epic. Wine tasting, hiking and taking advantage of the beautiful things I sometimes take for granted in this city I live in. I know the song is "Don't go chasing waterfalls" but why?! They are beautiful, I want to chase them all!

On Melissa's first night she even got to see the unicycling bagpipe playing Darth Vader ride by while all of the Portlanders looked at him and immediately went back to what they were doing without taking a second look. #KeepPortlandWeird

Maybe the biggest win was that Melissa realized how not-normal Brooke and I actually are. Surprisingly she seemed to be okay with that!

Blate weekends rock. Can't wait to see you again, Melissa!!

July Confessions

Hey hey! 

We are going to do some quick n' dirty confessions because I have an early alarm this Wednesday morning for a workout that I'm likely not going to do. If I make it in, I am the most disciplined person in the world. If I don't, well - that'd be like every other day!

:: Life is infinitely better since I toned down the eyeliner. 

See that photo in my sidebar? And how the eyeliner is thick and so not classy? Well I'm working on getting a better photo than that to put as my blog photo because my look has changed significantly since I fixed that. People always have complimented my eyes so I thought I was doing something right.... nope - this is doing something right (besides the hair) 

:: Pictures of sloths will always make me happy. Always.

:: Awkward award goes to me, the girl in the pink who can't walk down a dusty hill.

:: On that same hike, I almost fell backwards off this waterfall when I was scared to near death by two rabid wolves tame puppies on a walk that caught me by surprise. It was steeper than it looks!

:: If there was ever time to return a bottle of wine, it would have been this one. I think I would have rather had a bottle of diluted dish soap. Why does such nastiness exist? 

And with that, I leave you to confess your own sins with Kathy!

Things I Learned in Belize

I was all kinds of excited to come into work today with a tan glow that my co-workers would envy. However, like all people who don’t apply enough sunscreen, my sun-kissed skin quickly adapted to the Portland climate and graciously began to shed and peel and all those other sexy things that happen to burnt skin. 

Literally, it’s like a crime scene in my sheets and I can’t wear black all week because it’ll look like dandruff everywhere. 

No, that’s not confetti. That’s dead skin. Thanks for asking. 

I feel like I forgot to write after taking a week off, so let’s get back in the swing of things with an easy version of Things I Learned this weekend with miss Katie. 

+ Taking a Friday night red-eye is my jam - duh because we all know I covet my Friday night naps.

+ There is a direct correlation between happiness and palm trees. More trees, more happy. 

+ Brother genuinely enjoyed having us there to surprise him.

+ Having a girlfriend looks good on my brother. It was the first family trip with no sibling quarrels.

+ Less is more when it comes to drinking poolside rum and vodka. 

+ Eating paleo does not soak up the rum and vodka I mentioned above. Fried bread does. 

+ It’s hard taking selfies on a family vacation.

+ It’s harder taking selfies when your face swells up for no obvious reason.

+ Googling “Swollen Face Belize” is not a good idea for the hypochondriac in me. I’m on bug-infestation watch for the next two weeks now because of it. 

+ You can win $1,000 from picking which square a chicken is going to poop on.

+ My mom is very animated after drinking 3 beers and winning aforementioned $1,000 from a chicken pooping on her square.

I’ve read over and over how you guys hate vacation recaps (and book reviews) so I’ll spare you the “mark as read”. 

If you do want to read some of the backstory I spied my mom typing up her Monday recap on our flight back into the states! 

I came, I saw, I snorkeled, I regulated (my Karaoke song).

And now I’m peeling.….. and maybe dreaming of my next tropical adventure. 

Are you linking up with Katie today?

Look Out World, Here's Bella!

I'd mentioned a time or two on here about a new addition to the family, but was hesitant to share as the original lady we'd planned to introduce pictured below was caught in a snow storm. We were set on going to get Miss Purple from Nebraska as she is the step-sister to my sister, Bailey and adorable as can be!

Via Loup Valley Goldens

No flights available, a 22 hour drive one-way, a growing puppy almost too big to be able to fly in the plane cabin and a brother arriving at the end of the week were all hidden messages to look beyond the predictable path and let our hearts open up to another option.

My dad took it upon himself to look on his kindle and found a little bundle of love who was only a two hour drive away. I received a call from my mom on my Saturday run and she informed me that they were going to take a drive to 'look' at some puppies in Eugene - and invited me along for the ride. Done deal - I turned around, showered quickly and headed to my parents' house for the journey south.

After what seemed like the longest drive ever, we arrived in Tracktown, USA and were on the ultimate puppy hunt. We arrived to the owners' house and met the prospective puppy's parents (Dash and Peaches) and were directed to the garage where these three silly faces were looking at us.

Each of them eight weeks old born on December 30th, these fluffballs named Beans, Leo and Lucy were placed into each of our arms and gave us their most earnest 'take-me-home-today' puppy kisses. After asking questions of the family, petting the pups and watching them play together we had a family huddle and weighed out our options. As we were leaning toward a girl, we placed extra attention on Lucy and she reciprocated. We discussed our feelings and restrictions of getting Miss Purple from Nebraska, and that the gentle nature of Lucy was steering us in a new direction.

A handshake, an exchange of cash, toys and food and before I knew it... I had a new sister! Lucy was a beautiful name, but with all of our four legged family members' names starting with 'B', Bella seemed to fit perfectly.

World, meet Bella!

I'm so excited that she's joined our family and you bet you'll be seeing more cuteness around here!

<3 JE