No News Is, Well, No News.

We are still in oregon.

Hmmm. How do I feel about that?

Let me try it again: we are still in Oregon.

Hmmm. Still no better this time.

I am trying to elicit a response from myself, and I seem to be failing.

I still have so many mixed emotions that I don’t really have any distinct emotions about being back here.

Mostly we are in The Dalles. It has been the smokepocalypse here the last few weeks. Yuck

My hair has gotten longer (really looking feral now), I am a bit older, a bit fatter, and a lot more pale than when we left Asia.

We had a short list of projects to take on when we got home: just basic repairs and maintenance items that we wanted to get done on the rentals. That list, like my nappy hair, has grown longer and longer since we have been here. Like any good to-do list, five new items appear for every item we cross off. It transcends the laws of the universe.

Anyway, I have gotten pretty rough looking over the last month or so.

This was after ten hours of tree trimming and removal, loading up all the wood and branches, and poking myself in the eye once.

Tam told me I am supposed to say I “ran into the car door”, so that’s my story.

We had to tear up a bunch of flooring from one house, so that one (yes. The one we are living in, of course) is all messed up at the moment.

We re back to living in the disarray of a construction site again for a bit. Yay!

There has been good things:

We have seen Brittany!

We have seen a ton of friends and family.

We have actually been kiting a fair bit, and we have included some friends along on that journey.

We have been road trippin a bit.

We had spicy margaritas and tacos.

We made a trip to Floras Lake for more kiting and shenanigans with friends (and beautiful sunsets).

So, it has been eventful at least. We have kept busy, and when we aren’t, we have done a ton (like way, way, way, too much) puzzling. It can be soothing somehow. Sometimes the wind doesn’t blow and the materials for project number forty-seven haven’t arrived yet.

Tam is a puzzle-obsessive freak. She will tear through a one-thousand piece puzzle in one evening. She ropes me in occasionally, and then I get all manic/obsessive too. We finished one the other day and realized it was three o’clock in the morning when we were done. Whoops.

So, yeah, not too eventful all this. We have been up to a whole bunch of boring old adulting stuff.

So, you may be asking, “Hey guys! When are you leaving again? What is next?”

Okay, so maybe you aren’t asking that.

I sure have been.

I don’t have that answer yet. We are thinking of being here until the end of August or September anyway, and after that? We have been talking a lot about going to Europe in the fall (the warmer parts in the South), maybe hiking the Camino De Santiago (The Norte one), maybe just post up on a beach in the Caribbean again for the winter. We aren’t sure.

I will add a little hint here of some other things that may be coming up. We may have to leave suddenly sometime in the next two to four months, so we are not making any distinct plans. I can’t provide too much detail on that, but it has something to do with Tam’s insistence that we have to keep our nursing licenses active for a “just in case” fallback plan. To keep our licenses active we have to work four hundred hours every two years (yeah, I am aware that that doesn’t sound like retirement, but…), so we have a few ideas. I can’t (won’t) put any more in here than that until we know something more. It is kind of a cool opportunity, though, if it comes around.

Fingers crossed…

Man, I am missing this, though.

More soon. I hope…