Detroit Lake

Yesterday I had to drive to Bend, OR - about three hours from Portland in the central part of the state - and must say it's such a pretty drive it's well worth the hours in the car. For today's installment of "Look how beautiful Oregon is!" I present to you Detroit Lake, one of many scenic highlights on the drive.

Jarae's Birthday

Happy 10th Birthday, Jarae!! To celebrate, she had a bowling party with friends....followed by pizza, cake and ice cream back home.

Keaton celebrated by asking me to make my feather boa into a hat.

I shake my fist at you!!

Are noisy, inconsiderate neighbors reason enough to give up an otherwise good apartment? I'm beginning to think so.....

Here I Am

I kind of feel like I need to do a quick “this is where I am and this is what I do” post. Just to cover the basic small-talk topics.

I’ve been living in Portland, OR for the past 6 or 7 years. I have spent most of that time working for a small-ish software company located in one of the suburbs, with the current job title of data support specialist. The majority of the work we do deals with chemical management software that enables companies to maintain compliance with environmental and safety laws through the use of our programs. Basically we take their material safety data sheets and integrate them to a searchable online database. That way, instead of having binders and binders of hardcopy safety information, they can simply use a computer to search for the info they need. (Which is handy if you’re exposed to something toxic at work and need to know asap if you should flush your eyes out for 15 minutes or if a mere 10 will do! J) I am the person who looks over the data one last time, uploads it to the customer’s database and then communicates with the customer that their data has been processed. This also means if they have questions or concerns, I’m the one they call. It’s admittedly not the most exciting place to work, but I’ve been able to do a fair share of advancing over the years, moving up through the ranks. www.dolphinmsds.com is our company website. This is not a covert ploy to bring in business!!

Obviously, as an adult, work takes up most of my time. But when I’m not at work I like to fill my time with the activities that make me happy. I have been blessed with a good, solid group of friends. I can be myself around them because there is no fear of judgment! And what a luxury that is. Some family you’re born into and other you create yourself. This has been a particularly trying year in my life and I wouldn’t have survived the bad days without them!

I really enjoy living in Portland. (To the dismay of one of my brothers who is always trying to lure me to Boise!) But Portland is lovely. Not too big, not too small. There’s a fantastic cultural scene. Plenty of recreational activities for the adventurous. Head east and you’re in the mountains, head west and you’re at the coast. It’s green and beautiful!! Yes, it rains, but this particular woman wouldn’t have it any other way. In fact, after weeks of hot, humid sunshine I was so happy to wake up on Tuesday to rain!

I hope you are all doing well.

Book Recommendations

Have any of you read anything of note lately? I'm always on the lookout for good books to read.

Thoughts on happiness

"I keep remembering one of my Guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a might effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't you will leak away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments."

-excerpt from Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, page 260, paragraph 1

Can I make this work?

It seems many of my friends are trying out this here blog-thing and after months of thinking about it, I decided to start my own. Months, you wonder? Yes, like anything I take on I have to spend time getting used to the idea that it's impossible to do it "wrong" and while every post might not be witty and engaging and terribly interesting to you, the reader, it doesn't mean I shouldn't write!

Plus, it's a way of journaling my life and when we see where we've been, we can truly appreciate where we are.