I haven't been here in a while.
I'm finding my voice again, remembering how to express myself. I feel like I was pushed into a corner for most of 2001, and now I'm finally free again. The last time I was here was February 5, 2001, or at least that was the last time I wrote anything. Its interesting to reread that day and see how I was feeling then.
Things are better now. Here's what I've been up to:
Moving was a bitch, as it always is. Alex and I had been living on our own separately for a long time, so we had to combine two complete households into one. Twice the dishes, towels, bed linen, furniture, etc. What was the most inconvenient was the double condiments that we had to fit into the fridge. We don't need two ketchup bottles open at once, two jars of pickles, two bottles of soy sauce, and so on. We used up the condiments, sorted out dishes and furniture, and had a yard sale in July. Six months later and we're almost totally unpacked, and what isn't unpacked is piled up in the basement and out of the way.
We got married in June. We had a wonderful wedding. It was at McMenamin's Edgefield in Troutdale. We had the ceremony under the trees, and the reception in a beautiful room with brick walls, hanging plants, and a wood stove. It was really cozy and nice. We had about 30 guests (including the photographer and judge). We kept it small on purpose so that we would be able to spend time talking to our friends and family that came. After the wedding, my husband and I stayed in downtown Portland at the 5th Avenue Suites hotel. After a nice dinner at the Red Star, he and I and went to the Rose Festival Fun Center. He won me a stuffed animal on the midway. It was a wonderful day.
I quit my job in July. I was working for Providence Health System doing tech support. The job had been literally making me sick every day. I traced it to a co-worker who was wearing a gallon of perfume on a daily basis, and spoke with management about fixing the problem. All their solutions, including getting the woman to lay off the perfume, didn't work. She kept on wearing perfume and I kept going home with headaches every day, and having asthma attacks about once or twice a week while at work. My asthma is pretty mild, and usually I don't have problems with it unless I exercise heavily, stand in a room full of smokers for an hour or more, or am near something I'm severely allergic to. Alex and I discussed the situation, and since they weren't willing to work with me on the issue, I gave notice. Since then, I have been unemployed. I'm not worried about getting another job right now since I have no clue what I really want to do and we have enough money to live on while I'm not working. I am taking a class at PSU this term and debating if I want to go to grad school or not. All I know is that I do NOT want to step back into the world of tech support any time soon.
While I've been unemployed, I've been spending time catching up on my reading, doing things around the house like cleaning and finishing our unpacking, and reflecting on a lot of things. I've been writing some of it down, but not as much as I should be. I hope to change that. Let's start now! I'm going to try to node something at least three times a week. Maybe more. It depends on what comes out.
Lots of new faces in the "other users" list. Lots of new nodes. Time to start reading! :)