Moving

My husband and I have decided to move to a new state. We live just on the border between Oregon and Washington. We're moving to Beaverton, Oregon to be closer to my job (which is now 30 miles away through some really awful traffic).

Luckily, I have a partner willing to make this change with me. My step-daughter is now 18 years old, and she's graduated high school. She's not a child any longer, so leaving now wouldn't feel like abandonment on our part. She's known for quite a while that we've been planning a move to Phoenix in the future, so I like to think she won't feel abandoned when we move to Beaverton.

I'm really looking forward to this change. I've been frustrated with my commute and my job and my life for a long time now; only lately has it really started becoming overwhelming.

I've been looking through housing guides, getting a feel for what type of housing we're looking at, prices of the area, and so on. It looks as though we'll be in an apartment for a short time, but we eventually want to buy a home in the area. I'm having a lot of fun looking at images of the houses currently on the market. Even though we won't be purchasing a home for several years, it's a lot of fun looking at pictures of rooms and thinking about what sort of curtains I'd hang, how I'd arrange my furniture, what colour rug I would put down ...

I never imagined myself as so domesticated and homey as to enjoy spending hours searching the internet for interior photographs of houses. Oddly enough, coming to the realization that I am so domesticated doesn't bother me either.

There was a time, not very long ago, when the thought of being one of those docile wives in an apron and a big, big smile would have me gulping beer down and watching football just to prove I wasn't all girly ...