Toying Around With New Ideas

I love having a blog. Why? Because in soap opera style, some of you, my readers, will find this interesting. The continuing saga of Tom and Debra.

So here goes: Tom and I are now toying with the idea of moving to Oregon in 2012.

Seriously.

We're both feeling a huge need for change. We've lived in Western New York for 17 (mostly-incredible) years and now the thought of moving nearer old friends, old relatives sounds pleasing to our souls.

I love it when we're on the same page, especially when it comes to moving, for many times Tom has submitted his desires to me to move us to wild and crazy places, you know, like Thailand, St. Lucia, Costa Rica (each place would have held a temporary job). And each time I've gone bonkers, simply bonkers at those requests. And since we've lived in NY, he's toyed with moving to various other places, Las Vegas, NV and Southern California being two, the two places which I said I'd never move to. Forty-six other states I'd live in, but not those, I'd tell him. And oh, the angst in my soul until he left those ideas behind.

So as I said, thank-goodness we agree about this.

We have a ton of dear old friends and relatives in California, but we could never afford to move back there, nor do I wish to move back there ever-- on principle. (I know, I know... never say never.) But Oregon, well, ok. We've traveled through much of Oregon and although it doesn't have New York's thousands upon thousands of 1800's farmhouses and farmland, it does have some.

Oh, how I will miss our country drives here back through Time! Even today we drove through tiny, 1800's towns so eerily quiet that I allowed myself to believe it was 1930.

We're thinking we should put this farm up for sale early next year, 2011. Of course, some of you won't understand how we can give up this dream so quickly, but I'll attempt to explain. We so wanted a farm. After 30 years we got our farm. And well, it's now out of our system. It's moved to been-there-done-that-so-we-can-now-move-on-to-the-next-thing.

We'll always be glad we took this plunge. We'll always be grateful we did this, for never again will we spend one more minute coveting other peoples' acres of green grass. Instead, we'll always be reminded of how I had to mow the lawn four or five days a week (in the heat and humidity, zapping all my energy for creativity) just to keep up, just to stay above the jungle. We'll remember the good times we've had here, but oh, we'll remember all the non-stop work and how before you can do one thing you must do a different thing and before you can do the different thing you must do something else, first.

You know. The complication of it all.

So. Who amongst you can tell me your favorite parts of Oregon? Preferably parts with lots of old farmhouses... and not too much rain. Oh dear, no... not too much rain. Much of Oregon is high desert, so we're thinking perhaps out there, away from the coast. (We have dear old friends in Oakridge, which is nice, but quite small.) No big city, but a suburb could be ok, with reasonable real estate prices. (We will be downsizing majorly, so the house need not be large.)

Honest, I'm open to hearing from you, especially if you have actually lived in or visited Oregon. (I know how some of us are--me, included. We're great at giving advice about something we know nothing about. heh)

Oh, and Tom is considering retiring from the power plant here, then doing something else from home, so the question of work is, well, not too much of a question. We are dreaming big, but hey, who wants to dream small?