The Waiting Game

My ballot came in the mail on Thursday (Oregon has been a 100% vote by mail state since 1987) and I had that shit filled out and dropped in a ballot box within 3 hours. I've never been more horny to vote. There were a lot super exciting and important local measures / races here in Oregon. I hope all of the measures pass and Ted Wheeler is voted out of office.

It felt good to vote. You should (must) do it as well. And on the national level you should (must) vote Biden/Harris for the love of god.

That's all I'll say about voting. As to what's going on in life...

Portland recently got a big upgrade to our bike share and now all of the bicycles are electric. I was super excited to try them out since I'd never ridden an e-bike before. It's a game changer. You can bike uphill and not even feel it. It's made the bikeshare something I'm way more interested in using regularly and Charlie (who doesn't love biking) has even become enamored with it. We sometimes take them to the grocery store.

Since it's the fall times, we've been trying to soak up all the outdoor fall activites we can possibly get in before the rain and cold set in. This has included apple picking , pumpkin patching, drinking my new favorite cider, and carving pumpkins.

My favorite thing was apple picking at the Apple Orchard. We went to Draper Girl Farms in Hood River which was hella cute and had a killer view of Mt. Hood.

We carved pumpkins last weekend with some friends. I didn't care that much about it but Charlie was super into it and carved a religious symbol from Final Fantasy X (nerd). Mine's just some shapes.

This week in particular was mentally/emotionally tough on me. I had a hard time focusing with work. I tend to be on a cycle of having a few good and normal weeks and then having a light break down. This week was one of those weeks. I took the day off on Monday because I was feeling overhwlemed due to everything happening in American society. I decided I wanted to try to live that day as normal as possible so I went to the Japanese Garden and went shopping. It was great. I forget how incredible the Portland Japanese Garden is. It was wild how much lighter I felt walking out of there. I bought a yearly membership as soon as I got home and am now aiming to make it something I do every week since they have member only hours from 8 AM - 10 AM and I can go before work starts. Yay mental health! 👏🏻

That's pretty much life lately. Honestly at this point I'm just holding my breath for November 3rd. I know we won't really know anything by the end of that night but I am just hoping I get to sigh a big sigh of relief shortly after. Even if it's just for a moment since by no means will T*ump losing fix things in America, but it would finally be a step towards something better. It's only a little more than 2 weeks away. Until then, I'm trying to just indulge myself as much as possible. Going to the bakery (of course), going to the Japanese Garden, and trying to live in the moment (which can be hard). I'll leave you with a few extra photos from the past few weeks.

Next time I write the world could look a bit different. Hopefully for the better. Take care of each other until then. ✌🏻💕