Winter to Springtime

Happy springtime, friends! The weather in Portland has been getting progressively better and we've had our windows open at our house a lot (the cats love this). It's been a busy few months so I'm excited to give you all an update.

Settling into New House

We love our little house. We've been here about... 7 months now and we feel mostly settled. We rearranged our living room one last time a few weeks ago and finally feel content with the living room layout and my office is feeling a little less sad. We still need more art for the walls though. Here are some photos of life in the house:

New Year, New Job

I started working at New Relic about 2 months ago. I was offered a great position there after interviewing for about a month. It's been really lovely so far and all the folks on my team have been super. We have an office in downtown Portland so it's been nice to be able to have an and work a few times a week / discover really fucking delicious downtown lunch options.

Adventures in Woodworking

When we bought the house last fall I decided that I wanted to learn some basic woodworking. I had/have big dreams to build some of my own furniture. It turns out that woodworking is hard and there's a reason that it's some people's job.

I wound up investing in a table saw and borrowing some other random tools from a friend (thanks Connor). One day Charlie says to me "I want some kind of bench that I can sit on to take my shoes off near the front door. Can you maybe build or buy something?" What I heard was "Build a 115-inch long bench made out of six boxes and build in venting for the floor register and make doors and drawers for it, too." I really went hard. It took me about 2.5 months and the wasting of a ridiculous amount of plywood because I kept cutting things the wrong size, but I got the shell installed a few weeks ago. It looks okay. I give it a 6/10!

Next on the list is to install some doors and a drawer. I'm taking a break though because it was like the hardest thing I've done in 2 years just to get the shell of it installed.

Seattle Trip & Other Things

Charlie and I spent the weekend in Seattle a few weeks ago and had a great time. We took the Amtrak up there because Charlie had never ridden it and I'm a huge fan of taking the train whenever I can. We walked everywhere (SO. MANY. HILLS.) and ate some great food. Our favorite was Taku in Capitol Hill. Best meal either of us had eaten in a long time.

So yeah, it's been a pretty busy spring so far. Charlie's soccer season has started up again and we recently got invited to a party at one of his teammates' houses. It was the first time I'd met new people in a few years and it was so so fun. My goal for the summer is to meet as many new folks as I can. Do I not know you, yet? Let's hang out!! Here are a few more random bits for the past while:

I need to try to remember to take more photos cause I feel like I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. 😓 But anyway, hope you're well dear reader!

warmth,

joseph