You did what?

Sometimes when I tell people about my 5 year trek to Portland, they look at me with admiration and tell me things like "you're so brave" and "good for you!" At first it confused me, since my life feels like any boring old life. But then I step back and really look at the past few years. I really have done some amazing shit. Not cure cancer amazing, but pretty damn cool for this lazy-ish pseudo-Southern girl. So here are some of the highlights:

1. Bought a one-way plane ticket from Lexington to Spokane and moved to a small North Idaho town that I had never visited and where I knew only one person.

2. After a 6 weeks working in a pie shop, I got my dream job at the East Bonner County Library. Seriously folks, it was awesome and I have never worked with a better group of people!

3. Watched my 1st PacNW 4th of July from the middle of Lake Pend Oreille. If you've never watched fireworks from a boat on a lake, I highly recommend it.

4. Ate venison stew and wild turkey caught and prepared by friends. (also had explained to me how to tan a deer hide with its brains)

5. Somehow acquired 2 dogs and a cat.

6. Rode my bike to work every day until it started snowing--then I strapped ice trekkers to my boots and walked...in the snow...uphill both ways. Okay, so not the uphill part unless you count the snow berms.

7. Finally hiked Mickinick. It's a difficult-rated trail and most of the time I tried to hike it I never even made it to the 2-mile mark. But the last attempt found me 3.5 miles up a 2000 ft elevation increase looking out over Sandpoint and the lake. And my belly was full of wild huckleberries, which certainly made the climb even better!

8. Road trip from Sandpoint to Denver. This is rivaled only by my previous bus trip from Lexington to Denver a few years before. But the road trip took us through Montana and Wyoming which are infinitely cooler than Missouri and Kansas.

9. TRAIN TRIPS TO PORTLAND!!!

10. Knowing the names of the mountain ranges surrounding me...the Cabinets and the Selkirks....and not too far away, the Bitterroots.

11. Flying around the lake and those mountains in my roommate's brother's little 4-seat plane.

12. Leaving it all behind to move to the Oregon coast. (This involved convincing one of my best friends to pack her life in Kentucky into a u-haul and drive across the country to join me on the coast. It also involved a 9 hour drive with my dogs and cat after not driving for 2 years.)

13. Astoria. It's a really big hill---that I walked up and down every single day.

14. Getting the job that has apparently propelled me on my current shoe career path--Gimre's Shoes, the oldest family owned shoe store west of the Mississippi. 2011 saw their 119th anniversary!

15. Two consecutive Christmas days spent looking for sand dollars on the beach.

16. Climbing to the top of the South Jetty at Ft. Stevens State Park.

17. Completing the 2010 Columbia Crossing--a 10K walk/run (I walked) that starts in Washington and continues over the 4-mile Astoria-Megler Bridge that spans the Columbia not too far from where the river meets the ocean.

18. Waking up every day to an amazing view of the Columbia River.

19. Did I mention the proximity of the ocean?

20. Finally finally finally moving to Portland!

I met so many wonderful people along this 5-year journey, too many to name without inevitably leaving someone out. And I consider myself the luckiest person in the world because of each and every one of them! I also fell in love a few times over the past few years. And while none of theme were quite right for me, they were each beautiful and amazing in their own unique ways and I wouldn't want to imagine this adventure without them. The past 5 years have been more full of life than I realized while living them. So maybe another resolution for this year will be to focus my awareness on life as I live it, instead of just getting through the days and wondering what comes next.

Although, I do wonder what's coming next. ;-)