Happy Birthday Kelly Hogan!

Kelly has been one of my dearest friends over the past several years.  Also, she reads my blog, so I decided to give her a shout out!  I wish that I could be with her today to celebrate the awesome girl she is (I would have said woman, but I know she doesn't care too much for that word, and neither do I). Today is her  24th Birthday, so Happy Birthday Kel!  Love ya!

Hello Job!

That's right, I got a job!  So today I decided that I would stop in to Famous Dave's and fill out an application because I knew they were hiring.  I have never worked in the restaurant business before, so it was a bit of a gamble but I decided to go for it.  I talked to the managers a bit, told them that I have no experience, but told them I was confident that I had the right personality for the job and that I could learn to serve.  Well, the took me at my word and I am pretty excited to share that today I got a serving job at Famous Dave's BBQ!  I am pretty blown away by it considering I have never worked in a restaurant, but I am definitely looking forward to learning the business and think this is going to be a great fit for me.   Also, I can't lie, I really love BBQ, so this is exciting! 

Over the past few weeks that I've been in Oregon, I have been evaluating my hopes and expectations regarding my employment and what I was realizing was that I held some pretty off ideas.  I had begun to see how much of the reason I was chasing after office jobs was because I wanted a higher pay, just so I could afford to move out on my own, have nice things, maybe buy a new car... and I realized that I was pursuing things that were not going to fulfill me or satisfy me...it was all just stuff.  I also realized that I was trying to get an office admin job not so much because I love that type of work as much as I thought it was the most responsible thing to do.  After realizing these things, I decided to expand my search horizons and that's kind of what led me to apply for a serving position.  I see great potential for meeting some more people near my age and really being able to have an impact and ministry at work and I'm excited by that!

two weeks...time is flying by!

As you can observe from the title, I've now been in Tigard for two weeks which is hard to believe!  On the one hand, time seems to be flying by so quickly I hardly know what day it is, but on the other I already am developing a sense of familiarity and community that seems almost too established for having just been here a couple of weeks. 

I thought I'd share some highlights from the past couple of weeks so you know what I've been up to:

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm:  A week ago, my friend Greg and I took the drive down to Woodburn to see some spectacular tulip fields.  Even though it was a Monday morning, the place was full of people, mainly the elderly and mother's with small children, but never the less we persevered and saw some of the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen.   They have planted over 40 acres of tulips in so many beautiful colors and varieties.  Row after row of tulips, I continued to be amazed by these flowers...it just doesn't get old admiring God's handy work in creation!   Here are a few pictures I stole from Greg:

Rebuilding Center / Mississippi St:  Setting off on what was originally intended to be a coffee date, my new friend Amanda and I headed up to North Portland to Mississippi Street, an area that has recently experienced a bit of a rebirth.  One of the highlights of this little district was the Rebuilding Center, a massive warehouse-like store that sells everything from doors, to mantels, old floorboards, shutters, windows, tiles and cabinets...everything including the kitchen sink!  The charming thing about the Rebuiding Center is that everything in the store is donated from people who are gutting, demo-ing or remodeling their homes so the place is a wealth of vintage-y goodness all at really cheap prices.  I adore old things and I appreciate that all of this amazing stuff isn't just discarded to rot in a dump.  I will most definitely be visiting this place again once I get a job and have some more discretionary cash flow!  Amanda and I also perused some cute antique shops and boutiques in the area, ate some delish sushi and had a fantastic time.

Portland Waterfront:  On Thursday I met up with Melissa, an old friend from Cal Poly, and we walked the Portland Waterfront.  It was a beautiful, warm sunny day and we enjoyed the afternoon sitting on the grassy bank, catching up on each others lives and watching the boats drift by.  It was really fun to get to sit down with someone else from SLO and chat about the things we love about Portland but miss about our old college town.

So those are just a few of the highlights from this past week.  I feel like I have been pleasantly surprised by how busy I've been keeping so far.  It's been a tremendous blessing to see how caring, generous and encouraging this body of believers at Colossae is...I have felt so incredibly adopted into the community up here!  While it has certainly been fun to get to explore and hang out a lot, I am looking forward to and praying that I soon land a job and get a bit of a schedule going in my life.  But for now, I am enjoying, trusting, resting in the Lord and soaking this all in.

Until next time,