homecoming

Well, it's official:  I'm moving...again.

My lease in SoCal expires the end of January and I've given my notice.  I'm heading back down in a couple weeks to weed out my year's accumlation of stuff, pack whatever I can into my RAV4, and roadtrip on home.  Thankfully, one of my good friends from back home (M.L.) volunteered to accompany me on the drive, so at least I won't be alone on the return trip home!

Seems like I am making moving a semi-annual event either way.  I should be a pro at this by now, eh?  Definitely not something I ever wanted to put on my top 10 list of "most experienced at...".  I'm so sick of packing up my immediate belongings only to move them to a different location every six months, and never seeing the rest of my stuff which just sits in storage.  Hopefully soon I can put down some roots for a good while...a solid year or two would be a nice change, AT THE LEAST!

The job search will be on full-blast come February.  Although I'm not limiting my search to just Yakima, it is the place I most hope to find work these days.  But, the pickings are slim at first glance.  I'll proably end up wherever work actually is.  Just not in SoCal.  Please.  No more SoCal...  I'm so sick of fed AND state taxes absorbing nearly 40% of my paychecks, rent being 3x the national average, and gas shooting up last summer to almost $5/gal.  Not to mention that very unsettling feeling I would get in the pit of my stomach every time I'd read yet another article about long overdue earthquakes.  And don't even get me started on what it's like living in 949, surrounded by SoCal girls (ever see Bravo's Real Housewives of OC?  yeah.  sadly, it doesn't dramatize far from the truth - at all!  I'm dead serious.)  

I'm so ready for the PacNW!!

Don't get me wrong.  There were some nice things about living in SoCal:  convenience to every store imaginable (when you had the money to spend), proximity to the beach (if you like sharing murky water and stinky bay smells with lots of people on the beach - including the SoCal girls who wear their bikinis with their ugg snow boots on an 80+ degree day, just 'cuz it's phat like that), and waking up knowing that it's going to be yet another sunny day (for the 200th frickin' day in a row).

So I learned something about myself with this move:  I am a die-hard PacNW girl.  Give me my tevas with socks in the winter.  Give me my gun-shootin' beer-drinkin' pubmates, from a hole-in-the-wall that doesn't have another like it in the country.  Give me my seasons where I can melt in the summer and slide on ice in the winter.  I want my country with wide open spaces where there isn't a skyscraper or noisy airport nearby.  I want to smell fresh air every day.  And I want to hug a pine tree.  Yes, you heard me.  HUG a pine tree.  THIS is where I belong.