good good morning and happy April!

I'm diving back into this series with a topic I could very much overlook. A question I get a lot is: What have been the best parts of all this?

There have been many good things about the uprooting of our family some thousand miles North. I do tend to forget them, especially since struggle has been with us every step of the way. So I'm going to dig a little deeper to find the shiny parts in all this.

please pardon if this turns out to be super short. I have a Barlow & Bear live playing in the background and I am having trouble focusing over the sound of their music.

First it was excitement and adventure. The first outing we took was only a week or so after we arrived. We decided to explore the river. I had never lived so close to water before! My siblings played on the rocks and I took pictures. Someone was playing electric guitar from the balcony of one of the houses on the opposite bank. It was entirely peaceful.

We kept going places. There was so much! Water and woods and parks. I think I took more photos those first months than I ever have since! I definitely treasure these experiences as much as they made me realize the value of home.

Closely tied is the wonder I felt at the beauty here. If you've followed me for any stretch of time, you know I am obsessed. I cannot get over it! I discovered a love for waterfalls, and seriously I want to eventually climb every mountain (well maybe not every mountain, there are too many for that)

I also cannot overemphasize the role friendship has played in this journey, as well. I honestly do not know how I would have coped with the chaos of house-hopping if I have a group of people who accepted me with open arms. In what felt like no time at all, I had extended family. There is not much I can say besides I am so so so grateful for each of them, and their devotion and patience with me

The people in my corner are truly the most remarkable part of all this.

. . .

alrighty friends. I need to make lunch and
move a pile of tree limbs off our driveway.
hope your Tuesday is wonderful.
k.

Hey friends,

I know I've said off and on that I want to do a northwest series here, and I know I've asked for ideas/questions again and again. I'm going to stop asking now, and actually write some things.

On the survey I sent to you all last week, I yet again what questions you had about it. I didn't expect to get so many about my daily life! Thanks, I guess. I'm honored but also a little freaked out. Let's see how this goes.

(if you're reading and want to
be on my email list - here ya go.)

What does my daily life look like?

It greatly depends on the season: here we all live based on whatever the weather allows. I will do another one of these in summer because it will look wildly different from now. But since it is, March, let's consider this a winter edition, daily life. 

This winter has been very mild. We've had much more rain than snow, and the few dozen times it has snowed, it's melted right away. I am so grateful because it's our first winter in this house and it's been stressful even without a lot of snow (more about that later). The thing about this area in the Northwest is we have what they call micro-climates. That simply means weather patterns change depending on your particular location. So it might be forecasted to snow, but some areas will only get an inch or two, others will get ten. My house got around four inches but a friend of mine west of here got ten inches and she had to dig her little car out from the drifts. 

I'm going to focus this post on a work-day routine because that's where I am 90% of the time. I currently work in town at a well-known (and swiftly growing) café. I adore the food and my co-workers, and though I am looking for a different job, right now it's where I am put. Each day I work is between 9.5-10 hrs, and if you count the commute, I can be gone from 12-13 hrs at a time. You can imagine how helpful I am around the house, eh?

Preparing for work:

A typical day starts 7ish. Sometimes I'll have a shift that starts at 6:30 AM, but that's too rare to be featured here. I get up and spend as long as I can in pj's because...comfort. There's always coffee and water somewhere in there. Some days, I skip coffee and make it at work instead. 

What I do between getting up and leaving for work depends on the day and what I'm feeling. Some options include:

- reading 

- doing bills or paperwork

- journaling 

- scrolling through Instagram

- tidying my room

The Non-negotiables are:

- laundry

- pack my bag

There are six of us in my family, and it's my job to make sure we have clothes to wear. Typically I do two loads a day, though if I'm working, it's just one. Doing laundry in the winter requires our generator, so that means involving one of my brothers who knows how to work it. I could learn if I wanted but honestly our electricity situation is stressful enough without me getting involved. I never have time to finish washing the load on work days, so my Little Sister is in charge of hanging it to dry. 

We have a dryer but it's not cost effective and it takes a lot of power to run. But our upstairs gets pretty hot when the woodstove is running and it's free heat! If you pop into our house (unannounced, of course) on any given day, there will be laundry hanging from the rafters and on the staircase. A perk of country living, I guess. 

While the laundry is running I pack my bag. I always bring a second shirt to change into after work because food service is sweaty and gross, and I need a clean shirt to drive home in. Winter extras include: extra pair of thick socks, scarf and a beanie (I keep gloves in my car so I don't have to tote them around), and of course a coat. Snow boots go on my feet, but I bring other shoes to wear at work. 

I often have a creative project or a book in there also, but I hardly ever get to it. But if I got stranded in a snowstorm? I'd have things to do then! 

After that comes the "here's what to do about the laundry" mini speech, and a flurry of "goodbye, see you later! have fun at work!" stuff. I walk down our hill to my car parked at the bottom, warm it up as quickly as possible, and I'm off! 

The drive is 35 minutes on a good day. But winter makes it more like 50 minutes. On the way I listen to music and rarely, podcasts. In my last post, I wrote what my music defaults have been like.

I rarely leave town before 8PM, so that means I'm home around 9 or 9:30. Often it'll just be my mom (our family night owl) awake. The first thing I do is toss my socks in the laundry. The second is, figure out what I'm doing for a shower. Our house has a small tank of water for household use when the generator isn't running. And since we don't run the generator 24/7, often there will be no water after I get home. Needless to say, I have learned to take a very effective "bath" with a gallon of water :-)

Bed time is 10:30. I can push 11 if I want but it's not the best decision. Options to do before bed are:

- watch a show

- scroll through Instagram

- make tea and stare into the fire

- start a project??? then quit because I'm too tired to focus on it

. . . .

Whew. Bravo if you made it to the end of...what was this? A monologue on laundry and the inside of my backpack??? Honestly? My work days are some of my least productive ones - creatively speaking. Work is exhausting, getting ready for work is, well. . .time consuming. The weather can be a pain. One day at a time, right? One day at a time.

cheers.
k.

this felt like a mouthful
hope it didn't read like one : )
k.