Because we notified the apartment complex that we'd be gone by then. So, now we have a date to work towards. That gives us like 65 days until we need to be gone, and I think it's do-able. It's exciting, we're getting closer and closer.

In addition to job interviewing on our trip, we'll also be touring apartments. We'll be renting a car in Seattle this time, so we'll be able to get around more easily. Last time we went, I didn't really see many places that really looked livable, so this time we'll be touring different areas and looking at apartments within the areas that appeal to us. Unfortunately, most of the apartments in Seattle are a couple hundred dollars more than the ones in Portland, but I'm sure we can find something in a good area for a decent price. We probably won't have time to do much apartment searching in Portland, but I'll try to have everything lined up so that we can check out a few places. Ideally we'll be able to choose an apartment that we like the most in each city so that when we get a job offer, we won't have to go back up there to find a place to live and can just mail the application form in. Our trip is less than a month away, how exciting.

Last night we spent about 2-3 hours booking our flight, hotel, and car in Seattle and Portland. We initially were only going to Seattle, but then we decided we should also go to Portland and try to get interivews there too so we could increase our chances of getting a job. This is an expensive trip and we'd rather only have to do it once and get a job on the first try.

Anyway, we're leaving Saturday, January 5 at 8:00 am and get to Seattle at 10:30. We'll spend a few days there looking for apartments and interviewing and then take the Amtrak south to Portland Tuesday evening. Then we spend Wednesday in Portland and our flight out is at 2:45. We'll get back to Dallas around 8:30 pm.

I'm excited and really happy that everything is booked. We got some pretty good deals on airfare and hotel.

I read an article about a study of the most walkable cities in the country. The study ranked the most walkable cities in the country per capita. Dallas was ranked 25 of 30 and Portland was 5 of 30. Seattle was right behind Portland at 6 of 30. I'm really excited about living in a walkable area and this study just reinforces my desire to move to Portland (or Seattle).

We've been looking at airfare rates this week and right now we're thinking of booking airfare, hotel, and rental car together, and the cheapest we've found for that with decent flight times is around $1,200. But, that doesn't consider that we might go to Portland as well, so our trip might cost a little more. We probably should book our trip sometime within the next week or so, if at all possible, but I haven't asked for the time off of work yet and I'll be out of the office next week. Maybe we should just book it anyway, I dunno, hopefully rates don't go up too precipitously and we can find a cheap deal pretty soon.

Ok, so I apply to this job that sounds like what I want at a company that is medium sized (about 100 employees). I applied the Monday before Thanksgiving and the lady was out of the office. So I debated on whether to call them back this week or not. I decided on Wednesday that it would be too early to call since there was a holiday in there and stuff. But then yesterday, I got an email from them saying they were interested and wanted to meet in person! I was afraid they would want to meet in December, which is a bad month for my husband to get off work. He's busy like every possible time we could go during the week and then the airfare gets to be outrageous because of Christmas. I didn't especially want to go up there by myself, so I suggested early January and they accepted! So, I guess we're going up there the weekend of January 5 and my interview is on either the 7th or the 8th, whichever I want.

I'm so excited!!!!!!!!

When we got married a few months ago, I wanted to make sure that we established a healthy lifestyle within the first few months of being together because I knew that the habits we started would be hard to break. I think that we're living a pretty sustainable lifestyle so far, but when we move to the Northwest, we'll have a similar opportunity to start good habits. Here are a few things that I'd like to establish within the first two months once we move up there:

• Get involved with a church - We go to a church here on occasion, but I'd like to find a church home where we can not only attend regularly but also get involved in other ways to grow spiritually, help others, and meet people.


• Eat healthily - It can be hard to eat healthily here in Texas, where fried food, barbecue brisket, Tex-Mex, and hamburgers are so common. We should be able to eat healthier in the Northwest without much effort and I'm looking forward to that.


• Regular physical activity - There are a lot of outdoor activities available in the Northwest and I plan to enjoy them. I don't expect to become a serious hiker, but I'd like to hike, rollerblade, and find other ways to get exercise and enjoy the outdoors on a regular basis.


• Read - I like to read but haven't done it much lately. Citizens of Portland and Seattle read a lot and I'm looking forward to starting a habit of reading, partially to help me fit in but more because I'd like to read more often.


• Make friends and hang out with them - We don't know anyone in the Northwest, but I don't want things to stay that way once we move there. We don't make friends quickly by nature, but moving out of state should get us outside of our comfort zone and force us to be more outgoing so that we can get to know people and have people to spend time with. I'm not sure how exactly we'll accomplish this, but it's pretty important that we do.

Not much is new. My wife is doing a good job of finding and applying to individual companies in Seattle. She applied to an opportunity last night that sounded pretty good, so hopefully we'll get some responses soon, either from that one or from another company she's going to contact. After we each finish applying to companies individually we're going to start contacting recruiters directly. We've been working on this several hours every week - more than just one weeknight per week - and I'm excited about the progress we're making now. Of course the only result that matters is getting a job offer that we'll accept, but if we can keep up this pace I'm optimistic about the next couple months.

When my wife and I started a blog a few months ago, I knew it would serve as a good way for us to express our thoughts and feelings about our upcoming move and as a first-hand historical source for us to look back to of all the things surrounding our move. I also expected that we'd get some feedback along the way. In another blog I have, sometimes random people would stop by and comment, and with the relatively-more-interesting topic of this blog, I was looking forward to the occasional anonymous visitor here, who would answer some of our questions, challenge some of our reasons, and offer support. So far, though, the only feedback has been from one of the few people we told about the blog. Anyway, I hope some people will run across this blog sometime soon and start commenting.

Damn it, now I'm the one that likes my job. I really wish I didn't like it so much. The people here are just the nicest, friendliest people I've ever worked with and my boss is so awesome. She's funny and understanding and tries to be your friend. I know she thinks very highly of me and would like for me to stay. She has offered me a chance to get into a much better paying position here if I'm interested. She keeps asking about our move and if we've decided or not. I never know what to say to her.

If only this job could be relocated to Seattle. I just know I'm going to miss the people here and her job offer makes it even harder to make myself move. I know we have to, but I just wish I didn't have this heartache and I just wish we could have moved earlier this past summer, when we were initially thinking about moving.

Well, I have my first phone interview today with a company called Sharebuilder. It's not for a specific position available right at this moment, but they may have openings in a few months. I don't know what to expect really. It'll be good practice.

I'm also going to send my resume to this one company I found that is very similar to where I work now. I'm hoping to get in the operations area of any type of financial firm. I like working with new accounts and IRAs.

There one other company I've been trying to contact, but haven't have much luck so far. As it gets closer and closer I'm just going to have to start applying to anything I find. At some point I will get desperate enough to accept almost any financial-oriented job, as long as the hours aren't ridiculous. I wouldn't be happy working more than 45 hours a week. The main goal is to get up there, and so far we aren't doing that good of a job. I'm having more luck than Troy, but it still isn't much better.

We've changed out the old, canned look of this blog for a look that we feel better reflects our mental image of the Northwest and some of the things we're looking forward to seeing when we move there. The pictures show various facets of the Northwest, including the natural beauty, and the cities of Seattle and Portland. Anyway, we may make more changes later, but for now we should probably focus on how we're going to get up there.

I really wish we were already in the Northwest. I'm so tired of living here. I just feel like I'm in a rut and can't get out. I'm so excited about living in a new city and exploring everything. Living here for so long has gotten pretty old and seeing the same stuff all the time is tiresome. It just seems like a change would do me and my husband a lot of good right now. I'm barely going to make it the next four months, just waiting for the end of January.

There are a lot of mosquitoes here and I'm tired of them. They sneak inside our apartment often and I don't want to stay in one place outside for very long because I don't want to get bitten. They're just a nuisance. I tried to find statistics online about mosquito density by state, but I couldn't find anything, but I'm assuming that the cooler weather would mean that there would be fewer mosquitoes in Washington and Oregon.

So, the move is getting closer and I'm thinking of a lot of reasons why I'm looking forward to moving.

1. Change - This is a really big reason and it includes a lot of other little things. I'm looking forward having a new city to explore and discovering and adapting to all the little ways that it's different up there than it is here.


2. Living in an urban area - I've talked before about how I'm tired of living in the suburbs. In Seattle and Portland there are more livable-urban-areas, which are more livable than the ones here. I can't wait to be footsteps away from museums, urban exploration, street performers,public transportation, and other cool urban amenities.


3. Sustainable lifestyle - As a whole, people don't tend to be very environmentally conscious in Texas. There are a few enlightened people, but it seems that most people don't make much of an effort to limit their ecological footprint. I'm looking forward to living among like-minded people when it comes to the environment, where I'll be given more opportunities to be nice to the environment. There will be more environmentally-sound businesses to do business with, I'll be able to talk to more people about ways to limit our environmental harm, and I'm really excited about getting to take more public transportation.


4. Parks & Outdoors - I like going to parks here, so I'm excited about going to parks there. The parks there are bigger and prettier, and aside from regular city parks, there are more opportunities overall to spend time outdoors.


5. Weather - The summer here wasn't bad at all, by Texas standards, but even still it's been in the 90s for the last month. I can't wait to move up there and not have to sweat when I go outside. Sure, it's colder there, but I like the cold weather.

Yesterday I spent some time looking for jobs in the NW. I didn't apply to anything, but I got a better idea of the kinds of jobs I'm interested in and feel more ready to get my resume prepared and start applying for jobs. Getting jobs up there will be a long, difficult process, so starting this week, we're going to devote a night every week toward applying for jobs and getting ready to move up there. By dedicating a night every week, we'll make sure that we are aware of new job postings and apply to every job that might interest us. I think that's the best we can do, if we regularly check the job postings and spend time every week then I think we have plenty of time to get a job up there. I'm excited because by starting this weekly routine, we'll make a lot of progress towards moving and it just makes our move seem even closer and more imminent.

My wife is excited about moving to the Northwest because she's wants to live in a new area and is tired of being here, and I am too. But, I think I may be more excited about moving to the Northwest because when we move up there, we're not going to live in the suburbs anymore. We picked our apartment here because it's close to work and it's close to a park, but over the past few months I've gotten more and more sick of living way out here in the suburbs. I always enjoy going into the city, but I wish I didn't have to drive into the city, I wish that we just lived there. I like spending time in the city, I like the buildings, the architecture, and the history. But, since we're always driving there and don't live there, I don't get to experience the city as much as I'd like because it's more inconvenient to have to drive and park to do stuff there. That's why I can't wait to move to the Northwest because I know that wherever we live, we're going to live in the city, and I'm going to be able to walk places. And, the cities themselves are more pedestrian-friendly than Dallas, so when I go walking, I won't be the only person on the sidewalk. I just can't wait to live in the city and I wish we were moving sooner.

Both of us want to move to the Northwest, but we're not sure which city we'll move to. We both want to live in a fairly large city, so Seattle and Portland seem like the best options. I've heard a lot of good things about Vancouver, British Columbia, too, but we didn't visit there and I don't know much about it. I suppose Vancouver would be a good option, too, but right now Portland and Seattle are the top two options for us.

I think that moving up there will be difficult, since we don't know anybody up there and at least one of us will need to get a job up there before we move. It's hard to find a job, even in a city you live in, so I imagine that it will be pretty challenging to find a job up there. Since either Seattle or Portland would be a nice change from living here, I think we might just move to whichever city offers one of us a job. We'd move to either one partially so that we could move up there sooner and partially because even if we were to have an option, I don't know which city we'd pick. I think I'd pick Portland, but she'd pick Seattle.

We want to move to the Northwest for a number of reasons. We're both tired of this scorching Texas weather, we like the nice parks and natural beauty, and I especially like the vibrant and livable urban areas. But, Portland has more of what I want and Seattle has more of what my wife wants.

I want to live in a dense area, probably downtown, so I want that downtown area to be livable, with places to see and things to do. I don't want to have to drive everywhere, so it's important to me that the city be walkable and have a good public transportation system. I also want a good park system and other attractions.

Both cities have good parks, Seattle probably has more things to do and a more vibrant downtown, but Portland is much easier to get around without a car and has a more livable downtown.

My wife wants to live in a bigger metropolitan area, close to major sports teams and with even more places to go and things to do in the city. She wants to live closer to water and in a more scenic city that's different from where we've lived, and Seattle seems more different from home than Portland.

So, both cities have what we want, but my wife definitely prefers Seattle and Portland just seems to fit me a little better. I don't think we could reconcile our differences and just pick one place that we both want more, so I guess the best thing to do is just stay open to both and see which place we're led to. I'm excited about moving up there, though, regardless of which city.

This is scary. I just went through a job search recently and had a hard time finding anything. Although, this was because I told potential employers that I wouldn't be in the area for long, but still. How do you go about searching for a job out of state? Are you supposed to fly to your future home 5 or 6 times for interviews? It helps if you know someone or can network. It would also help if we knew which city to narrow our search to. Or do we go to whichever city offers us the best deal? There's a contact I know of in Portland, but I prefer to live in Seattle. Part of me thinks we should move up there while we're looking for jobs, even if we haven't found anything yet. It will be so much easier going to interviews and stuff if we're in town. But still, we're financially conscious and don't want to do something that would wipe out what we've saved up so far. I guess the first step is to know what kind of job you're looking for. Something temporary like retail or some administrative assistant type work? Do you go for the whole enchilada? It seems like the best thing for Troy's career would be to try to find something in his current field or whatever field he's interested in. I heard that Boeing is hiring a ton of new people and they probably pay well and have excellent benefits. As for me, I'm not sure. I like finance, but I hate sales. The best kind of position for me would be a behind-the-scenes kind of job, but there aren't that many broker-dealers over there. I don't know where to start. We can't be traveling up there every week for interviews. We have jobs here too. Mine knows there's a big chance I'm leaving and Troy's has no clue. I'd rather not work for a small company, like an individual broker. I just don't like the stress from that kind of environment and I've been there, done that already, and hated it. I want a normal 8:30 to 5 job in the finance field, preferably back office. Is that so hard to find? I found it here, surely it exists in the NW.

My husband and I want to move to the Northwest, hopefully in about 6 months when our lease is up in January 2008. We visited Seattle and Portland in May 2006 and really liked the area. We liked how the climate was different, more public transportation is used, and how much more beautiful it is. We’ve lived in the same place all our lives and are ready for a big change. Neither of us went to college out of state. Now is probably the best time to move far away while we don’t have children tying us down. If we don’t move now, we won’t be able to move for at least 15 years. We want to experience a new city and build our new marriage together in a place we can call solely our own. No one in either of our families has ever moved out of state except in the cases of being the air force or for a job. No one has voluntarily picked up and moved away. I’m sure our families will miss us, and we’ll miss them, but I think this change will be for the better. We're excited about moving, but it will be difficult. We'll share our thoughts and feelings on this blog over the next several months.