I'm here! And I have news!

No, I haven't given up on blogging, you can't get rid of me that easily. Things are going to be a little slower here for a little bit though because . . . we are moving! Even though it seems like I just barely made this post, this move has been a long time coming.

For the past seven years my husband has been an attorney at a big law firm. There have been times when he liked it and times when he hated it, but pretty much all of the time it has been a lot of stress for the whole family. A few months ago we bought a Powerball ticket when there was a huge jackpot. We knew we weren't going to win. And we didn't. But we were both surprised how disappointed we were that he couldn't quit his job.

Or could he? What else could he do? Certainly nothing that would pay anything close to his current salary, so that would require moving away from our beloved San Diego since our mortgage here is, well, not small. So we started looking at jobs, and applying for jobs. After several months we honed in on what he felt passionate about: working in state government. I know, it wouldn't be my choice either. But it is something he is interested in and his legal degree opens up doors for him in different fields without actually requiring him to work as a lawyer.

The next question was . . .where do we want to live? We decided we wanted somewhere with a more reasonable cost of living, with a state capitol that was moderately sized, that wasn't horrendously far from our families, and somewhere that had temperate weather. That led us to Salem, Oregon.

He interviewed for a job in Salem a few weeks ago. And then there was a second interview. And then there was time to check references and his background. It all took awhile, but in the meantime it gave me time to . . .

Paint our front door red (don't worry, I have also replaced the doorbell since this photo was taken).

 Renovate the kitchen. I didn't actually do any of this work, but I made it happen.

 Donate 18 quilts to Project Linus.

And about a million other things to help get us packed and our house ready to put on the market. Finally today we got the official news and are planning to move in about 3 weeks.

I hope that you can forgive the lack of sewing. I do actually have a baby quilt that hasn't yet been gifted, a new pattern, and a quilt for Quilt Market that I will be sharing over the next month.

Please bear with me while I make this transition. While Salem does have a lower cost of living, my husband is taking a massive pay cut to switch jobs and I am hoping to contribute by selling patterns. I will update here once I have more news :)