I love Oregon

Oregon is just amazing to me.  Almost every day is a new experience that I am left in awe of.  How the weather changes so dramatically from day to day and just the pure beauty of the world around me.  The day before yesterday it was kinda cold and windy, yesterday is was muggy and a little damp.  Today it was warm but raining like cats and dogs for a good few hours while I was at work.  I love the rain.  It smells wonderful, the sound is always so soothing to me and it makes EVERYTHING GREEN!  Everywhere I have been here is so green and lush.  The grass, the plants, the trees.  And there are SO MANY trees, like everywhere!  When new housing goes up, it looks like they make an effort to keep as many old growth trees as they can in place and then replace the ones that they had to get rid of with new trees.  A few in every yard.  Not just one.  The city is filled with them, the roads are lined with them.  It is hard to put into words just how many of the beautiful things that there are.  For those people that have been living here their whole lives, I think they kind of take it for granted.  They don't recognize the beauty that surrounds them.  Coming from southern California, I can see it.  Where I used to live, everything was so dry and bland.  You see what people have PUT there, not what would naturally grow.  It is a desert and to me it just isn't very pretty.  Coming here, it just makes me feel happy in my heart.  Seeing all the lush, bountiful LIFE here.  It is absolutely amazing.  I don't think I will ever get tired of taking a drive and taking in all of the scenery, or even just stepping out of my house, breathing in a lungful of fresh Oregon air and looking at what surrounds me every day.  Like I said, it makes me happy.

On a depressing note, I don't think I am allowed to take time off of work to go back to California for Christmas to visit my family.... and I was really REALLY looking forward to seeing them.  I mean I just moved away from them.  I have never been away from my family for more that two weeks in my entire life.  And now here I am, living a thousand miles away from them for the past about three months and to find out that I can't go home to see them when everyone was planning on it and looking forward to it just as much as I was, is depressing.  And it sucks.....  I hope I can work something out.  I really want to see my family.