Day 55 of Happiness: Home at Last

 

{ok, so this isn't my actual home, 

but I LOVE bungalow style houses and want to own one one day}

 I have officially flown to Oregon and back two weekends in a row.  And if you had any ideas about doing this - I'd rethink it.  It's a toughie.  Flying out on Friday and returning on Monday is just enough time to ruin your sleep pattern and to truly make you wonder what time it is.  And then to turn around and do it again just four days later is completely insane.  It makes getting up on Monday morning a torturous event (since 5am on the east coast feels like 2am in Oregon).  However, even through all this mess, I have lots of spots of happiness from my trip.

First, the work was great.  I love doing trainings, especially when the participants are farmworkers.  It reminds me so much of my time in Honduras and they are always SOOOO nice and fun to work with.  Plus, it's my area of expertise, so I know just what activities they will like and exactly how to phrase things in my pitiful Spanish so that they understand.  Although the topic was pesticide safety (how to reduce your pesticide exposure while working in nurseries and greenhouses and what your rights are - since many employers take advantage of the fact that their workers are undocumented and don't speak English), not my area of specialty, I have worked on the curriculum for such a long time that I can recite the Worker Protection Standards by heart.

Another spot of happiness - shopping.  Ok, so shopping usually gives me ulcers because I'm so worried about the small amount of money I have in the bank.  However, they had outlets RIGHT next to our fabulous Best Western and my co-worker and I couldn't resist buying some cheap clothes.  I bought a really awesome pair of shoes from White House Black Market and two shirts for me and a sweater for Ivan from Banana Republic.  It was great fun.  Oh, I also got a book from Powell's Books (apparently a very famous bookstore that I'd never heard of) - Dear John.  I'm not really a Nicolas Sparks fan (minus The Notebook, my all time favorite movie) but this movie looked so good that I thought the book would be a nice plane book (since I'd finished my library book on the way to Oregon and had nothing to read for the long flight home).  Although it is a good book, like all Nicolas Sparks books I think someone may die.  Or at least have some tragic accident that is going to make me bawl my eyes out teary-eyed.  I had to keep pausing on my bus ride home yesterday because the book was so darn sad.  Trust me - sad books are not meant for public bus rides.

Another spot of happiness that comes along with work travel is yummy food.  Since I'm on per diem I can usually splurge a little (which equates to having a $15 dollar dinner instead of a $5 dinner).  It's a bit tougher to do when I have to buy breakfast, lunch, and dinner because our per diem isn't really that high, but on this trip breakfast was free at Best Western and lunch was provided at the training.  So, that meant the only thing I had to buy was dinner - yeah!  So, we went out to a fabulous Portland restaurant called The Farm Cafe and loved it.  It was divine. Don't let the word Cafe trick you - it's far more than a cafe and was a pretty fancy restaurant.  If you are ever in Portland - you should definitely try it out - but I'd go early because we had to wait an hour and a half for our table.

So, as you can see, although I was apart from Ivan and flying cross country multiple times, I still had many good things to report. 

But I must admit - 

I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE WEEKEND!!!