i love portland!

the more i see of portland, the more i fall in love with this city.

travis and i went and ate at bridgeport ale house in the hawthorne district this weekend. i love this area! walking down hawthorne made me want to come back and just hang out there and go in every shop.

yesterday i drove around se 20th and division and found some really cool neighborhoods. (my mission over the next few months is to find a house, or at least find areas that I want to buy a house in. we are hoping...fingers crossed...that we will be able to buy one in the next 6 months) and i just keep seeing neighborhoods that have so much character and charm, with cool shops on the corners. it reminds me a lot of south minneapolis.

last night i went to image dei. not sure that is where we'll be, but the pastor said something really cool...we were talking on romans 8 and the whole "God works everything for good." i have long been a huge advocate that "not everything works out." and he said it beautifully. God isn't saying that things will all work out and be fine and perfect in our life...but God is saying he uses those situations, those sufferings to "grow the life of Jesus inside you." you may call this working out, but i don't. because working out denies the pain and suffering that people go through, it simplifies things too much...unfortunately God doesn't just make things easy for us, but he will work in the situations. i think that is pretty cool and gives me far more hope than "it will work out."

and onto the other exploring...

today i went looking for a sofa (we donated our couch before we moved out here and we only have a chair in our living room.) so, there was another excuse to explore. i stopped at a coffee shop to work for a little while at the portland coffee house. driving to that area was great...once again, treasures on every corner.)

picked up my first set of books from the library. (i love the library system in every city. so far, i'm impressed with the variety of books they have. i picked up god's politics, the new anne lamont book, and a book about portland neighborhoods.)

and now i better get back to work...so much to do, but all i want to do is explore!!!