The dog days of summer

As I sit here in my lovely, affordable home on a single income, I daydream about the places I used to live. How the Northwest had such mild weather and no bugs and how beautiful the mountains are and about a thousand other things that I convinced myself were not that great when we were leaving. I think about Portland all the time, the city we intended to move to when we first ventured out west. Alas, we wound up in lovely Hood River and met some of our dearest and lifelong friends, not to mention the single income we have now. In fact, much of what we have right now, we owe to Hood River. But we left. We left for a promotion that I desperately wanted and we left to return to our city slicker heritage. We left for Seattle. Seattle was wonderful, but it was expensive and far from Owen's grandparents, making it less than ideal. When we knew we were going to move one last time (we hoped), we looked again longingly at Portland. It just couldn't work, the family was the reason to relocate and they weren't in Portland either, so, having never got to live in Portland, I idealize it. Only, shouldacouldawoulda, I am still not there. And neither is our family. But, it is nice to dream about.