In which I refuse to reference the length of time since the last post

Life is good. Summer draws to a close, which brings an odd mixture of feelings. I'm pretty proud of how active we've been this summer, filling our weekends with activities - some old favorites, some new adventures: biking to jazz festivals and Shakespeare in the park, playing tennis, reading in parks, stand-up paddleboarding, weekend trips to Seattle, hiking, crazy dinners atop closed bridges. There is still a little yet to come - a weekend at the beach and a camping trip. We've done so much that I feel no regrets about the onset of autumn, which is arguably my favorite season. I will gladly don sweaters and scarves and go to the pumpkin patch. But it's hard not to recognize that this may be our last summer in Portland. Despite a rocky start with Moved-to-Portlanditis and some culture shock, I've grown to really like this place. The popularity of the whole "go outside and be healthy" attitude here has had a pretty positive influence on us, and summer is one of the best times to embody that lifestyle. It's also the best time to explore new parts of Portland and Oregon in general. Now that the neverending rain approaches, it's like we're done discovering new places and having the happiest times until we move again.
And even that is a bizarre feeling, because it's so uncertain that this will actually be our last summer in Portland. It makes a big assumption that I get into one of the three grad schools I'm applying to, and they're all pretty darned competitive. I feel like I'm a fairly competitive candidate, but I don't want to build myself up for a huge disappointment. Still, we're planning as if we'll make a big cross-country move next June, which includes living this next year like it's our last in Portland.

Some things that are coming up:

• Grad school applications. Two this month (the first any day now) and another in November. Then trying to distract myself from the long wait until I hear back, which may happen as late as May.
• Conference presentation. A few days in Chicago for the AASP conference. I'll be presenting some work I've done in data visualization that I'm pretty proud of. I'm a little nervous everyone there is going to be unimpressed.
• Mike's second and final year of grad school. Last year got pretty tough in the spring when he had night classes nearly every day. This year he'll have Workshop (two terms of an intensive real-life group project) and a part-time internship on top of classes and his executive committee role. I'm offering to cook once a week for his workshop group just so I can guarantee a night when we're both awake in the apartment at the same time.
• Trip to Japan. We're hoping that we can save up enough to take a week-long trip to Japan in celebration of Mike's graduation. Since my grad school timing may be pretty spotty (there is one possible scenario in which I have to move to another state and miss Mike's graduation), we recently decided to plan this trip for Mike's spring break. Thus it will be a bit of a preemptive celebration but it's the most solid date range we're going to get.

Stay tuned and perhaps I'll actually blog about these things as they happen.