#pureschuytemas

We’re Susan and Paul Schuytema. Welcome to our blog – our URL really says it all. We grabbed that URL back in 2009 when we thought we might be an item and the future seemed promising. It looks even better now, over 12 years in!

We were both born and raised in the midwest. For years, we worked hard and happily in Monmouth, Illinois. Paul worked as the Director of Community and Economic Development for the City of Monmouth. Just across Public Square (actually a roundabout), Susan started and ran the national award winning wine shop and lounge, Market Alley Wines. We loved our jobs and loved the community, but we also longed for a new challenge. With our kids out on their own, we started dreaming about moving to a place we would love to vacation. So Paul stepped away from his job and Susan sold her business, we purged our belongings to the absolute minimum and headed up to the Northwoods in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

For three years,  Paul worked as the Executive Director for the Iron County Economic Chamber Alliance. Susan was managing an amazing coffee shop (another form of liquid pleasure!) We found our dream home on six acres in the Ottawa National Forest, looking out over the Cooks Run River and just down the road from the beautiful deep and cold glacial Golden Lake. (Posts in the tab Old Overgrown is about that home.)

As much as we loved our home and many things about our UP community, we still found something was missing in our lives. We can honestly say we coped pretty damn well with seven months of winter but the isolation was starting to take its toll.

Cut to three years later – 2020 – and we were on another adventure! We sold our beautiful home in a heart beat and packed up roots again – this time for the coast of Oregon! We have always dreamed about living on the ocean and really never thought it could be a reality. But Paul found a great fit doing economic development for Lincoln County so we drove 2,000 miles across the country in a pandemic to a place Susan had never been to, and started over once again.

So this blog is the log of our adventures of discovering the wonders of Oregon, learning to live in a coastal community and making the most out of this beautiful place and our happy lives together. It’s also where we keep our recipes for easy access and sharing. Right now, it is mostly the latter.

If you want to email us, we can be found at either “susan” or “paul” (at) schuytema-dot-com. Thanks for stopping by!