Christmas has come and gone, again, and it feels like it all happened in the blink of an eye. I didn't get to decorate as early as I'd hoped, but I still got two trees up, the porch decorated, the hallway decorated and stockings were hung. It was a lovely Christmas here, just the two of us and the two doggies, and it was very low key and simple. I have lots of pics to share but let me start out with this one first:
Yes! This happened this past Saturday night at a local resort here in Asheville. After a really nice dinner, the man told me he wanted us to have our picture taken in front of this huge tree by the professional photographer, and much to my surprise, once we were in front of the tree and the photographer was busy snapping away, the man dropped to one knee and asked for my hand in marriage! Completely SHOCKED, as if you couldn't tell from the look on my face. lol
Now, on to the holiday decorating pictures. My white office tree which is primarily decorated in minty pastel shades of green, blue and pink, with lots of vintage ornaments mixed in.
I've always had a 'themed' main room tree -- for several years it was blue and silver, then in 2008, I switched to copper and aqua and browns and that was my plan for my main floor tree this year until the man expressed his desire to have a colorful, non-matchy tree, which kind of gave me palpitations at first since I'm always so matchy-matchy on the main tree but after some thought, I decided why the heck not. I mean we live in this beautiful old farmhouse, so a mismatched, retro style theme would be perfect.
Unfortunately, I requested my mom to bring my aqua and copper ornaments for the main tree, thereby leaving all of my retro, brightly colored ornaments in SC in their garage, but I scrounged up enough extras here that I've been hoarding for crafting purposes that I was able to pull off a retro themed tree!! I ended up loving it SO much that I doubt I'll go back to my formal-ish tree until/unless we move into a much bigger house that has a formal living room!
Once I had the tree decorated with all the brightly colored Shiny Brites and West Germany and Poland ornaments, I figured I'd continue the vintage theme and use a vintage Christmas tablecloth as my tree skirt. I used one on the table too and filled my Tom and Jerry punch bowl with vintage ornaments and tinsel garland.
I've wanted to make a wreath like this for several years but never got around to it until now. It is huge and I love how it turned out. I used over 50' of vintage tinsel garland and over 70 vintage light bulbs. It is perfectly kitschy and I am tempted to hang it up inside year round!
I continued the retro Christmas theme on the banisters of the stairs in our hallway. I put up green garland and then put ornaments every couple of spindles, hung from ribbons and topped with bows. I decided red and green was a good, old-timey look that went with the retro theme.
And I decided to hang up this vintage Santa Mail felt creation from 1957 by the door. I bought this thing back in 2011 at a rummage sale at an assisted living facility while I still lived in MD. It cost me a dollar but it is priceless to me. I love it so much!! It's holding all of the holiday cards I received this year!
In our bathroom I put up my small tabletop tree and used pink and green ornaments on it. It's my tacky flamingo tree! I ended up putting the majority of my flamingo ornaments on the main tree because they are too heavy for the branches of this little tree but I still love it, even though it's mostly just the ball ornaments. I used some doilies I found last month at a thrift store to make a tree skirt for this one.
In my office I have a couple of shelves above my desk that usually hold my spaghetti poodles and other dog decorations but I took those down for the holiday and put up my Gurley candles in their place.
Despite not having children, we were still up by 7:30 yesterday, thanks to Mr. Marty. I don't know how he knew that it was Christmas, but he did, and he would NOT go back to sleep. He sat by our bedroom door, whining, until we got up and told him we'd go see what Santa brought. He was so excited. He sat right by the fireplace waiting for us to get their stockings down and pull out the goodies. Santa brought him and Scarlett 2 new toys each, some cookies and some sausages for puppies. And then they each got new fleece material for their beds. Marty got 2 bow ties and his sissy got a new coat, since she's always cold.
As you can see from the following pictures, Scarlett was not at all interested in being awake at 7:30, nor was she interested in gifts. Marty played with the toys and then took a nap. That was how the day went, actually. We opened gifts, ate breakfast, took naps, ate lunch, took more naps and generally were lazy like sloths! It was the perfect day. I said last Christmas that this year I hoped to be in the mountains having a nice, quiet, low key Christmas and that is exactly what happened!
I am so excited for 2014 and all of the wonderful new beginnings we'll have. We are planning to wed sometime next year, though we have no idea where or when. The man starts a new job in January, for which we are both very thankful and excited about. After several really depressing years, I have to say that this year has been amazing and I know 2014 will be even better.
When we moved to NC in early July, we were in the middle of one of the wettest summers on record. I think that first month we were here, the rain topped 20" for the month. August was pretty wet too, and we had hoped that despite all of the torrential downpours, that the leaves would still be brilliant this fall. Well, sadly, they aren't that spectacular. In fact, the leaves that didn't just fall off while still green are spotted with fungus and mold and the colors are pretty muted this year.
Having said all of that, leaf peeping even ugly spotted leaves while living in the mountains is still pretty awesome. My mom came up this weekend and we took a short break from house stuff on Saturday afternoon to take a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Some of the mountains were still really green, while some were completely naked already but there were some patches of color here and there. The views were awesome either way!!
I am still in the trying to get everything organized and put away phase of this move and while I'm mostly done, I am waiting until it's all complete before taking pictures. It's been a slow process and I had hoped to be all done by now but life happens.
I have been busy getting both Etsy shops back up and running, concentrating mostly on my Christmas shop, since it's only 2 months until Christmas. I cannot believe how fast this year has gone by!! I am excited to bring all of my Christmas decorations up from SC in the next few weeks and get busy decking the halls. It will be the first Christmas since 2009 that I've really been able to decorate the way I like. I don't think I did anything in 2010 (separated from the ex and I think he may have put the tree up) and then in 2011, I was living in the small apartment so no decorations. I did put up my white tree last year in my office but that was it. This year? Yeah, I am going all out!! There is room for my white tree, the main room tree, a mantel, a huge front porch with tons of rails. I know the man is going to think I've lost my mind but hey, it's what I do. lol
Guess who is living in a nearly 100-year old farmhouse? That's right -- this girl right here. Hi!! I have been MIA for nearly 18 months after my move to SC and lack of anything of interest to write about but I am back. And I am living in a new-to-me farmhouse and I am in love. Both with the house and with a really nice man. I'm also in a new state, living in the mountains of NC, which I have always wanted to do and life is going amazingly well.
Soooo, long story short, I met the nice man in March, while we were both still in SC. We fell head over heels, madly in love and when July rolled around, he was offered a job here in the mountains of NC so of course, we both up and moved, quite unexpectedly I might add. One thing led to another and we ended up borrowing my parents 34' RV camper and spending the summer in an awesome little campground, ran by the sweetest ladies, while we got acquainted with the area and looked for a house to rent.
Finally, after nearly 3 months of living in the camper, we found a suitable house and put in our application and waited anxiously to hear if we were accepted. Thankfully, we were, and within 2 weeks, we were signing the lease and preparing to move in. That happened this past weekend. The man had to work Friday so I drove down to SC, helped my parents load up the trailer with all of my worldly goods that have been sitting in their garage for the last 18 months and then Saturday morning, we made the 3.5 hour trip back up here. Spent a couple hours that afternoon unloading and finished up Sunday morning.
Needless to say, I am in the middle of unpacking hell but it's all coming together nicely and much quicker than I thought. I have a huge (to me, anyway) office and I am sooo ready to get everything put away and get my business back up and running.
So, our 100 year old farm house sits on a hill, on 2 acres of land and has an amazing view of the surrounding hills and mountains and we have cows for neighbors. It is so quiet and peaceful here and even though the house is only 1500 sq ft or so, it's got plenty of storage and feels much larger, especially after sharing 300sqft with the man all summer long!
I have to get back to unpacking but I leave you with some photos of the new place. It is so me -- from the wooden walls to the built in china hutch to the painted floors. It's truly my 'dream house' even with its quirks! I hope to get back into blogging on a regular basis once I've unpacked and organized. I'll need to warn everyone that there will be lots of cow pictures. I'm completely in love with our bovine neighbors!!
Hi! Remember me? I used to post awesome pics of lovely vintage finds and then I moved to SC!! The last year has been a depressing time of non-existent thrift stores, crappy yard sales, and an Etsy store filled with cobwebs!
I last posted on this ol blog almost a year ago. I wish I had something really exciting to write about that would explain my absence but the truth is that life in SC just isn't that much fun.
As I mentioned earlier, thrifting is impossible unless I go out of town, which doesn't happen as often as I'd like. When I do go out of town, I'm spending one day trying to hit as many stores as possible in hopes of finding lots of treasures. There is no more Monday and Thursday thrifting expeditions to numerous local thrift shops like I did every week in MD.
I miss my old lifestyle in MD but I am thankful to be around my family again. My ex-husband is still in California and is deploying to the Middle East soon, so any good thoughts and prayers for him would be appreciated. Marty and Scarlett are doing really well. They enjoy living with Nanny and PaPa and have settled in nicely!! I am still living at home (omg!) but after having a close call with a house-buying experience late last summer, I am thankful that I am here. I was days away from writing an offer on my someday house and met a guy that asked me if things with him progressed, would I be opposed to relocating. That made me pause and give a lot of thought to whether or not I wanted to buy a house here, in Florence,and the answer was no. Then I would feel obligated to live here for at least 5 years or so.
Thankfully, things with that man didn't work out, but in the end, I am super happy that I put the brakes on buying any properties here because the truth of the matter is that I just do no like living here. It's small, flat, hot, and most importantly, boring. I am looking for job in other cities right now and hope to find something suitable by the summer.
I have really missed blogging and reading blogs and hope to get back into both soon!! I also hope that since spring is around the corner, I'll start finding lots of good vintage junk at garage sales!!
