I think we're certifiably insane. What do you think?!?

Hey y'all. It's been a while eh? I've been catching up on reading my favorite blogs but I haven't found the time to actually update mine. Until tonight. Lucky you!

So, about the title. We are thinking of selling our house (well, attempting to sell anyway) and moving back down towards the part of Maryland that we lived in when we first moved up here three years ago. As I've said before, we've never really felt settled in this house. We still check out Realtor.com on a near weekly basis and see what is for sale and a few weeks ago I stumbled across this place:



I. AM. IN. LOVE! Actually, we both are. It needs a tremendous amount of work to restore it to its original beauty but the good so outweighs the bad. It's 20 miles from there to base, so Will's commute would be 18 miles less each way, which may not sound like a lot, but it would cut down the time from 1.5-2 hours to about 30 minutes.

The house is on over 3 acres of land, it's in the middle of nowhere yet still close to shopping and the house is just huge. Well, huge to us at almost 3,000 sq ft. There's also a huge storage shed on the property, a guest cottage (which needs complete rehab but think of the possibilities!) and a small horse barn.

We drove down to look at the outside of the house & surrounding property last week and then emailed our Realtor and met up with her on Tuesday to tour the inside. She's looking into the comps for our current area & hopefully we'll have our house on the market in a few weeks. Fingers crossed, please!!

So, in preparation for all of that, we're going to be busy bees around here for the next few weeks. I'm going to start boxing up the majority of our stuff starting this weekend. Gotta make the house look like a model home, ya know?

In other news, the thrift stores have been super fab lately. I've found so many great vintage linens, some destined for my shop but lots of keepers too. Oh, and I found this great Gurley candle the other week. Isn't he cute? Love him!!




Well, it's about that time. Gotta do the nightly routine of setting the coffee pot for tomorrow, letting the dogs out, giving medicine to them both and hopefully finding the energy to stay awake for the 11:00 news, although that last part is not looking promising tonight. lol

My Poor, Neglected Blog

Man, I have been so slack these last couple of months. I cannot find the motivation to update on a regular basis, especially since my *good* camera died back in June and I've resorted to using Will's crappy work camera. No camera = no pictures to share and thus, I have nothing of importance to blog about, usually.

I feel like my world has been going non-stop since July. In addition to the trips to SC in both July and August, I went back down in September for a week and a half. Will was, once again, out of the country for a while and it was my sister's birthday so I loaded up my car (and most of my etsy shop) and drove to SC. I'm so glad I went, too. The day after I arrived, my Grandpa (he's 94!) had to have emergency surgery on his stomach. So, the days I was in SC were not filled with any of the things I had anticipated. Instead, it was a week-long blur of hospital visits, driving to Grandpa's house to help clean, going back to the hospital, etc. Very tiring! I'm happy to say that my Grandpa is doing remarkably well now and should fully recover!!

One night while I was in SC, Will and I were texting back and forth and I asked him what he thought about the Adirondacks. Silly boy thought I meant the chairs but I explained to him that I was talking about the region of NY and whether or not he'd be interested in going on vacation in a few weeks. He said he would and I spent the next two weeks scrambling to find a house to rent and doing research on the area.

We went up to NY Sunday a week ago and spent an entire week up there and I fell in love with the area. It was so quaint and charming. I loved all of the small towns with their general stores. We rented a cabin that was, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere! We had to drive a good 20 minutes just to get a signal on our cell phones. If we needed internet on our phones, that was about an hour away! The cabin had no electricity, although there were gas lights (which sucked, btw) but all in all, we had a great week. The weather was rainy most of the time and it was rather chilly, but the leaves, wow, those were amazing!!

Will and I both started dreading coming home to all the traffic and the noise and the crime and the congestion. For the entire week we were in NY we didn't hear/see a plane, didn't hear any sirens, didn't have to deal with traffic, didn't hear about any crime. It was so wonderful! And, to be honest, aside from the horrible lighting in the house we rented, it was perfect - didn't mind not having a tv or phone and by the end of the week, I was getting used to not having internet too!

So, now we're back home and trying to get unpacked, do laundry, put our fall decorations out, get our chimney inspected since it's crumbling(!!!) and get used to all the noise and traffic!

I have to get dinner started but I'm leaving you guys with some of my favorite pictures from last week. Hope you're all doing well!

My (almost) End of Summer Re-Cap!

Hi guys, it's been forever. I hope you have all been having fabulous experiences this summer. I have been so, so busy here in Maryland! I kept telling myself every week that I needed to come on here & catch up with you all but we know how that goes. Life has been crazy busy lately! What have I been up to? Here's my recap:

* End of June - 5 July: Will was out of the country so I drove down to SC to spend time with my family. I ate lots of good SC BBQ, spent time at the lake with my parents, sister, her friend and my niece. Did some antique shopping with my mom. Saw my grandmother. Watched fireworks on the 4th of July.

* 9-12 July: Will and I took a long weekend trip down to Virginia Beach. Part vacation, part seeing his mom. Tried to take the scenic route down, but halfway there Will got called to turn around & go into work. Eventually we made it down to Va Beach, via I-495/95 South on a Friday (uh, traffic was ridiculous & we'll leave it at that). We spent the following days having some delish dinners, spending time on the beach, walking on the boardwalk, getting suckered into a Timeshare presentation, spending time w/ his mom & step dad, driving back across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, visiting Chincoteague and Assateague, stopping in Ocean City on the way home for a walk on their boardwalk & a fabulous dinner of corndogs & fries.

* 19-23 July: Will flew into Georgia and the Ukraine. I think that's where he went anyhow. I can't remember! I spent those couple of days having serious bouts with insomnia! It was miserable. lol

* 22-27 July: My bestest guy friend in the whole world flew into Baltimore for some work-related stuff. I picked him up at the airport & spent the afternoon catching up. I hadn't seen him in over 7 years so we had lots to talk about.

* 26-28 July: Spent the entire weekend painting the 3 bedrooms and 2 upstairs bathrooms. Actually, I spent very little time painting. Will painted. I picked out paint colors. I like that arrangement!

* 30 July - 2 August: My mom, sister, her friend and my niece came up to visit us in Maryland. We went into DC on the 31st and visited some of the museums. It was wicked hot outside and we had a terrible thunderstorm that afternoon. We spent the following day recuperating at home. They left bright & early on the 2nd to go home.

* 14-16 August: Will and I drove down to SC for my family reunion. I was unable to go last year since I was in Wyoming so it was nice being able to see everyone this year. It took forever to get to SC and even longer to get home. I hate that drive!

And here we are, all caught up! I spent all of yesterday sorting through part of my vintage linen stash. I am not even a quarter of the way through though. It's very time consuming! Here are some pictures of part of the stash:

Sorted linens - ready for listing on Etsy.



Linens waiting to be sorted & listed



A huge Ikea bag full of linens waiting to be listed



Another huge bag of linens waiting to be listed



And finally, lots of bins of linens which need to be listed!!



I must go. I have to get back upstairs and finish going through all of those linens. I'm destashing like crazy right now in anticipation of some unexpected changes in life so I'm super motivated to get rid of a lot of my great vintage items. I hope to get a chance to stop in & visit w/ everyone here in the very near future! Hope you're doing well.

Mother Nature Hates Me

Wow, two posts in a week. This might be a record! lol Anyhow, so last Saturday morning I got up at the crack of dawn and came downstairs to make coffee & plan my yardsaling route. There were hundreds of sales around Baltimore so I was making quite the list of addresses and what was being offered at each sale. I was thoroughly enjoying my quiet time, sipping my deelish coffee, when all of a sudden a HUGE storm came through, dumping tons of rain and ruining all of my Saturday plans. Man I was pissed!!! Can someone please explain to me how it can be so nice & sunny every week and then be complete CRAP every weekend?!? I mean really! It rained most of the day and I was so disappointed that I'd missed all of those sales! I ended up convincing the husband to go to Kohl's with me and then we came home and slept for like 4 hours. What a waste of a day.



And then Sunday I spent like 3 hours clipping coupons and organizing my coupon binder and then another 3 hours at the Commissary doing some much needed grocery shopping. I hate clipping coupons. It's so monotonous and I have a short attention span so it's very hard for me to sit there & clip like 25 sets of coupons. But, I'm also very cheap, er, thrifty, so I refuse to pay full price for groceries if I can use coupons to save money. So, there I sat, clipping all of those stupid coupons. But, I saved $40 at the Commissary so I guess that was worth the time it took to clip and organize those things!



Monday was 25% off day at the Value Village so of course I got up bright & early so I could be there when it opened. I found some cute things for my shop and also for my house. And for my someday vintage camper that I am absolutely DYING to get. I hope that someday comes really soon! I think I've almost broken the husband down and convinced him to buy me one just so I'll shut the hell up about it already. I'm constantly checking Craigslist for a cute (and affordable) vintage camper. I look here in MD, and in VA, WV, PA, NJ, NY and OH! That's how obsessed I am. lol So, yeah, I'm putting away items that will one day go in my camper!!



I've been trying to list some new items in my shop today but I'm still having to use Will's crappy work camera and it is just not going well. I'm not used to having such an itty bitty camera and I don't like the way it works. I don't like that no matter how much adjusting I do to the camera, that the pictures still look like crap and I still have to spend tons of time editing them in picnik before I can put them in my Etsy listings. It's very annoying!! I did call Fuji today and they told me I could send my old (and currently deceased) camera to them and they can try to repair it. I really hope that can because at the rate I'm going, I'll never get all of the stuff I've recently bought listed because this other camera drives me nuts!! If Fuji is unable to fix the deceased camera, well, I'm guessing we'll be buying another one. I can't go without a camera for very long. And I've been needing an upgrade for about 4 years now. lol My little Fuji Finepix has served me well though and I've taken probably 10,000 pictures with that thing.



Well, I have to go. Gotta run to the ghetto post office down the street and then it's back to work! I'm going to be home alone for most of the night since Will had to fly to Ohio and Michigan (I think) and he won't be home until late. So, it's work until 6-ish and then I'm going to chill in bed all night, with the doggies and I'm going to catch up on all of my favorite bloggy friends! Yay!!

So, it's the middle of June already...

And here I am making my first entry for the month! This year is flying by, don't you think? Good grief! I wish I could say that I've got lots of fabulous things to talk about or that I was out & about the last 3 weeks doing lots of fun stuff, but the reality of it is that I'm just lazy. There. I said it. Lazy. I mean don't they call it "the lazy days of summer"? Well, I'm definitely a believer!

Despite Maryland's recent monsoon season, I have still been thrifting on a regular basis. Last year after moving here to Baltimore county, I decided it was too far to drive down to Andrews AFB and visit my favorite thrift store. I mean that was almost 80 miles round-trip and with gas prices what they were, I couldn't justify that drive on a weekly (or twice weekly) basis. Of course this was before I started selling fabulous vintage goodies on Etsy and I was just shopping just to shop.

Luckily, gas prices went down substantially last winter and I started making the drive down there each Monday. I try to leave my house early enough on Monday morning so that I can go to the 2 thrift stores I like to visit closer to my house first and then I drive down to Andrews and meet up with the husband for lunch. We'll have a nice little lunch somewhere in the hood (remind me to tell you about the absolute fruitcake that we see every week) and then I'll go to my thrift store. I can't deny that I get some of the best stuff at that place so it's worth the drive. Now if gas goes back up to $4/gallon, I'll have to rethink that 80 mile commute!!

Speaking of my favorite thrift store, check out these swanky drapes I found on Monday:



Aren't they fabulous?!? I think they go well with this bedspread I found earlier this year:



I'm having a hard time deciding if I should list them in my shop or not. They're kind of tacky, but on the other hand, I do love the bright aqua and purple! In fact, I think I want to take that bedspread out of my shop too, just in case, you know!

In other news, I've missed some great local sales lately. The Pink Cabbage had their annual Strawberry Days yard sale a couple of weeks ago and I had every intention of going but my friend decided to use that day as the day she removed the rest of her crap from our basement. Of course, she told us the day prior that she would be over "first thing tomorrow morning" which I took to mean 9:30ish, but that really meant "oh, I'll call you around 3, after you've wasted your entire day waiting on me, and then I'll expect you to drop everything and come running". I was *not* happy!

And then last week, my not-so-dear husband informed me that he'd invited various members of the outlaws over to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday. We were going to go to an Orioles game Friday night and then some of them would be leaving while others were staying the whole weekend. Now, I have no problem having family over. I just like to know ahead of time. You know, like I wish my husband would at least talk with me about it before he invites people over!!!

So, having said all that, I missed this amazing sale: Sue @ Vintage Rescue Squad's First (and last?!?) Annual Sale I was so not happy about missing that. See those pink chairs in the picture? Yeah, I think those would've come home with me if I had gone. Instead, I sat here at my house having to entertain our guests. Not my idea of a fun Saturday morning. My husband did take me to Ellicott City later that afternoon and I visited lots of antique stores so my day wasn't a complete waste.

Well, I have lots to do today. I need to get dressed and go find my dad something for Father's Day, I need to take pictures (my "good" camera kicked the bucket so I'm using Will's work issued camera- it sucks!) and try to list some goodies in the shop, I need to clean the house (again) and I need to finish putting out some of our patriotic decorations. I can't guarantee I'll be back this week but I will certainly try! Hope you're having a great day!!

Photographic Evidence

Hey guys! I'm back and feeling 1000% better. Finally!! My mom came up last week and spent a few days here and that was fabulous! We did lots of thrift and antique store shopping and I found so many new goodies! Here are some pictures of my latest finds:

Lots of great vintage invitations-








Lots of great vintage flash cards-

German-French cards:



French-English cards:



Some HUGE food flash cards:







A few weeks ago I found a ton of these vintage floral pictures that were once in National Geographic magazines. I must have 30 of these!



So, as you can clearly see, I've been busy doing lots of thrifting & lots of Etsying too! I have so many items I've yet to take pictures of but I'll hopefully get around to that today or tomorrow!

In other news, I turned 29 last Friday. I simply cannot believe I'm 29! It's going to come as a huge shock next year when I turn 30. lol I'll have to start checking a whole new age bracket on surveys. Will was gone for my actual birthday but I still had a great day. It was very low-key and I really enjoyed it!

On Monday, my Mom and I made one last run to a thrift store as she was on her way out of town and I totally scored! The store was having a huge sale & everything was 50% off. YAY! Later that afternoon, Will and I went into Baltimore proper & watched the Orioles game. It was a nice time. Well, until it started pouring rain anyhow. Note to self: don't wear a white shirt to a baseball game. At least not if rain is in the forecast! Oopsie

So, that's about it from here in my cute (yet very messy) office! I need to get off of the computer, package up some items, go to the Post Office and then come home and organize this room! I hope you all are doing great & having a fabulous day!!

Birthday Parties (and other fun stuff)

So, our doggy turned 9 on Sunday. Well, we're guessing he's 9- we honestly don't know because he was homeless before the rescue group we adopted him from picked him up on the streets of Columbia, SC. The rescue guestimated him to be 3 when we adopted him in 2003, so we're assuming he's 9. Either way, we celebrate his birthday on 17 May, which is the day we adopted him. So, we did a little doggy party for him on Sunday, complete with ice cream and a new toy! I made him a little party hat but it looks more like a dunce cap than a party hat. lol He quite enjoyed his ice cream! Here's a picture of my favorite boy in the whole world.



And I'm celebrating my 29th birthday on Friday. Ack! I can't believe I'm turning 29. That seems so old. I mean didn't I *just* turn 18 like last month?? Geez. One more year before I enter a whole new decade. And as my luck would have it, Will is gone for the entire week. Fabulous. But, my mom is coming up tomorrow to spend a few days and I am SO freaking excited!! She's coming up ALONE! We haven't spent any alone time together in over 3 years so I'm so looking forward to this week/weekend!! Will comes back from eastern Europe on Saturday morning so we'll celebrate my birthday then I suppose.

I have a busy, busy day ahead of me. I have to ship off some items from my Etsy shop, refill Marty's medicine, drive the 80+ miles round trip down to Base & pick up Will's truck since my friend is supposed to move into her new condo tomorrow and we need to get her crap loaded up tonight. I still need to do some cleaning before my mom gets here tomorrow, too. Did I mention I've been terribly sick with a sinus infection? lol Good times!! I'd really love to sleep all day but we all know that it's impossible to do that and not feel guilty so I'm pushing on!