The Start of Summer

I cannot believe it's already the middle of the year. Last time I blogged was right after Christmas, and I was sitting here in this ol drafty farmhouse freezing. Now the opposite is happening! It's not officially summer until tomorrow but here in this old house that has no central a/c, it's felt like summer for some months now. 

We're coming up on our 1 year anniversary of our move to the mountains of NC. A whole year! It's flown by, that's for sure. I never imagined this time last year that in a few weeks I'd have packed up the essentials and moved to NC, very spur of the moment. But despite some trying times, it's all worked out and we're both very happy with our decision to move here. 

Life here in our old farmhouse has been going well. The cows returned to the front pasture in late April! I love seeing our cow neighbors. We've started looking and other areas we might wish to move to in the next year or so. I so love my old farmhouse, but the rental company we're dealing with is anything but efficient, or helpful, and they really don't care if this house falls into complete disrepair. Our porch literally has holes in it, and soft spots that aren't safe to walk across, and even though they've known about these issues since last fall, they haven't bothered to fix them. 

There is a long list of things they need to maintain but they won't, and we don't want to shell out anymore money that is absolutely necessary (and removable upon our departure)so we're looking for other places. Our lease is up the first of October but we may have to stay on after that until we can either find another suitable rental or until we can purchase. 

In the meantime, we've stapled screen to the outside of the window frames so that we at least have some breeze coming through. And my mom came to visit a few weeks ago and she and I planted flowers in pots, and installed a gate on the front porch so that the puppy can go outside alone. The back yard is fenced in but with the ever growing snake population, I don't like her spending a lot of time out back. 

And speaking of puppies, sadly my Mr. Marty went to heaven back in early April. It's still a huge, raw hole in my heart and I miss him every single day. He was acting perfectly fine up until 2 days before we had to put him down. One afternoon, he started pacing the house and wouldn't settle down, so after 2 hours of this, and him yelping when I picked him up, I decided to drive to SC where our vet is so he could be seen the next day. After x-rays and an ultrasound, it was discovered that he had a very large tumor the size of a 20 oz soda bottle on his kidney. It was inoperable. I had to make the heartbreaking decision to have him put down the next day. Gosh, I cry just thinking about it. But, I knew that was what had to be done. I will never not miss my boy. 

The girl puppy is doing well and we'll be celebrating her 14th birthday in August. She's a bit lonely without her brother here but she and I are constantly together so that helps. 

My Etsy shop is continuing to do well, though I wish they'd stop 'testing' all the time, as each time they run tests, the views and sales seem to vanish, but I'm plugging along as best I can. And a couple of weeks ago, I opened a new shop just for the vintage books. With the amount of books I have, it would easily overwhelm the regular shop so I opened a new one just for them! DogEaredBooks is slowly growing but hopefully soon it'll be filled with all sorts of great vintage books. I also started a new blog just for the books, which can be found here: VintageDogearedBooks. If you're on Instagram, I'm at @myvintagewhimsy and @dogearedbooks. Look for me on either of those accounts, where I offer special flash sales and discount codes to the Etsy shop. 

I hope everyone is having a lovely spring and that the summer will bring lots of memory making opportunities!! 

My Someday House, Finally!!

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!!