It's Wellie Season!!

Do I even own wellies? Nah. Do I need to go buy some? Definitely! You can tell that winter is over (and not just by looking at the calendar, which said the first day of spring was yesterday) but  by my basement, which is once again flooding on a regular basis. Fabulous!! Now, I am happy that I survived another crazy Maryland winter. This makes winter number five that I have been through. I remember the first winter when we moved here -- I was wearing thermal underwear in OCTOBER. Yes. Seriously. It wasn't unusually cold in October either, I just wasn't accustomed to temperatures in the 40s! I'm glad to say that my blood has thickened up quite nicely over the years and that this winter was mild in comparison to last year. In fact, I wore flip flops three times in the past week and it's been in the 50s or 60s.

So, spring is here and I'm so excited to see leaves on the trees and flowers blooming. We have like 3 daffodils in the flower beds that are just about to bloom and instead of leaving them out there to do their thing, as soon as those suckers open, I'm going out there with some shears and cutting them off to bring inside! The forsythia is blooming too and it's so gorgeous. I hate that the blooming period is so short lived though and then for the rest of the year, it just looks like a big ol tangled mess.

You know how I've been searching for a job for the last, oh, 11 months? Well, I've kind of given up. I have sent hundreds of resumes, filled out countless applications, had several interviews, tried to apply at retail jobs and nothing, NOTHING!!, has come of any of it. I've come to the sad realization that Maryland is just not going to work out. I am tired of spending God knows how much time searching for jobs in a place that's quite frankly too expensive to live in. I don't want to slave away for 40 hours a week at a job I hate just so I can barely afford to live here. I don't. That doesn't make any sense. I mean I like Maryland, for the most part, but I don't love it. And I don't want to spend the next 5 or 10 years of my life in a place that is just mediocre.

 So, having said that, I am thinking (seriously thinking) about moving to Pennsylvania this fall. I am on a time constraint insomuch as the ex is for certain moving in September to North Dakota. As you all know, our living situation has sucked because we're still forced to live in the same freaking house together because we bought when the market was high and were trying to wait until it recovered a bit before selling. Well, unfortunately for us, we won't have enough time to wait for that to happen since he has orders to get to ND and we are going to have to sell or rent by September. So, that's my timeline. I am hoping to spend the next few months saving money, destashing some goodies, researching the PA area even more and then hopefully, come July/August, I will be prepared to start applying for jobs there. In the event that I can't find suitable work, I will have enough saved to live for a while and I can still do my Etsy gig part time. I just really feel like I need to move somewhere that I love, that has a lot of opportunities to continue doing what I love. I have nothing to tie me down, except dogs (they love to travel!) so I might as well take advantage of this chance, right?!

 I am longing for the chance to live somewhere peaceful. Somewhere with a lot less traffic, a lot less houses, a lot less crime. I want to be able to see beautiful scenery without having to get in my car and drive an hour. I want to live somewhere that I don't hear the constant noise of trains, buses, fire trucks, airplanes. I want to hear the clip clop of horse hooves and be able to see rolling green hills and buy vegetables from a local market. I do think that the Amish area of PA will provide these things. And if by some chance, I end up hating it, I can always move again.

 I'm debating if I should keep this blog or not. I don't really post here much anymore. I don't really receive comments anymore. Maybe I'll think it over for another week or so and decide then. I find myself wasting a lot of time reading other blogs and commenting and I don't know that it's worth it to keep mine open. Hmm. Well, that's that. Time to go schlep to the basement and start laundry and package orders. In lieu of actual sunshine and flowers, I'm sharing some of the great vintage linens I've listed recently in my Etsy shop. These will have to work until the real things start blooming here!!

My Office is a Ridiculous Mess

And I cannot take it any longer! I have been struggling since last November to get this place set up in a functioning manner and I have failed miserably. Today, while I was emailing back and forth with my mama, I had one of those light bulb moments. I think I've finally figured out how to set it up in here so that I can actually keep it neat and organized AND be productive! Part of this light bulb moment included the realization that a couple of my favorite pieces of furniture that are currently in here just aren't going to work for this space. And that leads me to the second half of my day:

I'm switching out the two guest rooms upstairs. Currently, we have a larger bedroom which has two twin size beds and a chest of drawers. And then there is the smaller room that has the full size bed and a chest of drawers. Now, this probably seems like a ridiculous set up, given the sizes of the rooms, but last year when we moved in, I was certain we'd need to keep the two twin sized beds and I wanted to have more room in between them so I put them in the bigger of the two bedrooms. Having lived here for almost a year now, I'm realizing that we don't really have many guests and it's pointless to take up that much space when I could better utilize it by switching beds/rooms and taking away one of the twin size beds! Yay for that little insight!

Additionally, once the bedrooms are switched, I'll then have enough room in both rooms to put one piece of the furniture currently in my craft space! So, I'll have more space in the bedrooms plus I'll be able to take the furniture in my craft room and repurpose it to work in the bedrooms, thus freeing up some much needed wall space here in my office/scraproom. I should really stop calling it a scraproom. I haven't scrapped in forevah! Like at least a year! Okay, I think I'll go with craft room. Or maybe just office. I don't really do much crafting either! lol Decisions, decisions!

In other news, Will made it home safely late last Tuesday night and he came bearing a huge Leonidas box *and* some chocolate covered Belgian waffles! We relaxed a lot on Wednesday and Thursday and then headed to the beautiful Amish countryside in Pennsylvania on Friday. Of course I was hoping to leave rather early, giving me plenty of time to explore the area but we didn't even get on the road until a quarter til noon! I visited some antique stores, found a Salvation Army where I bought a couple of cute old suitcases and then found a fabulous Goodwill. We stopped for dinner at Cracker Barrel on the way home that night and all in all, had a very relaxing day! It was great!!

I did some thrifting yesterday and had a little bit of luck. It seems that the thrift stores are getting kind of slim though. And what they do have to offer is so much more expensive than it was a year ago. I always get good laugh at some of their prices! Oh, and I roll my eyes a bit too!! I'm quite ready for some yard sales and church rummage sales. I always find good stuff at those places.

Well, I need to get back to the reorganizing or I'm going to lose my motivation. I promise I'll have lots of pictures to share once it's all complete. And yes, I realize I've been saying that for 5 months!! I'll do much better this time around.