Showing posts with label sc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sc. Show all posts

04 March 2013

A Year of Catching Up!

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!!


25 January 2012

11 Months til Christmas! Are you prepared??

Haha! Just kidding. Well, technically, it is only 11 months til Christmas but let's not dwell on that, okay? 


It is, however, only 29 days until I pack up my life and move to SC!! Yes, there is a definite move date and the only thing that would stop me would be a repeat of Snowmaggedon 2010. 


I am nervous and excited and anxious to get back to my hometown and get on with my life. I'm so sad that I'm having to leave my honey here in Maryland though but it is what it is and I have to do what is best for me. Hopefully in time, he'll find a job in SC and can join me. 


Those that live in the DC Metro area can attest to how wicked expensive it is here. I've talked about it ad nauseam for years but here's the major reason I can't wait to get back to SC:


Our rent on a 2 bedroom/1.5 bath apartment with a 'den' is $1465 a month. Now, this is a basic, run-of-the-mill apartment, circa 1970 that has had a few upgrades but nothing to make you think it's 'luxury' by any means. 


And, in SC, you can BUY A HOUSE for less than $75,000. In fact, my parents are being extremely generous and are looking to buy a house for me to live in and 'rent' from them. There aren't a lot of suitable rental homes in their town and the few that are available are either too expensive or won't allow pets. Speaking of pets, pet rent in this apartment is $600/year. That is RIDICULOUS!


One of the houses they are currently looking at to perhaps buy, the mortgage would be less than $200. Yes, TWO HUNDRED dollars. 


You know, for pretty much my entire life, I couldn't wait to get out of my hometown. I wanted to move north, to experience life in a bigger state and a bigger city. I was SO tired of the heat, the humidity, the small town that didn't have a Target. 


Well, thankfully, the town has a Target now, and lots of other necessary retail shops (plus a drive through Starbucks!) but now that I'm older, I completely understand why people never leave there and/or so many people MOVE there. Because it's AFFORDABLE!! 


Sure, it's hot as hell during 8 months of the year, but the fact is that people can afford to live there. You can make an average salary and have enough money to live in a house, take vacations, have a life. I can't do that here in MD. I am barely scraping by month to month here. Barely. If it weren't for the generosity of my parents and my Etsy gig, I would be flat broke and eating at the soup kitchen and living under a bridge!! 


So, within the next couple of days, I get to start boxing up  my life. A lot of my stuff is still in storage at my bff's garage but the things we've been living with for the last 9 months have to get packed away. I am stressing out over the details. Since the bf will continue to live in this apartment until his lease is up at the end of April, he'll need to acquire pretty much everything - dishes, furniture, etc. Everything in this apartment, minus a tv and a crockpot, belongs to me and they have to come to SC. 


Trying to nail down the logistics of all of this is proving to be a huge stress but I keep reminding myself that in 60 days, I'll be living somewhere that I can afford, surrounded by my family and finally moving forward in the life I wish to create. I'm so excited to have my very own house that I can decorate how I wish, with a backyard for the puppies, with family close by. Now, I just need to get through the next 30 days without freaking out every step of the way. 



02 December 2011

Vintage Gurley Candles

I found a large glittery Gurley tree this week!!! My first Christmas Gurley of the season. I was so excited to get my paws on that little baggie of vintage goodness. 



It goes great with my other Gurley Christmas candles: 






And a few weeks ago, I had the extreme pleasure of finding an entire baggie of Gurley Thanksgiving candles. I have never ever found even one Thanksgiving Gurley's in all my years of thrifting so this thrilled me -- 3 turkeys and a pilgrim  boy & girl! So excited to add them to my collection. 






And last but not least, the giant jack o lantern I found the other year. I ::heart:: it so much! 




I still haven't decorated for Christmas -- probably won't. Don't feel like digging through my bff's garage for all of the stuff. 

And, I think after the first of the year, I'm moving home to SC. I haven't decided if it will be in January or in April when our lease is up. I am incredibly homesick and so tired of living up here away from  my parents and sister and niece. I will miss the thrifting opportunities here but it's so much more affordable to live there. I never in a billion years thought I'd *want* to move home but the fact is that I want to live somewhere that I can afford to maybe one day own a house, somewhere that's affordable enough that I can go on vacation a couple of times a year, somewhere that doesn't cost $1500/mo just for a stupid apartment with no yard and a lease that allows the landlord and maintenance 24/7 access to your house with no warning and no courteous call beforehand. 

I am praying that the honey can find a job there and will consider moving but if he chooses to stay in MD, I will understand. I just feel like I've given up so much over the years by being a military wife and having lived so far from my family and it's time to think about what will make ME happy. So much weighing on my mind but I think this is what I need to do. It doesn't have to be permanent but I've lived away from my hometown for over 8 years now, five of which I've been stuck here alone in MD so it's time to go home. 



21 April 2010

My Trip to SC - Pictures from Charleston

Hey vintage peeps - it's been a while, eh? I had a perfectly good excuse for my absence the first couple of weeks, but the last two? Nah, just haven't felt like blogging! I had an amazing time in SC though! Will and I went down there back in March for 9 days and we ate tons of great food, went on some day trips, renovated my parent's bathroom. It was great seeing my family & visiting some of my favorite places in SC!

One day, Will and I went to Charleston. I love Charleston & hadn't been there since the summer before we moved here I guess. That was 4 years ago and for as much as things change in that amount of time, it's nice to go back to somewhere that hasn't changed in centuries!! The weather was great - sunny and warm - and Will and I spent several hours just walking through the city & parks and pretending we were tourists.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from that day.

Our view from the parking garage. We could've easily parked on a lower level, but what fun would that have been when we could drive to the top & take in this outstanding view of the new bridges?!

Bridges Charleston

After we ate lunch at Wild Wing Cafe, we walked down to the Waterfront Park. I was hoping we'd see some dolphins but no such luck. I took a ton of pictures of other things though - like this one of Will. He's holding my Vera Bradley bag. lol

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And then there was this guy. His eyes totally creep me out!!

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This single, sandy ladybug was nice enough to sit there while I took a picture.

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Will and I toured this boat one day while we still lived in Charleston. It was, uh, interesting. And I was quite thankful to get off! I have this issue with claustrophobia and those tiny little hallways weren't helping things. I was happy enough to just take a picture of the Yorktown from across the river - no need to go on another tour!

Yorktown March 2010

While we were sitting in one of the swings down at the waterfront park, we heard the familiar roar of a C-17, the planes Will used to fly on before we moved here. Those things are huge!! Funny story - Monday, Will and I went grocery shopping and he picked up a package of brats and was like "these are the kind we used to fix on the c-17s when we'd fly back home from Europe. We'd start cooking them in the oven on the plane when we'd take off and they'd be ready halfway home". I was like "isn't that a 9 hour flight??" and he said "yeah, it took about 5 hours to cook them in the oven." Hahaha Can you imagine?! Five hours to warm up a brat?!

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Here's the famous Pineapple Fountain. I don't know why I didn't have some of my wedding pictures done around this thing. We saw a bride getting her pictures made here and it made me really regret my choice of photographer for my own wedding.

Pineapple Fountain

One of my favorite things to do in Charleston is to walk around looking at all of the historic houses. I love seeing the old bricks, the old iron fences, all of the details. This house had amazing window boxes.

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Aren't the tiles on this roof amazing? I love them. It reminds me of the tile floors in bathrooms.

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Here's another picture of my favorite steeple in Charleston.

Charleston Church

Our wedding reception was held in this building. It's the Old Exchange Building & Provost Dungeon.

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Wow, this turned out to be kind of long so I will come back (hopefully tomorrow) with pictures from our day in Myrtle Beach!!

24 March 2010

Floods and Family

Hey guys! I haven't been around much lately - did you notice? haha Things have been kind of busy this month so I haven't had much time for blogging. So, the snow has melted and a few weekends ago, the great Monsoon season started. It was a lot of fun. NOT! Once again, our basement flooded. You know, I'm not sure why we don't just go ahead & fill it up with water and have our own little indoor swimming pool. lol But seriously, this is what the backyard looked like on Saturday, 13 March. Will didn't get home from that week long overseas trip until 5:00 that morning and then we slept for a few hours and woke up to this:

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So, we had the pleasure of spending the entire day cleaning out the basement and trying to get the water out. The ground was just so soggy from all of the snow melting that water started seeping up through these hairline cracks in the basement floor. I hate our house. HATE IT. It's a piece of poo. I wish we had known there would be all of these issues because there's no way in hell we'd have bought it. Obviously. I don't know if I'm more pissed that the home inspector didn't see any of these things when he did his inspection or that the person that sold us this house did such a shoddy job with his "repairs". Either way, I just want to sell this dump & get the heck away from this money pit.

The only good thing that came out of the flooded basement was the forced spring cleaning! I took a truck load of stuff to the thrift store to donate. That felt great!!

Last weekend, Will's aunt and uncle came into town & stayed with us for a few days. His aunt wanted to go to a concert so we went & it wasn't really my style but it was nice to get out of the house. As you can see in the photos below, I was feeling pretty good by the time the concert started!

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I promise Will wasn't nearly as intoxicated as he looks in this picture. He just doesn't take very good pictures - he always looks drunk!! I, on the other hand, was as intoxicated as it appears. Hey, I had to do what I had to do to get through that concert. Don't judge me!!

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Will had to fly again on Friday so I had to entertain his aunt and uncle - we had lunch together and then did a little shopping at the Home Depot to finish buying supplies to finish off the deck. I took them to my favorite local restaurant for dinner that night and had a deelish meal of crab legs.

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Will and his uncle worked all day Saturday on the deck and then we all went out dancing on Saturday night. It was on Sunday morning that I started to realize that I'm not as young as I used to be. I felt like crap all day Sunday - too much beer on Saturday night, I guess. Considering I go out *maybe* 3 times a year, I guess my once-in-a-while night of imbibing too much is okay. Thank goodness I didn't have to really function on Sunday though. lol

And while we're talking about families, I'm heading to SC this weekend to see MY family!! Yaaay! I'm so excited. I haven't seen them since last September, which may not seem like too long ago, but we usually see each other every couple of months. This is probably the longest I've gone without seeing them since I moved to MD back in 2006. Will and I have been trying to figure out a time when we could go down there but his schedule at work has been insane since December. He told me on Monday afternoon that he was finally able to take some leave for next week so we're off to SC on Saturday.

I cannot wait - I'm definitely going to take a day trip to Charleston since we haven't been back there since 2007, and I want to go to Myrtle Beach too. I haven't been there since 2004 which is crazy to me seeing how I grew up only 60 miles away from there. I probably won't even recognize the place.

My favorite steeple in Charleston:

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My favorite Charleston picture ever - us on our wedding day sitting on a limb of a several hundred year old oak tree. Awww!

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So, we're heading to SC in a few days but in May we're going to Tennessee!! Will and myself, the two doggies and my mom & dad are renting a cabin somewhere in eastern TN. It's a little getaway for my 30th birthday. Will is probably going to be working on my actual birthday so we're going a few weeks early and we're spending a week there. Aside from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the mountains of Tennessee & NC are probably my favorite place on earth. I just love it there. Marty likes it there too. This was in 2004 when my mom & I went for a few days. Well, Marty went too! This was before we had Scarlett. Anyhow, Marty so enjoyed riding in my Mustang. He was such a good boy and look at how handsome he is!

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That picture just cracks me up every time I see it! I miss my Mustang too. It would've been great to have convertible this past weekend when it was 75 degrees outside.

Anyhoo, I need to finish packaging up an order & printing postage so I can drop it off at the Post Office. Then I get to come home and start packing for my trip to SC! I hope you all are doing well - I haven't had time to stop by any of my favorite blogs lately but I will try to do that later today!!

28 January 2009

Whew!

Hey guys! I thought I'd get back into posting regularly after my visit to SC a few weeks ago but as luck would have it I came down with a horrible cold! My germ infested relatives were nice enough to share with me and now both Will and I are hacking and sneezing all over the place. I was pretty much out of commission all of last week, moving between the bed and the sofa and back to bed again. It was horrible. I'm still not 100% better although I'm not quite as sick as I was last week. Now I'm in that itchy throat, cough-until-you-gag phase and it's almost impossible to go anywhere because I never know when I'm going to have one of those coughing attacks and well, gagging in public is a bit embarrassing!

Our visit to SC was pleasant. We exchanged Christmas gifts with my side of the family, went to my nieces 2nd Birthday party, visited with relatives and came home in a timely manner! I didn't get to do any thrifting while I was down there, so that was a bit disappointing but I kind of expected that. It seems like there's never enough time to get it all done when I go back home! There's always friends I didn't get to see, places I didn't get to shop and food I didn't get to eat. lol

In other news, it looks as if we're planning a little family vacation in March and we're heading to Florida. Will, as you all know, is in the Air Force and this year (like in 2003) Disney is doing a special promotion for military families. The active duty member receives a 5-day Park Hopper pass for free and up to 5 of his dependents or friends can get 5-day Hopper passes for $99!! So, it appears as if we'll be heading to Florida in March and we're taking my parents, sister and niece with us. Oh, and our two doggies. We're looking to rent a house (hopefully with a pool!) and we'll be there for at least a week. I'm going to try to persuade Will to take me down to Sanibel Island while we're in Florida too but I'm not sure if he'll go for that. And my mom and sister have both already talked to me about their desire to spend at least one day while we're down there at thrift stores! Wooot! Thank goodness we're driving because I plan on loading up on tons of fabulous goodies should we happen to find decent thrifting spots!

So, that's about it from here in snow & ice-covered Maryland. I need to venture out today and pick up a few things for my Etsy business and maybe do some thrifting. I hope you all are doing well. And I hope I can get around and visit everyone soon. I miss my blogging friends!!