Making The Move

 We made the move!

It was preceded by a couple weeks of pretty rough goodbyes.

I have volunteered with the above ladies for years at a

"store" that gives away clothing to the less fortunate.

 This is my "reading club" that ditched the reading years ago.

More like a lunch club with amazing support and some great wisdom.

Ladies that I have been friends with for years came to see me off.

Some of the wonderful friends that I didn't even manage to get a photo of. 

(I managed to not pick up my camera during the whole move.😕

 What we did right:

throw ourselves a "farewell party" where friends to could stay

to help us pack afterwards.  The above shows all the yummy

treats they brought.  I don't really even remember the

packing stage, I just carried the neighbor's baby around like a security blanket.

 I think we had about 30 awesome people helping us

pack every square inch of this 20 foot moving truck.

(And only 6 people to unload and unpack, much

gratitude to my sister-in-laws family and my son.)

Fortunately, they didn't realize everything we had squirrelled

away in our "shop" every trip we made down here for the last 

six months.  But that can wait for now.

Moving Melancholy

All changes, even the most longed for,

have their melancholy;

For what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves,

we must die to one life before we can enter another.

-- Anatolle France. 

You have had fair warning,

this may be a downer.  And probably too sad for family members.

As the house is emptying out I needed to snap a few photos.

But bright colors seemed a little too cheery....

it is starting to really hit me.

 So this post was me wandering around outside.

This is a giant tree in front of our house.

It has kept watch over the house about 100 years,

and over my family for 30 years.

 I like to think how many times we wandered in and out of this gate.

(And how I ruined my knees laying that brick).

 I did dig up a few plants to take,

but I am leaving many behind.

There was not one flower or bush in the yard when we moved in.

 Original shed (out house?),

one of my favorite things about the yard.

View of church next door.

I can still see two little boys holding hands,

walking up that sidewalk.

Being followed our loyal gold tomcat who met them at the end of the block.

Whining, Japanese Beetles, God & Paint Therapy

Some periods of life are just hard. Hard.  Can't get around them, have to make it through somehow.  Hard.  We're going through one of those.  Long and hard.  I thought our northern house would have sold by now, so now I am hours away from my husband (and grandbaby!) babysitting our Victorian house.  He is job hunting in the new location and I have put almost all my money-making "junking" ventures on hold during this transition.  Which means we are cash poor.

Nope, I am not done whining...  The temps and humidity this summer (since June!) make it feel like 100 degrees almost every stinking day.  Our northern house hasn't seen any rain in weeks.  Lots of grass is dead, some trees looking bad, and I am watering almost every morning.  I have started to collect "gray water" during the day to water potted plants.  So I was watering this morning and I noticed Japanese beetles eating my crabapple tree (probably the photo "frame" of flowers you are looking at on my blog right now is a photo of blooms from that tree).  Japanese beetles.  Argh.  So gross.  So discouraging.

 Must go to Home Depot and spend money on JB traps.  (I think God had a plan). I picked up two, and wandered to the paint department.  I had kind of been thinking about painting our china cabinet.  We bought it back around 1986 from a little old lady whose husband had made it for her.  We paid $75, which was a lot of money for us.  I was thinking that for our Ozark house I wanted something older and more primitive to put dishes in, but frankly that is not in the budget right now.   So I was perusing the paint samples, and found a lovely shade of gold by Behr -- Romanesque Gold.  I pulled the trigger and bought a quart.

I dragged the china cabinet on the back porch, did a "primer coat" with a white chalk paint.  Then a coat of the gold with a little of the white chalk paint added (to kind of layer colors.)  And then a coat of the straight gold.  During these three coats my nerves began to calm.  I began to count my blessings, and remember the joy and peace God grants me while I paint.  God is teaching me all sorts of lessons during this season of my life, and sometimes I lose sight of that.  It is EASY to see the hard, and much tougher to see the good.

I have a few more stages left before I finish the china cabinet (stay tuned), but today was a good start. And I am feeling better. By the way, the vicinity of the beetle traps looks like a Alfred Hitchcock horror movie "The Beetles"-- apparently the bait really does work.

Guest Bedroom At The "Old House"

 We had another open house today,

so the house looked as pristine as it ever was going to.

Good opportunity to snap a few pics for memory's sake.

 All of the pics in this post are of our guestroom.

We had a bit of an ocean theme.

This is a great original print,

the colors in it are awesome.

 It has a great sitting area,

I'm trying to remember if I ever sat there

during the 30 years we owned the house.

 An original oil painting.

Bookshelf made to fit that little nook,

but we do plan on taking it with us.

In fact, it might be the next thing I take down south.

You can see the parquet floor at the top of the landing.

Master Bedroom At "Old House"

I love our bedroom, but as you know, our house is on the market.

Our bedroom in our "new" house will be very different,

so I want to remember this one. 

 Standing in the middle of the room, this is the east wall

I have enjoyed the cheerful color,

and I always hung my favorite antique gold frames on this wall.

 Northeast corner.

I did the specialized paint on the walls.

 Original OLD Longpre print.

I will have to find a place for it at our new house.

 Our queen size bed will be heading to the guestroom

at the new house.  I had to buy decorative pillows for the

bed to help "stage" because I am not a decorative pillow person.

I love this dresser.

It is like a piece of folk art.

I would love to know the history behind it.

Well, we had some people look at the house yesterday,

that seemed pretty interested.  

So I am crossing my fingers.

Caladiums Brought Back To Life

 So I bought 12 caladiums back in April which had 

been nipped by frost.  They had been discounted to

only $1 each, and I thought they could be revived.

 I cut them all completely back, 

and kept them watered.

 In just a few weeks they were back to their former glory.

I actually hauled them from my new house, 

to my old house -- in order to do some outdoor staging.

 The colors on these leaves are showstopping.

 And the leaves just keep getting bigger,

and new ones are sprouting  - even in the heat.

Better than any fireworks display.

Urban Snake Party

Warning: The photos below may be disturbing for those 

suffering from ophidiophobia.  You know who you are.

 I was standing very still watching honeybees on the

naturalized little blue flowers in my yard.

(First year in three that I have seen any honey bees!)

Then I noticed a little snake....

then another one....

and another one....

There were at least six having a little fun in the sun.

We are moving to a rural area,

but this is a good reminder that there is plenty

of wildlife right here in the city.

Staging The Book Case

 The large bookcase in our dining room is staying with the house

when we move.  It fits the space perfectly,

and I am afraid we would break those lovely,

wavy glass doors if we tried to move it.

 It has a great history.

We got it from our town's original library building.

It eventually became a high school library,

and then a middle school library.

Then there were bids taken on what was left 

before the building was torn down.

 We had measured, and knew it would fit the wall space

perfectly in our dining room.

 We got the book case for a song,

but the dining room remodel that it ignited

made up for any savings.

 We also "won" several sets of books from that library,

which have been perfectly displayed in the bookcase.

 We also displayed our china doll head collection,

coffee collection, white pottery collection,

and Ozark roadside pottery collection.

The last collection as already moved to the new house,

so we had to do some rearranging to the bookcase.

Like so many things,

I am going to miss it!

Making Flower Containers That Survive Snow

 I don't normally do container gardening.

But since we are moving this summer, container

gardening gives us a chance to take flowers with us

(and save a little cash.)

 Since I can't afford (or carry) big ceramic planters,

I collected a bunch of cheapo plastic ones at auctions.

I tried textured Rustoleum spraypaint to spiff them up.

I found if you spray a solid matte base color on the

containers first (close to the color of the textured spraypaint), 

the textured spraypaint works much better.

Make sure you hit the top interior.

 I did three of these container pots for our open house on Sunday.

 Problem #1:

Snow forecast.

So I only purchased kale,

pansies and dianthus.

Problem #2:

The soil was rock solid frozen in these three

containers in front of the house.

So I just set the leftover plants in them.

(Easier to cover if I need to.)

They will have to wait their turn until after the open house.

Staging The Laundry Room

In case you need updating, I am on hiatus from the Little

House In The Ozarks.  The hardwood floor guys are doing 

their thing + it was raining, so I headed back to our northern house.

I will work on cleaning + staging this house for the next couple of days.

So today I did some staging in the pantry.

I bought these galvanized tubs at Walmart over the weekend.

They are going to be used for laundry at the new place,

but I am taking advantage of having them now.

They were about $13 each, so very reasonable

compared to other vintage-style laundry options.

 I also purchased the two drink containers on the top shelf

in the photo above.  They were very reasonable too.

 "The Pantry"

(aka laundry room)

has so much great storage.

I am going to miss it.