Catching Up

Hello, Friends!

Porch Flowers

My last post was on March 23^rd (bad blogger!), so I thought it was time to tell you what I’ve been up to.

 

Since then, we’ve bought and moved into a new construction home, been to Florida four times, Ohio one time and attended two cross stitch retreats.

 

Rather than take up your time covering all of that at once, I thought I would share about the move first. I’ll cover the retreats in a separate post.

 

For a recap of how we ended up in North Carolina, read my post here.

 

We didn’t have much luck with purchasing an existing home but we did find a new neighborhood being built on a ridge. There will only be 10 homes in this development and I can handle living on a ridge much better than way up a mountain.

 

What I’ve learned during our house hunt is that the roads can be a bit sketchy and the weather is a little crazy.  Many of the roads are only one lane which means if you and a neighbor are traveling towards each other at the same time, someone will have to back down. (There is no shoulder…no moving to the side)

 

If there is a power outage in the upper elevations, you may not get it back for a while. It brought back memories of hurricanes. And the big reason I prefer a ridge at approximately 3000 feet above sea level over anything higher is reliable internet service.  Since I still work from home, consistent and strong internet is a must. Our utilities are underground and the road is easily managed.

 

The drive leading to the house. I need to take photo of the front.

The back of the house

 
We have met with a landscaper and are on his list for two new paver patios and steps to manage the slope. I may try my hand at plantings…but, we’ll see.

 

Some of our neighbors

 

Turkeys

Tom said "Hey Chuck, the feeder is empty!"

Deer

We brought my mom to stay for a couple of weeks and she made a new friend.  We do not know who this kitty belongs to but he seems friendly and loves to hang out underneath the bird feeder.

Tufted Titmouse drying off on the deck railing after a rain

 

Friendly black snake keeping all the bad ones away (I hope!)

Morning view from the deck

 

In other news, I recently “fully finished” a cross stitch piece.

This is Sweet Land of Liberty by Blackbird Designs. The fabric is 28 count Monaco that I coffee-tea dyed and I used the called-for floss which is mostly Gentle Art and one DMC. I finished stitching the design on February 21, 2021 and promptly placed it a drawer.

 

Here it is with two other designs from the same Blackbird Designs book Sweet Land of Liberty.

 

The pillow on the left is In Full Glory and the framed piece is American Eagle.

 

I’m hoping to finish more items from that drawer now that I have crafting space again.

 

If you made it this far…Thank You!

 

I’ll be back soon with a post about the cross-stitch retreats and an update on my stitching projects.

 

In the meantime, for those in the USA, I hope you have a safe and wonderful Independence Day.

 

Happy New Year and 2022’s Big Move

Happy New Year!

I hope you have fond memories from 2022 and may you create even better ones in 2023.

 

My year was full of travel, new experiences, lots of crafting and a move.  I have a lot to tell you about my 2022 but we are going to take this in bits.

 

Today I’d like to share about our move.

From...

To...

During one of our camping adventures in July 2021, we visited an adorable small town in the mountains of western North Carolina.  Waynesville quickly became a place we would consider moving to one day.  As it turns out, we have friends that have had a vacation home in nearby Maggie Valley for 20+ years…we didn’t know.

 

Fast forward to June 2022… we spent four days with a realtor looking at land as well as existing homes.  Unfortunately, we weren’t interested in anything at the time.  We decided to rent a place to make sure Waynesville is where we want to be and to make the property search a bit easier.  So, in July we moved into an adorable condo located right downtown. It came furnished so all our belongings are in two large storage units in Florida ☹

 

We still needed a small U-Haul for things we can’t live without…2/3 of the trailer consisted of sewing machines and other craft items.

 

We’ve learned a lot about mountain living…it is certainly different than anything I’ve ever experienced. It isn’t bad, just different. Waynesville has a small-town vibe but there are a lot of things to do.  We’ve enjoyed drives on the Blue Ridge Parkway, visited Great Smoke Mountain National Park, eaten at some amazing restaurants, became annual passholders to the Biltmore Estate and so much more.  Asheville is only a 30-minute drive away so we’ve taken advantage of some of what it has to offer as well.

Biltmore - Christmas 2022

We almost purchased a home in October but sadly, the due diligence process revealed some things we just weren’t willing to take on at this stage in our lives. The home search continues. Build? Buy existing? Wish us luck.

 

My mom and children still reside in Florida, and it isn’t likely they will ever move, so we’ve made several trips back for various reasons. They did join us in North Carolina for Christmas though. The temperatures were quite frigid, but we kept the fireplace going and everyone had a great time.

Christmas Eve - 6:00 am

Christmas Eve - 7:30 am

 

I’ll share more about our new little town in future posts. And I can’t wait to show you all the stitching and sewing I’ve been doing.

 

In the meantime, have a happy and blessed 2023!