Welcoming a New Year!

I love the New Year! It always feels like a great fresh start and it is invigorating to think about the changes that I want to make in the new year and the hopes of what it will bring. 

2012 has been a really great year but an interesting one none the less.  In 2011 I started this blog and a new job and we put our first house on the market.  We also built the first house in the neighborhood we are developing. 

Last year for New Year’s in THIS POST I stated that in 2012 I wanted to live more simply and my two big resolutions goals were to become more physically and financially fit.   Well a lot happened this year!!! 

January I started off with a lot of furniture painting and completed many projects.

Side Table

Twin Bed

I took you on a tour of the house we built to sell in the neighborhood.

Home Tour

In February this blog turned 1!

Vintage Sign

Mirror

In March, I turned a year older and we got an offer on our house.

I welcomed Spring.

I posted one of my most popular posts to date.  I made these great bird nest for my apothecary jars and it was a hit.  P.S. they still look exactly the same!

Spring Apothecary Jars

In April the blog started to suffer.  I had a yard sale to get rid of all those things we didn’t want to move and in May we really started to pack. 

In June we went to the Bahamas.

As soon as we got home, we moved, as in the day after we returned!! Crazy!   We moved into the new home we built since it was still on the market.  Just in time for me to decorate a Summer Mantle.

In July we started to settle into the new home and I decided the green front door had to go, so I painted that a calmer blue.

Front Door

I received a free kitchen island and I gave it a face lift.  This post gained a lot of attention, since I was featured over at Southern Hospitality!! 

Kitchen Island Makeover

Then we received an offer to purchase this house!  One month later!!

So on August 10th (exactly 2 months from when we moved in), we moved again…this time we moved in with family and we have been with them since. 

I caught you up on a furniture project I did just before the move.

Dresser

And I showed you a small makeover.

Yellow Table

In September we stayed really busy and went to Atlanta, GA where I finally got to go to a Pottery Barn Outlet and then we went to Charleston, SC where I found some pretty neat stores and dream homes too.

 

In October I shared with you our simple living quarters and we started construction on another house in the neighborhood.

I also painted a little jewelry box.

Jewelry Box

I attended the first annual Southern Bloggers conference and met some really great ladies and found some really cool blogs!

In November I helped my friend paint her dining room hutch and table.

The house building continued.

In December I was super busy with Christmas festivities and I did not get a lot accomplished that was blog worthy except this table décor.

Christmas Table

Whew! That was a busy 2012!

As for my 2012 resolutions goals, we did wake up and start paying attention to our spending habits more.  We were forced to pay more attention with two houses on the market over the 1st half of the year and we realized we needed to cut back.  We still have a long way to go in being billionaires, but we are going to make it :)  Sadly I failed miserably on the physically fit goal.  I pretty much stopped exercising after we went to the Bahamas and through the two moves.  Living with my family has wrecked my eating routine.  Great excuses, I know…I’ve practiced saying those a lot and I put on weight by using them as excuses :(

The blog definitely suffered this year, my post count was chopped in half.  I am really sad about that but there was no way I could continue to rehab a lot of furniture projects during packing and moving and now not having a work space. 

Selling two houses in 2012 was a huge blessing and we are so very grateful for that!

Looking forward to 2013,  we are excited about what the year will bring.  First up will be moving again.  We can’t live with Family forever…even though they are great helpers in our busy life!! We have completed a new home build in the neighborhood and have it on the market to sale as well.  We having a closing date set and will move into the home if it does not sell first, when it sells we will most likely rent for a while.  I do look forward to having my furniture back and a space we can call our own. 

As for those New Year’s Resolutions for 2013…..well, I am very serious about losing the weight I have gained! I am going to join the thousands of others that know they need to be better.  I bought a juicer today and I am very excited about adding in more fruits and vegetables into my busy lifestyle.  Meal planning will become a habit I hope and I am slowly going to add in the excersing again too. 

My other resolutions will be to continue down a good financial path and spend less.  I still follow some of Dave Ramsey's Principles.  Read more of the bible daily and lastly,  stop playing so many games on my phone!!

What are your resolutions for the New Year??

 

April

Southern Bloggers Conference

Hey Ya’ll!  I had an amazing weekend at the Southern Bloggers Conference in Raleigh, NC.  I met so many wonderful ladies and felt like I was surrounded by talent everywhere.  I am so glad I made the decision to attend.  I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, for many reasons.  If you know me you know I am not that social, I’m a homebody and being in an room full of strangers is way out of my comfort zone.  I also struggle with where I want this blog to go.  It was in Raleigh so I made myself go since it was so close to me and I’m so glad I did! I meet so many talented like minded people that live near me.

I am inspired and re-charged about blogging.   I am excited about all the things that I learned and look forward to putting some of those things in action and changing little things here and there to make this blog better for you, my readers,  and hope to attract new readers along the way.

We had awesome speakers. 

Rhoda with Southern Hospitality

Rhoda shared her blog journey with us and it was so inspiring to hear her talk about how life happens and how you can keep doing what you love regardless of obstacles in your life.

Kari Anne with Thistlewood Farms

Kari Anne is HILAROUS, she has the most fun personality.  She has had great success with her blog in a short amount of time and was happy to share her tips with us.

Kelly with Eclectically Vintage

Kelly was great at explaining mistakes to correct and gave us good tips on using social media to keep in touch with readers.

Heather from At The Picket Fence

Heather gave us lots of insight on ways to advertise on your blog.  I have been on the fence about advertising here for a while but I learned a lot and know how to start slow.

Brittany at Pretty Handy Girl

Brittany (who lives in Raleigh) inspired us all to “go for it” to do what you love and challenge yourself to do what you are afraid of too.  She also took a group thrifting today in Raleigh.  I skipped out since I can go shopping around Raleigh anytime but I know the girls had fun!

These gals were so inspiring and I look forward to following them on their continued journey in blogging.  If you have not seen them before you should check them out!

We also had a special treat having Annie from Maison Blanche Paint Company present her line of Le Craie Paints and products which blew my mind.  I was so excited to see a different chalk paint line.  I can’t wait to get my hands on some of her paint.  She offers other great products to add a little extra to paint projects which we had the chance to see.

She really is that adorable!

Here are a few techniques and products we saw.

This is a stencil that is applied and then you add the Glacage product to create a look that appears to be part of the wood.  Really awesome stuff.

Le Dirt is a product that looks like dirt but gives you a great aged patina, this would be great on any piece with lots of detail.

I am pretty giddy about this paint chart, it’s REAL paint! So ACTUAL color.

Kristen with Sophia’s Décor and Amy at Atta Girl Says showed us how Miss Mustard Seed’s paint works and I was happy to be able to try this out as well. 

picture from Atta Girl Says

The ladies that put this conference together did a phenomenal job! They pulled this sold out event together in weeks! WEEKS!  It was amazing!

Please click on the link below to check them out too.

Committee Members and Fabulous Blogs 

On a final note, check out all this great swag I took home!

If you look close you will see there is a sample of La Craie Paint as well as Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint and a brand new paint brush!

I look forward to incorporating a few changes around here that you will notice, nothing major but a few things to spice up the blog and keep readers coming.  I also am thinking of starting a series of post about our journey in land development to keep interested readers up to date more on that process.  So stay tuned!

April

Charleston, SC

The weekend before last we went to Charleston and it was wonderful as always.  Will had a conference for work and luckily my sales territory is in Charleston so we went down on a Saturday and were both able to stay and work through Tuesday. 
The thing we do best is eat when we visit….great seafood and low country cooking. 
The next best thing we love is looking at houses, oh what beautiful houses.  We were actually looking this time to get ideas for our dream home.  We have a plan to someday build and we want to start really thinking about what we both love so we are dreaming.  Here are a few that were our favorites.
We really like double porches, especially wrap arounds.

This was one of my favorites, Will’s not so much.  I do have a thing to gothic farmhouse styles.

Loving the dark woods on this one.

This was the one that we both liked the best.


We also walked through a really old graveyard, with lots of creepiness.  It is down a long alley…
 
I’m hoping to use a few pictures in Halloween décor.  I’m thinking black & white with black frames.



We also found this really cool store on King Street, it was chocked full of awesome home décor. 








Be sure to check out their website at http://southofmarket.biz/ for more eye candy.
Hope you all are enjoying the last few days of Summer too.
April