Hey All! We moved to the beach!
It has been a really, super, duper, long time since I posted. Holy cow, I think since like May. Talk about a long break!
I think my regular followers probably know we just moved across the country, from Montana to Florida. Crazy right? It was a LONG move and an even LONGER process of getting ready for it.
Oh my goodness.
Can I breathe now?
Yes.
I started packing last March.
While I have not yet unpacked the last box… I have unpacked MY last box. My husband still has some of his stuff, but other than that it’s just a matter of finding new house plants and patio furniture.
Because I have a patio now.
Next to the pool.
It’s tough.
Even though I desperately miss Montana and all our friends, I am starting to settle in here. I can’t say I would want to live here forever…but 4 years-ish should be nice. One thing we have, hands-down decided is we LOVE our new house.
It’s a 1960’s ranch which is SO different from our last house but in a really, really good way. Our Montana house was over 4000 square feet, which is crazy and I was SO sick of cleaning it. Loved the house, hated the cleaning.
I am way to into projects and doing and not so much into cleaning. But I CANNOT live in a messy, dirty, disorganized house.
It’s a problem.
Probably should have hired a house cleaner like my sister kept telling me to. But I’m to cheap for that.
My solution was to downsize.
So we are now residing in 2000 square feet on one floor and it’s glorious. What used to take me an entire morning, now takes me an hour and I can do a better job.
It also helps to have concrete floors throughout the ENTIRE house.
Oh yes, even the bedrooms. Just no dropping anything breakable. Even mason jars are losing against this floor.
LOVE it though. Central vac would be epic. But concrete-already-constructed walls and all that….
At first I wasn’t terribly excited about the kitchen… and you guys know I have to love my kitchen… I spend a lot of time there… but it has ended up working out perfectly.
The thing about the kitchen is it hasn’t been updated since the 60’s. Seriously.
The fridge, range and dishwasher have and are all stainless and great but the oven and cabinets… no joke the oven is from the 60’s. The thing is, when I opened it it was perfectly clean. So I’m guessing it hasn’t seen much action in it’s time in this kitchen.
Well it is now!
It’s a perfectly wonderful oven and I am actually really liking it, so I have no doubt we will all be enjoying lots of new, yummy recipes out of it.
The main problem I had with the kitchen was, well two things, no pantry (gasp!) and lack of counter space.
My husband and I knew, though, because it was a large kitchen and totally open to the other living area, we could make something work.
We did 🙂
He built me this awesome island with a butcher block counter top (eeek!) and converted one of his shop shelving units into another counter area for me.
It doesn’t look like much but it’s super functional and I am all about that right now.
Like those cabinets? Lol. And you’ll have to ignore the crazy. Just moved in you know, things haven’t found their forever home quite yet. In fact things have already changed since I took those pictures a couple weeks ago.
Lots of cooking and baking have been happening now that things are (sort of) starting to cool off a tad here. Don’t get me wrong, we are all still in shorts but it’s not miserable at the moment. So I have a couple recipes to share with you later… one involving the fresh coconut we harvested (but you don’t have to have fresh no worries)!
Follow me on Instagram if you aren’t already so you can keep up with the pillaging and day to day stuff we do. It’s great. We’ve been here less than a month and already have planted all kinds of stuff, most importantly banana trees, and my husband loves knocking on doors and asking people for whatever fruit is hanging around. They are usually so surprised to have this big guy on their step asking for fruit they just give him whatever… He often takes our smiley 3 year old to make it seem less weird.
On a different note…turns out my neighbor two doors down is a runner 🙂 so we’ve been running in the mornings before getting our kiddos off to school which has been so much fun and I’m already signed up for a half marathon (which is in about a month) and Ragnar Key West. I’ve done half’s before but never a 200 mile relay so I expect that to be pretty awesome. It seems so odd that I don’t particularly enjoy running here, it’s flat, hot, humid, all paved sidewalks, lots of people and the beach which isn’t as fun (for running) as you’d think…
Although I try.
…as opposed to Montana where it’s all up or down a mountain, all dirt and I never see any people and absolutely LOVE running there yet I have been doing way more running since I’ve been here.
Mostly because I can go in the dark, early morning which I could never do before because of the wild animal factor. Hey whatever works right?
I also signed up for the 1000 mile challenge, which means I am trying to run 1000 miles in a year, because why not? So far I am right on target for doing it and my mileage will only increase because that’s how I roll 🙂
Ok so next week, there will be recipes and also a post about our cross country trip and a few of the awesome places we stayed! Stay tuned…
- Huckleberry Plum Pie - January 1, 2017
- Fresh Mango Sorbet - July 17, 2016
- Steak Caesar Salad - June 8, 2016
