Here for now

Allow me to introduce you to our temporary digs, Mouse Turd Manor. The garden and brick walkway actually look scarier than the house in this pic, but I've worked on it since then. 

The last two weeks have passed in a kind of haze. Isn't that always the way it is with huge life events? We may hang onto a moment or two from high-stress times, but a lot of it passes in a blur.

Every week here seems to feature a new form of help for the house, which is good because it needs it. I feel bad for this house. Someone obviously loved it a long time ago, but being a manufactured/modular home which stood vacant for almost two years caused it to fall into disrepair. If it was a person, it would currently be in the Emergency Room with a saline IV drip line, antibiotics, and full x-rays and a blood panel being done. It might even be feeling a little better at this point. At least the many fixes are happening, and at no cost to us.

But we are making sure we get out and have at least one day a week of fun, and one weeknight in town. Last week we went into Independence for dinner, and its simple beauty and friendliness made me feel like I was walking through a Hallmark movie.

Hanging flower baskets on the streetlights -- so pretty.

That sweet, small town feeling!

The Willamette

And last weekend we went to the famous Pelican Brewery in Pacific Beach for lunch and beach walking. Sometimes you need the familiar in your life, and the beach and ocean are that for me. It's still the Pacific, after all. 

A day at the beach!

Say yes to stress eating lol.

But this place is beginning to feel more like home as well. Next week I begin painting over these miserable colors and half-painted walls in a more neutral palate. This house is proof that some people watch way too much HGTV, and/or believe you can successfully replicate what the professionals do there in regards to paint. A 2,000 square foot home painted in 12 different colors is a little like a gypsy wedding (sorry, gypsies): Something old, something new, something red, something blue, something yellow, something gray, something turquoise, something orange, something black, something green, etc.....Yes, friends, it IS possible to love color too much. It works for The Property Brothers, most of the time. But don't try it at home, no matter what the Valspar commercial tells you.

Can you count the colors? Dark grey, gatorade yellow, and turquoise. Ick.

I've also decided the vegetable garden is beyond saving, but the flower garden in front is not. So I'm weeding the flower beds but won't be planting any vegetables this summer. I'm not really sad about it, except when I need some onions or parsley for a recipe and realize I have none outside.

And so it goes...a little at a time, in the garden and inside. Making sure I stop and take in the greenery on a regular basis. Because while you can have too much color, too much greenery is something I just can't get enough of right now.