Those of you that actually read this stuff on a regular basis may have noticed there hasn’t been a new post in quite a while. Or maybe you’re as insanely busy as I am and you’re just waiting for fall TV to start back up so you can fall into the couch at night and sit in a zombie-like coma in front of your favorite shows. Whichever the case may be, I wanted to let readers know, I’m on an extended leave for a while, but not gone forever.
We are in the process of moving. I’ve been in our current house since March of 2001 and lived in the Lake of the Ozarks area pretty much my entire life. The furthest away were the couple years I lived in Richland, Mo and Stover, Mo- both are 1/2 hour’s drive or less to the Lake.
I’m still not going to be FAR away from Lake of the Ozarks. We’re going to be looking for something near the Jefferson City/Columbia Mo area. Even though that’s only an hour from Osage Beach at most, it’s still a big move for me. I spent a week or so freaking out about it, then I looked around at all the things that needed to be done before we sold our current house and realized I didn’t have time to freak out anymore- I had to get BUSY.

And I have been.

My entire week and sometimes a large part of the weekend has been engulfed by demolition, drywall, construction, painting, sanding, scraping ceilings, etc. I haven’t mowed our grass in weeks, in fact- the only time I really manage to get any yard time at all is when I’m watering the garden or picking tomatoes and peppers. Nothing new is going in this fall, since I don’t plan on being her next year to take care of it. I’ll make time to dig up some of my favorite plants or those that have some sentimental attachment and clean things up so it all looks neat- that’s about the extent of my landscaping and garden plans until the move. Which means not much to write about on Dirt for a while.

I didn’t realize how many projects I had started and not finished until delving into this house, room by room, making sure everything was move-in ready from top to bottom. There are little things- like I started replacing the ugly gold tone doorknobs with brushed nickel and only about half of them are done. Then there are big things- I scraped, skim coated and painted the ceilings in rooms I had remodeled previously, but not throughout the entire house. Which meant, I still had the utility room, our bedroom and the kitchen/living room to scrape, coat and paint. I’m 2 for 3 already, but it’s been a HUGE undertaking. Add to this that I must spend at least some time with my kiddo and doing normal routine stuff like making sure we have at least 1 pair of clean underwear each and something besides condiments in the fridge to eat… I’m ridiculously busy right now.

Dirt will be back. I just need some time to get things fixed up here, take some pictures (Have you seen the photos realtors take of houses they sell??? They suck. It’s no wonder they sit on the market forever.) and get my move on. Hopefully when that’s all done, I’ll have a whole new yard to start projects in that I still won’t have finished 12 years later. 😉

These are a few shots of our current garden. I plant my veggies right in the raised bed next to the house and pond, mixed in with marigolds, climbing roses, butterfly bush, Mexican and regular sunflowers. The loads of pollinators that come to the Mexican sunflower and butterfly bush help the veggie plants produce far more fruit sometimes than we can eat. A setup I must remember and try to duplicate at our new home!

Have a great fall folks, I’ll be back as soon as possible.

-Belle