My walk and talk

Sometimes I just need a little walk and talk with Jesus. Here in the Outer Banks it has been rainy and windy. Right now it is cloudy, 65 degrees with 14 mile an hour winds. But I wanted to do my walk and talk on the beach. My game plan is always go north against the wind first. So I set out to walk on the beach headed north just up to a public access and then back down on the road.

 We are walking and talking, it is getting good. I am listening and just goofy smiling along the way(can you imagine what the lifeguards are thinking when they drive by me) It is a tough walk, the sand is soft, the waves are rough coming at me and the wind is pushing.  I get to the place where I will turn and go home. Nope, He has different plans for me today. He says go all the way to the pier, I am with you.

The pier is about a 4 mile round trip walk. Crazy in these conditions for me. I make it, all the way to the pier! Happy Dance in front of the fishermen on the pier. LOL

 

And then turn and walk on the road. I like walking on the road too because I see some beautiful homes.

 



My walk and talk was fabulous, like always when I take the time for it.
He has bigger plans for me, bigger than I can even plan for.

Jeremiah 29:11-14

New International Version (NIV)

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

A crazy week of buying and painting

Sorry, I haven't blogged anything in a while. It has been a crazy week of buying and painting. Right after we moved to the Outer Banks I seen a add on Craigslist for a craft and yard sale. Well, sign me up :-) But of course I sold everything I had painted in Joplin. So the hunt began. Yard sales, thrift stores anywhere and everywhere I could go. The pieces I found were amazing. We found a little studio to paint in and I also painted under my house. Painting under the house was wonderful. Paint a little, go for a walk on the beach. It was inspirational.

Here are some of these pieces painted. I use Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. I think the closest place to buy the paint here is 2 1/2 hours away. I am so glad I brought a bunch of cans from Missouri with me.

I love LOVE love this buffet! Very beachy and people loved it in person. I love it and want to keep it.

Another crazy piece. It is a newer made TV console. That thing is sooooo heavy.

This empire chest is amazing.

The sale was wonderful. I sold a few piece and handed out a lot of business cards. Meet a lot of nice people. One man drove by our space and rolled down his window and said I have been watching your furniture on the Internet-Great Job! It was well worth the crazy week.
This week I need to unpack more. I still have a lot of boxes in the house. And hopefully I can take a few pictures of my favorite houses by the beach to show you all. Have a blessed day...........

The last day of settling in

 

Today will probably be our last day of just Chad & I settling in. In just a little while Chad will go for his last job interview. So far he has been blessed with two job offers and they are pretty good ones. Have to wait and see what this one will be. And then decision time. When we first moved here, we talked about him working up in Norfolk area. But it is 1 1/2 hours away. So the search went on for a job on the Outer Banks instead. And then we found a storage area where I can paint. Signing papers on that today as well. Tomorrow back to reality. WORK.... But that's okay, have to pay the bills :-)

 

Here are a few of my favorite things that I love about living at the beach.......

 



 

 

 

Early morning walks with Chad........

 

 Coffee on the front porch

Watching the dogs watching the street

 Cody skimboarding

 Leaving our flip flops by the stairs, while we play in the sand

The lattice marks from the waves

My flag waving

The outdoor shower

Toes in the sand

 Sea oats

And bringing home treasurers from our walks

The past two weeks of moving and then settling in has been crazy and wonderful.
God is good........

So far........

So far it has been busy and exciting. My home is still unpacked, big surprise there. Hey, I am at the beach. The beach is about 1000 ft. from our home. So we try to take a walk twice a day.

The dogs love the water.

I am a white and color person. Not usually a brown person. Well, this house is totally brown paneling. And dark blue carpet. I can work with it :-)

 

 

What a mess. I wont ever show you the bedrooms, oh boy. It is a scary maze in the middle of the night, when you have to go to the pee. And I know it is a 4 bedroom house but it is much smaller than the 2 bedroom loft. But I am thankful.

The outside is fun.

One of my favorite things is the outdoor shower

 

 

 

Yesterday I painted this cute little dresser and chair. I can't wait to add some pumpkins. 

 

 

 

Have a wonderful day.

 

 

 

 

 

A funny story on the way to the beach

Just a little story that I can laugh at now, but when it happened, well NOT A CHANCE.

We left Joplin on Tuesday, September 5th. Early, 5 am. Everything was going great. This was my view.

The back of the Uhaul truck and trailer. Yup, at the last minute I still had tooooo many treasurers for a truck alone. We had to go back and pick up a trailer to pull too. Love you honey.

Around 1:30 we just crossed into Tennessee and Chad got a blowout on the Uhaul truck. He did a great job of pulling into the large pull out on the side. At that time I was actually in front of him and could see things coming out of the truck. He looked underneath the truck and my painted antique filing cabinet was falling out the bottom of the truck. I loved that thing. When the blowout happened the rubber came up and punched a hole into the floor of the truck. We called Uhaul and they sent out a tire repair guy. Awesome, he fixed it but he was not here to fix the hole. So we went to the nearest town and called again. They had a 24 hour repair company call to let me know that their repair guy would be giving me a call. He called. This 24 hour repair guy calls and says well its getting late in the day. I should just go and get a piece of plywood and lay it on top of the hole. Right, with rain coming. Well maybe he will pick some wood up and bring it out to me. Right. Well he would call a friend of his and ask him what he thought and give me a call back. The whole time on the phone his kids were fighting in the background and he kept saying hold on. I called his dispatcher and Uhaul explained and they both said sorry and would have someone else take care of it. Oh and by the way it is 100 degrees out. This is where you can fill in some words that you can imagine what I used. I got a phone call. A phone call from a woman. The repair man's girlfriend. Okay. She cussed me out and said that her old man did not cuss me out. Did I say he did? No! She went on and on. And so I simply said  ........................................................................................................................................................
Seriously! And hung up. Promptly called dispatcher and Uhaul back. Said they better get someone else out and I was moving to a new location. Away from where the girlfriends knows about. Finally another repair guy came out. We pulled out the back half where the hole was. Man, I lost my file cabinet, some pottery, some blankets. And my love seat was not looking so great.

Grease was everywhere. So 8pm we were ready to go again. NOT. Hotel time and a shower.
The rest of the trip went great. We arrived at the beach a day later than we wanted but that's okay. We were alive and well. It was only material things we lost. God was watching over us.

This was the our first look at the beach, it was raining and beautiful. Hurricane Lesley was sending in the waves. The fall is the best time in the Outer Banks for surfing and fishing. We are going to have a blast at the beach.

Life on a Sandbar

First, I am not a very good blogger. I have tried a few times and oh shiny got the best of me. And my spelling and grammer, is not great.
Second, I miss my friends and my little shop back in Missouri. I had so much fun creating, searching for great treasurers and visiting with all of you. Don't get me wrong, I live at the beach now. Seriously, I live at the beach :-) It is amazing here.......

And now a little background of my life.
Born and raised in Southern California, about 1 1/2 hours from the beach. Married my wonderful husband Chad in 1988. We have 3 boys, well men. In 2000 we moved to Springfield, MO and then later to Bois D'Arc, MO. We wanted to have a slower country life. So we bought a farm. 20 acres and and a big old house. Renovated the house, raised chickens and cows, had drive in movies behind the barn and just loved living in the country. We have always wanted to live in the country.

Our boys grew, Jared went into the Navy and Dylan was headed into the Air Force. Only Cody left at home and we wanted to travel to see the boys across the country. So we moved to Joplin where Chad worked and moved into a downtown loft apartment. Yes, we went from a farm to a loft. Crazy, right? We have always wanted to live in a loft.

When a tornado wiped out a chuck of Joplin, life really changed. It was very heart breaking to see and to hear all the stories. I don't know if I have ever cried and prayed so much.
I grew restless. Very restless. I decided that I needed to get rid of some extra things I had from the farm. I wanted to start painting furniture and building things again. (We started building furniture back in the 1990's, a coffee table, dining table and so on. And at the farm we built cabinets and anything else I could dream up). I found an amazing studio right across the alley from the loft. It was on the 3rd floor of another building and you had to use stairs or a freight elevator to get to it. When friends and family came to the studio they were always leery of the elevator. My now daughter in law Krista said it was sketchy. LOL. But it was so much fun. The first piece I painted was an old vanity.

I started selling in an antique shop. In February of this year I took a big leap of faith and sold at Affair of the Heart in Oklahoma City. And WOW it was amazing! 3 days and 7 building of art, clothes, furniture and other hand made items. It was fun to see people walk by and say JunknPretties with a smile on their lips and excitement in their eyes. To actually hear people say they liked my treasures.

Downtown Joplin closes down  Main Street the Third Thursday of the Month from March-October for an Artwalk. Five blocks of fun. I have a friend that manages buildings in Joplin and had an empty building that he let me open a little store for Third Thursday. Amazing!

In the past couple of years we have traveled from coast to coast seeing the boys. Vacationed in Nags Head in the Outer Banks of North Carolina a few times, just an 1 1/2 hours a way from where Jared is stationed. And loved it there. Jared married Krista in October of 2011. We figured that we loved the beach so much and if there were grand-babies in the future we better get moving. We have always wanted to live at the beach.

We now live in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

This is our home for the next 7 months, a winter rental. I think maybe a party house during the summer. But hey, I live at the beach. I will keep you updated with pictures but now it is time for a walk on the beach.