New House, New Garden, New Food!

No apologies for leaving this blog dormant for so long; instead I’m just going to jump right back in with updates and posts. There’s been a lot of change over the last year and it’s time to start documenting and posting and adding the “life” part to this food and life blog.

So many things have happened over the past year that listing them out would take more space than I care to devote to a “catch-up” blog post, so I’m going to jump right in with the big one – we bought a house! Technically Zach bought a house, since I still own the townhouse and we have no plans to sell it any time soon. But functionally Zach lives in the house and I live in the townhouse and we split our time back and forth between the two.

What can I say about the house except that I love it! It’s an older home, built in 1985 – and has the teeny-tiny bathrooms to prove it! We believe that the house was bought by a flipper about 3 years ago; the kitchen has been remodeled (badly) and some “fluff” was added in the form of laminate floors in the master bedroom and crown molding everywhere in the house, even in the bathrooms and closets. The floor downstairs is original narrow plank oak, worn and water stained in some spots, but still mostly in good condition. Except for the master bedroom upstairs, it’s all carpet. It’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, a show home. It’s going to require work and love and effort from us. But it’s got good bones, and such a wonderful, happy feel to it, and best of all it’s on nearly a half-acre of property WITH A CREEK!

We closed in December and spent most of the holiday break painting the interior, cleaning, and getting some maintenance work done before moving in, late in January. And we’ve spent the last 3 months working on the outside landscaping. Let me tell you, as someone who has lived in a townhouse for the last 15 years, I’m loving having a full half-acre to play in – including a fenced area where we’ve put down the first set of raised beds for veggies.

As I start blogging again, my plan is to mix posts about food with posts about the garden, the yard, and the back creek property (I see them all as different, unique parts of the property) and document some of our projects and adventures along the way. Oh and there may be a vacation or travel post in there once in a while as well as we’re finally able to start moving around the country again, fully vaccinated!

That’s it for right now – stay tuned for specific posts and projects and in the meanwhile I leave you with some photos of the house and property when we first got it and some of the spring flowers I’ve planted since.