Already 2011 & I am SO behind...

It seems quite unreal that the last post I made was back in November 2010, but nonetheless 'tis true. Life has been hectic, to say the least, and I have been remiss in keeping up with news from "this sister" of Coastal Sisters. While I have been absent I have had my plate full...explanation:


My husband and I decided to downsize, and being there is only 2 of us, we decided to sell our home. To make a long story short, we built the house back in 2007 and moved in in 2008. My Mom had been living with us since 2006 when she had a stroke (that is the reason we built the house, so we'd have 2 master bedrooms on the first floor) but Mom's health declined after we moved into our new home and she had to go to a facility where they could care for her, as I was not able to be with her 24/7 anymore due to having to run our company, trying to handle the routine of daily life, and not having any help from other sources with Moms care. Mom started wanting to wander away from the house and it became more difficult to handle her. With us being in Real Estate we knew what we must build that would appeal to buyers, and quite frankly it was WAY more house than the 2 of us needed, coming in at over 4000 square feet. With life happening the way it did, and Mom's decline in health happening much sooner than expected, we stayed in the house for the obligatory 2 years, put it on the market, and it sold in a few days! This home was "our baby", completely custom built by us from top to bottom, with everything picked by myself and Bobby. I shopped online for light fixtures, the front door, and many other items as well. I designed my window grids, drew out on paper what I wanted in the design of the wainscoting, worked with the architect to make the house to suit us, so it was truly a labor of love that we poured our hearts and souls into. We sold that house last Fall and bought in the same neighborhood, which I have lived in my entire life. What can I say....I adore my neighborhood and have lived within a mile of where I was born and raised my entire life. For those of you familiar with Raleigh, we live in the Five Points area, one of the older areas of Raleigh where charm and great living go hand in hand (of course I am biased!!) We bought a 1920's house, a real charmer, and have been remodeling it since October. It has been a labor of love and is turning out to be completely awesome! Legacy Custom Homes is our builder and they totally ROCK!! We are now getting down to the wire, with last minute items being completed this week, so we will be moving very soon. We got SO fortunate and found a house to rent on the SAME street as the home we bought, so it has been great to go by the remodel daily to watch the progress! Everything fell right into place and we are blessed it has gone as well as it has. SO, this is why I have been MIA for some time now, but I do have high hopes to make it to my blog more often this year. As I have mentioned before, we own and run our own Real Estate firm, I take care of my Mom's needs and visit her often, plus the everyday things life throws at us often keeps me extremely busy. I do have the very best intentions to post on my blog, but somehow I find my "must do" list takes precedence over my "want to do" list. Such is life!! Love and peace to all and I shall be in touch again....pinkie swear :o) !!