NEW PAIR OF WINGS

Hello!  I’m Marianne! We’re a do it yourself, fixer upper, on a tight buget, thriftstore, roadside find, kind of  family and  we live in a very affordable neighborhood in a highly diverse, multi cultural area of Northern California and we love it here.

Almost 2 1/2 years ago we decided to move from our little Oregon Coast town and back to California.  Y’all should probably know that I’m a true realtor.com addict, and that we love looking at houses even when we’re on vacation too, so house hunting was a fun part of this for us. I scoured the stats, and searched different areas we might be interested in, then we made a list of available homes that had features and qualities we were looking for, in and slightly above our price range and preferred area. We contacted a real estate agent and then we looked at a LOT of houses, but none of them really fit our needs. On the last day of our search visit, we again asked our real estate agent about one of the houses that we had on our list, but hadn’t seen.  The house though small, sounded potentially amazing with a pool and fishpond and quite a large lot for the area (did I mention we have 4 dogs and 3 cats?).  Our hardworking agent had previewed our list for us before we arrived and he had told us he thought we wouldn’t be interested in this house because it was “trashed”.  

 We were anxious to get started moving though, so we brought it up again and asked a little nervously, ‘What exactly does “trashed” mean??’ It ended up that we had found a very dirty, but great bones house with a lot of defered maintenance, that needed love and fixin’up, for a price that was within our small budget.

We then went about the inspection, moving and sale process from our Oregon home.  Mum and I moved into our Norcali home a little over 2 years ago and we immediately started working on making it livable, then solid, and then pretty.  We’ve done ninety percent of the work ourselves and there’s still lots of updating to do too!

A year and a half ago I lost my job. A job that I loved doing.  I also have a little known disease called Valley Fever that complicates my ability to work outside my home, so I’ve been searching for an alternate income solution too.

After I lost my job, I had a Valley Fever relapse, I got a little better, and then I got sicker, and now I’m doing so much better that I’m hoping I’m headed for a remission.

I believe that a grateful heart equals a contented, happy life.  Growing up as a small child our family was living below poverty income, but it was the happiest time of my life. Mum worked from dawn to bed, she worked outside of the home cleaning offices, and she baked our bread and sewed our clothes, and painted, refinished, reupholstered, and saved and salvaged, and daddy worked hard, was a loving and kind minister, and kept the lead, and God provided all we needed, and the love and joy, that came with it.

Our home is small, but love does grow best in small houses, and there’s a lot of creativity that happens when you have to make do.  Its going to be so much fun sharing some wonderful hand-me-down ideas of things that were created with love, and the good and hopeful things that keep life amazing and beautiful everyday!