A Huge Life Update
Written by Callie & Kenzie
Welcome back y’all! It’s been nearly a whole year since we last hit publish on a post and even longer than a year since we’ve consistently posted here in our little corner of the internet. I’m making no promises that we will be consistent again but we’re definitely feeling like we want to be more present here again!
A TON of things have changed since we last posted here and we just wanted to give a quick update before we jump into writing more again!
Callie
It’s hard to even know where to start, it’s been so long! Looking back through our published blogs I saw one talking about listing our Fort Worth house and moving back to the Conroe area. While we didn’t get the house I talk about in that post and ended up having to live at Mom and Dad’s house for two or three months (much longer than I had anticipated), we did finally close on a house in the summer of 2021! It’s crazy we’ve been here two years already. The house has two acres of land, a pond, a big garage for Jason to work on cars and for me to have space for Etsy/Local Pines making things and overall we’ve been super happy to be back in Montgomery County!
Let’s move in to the job aspect of things because there’s a lot to discuss here. Local Pines is still a thing! When we moved, we were still getting lots of orders. We built two rooms in the garage to house the CNC machine and then we bought a laser engraver and added more items to the shop! This year however, sales have taken a huge nosedive. I’m lucky if I get three orders a month. I absolutely love Local Pines and all the custom orders I get to make there though so I’m not giving up on it! Just need some new/better ideas of items to make I guess. So hit me up if you have any!
Clover House is still a thing too! Even though it’s morphed a little bit. When I moved back, Mom, Kenzie, and I were doing estate sales like crazy and loving it! Things started to slow down a bit and Kenzie had an opportunity to get back to making pastries so then it was just me and Mom for a bit. Which was still fun but as we kept doing it we were getting worn down. Mom’s cancer makes her tire more easily and I ended up having to deal with a bit of medical issues too last summer. In the midst of all of that, the calls coming in slowed significantly. So we decided to pivot! We’ve been looking at a brick and mortar store for one of our passions for years now. And when we finally found the perfect house in downtown Conroe we jumped on it and started our own antique store!
We started our lease at the beginning of December 2022, opened Clover House Antiques on December 16th and have been growing since then over the last six months! We have 14 awesome vendors in the store with us now and it’s been so surreal doing something we’ve dreamed about for a long time. I’m writing this blog from the front desk of our shop and while there’s been ups and downs already we’re excited to see what can happen with our shop! I’ll go into more detail about how we opened the shop in other posts!
And lastly, perhaps the craziest news, I’m pregnant! I found out about a week after we opened Clover House and in a few more months will have a baby. Which is really weird to think about. It’s a boy and we don’t have a definite name picked out yet. I’ll probably write more posts about my experience of being pregnant later, or maybe I won’t, I haven’t decided how much I want to deep dive into all the highs and lows of it all.
In between all that we’ve been to North Carolina with my family and Florida with Jason’s so expect some new Roving posts too about our trips over the last two years! It feels good to be at the computer again laying it all out, it’s almost like journaling but we share it with all of you!
Kenzie
Well as Callie said, there’s a lot that has happened since we ghosted the blog many moons ago. She hit a lot of the big stuff and I’m excited to share past travels once we get back into this in full force. I don’t have nearly as exciting of an update seeing as I’m not pregnant (but I will be an aunt - woohoo!) but I did move in with my boyfriend, Brad (you may already know this), and have since made the place super cute and homey - at least I think so - and have managed to grow lots of stuff on our small patio which makes me really happy! That being said, we have definitely outgrown it (since I’m definitely a maximalist) and would love to move into something bigger soon, so that is something we’re working toward.
I’m currently working at Nourish Cafe where I sometimes get to make pastries which is great, but it isn’t somewhere I want to be forever. I get to help at Clover House on weekends and some afternoons which I really like and have been making additional money buying and selling for the shop as well as clearing out some of my things. I also still bake from my parents’ house for orders from Meadowsweet, but those orders have slowed down much like Callie’s Local Pines orders. I’m thinking of having a bake sale once a month on a Saturday at Clover House, but have yet to implement that plan. I’m also wanting to start dabbling in YouTube videos (Brad has been doing it and posting motorcycle videos - Nomad Brad, y’all go follow!) so my ultimate goal is that I’ll be able to make enough money myself with these various goings ons. That’s always the goal, isn’t it?
I’m still attempting to become a gardener. I saw my previous post with the 2022 garden plans so I’ll have to do a little update on what went well and what didn’t eventually. There’s a lot that didn’t go well, just letting y’all know. But I do still really enjoy it and hope to learn more each year. Lastly, my dad, Jason, and Brad have been helping me with my 1978 VW Van recently and I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress! It’s all been exterior work which is where all of the rust was and is the first step to getting that bad boy road trip ready! I am so excited to make it cute and hopefully reliable so more posts on that to come too!
Y’all like photos? Great, time for a dump.
Brenna
Hi, this is still Callie writing this but we wanted to do a tiny update on Brenna too. She’s had a ton going on lately. All good things but just a lot so we didn’t want to bother her with asking her to complete a life update post. Maybe we’ll hear from her later, or maybe we won’t, but just know she’s still our best friend and living life to the fullest!